Last time is was Rumsfeld's comparisons to Nazi's.
Today, it's Bush's turn
There isn't a YouTube link yet.
Here is the transcript.
Technorati Tags: Keith Olbermann, Countdown, George Bush, "Have you no sense of decency sir?"
The Houston Chonicle had an article on Monday about individual states efforts to set their own minimum wages.
The article points out that Arkansas, Florida, and North Carolina, none of which are blue states, all have done so.
Of course, Republicans don't think it is necessary:
But Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, doesn't see a statewide effort going anywhere in the next Legislature.
With the Texas economy so good, many people don't see a reason to raise the wage that's typically associated with summer workers and teenagers.
"There's plenty of employment money out there," said Eissler, who is also president of Eissler and Associates, an executive recruiting firm. People who work hard and get some skills will quickly rise above the minimum wage, he said.
Eye on Williamson points us to Texas Democratic candidate for Governor, Chris Bell's blog following up on the Austin American-Statesmen who asked a good question:
And there is a nagging question for Texas Democrats: Why don't the party's national committees and candidates support Texas Democrats such as gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell?
Think Progress has put up a page will will allow you to send a message to ABC letting them know what you think about their 9/11 docudrama.
Let them know what you think.
Technorati Tags: ABC, 9/11, The Path to 9/11, Think Progress
Courtesy of Think Progress:
Christy at Firedoglake has some more on the re-writing of history that ABC will be doing with their fictional account of the events leading up to 9/11. She has helpfully provided some links to other bloggers who have compiled video and documentation to handily counter ABC's insistence that their movie is correct.
Unfortunately, it gets a bit more difficult when Scholastic Corporation (you know, the company who sends the book catalogs to schools) provides a "discussion guide" to teachers in Social Studies/History classes for grades 9-12 which purport to provide teachers with documentation to help them discuss this movie with their students.
Talk about indoctrinating them at a young age!
Fortunately my eldest is not in 9th grade yet, so I don't have to worry about this. However, if you do have kids in the 9th through 12th grades, you may want to send a message to their Social Studies/History teachers expressing your concern for the lack of historical accuracy that this movie will portray.
Technorati Tags: ABC, 9/11, Docudrama, War on Terror
So says the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
But actions speak far louder than words. In reality, Perry's actions — and lack of such — as governor have consistently been radically anti-parks, including his thumb-twiddling as the parks system became financially emaciated.
In other words, Perry has virtually zero credibility on parks issues. And only he has the power to change that.
It now looks as if Patterson and/or Perry and/or some unnamed developer might announce the fate of the Eagle Mountain Lake park site shortly after the Nov. 7 election.
How convenient — and cowardly — that might prove to be.
U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige labeled one "a terrorist organization." Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, called them "a clear and present danger to the security of the United States." And U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., claimed they employ "tyranny that Americans are fighting and dying to defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan" and are thus "enemies of freedom and democracy," who show "why we still need the Second Amendment" to defend ourselves with firearms.
Who are these supposed threats to America? No, not Osama bin Laden followers, but labor unions made up of millions of workers -- janitors, teachers, firefighters, police officers, you name it.
Update:Since today is Labor Day, I thought I should bump this back to the top.
Labor Day weekend is almost upon us. No doubt this causes some heartburn among Conservative bloggers, as we start to see columns about the state of the American workforce:
The young may be understandably incredulous, but the Great Compression, as economists call it, was the single most important social fact in our country in the decades after World War II. From 1947 through 1973, American productivity rose by a whopping 104 percent, and median family income rose by the very same 104 percent. More Americans bought homes and new cars and sent their kids to college than ever before. In ways more difficult to quantify, the mass prosperity fostered a generosity of spirit: The civil rights revolution and the Marshall Plan both emanated from an America in which most people were imbued with a sense of economic security.
That America is as dead as the dodo. Ours is the age of the Great Upward Redistribution. The median hourly wage for Americans has declined by 2 percent since 2003, though productivity has been rising handsomely. Last year, according to figures released just yesterday by the Census Bureau, wages for men declined by 1.8 percent and for women by 1.3 percent.
[...]
But finger a corporation for exploiting its workers and you're trafficking in class warfare. Of late a number of my fellow pundits have charged that Democratic politicians concerned about the further expansion of Wal-Mart are simply pandering to unions. Wal-Mart offers low prices and jobs to economically depressed communities, they argue. What's wrong with that?
[...]
Devaluing labor is the very essence of our economy. I know that airlines are a particularly embattled industry, but my eye was recently caught by a story on Mesaba Airlines, an affiliate of Northwest, where the starting annual salary for pilots is $21,000 a year, and where the company is seeking a pay cut of 19 percent. Maybe Mesaba's plan is to have its pilots hit up passengers for tips.
Labor Day is almost upon us. What a joke.
Truthiness: The truth unemcumbered by facts
Friday, I pointed out a link about ABC television's docudrama (not documentary) about the events leading up to 9/11.
The reality is that there is very little docu in this drama, and lots of artistic license.
The main point to take away from this, is that only conservative bloggers, pundits, and media personalities have been able to obtain an advance DVD of the movie. ABC puts some laughably false spin on this inconvenient fact by stating, in their now defunct blog about the movie (what too many questions?) that they " are also being accused of being a left wing movie that bashes Bush."
I doubt it.
If you ever wondered what truthiness really was, no you know.
ABC airs a movie about what really happened on 9/11, using no available facts to tell the story.
Or, as Stephen Colbert would put it, the story is being told with fact that the screenwriter, Cyrus Nowrasteh, felt to be true, rather than what the 9/11 commission told him to be true.
Technorati Tags: ABC, Truthiness, 9/11, Cyrus Nowrasteh, "War on Terror",
"A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company."
--Gian Vincenzo Gravina
Now that we are entering the final stretch of the 2006 Congressional elections. The media is taking sides.
After watching Face the Nation, and the stand in for Bill Schieffer, interviewing Mitch McConnell I am struck by the fact that the media has already made it quite clear that they would prefer the Republicans to win.
If the media were actually interested in being "fair and balanced" (not in the Fox News way either), Mitch McConnell wouldn't have been spew his lies and bile unchallenged.
I know it is not too much of a shock to many people, execpt that I wouldn't have thought they would make it so clear at the beginning of September.
Technorati Tags: Democrat, Republican, Election, 2006, Media Bias
"I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me."
--Dave Barry
Courtesy of Avedon Carol we are pointed to a site which you can create your official seal
What do you think of this:
"Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so."
--Bertrand Russell
New ABC Docudrama Blames Clinton For 9/11, Praises Bush
Need I say any more?
With the revelation that Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state, was the individual who blew the cover of former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, the Washington Post blows its reputation, yet again:
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
Mrs. David and I own our own home. When we purchased the home, and subsequently refinanced, the question put to us was always the same. How long do you plan on living in your house.
Our answer was always "we don't know". As a consequence of this answer, we have always gotten a fixed-rate mortgage. Certainly, we didn't always have the best interest rate, and we also didn't refinance at the right time to get the lowest rates possible, but the interest rate we pay on our home is quite reasonable. Banks have repeatedly tried to sell us ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages), and we have always resisted the siren calls of low rate ARMs
We have lived in our current house for over 7 years now, and don't have any immediate plans to move.
Why do I mention this?
Nightmare Mortgages:
For cash-strapped homeowners, it was a pitch they couldn't refuse: Refinance your mortgage at a bