I figured that out when people didn't laugh the first time I asked for money.
You many not be able to buy a New Democratic party, but you can create an alternative media.
If you're unhappy with the quality of the news you get in your home, especially the commentary and if the campaigns against Tweety and Pumpkinhead are any indication, you are, well, support other media, mainly us.:)
We may be small, but we rage against the traditional media as well as anyone.
As usual:
Stephen Gilliard 217 E 86th St NMB 112 New York, NY 10028
Update: Looks like this isn't the first time Mr Zhidkov has sent legal threats to critics of this company -- check out this email he sent CNet, which opens "Dear Sir, calling StarForce 'nefarious Rootkit/Virus' is a good enough cause to press charges. How do you like that for a start?" (Thanks, Alexander!)
Update 2:Fiona sez, "I just contacted a friend who works in the testing department of the UK branch of the worlds largest games publisher, and they hadn't heard of it! I now think they have the (very healthy, by all accounts) fear of god about what this thing could do to peoples systems. They're testing a third-party game that uses it, and have found the drivers on their test box. They're not happy about having it on an open test system,"
Update 3:Avi sez, "Their business seems to depend on people not knowing how much they suck. For example, I was on a private beta list for a new game I won't mention by name due to NDA -- but the game authors agreed to drop StarForce after an outcry from the community. You don't often hear the stories about game developers dropping StarForce in favor of their customer."
Didn't anyone learn from the MPAA case against 2600?
The litigants get massive support and good lawyers, as Apple is finding out now. They assumed their popularity would allow them to bully bloggers. Well, one contentious bit of litigation later, they may have reconsidered. since they haven't sued anyone else. This is a dumb strategy, especially when such suits draw unusual attention online.
Then there is threatening CNet, a large company with deep pockets.
FRANKFURT, Jan. 31 — The ABC News anchor and cameraman wounded in a roadside bombing in Iraq left a military hospital in Germany for the United States today, and a doctor who treated them said both had made "remarkable" progress since being admitted on Monday.
The anchor, Bob Woodruff, has been able to move his fingers and toes, said the doctor, Lieut. Col. Guillermo Tellez. Mr. Woodruff remains heavily sedated, Colonel Tellez said, but "he does open his eyes a little bit."
While Mr. Woodruff, 44, faces months of recovery and the full extent of his injuries are not yet known, Colonel Tellez said he could imagine him going back to work someday as a broadcast journalist.
"He has a very good chance," Colonel Tellez said.
The cameraman, Doug Vogt, who was not as severely injured by the explosion, was "awake a lot, and talking to family and friends," said Marie Shaw, a spokeswoman for Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
Colonel Tellez, the hospital's chief of surgery, said, "We're optimistic that in the long term, they will do very, very well."
Mr. Vogt, 46, and Mr. Woodruff were being transferred to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., Ms. Shaw said. They departed from the Ramstein Air Base shortly before 1 p.m., local time, on a C-17 medical evacuation plane that also carried soldiers wounded in Iraq.
On Monday, Mr. Woodruff had surgery to cleanse and extract bomb fragments from his neck and head. Colonel Tellez said it was too soon to assess the head injuries suffered by Mr. Woodruff, who was wounded Sunday while standing in the hatch of an Iraqi military vehicle northwest of Baghdad.
"We really won't know the full extent of those injuries for days, weeks, or even months," Colonel Tellez said. "In a case like this, you've actually had an injury to your brain. It takes a while to recover from that."
Colonel Tellez said it was also not yet clear whether Mr. Woodruff or Mr. Vogt would need plastic surgery.
I would like to see a very bad thing happen to my mother-in-law.
By Cary Tennis Print EmailFont: S / S+ / S++ story image
Jan. 31, 2006 | Dear Cary,
My eight-year marriage has been to the perfect husband (12 years older), and has produced the perfect child. We are both emotionally and professionally fulfilled scientists. Our marriage is perfect, except for one thing -- my mother-in-law. I want her to die. Violently. Now. And I want her to see it coming.
My husband had a childhood the Cleavers would envy. Born to uneducated parents, he and his sister were loved and had an idyllic, sunny existence. I, however, was horribly abused by highly educated parents, hit, kicked and told I was hideous, worthless and unlovable. ............... Nevertheless, I wonder if my past colors the way I feel about my mother-in-law. Click Here!
First, my mother-in-law initially irritated me with little things, like insisting that we invite 80 of her out-of-state friends (whom we didn't know) to our tiny wedding -- we didn't. Then the irritations became rudeness. For example, once during a work commute, news of a school shooting was broadcast on my radio. I phoned our home, where she was visiting, to ask her to turn on the TV and tell me what was going on. She knew my mom was a teacher in the school mentioned in the report, but she refused to go to the TV, saying that my father-in-law was watching something else. I had to wait until I got home an hour later to see the news myself. My mother was not shot, but people my family knew were killed.
Later, three days after my C-section, she and my father-in-law arrived, expecting a full Thanksgiving dinner to be hosted by me, tired and in pain. During this time, I got no sleep, could not bond with my child and had to be the maid, cook and entertainer.
Next, she visited uninvited on my first Mother's Day and took over, stealing my special day, insisting that attention be lavished on her. Often, when asked to pass my baby to me so that I could rock/feed/talk to her, she got upset or would simply ignore me. Many times she refused to hand my child to me at all.............She addresses our Christmas cards to Dr. and Mrs., although she knows I am a Ph.D., and she has been often corrected by my husband. She told everyone that we named our daughter after her, and when I told her that this wasn't true (it isn't), she became angry at me. Traditionally, when her feelings are hurt (by me, see instances above) she cries at mealtimes or gatherings, making everyone uncomfortable. And so on ... the petty list is long.
For the record, I am kind to her, honest and diplomatic, but when I speak the truth instead of pretending to be the sycophantic little woman who had no identity until I met her son, I am treated with derision and hostility. ........How do I cope?
Invisible Daughter-in-Law
Dear Invisible Daughter-in-Law,
I would venture to say, amateur pretend psychologist that I am, that yes, your childhood very likely has something to do with your feelings toward your mother-in-law. I would also say that the thing about mothers-in-law is that you cannot get rid of them and you cannot change them. So in spite of the litany of behaviors you cite, your only recourse is to change yourself.
No Cary, her mother-in-law is an ignorant, passive aggressive bitch. This has NOTHING to do with her abusive childhood or her feelings about herself.
I think it has to do with the fact that her mother in law has no, as in zero respect for her. The TV thing would have gotten them tossed from MY house. There may be cultural issues here as well, but honestly, she treats the daughter in law like shit and her husband doesn't back her up. If my mother showed up to my house looking for a Thanksgiving dinner after my wife had a C-Section, directions to the nearest restaurant would be provided if I wasn't cooking.
The woman makes her disrespect open and pronounced and the wife suffers it and the husband allows it.
Rani Karnik, 27, at an audition for "American Idol" last fall in Greensboro, N.C.
Why Hold the Superlatives? 'American Idol' Is Ascendant
By BILL CARTER Published: January 30, 2006
Simon Fuller was on vacation in Africa three weeks ago when the fifth season of "American Idol" started on the Fox network.
In the back of his mind, Mr. Fuller, an executive producer of the program, hoped that "Idol" would be strong again this year. But he and the others involved in the production were willing to be pragmatic: in a fifth go-round, no previous reality television show, and very few programs of any kind in television history, had significant ratings increases.
At Fox, the executives who buy the show from the company Mr. Fuller founded, 19 Entertainment, were similarly anxious about how yet another new season of "Idol" would start out. After all, the show's ratings increased a year ago, after Fox had anticipated that it might decline as much as 10 percent. This season, Peter Liguori, the president of Fox Entertainment, did not really want to go out on a limb with a prediction.
On the morning of Jan. 18, both Mr. Fuller and Mr. Liguori called for the overnight ratings of the "Idol" premiere as soon as they could. What they heard startled them almost into silence, a state surpassed only by the shock at networks competing with Fox. "American Idol," already top-rated, was up an astonishing 15 percent among the 18-to-49-year-old viewers that Fox most sought to reach. It was up almost 10 percent among all viewers, at 35.5 million, the second-largest audience ever for an entertainment show on Fox.
The thing about Idol isn't the numbers, but what it says about the American psyche. It isn't just bad signing,but ties directly into Tom Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas.
Most Americans have an inflated sense of self and self worth. They don't want hear about tax cuts ruining their future or unfair taxation because they imagine that they will be rich one day, or rejoice in the comforts of the middle class. The fact that most are living off $8,000 in credit card debt and risk poverty with a divorce eludes them as they lust for big screen TV's and new cars.
So you get thousands of people, most of whom can no more sing than fly, competing for a spot on American Idol. Some people show up with voices so bad, you have to think they're kidding, yet leave in tears when rejected.
One girl, dressed in a subtle silver sequined halter and go go boots with a mini skirt on her 180 pound frame, along with fake blonde hair extensions, was shocked that she couldn't sing. That she didn't come close. She stormed out, cursed up a storm and presumably went back to tacky land. The fact that 180lb fat girls don't make Idol, no matter how good they sing, eluded her.
The fact is that you see the one percent who either suck so bad or sing so good that they're worthy of being on TV. The other 99 percent are so mediocre that they just don't make the cut.
So why do people try out? Because they all wants the fame and money. America's celebrity culture is pervasive and consuming to many people. With adroit publicity, Jennifer Aniston, despite her moderate acting talents, is now "America's Sweetheart" while Angelina Jolie, despite adopting two kids, is now some pregnant man-stealing hussy. The fact that we know this is due to our celebrity driven news media.
So, people go and risk humiliation to get a payday.
The fact, that for 99 percent of them it is a complete waste of time, escapes them.
You had one woman who was homeless with kids and looking for fame to solve her problems, another quit her job.
The flaws are obvious, they don't look the part, obviously, they can't sing, they are too fat, too weird.
One example, which pissed off the gay community, was a teenager who looked like a 17 year old girl, who was a 17 year old boy. How much like a 17 year old girl? Page boy haircut, white V-neck top, white belt and tight jeans. But he was pissed when Simon Cowell asked him if he was a girl, and so was GLAAD. He said in a high pitched voice that he was a boy.
If he had worn some makeup, he'd have looked like a 17 year old female volleyball player. His sister said sweetly, "he's just excentric". I just laughed. I mean he really looked like a girl.
Now, even if he had the voice of an angel, he wasn't going to make the cut. Because American Idol is not a talent contest. It's as much about salability as anything else. You have to fit a certain type to make the cut.
It's the same kind of unreality which infects much of American politics. Liberals think policy trumps all, conservatives think self-interest trumps all and neither does. The problem is that there is no one who can convincingly introduce reality into the conversation. Simon Cowell is rich because he doesn't lie to people.
The Republicans have been successful because they tell people what they want to hear while picking their pockets. Democrats don't tell them anything because they're afraid to tell the truth. Neither is being honest and people know it, like they know Randy and Paula are full of shit.
When Howard Dean tells the truth, so many Dems get shit scared, they make up bullshit to tell the WaPo. You get idiots like Harold Ford telling people his grandmother was white, so that they will like him better instead of thinking she was a nigger lover. They think they can be elected without levelling with the American people. They refuse to see how honesty and a little bluntness has made Simon Cowell the owner of a room full of $700 sweaters.
When Jack Murtha tell a truth every private knows, half the Dems run from him like he's swinging a chainsaw with a hockey mask on. You think people respect that?
Party regulars shit their pants at the idea of Cindy Sheehan challenging Diane Feinstein because "she might seem like a wacko". Give me a fucking break. The California GOP got lucky with Arnold and that's it. Her seat is safe, but it's time she explains why she won't demand the US leave Iraq.
The Republicans tell nice stories which conflict with reality by every known standard, just like people who couldn't hit a note with a baseball bat think that they could sing.
But at some point, reality enters the picture and Cowell is the only who gets respect. Maybe the Dems might want think that over.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30 — After nearly a century of political infighting and delay, the Smithsonian Institution on Monday selected a prominent space on the Mall near the Washington Monument as the site of its National Museum of African-American History and Culture.
Supporters of the project, including many black cultural, political and academic leaders, who labored for years to have the museum approved, greeted the selection by the Board of Regents, the institution's governing body, with elation.
High-profile advocates of the museum, the institution's first dedicated to a comprehensive study of the black American experience, had told Smithsonian officials that any site off the Mall would be viewed as a slight to African-Americans.
In September 2004 the National Museum of the American Indian opened to much fanfare and high visibility on the eastern edge of the Mall near the Capitol.
Some groups responded to the announcement on Monday with disappointment, arguing that the project would clutter the Mall, the grassy expanse stretching from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol.
Smithsonian officials said the vote on the site was not unanimous but would not give details. Officials said they hoped to open the new museum within the next decade.
"My first task for tomorrow is to stop smiling," said Lonnie G. Bunch, director of the museum.
The selection of the five-acre site allows Mr. Bunch to move forward with choosing an architect, as well as to begin raising money and acquiring collections. Cost estimates for the museum, the 19th in the Smithsonian complex, range from $300 million to $500 million. Fifty percent of the cost will be paid by the federal government, the other half by private sources.
The building will probably be at least 350,000 square feet, roughly the same size as the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian officials said.
I hope it is as well done as the Museum of the American Indian.
But I want to discuss something else, well sort of something else.
I could blather on about what a great job I'm doing, and get a lot of agreement. Most good bloggers could.
But we don't talk about your role in all this. The reason the great weakness of the the right blogs is that they don't have conversations with the readers. Then when they do, they either censor it or it turns into a hate fest. As scary and counterinutative as it seems, Frei Republik has a much more moderated and intelligent discussion than LGF. And that's because Charles Johnson is a clown. You can have a discussion on terrorism without lapsing into muslim hate, if you aren't intellectually lazy.
The reason we accept comments is not because they allow people to vent, as Glenn Reynolds says, he gets a thousand e-mails a day he doesn't read, but because it allows people to bring their experience to the topic at hand. Part of the reason that I repost from other blogs so frequently is that it brings other ideas to the discussion and gives other writers wider exposure.
It's easy to take credit for blogging, but the fact is that it's a cooperative arrangement. I post something, you respond and we're all the better for it.
So why do you get asked for money every few months?
Well, there are bills that come up, and other bloggers who need money, but it's more than that. Liberals have come to expect free labor for so long and then wonder why people can't get things done. Frankly, we need resources to be politically and journalistically active. There are books to buy, places to go, things to do. The wealthy liberals here refuse to open their purses, so we do this on our own. They have becomed accustomed to pay so little for what needs to be done, and then act surprised that it doesn't get done.
We have to break that habit. We have to value the work being done.
As usual, the snail mail addy is:
Stephen Gilliard 217 E 86th St NMB 112 New York, NY 10028
I was going to talk about the Senate Dems and Alito, but that isn't the news today.
It may be online, but it isn't off.
Because today, all the offline news sucked.....for Bush
Bob Woodruff's wounds is the first story from Iraq about someone people actually know. Just like the death of Peter Jennings personified cancer for people, Woodruff and his cameraman's wounds, have, for the first time, brought the Iraq War home. Jennings, Rather and Brokaw went to war after war and came home without a scratch. Ted Koppel rode all the way to Baghdad uninjured.
The journalists killed and wounded in Iraq have worked either behind the camera or in print, so no one knew them.
All of the newscasts, cable and broadcast, lead with this story and it made up most of ABC's newscast. And Elizabeth Vargas looked freaked most of the time on air.
So while we're kicking around the Dems for not filibustering, America was seeing the Iraq war with a human face. It has a human face for 16,000 families, but not for most of America. Not too many people know someone in Iraq. But they know Bob Wooddruff, because he comes in their homes every night.
But that wasn't the end of it.
A crying Jill Carroll was begging for her life on videotape. It was truly disturbing to watch.
Then of course Al Qaeda number 2 Al-Zawahiri was back in technicolor and taunting Bush, saying he lived in the "Muslim masses".
I guess aerial assasination has it's drawbacks.
One of the things about politics is that you can get sucked into the inside game easily. We did a good thing this weekend, but it fell short, for a host of reasons.
But if you watched the news tonight, that quickly took second place. Why? Because a line has been crossed in Iraq War coverage. It isn't strangers any more and that has shook the entire industry. Because anchormen were invunerable to mere bullets and bombs....until this weekend.
Sometimes we get cloistered in our battles in blogostan. But tonight, on the evening news, I heard the voices of the wounded loud and clear for the first time ever.
And that is not good news for Bush and maybe be the beginning of the end of the Iraq debacle.
The announcement this morning that Lincoln Chaffee would vote "no" on Alito but "yes" on cloture was a hollow gesture to NARAL and the pro-choice community he pretends to cultivate. A vote for cloture is a vote for Alito. It's that simple.
I write this post with great regret because I am a long time supporter of NARAL, an unabashed feminist and pro-choice advocate who understood why they backed Chaffee in the first place. As Democrats quickly tried to shed a commitment to choice in a rush to become "Republican lite," it was a way for NARAL to say don't take us for granted -- don't assume we will be here just because the other guy is worse. I thought it was an effective way to telegraph to Democrats that if they wanted the tremendous money and resources NARAL could put behind a candidate, they were going to have to take a stand.
I just got off the phone with NARAL and I am being told that they do not consider Chaffee's vote on cloture to be significant. They are not going to pull their support for him over this.
Let's just be clear. Lincoln Chaffee is getting ready to vote for the single biggest blow to choice in this country since Roe v. Wade was passed 33 years ago. This ridiculous little kabuki about voting AGAINST Alito and FOR cloture is a sham, and if NARAL is going to look the other way they no longer deserve to be the guardians of a woman's right to choose in this country.
They had the money. They had the manpower. They did not organize effectively to oppose Alito's confirmation, and now they are rubber stamping his ascendancy to the Supreme Court.
I don't want to take people's efforts away from calling their Senators and keeping the pressure on as we come down to the wire, but watching groups like NARAL sit this one out is unacceptable. They should be calling Chafee right now and letting him know that they will cut him off if he throws his vote with the Gang of 14. Anything less is unacceptable, and a mockery of everything they purport to stand for.
NARAL Pro-Choice America 1156 15th Street, NW Suite 700 Washington, DC 20005
Main Number: 202.973.3000 Main Fax: 202.973.3096
This pisses me off because I've defened NARAL's right to support Chaffee. Now he failed them and they still defend him? Please.
LANDSTUHL, Germany - ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt were flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany on Monday, after treatment in Iraq that included surgeons removing shrapnel from Woodruff’s head and neck. ...................
Their body armor likely saved them, “otherwise these would have been fatal wounds,” Gamble said. ...............
Brain swelling went down
Former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw said Monday that he had spoken with Woodruff’s wife, Lee, and said the family told him they had received “some encouraging news.”
“The doctors had told them once they arrived that the brain swelling had gone down. In Bob’s case, that had been a big concern. Yesterday they had to operate and remove part of the skull cap to relieve some of the swelling,” Brokaw said on NBC’S “Today” show. ..............
He said the family told him doctors don’t know for sure whether shrapnel penetrated Woodruff’s brain but they were removing additional shrapnel from his neck area.
Woodruff could have lifelong injuries and given that he's in his mid-40's, his recovery could be a lot slower than the average soldier. He will probably be transferred to Walter Reed as soon as he's stabilized. I guess his insurance will reimburse the government for the cost of his care, because there isn't really any civilian facility which can deal with his wounds. I wouldn't expect to see him on TV until the end of the year at the earliest.
By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 30, 2006; Page A05 ..................
Another study presented at the conference, which was in Palm Springs, Calif., explored relationships between racial bias and political affiliation by analyzing self-reported beliefs, voting patterns and the results of psychological tests that measure implicit attitudes -- subtle stereotypes people hold about various groups. ............................
Brian Jones, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said he disagreed with the study's conclusions but that it was difficult to offer a detailed critique, as the research had not yet been published and he could not review the methodology. He also questioned whether the researchers themselves had implicit biases -- against Republicans -- noting that Nosek and Harvard psychologist Mahzarin Banaji had given campaign contributions to Democrats.
"There are a lot of factors that go into political affiliation, and snap determinations may be interesting for an academic study, but the real-world application seems somewhat murky," Jones said. .....................
"Obviously, such research does not speak at all to the question of the prejudice level of the president," said Banaji, "but it does show that George W. Bush is appealing as a leader to those Americans who harbor greater anti-black prejudice."
Vincent Hutchings, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the results matched his own findings in a study he conducted ahead of the 2000 presidential election: Volunteers shown visual images of blacks in contexts that implied they were getting welfare benefits were far more receptive to Republican political ads decrying government waste than volunteers shown ads with the same message but without images of black people.
Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University, who independently assessed the studies, said it remains to be seen how significant the correlation is between racial bias and political affiliation.
For example, he said, the study could not tell whether racial bias was a better predictor of voting preference than, say, policy preferences on gun control or abortion. But while those issues would be addressed in subsequent studies -- Krosnick plans to get random groups of future voters to take the psychological tests and discuss their policy preferences -- he said the basic correlation was not in doubt.
"If anyone in Washington is skeptical about these findings, they are in denial," he said. "We have 50 years of evidence that racial prejudice predicts voting. Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks. If people say, 'This takes me aback,' they are ignoring a huge volume of research."
What a shock.
Seriously, this is why black conservatives cannot win primaries, much less general elections. People who vote GOP also hate blacks. The racism makes the task of the black Republican nearly impossible, because their voter base is prejudiced against blacks without concern for policy.
WHERE: Bistro Restaurant 316 N Main Bloomington, IL 61701 Get Map & Directions
WHEN: 1/31/2006 6:00 PM-9:00 PM
HOSTED BY: Danial Johnson 309-827-xxxx xxxxxx@hotmail.com
A Message From Your Host
We will have a Jesse Jackson piñata , a dunk tank where you'll get the chance to sink my wife who will be dressed as Hilary Clinton, and a special guest appearance by my uncle - Rep. Timothy V. Johnson who will be giving away "Proud to be G.O.P." American Flag windbreakers. Bring a side dish if you like. We will have burgers, hot dogs, chili, and pizza, but nothing vegetarian! This party is family friendly, so feel free to bring children. It's never too early to get them involved!
(Contact me if you want a pdf of the full invitation email, complete with GOP headers and footers)
The Winter Blues As a stand-alone, the Winter Games can't sustain a buzz. They certainly can't match the passions brewing for football's world cup. By Mark Starr Newsweek International
Feb. 6, 2006 issue - ..................
Now almost six years later, that kind of Olympic excitement is finally stirring again. I sense the anticipation, the lure of a proud nation anxious to show off its prowess to the world. An epic celebration looms, perhaps even a great wall coming down. Alas, Beijing is still more than two years off. It is Torino 2006 that opens in less than a fortnight—and with a marked absence of anticipatory fervor. My friends in the States are amazed to discover that another Olympics is imminent and have no clue where it will take place. That may be par for the provincial. But I was startled to learn from a colleague in Rome that, in the wine and coffee bars there, folks seem unaware that the Games are afoot in their own country.
These are "The Stealth Games," coming up very quickly and under the radar. It is hardly the fault of Torino, a fading, former auto-manufacturing capital known around the globe for a great football team and its shroud. Its Olympic credo—passion lives here—lends itself to parody, crying out for the addendum and only here. Truth is that Sydney, for all its natural blessings, had the good fortune to be the last hurrah before the events of 9/11 irrevocably altered the Olympic landscape.
....................
Once upon a time, not all that long ago, there was an Olympic season. It came around every four years and commanded considerable attention. Infrequency was not its only virtue. There was a natural progression. The Winter Games—smaller, less compelling but more charming—served as athletic hors d'oeuvres, whetting our appetite for the big acts of summer. No doubt it made sense, as the Olympics became an increasingly vast enterprise, to balance the IOC workload by staging one every two years. But as a stand-alone, Winter can't sustain a buzz. It certainly can't match the passions brewing for football's World Cup, which begins in June. In Italy more folks are worrying whether aging superstar Alessandro Del Piero will win a place on the World Cup team than whether Giorgio Rocca will win the Olympic slalom.
I will put this simply: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE OLYMPICS.
Not with the World Cup in June. Only to Americans was the Olympics the surpreme sporting event in the world.
To nearly every other human on the planet, it's the World Cup. That exhibition Major League Baseball is holding: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT.
The World Cup is the ONLY sporting event which matters to most people. Whole countries shut down. In 2002, Senegal just stopped working after a World Cup victory. Stopped cold. They had riots in Moscow and London after losses, because the games were on giant screens in downtown.
The Italians were bitching because the US was in their same group. They claimed the pick was rigged and this was news for a week, Headline news. The fact that the Olympics are in Italy will get less coverage than the World Cup did in the US.
NEW YORK - More guys want Jessica Alba for their girlfriend than any other woman, according to AskMen.com’s top 99 list for 2006.
The 24-year-old actress tops the Web site’s list ranking female celebrities on their “long-term relationship material.” Alba is followed by “Alfie” star Sienna Miller and the ubiquitous Angelina Jolie.
...............
“We encouraged readers not to go on looks alone,” Bassil said. “I don’t believe it’s an entirely accurate reflection of what a reader strives for in their long-term relationships, but at the same time, it’s not a sheerly surface appreciation.”
The rest of the top 10, in order, is Brazilian model Adriana Lima (No. 1 last year), “Access Hollywood” correspondent Maria Menounos, Charlize Theron, Jessica Biel, singer Amerie, Natalie Portman and Eva Longoria.
This says something about the diversity of America that the women cross all types and ethinicities, although I never got the Natalie Portman thing. It's not that she's not pretty, but she's as pretty as a lot of women. The mystique of her being exceptional eludes me.
THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ Army's Rising Promotion Rate Called Ominous Experts say the quality of the officer corps is threatened as the service fights to retain leaders during wartime and fill new command slots. By Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writer
January 30, 2006
WASHINGTON — Struggling to retain enough officers to lead its forces, the Army has begun to dramatically increase the number of soldiers it promotes, raising fears within the service that wartime strains are diluting the quality of the officer corps.
Last year, the Army promoted 97% of all eligible captains to the rank of major, Pentagon data show. That was up from a historical average of 70% to 80%.
Traditionally, the Army has used the step to major as a winnowing point to push lower-performing soldiers out of the military.
The service also promoted 86% of eligible majors to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 2005, up from the historical average of 65% to 75%.
The higher rates of promotion are part of efforts to fill new slots created by an Army reorganization and to compensate for officers who are resigning from the service, many after multiple rotations to Iraq.
The promotion rates "are much higher than they have been in the past because we need more officers than we did before," said Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty, an Army spokesman.
The Army has long taken pride in the competitiveness of its promotions, and insists that only officers that meet rigorous standards are elevated through its ranks. .....................
They say that with many officers in line for a third yearlong combat tour in Iraq, it is inevitable that a growing number would choose to leave the military to relieve strain on their family lives.
The exodus "will be among officers whose families say, 'Look, there are 300 million people in this country; let somebody else take their turn,' " McCaffrey said.
The Pentagon-commissioned report, released publicly last week, agreed.
.............
Hilferty, the Army spokesman, said there was only "anecdotal evidence" that the strains of war were pushing officers out of the Army.
.............
But, he said, the Army has begun a series of initiatives to keep young officers in its ranks, including a program that pays graduate school tuition for those who agree to sign up for more years of military service.
Krepinevich, in his study, warned of other "storm clouds on the horizon" for the Army, including the rise in divorce rates for active-duty soldiers.
Also, the Army has begun lowering recruiting requirements, such as accepting more high school dropouts and Category IV recruits — those who score near the bottom of the military's entrance exam.
Commanders in Iraq say morale among officers and enlisted soldiers in the field remains strong, even among those wrapping up their second tour of duty in some of the country's most violent territory.
"Are our professional commitments as soldiers out of whack with our family and personal lives for these troopers? I mean, certainly they are," said Army Col. H.R. McMaster, commander of the 3rd Armored Calvary Regiment that serves in Iraq's restive Al Anbar province. "But you know, it's wartime, and our troopers understand it."
Oh, bullshit. I like McMasters, his boys are certainly loyal to him, but come on, morale is high and only the absolute worst captains are not making major? People are placing their marriages ahead of their careers and morale is high?
That's truthiness in action. Because it means that you have the facts, and you have what people are wishing are facts.
I'd like to see the divorce filings for Pendleton/29 Palms, Lejune, Benning, Riley and Hood. I'd bet you dollars to donuts, divorce lawyers are cashing in like lottery winners.
A young wife can tolerate one tour, but three? The fear just builds up to the point that a choice has to be made. And in the combat arms, the guilt is especially strong. How do you leave your men to face Iraq again? But how do you let your wife leave? Easier to not reenlist again.
Ever notice all of the PTSD stories center around young EM's and NCO's? When have you ever seen a young Captain interviewed about his combat stress. The guilt of combat, and of command must be especially heavy.
This is the Rusty Calley factor. Are you promoting officers to fill slots when they shouldn't be promoted? Because the consequences of this could be horrific.
LONDON, Jan. 29 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged Sunday that the United States had failed to understand the depth of hostility among Palestinians toward their longtime leaders. The hostility led to an election victory by the militant group Hamas that has reduced to tatters crucial assumptions underlying American policies and hopes in the Middle East.
"I've asked why nobody saw it coming," Ms. Rice said, speaking of her own staff. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."
Immediately after the election, Bush administration officials said the results reflected a Palestinian desire for change and not necessarily an embrace of Hamas, which the United States, Israel and the European Union consider a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction. But Ms. Rice's comments seemed to reflect a certain second-guessing over how the administration had failed to foresee, or factor into its thinking, the possibility of a Hamas victory.
Indeed, Hamas's victory has set off a debate whether the administration was so wedded to its belief in democracy that it could not see the dangers of holding elections in regions where Islamist groups were strong and democratic institutions weak.
Nobody saw it coming?
Yeah, like "Bin Laden determined to attack US"
Come on, it was clear that Hamas was at a minimum going to tie Fatah, and could well win.
Had they not heard of Algeria? Weak governments are especially vunerable to an Islamacist vote, because they represent reform.
The reason they missed that is truthiness. They thought backing Fatah would work and it blew up in their faces. What a shock.
"How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.
Mr. Corddry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."
............................
There have been both bipartisan and purely Democratic scandals in the past. Based on everything we know so far, however, the Abramoff affair is a purely Republican scandal.
Why does the insistence of some journalists on calling this one-party scandal bipartisan matter? For one thing, the public is led to believe that the Abramoff affair is just Washington business as usual, which it isn't. The scale of the scandals now coming to light, of which the Abramoff affair is just a part, dwarfs anything in living memory.
More important, this kind of misreporting makes the public feel helpless. Voters who are told, falsely, that both parties were drawn into Mr. Abramoff's web are likely to become passive and shrug their shoulders instead of demanding reform.
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.
What the media refuses to get is that the K Street Project was about creating an effective one party state, by sucking up all the lobbying money and funding Republicans. So why would the Dems get money in that scheme?
The media is so shit scared of being called biased from the right, they seek out false balance.
“The Woodstock of Politics” – a caller to The Young Turks radio filibuster for filibuster, about the grassroots Alito activism.
First, THANK YOU for your hard work over the weekend! As far as I can tell, all key Senators' D.C. voicemails, and over 90% of the voicemails in their various District offices, were filled up by the end of the weekend. I started hitting random extensions and leaving messages for poor hapless staffers. Every Senator will get the message on Monday morning. Awesome!
For today, I want to back away from the shotgun petitions. It's frustrating that no one in the Dem leadership will tell us who the "Alito 8" are (the Democrats who aren't hewing the party line), and we don't know how well Kerry and Kennedy are doing at moving them around to our side. But we can make an educated guess, and focus on those key Senators. In addition to calling their offices, we're also going to target their re-election campaign HQs. (A great idea thought up by our friend and fellow-traveler, Bob Fertik!) Finally, we're going to hammer away at a simple, but politically powerful, message.
Our theme today is: Lead, Follow, Or Get Out of the Way. In political terms, that's:
EITHER SUPPORT THE FILIBUSTER OR ABSTAIN FROM THE CLOTURE VOTE, BUT DON'T GET IN OUR WAY.
People are arguing that people sat on their hands, this wasn't organized, we will lose.
My reply to that is simple: so fucking what.
We didn't fight over Ohio, we didn't fight over Terri Schiavo. We let the GOP fuck up and smiled.
That cannot last.
If this is not the reason to fight, what is? Do you think we can wait for the perfect campaign and the right ads? No one will care by then. The best is the enemy of the good.
We didn't need a campaign for this. We did it ourselves. Congress is flooded with faxes, e-mails and phonecalls. They will know when they get to work how many, many Americans feel.
Americans can tolerate a loser who fights hard, but one who sits on his hands? Never.
There's a movie on cable now, Miracle, about the 1980 US hockey Team. They had NO chance of beating the Soviets. NONE. They were college kids, and the Soviets were pros. They were expected to lose, badly. In fact, they weren't supposed to play the Russians at all. But they did.
They were playing and scoring and even into the third period, they expected to lose. But they won, and as people saw they could win, the support just exploded, they crowd went crazy and the Soviets never recovered.
Even fighting hard gets you respect. The 1998 US World Cup team embarassed itself while the French suprised everyone by beating Brazil. In 2002, the expectations were the same, but they won. They played hard and won all the way up to the quarterfinals, losing 1-0 to Germany who wound up playing Brazil in the championship game.
Did they win it all? No. But they proved two things: one, Americans could play soccer (they are the 8th ranked team in the world) two: that they could play with the best in the world and win, They weren't good enough to win, but the confidence which came from playing hard has set the course for the future of the US team. And the respect flowed from that. Because before then, the US had been a joke. Not after 2002.
Why are so many liberal bloggers up in arms about Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine being picked to give the Democrat's reply to Bush's State of the Union? There's been fury in the blogosphere about everything from Kaine's looks, style, obscurity, his open talk about his faith and his inexperience in national security.
Liberal writer Ezra Klein (no Brad Pitt, last time I checked him out) vented that Kaine is "a squat, squinty, pug-nosed fellow." Even the invariably smart and strategic Arianna (Huffington) weighed in: "What the hell are they thinking?" She accused Democrats of picking "someone whose only claim to fame is that he carried a red state" when they need to make the case that "the GOP is not the party that can best keep us safe."
But, let's get real here.
1. It doesn't really matter who gives the reply, since no one listens and it's an impossible task.
2. This is slightly less important than whether House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi chooses to wear blue or red to listen to the speech.
................
4. And, hell, Kaine is pretty liberal for a Virginian. During the campaign, he was derided relentlessly by the GOP, in an expensive and vicious campaign, as "the most liberal candidate who's ever run for governor in the Commonwealth of Virginia's history." Kaine is a guy who made a name for himself working with the American Civil Liberties Union, who connected his faith to his politics in authentic ways (he was a thoughtful opponent of the death penalty), who was an honest and forthright advocate of government's affirmative role--supporting moves to increase taxes to fund education, transportation and environmental programs.......................
For liberal bloggers who want to get exercised about something really important: Where are the Democrats or liberals talking about Ford laying off some 30,000 workers, the end of middle class benefits for working Americans, IBM's gutting of pension security, and the collapse of American manufacturing? ......................... If you want to know why Dems don't win elections, it won't be because Kaine is talking this Tuesday night. It's because the mainstream leadership of the Democratic party doesn't think, feel, viscerally respond to the increasing insecurities of working americans.
I guess Katrina doesn't read any labor blogs, oddly enough she should, but that's a pig fight for another day.
First, let's start with her cheap shot at Ezra Klein. He wasn't talking about the man's stature for no reason. It's because it matters. And the point of having Jack Murtha speak was to discuss the war and Bush's lies with impecable credibility. We don't need any fucking lectures on Tim Kaine's strengths and weaknesses. We're the ones who backed his campaign. And frankly, we were more concerned with ginning up support for a filibuster than who refuted Bush at the SOTU. A couple of opinions is not a controversy. Less people posted on this than a discussion on mac and cheese I had on this site a few weeks ago.
I mean, I wouldn't call Marc Cooper a fat piece of shit to describe him, beacuse that's cheap, mean and irrelevant, just like that was a cheap and unfair shot about Klein, who unlike some heiresses with a taste for short skirts and leather jackets, didn't have his blog handed to him. It's an unfair use of power and position to smack someone down for no good reason. But he has friends and friends of friends who won't let that little slam go unremarked.
When Jonah Goldberg attacked her over the hurricane, many in the blogosphere ripped him a new asshole for what he did. It was cheap and unfair and we stuck up for her. This is our repayment.
Ever wonder why liberals get their ass kicked? Because they don't take things seriously like responding to the State of the Union. It may not matter to her and the cocktail party circuit, but it matters to millions of people on TV to hear they've been told bullshit by the President. If she thinks it's on par with Nancy Pelosi's clothing choices, well.........
"Pretty liberal for a Virginian". Wow, not condescending at all. That's pretty much like saying "he speaks well for a black man". And she's giving lectures on what Democrats miss? Well, fuck me, she just sneered at the fairly large number of liberal democrats in Virginia (UVA, what's that?) like they were trained monkeys or something. Just because he has an accent doesn't mean he's a racist or a conservative. There are liberals in every part of the country, but not to the Nation.
She's has the gall to lecture us on workers rights? I mean, I could swing a dead cat around the Nation's offices before hitting a black person. Did you ever notice this city was 57 percent minority? What, not enough blacks or hispanics at NYU or City College to offer internships to? Or only when you know the parents do the offers come through. It's easy to talk about 30,0o0 Ford employees you'll never meet.
But don't you think something is just fucked up when you look around your offices and it looks as white as a country club? You want to talk about visceral? Let's talk about your hiring practices. You want to talk about Democrats and liberals, yet your own publication reflects an increasingly narrow and unrepresentative slice of liberal ideology, one which oddly enough, people are rejecting to read blogs for. Who do you speak for? Not the majority of New Yorkers or urban america, except through a filter of uper middle class entitlement and distant concern.
So I'm in no mood to take lectures from people who have no clue about what Democrats or bloggers even do. And is frankly so spineless as to keep the aformentioned Marc Cooper on the masthead, after he shit on the staff of the Nation to cozy up to his reactionary buddies at Pajamas Media. If the Nation was run by some of the tough minded people who run blogs, his ass would have been bouncing down the street.
I know that you have some grumpy folks who think this can be done for free, but there also people who sneak out on meals and think it's funny.
The fact is that despite being underfunded and relying on your generousity and ads, we have mananged, in one week to:
Challenge the ombudsman and executive editor of the Washington Post
Reveal The Bush administration opposed a bill which would permit warrentless wiretaps
Encourage Democratic senators to reconsider a fillibuster on Judge Alito.
Consider what you get from your blogging dollar compared to other forms of media, which routinely insults your intelligence
You know about Ass Clown Media and their funding. Despite the numerous wealthy liberals around, we still live a hand to mouth existance. There are no grants, a few jobs and you. Without you, blogging goodness would not exist. This is a cooperative arrangement, you kick in what you can, and we do our best to be your voice.
But the fact is that we come to you for a very simple reason: we don't have the resources of the right. No one is going to bankroll this blog except the owners and readers. George Soros may be doing good work, but his money isn't going into blogs.
We're building a structure in months what took the right years to do, and are still getting results, regardless.
But we have to pay for it, just like we pay for the media we no longer trust. I was debating whether to wait or not, but since we have your attention, this was a good time to ask for help. Because, without us, Sam Alito would already be sitting on the bench, the Senators scared to risk something whuch would be hammered in the press with no support. But now, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry post on Kos. And that is our collective doing.
As usual, the snail mail addy is
Stephen Gilliard 217 E 86 St NMB 112 New York, NY 10028
One of the least pleasant things about New York living, and it is only New York, is the lack of decent supermarkets. Most are tiny, some are nasty, and few allow for the kind of shopping experience suburbanites take for granted.
However, there are some charms to urban life.
You can do like my father and go out to Jersey, and shop at King, or my sisters in Boston, who have warehouse-sized Stop and Shops, stores so large that they have their own English food aisle. I don't mean section, I mean aisle.
But the charm of New York is the fact that you can find damn near anything.
The Upper West Side is not reknowned for its restaurants, it's actually better for a drink, but it does have a series of markets which is ideal for people who like to cook. Zabar's is the king of the speciality store, but for some reason, I've never shopped there. Never been inside.
Why?
I always liked the food from Balducci's better. The two stores were competitors since I can remember. But being an NYU student at the time, I ate a lot more Balducci food.
There was no Gourmet Garage or Whole Food back then.
In fact, those stores wouldn't exist without Fairway and Stew Leonard's.
In a three block strip south of 79th St on Broadway, there is Westside Market, Citarella and Fairway.
I like Westside Market for their deli and baked goods. Their bread is pretty good as are their bagels. I know, people are thinking why not go to H&H. But I don't like their rather large bagels. I grew up eating Ess a Bagels, because my father, when he worked the night shift, would bring them home warm, because they were a block from his job. When I was a kid, they were tiny, like Lender's Bagels, maybe a little larger.
Citarella, which started on the East Side, has a nice selection of bread. But of course, the reason to shop there is the fish. And to pay some ridiculous prices. If you're going to make a fish dish to impress, this is where you go for the raw materials. They also have a speciality butcher for your venison needs.
But when you think of the Upper West Side and food, it's Fairway, with their produce display which is the real attraction.
The reason I mention this is because unlike most supermarkets, where you go in with a list, this is a place where you can be inspired to create dishes based on what you see. The only other place which can do this is the Union Square Greenmarket where you can see Spinach and heirloom tomatos and be instantly inspired to make a salad.
So I was shopping and whilke picking up some fresh herbs and mushrooms, I walked over to the fresh fish counter and picked up some salmon. But then, I saw these beautiful rainbow trout.
The best thing about cooking is when you have an inspired idea based on what you see. In a regular supermarket and our dependence on lists, inspiration is rarely found. But in a place where the produce is piled high , that inspiration is easier to find.
But I love Rainbow Trout. There's just something so earthy and natural about that fish.
If there is any one thing missing from most people's diets is imagination. They either wind up doing take out or repeating meals because they are so wedded to lists and recipies that true innovation is often missing.
Which is why people need to get into farmers markets and stores which don't hide their produce, so they can decide to actually cook with the food and not make the food fit into a recipe.
Kennedy has been counting votes and running elections for years. We need to listen to what he is telling us. This is our opportunity to prove we are a force to be reckoned with. If the elections were held today we would control the House and the Oval Office. We are the MAJORITY. Let's start acting like it. They Republicans have never accepted defeat gracefully, why should we.
Kennedy gave us a game plan let's follow it.
9am Monday morning shut down the Senate switchboard. You can use these toll-free numbers (and ask for the Senators by name): 888-355-3588 or 888-818-6641.
"It's really a question whether I vote against Judge Alito once or twice," he said. Obama conceded that there is some doubt precisely how many Democrats might oppose a filibuster, describing the situation as "in flux."
"There's some dispute with respect to those numbers. We're trying to check that out right now," he said.
In Flux = We are having an impact and the numbers are changing. Apparently his. Today he said this
10:10 a.m: Good news and bad news: Sen. Obama told George Staphylococcus he will (reluctantly) support the filibuster (#14), but also that it would fail - without identifying which Democrats would cause it to fail, which would help us turn them around. Obama said he opposed "procedural maneuvers" and wished Democrats had framed the substantive issues better.
Senator Kennedygave us his list of where we need to put our efforts. Keep going I have all the info for the whole list
Remind all these Senators that Republicans for Choice oppose Alito
(RMC) regrettably announces its opposition to the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
But Judge Alito's position on choice, however, is not the only disappointment surrounding his nomination. The selection of Judge Alito sends a very clear message from the Bush Administration and the Republican leadership in Congress that they are willing to continue steering the party into a marginalized corner that puts it at odds with most voters.
This is really important. Here you have sane Republicans stating that the Administration is a bunch of wingnuts.
More info on this herein a diary I did a few weeks ago. All of Kennedy's target republicans are on their advisory board. I was called a cog for pointing this out, so is Kennedy a cog too? snark
While Senator Kennedy did not single out the two Senators from New Jersey they were certainly in a very small group of targets. He is telling us these are the key votes, as they move others will move.
They, in a political, sense are vital to our efforts. We must get them to committ as soon as possible. It becomes much easier for other Senators to come out in opposition if the two Senators from the nominee's home state have come out in opposition. It is very difficult for them to do this because he is a hometown boy. Alito has a lot of powerful connections here. We have to prove there is a groundswell of opposition.
Alito comes from Menendez's former Congressional district. They have to know that we are behind them. Menendez also needs to know that he will need us in the fall and he has to give us reason to work for him.
There is some confussion as to where Menendez stands at this point and we can't take a chance until he makes a public statement.
Senator Robert Menendez [NJ] DEMOCRATIC SWING VOTE
Corzine just appointed Menendez so we should ask for his help in convincing the new Senator to do the right thing. Corzine also wants to run for President some day so everyone's opinion matters.
Senator Frank Lautenberg [NJ] DEMOCRATIC SWING VOTE
If you would like to know more about New Jersey you can find a list of towns here
If you are a new resident and don't know what your Zip Codeis you can find that here.
Here is the rest of the Senators that Kennedy said to focus on. If you can call or fax all 100 then do so. If not focus on where the effort will have the most impact.
Georgia10 has a list of all #'s in the comment section
Senator Mark Pryor [AR] DEMOCRATIC NOT SUPPORTING FILIBUSTER
I've been amazingly uplifted by the upwelling of opposition, on this site and others, supporting a filibuster of the Alito nomination. My personal gratitude goes out to everyone who has been pouring in time to make this a possibility, to stiffen the backbone and resolve of the Democratic Party.
Now, as I read over the various DailyKos front page stories and recommended diaries on ways we can influence more Senators to commit to filibustering Alito , I noticed that one tactic - one major point of leverage - which seemed obvious to me has not yet been mentioned.
So, here goes
Calling and emailing and faxing are great places to start of course. But, beyond that, here's what I'm going to be doing tonight and tomorrow to stop the Alito nomination...
It's simple : I have my Rolodex ( old school ) and I'm simply going to call people I know - one after another - to convince them to make their own phone calls, send emails, and faxes, sign petitions.
And, if they are especially frisky, I'll work to convince my friends and family to join with me and do the same : to spend a couple of hours calling people they know who likely would be receptive, to convince those folks to take action....
How far will these waves ripple ? I don't know. That's beyond my power to predict.
But, I can say this with certainty :
NOT all those who are dead set against Alito and willing to take action to promote the filibuster are on the Internet, and MANY have not noticed the rapid upwelling of opposition on the net which has stiffened the resolve of Democrats in the Senate.
No, indeed. The DailyKos, and the various other blogs and sites working for a filibuster, are not the whole universe of the left - not by a long stretch.
But, if everyone on this site, and allied sites, who already has called, emailed, faxed, petitioned were to convince people they know - people who don't frequent Internet political sites and may not be fully aware of the gathering push for a filibuster.....
Well then. We could double the numbers of people applying political pressure to support the filibuster.
As Georgia10 said, let's get to work.
____
What I've just sketched out is basic political organizing, but I suspect the apparent power of the Internet - in politics - has clouded a basic truth :
Sites such as the dailyKos excel at gathering like minded folks, yes. But the people we can exert the most powerful direct influence on tend to be those we know personally, people whose hands we've shaken, people we've hugged, cried and laughed with.
The Christian right - which now sees in Alito the culmination of an over two decade political organizing project bent on achieving political supremacy and theocracy - rose to power initially not on rivers of cash or ties to powerful politicians. Mainly, at first, the Christian right built political power the old fashioned way - through hard work, personal networks, skillful organizing....
So, back to the filibuster :
If every person here on the DailyKos and elsewhere on the net who has already lent their voice in support of the filibuster also can convince just one friend, relative, or associate to join in, well then - Senators who might support the filibuster but don't currently will suddenly notice that popular support has doubled. Convince two people, well then it triples.
Can you convince one other person to join in ? I can. Can you convince two ? Three ? I bet I can do that as well.
As Georgia10 said....
I wouldn't waste my time with wingnut relatives, but if you have friends who share your politics, why not ask them to e-mail someone or call. You can't spam or pester people, but you can ask people who might be receptive.
Here is an action plan for the rest of the weekend from Vichy Democrats
FINAL: ALITO FILIBUSTER WEEKEND GAMEPLAN
“The Woodstock of Politics” – a caller to The Young Turks radio filibuster for filibuster, about the grassroots Alito activism.
Sorry it took so long, but here’s the comprehensive game plan for WEEKEND activism. Please take time tonight and Sunday to fill up Senatorial inboxes.
There is a wonderful thing about calling your Senator on a weekend: HIS OFFICE IS CLOSED AND CANNOT ASK YOU YOUR ADDRESS. Leave a voicemail saying you’re a constituent (it’s true – you’re an American), and want a filibuster. They’ll believe you. Take advantage of it. Emails have the same benefit.
There will be a Monday Morning Game Plan waiting for you when you wake up Monday morning, and everyone should be awake and caffeine-fueled by 8:00 a.m. Eastern time to hammer these guys ALL DAY MONDAY before the 4:30 pm (Eastern) cloture vote.
WHAT MAKES THIS RESOURCE SPECIAL? Easy: it has the LOCAL DISTRICT OFFICE CONTACT INFO FOR EVERY KEY SENATOR. And their emails. And all their fax numbers. So fill up their Washington voicemail inboxes. Then fill up every district office inbox. Then fill up every fax machine. Then send emails to every one. Then sign the petitions and auto-faxes at the bottom of this post. YOU CAN GET YOUR MESSAGE TO ONE SENATOR TEN TIMES INSTEAD OF JUST ONCE. And they won’t know whether you’re one stupidly dogged person, or ten different people. Leverage, folks, leverage.
WHAT TO SAY: When you call, fax, and email, don’t waste time explaining why you don’t like Alito. Just make your points and get off the line so someone else can get through.
What do we say?
1. We are the hardworking Democratic base, and we are sick to our souls of supporting incumbent Democrats who don’t have the courage to stand up and do the right thing even when it’s hard.
2. We want a filibuster EVEN IF THERE AREN’T 41 GUARANTEED VOTES supporting it, and EVEN IF IT MEANS FACING THE NUCLEAR OPTION.
3. If they aren’t willing to vote against cloture, then ASK THEM TO SIMPLY ABSTAIN – preferably, go visit veterans at Walter Reed Hospital at 4:30 Monday when the cloture vote takes place. ABSTAINING IS AS GOOD AS A “NO” VOTE ON CLOTURE.
If they ask for your zip code or address, give it. Some people advise giving false, local info (basically, just riffing on the area code and zip code info for that Senator’s local office); I’ll leave that up to you and your personal decision as to whether it’s immoral or whether it’s a necessary act of civil disobedience. Personally, I’m being honest, emphatic and sincere.
NOT long after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in 2003, a top aide to L. Paul Bremer III, then the head of the American occupation authority there, excitedly explained that Iraq had just become the front line in Washington's effort to neutralize Iran as a regional force.
If America could promote a moderate, democratic, American-friendly alternate center of Shiite Islam in Iraq, the official said, it could defang one of its most implacable foes in the Middle East.
Iran, in other words, had for decades been both the theological center of Shiite Islam and a regional sponsor of militant anti-American Islamic groups like Hezbollah. But if westward-looking Shiites — secular or religious — came to power in southern Iraq, they could give the lie to arguments that Shiites had to see America as an enemy.
So far, though, Iran's mullahs aren't feeling much pain from the Americans next door. In fact, officials at all levels of government here say they see the American presence as a source of strength for themselves as they face the Bush administration.
In almost every conversation about Iran's nuclear showdown with the United States and Europe, they cite the Iraq war as a factor Iran can play to its own advantage.
"America is extremely vulnerable right now," said Akbar Alami, a member of the Iran's Parliament often critical of the government but on this point hewing to the government line. "If the U.S. takes any unwise action" to punish Iran for pursuing its nuclear program, he said, "certainly the U.S. and other countries will share the harm."
Iranians know that American forces, now stretched thin, are unlikely to invade Iran. And if the United States or Europe were to try a small-scale, targeted attack, the proximity of American forces makes them potential targets for retaliation. Iranians also know the fighting in Iraq has helped raise oil prices, and any attempt to impose sanctions could push prices higher.
No shit. Gee, you think Iranian agents and special operators would see a change to take revenge on US forces in Iraq?
Has anyone at DOD considered this as a likely? NO? Really now?
Bob Woodruff and his cameraman Doug Vogt were injured in an IED attack near Taji, Iraq today. They were embedded with the 4th Infantry Division, traveling with an Iraqi Army unit in an Iraqi mechanized vehicle.
If they get him to a US Mobile Surgical Hospital, he will most likely live. They have a 90 percent survival rate. The medicine they're doing in Iraq is phenomenal.
But I doubt Elizabeth Vargas, mother of a small child, will be going back to Iraq, period.
The American networks have been very lucky that their people have not suffered wounds or been killed in large numbers.
His physical and political collapse comes with Nixonian speed as his cronies fall, one by one, to special prosecutors, federal attorneys and a newly sworn-in and highly pissed of Democratic House, now loaded for bear and aggressively taking on the task of cleaning up the toxic witchbag of corruption, extortion, blackmail, bribery and High Treason that was the legacy of the last Republican House this country will see in a generation.
Now, virtually alone in the White House – except for his loyal, white-gloved Fundy retinue who feed him ice cream and Dewars and dutifully keep and catalog his urine for that special wing of his Presidential Library – Dubya grows increasingly paranoid, calling his Vice-President-In-Exile – Dick Cheney – who fled three months ago to his demesne in Dubai ahead of a truckload of warrants.
(“You told me this’d never fucking happen, Dick! That I'd never have to worry about this shit. Eight years and out was deal; I’ll sign anything you want and I’m set for life, but nobody touches me! I get to do whatever the fuck I want and get my face on the twenty and nobody touches me. That was deal asshole, and now these Liberals have served paper on me. Me!”
“Listen, George, there’s still a way… Wait a minute. Shit! George, tell me you’re not using a White House phone to make this call.”
“What the fuck does that matter now, Dick! Everybody’s gone or in jail or dead. I got little lawyers practically crawling outta the shitters here telling me I gotta be in court at such and so, and they don’t even know about…”
“Shut up, George. Don’t say another fucking word on this line, and you don’t ever call me again. I don’t know you.”)
Abu Gonzalez – himself barricaded in the Attorney General’s Office and under multiple indictments from two separate Grand Juries -- continues to insist that Cheney can still exercise his “magic co-unitary executive powers” to have “anyone he wants shot on sight for any-fucking-thing he likes” even while the Veep is in hiding abroad, evading extradition.
“It’s just another ‘undisclosed location’”, the feisty shyster yelled through the door at reporters. “We won the election, God Damn it!”
But no one listens to Abu G any more.
With fully one-third of the Republican leadership cutting deals with Federal investigators, and another third either on the run, in prison, awaiting trial or having committed .38 caliber sepuku, everyone knows how this will end.
In Iraq, local commanders have taken control of the situation on the ground, and despite a steady stream of increasing incoherent proclamations and “Executive Orders” from the White House to “Finish the mission”, are overseeing the orderly withdrawal of the remaining coalition troops still in Iraq, in coordination with the Provisional Military Command Authority now being run out of the Pentagon under the joint supervision of both congressional Armed Services committees.
With the noose now closing inextricably around President Bush, it now appears to be a grim race to see which will take its course first: The impeachment process, or the multiple criminal investigations that are now underway. However, one thing is certain: even though White House spokesmen, Fox News, a few remaining Republican loyalists and loyal Fundamentalists still speak publicly about how the believe George Bush will eventually rally, in private they confess that they know the end of the Bush Presidency is now measured in weeks. Perhaps days.
In fear for his life from roaming Christopath “Truth Brigades”, one Republican Senator, speaking on condition of anonymity, said:
“Why can’t he just resign! The longer he takes to get the [expletive deleted] message and walk away – pardon deal or no pardon deal – the worse this gets. Every day he stays in office is another year the Party will have to spend living this down.”
“Why the [expletive deleted] did we ever try to make that idiot an emperor,” the Senator added, vomiting into his hat. “I hear that Reid [expletive deleted] is calling him at night. Telling him that he needs to fight on. That the nation cannot do without him during these troubled times.
Holy [expletive deleted] do I hate that mother[expletive deleted] Harry Reid!”
Finally there are strong rumors coming out of NATO headquarters that in the interest of international security, unbeknownst to the Chief Executive and as a hedge against any possible last-ditch, “dead man” strategy to save himself, the so-called “Nuclear Football” has been replaced with a Kosmo Astro (pictured here)
For once, I'm in agreement with the pragmatists of the Democratic Party. The fight to stop Alito is one that we cannot win. It is better to keep our powder try. You might respond, "Keep it dry! For what?" Glad you asked. I can think of fights for which we will be glad we kept our powder dry. (a rock solid argument on the flip)
What if a Democrat wins the popular vote in a Presidential election and may have won the Electoral College, but only a hand recount can count all the votes and account for the machines built-in margin of error. I don't know the legal system that well, but I suspect there would be a legal challenge that would go as high as the Supreme Court regarding the legality of the recount. What if SCOTUS voted on partisan lines NOT to count the ballots. As a result, the Republican wins. I know it is hard to imagine, but it could happen. I'm sure that if a subsequent recount did show the Democrat wonCongress would come up with some way to remove the false President, but either way, we should keep our powder dry for this scenario.
Imagine that a catastrophic terrorist attack happens on our shores. The Republican President gives some nice speeches and promises to kick some terrorist ass. He tells us that if anyone could have imagined such an attack he would have done everything possible to protect us. I'm just spinning my wheels here, but what if it later became clear that there was warning of the attack and the President did absolutely nothing to stop it? He was busy doing something ultra-Republican, maybe trying to start a new nuclear missile program -- who knows. At any rate, he ignored the threat and lied about receiving warning. This is a Republican we are talking about; so, he'd probably try to pull some crazy stunt like falsifying an EPA report that states the air at the place struck by the terrorists made the location unsafe. We need to keep our powder dry for this eventuality.
Okay, since I talked about voting once, maybe if the GOP was successful in stealing one election (see scenario 1), they'd try another. I think I read somewhere that a Secretary of State (the person who controls voting in each state) can also be actively campaigning for candidates running in the election. For instance, a Secretary could even chair a party's statewide Presidential campaign. It's hard to imagine that anyone with that much power over the vote would be all that actively involved in supporting a Presidential candidate, but I kid you not, it is perfectly legal. It is possible that the Secretary could control how the votes are counted, even how many machines get to each county and precinct. They could probably even set it up so that voters at Democratic strongholds would have to wait hours in line to vote on barely working machines. I hear some of these new machines don't have any paper trail, so who knows what the GOP could get up to with control of something like that. I'm a crazy Liberal, but I could even imagine the GOP challenging all kinds of voters -- even trying to keep mentally handicapped people from voting. Election fraud and abuse is pretty hard to prove, so we'd really need our powder dry.
The crazy rantings of a Northeast Liberal, I know. But who knows what those wacky GOPers could get up to, so let's keep that powder dry for a real fight. The Republicans won the Presidency and Congress fair and square, and vast majority of the country obviously supports them. Let's keep our powder dry and our noses clean for the next election, that's when real change can happen. The last thing people want is an opposition party vigorously opposing things. We have the next election, or the next one after that, or maybe the next one after that...with plenty of dry powder.
ONE of the more ridiculous ideas going around is that Omar Minaya is obsessed with turning the Mets into a Latino franchise. Maybe it was caused by the slow week before Super Bowl madness. You've got to have something to yammer about.
There was little second-guessing last winter, when Minaya acquired Pedro Martínez and Carlos Beltran, or this off-season, when Minaya picked up Carlos Delgado. All three moves were no-brainers, given the Mets' bankroll.
People began to buzz about the wisdom of trading two of last year's starting pitchers, Jae Seo and Kris Benson, for players of Hispanic origin. Seo, who is Korean, looked as if he was coming around last season, but Benson, who is American and not Hispanic, was only mediocre last season.
Besides, Benson's wife, Anna, was only going to cause more problems, as one of those suggesting that Minaya was trying to create an all-Hispanic team.
The main issue is whether Minaya is on the right track in evaluating talent. Because he is of Dominican origin, he is comfortable with Latino ballplayers. ...............
But it is a decided advantage to have a bilingual general manager like Minaya these days, when a quarter of major leaguers come from overseas. The United States has no lock on the first World Baseball Classic, for 16 teams in March. ........................
We've come a long way to have a general manager out of the Corona section of Queens.
..............
I don't worry about Minaya's eye for talent and temperament. We'll find out if he was wrong about Seo, but he did the right thing in getting Benson out of town. I've met some bright and outspoken baseball wives, like Arlene Howard, who raised racial issues that her husband, Elston, could not afford to bring up when he broke in as a catcher with the Yankees in the 1950's. Anna Benson is no Arlene Howard.
She went on Howard Stern and talked dirty, which is what passes for independence these days. She became known for her racy talk as well as the low-cut dress she wore to the Mets' Christmas party. A model who does not know how to dress around children is going to be a liability to an organization that likes to think of itself as a family operation.
When the Mets obtained Delgado, Anna Benson could not resist speculating that fans might boo him because he had criticized United States policies in Iraq. I also caught her on a television talk show saying female reporters should not be allowed in men's locker rooms because they just wanted to peek at the players.
This was not a liberated woman but somebody with a low opinion of women, including the professionals I see on the sports beat.
Her husband could have told her that players can avoid modesty problems with a towel or a robe, but it sounded as if he had never told her the facts of life. Omar Minaya traded them? Good riddance.
.............
This is New York, if he's Dominican and uncomfortable around Latinos, that would be crazy. But here's news, so is Willie Randolph, who's also a New Yorker. And if he wasn't, he wouldn't be managing the Mets in New York City.
The dominant talent in baseball today is Latino.If you want to win, you're going to have Latinos on your team, Alex Rodriguez anyone?
Vescey is WAY too fucking kind to Anna Benson. She's a white trash stripper with a whipped husband who doesn't have the balls to protect his own career, and as a result is stuck in Baltimore. Her wingnuttia dripped out her mouth and blog like piss. She had NO CLUE as to how New Yorkers felt about Bush or Iraq and was shocked that people didn't give a shit that she gave money to 9/11 charities.
Well here's one: you know like combat vets don't watch war movies, New Yorkers do not dwell on 9/11. We have moved on and we are pissed at the way our tragedy has been coopted by Bush and the GOP and parasites like Anna Benson. Let her go shake her ass in Bal'more. Low class trash like that doesn't last long in New York's public life.
This bullshit started with the idiots on sports radio. I hate few things more than sports radio. They make Rush's audience seem educated. And there is also a lot of not so subtle racism pushed on these shows. Which is why this crap started there, I think on Mike and the Mad Dog. Chris "Mad Dog" Russo is a total fucking turd who runs his mouth the way some people run sewers.
You get some assclown like "Jerry from Bensonhurst" who says "hey, why did they dump Benson for some Spanish players" and it's off to the races. The idea that these might be the best players on the market escapes them. What, is Minaya not committed to winning? Is Randolph not committed to winning? Please.
I want the Mets in the playoffs, I don't care who gets them there, Steven Gerrard, Patric Viera, Pedro Martinez, why the fuck do I care where they come from.
The article, titled "Blogs Attack From Left as Democrats Reach for Center," tries to set up a false premise that progressive bloggers are lefties foaming at the mouth over the fact that the Democratic Party wants to be a more moderate party. As "evidence," VandeHei points solely to bloggers and posters at The Huffington Post. Their crime was complaining about the choice of newly elected Democratic Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia over Pennsylvania Congressman Jack Murtha to deliver the rebuttal to the State of the Union address. Now, I don't know what planet VandeHei lives on (I think it's called Cocktail Party, and I'm pretty sure it's in the Beltway system), but here on Earth, the progressive netroots hasn't been vigorously attacking Governor Kaine and Rep. Murtha is not a flaming lefty.
Here's how VandeHei characterizes the Democratic netroots/establishment war that he wants so badly to exist.
These activists -- spearheaded by battle-ready bloggers and making their influence felt through relentless e-mail campaigns -- have denounced what they regard as a flaccid Democratic response to the Supreme Court fight, President Bush's upcoming State of the Union address and the Iraq war. In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts.
First, liberal Web logs went after Democrats for selecting Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to deliver the response to Bush's speech next Tuesday. Kaine's political sins: He was too willing to drape his candidacy in references to religion and too unwilling to speak out aggressively against Bush on the Iraq war. Kaine has been lauded by party officials for finding a victory formula in Bush country by running on faith, values and fiscal discipline....
The blogs-vs.-establishment fight represents the latest version of a familiar Democratic dispute. It boils down to how much national candidates should compromise on what are considered core Democratic values -- such as abortion rights, gun control and opposition to conservative judges -- to win national elections.
Many Democrats say the only way to win nationally is for the party to become stronger on the economy and promote a centrist image on cultural values, as Kaine did in Virginia and as Bill Clinton did in two successful presidential campaigns.
VandeHei conveniently conflates The Huffington Post with the entire progressive blogosphere to make his point. But if he actually looked around, he'd see a wide diversity of opinion within the netroots. How can he claim that bloggers have "in every case... portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts"? That's demonstrably false. And remember, we're the ones who work without editors.
To be fair, there is some tension between the Democratic Party and the progressive blogosphere. Unlike the rightist blogosphere, we tend to be a bit more independent and suspicious of power. But to pretend that we're in an all-out war is silly. If that were the case, I doubt the majority of us would still consider ourselves Democrats. Some of our favorite Democrats are people like Jack Murtha, the pro-life Harry Reid, and Russ Feingold, who voted to confirm Chief Justice Roberts. As Markos has pointed out time and again, the tension doesn't stem from ideology. It's all about entrenched power and reform.
The reason The Washington Post is on the attack is that they see their influence waning and are desperate to tear down the credibility of the blogosphere. This is a campaign of marginalization. And it's not coming from a political party. It's coming from a newspaper, a traditional media outlet that is charged with reporting facts and news. Instead, they've decided to use their pages to mount a political campaign against progressive bloggers, who they've apparently decided are their sworn enemy. It's absolutely paranoid and ridiculous.
UPDATE: It seems I'm in the minority pursuing the netroots v. traditional media angle on this story. That's fine by me. But it's worth noting that the dominant narrative seems to be netroots v. Dem lobbyists. Markos has a post up along those lines. Ultimately, I think that both conflicts exist and both are worth examining.
Now back to reality.
First, the bloggers are NOT demanding some ideological purity, that's what the right does. They merely want their elective representatives to act as an opposition party. Many of us supported people like Ben Nelson, Ken Salaazar and now Bob Casey, who have stands which are to the right of most of the people on this site. Why? Because we want Democrats who win. Paul Hackett is hardly anyone's stereotypical lefty, but he got massive support from people who disagree with him on any number of issues, because he could win.
It is the DLC and friends who sandbag Democratic candidates and follow Republican talking points. Not the bloggers.
We support Dems who fight, simple as that. Jack Murtha, Russ Feingold, doesn't matter. The only litmus test is a willingness to defend principles.
Second: the moderate "values" campaign is the last gasp of a series of losing campaigns by the DLC. Clinton is retired, his wife sits in a safe seat. Those politics do not work.
If you owned a football team and the coach didn't change his gameplan after several losing seasons would you not fire him?
Compromise drove the Dems into the minority, despite having more registered voters. It caused many liberals to register as independents. Compromise with reactionaries DOES NOT WORK.
Speaking of Tim Kaine, he won by a fairly wide margin over a wingnut running a dirty campaign. No one cares about his religion as long as he doesn't impose it on anyone else. Also, many Dems from across the country, driven by the blogs, supported Kaine and financed his campaign. So how are we calling people gutless.
People does not mean Joe Lieberman and Joe Biden. They have repeatedly chosen to represent themselves over the party, repeatedly criticising other Dems, including party head Howard Dean. In short, they want to have the support of the party but not to support the party.
However, to people who think it's all an echo chamber, I think this article disproves this.
Early Thursday afternoon, we broke the news that Senator John Kerry would lead a filibuster against Judge Sam Alito if he could get 41 Senators to sustain the filibuster. Three hours later, CNN confirmed our story.
Naturally, the White House freaked out and told Senator Bill Frist to schedule a cloture vote as quickly as possible - Monday at 4:30 p.m. - to prevent Democrats from uniting behind Kerry.
Then the White House called its media whores at the NY Times (David Kirkpatrick), AP (Jesse Holland), Pentagon Post (Charles Babington), CNN (Miles O'Brien), and MSNBC (Chris Matthews) and told them to trash John Kerry for daring to challenge the will of Emperor Bush, and to repeat over and over that Democrats did not have enough votes to stop Alito.
But even as Karl Rove was doing his dirty work, progressive activists like you were calling your Senators urging them to support John Kerry's filibuster.
And one by one, Democratic Senators began to turn around.
At the start of the day, only Dick Durbin and Debbie Stabenow supported Kerry and Kennedy. Just before noon, Hillary Clinton's office called to say she supported us. Then Harry Reid came on board, along with Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Ron Wyden, Chris Dodd, and (I think) Chuck Schumer.
Most importantly, we even picked up Dianne Feinstein, who just yesterday said she opposed a filibuster.
That's 12 votes for a filibuster - and exactly 12 more votes than we had two days ago!
I believe we really can stop Alito by Monday at 4:30 p.m. - but here's what we must do.
1. Ignore the media whores. Karl Rove is feeding them lies as he always does, and they are swallowing those lies as they always do. The only media that matters is the media we are creating right here by calling each Senator and getting a YES or NO statement from them.
3. Keep calling the Senators who are undecided or opposed to a filibuster. You can call their DC office all weekend and leave polite but firm voicemails urging the Senators to support Kerry's filibuster. When offices open on Monday 9 a.m. ET, make another round of calls. Let's shut down the Capitol switchboard on Monday!
4. Call the DNC (202-863-8000) and the DSCC (202-224-2447) and tell them your 2006 contributions will depend on the success of the Alito filibuster. Tell them they need to get every Democratic Senator on board.
5. Call talk shows like Air America, C-SPAN, etc. and talk about what we're doing on this blog and how we're killing ourselves to stop Alito - and how we can win if everyone who cares about the future of our Democracy joins us.
6. Keep hope alive - because American Democracy is worth it!!!
All it takes is a phone call. The fundies held a rally to push this guy, a phone call is all it takes.
NEW YORK Universal Press Syndicate columnist Ann Coulter "joked" during a Thursday speech that liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens should be poisoned. "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' creme brulee," Coulter said at Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. "That's just a joke, for you in the media."
She made other "off-color" jokes about liberal Supreme Court justices that made the audience "squeal," according to an article today in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. No pies were thrown.
Coulter did provoke some booing, though, especially after she stopped two black men during questions, telling them, "I'm not gonna be lectured to," according to the newspaper account....." ........................
Afterward, black students stood around "lashing" back at Coulter's "rhetoric," the newspaper said. One sophomore girl said: "We need someone on the Democratic side who is just as outspoken as she is."
The college president, Walter Kimbrough, had told the audience, that inviting Coulter to speak at the black school made sense because like hip hoppers she is "raw, outspoken, uncensored." He also called her the "conservative answer to rapper Lil' Kim -- [both] attractive and sexy, long-haired blondes. ..."
Coulter said it was "the best introduction" she'd ever had.
Lil' Kim is currently in the middle of a 366-day jail sentence for perjury and conspiracy.
And they gave McGruder shit?
So Uncle Ruckus thought it would be a good idea to invite the racist Coulter to an all-black school? Yeah, right.
Note to black conservatives: even when they need a conservative, they still pick the white ones, even at an all black school.
Hopefully, she will share Lil Kim's fate and do a stretch in the joint.
But something is happening, I'm not sure what but things are changing rather quickly and I really don't know why. Witness this article in the WaPo, where the Pool Boy almost gets it. Except I couldn't get anyone interested in the "draft Murtha" thing, I think 49 people showed up and commented at the DU board, nobody was into it. When I woke up the next morning I found out they'd chosen Kaine for the SOTU rebuttal before I made my way over to Kos and saw he'd linked to it, and I half figured the Democratic leadership had seen it there and it had forced their hand. But there was no way to be sure. How that rated an article in the WaPo is a bit of a mystery.
And then there is this galloping dose of bullshit:
"The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."
I'm going to let James field this one (from the comments):
If your name is accompanied by the words "Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign," then you deserve a warm glass of shut-the-hell-up.
It's like quoting Axl Rose for tips on keeping the band together.
Until their bid to turn us all into cash machines and vault Joe Biden into the Democratic candidacy actually succeeds (at which point I will give up and open a vein) we'll be here every night doing our FDL Late Nite action thing.
Not even Kerry is listening to them anymore.
He's posting on Kos and trying to lead the filibuster. They didn't leave it to Feingold to do the dirty work this time.
These guys are like coaches for the Saints. The only thing they've proven is an ability to lose.
They need to shut the fuck up and go the fuck back to a law firm or something.
By Tom Bowman Sun Reporter Originally published January 27, 2006
WASHINGTON // With political opposition mounting against a Pentagon plan to reduce the size and combat strength of the National Guard, the Army's top official said yesterday that the opponents are ill-informed and that the plan would increase the overall combat power of both the Guard and the active-duty Army.
"They're just not informed," Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey said in an interview. "They're getting speculation, rumor and hearsay."
The Pentagon will ask Congress next month to reduce the authorized strength of the Guard from 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, to transform six Guard combat brigades into support units and to decrease the planned number of active-duty Army and Guard combat brigades from 77 to 70.
Harvey and other Pentagon leaders told Congress last year that the Army needed 77 combat brigades to fulfill its missions. But Harvey said that information was based on "assumptions" and was not a detailed plan.
"If I said that, I exaggerated," he said.
What are they planning to replace the bodies? A draft into the RA? Because this doesn't make sense.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Children in West Virginia's public schools will be required to play Konami Digital Entertainment Inc.'s popular "Dance Dance Revolution" video game under a deal to help the state battle rising childhood obesity rates, the company said on Wednesday.
In the game, arrows appear on a video screen according to the beat of a song. Players score points by stepping on matching arrows on a mat. Units with a special workout mode allows players to track the calories they burn.
As part of the partnership, which includes all 765 of the state's schools, West Virginia will develop a curriculum based around the video game and track its progress.
All of the state's schools will have "Dance Dance Revolution" equipment within two years, said Konami spokeswoman Clara Gilbert.
The total cost of the program is $500,000. Konami is giving the state $75,000 in cash for product and research related to the program, which the company said is the first of its kind.
I have to admit, I completely understand why the Republican Party calls us whiners. Because, to be frank, we are. The sky is always falling. We're always doing so horribly. We always bemoan our own lack of ability. It's like the girl who's constantly reminding you that she's totally fat until at some point you start to think, yeah, she is putting on a few pounds. And who wants to hang out with a downer? So people hang with Republicans, who are dead wrong but damn cheery about it, and the cycle continues.
But here's the thing our glass half empty mentality doesn't like to see, and Republicans sure as hell won't admit: We're actually doing pretty well. In fact, I daresay we are kicking some ass and taking names. So, without further ado, here is some Prozac for your Alito malaise....
Social Security:
By far and away, the biggest success of 2005. We pretty much catapulted an entire term's worth of presidential agenda in one fell swoop. Furthermore, we created a cycle that can repeat itself in the future and strengthened our credibility with the senior population, a vital bloc in a midterm election. So, when HSA's become the talk of the town, it will be simple enough to compare to Social Security reform. In other words, we have a direct parallel of why it's a terrible idea. Cool. The Culture of Corruption:
Congratulations, Mr. Dean and the DNC for creating a soundbite that truly should be considered the official phrase of 2005. Now, one of you is inevitably going to bring up the fact that we were aided by lucky breaks in the Abramoff, Plame, and Cunningham investigations. And, yes, it is fortunate that those pre-existing scandals have matured in such a convenient fashion, but you see, that is really the definition of successful and talented communications. There are limitless storylines out there in the public domain. A smart communications team will be able to pick the winners out the bunch and have an almost prescient ability to determine which stories are going to blow up. When Democrats were harping on a Culture of Corruption last March, it was a joke. The public would never get it! Never bother to tune in! They tried making Tom DeLay an issue in 2004 and 2002, and it didn't work. The American public doesn't know who Tom DeLay is! Well, the DNC was dogged, and now, it is an assumption that there is a culture of corruption.
But wait, you bemoan, it still hasn't reached voters. They still say its a bipartisan issue. Well, you just fucking proved my point, Mistah. The argument of the GOP is not that there is no corruption. It is that we are all corrupt. The best they can do is try and make us both bloody. They cannot make themselves clean. As Shadegg pointed out, it is no longer a matter of taint or no taint, but rather, how much taint is there? While I am all for holding the press accountable for every instance of saying this is a bipartisan issue, think about how successful we've been that there is absolutely no question as to a) whether it is a problem and b) whether the GOP is corrupt. Think about that for just one minute.
An Overreaching Government with No Oversight:
It is not good to have single-party control. This is the consensus. And that is fucking amazing, but it sure as hell wasn't a year ago. Seriously, nobody was talking about the pitfalls of single party control after the 2004 election....not even us so much. We were just bummed about the presidency. Now nobody is even defending the idea that single party control is a good thing, because we all know how bad and harmful that is. You wanna know who to thank for that? Yep. The Democrats. Specifically the argument over the nuclear option, Terry Schiavo, and even the SCOTUS hearings. Yep. Those pissed me off, but they really hit home in the sense that they pointed out how our checks and balances have been eroded. Every ineffectual cry of lack of power reaffirms this consensus. Every failure is another reason why someone who usually reliably votes for an incumbent will reconsider whether they really want Republicans to control everything. This is how waves begin. Also should give some kudos to Paul Hackett for reminding us that nobody, no matter how partisan, likes a rubber stamp.
Bill Frist Will Never Become President:
That might seem like a given now, but think back to the yonder days when he seemed like a dangerous nominee. A doctor with credibility, smarts, and the backing of the administration. Now, a joke with an SEC investigation. Just don't let Frist know quite yet, as watching him twist in the wind, unable to hold together his caucus and unsure as to whether his loyalties lie in the Senate or in the hearts of Republican primary voters, really allows us a lot more freedom than if he concentrated on being Majority Leader.
Can You Believe Some People Think We're Going to Take Back the House???
This, a mere year after Karl Rove declared that the new era of Republican Leadership has begun, akin to post-New Deal Democratic control of Congress. Seriously, 2004 was supposed to be the final nail in the coffin. Now the argument isn't whether Democrats will gain seats, but rather how many they will gain, with most analysts hinting that they are leaning towards the higher estimates. Cook, Todd, all of them have recently raised their estimates, and even the ones that don't think we'll take either house acknowledge the possibility.
We've Come a Long Way, Baby:
Listen, I'm realistic. I know that a lot of sucky things have happened this year, and that the reason the Democratic side is so defeatist is because we keep on getting our hopes up only to be disappointed. After all, Bush got a second term, despite being truly terrible. But really, think of what we've done in one year. A year ago, Grover Norquist was talking about castrating Democrats like you would a dog. Now, he'll be lucky if he's not indicted and his influence within the party is distinctly waning. And yes, that does have something to do with us. Winning elections in Virginia and New Jersey, especially Virginia, is only seen as important because we made damn sure it was seen as important. We have cut off the head of the monster that is Tom DeLay, and the reports on his successor are pretty united in saying whoever it is will be no better, ethically. We have hampered the president's ability to enact an agenda outside of appointments, which are nearly impossible to overcome. Haven't heard much about the inheritance tax, have we? We have put poverty back on the menu. More importantly, responsible government is being defined in a way of creating social structures and, in general, along with our governing principles. Tax cuts are seen as excess that costs money. It has been acknowledged that they don't pay for themselves. This is a pretty big accomplishment. I know its easy to see where they let you down or to constantly bemoan the state of being in the minority, but the fact of the matter is that we've been a pretty good minority. You can't judge success as if the playing field were equal. And you should be feeling pretty good about our positioning, messaging, and foresight going into this year's elections.
All that we lack is confidence, and that is just as much your responsibility to improve as it is your elected official. The trust of the base determines the effectiveness of the party. If you don't trust Reid, Pelosi, and Dean, then you are not going to be happy and they are not going to be able to effectively wage a war. They have given you reasons to trust them. Get over yourself and do so, even when it means taking some hard hits in the stomach. You are a Democratic soldier. Nobody said it would be pretty, but that is what you have signed up to do. Because if we believed it ourselves, I'm pretty damn sure we'd be unstoppable, barring a catastrophic change in current events.
So I'm not doing this to be a doe-eyed naïve girl. I'm doing this because, strategically, I don't think we can afford your attitude problem anymore.
Hamas' stunning victory underlines the contradictions and hypocrisies in Bush's Mideast policies.
By Juan Cole
Jan. 27, 2006 | The stunning victory of the militant Muslim fundamentalist Hamas Party in the Palestinian elections underlines the central contradictions in the Bush administration's policies toward the Middle East. Bush pushes for elections, confusing them with democracy, but seems blind to the dangers of right-wing populism. At the same time, he continually undermines the moderate and secular forces in the region by acting high-handedly or allowing his clients to do so. As a result, Sunni fundamentalist parties, some with ties to violent cells, have emerged as key players in Iraq, Egypt and Palestine.
Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad. And by either creating or failing to deal with hated foreign occupations, he has sown the seeds for militant Islamist movements that gain popularity because of their nationalist credentials.
In Iraq, which is among the least secure and most economically fraught countries in the world, the Dec. 15 elections brought into Parliament a set of powerful Shiite fundamentalist parties and a new force, the Muslim fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, which gained most of the votes of formerly secular-minded Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Some IAF politicians are suspected of strong ties to Iraq's Sunni insurgency. In Egypt, last fall's election increased representation for the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood from 17 to more than 70 seats in Parliament, making that group a key political player for the first time in Egyptian history. Decades ago, the party once assassinated a prime minister and attempted to assassinate President Gamal Abdul Nasser, but now maintains it has turned to moderation. It aims at the imposition of a rigid interpretation of
Now Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, a branch of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, has come to power in Palestine. In his press conference on Thursday, Bush portrayed the Palestinian elections in the same way he depicts Republican Party victories over Democrats in the United States: "The people are demanding honest government. The people want services. They want to be able to raise their children in an environment in which they can get a decent education and they can find healthcare." He sounds like a spokesman for Hamas, underlining the irony that Bush and his party have given Americans the least honest government in a generation, have drastically cut services, and have actively opposed extension of healthcare to the uninsured in the United States.
But the president's attempt to dismiss the old ruling Fatah Party as corrupt and inefficient, however true, is also a way of taking the spotlight off his own responsibility for the stagnation in Palestine. Bush allowed then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to sideline the ruling Fatah Party of Yasser Arafat, to fire missiles at its police stations, and to reduce its leader to a besieged nonentity. Sharon arrogantly ordered the murder of civilian Hamas leaders in Gaza, making them martyrs. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements continued to grow, the fatally flawed Oslo agreements delivered nothing to the Palestinians, and Bush and Sharon ignored new peace plans -- whether the so-called Geneva accord put forward by Palestinian and Israeli moderates or the Saudi peace plan -- that could have resolved the underlying issues. The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which should have been a big step forward for peace, was marred by the refusal of the Israelis to cooperate with the Palestinians in ensuring that it did not produce a power vacuum and further insecurity.
Frustrated, the Palestinian public predictably swung to the far right. Their embrace of Hamas does not indicate that most Palestinians are dedicated to destroying Israel; polls show that most support a two-state solution and are weary of the endless violence. Rather, they are sick of the Palestinian Authority and believe that Hamas will be more effective negotiating partners with the Israelis. As a Saudi political talk show host told the Associated Press, "They [Hamas] will be the Arab Sharon. They will be tough, but only a tough group can snatch concessions from Israel."
Well, they know one thing: Hamas won't back down to accomodate the Israelis.
But the fact is that Palestinians want peace and honest government. They're just tired of the weakly lead Fatah to failing to deliver it.
Ignoring Hamas and cutting off their funds would be stupid, because it would only increase their power inside the PA. Which, of course, is what is coming next.
Ever notice that all the Palestinian guerrillas carry M-16's?
Where'd they get them from? Mars?
Someone seems to be selling them to them.
Which is one indication this is not a simple story of black and white.
The smart thing to do would be to talk to Hamas. Because if you CAN work a peace deal with them, everyone will be on board. But of course, Washington will pretend that's impossible.
I say let's have real elections in Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well. Too bad Osama and his deputies would probably win them.
By MICHELLE R. SMITH, Associated Press Writer Fri Jan 27, 4:33 PM ET
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The city of New Orleans could lose up to 80 percent of its black population if people displaced by Hurricane Katrina are not able to return to damaged neighborhoods, according to an analysis by a Brown University sociologist. ................. "There's very good reason for people to be concerned that the future New Orleans will not be a place for the people who used to live there, that there won't be room in New Orleans for large segments of the population that used to call it home," said Logan, who studies urban areas.
...............
It found the storm-damaged areas had been 75 percent black, compared to 46 percent black in undamaged areas of the city. It also found that 29 percent of the households in damaged areas lived below the poverty line, compared with 24 percent of households in undamaged areas.
More than half of those who lived in the city's damaged neighborhoods were renters, the analysis found.
"The odds of living in a damaged area were clearly much greater for blacks, renters and poor people," the study said. "In these respects the most vulnerable residents turned out also to be at greatest risk."
Elliott Stonecipher, a demographer and political analyst based in Shreveport, La., said the analysis gets to the heart of the debate over how to rebuild New Orleans. Racial tensions have been high with some worried that those in charge of the rebuilding will push black residents out of the city.
"For this storm to suddenly rip that away from them, that feeling is at the heart of this growing racial impasse," Stonecipher said.
The study was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation and is ongoing, Logan said.
They could try ending residential segregation, but barring that, the plan to let the poor areas go vacant is asking for a racial upheaval which will make Watts look like a picnic and LA like a warm up. We could have the equivlent of guerrilla warfare as people try to keep their homes. To them, this is turning out to be genocide in slow motion.
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 30 minutes ago
The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show.
In one case, a secretive task force locked up the young mother of a nursing baby, a U.S. intelligence officer reported. In the case of a second detainee, one American colonel suggested to another that they catch her husband by tacking a note to the family's door telling him "to come get his wife." ...........................
In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.
"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer.
He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.
"The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said.
Like most names in the released documents, the officer's signature is blacked out on this for-the-record memorandum about his complaint.
Of this case, command spokesman Johnson said he could not judge, months later, the factors that led to the woman's detention.
The second episode, in June 2004, is found in sketchy detail in e-mail exchanges among six U.S. Army colonels, discussing an undisclosed number of female detainees held in northern Iraq by the Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division.
The first message, from a military police colonel, advised staff officers of the U.S. northern command that the Iraqi police would not take control of the jailed women without charges being brought against them.
In a second e-mail, a command staff officer asked an officer of the unit holding the women, "What are you guys doing to try to get the husband — have you tacked a note on the door and challenged him to come get his wife?"
Two days later, the brigade's deputy commander advised the higher command, "As each day goes by, I get more input that these gals have some info and/or will result in getting the husband."
He went on, "These ladies fought back extremely hard during the original detention. They have shown indications of deceit and misinformation."
The command staff colonel wrote in reply, referring to a commanding general, "CG wants the husband."
The released e-mails stop there, and the women's eventual status could not be immediately determined.
Of this episode, Johnson said, "It is clear the unit believed the females detained had substantial knowledge of insurgent activity and warranted being held."
What I have found amazing in all of the coverage of Jill Carroll's kidnapping is that no one has ever suggested it was done in reaction to the way the US acts in Iraq.
Apparently US intelligence is so bad that they resort to war crimes to hunt down insurgents.
Taking hostages is a war crime. I know it isn't a big deal to the chickenhawks, but to most people, it is a loathesome act.
Also, it doesn't work. It just pisses people off and make people like Carroll's lives even riskier. She wasn't fucking with people like Steven Vincent or screwing around. She was listening to Iraqis. But if they toss your wife or mom in jail, you just don't give a fuck. She's an American and the Americans have your female kin in jail.
JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 27 — Zimbabwe's security minister was quoted in a government-controlled newspaper today as saying that "the net will soon close" on those remaining journalists whose criticism of the government threatens the nation's security.
The warning, by National Security Minister Didymus Mutasa, followed the arrest this month of employees and directors of Voice of the People, a Harare news organization that had broadcast uncensored reports into Zimbabwe via a shortwave transmitter in Madagascar operated by the Netherlands government.
The police in Mutare, in eastern Zimbabwe, also seized a well-known journalist on Jan. 18 and held him for three days on charges of violating the state's media laws. The journalist, Sidney Saize, was released last Saturday, but prosecutors indicated that he would still face charges.
Mr. Mutasa indicated that more arrests were forthcoming, saying that some Zimbabwean journalists have worked for foreign news organizations under pseudonyms but that the government "had since identified them from their closets."
The journalists were "driven by the love for the United States dollars and British pounds, which they are paid by the foreign media houses to peddle lies," he was quoted as saying in a report in the Manica Post, a state-run newspaper in Mutare.
Independent journalists have been under assault in Zimbabwe since 2003, when the government closed down the nation's biggest newspaper, The Daily News, which frequently criticized President Robert G. Mugabe's government. Only two weekly newspapers of significance remain outside government control, and all broadcast outlets are state-run.
Civil-liberties advocates inside Zimbabwe nevertheless said in interviews today that the latest comments may signal a renewed effort by the government to close down the remaining channels for disagreement with official policy.
....................
If you want a crisis to watch, this is it. The country could collapse into civil war and NATO intervention would be required.
What the mental midgets in DOD don't get is that there are times intevention will be required and if the US Army is broken, it won't happen. Darfur, Zimbabwe may all require US attention, given the African inability to do peacekeeping on their own. And not for trivial reasons, either. Zimbabwe has a greal deal of mineral wealth as does South Africa and disorder can spread rapidly, as can famine, something about preserving democracy over creating anarchy.
Last p.m. we had the unique experience of attending an Nat'l Press Club luncheon and discussion hosted by Alex S. Jones , dir. of the Shorenstein Center at the Kennedy School of Gov't at Harvard. Also in attendance were bloggers representing Power Line, AMERICAblog, RedState, MyDD, and others. So too were a number of MSM journalists-turned-bloggers, Beltway media critics and 2 of the minds behind CBS's Public Eye blog. Jones called the group together as part of a new initiative at the school called the Carnegie-Knight Task Force, which plans to issue a series of reports in the interest of strengthening journalism. This discussion group, entitled "A Discussion of Blogging and News Values," was the first of many to be hosted by the task force.
To summarize both sides' point of view, the bloggers in attendance implored the press to "do your job" while the establishment journalists argued that their mistakes did not warrant the harsh response. Both sides understood that evolving media technology has changed the reporting model irrevocably. If the dissolution of "the guild" -- i.e., who gets to be a "journalist" -- doesn't do it alone, the drift of advertising revenue away from newspapers will take care of the rest.
As you might expect from a room full of bloggers and MSM types, things got heated and voices were raised. But what we didn't expect was a surprise guest -- Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell. Howell has been at the focus of an ongoing controversy over corrections and comment standards at the Post, and much of the discussion focused on these controversies. Howell was there to give her side of the story, as well as get some feedback in a (somewhat) controlled environment.
First of all, Howell agreed that she had made a grievous error in describing disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff's political donations: "I made a mistake ... and I am heartsick about it." That aside, she also conceded that she had made a mistake by waiting several days to post a correction, noting the practice of running news corrections on Page 2 but running column corrections only in the column. This is a typical arrangement at most newspapers. New York Times public editor Byron Calame has also dealt with the columnist-correction discrepancy in recent months (see 9/19 Blogometer). Howell indicated that she was interested in creating a standard place for all corrections at the Post.
As we mentioned earlier, not everything went smoothly. When MyDD contributor Matt Stoller was given the microphone, he forcefully stated to Howell: "The antagonism here is coming from you guys." Seemingly frustrated by the Post's handwringing over the comments, he shouted: "Nothing happened to you!" At this point Jones asked Stoller whether words could do violence, and Stoller stepped back and changed course.
At one point, Howell said that when she was brought on, the Post had asked her if she would write a blog. She told them at the time, let's see how it goes. Lest these last few weeks' experience turn her off the idea for good, Howell said she was still considering it. She asked the room -- "Should I write a blog?" The bloggers -- including John Aravosis, one of her chief critics -- encouraged her to do so.
Also worth noting: Some present were a bit surprised to hear bloggers Aravosis and Kevin Aylward from Wizbang freely admit the fact that they too delete comments from their boards. Of course, their standards are looser than the Post, which dictates that swearing is expected and substantive attacks are encouraged, but no slander, no copyright violation, and "in general" no personal attacks. Aravosis also volunteered that this last rule wasn't followed strictly, and definitely wasn't followed during the Howell controversy, and for that he also volunteered an apology. When we get a copy of that Carnegie-Knight report, we'll be sure to share more.
Blogging isn't all posts and dinners.:)
Look, let's understand something: we are not alone. I represent your voice, you represent the readers who don't post, and they represent people who are interested in the ideas here.
It doesn't seem like a lot of people, but it is.
People used to say all bloggers did was opine. Well, now, we're challenging the system, one post at a time and with your help.
Arianna Huffington & Tim Russert (below) are squaring off in a new Beltway battle.
Celebrity blogger Arianna Huffington regularly attacks "Meet the Press" moderator Tim Russert as a Washington insider who gets chummy with the powerful. Usually there's no response.
But now Huffington has really gotten under Russert's skin - to the point of drawing blood.
Yesterday the entire NBC News publicity machine went ballistic on the impresario of Huffingtonpost.com, whose Web site is eight months old.
"The last time we heard from Ms. Huffington, she was hiring private eyes to investigate reporters," NBC News flack Barbara Levin E-mailed me yesterday, resurrecting an old charge that Huffington has repeatedly denied, including personally to Russert in 1996.
(Full disclosure: I've been friendly with Huffington for years, and Russert has barely spoken to me since I profiled him 17 years ago in The Washington Post.)
Tempers at NBC flared this week when Huffington skewered Russert's ethics for using his prestigious Sunday morning policy-and-politics program to hype his 19-year-old son Luke's sports-talk radio show - on which the Boston College sophomore will be paired with frequent "Meet the Press" panelist James Carville.
"With anyone I know?" Russert coyly asked Carville on last Sunday's "Meet the Press." "Maybe you would be familiar with someone I'll be teaming up in this," Carville responded, even more coyly.
Huffington - along with her close friend, Slate magazine blogger Mickey Kaus - also derided Russert's scheduled keynote speaking gig next week at a journalistic ethics conference at Ripon (Wis.) College. She wondered if Russert will receive his standard $50,000-$60,000 fee along with first-class airfare for two - although, she wrote yesterday, "according to [Russert's lecture agent] ... private planes are strongly preferred."
NBC's Levin wouldn't answer my money question, but assured me that "all of Tim's limited speaking engagements are approved by NBC management."
Huffington scoffed: "Inviting Tim Russert to keynote a conference on journalistic ethics is like having Jack Abramoff keynote a conference on lobbying reform."
To support the private-eye allegation, Levin faxed me a passage from Republican political consultant Ed Rollins' memoir, "Bare Knuckles and Back Rooms," in which he claims Huffington sicced a detective on Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth - Russert's wife - during her then-husband Michael Huffington's 1994 California Senate campaign.
"Everything Rollins is saying is a fabrication," Huffington told me, "and I have said that many, many times."
How else to explain the widely-off-the-mark responses from NBC's PR department in Lloyd Grove's column to our reporting on Russert's multitude of journalistic ethical conflicts.
Instead of dealing with the charges head on, the media giant and its Washington bureau chief Tim Russert have astonishingly decided to get down and dirty, dredging up and faxing to at least one reporter a 12-year-old false claim that I hired a private detective to snoop on Russert's wife Maureen Orth while she was preparing a hit piece on me for Vanity Fair in 1994.
I've denied this ludicrous charge, put forward without a shred of evidence many times before -- including directly to Russert during the '96 GOP convention in San Diego. But that's not the point. The point is that instead of addressing the issue of his failure to come clean with his audience on a host of ethical questions, Russert has turned the NBC publicity machine into a vehicle for sleaze and rumor-mongering.
How can one of the major news organizations in the world condone this abysmal behavior? Doesn't NBC News have ethical guidelines when it comes to this kind of thing? (And incidentally, why does NBC News refuse to publish its ethical guidelines, claiming that they are an internal document?)
Look, I know NBC News and Russert would much prefer to debate hoary charges against me rather than the real issues at hand. So let me remind them what those issues are.
Russert refuses to come clean with his audience about his role in Plamegate. He is a participant. He was interviewed under oath by Fitzgerald. But he continued to report on Plamegate as if he were a disinterested observer rather than a major player. And he still refuses to come clean and explain why he fought to keep from testifying in front of the Plamegate grand jury about his fateful chat with Scooter Libby -- even after Libby signed a waiver allowing him to do so.
Plamegate is the perfect segue to another unanswered question. How can someone with these ethical issues go and speak on ethics in the media, as Russert is about to do at Ripon College in Wisconsin next Thursday? And why is NBC refusing to disclose what his speaking fee is?
Russert's latest ethical lapse is his unseemly use of Meet the Press to promote James Carville's new XM radio sports show while refusing to come clean about the fact that Carville's co-host is Russert's college-age son, Luke.
NBC News' diversionary strategy might have worked in the days before blogs started holding the MSM's feet to the fire. But not anymore. One thing is for sure: the Huffington Post and many others in the blogosphere will keep asking the questions Tim Russert doesn't want to answer.
Here's the deal: we're tired of the bullshit. We're not some little groups like AIM or even Fair, but thousands of news consumers and we want you to do your job and stop with the GOP pimping.
Someone asked me in an earlier post why I think the GOP is more likely to split, an opinion I've had for years, and why not the Dems. Now, I'm not saying this will happen tomorrow, or is highly likely, but the conditions are there.
The first thing to understand is that Congress was designed to have NO parties. We have two large, umbrella parties because while a multiparty democracy is possible, the rules of Congress as established in the Constitution make it unlikely, because of the need to elect the speaker and other internal rules.
It also mitigates against coalition politics. Because it is easier to run against the insurgent party than deal with them. Of course, the Greens have been spectacularly inept in electoral politics, but even if they weren't, IRV is not enough of a cause to leave the Dems for most people.
Well, apart from not fighting hard enough, and maybe the war, is there some fundamental area of disagreement which would make you stay home and not vote for a Democratic candidate you otherwise agreed with?
Even Bob Casey, who drives people nuts, is going to get enough support from people to win. Which is why Paul Hackett has a chance as well. Even though there may be fundamental disagreements on certain issues, there is enough agreement to tolerate them.
There isn't that core issue which could fracture the Democratic Party. There is a general sense of agreement on getting Bin Laden, imporving the economy and abortion to keep the party filled with internecine battles for years to come. Tactical differences don't provide a solid reason to walk away. The 2000 election proved that. And even if they did, the work of building a party would need more than that.
What we are having are debates over tactics. Fight harder, fight differently. But with a few exceptions, the differences don't define the party. Even the anti-war debate is about when we leave, not if. Clinton and Lieberman want to leave after stability, Murtha wants to leave after a set period. Now there is a hell of a lot of difference in that, but it isn't the kind to send people off from the party. It might make people sulk, but in the end, even if they don't support a specific Dem, they're likely to vote and even contribute to downticket races.
A split would require you to want total change top to bottom. Not just your Senator or Presidential candidate, but your Congressman as well. There just isn't that kind of anger or a feeling of a lack of redress for most people. They want different tactics, maybe different people and policy, but they don't fundamentally want a different party, ie socializing oil or mass conscription for instance.
What you would need is a defining issue of personal relevance, like the right to drive or eat meat. If you had a significant faction of the Dems who wanted to ban the eating of meat, that would drive people not only away, but in opposition to the meat banning party. That's what abortion is to the GOP. The moderates have provided a shield the Alito vote is about to rip off. They have talked a good game, but chose party loyalty over everything else.
You also need a leader who has enough political and financial support to make a go of it. You would have to have at least 50 members of Congress as well to be successful, but Perot had the first two. The problem came with the downticket races. Perot wanted control and other people wanted more say. So by 1996, the party had turned into a cult.
None of these conditions exist in the Democratic Party. But they do in the GOP.
The GOP is very different, and you'll see this not so much this year, but in 2008. You have two basically incompatible wings of the GOP, one a fundamentalist wing which wants a soft theocracy, or Christianity first among peers. Then you have a liberterian wing which wants a near invisible government.
In Congress, you have Sam Brownback the Dominionist and Ron Paul the liberterian. Only in the US would these people be in the same party. They have been held together by uniting figures like Reagan and Bush II. In fact the President is the perfect mix of free trader and religious loon.
The problem is that no one else is.
The money people have used the fundies to stay in power. Without their churches, the GOP would be like the UK Tories. The GOP, by using churches, leaped ahead the Dems, who still relied on unions for GOTV. But it's a small advantage and comes with a price.
The fundies woke up last year and realized that they got played. They wanted Terri Schiavo snatched out of that hospice and expected Jeb to do it. Of course, the local sheriffs said they would have stopped the governor's men cold, but these people want their way, regardless of the cost.
The poor, deluded moderates, keep pretending that they are the voice of reason, and will eventually lose their seats to Dems who are more reliable votes on the Hill. So what happens is that the buffer between the money people and the fundies will disappear and a clash is inevitable.
Imagine for a moment if Cheney took ill and had to leave office. Bush would be under tremendous pressure to appoint someone close to the center, and the fundies would see their chance to get their man in. There is no clear successor, Rice, McCain, not too many others.
And that's the GOP's problem. There is no clear direction after Bush, no new ideology to rally around, no natural leader to follow. While the Dems merely have to pick one of any number of bright candidates to run, from the widely derided Clinton, to Gore and Kerry to Wes Clark to Bill Richardson and beyond. Once you get past McCain, you don't have any great Republican leader to follow. You have a sea of competing interests
What I don't think people on the left, or many of the liberterian/free traders realize is how deadly serious the fundies are. They are convinced that they are vicitms of a secular America which embraces ungodly values and want to destroy America. This isn't just doggerel, people truly believe that angels protect America and Satan wants to undermine it.
There are less of these people than they think, but enough to demand things go their way or else, and by else, meaning staying at home.
The fundies want a fundamentally different party than the free traders. They want an intrusive nanny state which could not only morally regulate private lives, but place Christianity as the first among equal of religions.
This is what drove the splits of 1948. Norman Thomas Henry Wallace was pushing for a quasi-socialist state, while Strom Thurmond wanted to protect segregation. Both happened in the Democratic Party, because there were not only competing visions, but mutually hostile visions. FDR had kept them in line, but by 1948, they couldn't co-exist. And they each had some support in Congress.
The constituent groups of the Democratic party, minorities, get a pretty hefty voice in Democratic politics, the fundies have been kept from the levers of power. Most of their leaders are outside Congress. At some point, this will change.
These folks aren't holding Justice Sundays to help Bush, but to push their people into Congress and the judiciary. They see Bush on their side, but they think they are the victims. They believe two very dangerous things: one, that they are the majority, and two, as the majority, they should be able to make the rules, turning American custom and jurispridence on its head.
There are all the conditions for a political split in the GOP. You have two well-defined sides, a sense that one side is treated unfairly and could do its cause better on its own, and the realization that they have done all the heavy lifting, yet gotten little for their efforts.
The fundies may try and take over the GOP, but they don't have the numbers. But they have money and leaders.
The reason that I think a split is possible is because the current Congress is going to collapse in a sea of indictments. Oh, and as Tom DeLay has shown, there may be underlying state charges lying out there as well. And of course, civil lawsuits.
What is lacking for a split is a final trigger, a final dispute which can split the party. An early Bush or Cheney exist could set it off, a refusal to overturn Roe, a whole set of conditions which could so enrage the fundies that they stop their support of the GOP.
A Democratic trigger would be if a Democratic Congress decided to level New Orleans, which could alienate blacks enough to send them out of the party. But that is unlikely, while fundie discontent is on the surface, because they feel under siege by American life.
People may be expecting some kind of Bush Deus Ex Machina, but Bush isn't the kind of man who saves anyone.
But once the Congress comes under investigation, there is a moral component to the fundies which could drive them to push their own candidates. There are signs of this with the Blackwell race and others. Blackwell is so divisive and scary to the Ohio GOP, and working with open evangelical support, that the upcoming primary could split the GOP between its two wings.
The bellweather for any GOP fissures should surface in the corruption tainted Ohio GOP primaries.
NEW YORK - The Rev.Al Sharpton has asked for an apology from Cartoon Network for an episode of edgy animated series "The Boondocks" that shows the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. saying the n-word.
"Cartoon Network must apologize and also commit to pulling episodes that desecrate black historic figures," Sharpton, a civil-rights activist and former Democratic presidential candidate, said in a statement Tuesday.
"We are totally offended by the continuous use of the n-word in (cartoonist Aaron) McGruder's show."
The episode, "The Return of the King," aired Jan. 15, the day before the national holiday honoring the slain civil-rights leader. It shows King emerging from a coma and using the n-word in an angry speech venting his frustration toward sexually explicit hip-hop videos, among other things.
In the episode, King is branded a traitor and terrorist sympathizer for his "turn-the-other cheek" philosophy of nonviolence in response to post-Sept. 11 retaliation. Exhausted, he moves to Canada, but his speech provokes a second civil-rights revolution.
So don't watch the show.
You have BET showing uncut videos which are basically strippers, and silence from the black community. The problem is not the videos, but the network which shows them.
Then you have the absolutely useless editor of Essence who wants to tell rappers what to say.
Earth to critics: black writers and performers work under the same First Amendment as anyone else. If you don't like what people have to say, don't buy their books or watch their shows. You don't have the right to demand a retraction or to tell McGruder what to say on his show.
If you want to talk about denigrating the King legacy, get the King family on the phone and ask them why they have mismanaged their foundation. They still selling Yolanda's book there?
The fact is that McGruder is unsparing about black culture and folkways in a way which is pretty much undecipherable to white America. They may get the jokes, but not the context. It's why Diary of a Mad Black Woman escaped most reviewers while making a fist full of money.
Where were these critics when Bob Johnson attacked him viciously? Nowhere. Now they want to determine what he says.
The first episode mocked the tendency of hero worship in the black community. Another, the fake gansterism of rappers, which ends with the rapper and his former lover kissing. That is pretty fucking radical for black America. The ONLY other place you see black men kissing is Jerry Springer. But there it was, revealing something widely acknowledged in private. Another episode parodied Rumsfeld and Bush as crazy wigger gangstas, who wind up robbing a store owned by a Saddam look-alike over hunting down the "X Box" killer.
Last week's episode "The Itis" discussed the problem with eating tons of soul food. The grand father creates a burger with five slices of bacon, cheese and placed between two grilled Krispy Kreme dounts. Needless to say, it turns into crack, with people begging for food and hanging outside his new restaurant.
Besides the gorgeous, anime-level animation, the politcs here are much more aggressive than in the strip. The word nigga is the least reason to complain about the show. The grandfather beats a man to death over an argument, Uncle Rukus is a self-hating black man who would surpass the clowns who work for NRO. In short, there is a lot to dislike about the show.
But, the fact is that this is the first time a non-rapper, non-novelist gets to have a forum to discuss black life from someone under 50. This is a nearly unique perspective on modern African American life and it is not comfortable at times. But it is not ignorant either. It is extremely well thought out and makes points in a way which need to be made.
The King show was NOT critical of King in any way. It was, however, a brutal take on our celebrity driven culture and how trivial many black people have become. It made a point that people need to reclaim their dignity and stop worrying about Diddy's latest aquisition. In fact it lamented his absence in a very real way, an important way. In fact, McGruder showed greater fidelity to King's message than his own family has in recent years.
We have so many people making trivial messages and making millions, yet, these people want to go after McGruder for a word we all use? That's bullshit and it's wrongheaded. There's a deeper message in his work, if you want to find it.
Republicans are scrambling to clean their House -- but the dirt won't wash off "The Republicans are now and always have been the party of reform," said a grinning David Dreier, surveying the crowd of journalists in the congressional radio and TV gallery.
The nattily dressed House Rules committee chairman then paused, as if to give someone in the crowd a chance to chuck a bottle at his head. No one did. So he went on: "I see this," he said, "as a wonderful new opportunity for us . . ."
Again, he paused. No bottles, no rotten tomatoes, no clouds of flying dog-shit landing with a slap! on his receding forehead. Given what the Republican leadership might have expected, at a press conference unveiling a "lobby reform" package in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal (what Dreier meant by "this"), the event was a smashing success.
Standing next to Dreier, nodding with mild approval but also scanning the crowd cautiously, was the boarlike House speaker, Dennis Hastert. Hastert had kicked off this presser with similarly inspired oratory -- the highlight of which, according to my notes, was this line: "It's not acceptable to, uh, break the rules or the law."
Now he was standing there next to Dreier, motionless and mute, with the nervous, half-bored look of a man with a commuter train to catch. It was a lonely picture: an exhausted fat man playing his last political card and an effete Californian in a too-orange tie, standing alone behind a plywood podium in a dank congressional closet, putting a brave face on The End. In the wake of the Abramoff scandal, they were all that was left of the once-vaunted Republican leadership. It was like a Star Trek script gone hopelessly wrong, with Kirk and Spock beheaded in the first two minutes, and no one left to man the bridge but Scotty and maybe that blond nurse of McCoy's, the one in the blue minidress.
The Dreier-Hastert press conference felt in every way like the very last act in the desperate black comedy known as the Tom DeLay era of Republican rule in Washington. What will follow is a new play, a gruesome tragedy in all likelihood, whose main characters will be Abramoff, an enraged public and a succession of grandstanding criminal prosecutors. But lonely and desperate as it was, this last event had all the wit and spirit of an inspired farce -- the chutzpah, the arrogance, the spit-in-your-eye rhetoric, the maddening cloud of impunity hanging over it all.
Just consider: At this critical moment in the party's history, when survival required some kind of dramatic public gesture toward self-policing, the GOP needed an innocent, someone with clean hands, to lead the "anti-corruption" drive. The Democrats, who a day later would announce their own reform bill, would do just that -- elevating relative political virgins Rep. Louise Slaughter and Sen. Barack Obama to starring roles in their own "Clean House" movement.
But the Republicans who ran this town like a dictatorship for most of the past five years apparently looked around and could not find a single plausible virgin for the part of their Mr. Clean.
Of the two leading candidates for the recently vacated House majority leader seat, one (acting leader Roy Blunt) had attempted to slip tobacco-friendly language into a Homeland Security authorization bill while having an extramarital affair with a Phillip Morris lobbyist, while the other (John Boehner) had once been caught handing out checks from tobacco interests to members of Congress on the floor of the House.
Elsewhere, the Commerce committee chairman (Joe Barton) had inserted a provision into an energy bill on behalf of a company that had paid $56,000 to a PAC to "get a seat at the table," and the names of the House deputy whip (Eric Cantor), the House conference secretary (John Doolittle) and the House appropriations chair (Jerry Lewis) were all floating around in various sordid Abramoff tales involving golf junkets, Indian tribes and floating casinos. The only Republican names not burning putrid holes in the front pages of The Washington Post were the ones who at that very minute were busy forming alliances and gearing up for a factional challenge to the DeLay/Hastert/Bush-backed congressional leadership.
So in the end, to whom did the Republicans turn to be their white knight? David Dreier, a man whose very first act in last year's Congress was to write a Rules package that not only sought to rewrite the congressional rules to allow the majority leader to continue service while under indictment for a felony but also castrated the Ethics committee, changing its structure in such a way that the Republicans could unilaterally quash any further investigations of DeLay.
As chair of the Rules committee -- a murky body whose chairman has the power to rewrite bills entirely before they are voted on -- Dreier moreover was presumably the gatekeeper to much of the midnight shenanigans involving earmarks and last-minute insertions of paid-for corporate goodies in big pieces of legislation. Perhaps more than any other Republican, Dreier was a symbol of the institutional corruption that allowed DeLay to almost single-handedly manipulate Congress like a marionette for the Abramoffs of the world. As one Democratic staffer said to me, "Putting Dreier in charge of this is the biggest fucking joke you can possibly imagine." ..................
MATT TAIBBI
Bwaaah.
I know people are pissed about Alito, but that is the prelude to some dark months for the GOP. Bush's feeble claims of hunting "terrorists" will be exposed as a lie.
How stupid is this, how risky?
Like betting all in on a 2-7 off suit after seeing the flop with neither 2 or 7. I don't think Bush realizes that this WILL be litigated this year and FBI agents will testify to running down thousands of useless tips against ordinary Americans in open court.
And Congress? Jesus These guys are super fucked. They are going to have a parade of people in and out of the Prettyman building all year. If Bush is lucky, and he's never been. Rove might get off the hook. But time is not his ally. The longer this goes on, the more he can expected to wind up in the dock.
Bush is now in the danger zone. His popularity is low, but not at it's nadir, Congress is about to be crippled, and one more thing could send this spiraling out of control. Bush has played crisis manager for four years, Katrina proved he wasn't.
Now, you have the Army collapsing, Hamas our new partners in peace, and a sea of scandal about to engulf Washington.
And the problem is that Bush simply doesn't have the political skills or popularity to pull off an escape. And Cheney is hated by most Americans, so he's no help
The management here is strictly day to day and as Glenn Greenwald proved, the past is no friend either.
It was clear that Bush would fuck up, but this is like being on a mountain and feeling that low rumble before an avalanche.
Even with the Dems sorting things out, people should realize this could create the opening for either a far right or center-right independent party. I know people keep talking about bolting the Dems or something, but that's unlikely because there isn't enough of a base to win seats.
However, if the GOP collapses, I can see fundies saying: no more, we need our own people. Or like the Reform Party of 1992, the moderates throwing up their hands.
Why not the Dems? Because blogs have found a way to support campaigns online with money. That doesn't exist on the right. Besides, there isn't a base to form a real split on. The Greens get 2 percent of the vote and are unaquainted with the realities of American electoral politics. The fundies, OTOH, are about 13-15 percent of the population. Not enough to win, but enough to make you think about going on your own. And after years of being let down by the GOP, well.....
Also, there will be an ideological disillusionment with the GOP. The big mistake the GOP made was to become the Bush Party, thinking they would dominate American politics for decades. Which is what the K Street project was about. The ever gullible media fell in line as well, pronouncing the death of the Dems.
Imagine being a fundie who worked like a dog for the GOP, only to find out your Congressman was a gambling supporting crook. Either you run someone who is one of you or you run to a new party.
No one is considering the consequences of all that values talk. The GOP talked a good game while taking payoffs for casinos. There has to be a consequence for that with their most loyal supporters.
The moderates are trying to be loyal party members, but a bunch of them are about to lose their jobs in November because they were loyal to Bush. Why vote a moderate who talks a good game instead of a Dem who will actually oppose Bush.
Corruption is the ultimate political wild card, there is no way to predict how it ends up. It could be nothing, a little, a lot or total collapse.
Matthews: "When I think of people who come to this country from other countries - they speak Spanish-Puerto Rico which is not another country, but is the common wealth. Hardest working people, they're extremely entrepreneurial if it's just owning a flower shop, it's owning a small business-a bodega-right?
Puerto Ricans come to this country to start business. Cubans certainly come here to start businesses. The hardest working people in the United States are people who just got here from Mexico-the first day they get here. Everybody knows they don't want a big social democracy. They want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism don't they?
Mayor Villaraigosa: I think what they want-
Matthews: They sound like they are natural republicans to me.
Mayor Villaraigosa: I think what they want is the American dream and are willing to work for it...
So being hard working and wanting to get a head in the world to Chris Matthews is only a Republican ideal. I almost forgot how the Minutemen feel about Mexicans all of a sudden.
T coming (rough trancsript)
Matthews: "When I think of people who come to this country from other countries - they speak Spanish-Puerto Rico which is not another country, but is the common wealth. Hardest working people, they're extremely entrepreneurial if it's just owning a flower shop, it's owning a small business-a bodega-right?
Puerto Ricans come to this country to start business. Cubans certainly come here to start businesses. The hardest working people in the United States are people who just got here from Mexico-the first day they get here. Everybody knows they don't want a big social democracy. They want free enterprise and entrepreneurialism don't they?
Mayor Villaraigosa: I think what they want-
Matthews: They sound like they are natural republicans to me.
Mayor Villaraigosa: I think what they want is the American dream and are willing to work for it...
So being hard working and wanting to get a head in the world to Chris Matthews is only a Republican ideal. I almost forgot how the Minutemen feel about Mexicans all of a sudden.
His ignorance is amazing, Are you sure he worked for Dems on the Hill.
I could go on at length about why most Hispanics, except Florida Cubans, vote Democratic, but I only need to say one name: Tom Tancredo.
As long as that man sits in a Congressional seat, most Hispanics will vote Democratic, because he represents the most vile kind of racism, even wanting to strip the birth right of people born in the US, a right under the constitution. A right given to us as a natural part of being an American. It isn't him, himself, but the kind of irrational hatred he represents.
And if the idiot knew anything about Mexico, he would know it has been socialist since the 1920's. It's the poverty and classism which drives people north.
By TERENCE HUNT, AP White House Correspondent 10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush defended anew his program of warrantless surveillance Thursday, saying "there's no doubt in my mind it is legal." He suggested that he might resist congressional efforts to change it.
"The program's legal, it's designed to protect civil liberties, and it's necessary," Bush told a White House news conference.
Democrats have accused the president of breaking the law in allowing eavesdropping on overseas communications to and from U.S. residents, and even some members of his own party have questioned the practice.
Asked if he would support efforts in Congress to give him express authority to continue the program, Bush cited what he said was the extreme delicacy of the operation.
"It's so sensitive that if information gets out about how the program works, it will help the enemy," Bush said. "Why tell the enemy what we're doing?"
"We'll listen to ideas. If the attempt to write law is likely to expose the nature of the program, I'll resist it," the president said.
It's sad to see this, Bush going out like a failed CEO, but that's his choice. The lies catch up with you in the end. This is all going to be exposed at trial, and possibly lead to overturned cases.
I've heard of short term thinking before, but this is like ADD thinking. They assume we're so shitscared that we're going to go along with any lie.
You could even see from Bush's manner that he was trying to convince the reporters he was right. The nervous laughs, the bold declarations. All lies.
In an extraordinary reversal of her strident and angry defense of the author whose book she catapulted to the top of the best-seller list, Oprah Winfrey said today she believed that the author James Frey "betrayed millions of people" by making up elements of his life in his best-selling memoir, "A Million Little Pieces."
She added that she believed "I made a mistake" when she said that the truth of the book mattered less then its story of redemption.
In a live broadcast of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" from her studios in Chicago in which she interviewed Mr. Frey, Ms. Winfrey apologized to her audience for her call to "Larry King Live" earlier this month defending the author. Today she berated Mr. Frey for duping her and her audience.
"I gave the impression that the truth does not matter," Ms. Winfrey said. "I made a mistake." To all of the viewers who called and wrote to her telling her she was wrong to allow Mr. Frey to maintain that his book reflected the "essential truth" of his life even though substantial details were falsified, Ms. Winfrey said, "You are right."
"I feel duped," she said. "I don't know what is true and I don't know what isn't," she said, before addressing Mr. Frey with the question, "Why did you lie?"
I guess Hazelden demanded on air time and would refuse to send their people to her show, or something.
By STEVEN ERLANGER and GREG MYRE Published: January 26, 2006
RAMALLAH, West Bank - The Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, and his government submitted their resignations Thursday as the radical Islamic faction Hamas appeared to have scored a major upset and defeated the ruling Fatah party in parliamentary elections.
Palestinian supporters of Islamic Hamas waving flags and holding weapons during a rally in the southern Gaza Strip refugee camp of Khan Younis. More Photos >
However, no official results were expected until Thursday evening.
Fatah, which has dominated Palestinian politics for decades, was favored in Wednesday's election and exit polls released after the polls closed projected Fatah as the winner by a narrow margin.
But on Thursday morning, Hamas leaders claimed their own count showed that the group was winning an outright majority in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council. Sixty-seven seats are needed for a majority, and Ismail Haniya, a senior Hamas leader, said the group expected to at least 70.
The Palestinian Central Elections Commission had not released any results as of Thursday afternoon, but said preliminary figures would be announced in the evening.
Fatah did not formally concede defeat, but in announcing his resignation, Mr. Qurei, seemed to indicate a Hamas victory was likely.
"If it's true, then the president should ask Hamas to form a new government," Mr. Qurei said. "For me, personally, I sent my resignation."
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and the Fatah leader, was elected a year ago and his position is not affected by Wednesday's vote. However, Mr. Abbas, commonly known as Abu Mazen, wants to restart peace negotiations with Israel, and there is no realistic possibility of that happening if Hamas leads the next Palestinian government.
Israel calls Hamas a terrorist group and has always refused to deal with the organization. Contacts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are already limited and fraught with difficulty, and would only become more so with Hamas in the Palestinian government.
The acting prime minister of Israel, Ehud Olmert, said on Wednesday that his country could not accept a situation in which Hamas would be part of the Palestinian Authority if the group remained armed with unchanged goals.
"I will not negotiate with a government that does not meet its most basic obligations to fight terrorism," Mr. Olmert said in a meeting with Sen. Joseph R. Biden, Democrat of Delaware. "We are prepared to assist the Palestinians and Abu Mazen very much but they must meet their commitments."
While claiming victory, Hamas leaders continued to be vague about their plans. If Hamas does have a majority in parliament, it could lead the government without any coalition partners. Hamas says it is willing to work with Fatah and other factions, but has not provided details.
First, Fatah was corrupt. That alone can cost you a government.
Second, everyone knows Hamas will not back down from Israel.
Third, George Bush backed Fatah. Once again, Bush gets a slightly friendly government replaced with a hostile one. Evo Morales, meet Hamas. American support is a near guarantee of a political defeat. The Canadians are the exceptions, for now, but given that the PC has a minority government, the odds of it lasting a year are small.
While Bush loves to talk about Democracy, the fact is that if you held elections in every middle east country today, the hard right fundimentalists would win in most cases, often in landslides. Egypt, Saudi Arabia. Why? Because political discontent has been combined with religious fundamentalism, and the Bush war in Iraq has pushed that along.
Before I begin, I just want to say thank you to all you Kossacks who have been so kind and thanked me for serving. I greatly apprieciate it. I always thought I'd be reluctant to speak on my time in the Marines, but now I realize the greatest disservice I can do for my buddies still in uniform is to remain silent.
I want to inform all of you, first hand, what I find most of those brave men and women find truly demoralizing. I'll give you a hint. Dissent is nowhere on this list.
1. Being Unprepared.
There is a sort of gallows humor that one clings to in Iraq. This is especially true when outfitting a Humvee with armor. I've saw some of those Up-Armor vehicles out there. Almost all of the grunts don't have them. They have to ride around with plates attached to their vehicles. This plating is spotty at best. The truth of the matter is it does very little to stop shrapnel in a blast. It will deflect some of it, but it is hardly a substitute for the fully-armored humvees I saw out there. Now we find out 80% of torso-related fatalities could have been avoided had the Pentagon distributed certain plates they had in their posession. It's like being thrown to the meatgrinder. Feeling expendable is demoralizing.
2. Victory?
The people who fought in WWII had an end to look forward to. Win or lose, they knew the parameters of the endgame. What constitutes a win in Iraq? No one, it seems not even the President, really knows. Being in the military these days is like being on a hamster wheel. They keep going to the same town, clearing them, leaving, and months later repeating the process. They come home for a year and go back again. They are tired. And there are no checkpoints to victory. There is no way to measure progress. There is no end in sight. What these men and women need to know is how victory can be achieved, and what they can do to achieve it. Attainable short-term goals to achieve the long term one. Without this information, the everything being done out there feels futile.
3. Losing Friends
I was a combat-videographer. I moved from unit to unit. While I was with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, I met a Marine who's name, God help me, escapes my grasp right now. He was a good guy, and funny. He was also mutilating himself. He would put cigarettes out on his arms, and had eight distinct scars the last time I saw him. There were five on one arm. He said those were for people he killed. There were three on the other. Those were for friends he'd lost. One of my fellow videographers name was William Salazar. That's a link to his name on icasualties.org. He's dead now, killed by a roadside bomb. I watched the flag that draped his coffin being handed to his sobbing mother. It was difficult to say the least. The truth is I went to far too many memorial ceremonies during my time in the Corps, and these men and women deserve our highest regard. But it weighs heavy on the mind, and on the soul.
In all honesty, there aren't many grunts who will articulate these ideas. Most of them could care less about politics. Many do not want to look weak. But I also know that demanding to bring them home does not demoralize them. If anything, the idea of "Staying the Course" when there is no clear course really weighs on them. It weighed on me.
I believe success in Iraq is worth fighting for, but our military was given the short end from the very start. That, the incompetance of the leaders that should know better, is something that will tear down even the most resolute of fighting men under the hot Iraqi sun.
The Bush Administration opposed legislation that would have given them the very power they now claim they needed, power they now claim they didn't have under FISA. It's because they didn't have this power, they now claim, that they had to break the law and spy without a warrant. But this law would have given them much of the legal power they wanted. Yet they said they didn't need it, and worse yet, that the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. But now we know they did it anyway.
And it was all discovered by a blogger, and now it's a big story in Thursday's Washington Post and LA Times. Amazing.
And when you read through the story, below, note what the administration NOW says. They claim the new legislation wouldn't have gone far enough. Really? First, the administration said at the time that the legislation went too far and wasn't needed, so bull.
Second, the Bush administration now is changing their story and claiming that they opposed the legislation because it wouldn't have permitted them to snoop as much as they wanted. But back in 2002 the Bush people said that even the lesser-snooping-power in the proposed legislation was likely unconstitutional. So if the lesser power was likely unconstitutional, imagine how unconstitutional Bush's ACTUAL domestic spying program was and is? A program that by the Bush administration's own admission went (and goes) far beyond what the proposed proposed law would have allowed.
And what's more, the proposed legislation that the Bush administration thought might be unconstitutional, that law applied only to the Bush administration spying on foreigners, NOT Americans. If it was likely unconstitutional for them to use the proposed law to spy on foreigners, imagine how unconstitutional that law would have been had it been applied to Americans? But the Bush warrantless spying WAS on Americans, and by their own admission went FAR beyond the proposed unconstitutional law.
So Bush chose to break the law when he had an alternative. And what's worse, this suggests that Bush feared the Supreme Court would never let him spy on Americans the degree to which he wanted, the court would find it unconstitutional, so that's why Bush never sought the change in the law proposed in 2002 - Bush thought it would have been struck down by the Supreme Court. So Bush chose to break the law in order to circumvent the Supreme Court enforcing the US Constitution.
This is huge.
Glenn, the blogger who broke this, makes one more important point:
And its claim that Congress knew of and approved of its FISA-bypassing eavesdrop program is plainly negated by the fact that the same Congress was debating whether such changes should be effectuated and then refused to approve much less extreme changes to FISA than what the Administration secretly implemented on its own (and which it now claims Congress authorized).
......The fiasco in Iraq and the president's response to the Hurricane Katrina catastrophe were Mr. Bush's two most spectacular foul-ups. There have been many others. The president's new Medicare prescription drug program has been a monumental embarrassment, leaving some of the most vulnerable members of our society without essential medication. Prominent members of the president's own party are balking at the heavy hand of his No Child Left Behind law, which was supposed to radically upgrade the quality of public education.
The Constitution? Civil liberties? Don't ask.
Just keep in mind, whatever your political beliefs, that incompetence in high places can have devastating consequences.
Can? Motherfucker, where you been living since 2001?
Has. Bush has lived down to character and fucked up every thing he touched, like he has his entire life. George Bush, is the modern day Edward VII without the grace to be foolish in love.
Not even Nixon was so tempermentally unsuited to be President. We can list his faults and have but it comes down to this: he is incompetent.
I know doing the day in and day out of politics can get people down, and today was a tough day. But I think a lot of us glossed over Bruce Bennett's denunciation of Bush. That's the kind of thing which erodes support in the party for Bush. I mean, he's being sued by Grover Norquist and Bob Barr over privacy. And the excuses for spying sound like the lies Otter and the boys told Dean Wormer.
While we argue over the fate of the Dems, we're really arguing over the future of the party. The Republicans are too, but they want to pretend they aren't. Bush barely won twice, the odds of another Republican following, given his management style, is low.
What we all need to remember is that the GOP in Congress is going to be facing utter disaster as Casino Jack spills his guts, and that's the best they can expect. Because the screaming about Medicare D (the program which sends the elderly to do internet research) and internal wiretaps will only grow.
Then we have Iraq and the collapsing Army.
Like a CEO caught in a scandal about to sink his company, Bush lies, and lies badly.
Congress cannot avoid it's responsibilities forever. They cannot continue to defend the president and do their jobs. They will have to choose to keep their jobs. If they don't, they will be replaced wholesale. We keep harping on the Dems refusal to fight, but we need to also scream about the GOP's refusal to do their jobs as a check on the president. They're not just cheerleaders. They have a duty to the consitution and we need to make sure they do it. They cannot get a pass because they are Republicans. Their first duty is to the constitution and if they feel it isn't, they need to say so. But they have to be held to account.
Given the stakes, the GOP's cowardice is a bigger danger to us at the moment.
PEOPLE who love cold weather appreciate it not just for the skiing, the ice fishing or the joy of having their eyelashes turn brittle enough to break in the winter chill. No, they love it because when the insanity is over, getting warm feels so gloriously wonderful.
That is the moment for a cozy fire, woolen socks and a favorite robe; for Tolstoy, not a tell-all; for nutritious resonance rather than fleeting charm. And it is the time for barley wine, the robust, complex brewed counterpart to Port, Madeira or Armagnac.
That's right, brewed. Barley wine is not a wine at all but a beer, or to be geekishly precise, a top-fermented ale of exceptional strength, power and length. Barley wines are not for chugging after a workout. They are not refreshing but thought-provoking, sip by contemplative sip. Many even benefit from cellaring, most for a year or two, but some for a decade or more. Barley wines are sometimes dated with the brewing equivalent of the vintage year, and, even more so than wine, vintages can be entirely different.
I like to think of Bilbo Baggins, comfortable and secure in his paneled Hobbit hole, with a cupboard full of seedcakes and a mug of barley wine. Hobbits? Well, it's my own flight of fancy and not meant at all to minimize the assertive power of barley wines, which after all are as British as the folklore that inspired Tolkien. As Garrett Oliver writes in his essential book, "The Brewmaster's Table" (HarperCollins, 2003): "In the early 1700's the emergence in England of a wealthy merchant class, the development of pale malts, and a more scientific approach to the brewing process gave rise to ales that rivaled the finest wines in their finesse, complexity and strength. These beers were not for the masses, but for the aristocracy, who had grown tired of having their wine supplies cut off by pesky wars with France."
An Indian man has been living in a tree for the past 15 years despite passionate appeals by his mother to return home.
Kapila Pradhan, 45, a resident of Nagajhara village in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, left home after an apparent tiff with his wife.
"My son and daughter-in-law quarrelled constantly after their son was born and their relationship soured day by day," says his mother Sishula.
"One morning I found my son had left the house while everybody was still asleep."
A month later, villagers found him deep in the forest living in a tree.
"I went to the forest to bring him back home but he refused," she adds.
"Hurt and rejected I had to come back home. I cried a lot," says Kapila's mother.
................
His neighbours say Kapila's wife, Tulasi, began having "illicit relations" with his younger brother Babuan.
Soon after Kapila left home, Babuan moved in with Tulasi and they had a child a few years later.
"I am not formally married to Tulasi but have accepted her as my partner because I care for her," says Babuan.
He rejects the allegation that his brother left because of his alleged relationship with his sister-in-law and says he began a relationship with her only after he realised his brother was never coming back.
.................
His mother Sishula says it is hardly likely, but if he does, he should not reclaim his wife
Folks, this message just in from Progressive Democrats For America (PDA). _____________________
The Fillibuster is within our grasp! Call now and let them know we mean business!
Fillibuster here we come... No Retreat, No Surrender!
Senate Democrats refuse to signal whether or not they will filibuster Alito. They appear to have 41 votes, since Ben Nelson (D-NE) is the only one of 44 Democrats who supports Alito. Jim Jeffords (I-VT) should oppose Alito, and 5 Republicans - Lamar Alexander (TN), Lincoln Chafee (RI) Susan Collins (ME), Olympia Snowe (ME), and Ted Stevens (AK) - are undecided.
We've called and called, but we need to call our Senators again and DEMAND A FILIBUSTER: TOLL FREE - 888-355-3588 or 888-818-6641
For extra credit, use the same numbers to call all the 2008 Presidential candidates who are sitting Senators - Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Russ Feingold, and John Kerry - and tell them to either LEAD THE FILIBUSTER or FORGET ABOUT YOUR SUPPORT. You can also send that message to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (202-224-2447) and the Democratic National Committee (202-863-8000
This is from KillCastro. It seems that these guys dislike Castro a whole lot and like being hoodwinked by the GOP. Someone should tell them that when Castro goes, open arms shouldn't be expected. Iraqis labored under that delusion, now they flee Iraq by the day.
Ah! The USA and its immigration laws. Talk about a tangled mess of bullshit where money talks and human rights are worth a fuck.
There is this Argentinean bombshell named DORISMAR (pic included as a point of reference not for salacious purposes).
The girl has appeared in most men’s magazines in the USA, Playboy, Stuff etc.
Apparently a rival of hers (my wife had to explain all of this to me ‘cause I just read the unbelivable blurb in Univision looking for some info about Posada Carriles and did not find SHIT!) snitched that she had been in the USA as an illegal inmigrant for months , acting on Spanish TV shows and doing her whole sexpot thing. So the woman and her husband/manager got deported to Argentina.
But HERE COMES THE BUCKS . The girl is a BIG golden egg for that goose UNIVISION , and they come up with this reasoning why she deserves a hearing to be admitted as a legal alien.
The lawyer presents as their defense that “Dorismar is an illegal alien of unusual talents and therefore should be allowed to stay in the USA”
This clause of UNUSUAL TALENT has been used for people like John Lennon, Hugh Grant and the like. Now what is Dorismar UNUSUAL talent you ask ??
She happens to have one of the best 25 asses in the world.
I KID YOU NOT! THAT is the actual defense and it is being considered by some judge in Miami.!!!!
According to the appeal “She is an “ASSET” (can you fucking believe this?” ) to the USA and therefore should be granted legal status.!!!!
If this sounds way too bizarre to be true, go to UNIVISION and search for her name.
A Balsero has to pull a god damn miracle to even be heard in a court of law in the USA but a woman who knowingly breaks the law, who works in the USA without a valid Social Security number (which as I understand should be a massive fine for UNIVISION) is actually being given the chance to “appeal” her case because some clever lawyer being paid a TON of money by UNIVISION is using a very vague loophole as to what is considered TALENT in the USA.
Oh and to top it off do you know who is being accused of snitching her out? ANOTHER UNIVISION BIMBO , who happens to be Cuban. So this has become a Cuban Bimb vs. Argentinian Bimb scandal !
And this concludes the “gossip” portion of our show! Now, you may laugh ( or cry ) but this is our tax dollars at work people, in the meantime the USA Coast Guards have NO fucking idea what constitutes USA territory.
Of course, these folks are whining because the Coasties just sent back a boatload of Cubans who landed on a bridge.
The problem is that US immigration allows for this kind of disparity in treatment because of the Cuban exception. If everybody went back, there would be no loopholes.
They needed to break the law as well. It was about public order
This is from the fluffernutters at the GOP
Dear Steve,
The President's most solemn duty under our Constitution is to protect the American people. In the four years since we were attacked, this President has made a commitment to take this war directly to the enemy, and to use all the tools at his disposal to keep America safe. A critical element in this strategy is the terrorist surveillance program that the President authorized shortly after September 11th.
This week, President Bush discussed this vital program in remarks at Kansas State University and the National Security Agency. The President's remarks addressed the critics and debunked the falsehoods and distortions. The terrorist surveillance program monitors al Qaeda terrorists and affiliates making phone calls into or from the United States - precisely the type of communication that preceded the 9/11 attacks. This is not "domestic spying" on ordinary Americans arranging Little League practices or pot luck dinners. It's a tool that even FDR used in fighting World War II.
With Democrats deliberately distorting the truth about these efforts to stop attacks before they occur, will you help separate fact from fiction by writing a letter to the editor, calling talk radio, or calling your elected officals about this vital program?
After September 11th, we heard so often that our government failed to connect the dots. So, the President signed the Patriot Act, which had been passed overwhelmingly by Congress. He took appropriate action to connect the dots. He reformed the government bureaucracy, enabling it to fight a different kind of war.
Now, the Patriot Act is up for renewal. How do Democrats respond? They play politics, brag about "killing" the Patriot Act (video here), and accuse the President of breaking the law and violating civil rights. These are not the actions of a party that can be trusted to safeguard our national security.
The President is committed to fighting this war and will not let our nation let its guard down. Take action now and let your fellow Americans know that you won't either.
Sincerely,
Once you finish vomitting, this should cheer you up
Ah, sweet irony of life. It was less than three years ago that Bruce Bartlett, a supply-side economist who's held a bouquet of policy-adviser positions, was writing columns trying to dump ice water on the "angry," "inflammatory," "apoplectic" Paul Krugman. But last October Bartlett, a sure-as-shootin' Reagan conservative, was hustled to the exit from his post at the National Center for Policy Analysis for impure thoughts and words that violated the rightwing think-tank's canon.
Next month will see the publication of his new book about Bush's superbad economic policy, and, my my, does much of it sound Krugmanesque, an adjective that I consider a compliment. Bartlett emerges from these pages drenched in an auburn shade of Bitter Disillusionment, and the title alone tells you how fed-up, cheesed-off, and ready to bring on the funk he is:
Four presidents dominate this book: Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush the Son. And the thesis of the book is that Bush is much closer to Nixon than Reagan, and that conservatives have reason to rue that they ever mau-mau'd Clinton about Monica. An unharassed, unbesieged Clinton might have truly reformed Social Security in his second term, according to Bartlett. The Monica follies made that impossible. Yet history will record that in economic Clinton was the far more prudent, serious, and conscientious leader.
"I think it is telling that Bush’s Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, was far better on the budget than he has been. Clinton vetoed bills because they spent too much. Bush never does. Clinton not only reduced the deficit, but he actually cut spending. Bush has increased both. Clinton abolished an entitlement program. Bush created an extremely expensive new one. One can still argue about whether Clinton was a better president or a better man than Bush, but on the budget there is no ambiguity. Clinton was much better."
[snip]
"...Opinions about Richard Nixon are much different today than when he left office, with many liberals who hated him at the time now viewing his domestic policies in a much more favorable light. Something similar is under way with regard to Bill Clinton. Many conservatives who thought he was the devil incarnate when he was in the White House are now inclined to look upon his domestic policies more favorably. The key reason for this reassessment has been the extremely poor record of George W. Bush on the budget from the point of view of conservatives. In light of Bush’s big-spending ways, Clinton now looks almost like another Calvin Coolidge. As a friend once noted about disco music, it seemed so bad at the time because it was being compared to the golden age of rock and roll that had come before it. But by comparison to the awful music that came afterward, disco sounds pretty good today. So too with conservatives and Clinton. Compared to Ronald Reagan, he was awful. Compared to George W. Bush, he looks a lot better."
Compared to Bush, he looks like a competent, responsible, functioning adult. And I suspect that by 2008 a lot of Republicans are going to be secretly hankering for a Hillary presidency to put Bush's manifold wrongs right. As for the Bush Legacy, Bartlett speculates:
"I think [Republicans] will eventually think of Bush the way earlier Republicans thought of Nixon—as someone who severely undermined the party and its principles just to get reelected. Not only did Nixon come close to exterminating the Republican Party with Watergate, he put in place policies that continue to burden the economy to this day—all to win one lousy election in 1972. I think Bush and his congressional enablers basically did the same thing in 2004. Bush’s motives may have been higher than Nixon’s—Bush believes he is fighting a holy war against terrorism, whereas Nixon was simply selfish—but the results may be the same."
There was a little chat over at the WaPo today. I asked Instacracker the following question:
New York, N.Y.: Why does Professor Reynolds dislike comments on his site, when by linking to the Transit Workers Union Site, they got nearly a 1000 comments of truly vulgar and racially hostile nature, to the point where the union had to close down comments.
He felt free to inhibit the free speech of others, but seems to be afraid to allow that level of exchange on his own site.
Glenn Reynolds: I don't think I was the source of those comments -- they came from people who live in NYC and were inconvenienced by the strike, and the comments were overwhelmingly hostile before I ever linked. Of course, it was the Transit Union's choice whether or not to have comments on their blog. They chose poorly.
Glenn Reynolds: I should add that it's an odd concept of "limiting the free speech of others" that involves linking to someone's blog
Boy that Washington Post chat with bloggers sure was fun, huh kids? It's really cool when guys like Glenn Reynolds cojmpletely misrepresent themselves in a national forum. It shows once again how out of control the left is.
Here's Glenn:
My own sense is that it's very hard to preserve civility -- or even a good ratio of interestingness to flaming -- on sites that have high traffic without a fair degree moderation. There's some sort of a threshold after which things tend to break down into USENET-style flamewars, which some people like, but which I'm tired of. I find the comments on Atrios, Kos, or for that matter Little Green Footballs, to be tiresome.
[...]
I love open comments, just as I love free beer, free pizza, and other giveaway goods. But I'm not entitled to them. And those who partake, I think, owe a certain degree of civility to their hosts.
Yes, and one certainly shouldn't celebrate such incivility and encourage your readers to participate, right?
THE NYC TRANSIT WORKERS' UNION has an unofficial blog, and it's getting an earful in the comments. Here are some excerpts:
[S]econdly, if i could meet the masterminds behind this strike, i'd personally spit in each of their faces. I know fifty people at my campus who now cannot return to their families for the holiday season, and are being forced to spend their break in a hotel off campus until the transit system is running again. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves doing something this stupid this time of the year. Every single worker participating in the strike is extremely selfish and short sighted.
-----
You guys really have a lot of balls. All you do is drive around in circles. Your job isn't hard at all. You get paid as much as cops and firemen, while much more as teachers. Something is wrong. You're asking for way too much here.
-----
I am thoroughly disgusted with the TWU. Who are you to think you're above the law? Who are you to take well-paying jobs (for your education levels) serving millions of people and then hold us hostage by striking?
I have a 16 month old son who will be taken to day care today in his STROLLER. In 20 degree weather. I am paid hourly and will lose today's salary.
But they're standing up for working people!
Meanwhile, Bloomberg has to be asking himself, "What would Rudy do?"
UPDATE: Apparently someone woke up long enough to remove the comments. [LATER: CraigsList removed the link, which was to an item featuring pictures of transit workers asleep at their posts.]
Glenn Reynolds knew exactly what he was doing when he linked to that blog and sent his massive readership over there to flame them. That's within the rules of engagement. But it's chickenshit when you don't have comments yourself. And it's dishonest in the extreme to pretend that you don't engage that way when you do.
Jeff Jarvis: Glenn: I agree with your assessment of those particular sites. I wonder whether that is a function of size or topic or host's tone.
But this is all too typical for Professor Chickenshit. He starts something, then washes his hands of it. He knew what would happen when posted that link. Does he own up like a man and say "yeah, I sent my readers there". No. of course not. He weasels out like the chickenshit he is.
And his answer was a lie. Most New Yorkers supported the strikers in real life. But online, it was Stormfront Central and Professor Chickenshit sent his merry fucktards on their way, distorting the reality of the situation.
When I sent people to write Professor Chickenshit's boss, I put may name to it. Too bad he has to hide behind his readers.
What's this all about? Chris Matthews has repeatedly compared Osama bin Laden to Democrats. We are asking companies to refrain from advertising on his MSNBC TV show "Hardball" until he publicly apologizes. READ MORE
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is your complaint with Chris Matthews and MSNBC?
Chris Matthews is a major opinion leader who has repeatedly compared Democrats to Osama bin Laden, a charge that borders on treason. Matthews is perceived, wrongly, as a responsible and objective mainstream journalist with a reputation for calling it as he sees it. That gives his partisan smears a veneer of credibility that makes them particularly offensive and dangerous in a nation at war. It is wrong for Chris Matthews and MSNBC to politicize the deaths of 3,000 Americans on September 11.
2. What exactly did Chris Matthews say?
Hardball, January 19, 2006
MATTHEWS: You point out that [Osama bin Laden] — you believe that he‘s also — he‘s trying to really talk to the Muslim people of the world who he has harmed so much in places like Iraq, but let me read some of these lines. I know you‘ve been over these, Senator, almost like Biblical text trying to figure these things out. But look at this line.
This is from bin Laden in the audio today. “There is no defect in the solution other than preventing the flow of hundreds of billions to the influential people and war merchants in America.” I mean, he sounds like an over-the-top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore. Do you think that sells in America, that this war is being fought for the Daddy Warbucks?
MATTHEWS: Why is [Osama bin Laden] doing it? Why is he trying to track what he picks up in the Internet and from the media as the lingo of the left in America, like Moore? Why would he start to talk like Moore? People misunderstood what I said last night. I think he's getting some advice from people, he's getting some lingo, some wordage that he hears working somewhere in the United States about this being for war profiteers and he's jumping on every opportunity.
"MATTHEWS: What happens, Senator Breaux, if it looks like that Al Qaeda is playing cards here, playing a game of trying to get people to vote Democrat for president, to basically make their case worldwide? Doesn't it put your party in a terrible position of having Al Qaeda rooting for you?
It is incredibly biased, irresponsible, and offensive for a supposedly-objective journalist to repeat as truth partisan Republican talking points accusing patriotic Americans of sharing traits with the greatest mass murderer in American history. Chris Matthews' right-wing bias has been an ongoing, growing problem and it needs to stop.
4. So you've launched a boycott of "Hardball's" advertisers?
We are asking companies to refrain from associating their products with Chris Matthews' hateful, extremist rhetoric.
5. Who exactly is behind this campaign?
A coalition of more than 20 of the top progressive and moderate political blogs, with a collective daily readership of over 1 million visitors, including DailyKos, Eschaton, Crooks and Lairs, and AMERICAblog (for a full listing, see our home page).
6. What will it take for you to call off your protest?
Chris Matthews and the senior management of MSNBC need to publicly apologize for comparing American critics of the war in Iraq to terrorist Osama bin Laden, and both must commit to stop functioning as an adjunct of the right-wing noise machine and to start acting like objective journalists.
You can find handy e-mail addresses on the site.
We're consumers and we don't need to be insulted because the Kool Kids Klub want to keep their GOP friends happy.
A single storyline is more effective than a thousand stories. And a single storyline delivered by a “neutral” reporter is a hundred times more dangerous than a storyline delivered by an avowed partisan. Rightwingers can attack the media for criticizing Bush, can slam the New York Times for being liberal, but when the Times and the Post and CNN and MSNBC echo the ‘Bush stands firm’ mantra, it adds one more brick to a powerful pro-Bush edifice.
These narratives are woven so deeply into the fabric of news coverage that they have become second nature and have permeated the public psyche and are regurgitated in polls. (The polls are then used to strengthen the narratives.) They are delivered as affirmative statements, interrogatives, hypotheticals; they are discussed as fact and accepted as conventional wisdom; they are twisted, turned, shaped, reshaped, and fed to the American public in millions of little soundbites, captions, articles, editorials, news stories, and opinion pieces. They are inserted into the national dialogue as contagious memes that imprint the idea of Bush=strong/Dems=weak. And they are false.
What’s so dumbfounding to progressive netroots activists, who clearly see the role of the traditional media in perpetuating these storylines - and are taking concrete action (here, here, and here) to remedy the problem - is that Democratic politicians, strategists, and surrogates have internalized these narratives and play into them, publicly wringing their hands over how to fix their" muddled" message, how to deal with Bush’s "strength" on national security, how to talk about "values." It’s become a self-fulfilling cycle, with Democrats reinforcing anti-Dem myths because they can’t imagine any other explanation for the apparent lack of resonance of their message. Out of desperation, they resort to hackneyed, focus-grouped slogans in a vain attempt to break through the filter.
...............................
There is something unsaid in Daou's excellent essay.
Passion
In the past, journalism was a blue collar job. But after WWII, it became a profession, filled with the ranks of Harvard grads like Ben Bradlee and David Halberstam. These stories don't grow like Topsy for no reason. They were members of the middle class and came from the middle class. No more Mike Roykos and Jimmy Breslins starting out at the copy desk.
When it comes to the military, few reporters are familiar with the institution. While you have a lot of people willing to go to Iraq and a few willing to sit in a DOD briefing, few understand it as a political institution. They don't understand it's folkways and traditions. Because few have ever served. They don't understand the essays in Military Review and the papers of Bill Lind and Tony Cordesman. The deeper thinking required to understand US military policy eludes them and the papers until a crisis ie Iraq.
So when you get a ridiculous charge like Murtha, of all people, having fake medals, few people know how to ask the questions which would reveal it as bullshit. They try to hide this by having fake balance when in reality, they wonder why he left college to be a Marine in the first place.
What people forget is that to many reporters, left activists are like the annoying kids they went to school with, right but not much fun. It is much more socially acceptable to say "oh I have conservative friends" in DC than to be seen actually concerned about issues. Because it implies tolerance.
Passion makes people in Washington unconfortable. The consultants and their reporter friends don't like to be reiminded of how much they enjoy their class privledges. When they see a Kos or Atrios, they have two immediate reactions: what the fuck is wrong with them, and what do they know about politics.
When they see the kind of passion that is pouring out from blogs, they are scared. Because they have been so used to speaking for the masses.
Which is why Donna Brazile has been such a failure. She thinks she's on the left, but in black politics, she'd be a moderate at best. Her links to Thomas and Rove would discredit her to the mass of black voters, if they knew she existed. When she embraced Bush's bullshit promises, many black voters rolled their eyes. They knew Kanye West was right, and no matter what would come out of his mouth, his actions would match West's sentiments.
Which is why Al Sharpton, despite his flaws, is still popular. Because when he speaks, his words carry passion. The same with Jesse Jackson. No matter how flawed their politics, people listen when they speak because they sound like they care. They know that when you speak, you have to sound like it matters, not that it just isn't ideas.
John Kerry, despite his personal bravery and admirable record in the Senate, never mustered the passion to match his intellect.
Michael Moore upset many liberals when Roger and Me came out because he didn't hide behind ideas. He gave a damn about his neighbors.
Why do so many Dems shrink from passion, while conservatives embrace it?
Because they were taught that politics is rational and logical. The McCarthy era and the incomplete revolution of the 1960's taught a negative lesson to people: passion causes pain, so better to avoid the pain and reason with people.
But reasoning also comes off as weakness. Having worked in politics for a couple of years, I can tell you that passion is NOT required, in fact, discouraged as a protective survival mechanism. The problem is that it comes off as indifference.
Now, Joe Klein, as I posted earlier, was uncomfortable with Paul Hackett's Marine level passion. Why? Because it WAS passion. Klein doesn't trust it or like it, so he derides Hackett as an amateur. But it works. It gets people interested.
The Washington Dems keep wondering why their rational arguments don't work. Because they are deleted of feeling. While the GOP keeps screaming, and no matter how silly their argument is, people know they mean it. They care. While Dems stand off and debate issues, which reads as weakness.
It isn't that Rove's arguments make sense, but that Dems refuse to call him a traitor and a liar every time he opens his mouth, afraid that they will be attacked by the media.
The one lesson I learned working in politics is that the press is easily manipulated. You scream at them loud enough, they'll listen.
We can talk about framing and the Triangle all day long. But we need to talk about passion and convincing people we give a shit about more than the election.
With the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court all but certain, it’s becoming accepted wisdom that Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision granting women the right to abortion, is likely soon to be reversed.
I’m not sure, though, that Roe really will be overturned by an Alito (and John Roberts) court. I’m not sure that it really is in the interest of the Republican Party to usher in a court that overturns Roe.
I’m also not sure, at this point, that Roe really matters.
I’m exaggerating — somewhat — but let me explain what I mean.
Decades of abortion-rights restrictions pushed through Congress and the statehouses by wily abortion opponents with the acquiescence — indeed, the encouragement — of the public have made the right to choose granted by Roe an empty promise for large numbers of American women.
This has been an unqualified triumph for abortion opponents and has put Republican leaders in an enviable position; even with a majority of the American public still solidly “pro-choice” (in the abstract), they can rest easy in the knowledge that, at this time, Roe is, in certain parts of the country, close to meaningless.
The restrictions on Roe include such things as forcing women to endure misleading state-mandated lectures when they seek abortions; making them spend time and money they don’t have driving back and forth to faraway clinics as they sit out state-mandated “waiting periods”; making doctors deal with labyrinthine regulations intended to make it all but impossible for them to provide abortions; making young women seek their parents’ or a judge’s permission for an abortion — no matter how fraught, dysfunctional or downright dangerous their relationship with their parents might be. (And show me the teenager who’s going to hunt down a judge to discuss the most intimate aspects of her personal life.)
Ever since Sandra Day O’Connor — hailed now generally as the swing vote who saved Roe — paved the way for the decision’s eventual evisceration by writing an opinion, in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, that permitted states to regulate abortion if those regulations didn’t place an “undue burden” on women, more than 400 new restrictions have been placed on a woman’s right to choose.
These restrictions seem right and common-sensical to most people. Wouldn’t most parents want to know if their daughter was to have an abortion? Should taxpayers be forced to pay for procedures they morally abhor? Isn’t it an abomination to violently maim and murder a viable infant in the womb?
I myself, a committed abortion-rights supporter, permitted myself to grow complacent about these restrictions in recent years. Like many other former donors to NOW and Naral Pro-Choice America, I let the abortion-rights issue slip to the very far back burner of my political thinking during the “safe, legal and rare” years of the pro-choice Clinton administration.
I became a mother during those years as well, and, I’m ashamed to admit, issues relating to motherhood and family life loomed much larger in my personal and professional mind than did bodily integrity and family planning. I, like just about everyone else in the country, was nauseated by the picture of late-term “partial birth” abortion painted by its opponents: images of scissors gashing through the heads of infants in utero, images of babies getting their brains removed by suction tube.
Intellectually, I knew that these depictions were a political manipulation by people whose true goal was to ban abortion outright. But emotionally, I played right along with their game.
Michelman is the former president of Naral, and that her book would argue for abortion rights is no surprise. But it does offer something else that is vital, which is why I’m writing about it today. It draws on stories, testimonials, letters and phone calls from Michelman’s years at Naral, and as a result, it gives a human face — many faces — to the impact of the aforementioned restrictions. And those faces — those voices — just can’t be ignored.
Take the testimony of Coreen Costello, a mother of two, who was seven months pregnant when she learned her fetus had a fatal neurological defect and had become rigid in the birthing position. She wanted to carry her to term and deliver her normally, but her doctors argued that doing so would put her own life in danger. After great soul-searching, she decided she was unwilling to take the risk of leaving her children motherless and allowed the fetus to be aborted through the kind of procedure long vilified by the opponents of “partial birth’’ abortion.
In 1995, when the Senate Judiciary Committee was debating an earlier version of the ban that went into effect in 2003, she pleaded with them to remember the humanity of the families put in the position of having to choose to end a wanted pregnancy. “We are the families that ache to hold our babies, to tame them, to love and nurture them,” she said. “We are the families who will forever have a hole in our hearts.” She survived the potentially fatal pregnancy and went on to have another child.
Another testimonial from Michelman’s book: The voice of Becky Bell, a high school junior who died of an illegal abortion in 1998 because she didn’t want to have to tell her parents that she was pregnant — and her state, Indiana, required parental notification or judicial bypass. As she lay dying on a hospital gurney, Becky pulled off her oxygen mask to speak to her parents. “Forgive me,” she said.
If these stories don’t shame us into greater vigilance about the effects of laws that we — the lucky, the privileged, the protected — allow to come into being because they don’t affect us, then nothing will.
If they don’t make us stop and ask ourselves what kind of society we have allowed ourselves to become, then truly we are lost.
If they don’t shake us from our tight-hearted complacency, temper our judgments about those less deserving and with-it and “responsible,” and inspire in us greater empathy for those who face desperate decisions, often alone, then we are irredeemable.
And to those who repeat, without cease, that abortion rights amount to state-sanctioned murder, I would say: remember Becky Bell.
DES MOINES, Jan. 18 - In the seven months since Iowa passed a law restricting the sale of cold medicines used to make methamphetamine, seizures of homemade methamphetamine laboratories have dropped to just 20 a month from 120. People once terrified about the neighbor's house blowing up now walk up to the state's drug policy director, Marvin Van Haaften, at his local Wal-Mart to thank him for making them safer.
But Mr. Van Haaften, like officials in other states with similar restrictions, is now worried about a new problem: the drop in home-cooked methamphetamine has been met by a new flood of crystal methamphetamine coming largely from Mexico.
Sometimes called ice, crystal methamphetamine is far purer, and therefore even more highly addictive, than powdered home-cooked methamphetamine, a change that health officials say has led to greater risk of overdose. And because crystal methamphetamine costs more, the police say thefts are increasing, as people who once cooked at home now have to buy it.
The University of Iowa Burn Center, which in 2004 spent $2.8 million treating people whose skin had been scorched off by the toxic chemicals used to make methamphetamine at home, says it now sees hardly any cases of that sort. Drug treatment centers, on the other hand, say they are treating just as many or more methamphetamine addicts.
And although child welfare officials say they are removing fewer children from homes where parents are cooking the drug, the number of children being removed from homes where parents are using it has more than made up the difference.
"It's killing us, this Mexican ice," said Mr. Van Haaften, a former sheriff. "I'm not sure we can control it as well as we can the meth labs in your community."
Hey Gilly--remember all the assholes who said that making it harder for folks to get allergy medicine would somehow STOP meth addiction? Remember the twits who yelled "regulate cold meds--do it FOR THE CHILDREN?" Well...nanny-nanny-boo-boo, Gilly and I were RIGHT...consider yourself on the Mexican Mafia's Xmas card list for the rest of your natural lives. Sadly enough, pseudophedrine-based cold meds that are OTC are ALREADY being reformulated to a much less effective formula (tried one--sucked ass) that can't be used to "cook"
It's Easy to Be Hard and Hard to Be Smart In a Democratic Congressional primary that could have implications for the mid-term elections this Fall, an amateur's bluster squares off against an old political pro By JOE KLEIN
"The republican party has been hijacked by religious fanatics that, in my opinion, aren't a whole lot different than Osama bin Laden and a lot of other religious nuts around the world," said Paul Hackett, a recent Iraq-war combat veteran who is running for the U.S. Senate from Ohio. As you may have surmised, Hackett is a Democrat, and his statement, to the Columbus Dispatch, raised an immediate call by the Ohio G.O.P. for an apology. "I said it," Hackett replied. "I meant it. I stand by it." In fact, he has taken to repeating it at every stop along the campaign trail. Which sent me hurtling to Ohio last week to check out the first hot contest of the 2006 election, the primary election between Hackett and a traditional lunch-pail-liberal Congressman named Sherrod Brown, which will be decided in a May 2 vote. The winner will meet incumbent Republican Senator Mike DeWine in the fall. It is a race with national implications—winning Ohio has become the holy grail for Democrats—but it also raises an interesting stylistic question for both parties: Is this one of those "outsider" years when the public rises up and cleans out the Congress? Hackett is, flagrantly, an amateur; Brown first ran for office soon after graduating from Yale in 1974, and he has been running ever since. ....................... At the wings joint, he approached a small crowd of potential supporters with a combative abrasiveness that made Howard Dean seem like Mister Rogers. "I'm a strong Democrat from the great state of Ohio and damned proud of it," he thundered. "What does the Democratic Party stand for? Limited government. Strong national defense. Fair trade. Fiscal responsibility." Limited government? That was the fun part: "I don't want to send someone to Washington to invade my private life, control what goes on in my kid's school, get involved in the decisions made by my wife and her physician or to find out how many guns there are in Hackett's gun safe." .................... There was a real intimacy with the candidate, whom they called Sherrod. It was the most basic sort of politics—an unintended reproach to political professionals who tend to fall for flashy war heroes, and to flashy war heroes who insult the public by thinking they can run for office without taking the issues seriously in a dead-serious time.
Joe Klein proves my point about political journalists, arrogant and gullible all at once. Hackett has proven he can get Republicans to vote for him. Brown has refused to run races he could have won, repeatedly, and until he saw Hackett run for this, his gutless ass was content to sit on the sidelines.
We know Klein is a coward, hiding behind a psuedonym to trade in Clinton dirt, but could Hackett have been all that scary to him?
I find it odd that Hackett is portrayed as the tool of professionals when Chuck Schumer wanted him to withdraw for Brown and was told to piss up a rope.
It breaks down to money in the end, but Hackett has an edge Brown does not. Brown says the right things, but he's been running for office for 30 years. Hackett shares a lot more in common with those lunch pail voters, oh, like military service and honest answers, than Brown.
Of course, give it six months, he'll turn on Brown as well.
HILLA, Iraq - The Black Hawk helicopters skim out over the rooftops of Baghdad, leaving the palm-lined boulevards of the Green Zone, the walled city within a city that Western officials seldom leave, and heading into the Red Zone, the land of uncertainty that is the rest of Iraq.
............................."What kinds of problems do you face?"
The list is long, but begins with security, or rather its absence. Although the immediate area is largely Shiite, and the insurgency has been led by Sunnis, attacks are not infrequent. A favored method is roadside bombs. Two people from the regional office were killed by one last year.
"As soon as we've got used to one kind of method, they shift to another," says Major Lloyd Navarro, a U.S. officer attached to the PRT. Of late, explosive devices, believed to be manufactured in Iran, that direct armor-penetrating projectiles have proved particularly devastating.
Kerry is puzzled. Why is a largely Shiite area so treacherous? "This suggests a greater depth to the insurgency than has been described," he says. Babil Province, where Hilla is situated, has a population of 1.6 million, of whom 75 percent are Shia and 25 percent Sunnis living mainly in the northern part.
Fonteneau and other officials try to explain. There are opportunists who don't want stable government. There are followers of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. There are tribal rivalries and fights between militias. In short, there's a fog out there beyond the compound's walls in which no one faction has a monopoly on violence.
.............
There is something else wrong in Hilla, and elsewhere in Iraq. In Afghanistan, the work of the PRTs has not been that of America alone, but of America and its allies in NATO. What is the alliance for if not to fight the most critical battle of this generation: the forging, against the odds, of a decent and democratic Iraq that could change the closed, repressive culture of the Middle East?
The disagreements over the start of the war, and the Bush administration's misrepresentation of its justification, no longer matter. The United States is deep in Iraq, and real NATO assistance could make a decisive difference, as it has in Afghanistan.
A 90-day action plan in Hilla includes development of telecommunications services, aerial spraying of palm groves to stop a disease that has devastated date production, and installation of 14 drinking-water supply networks. Is there any reason France and Germany couldn't get behind that?
...........................
Yes, there is ZERO popular support for involvement in Iraq. They will not fix this for us. The Ducth can barely get approval to expand their forces in Afghanistan. Why? Because of involvment in Iraq.
The Europeans hate this war and have come to dislike Americans over it. They will have nothing to do with it until we leave and the UN can come in and train the police.
The US needs to leave Iraq to solve it's own problems. Americans deserve the money more than Iraqis. There is no battle for democracy, but a battle to see which Shia faction is more loyal to Iran. Roger Cohen can get his ass out of his head at any time he chooses. Not one more American should die in Iraq.
I can't believe the cruelty and I don't know what to do.
By Cary Tennis
Jan. 25, 2006 | Dear Cary,
I have been living in New York City for the past 12 years. I originally come from a small, unimposing town in Massachusetts and, like many people, I usually spend some part of the holidays visiting my family. This year was no different. But I am finding that every time I visit, however short and infrequent those visits may be, I just get more and more enraged.
Here's a little background for you:
My dad is 70 years old and a recovering alcoholic. He hasn't had a drink in approximately 25 years or so but, having never attended 12-step meetings, he still displays the "dry drunk" behavior that comes with such a disease. He's never been a great provider, which has caused my mother a great deal of frustration over the years. At heart, however, he is a good man and an extremely loving father. He's also the son of two alcoholics himself and came from an extremely fucked-up family situation that no one could have gotten out of without some amount of damage.
My mom, on the other hand, has always been the center of the family. She was the one who somehow managed to pay the bills on time when my dad was bingeing, keep the children clean and well fed, and, basically, keep things from falling apart. Obviously, this created much anger and dissatisfaction for her over the years.
However, as tough as my mom has always been, there was another side to her. She was (and is) fiercely controlling. When it came to her home and her children, it was understood that she was in command. She was the disciplinarian and many of us lived in a certain amount of fear should we do something wrong -- however slight.
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Tired of Dad Bashing
Dear Tired,
I see you coming up the steps with your suitcase, the son who left, the son they fear, the son they find a little uppity now with his education and his job and his ideas, coming up the old steps you used to play on, carrying your suitcase into this haunted house, a little lost and blind in the sudden darkness after the winter sun, everything so incredibly dark and so incredibly the same after so many years, and you tug your suitcase a little tighter, your suitcase, your ticket to goodbye. And there's your father on the back porch smoking and drinking coffee, taking it and taking it and taking it because after all he was a drunkard all those years so it's his job to take it now, whatever they can dish out.
Ok, I grew up with a father who treated drunks, so my feelings have a bias. But honestly, there are people who are in a far better position to judge this than me, so I'll shut up and read your ideas.
WASHINGTON - Sen. Rick Santorum's leading Democratic challenger, Pennsylvania Treasurer Bob Casey, announced Tuesday that he endorses Judge Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court.
For weeks, Republicans have called Casey "Silent Bob" and pressed him to say whether he supports Alito's confirmation. Casey and Alito have a family connection because Alito, who serves on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in Philadelphia, sided with Casey's father, the late Gov. Bob Casey, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The case challenged a state law requiring women seeking abortions to notify their spouses.
"I do not agree with everything that Judge Samuel Alito has done or said - particularly many of his rulings which too often result in corporate power prevailing over the interests of consumers and workers," Casey said in a statement. "However, I agree with The Philadelphia Inquirer and Washington Post editorial boards that the arguments against Judge Alito do not rise to the level that would require a vote denying him a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court."
Santorum's campaign manager responded with a statement accusing Casey of ducking the issue and then following the lead of Santorum, the No. 3 Senate Republican. Both candidates are generally against abortion. Santorum came out strong in support of Alito at a conservative rally Jan. 8.
Asshole.
This is a bad sign of his instincts.
People have already had to swallow a LOT of shit to support him to get Santorum out, you can't keep piling it on and expect to get outside money and support.
The League of Conservation Voters asked me to participate in a conference call over their support of Bob Casey. I said no.
He's got to get people who disagree with them out. Apeing Santorum is not the way to do it.
Report: Army could be near breaking point Rapid troop rotations threaten institution, Pentagon-sponsored study says The Associated Press Updated: 6:00 p.m. ET Jan. 24, 2006
WASHINGTON - Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a “thin green line” that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon’s decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended.
As evidence, Krepinevich points to the Army’s 2005 recruiting slump — missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 — and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.
“You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue,” he said in an interview. He added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army’s condition than military officials offer in public. While not released publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated Press inquiry.
‘Race against time’ Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich titled one of his report’s chapters, “The Thin Green Line.”
He wrote that the Army is “in a race against time” to adjust to the demands of war “or risk ‘breaking’ the force in the form of a catastrophic decline” in recruitment and re-enlistment.
Col. Lewis Boone, spokesman for Army Forces Command, which is responsible for providing troops to war commanders, said it would be “a very extreme characterization” to call the Army broken. He said his organization has been able to fulfill every request for troops that it has received from field commanders.
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For an Army of about 500,000 soldiers — not counting the thousands of National Guard and Reserve soldiers now on active duty — the commitment of 100,000 or so to Iraq might not seem an excessive burden. But because the war has lasted longer than expected, the Army has had to regularly rotate fresh units in while maintaining its normal training efforts and reorganizing the force from top to bottom.
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Aid to the enemy? Krepinevich... concluded that even Army leaders are not sure how much longer they can keep up the unusually high pace of combat tours in Iraq before they trigger an institutional crisis. Some major Army divisions are serving their second yearlong tours in Iraq, and some smaller units have served three times.
Krepinevich, another name the war bloggers don't know, is a former Army officer who became famous for writing about the US Army and it's collapse in Vietnam, called the Army and Vietnam. Along with Anthony Cordesman, he's one of the most respected experts on the modern US military and his words will be taken quite seriously in Congress and within DOD.
What this means is simple: committing even more Guard units to combat missions, at a time a mass exodus from the Army and NG is expected. While Krepinevich suggests a drawdown, the fact is that the pool of potential recruits is shrinking by the day. To maintain force levels, talk of a draft will be floated.
Which, of course, is political suicide, but there are no options left. With enlistment a guarantee of a combat tour and Catagory IV's being enlisted, the well has run dry. And as Operation Yellow Elephant has proven beyond its wildest hopes, the junior wingnuts would rather be cheerleaders than 11 Anythings.
Bush can talk about victory all day long, but the American people are reducing their stake in that by the day.
I DON'T SUPPORT our troops. This is a particularly difficult opinion to have, especially if you are the kind of person who likes to put bumper stickers on his car. Supporting the troops is a position that even Calvin is unwilling to urinate on.
I'm sure I'd like the troops. They seem gutsy, young and up for anything. If you're wandering into a recruiter's office and signing up for eight years of unknown danger, I want to hang with you in Vegas.
And I've got no problem with other people — the ones who were for the Iraq war — supporting the troops. If you think invading Iraq was a good idea, then by all means, support away. Load up on those patriotic magnets and bracelets and other trinkets the Chinese are making money off of.
But I'm not for the war. And being against the war and saying you support the troops is one of the wussiest positions the pacifists have ever taken — and they're wussy by definition. It's as if the one lesson they took away from Vietnam wasn't to avoid foreign conflicts with no pressing national interest but to remember to throw a parade afterward.
Blindly lending support to our soldiers, I fear, will keep them overseas longer by giving soft acquiescence to the hawks who sent them there — and who might one day want to send them somewhere else. Trust me, a guy who thought 50.7% was a mandate isn't going to pick up on the subtleties of a parade for just service in an unjust war. He's going to be looking for funnel cake.
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But blaming the president is a little too easy. The truth is that people who pull triggers are ultimately responsible, whether they're following orders or not. An army of people making individual moral choices may be inefficient, but an army of people ignoring their morality is horrifying. An army of people ignoring their morality, by the way, is also Jack Abramoff's pet name for the House of Representatives.
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But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse. Sometimes you get lucky and get to fight ethnic genocide in Kosovo, but other times it's Vietnam.
And sometimes, for reasons I don't understand, you get to just hang out in Germany.
I know this is all easy to say for a guy who grew up with money, did well in school and hasn't so much as served on jury duty for his country. But it's really not that easy to say because anyone remotely affiliated with the military could easily beat me up, and I'm listed in the phone book.
First, Mr. Stein is one of those people who think Iraqis will understand if he doesn't support the troops.
They won't.
They kidnapped Jill Carroll and Quakers. They do not give a fuck about your personal politics. It is their families suffering and any American will do. In their eyes, we are all collectively guilty.
Why would you support the troops? Because, for many of us, they are our families. They didn't choose to go to Iraq and no one asked them about Afghanistan. The deserve our support, because like firemen and police officers, they do a job for the rest of us that we ask them to do. It is our collective fault when they are misused. You cannot assign away your responsibility all that easily.
Second, they don't just fight for the people who supported the war. If Mr. Stein wasn't a smug fuck, he'd read Stars and Stripes and see American soldiers, in Iraq, oppose this war. They serve because they have to, but they didn't stop thinking.
What Mr. Stein doesn't seem to care about is that the vast majority of soldiers enlist for one reason: money for college. Not part of any imperial exercise, not any sort of plan, just the chance at a college education which Stein's parents wrote a check for.
It seems Mr. Stein has a problem with parades, as if teenagers who risk life and limb and who come home horribly crippled don't deserve the acknowlegement of their service.
I have known vets my entire life. I remember when the hostages came home in 1981. They got a ticker tape parade. Vietnam Vets came home alone and then was vilified. All they had done was get drafted and obey the law. They couldn't get jobs, they were disrepected in the media and by family and friends, and yet, these people who had been held hostage were showered with gifts and praise, even free lifetime passes to baseball games. Vietnam Vets came home to rat infested VA's.
A parade is the least we can do for them, to know that regardless of how we felt about the politics, they are not the people to blame. A parade is a sign of respect, not only for the participants, but for those who did not come back.
The odd thing is that I found this on Malkin's site, she's using it to claim liberals don't support the troops.
The odd thing is that she thinks she's better than Stein.
She so isn't. Stein is honest, Malkin is not. She doesn't support the troops either, she just pretend she does. Because she expects someone else to die for what she believes in.
Andrea Macrkis, Fox paid her millions to go away because of Bill O'Reilly's perverted phone calls.
The worst person in the world whines about being held accountable
O'REILLY: "Personal Story" segment tonight: We've been telling you for years that the far left in America is very organized, very vicious, and will stop at nothing to intimidate people with whom it disagrees. Enter Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell. She suggested in a column that convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff gave money to both political parties. Well, that is true in the sense that Abramoff directed contributions to both parties. His personal donations were to Republicans. Well, apparently, some far-left websites didn't like Miss Howell's reporting, so they attacked her personally. And editors of The Washington Post had to shut down the comment section of their website. Nice. Joining us now from Washington: Juan Williams, a Fox News analyst and former Washington Post correspondent.
We couldn't track down Deborah Howell. You know, if she wants to come on, I'd like to talk to her. But here's what she said, quote: "It is profoundly distressing that political discord [sic: discourse] has sunk to a level where abusive name-calling and the crudest of sexual language are the norm, where facts have no place in an argument. This unbounded, unreasoning rage is not going to help this newspaper, this country or democracy." Now, as you know, Juan, because I deal with this every day, these smear websites, this is what they do on a daily basis. They put out a fatwa against O'Reilly or anybody else they don't like, in this case Deborah Howell at The Washington Post, usually sympathetic to the left. All right? And then their overexuberant readers go in and, you know, do this kind of personal attack. And there's nothing we can do to stop it, but I think the exposure of it is worthy.
Any time Bill O'Reilly whines about the press, especially the blogs, this is what he is whining about
Oh, so what did Bill do to get him in so much trouble?
It began two years ago when the dinner conversation turned from Fox News to vibrators.
Andrea Mackris, the Fox associate producer who says conservative commentator Bill O'Reilly subjected her to a sewer of sexual harassment, claims she wanted to talk about her future at the network.
But O'Reilly had something else on his mind, Mackris charged in court papers yesterday.
"Pick up 23-year-old men in bars," O'Reilly allegedly said, after Mackris mentioned she had just broken up with her fiancé. "Just use your vibrator to blow off steam."
Mackris says that as she reddened with embarrassment, O'Reilly said in apparent disbelief, "What, you've got a vibrator, don't you? Every girl does."
Mackris says she insisted she did not, and shot back, "Does your wife?"
"Yes, in fact she does," O'Reilly replied, according to court papers. "She'd kill me if she knew I was telling you."
That, according to Mackris, was the start of two years of lewdness during which O'Reilly regaled her with tales of threesomes with Swedish stewardesses, graphically described Thai sex shows and forced her to sit through stories about his "amazing" physical endowment and how he lost his virginity.
O'Reilly, 55, even told Mackris about a Caribbean sex fantasy involving her, a hot shower and a "little loofa thing," she says.
The steamy detail and direct quotes that appear in court papers suggest Mackris, a 33-year-old Columbia School of Journalism grad, was either taking notes or had a tape recorder running while O'Reilly allegedly was talking dirty.
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During that April 13 dinner, Mackris says she agreed to return to "The O'Reilly Factor" but only if O'Reilly behaved himself, stating that he had harassed other female staffers - and warning that they "might tell someone."
"If any woman ever breathed a word I'll make her pay so dearly that she'll wish she'd never been born," O'Reilly replied, according to the court papers. "I'll rake her through the mud, bring up things in her life and make her so miserable that she'll be destroyed."
So any time Bill O'Reilly opens his mouth about the "far left" , it's really about how his crude, offensive behavior cost Fox millions to keep the sordid details of his sex life out of the papers. He, like so many conservatives, feels like a victim, despite his piggish behavior so he looks for other people to defend, forgetting that he was the cause of his own problems.
Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is getting awfully cocky. Last week, he gave a campaign-related interview in the Secretary of State's Office. That's an illegal use of office resources for campaign purposes.
More troubling is what Blackwell said in the interview with Dan Williamson of The Other Paper:
Q: If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, would you sign a law that would outlaw abortions in the case of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother? A: Yes. Q: Including the life of the mother? A: Yes.
And the pop culture questions...
Q: Do you prefer rap or country? A: I prefer both. And in fact, if you know anything about music, there's a country-rappers release. I don't know what the group is called, but I hear it in my home a lot.
Q: Have you ever watched a reality television show? A: I actually starred in the first generation of reality television, which was called Real People. It was a show that came out when I wrestled a bear when I was mayor.
He must see a white man in the mirror when he wakes up. Because no black man can afford to be this cocky when he has to know people are lying about voting for him. His base is the least like to vote for a black man for high office. Then of course, he's scaring the shit out of the mainstream Republicans
While loathe to give him advice, he needs to understand he's asking the GOP to send a black man to run for high office. But then, ego has never beena problem for him. His people think he could land in the White House.
Only problem, he's gonna lose the primary unless he leads by 20 points going into election day. I mean, it's like Trading Places, "do you think I would let a nigger run our family business?" No matter the qualifications, or the appeal, he has an uphill fight, and his winguttia doesn't help him with moderates, who's votes he sorely needs.
Even, if by some miracle, he gets the nomination, the GOP will turn on him to endorse the Dem.
People say, what about Obama? Well, the difference is that blacks enthusiastically supported him, and Alan Keyes was nuts. Blackwell is on the fringe and hoping he can get a high turn out for him.
White conservatives do not vote for black candidates when white candidates challenge them.
Vernon Robinson (NC-5) ran a race so pandering of whites and so crazy, people were stunned he was running. But in the runoff he lost.
Daryl Cain pulled the same stunt in Georgia, lost to Sonny Perdue.
What Blackwell wants to pretend is that these people are conservative for a moral reasons. Well, the other reason is simple: race. They vote Republican over race.
So how did he win mayor of Cincinnati? Well, the outlying counties don't vote.
There is just a proven reluctance to elect conservative blacks to statewide office.
I could be wrong, but Blackwell's trusting the poils and he should never, ever do that. A lot of people are lying to his face.
Let's see how many volunteers and how much money he gets.
Impeachment hearings: The White House prepares for the worst
The Bush administration is bracing for impeachment hearings in Congress.
"A coalition in Congress is being formed to support impeachment," an administration source said.
Sources said a prelude to the impeachment process could begin with hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee in February. They said the hearings would focus on the secret electronic surveillance program and whether Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Administration sources said the charges are expected to include false reports to Congress as well as Mr. Bush's authorization of the National Security Agency to engage in electronic surveillance inside the United States without a court warrant. This included the monitoring of overseas telephone calls and e-mail traffic to and from people living in the United States without requisite permission from a secret court.
Sources said the probe to determine whether the president violated the law will include Republicans, but that they may not be aware they could be helping to lay the groundwork for a Democratic impeachment campaign against Mr. Bush.
"Our arithmetic shows that a majority of the committee could vote against the president," the source said. "If we work hard, there could be a tie."
The law limits the government surveillance to no more than 72 hours without a court warrant. The president, citing his constitutional war powers, has pledged to continue wiretaps without a warrant.
The hearings would be accompanied by several lawsuits against the administration connected to the surveillance program. At the same time, the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit that demands information about the NSA spying.
Sen. Arlen Specter, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman and Pennsylvania Republican, has acknowledged that the hearings could conclude with a vote of whether Mr. Bush violated the law. Mr. Specter, a critic of the administration's surveillance program, stressed that, although he would not seek it, impeachment is a possible outcome.
"Impeachment is a remedy," Mr. Specter said on Jan. 15. "After impeachment, you could have a criminal prosecution. But the principal remedy under our society is to pay a political price."
Mr. Specter and other senior members of the committee have been told by legal constitutional experts that Mr. Bush did not have the authority to authorize unlimited secret electronic surveillance. Another leading Republican who has rejected the administration's argument is Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.
On Jan. 16, former Vice President Al Gore set the tone for impeachment hearings against Mr. Bush by accusing the president of lying to the American people. Mr. Gore, who lost the 2000 election to Mr. Bush, accused the president of "indifference" to the Constitution and urged a serious congressional investigation. He said the administration decided to break the law after Congress refused to change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
"A president who breaks the law is a threat to the very structure of our government," Mr. Gore said.
"I call upon members of Congress in both parties to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution," he said. "Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government that you are supposed to be under the constitution of our country."
Impeachment proponents in Congress have been bolstered by a memorandum by the Congressional Research Service on Jan. 6. CRS, which is the research arm of Congress, asserted in a report by national security specialist Alfred Cumming that the amended 1947 law requires the president to keep all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees "fully and currently informed" of a domestic surveillance effort. It was the second CRS report in less than a month that questioned the administration's domestic surveillance program.
The latest CRS report said Mr. Bush should have briefed the intelligence committees in the House and Senate. The report said covert programs must be reported to House and Senate leaders as well as the chairs of the intelligence panels, termed the "Gang of Eight."
Administration sources said Mr. Bush would wage a vigorous defense of electronic surveillance and other controversial measures enacted after 9/11. They said the president would begin with pressure on Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Mr. Bush would then point to security measures taken by the former administration of President Bill Clinton.
"The argument is that the American people will never forgive any public official who knowingly hurts national security," an administration source said. "We will tell the American people that while we have done everything we can to protect them, our policies are being endangered by a hypocritical Congress."
Then Karl Rove's ass is in deep trouble.
But Bush would not sit through an impeachment trial. First Cheney would resign because of his health, allowing Bush to appoint Rice or someone he could trust to carry through on his policies, then Bush, citing a need to heal the nation, would resign.
Why?
Because he is a coward. Bush could NEVER take the brutal questioning which would start with wiretaps and end with Iraq and Niger.
Make no mistake, Bush talks big, but he's never had a big fight in his life, and if Rove is facing indictment, and his flank exposed, Bush will resign like Nixon, because Poppy and Bar will not let him disgrace the family name by being forced out.
If this Congress seriously considers impeachment, as a way to save their jobs if nothing else, Bush is done. And the serious people in Congress are getting nervous. You have the worst of both worlds, a weak, risktaking president aquiring power and brazenly defending law breaking.
To Oprah Winfrey, the power of James Frey's memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," lay not in whether the author really spent three months in jail, as he claimed, or whether he lost a lover to suicide.
Rather, she said in her now-famous call to CNN's "Larry King Live" on Jan. 11, where Mr. Frey defended himself against accusations that he falsified significant parts of his life story, it was the author's story of recovery, a rebirth that took place within the walls of an addiction treatment center, that provided "the underlying message of redemption" that resonated with her.
But more than three months before questions were raised about Mr. Frey's memoir by the Smoking Gun Web site (www.thesmokinggun.com) - before, in fact, Ms. Winfrey first had Mr. Frey as a guest on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" - producers at the program were told by a former counselor at the foundation that runs the Minnesota treatment center reportedly used by Mr. Frey that his portrayal of his experience there grossly distorted reality.
Several other addiction counselors who formerly worked for the organization, the Hazelden Foundation, which runs the Hazelden rehabilitation center in Center City, Minn., have also come forward to dispute Mr. Frey's claims about Hazelden. The accusations call into question what Mr. Frey has labeled the "essential truth" of his book, the "420 of the 432 pages" that take place during treatment. It was Mr. Frey's story of redemption that led Ms. Winfrey to make "A Million Little Pieces" a selection for her television book club and propelled it to sales of more than two million copies.
After receiving the information from Debra Jay, a Michigan addiction counselor who herself has been a frequent guest on Ms. Winfrey's program, a senior producer for the "The Oprah Winfrey Show" conducted an extensive interview with Ms. Jay. It is not known if Ms. Winfrey was apprised of the concerns, but she made no mention of the potential discrepancies in her many on-the-air comments about "A Million Little Pieces," including when she called the book "all completely true" on her program and told Mr. Frey, "I don't doubt you."
In response to questions last week about the early warning given to the program, a spokeswoman for Ms. Winfrey, Angela DePaul, said, "We have no comment."
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"His description of treatment at Hazelden is almost entirely false," said Ms. Jay, who trained as an addiction counselor at Hazelden's operations in Minnesota and who is the co-author of two guides to treating addiction published by the Hazelden Foundation. She has appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" at least six times to discuss issues related to alcohol and drug addiction.
Ms. Jay said she voiced her objections about "A Million Little Pieces" to a senior producer for Ms. Winfrey's program on Oct. 1, nearly a month before Ms. Winfrey's interview with Mr. Frey was broadcast. "I'm coming forward because his descriptions of treatment are so damaging," Ms. Jay said. "These are things that could not happen to anybody at Hazelden or at any reputable licensed treatment center."
Among the episodes she and the other former counselors have called into question are Mr. Frey's claims of being physically abused by other residents of the treatment center, of being left to sleep on the floor of a common room overnight after an altercation, of regularly vomiting blood and of having his nose rebroken and set by a doctor. "He describes a level of medical care that would not occur at Hazelden," Ms. Jay said. "He would have been taken to an emergency room, and any violent behavior would have been met with a discharge." .......................
Ms. Colleran, now a certified addiction professional in West Palm Beach, Fla., said she sent her complaints about the book to the Winfrey program by e-mail in November. Ms. Colleran also posted questions about the book on Amazon.com that month.
"I have had young people say to me that if they had a child who was having problems, they would never send them to treatment after reading that book," Ms. Colleran said. ...................................
Mr. Curtiss spoke to Ms. Winfrey's producers about the book during their visit to the Retreat, but he declined to provide details about the conversation. He also said he spoke to Mr. Frey.
This goes beyond mere fiction and Oprah should be made to answer for this. My God, people are telling her staff he's lying and she ignores it. That is outrageous behavior. Just because she had invested something him doesn't mean she can ignore basic allegations of dishonesty.
She was told by a former guest that his account was fiction and she ignored it, despite the damage which could result from his bullshit.
But then, she gets these crushes on men, and I guess she didn't want to deal with any bad news about him. Only problem? This is about a serious subject and real people.
What BushCo wants, according to the fine print (Sec. 605) of the new PATRIOT Act, is a permanent Praetorian Guard, or Cheka, or Gestapo. It's all too easy to come up with apt historical analogies--but not with any from this nation's history.
"A permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division,'" empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence" (what is "an offense against the United States?), "or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony" (what are "reasonable grounds"?).
I'm not making this up. See the text and URL below.
What will it take to get the press to notice this?
MCM
House Report 109-333 - USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005
SEC. 605. THE UNIFORMED DIVISION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE.
(a) In General- Chapter 203 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after section 3056 the following:
`Sec. 3056A. Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service Uniformed Division
`(a) There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the `United States Secret Service Uniformed Division'. Subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security, the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall perform such duties as the Director, United States Secret Service, may prescribe in connection with the protection of the following:
`(1) The White House in the District of Columbia.
`(2) Any building in which Presidential offices are located.
`(3) The Treasury Building and grounds.
`(4) The President, the Vice President (or other officer next in the order of succession to the Office of President), the President-elect, the Vice President-elect, and their immediate families.
`(5) Foreign diplomatic missions located in the metropolitan area of the District of Columbia.
`(6) The temporary official residence of the Vice President and grounds in the District of Columbia.
`(7) Foreign diplomatic missions located in metropolitan areas (other than the District of Columbia) in the United States where there are located twenty or more such missions headed by full-time officers, except that such protection shall be provided only-- `(A) on the basis of extraordinary protective need; `(B) upon request of an affected metropolitan area; and
`(C) when the extraordinary protective need arises at or in association with a visit to--
`(i) a permanent mission to, or an observer mission invited to participate in the work of, an international organization of which the United States is a member; or
`(ii) an international organization of which the United States is a member;
except that such protection may also be provided for motorcades and at other places associated with any such visit and may be extended at places of temporary domicile in connection with any such visit.
`(8) Foreign consular and diplomatic missions located in such areas in the United States, its territories and possessions, as the President, on a case-by-case basis, may direct.
`(9) Visits of foreign government officials to metropolitan areas (other than the District of Columbia) where there are located twenty or more consular or diplomatic missions staffed by accredited personnel, including protection for motorcades and at other places associated with such visits when such officials are in the United States to conduct official business with the United States Government.
`(10) Former Presidents and their spouses, as provided in section 3056(a)(3) of title 18.
`(11) An event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance.
`(12) Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and, within 120 days of the general Presidential election, the spouses of such candidates, as provided in section 3056(a)(7) of title 18.
`(13) Visiting heads of foreign states or foreign governments.
`(b)(1) Under the direction of the Director of the Secret Service, members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division are authorized to--
`(A) carry firearms;
`(B) make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony; and
`(C) perform such other functions and duties as are authorized by law.
`(2) Members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall possess privileges and powers similar to those of the members of the Metropolitan Police of the District of Columbia.
`(c) Members of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division shall be furnished with uniforms and other necessary equipment.
`(d) In carrying out the functions pursuant to paragraphs (7) and (9) of subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security may utilize, with their consent, on a reimbursable basis, the services, personnel, equipment, and facilities of State and local governments, and is authorized to reimburse such State and local governments for the utilization of such services, personnel, equipment, and facilities. The Secretary of Homeland Security may carry out the functions pursuant to paragraphs (7) and (9) of subsection (a) by contract. The authority of this subsection may be transferred by the President to the Secretary of State. In carrying out any duty under paragraphs (7) and (9) of subsection (a), the Secretary of State is authorized to utilize any authority available to the Secretary under title II of the State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956.'.
(b) Amendment to Table of Sections- The table of sections at the beginning of chapter 203 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 3056 the following new item:
3056A. Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.
(c) Conforming Repeal to Effectuate Transfer- Chapter 3 of title 3, United States Code, is repealed.
(d) Conforming Amendments to Laws Affecting District of Columbia- (1) Section 1537(d) of title 31, United States Code, is amended--
(A) by striking `and the Executive Protective Service' and inserting `and the Secret Service Uniformed Division'; and
(B) by striking `their protective duties' and all that follows and inserting `their protective duties under sections 3056 and 3056A of title 18.'
(2) Section 204(e) of the State Department Basic Authorities Act (sec. 6--1304(e), D.C. Official Code) is amended by striking `section 202 of title 3, United States Code, or section 3056' and inserting `sections 3056 or 3056A'.
(3) Section 214(a) of the State Department Basic Authorities Act (sec. 6--1313(a), D.C. Official Code) is amended by striking `sections 202(8) and 208 of title 3' and inserting `section 3056A(a)(7) and (d) of title 18'.
(e) Additional Conforming Amendments-
(1) Title 12, United States Code, section 3414, `Special procedures', is amended by striking `3 U.S.C. 202' in subsection (a)(1)(B) and inserting `18 U.S.C. 3056A'.
(2) The State Department Basic Authorities Act of 1956 is amended--
(A) in the first sentence of section 37(c) (22 U.S.C. 2709(c)), by striking `section 202 of title 3, United States Code, or section 3056 of title 18, United States Code' and inserting `section 3056 or 3056A of title 18, United States Code';
(B) in section 204(e) (22 U.S.C. 4304(e)), by striking `section 202 of title 3, United States Code, or section 3056 of title 18, United States Code' and inserting `section 3056 or 3056A of title 18, United States Code'; and
(C) in section 214(a) (22 U.S.C. 4314(a)), by striking `sections 202(7) and 208 of title 3, United States Code' and inserting `subsections (a)(7) and (d) of section 3056A of title 18, United States Code'.
(3) Section 8D(a)(1)(F) of the Inspector General Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. App.) is amended by striking `section 202 of title 3' and inserting `section 3056A of title 18'.
(4) Section 8I(a)(1)(E) of the Inspector General Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. App.) is amended by striking `section 202 of title 3' and inserting `section 3056A of title 18'.
America has never had a federal police force, but hidden in the new "Patriot" Act is language that creates just such a beast.
SEC. 605. THE UNIFORMED DIVISION, UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE.
There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the `United States Secret Service Uniformed Division'. The Secret Service, Uniformed Division will not operate solely in DC, but anywhere former Presidents travel, or foreign dignitaries, or even "as the President, on a case-by-case basis, may direct." #8
A federal police force, directed by the President. Is this not the Gestapo all over again?
If the new "Patriot" Act passes, the new SSUD federal police can show up at:
(11) An event designated.. as a special event of national significance. (12) Major Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and, within 120 days of the general Presidential electionŠ
A federal goon squad on hand to arrest any 'disruptors' during the next Presidential ElectionŠ how can you look in the mirror and tell yourself that there's hope for 2008? Or is that just an excuse to continue doing nothing right now?
Note: This bill comes up in two weeks, to date only myself and Kurt Nimmo have written about it. I've written Democracy Now, CommonDreams, etcŠ nobody wants to touch it.
Please do what you can to break this story .... http://www.benfrank.net/blog/
The terms Gestapo and Cheka are innacurate. This is more like the CRS, Bundespoliezi or Guarda Civil. They won't work in secret, you will have hundreds of uniformed, heavily armed regular police ready to beat heads in. This could grow very rapidly, and is being pushed because Katrina showed the military WILL NOT do civil law enforcement.
So Bush could send a couple of hundred to monitor anti-war protests outside the UN, "help" with isolating a city with a health emergency or take over security for a political convention.
A National Police Force, with national arrest powers is essential for a dictatorship. Even a force of 10,000 could kick off major disorder. And this is only part of the bill because the military will not serve as Bush's police.
ATLANTA Jan. 20 - He was, once, the go-go mayor of the South's most go-go city. Suave and acid-tongued, Bill Campbell was the protégé of a new black politics, steeped in the argot of civil rights yet able to smooth-talk corporate executives. Democrats from President Clinton on down courted him.
But those days are long gone. On Monday, Mr. Campbell, who left office in 2002, is scheduled to enter a federal courthouse here to defend himself against accusations that he turned City Hall into a criminal enterprise during his eight years in office.
"I know that I'm innocent," Mr. Campbell said on Friday on a local radio station, WVEE.
Mr. Campbell's trial will be the culmination of an investigation that dates to at least 1999 and that has already led to convictions of 10 people on charges including bribery, tax fraud and perjury. Three of those convicted worked in Mr. Campbell's administration.
The seven-count indictment alleges a wide-ranging operation directed by Mr. Campbell, who is now 52, to shake down companies trying to do business with the city. The indictment charges that Mr. Campbell took payoffs totaling more than $150,000; accepted more than $100,000 in illegal campaign contributions; filed false personal income tax returns; and received gifts from contractors, including a $12,000 trip to Paris and nearly $10,000 worth of heating and air conditioning equipment for his home.
But Mr. Campbell's lawyers assert the case is built on shoddy evidence and unreliable witnesses who traded lenient punishment for their testimony. "If there was one issue that ran through this, it was the issue of plea deals and immunity," Billy Martin, Mr. Campbell's lead lawyer, said in court on Thursday.
In the months before the trial, Mr. Campbell, who now works as a lawyer in Florida, mounted an aggressive public relations campaign in Atlanta, appearing at local black churches, on sympathetic radio programs and at upbeat rallies.
Often, Mr. Campbell or his supporters have attacked the prosecution as racially motivated. When news of the federal investigation was first reported in 2000, Mr. Campbell denounced the investigators as "forces of evil" who might have been motivated by "ideological differences regarding my aggressive stand on affirmative action."
Concerned that the trial, expected to last at least six weeks, will turn heavily on racial issues, Judge Richard W. Story of Federal District Court made an unusual plea from the bench on Thursday that the trial rely on law and evidence, "and not judge a man based on the color of his skin."
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But he also established a legacy of poor management. William Boone, a professor of political science at Clark Atlanta University, said Mr. Campbell was slow, or inept, at dealing with major problems he inherited, including an overtaxed sewer system, grinding poverty and traffic-clogged roads. When he left office, the city was facing a $80 million budget shortfall.
"The city was literally crumbling from below ground, and no real action was being taken to address the problems," Mr. Boone said. He added that Mr. Campbell's tenure looked even worse today in comparison with his popular successor, Mayor Shirley Franklin, who is black and who overwhelmingly won re-election last year after restoring the city's fiscal health.
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But Mary Burden, who is black, said the prosecutors should have left Mr. Campbell alone, saying she believes corruption is common among politicians.
"I think they probably wanted him to be an Uncle Tom and he wouldn't go for it," Ms. Burden said outside a midtown Y.M.C.A. "He was a good mayor up to the end."
Anytime someone tries to excuse corruption because of race, they're full of shit. Campbell is hiding behind race to excuse his miserable performance as mayor. He talked a good game as mayor, but was unable to deliver services.
A race huckster plays on people's perceptions of unfair treatment. Corruption is unacceptable, and claiming the FBI went after you because of affirmative action in a state which just returned the poll tax, is a joke. They went after you because your aides had evidence of massive kickbacks.
But the new poll tax, Voter ID law, will play a role in this. People might see his vindication as a way of protesting their planned disnefranchisement. Which for some reason, has gotten very little notice online, despite its aggressive plan to deny blacks the vote.
But nothing angers me more than a crook using race to hide from the consequences of their corruption. It remains to see if the feds can prove their case
TORONTO, Jan. 23 - Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party appeared headed for victory over the long-entrenched Liberal Party in Canadian elections on Monday, producing a striking turn in the country's politics that is expected to improve its strained relations with the Bush administration.
Stephen Harper, Canada's Conservative Party leader, and his wife, Laureen Teskey, leave a polling station in Calgary on election day.
Prime Minister Paul Martin hoped to build on a string of four consecutive Liberal national election victories in the last 13 years, but his campaign was damaged by two years of investigations into party scandals that spurred a backlash and a desire for change.
Mr. Martin tried to cut into Mr. Harper's lead in the final days before the voting with a campaign of rancorous advertising, with opinion polls indicating that many urban voters were wary of allowing the country to veer into uncharted ideological waters.
But in the end Mr. Harper seemed to reassure the public that he had evolved into a centrist over the last several years and that his government would emphasize cutting taxes and cleaning up corruption rather than social issues like abortion and gay rights.
Early results in the eastern half of the country showed the Conservatives leading in 101 districts to 80 for the Liberals, followed by the Bloc Quebecois with 49 districts and the labor aligned New Democratic Party with 22. Global television, the country's third largest network, projected a Conservative government about 9:30 pm est but other commentators said it was too early to call the election. The Bloc Quebecois appeard to be failing to reach its goal of winning a symbolically important majority in Quebec because of the Conservative gains.
Shortly after 10 p.m., the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation predicted a conservative victory
Brian Mulroney served two terms, but other recent Tory PM's have served months. To wit, Joe Clark served nine months and Kim Campbell six months. When she was turned out, she even lost her riding.
If Harper is interested in pushing a conservative agenda and growing closer to the deeply unpopular Bush, with a minority government, he could count the months as well.
I guess they felt the whole thing was getting a little uncontrollable, what with Atrios swinging for the fences this morning, Jim Brady's excuses crumbling in the light of the superb research done by jukeboxgrad over at DKos, and Paul Lukasiak and Mark Schmidt picking apart the so-called "proof" Deborah Howell offered up in defense of the paper's lame attempts to tar the Democrats with an indisputably Republican scandal.
Instead, I've been informed that they want to have a "moderated online chat" this Wednesday, something they think they will better be able to control, no doubt. If they don't like a comment that I make or a question that I ask, they can just "moderate" it out.
All along I've been lobbying for people like Kos, Atrios, MyDD or C&L to be included due to their experience in dealing with a large volume of commenters. Unlike, say, Glenn Reynolds who has no comments, and who it appears has declined to participate in a discussion. They didn't seem to cotton to the idea. Well, now that they've shifted the dialog to our turf, these possibilities open up.
I'm going to be live blogging the event here and cross-posting shortly thereafter on the HuffPo. I'm arranging for some "special guests" to participate via IM and I will be able to offer up their questions and commentary by proxy. The Post will moderate their own site, but I'll be moderating this one. Any comment they do not deem suitable for their discussion will be posted here, and I'll be able to draw on a wide variety of expertise -- with the internet at my fingertips, through IM and the Comments section -- that I would not have had access to in a live meeting.
I'll be able to sit behind my computer with a cup of coffee in my hand, my dogs at my side and all of you at my back, so I invite everyone to show up and take part. Redd will be live blogging and moderating the comment section so we'll both be participating, which I'm really happy about. I type about 120 wpm so that shouldn't be a problem, the only issue will be whether my brain can effectively multi-task like that. Well it will be a grand experiment anyway and I could bollox the whole thing up but what the hell let's give it a go.
Oh and I pissed Malkin off, who thinks my "vulgarity" should preclude my participation in the event. Can I tell you that just made my day. I should probably mention here that I type that fast because I spent much of my 20's working my way through college and grad school as a temporary secretary with the help of my mother, an amazing businesswoman and an pioneering feminist who used to go and cry in the bathroom at lunch for all the indignities she had to suffer (and then go back to work and pretend like nothing had happened) in a really difficult work environment as she struggled to give her two daughters the benefit of higher education. Every scintilla of my being is personally offended by Kate O'Beirne, her book and all her attempts to exploit the opportunities made possible for her and Michelle "Love the War, Hate the Soldier" Malkin by people like my mom (whose boots they are not fit to lick) and to whose dignity and inspiration I dedicate the torpedoing of Kato's book.
That one's for you, Mom.
And I could not be happier that the Crazy-Ass Racist Bitch is doing her part to spread the moniker "sandpaper snatch." Whenever Kate O'Beirne walks into a room for the rest of her life it tickles me to no end know that everyone is privately sniggering about that one to themselves, and my heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who participates in its dissemination (it was actually Digby who urged me to go with it, and I'm kinda proud of it myself. I think it's some of my best work.)
Anyway, we're drawing some blood here. And we've just begun. I hope everyone shows up at 1:00 pm ET/10:00 am PT and participates in the WaPo "moderated" chat. Should be some good times
Oh yeah, there will now be a dedicated website for comments to the Washington Post
In addition to live blogging the Washington Post chat on Wednesday (1pm et/10am pt) we've also decided to start a public forum called Open Letter to the Washington Post. It was created by Matt Stoller of MyDD and will be moderated by the lovely and talented Taylor Marsh. As with the Chris Matthews blog, it will be a place for people to express their sentiments over whatever is happening with the WaPo that day, the structure of the organization, any slavish GOP stenography that might rear its nasty head and the reporters and columnists who seem to enjoy doing it so much.
Since the Post broke the Abramoff story and the reporting of Steno Sue and others has been key in the push to smear Democrats by association, this blog will create a forum that can't be deleted and will exist as a public record to hold the Post accountable. As Josh Marshall outlined so well yesterday, the need for pushback on the left to balance the bullying of the Mighty Wurlizer is undeniable.
We learned with the Chris Matthews blog and the Tim Russert blog that this is completely freaking them out, and what they're really afraid of is -- Google. Yes, Google. If you type in "Chris Matthews" now the #10 result is the Chris Matthews blog (and C&L's clip of Matthews comparing Michael Moore to Osama bin Laden is #9). There are some 3,000 comment on that blog now.
So the new Post blog is up, stop by and say hello to Taylor and please throw a link up on your website so when people Google "Washington Post" we can start to boost its ranking.
We'll also be driving people over there during the Wednesday morning chat to leave comments, so thanks to everyone for helping to make it work.
I got this in the e-mail and it seemed weird, with it's bullshit errors in fact
Steve - help out us real Dems and get off of the MM crap - Moore is a phony - he is a spoiled rich kid that could care less about anything but his comfort, money and popularity. The Republicans wished that they dreamed up this asshole as he has been the best thing to happen to them. Moore is not a patriotic American. Matthews, hardly a Right Wing guy was right! Below is a quote from Moores website Nov 4 2005 -
I know it's gotta be rough for you right now. Hey, we've all been there. "You're fired" are two horrible words when put together in that order. Bin Laden surfacing this weekend to remind the American people of your total and complete failure to capture him was a cruel trick or treat. But there he was. 3,000 people were killed and he's laughing in your face. Why did you stop our Special Forces from going after him? Why did you forget about bin Laden on the DAY AFTER 9/11 and tell your terrorism czar to concentrate on Iraq instead?
There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)
Bad news for Michael Moore's many defenders: Chris Matthews was not the first person to compare Osama's rhetoric to Michael Moore's. It turns out that Michael Moore beat him to the punch. From Michael Moore's website message for 11/1/04 (Election Day Eve):
I know it’s gotta be rough for you right now. Hey, we’ve all been there. “You’re fired” are two horrible words when put together in that order. Bin Laden surfacing this weekend to remind the American people of your total and complete failure to capture him was a cruel trick or treat. But there he was. 3,000 people were killed and he’s laughing in your face. Why did you stop our Special Forces from going after him? Why did you forget about bin Laden on the DAY AFTER 9/11 and tell your terrorism czar to concentrate on Iraq instead?
There he was, OBL, all tan and rested and on videotape (hey, did you get the feeling that he had a bootleg of my movie? Are there DVD players in those caves in Afghanistan?)
I did point out to the writer that Moore was the son of an auto worker who ran for office at 18, but they lie about him like there are no facts on record.
So how is this anti-American?
hy do they assume we will fall for their trolling. We're not as stupid as they are.
I'm watching Oprah right now and she's asking Peter Bergen about the "suicide bombers here"
I haven't been this depressed in two years, since she did her pre-war specials.
There's this professor talking about the influence of radical clerics in the US, when there is NO, zero evidence of this. And while Bergen tried to explain that there was no support for Bin Laden's ideology in the US, she seemed not to get it.
The simple fact is that the US deported 8,000 immigrants on scant legal reasons in the days after 9/11. They have blanketed these communities with electronic survelliance and FBI investigations. The risk of capture for a terror cell is high. Muslim Americans cannot afford a terror cell being successful in the US. No one wants to be deported or jailed because of an idiot son or neighbor.
The Army has had better luck recruiting Muslims than AQ in the US. Look at the low quality of AQ recruits like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla.
Suicide bombing is the last resort of the desperate and delusional. Even if someone did set off a bomb, the cell would be run to ground.
Then they talked about WMD's, and again, Bergen explained that AQ didn't have resources to build dirty bombs. But the problem is that no one explains that the fear , especially that fear which has gripped the suburbs over this, is irrational. Not only has the CIA and FBI done a good job in preventing a second attack, they have gone way beyond the bounds of civil, criminal and international law to do so.
As Peter Bergen said, the next attack is likely to come from someone with a European passport.
I understand her need to get a grip on these issues, but fuck, fearmongering isn't it, pandering to racial fears isn't it.
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the leading Democratic candidate for governor this year, has asked State Senator David A. Paterson of Manhattan to be his running mate, and Mr. Paterson has agreed, according to Democrats close to Mr. Spitzer.
State Senator David Patterson campaigning with Fernando Ferrer on Sept. 9 in New York City.
The unusually early selection of a running mate carries several political benefits for Mr. Spitzer, and some potential risks. Mr. Paterson, who has been the Democratic leader in the Senate since 2002, is respected and popular in the party. He is widely regarded as a smart political tactician and an able communicator.
As the highest ranking African-American in state government, Mr. Paterson would help solidify Mr. Spitzer's support among minority voters, a crucial demographic group in any fight for the Democratic Party nomination. And Mr. Spitzer may face such a fight if, as many expect, Nassau County Executive Thomas R. Suozzi decides to seek the nomination in the party primary in September.
Mr. Paterson, 51, also has a personal history that may intrigue voters: He is legally blind, born with no sight in his left eye and severely limited vision in his right. He has recalled being "the first legally disabled person to attend public schools" in his district. Today he plays basketball, and has run in the New York City marathon. He has also become a master of legislative politics despite being unable to read the body language of his rivals, an art form in Albany.
But in a statewide campaign that has several candidates running as Albany outsiders, Mr. Paterson's insider credentials may re-enforce those of Mr. Spitzer, who has been attorney general for seven years. Mr. Paterson has been a strong voice for change in the State Senate, as well as a critic and a friend to the Republican majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno.
Wow.
Newsday ran a big spread on how Arthur Eve's daughter wanted to run for Lt. Governor, and how Eve, Upstate's leading black pol, wanted this. By picking Patterson, long a media favorite and clubhouse scion, that pretty much kills that, and it putr Suozzi behind a rather large eight ball.
Spitzer is choosing to have a black candidate hold the second highest (but ceremonial) office in the state. How in hell is Suozzi going to get traction in the city now? And if he attacks Patterson, he can expect the full weight of black New York to land on him.
Smart move, leaving Suozzi with no chance of support in the city, and thus no chance to get enough votes, given the visibility of Spitzer in the state and his battles with Wall Street.
If Suozzi takes GOP money as he said he might, I would expect him to be gutted in the blogosphere as well. Spitzer is popular there as well, across the country, and if he tghinks he can take Home Depot and Wall Street money and not get ripped alive for it, well......
Suozzi thinks this is going to be a debate about good government. It isn't. It's going to be about opposing Bush and the GOP and their kleptocracy. And he's going to the other side already.
By Doug Struck The Washington Post Updated: 3:02 a.m. ET Jan. 23, 2006
BAGHDAD - The office of Iraq's most eminent cardiologist is padlocked. A handwritten sign is taped on his wooden door in the private clinic in Baghdad: Patients of Dr. Omar Kubasi should call him in Amman, Jordan.
There, Kubasi, 63, spends his days sitting at a cafe with other physicians and professionals from Iraq. Frustrated, he watches from afar as the medical education system he helped set up during his 36-year career slowly disintegrates. His teaching doctors are fleeing the country in fear. Younger physicians are looking for other countries to train in. Even patients are leaving, no longer confident in the care they can get in Iraq.
"I think it's part of the plan for the country's destruction," Kubasi said by telephone. "The situation in the last six months has gotten so bad, we couldn't continue."
Kubasi left Baghdad in May after he and nine other doctors received letters, written in a childish hand, telling them they would be killed if they did not stop working in their native Iraq. He and his colleagues had been the objects of threats before, but the last carried a foreboding urgency, he said.
Iraq's top professionals -- doctors, lawyers, professors -- and businessmen have been targeted by shadowy political groups for kidnapping and ransom, as well as murder, some of them say. So many have fled the country that Iraq is in danger of losing the core of skilled people it needs most just as it is trying to build a newly independent society.
"It's creating a brain drain," said Amer Hassan Fayed, assistant dean of political science at Baghdad University. "We could end up with a society without knowledge. How can such a society make progress?"
Professionals and businessmen with the means to escape are going to Jordan, Syria, Egypt or, if they have visas, to Western countries. Those left behind say they feel abandoned.
'I would leave if I could'
Ahmed Meer Ali, a 27-year-old resident doctor, is left alone to man the private hospital where Kubasi's office is locked and shuttered. Most of the specialists who worked there, providing care to patients and guidance to Ali, have left.
"They are the ones with specialties from England or the U.S.A. They were the ones teaching me," he said. "Now, some patients even go to Iran to get care. In the past, no one in Iraq would go to Iran."
And many educated young Iraqis are hoping to follow.
"Of course I would leave if I could," said Ihana Nabil, 22, who will soon graduate from Baghdad University with a degree in political science. "There's no peace, no stability and no jobs here," she said. Other students at the campus, a temporary oasis in a violent city, agreed.
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Why are they so eager to leave? Well, no power and constant violence might be one reason.
Power shortages are a crucial issue for ordinary Iraqis, and for the credibility of their government. As Muhsin Shlash, Iraq's electricity minister, said last week, "When you lose electricity the country is destroyed, nothing works, all industry is down and terrorist activity is increased."
Mr. Shlash has reason to be strident. In today's Iraq, blackouts are the rule rather than the exception. According to Agence France-Presse, Baghdad and "much of the central regions" - in other words, the areas where the insurgency is most active and dangerous - currently get only between two and six hours of power a day.
Lack of electricity isn't just an inconvenience. It prevents businesses from operating, destroys jobs and generates a sense of demoralization and rage that feeds the insurgency.
So why is power scarcer than ever, almost three years after Saddam's fall? Sabotage by insurgents is one factor. But as an analysis of Iraq's electricity shortage in The Los Angeles Times last month showed, the blackouts are also the result of some incredible missteps by U.S. officials.
Most notably, during the period when Iraq was run by U.S. officials, they decided to base their electricity plan on natural gas: in order to boost electrical output, American companies were hired to install gas-fired generators in power plants across Iraq. But, as The Los Angeles Times explains, "pipelines needed to transport the gas" - that is, to supply gas to the new generators - "weren't built because Iraq's Oil Ministry, with U.S. encouragement, concentrated instead on boosting oil production.
Iraq ♥ Iran. Which puts the United States in the embarrassingly difficult position of having the nascent democracy it built cavorting with one of its "Axis of Evils." Kind of like hating your daughter's boyfriend. But worse, with the whole nuclear arms and civil war stuff thrown in the mix.
While the United States government has ratcheted up its rhetoric with respect to Iran, Iraq has come to Iran's defense. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that one of Iraq's most influential clerics vowed to use militias to protect Iran against foreign intervention.
The Iraqi cleric who once led two uprisings against U.S. forces said Sunday that his militia would help to defend Iran if it is attacked, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Muqtada al-Sadr, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, said his Mahdi Army was formed to defend Islam.
''If neighboring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them,'' al-Sadr was quoted as saying. ''The Mahdi Army is beyond the Iraqi army. It was established to defend Islam.''
The comments could be seen as a message that Tehran has allies who could make things difficult for U.S. forces in the region if Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked.
Well, you say. That's a cleric, not a formal representative of Iraq. The Iraqi government still has our back, right? Not quite. The official Islamic Republic News Agency reveals that Iraq's Foreign Minister has been meeting with leaders in Iran in order to strengthen the relationship between the two countries. As recently as this week, in the midst of international fury over Iran's actions, the Iraqi Foreign Minister called for a closer Iran-Iraq relationship:
Jan. 18th- Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, during a meeting with Iranian Charge d'Affaires Hassan Kazemi-Qomi on Tuesday, called for deepening of relations between the two neighboring countries.
He urged the two governments to continue the current trend of relations and speed up implementation of plans and agreements which have already been signed by the two countries.
In the span of a week, Iraq's Foreign Minister and one of the most influential religious leaders in Iraq have met with Iranian officials and expressed solidarity and support. Indeed, after meeting with al Sadr, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, called Iran and Iraq "natural allies." And what feeds a relationship more than money? Last week, Iran meet with Iraq's electricity Minister Abd al-Muhsin Shalash. The purpose? The implement an agreement between the two countries to build nine electricity transfer plants. Recall that Iran maintains it wants nuclear power for "peaceful energy purposes." So while the United States and other nations are threatening sanctions against Iran, Iraq is indeed strengthening its economic relationship with that country. Add to the mix that Iran and Syria issued a joint statement this week reinforcing their close relationship and common goals, and I'd say the situation in the region is fucked up. More so than usual, which is saying a lot.
These ominous developments do not bode well for the United States.
Sadr is no mere cleric, his party hold the majority in the new Iraqi parliment. He is the second most influential man in Iraq after Ayatollah Sistani.
Actually, since Tehran has pretty much either owned these guys from jump, or been their allies since the days of Saddam, their loyalty is pretty much assured. And with the new Iranian president starts ranting, some of his most fervent fans are in Iraq.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 - With a campaign of high-profile national security events set for the next three days, following Karl Rove's blistering speech to Republicans on Friday, the White House has effectively declared that it views its controversial secret surveillance program not as a political liability but as an asset, a way to attack Democrats and re-establish President Bush's standing after a difficult year.
Whether the White House can succeed depends very much, members of both parties say, on its success in framing a complicated debate when the country is torn between its historic aversion to governmental intrusion and its recent fear of terrorist attacks at home.
Polls suggest that Americans are divided over whether Mr. Bush has the authority to order the searches without warrants that critics say violate the law and that the president says are legal and critical to the nation's security.
But as the White House and Democrats are well aware, the issue can draw very different reactions depending on how it is presented. These next few days could prove critical, as both Mr. Bush and Congressional Democrats move aggressively to define what is at stake.
Americans may be willing to support extraordinary measures - perhaps extralegal ones - if they are posed in the starkest terms of protecting the nation from another calamitous attack. They are less likely to be supportive, members of both parties say, if the question is presented as a president breaking the law to spy on the nation's own citizens.
When will the media admit that Bush is a miserable salesman.
Bush couldn't sell his Social Security program. The Medicare program is a disaster.
The fact is that Bush will talk about this in vague terms, and his opponents will have specifics, like the FBI coming up with nothing, survelling mosques.
Rove, still sweatring out an indictment, is going back to the old playbook, and this time, even if the pols are hesitant, the public is ready to call bullshit. Too many wounded, too many dead, too much government failure for this to work one more time.
When people realize the scale of the intrusion, the reaction will not be pretty. Because Americans assume their rights are inviolate, even overseas.
People are not as stupid as Rove thinks. Bush needs to prove his case and he can't even come close.
TORONTO, Jan. 22 - Unless every national poll here is amiss, what has been perhaps the world's winningest political party is heading toward a humiliating defeat on Monday.
Stephen Harper, 46, an economist and social conservative who is writing a history of ice hockey, appears poised to lead his Conservative Party to victory over the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Paul Martin, something that seemed highly improbable just a few weeks ago. The Liberals won the last four national elections, governing Canada for 13 years - as the party did for three-quarters of the past century.
But whether a Harper victory would represent a seismic shift, in a country that has long promoted itself as a beacon of social democracy and frequent critic of American foreign policy, remains an open question. If he cannot muster a majority in the House of Commons, Mr. Harper may lead a weak, unstable government opposed by three left-of-center parties represented in Parliament.
Mr. Harper - in a campaign largely free of ideology - promised to cut the national sales tax, grant families child care for preschoolers and introduce mandatory prison sentences. A longtime member of the House of Commons representing Alberta, he has a conservative record, but steered clear in recent months of promising major changes to the national health insurance program.
The absence of strong ideological overtones would appear to make a Thatcherite-style revolution unlikely, even in the face of a strong Conservative showing. Mr. Harper even noted that judges appointed by Liberal governments and an appointed Senate filled with Liberals would serve as checks on his power.
"I'm basically a cautious person," Mr. Harper said in a recent speech. "I believe it's better to light one candle than to promise a million light bulbs."
A change in Ottawa would almost certainly bring, at the least, a warming of relations with Washington, which have been strained since the American-led invasion of Iraq and have worsened over a series of recent trade disputes and Canadian moves to soften domestic drug laws.
Mr. Harper, while careful not to appear overly supportive of President Bush, has suggested he would reconsider Canada's refusal to join the American missile defense program. He has also promised to increase military spending and make a bigger contribution to NATO and peacekeeping operations in places like Haiti and Afghanistan. But he also said recently that he had no intention of sending troops to Iraq.
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In recent weeks, the Liberals tried to recover votes with advertisements linking Mr. Harper to Mr. Bush, who is unpopular in Canada, and suggestions in speeches that Mr. Harper would attempt to reverse the legalization of same-sex marriage and abortion rights.
"A Harper victory will put a smile on George W. Bush's face," one Martin commercial said.
If the Liberals win using this anti-Bush campaign, it will be a final signal to our allies that Bush is detested everywhere outside the US.
People may be pissed about corruption, but there's always that doubt: why take a chance? Especially when he might try to emulate unpopular American policies. Hell, everyone else who runs against Bush wins. Hamas might be the next beneficiary of this.
Hundreds of noncitizens were swept up on visa violations in the weeks after 9/11, held for months in a much-criticized federal detention center in Brooklyn as "persons of interest" to terror investigators, and then deported. This week, one of them is back in New York and another is due today - the first to return to the United States.
Hany Ibrahim, left, and his brother Yasser last week in Alexandria, Egypt, where they were deported in 2002.
They are no longer the accused but the accusers, among six former detainees who are coming back to give depositions in their federal lawsuits against top government officials and detention guards, at a time when the constitutionality of part of the government's counterterrorism offensive is under new scrutiny.
As in the cases of all the Muslim immigrants rounded up in the New York area after the terror attacks, the six were never accused of a crime related to 9/11; officials eventually cleared all of them of links to terrorism. A report by the inspector general of the Justice Department found systemic problems with immigrant detentions and widespread abuse at the federal detention center where the six had been held; several guards have since been disciplined.
But as the six return to the city - four of them from Egypt, one from Pakistan, one from London - the conditions imposed by the United States government include the requirement that they be in the constant custody of federal marshals.
They are barred from calling anyone during their weeklong stays at an undisclosed New York hotel, where 12 days of closed depositions are to begin today. They can expect hours of questioning by lawyers representing at least 31 defendants in the lawsuits, including John Ashcroft, the former attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller III, the director of the F.B.I.
The evidence from these cases hold the potential to cause Bush's little wiretapping campaign great harm.
If, as I think, the NSA created an electronic Manzanar, these were probably the first victims.
If Judge Samuel Alito Jr.'s confirmation hearings lacked drama, apart from his wife's bizarrely over-covered crying jag, it is because they confirmed the obvious. Judge Alito is exactly the kind of legal thinker President Bush wants on the Supreme Court. He has a radically broad view of the president's power, and a radically narrow view of Congress's power. He has long argued that the Constitution does not protect abortion rights. He wants to reduce the rights and liberties of ordinary Americans, and has a history of tilting the scales of justice against the little guy. ....................
Judge Alito may be a fine man, but he is not the kind of justice the country needs right now. Senators from both parties should oppose his nomination.
It is likely that Judge Alito was chosen for his extreme views on presidential power. The Supreme Court, with Justice O'Connor's support, has played a key role in standing up to the Bush administration's radical view of its power, notably that it can hold, indefinitely and without trial, anyone the president declares an "unlawful enemy combatant."
Judge Alito would no doubt try to change the court's approach. He has supported the fringe "unitary executive" theory, which would give the president greater power to detain Americans and would throw off the checks and balances built into the Constitution. He has also put forth the outlandish idea that if the president makes a statement when he signs a bill into law, a court interpreting the law should give his intent the same weight it gives to Congress's intent in writing and approving the law.
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There is every reason to believe, based on his long paper trail and the evasive answers he gave at his hearings, that Judge Alito would quickly vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. So it is hard to see how Senators Lincoln Chaffee, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, all Republicans, could square support for Judge Alito with their commitment to abortion rights.
Judge Alito has consistently shown a bias in favor of those in power over those who need the law to protect them. Women, racial minorities, the elderly and workers who come to court seeking justice should expect little sympathy. In the same flat bureaucratic tones he used at the hearings, he is likely to insist that the law can do nothing for them. .................
The real risk for senators lies not in opposing Judge Alito, but in voting for him. If the far right takes over the Supreme Court, American law and life could change dramatically. If that happens, many senators who voted for Judge Alito will no doubt come to regret that they did not insist that Justice O'Connor's seat be filled with someone who shared her cautious, centrist approach to the law
So if you're a responsible reporter and you call up the RNC spokesman and get the response to Gore's speech, you're just going to have to accept that when the spokesman tells you something kinda sorta plausible but fundamentally untrue you're going to attribute it, quote it accurately, and run it. Now you're involved in the propaganda machine yourself, but it happened as a result of trying to be balanced and responsible and 'avoid the impression of...' -- Jay.
Unless, of course, you write the follow-up paragraph, based on a little research easily accessed in these days of digital databanks, which says, basically, "The RNC response is fundamentally untrue."
Now, I grant you, nine out of 10 reporters don't do that -- even though it is not that hard to take that extra step.
I learned that woeful fact in 2004, running Campaign Desk, the predecessor to CJR Daily. And every time we saw it, we called them on it -- usually to no avail.
But my point is, that is the way out of what you describe as Downie's dilemma ... or Sue Schmidt's dilemma ... or Harris's dilemma ... or Howell's dilemma. What's depressing is that none of them get it.
It's weird that they don't get it because in the mind of readers it essentially makes the reporters liars. Despite how some like to think of themselves, reporters are not passive conduits of information. They choose their sources. They choose the quotes. They decide when a source has been full of shit so many times that, if they care, they stop going to them for information.
More than that, from the perspective of the reader when the journalist passes on the quote without question or any rebuttal or refutation, the journalist is implicitly putting his/her stamp of authentication on it. This is doubly true for those "anonymous senior administration official quotes" where no sensible (hah!) reader assumes that a reporter would pass off information under cover of anonymity without doing at least a modest bit of verification.
This is different from, say, CNN running some of a Bush speech live and not doing an instant fact check. TV news, in part, is a passive conduit for live events. But print reporting should never simply be, uh, what was that word? Oh, yes, stenography.
When a reporter puts the byline on something they own it. I understand that it is actually news when a senior administration official says something, no matter what it is, but it's even bigger news if they're, you know, lying.
OK, our friend August J. Pollack has proposed that the President kill a kitten with a hammer.
Now, he's merely asked if you would agree to this if he did it.
I want to raise the stakes here.
I know most of you Young Republicans aren't going to enlist, but you can show your loyalty to the President and his team. And it's already something Bill Frist has embraced.
Kill a Kitten for Bush.
That's right, kill a living, breathing kitten to show your loyalty to the GOP. Prove to those hippie, pussy Dems that you will take a life for Bush, even if it can't shoot back. So march right down to your local animal shelter, get a kitten, pick a public place, I'd say the Quad in your college campus, set up a table and kill that kitty.
Hammer? Fuck a hammer, do what you want, fire an airgun into it's head 20 times, chop it to bits with a machete, dissect it, whatever. That will show those liberals how tough you really are. They keep calling you chickenhawks, you'll show them.
Note: Not responsible for PETA protest or law enforcement. But hey, you're Republicans and you have friends, right?
Campus Activist Goes Right at 'Em Andrew Jones, who enjoys tweaking liberals, draws national attention with his plan to pay students to report on UCLA professors. By Stuart Silverstein Times Staff Writer
January 22, 2006
As the leader of UCLA's student Bruin Republicans three years ago, Andrew Jones often made it his mission to ridicule and antagonize campus liberals.
To mock supporters of affirmative action, he organized an "affirmative action bake sale" that sold cookies for prices ranging from just 25 cents apiece for minority women to $2 for white males. To needle protesters staging a march against the Iraq war, he proudly recalls positioning himself at the head of the line and displaying a banner reading, "Saddam Loves Walkouts."
Jones is now cranking up a far more controversial effort — or stunt, skeptics say — to zing his philosophical opponents, and he is capturing a national media spotlight in the process.
His new tactic is to offer students bounties of up to $100 per class for providing tapes and notes of classes taught
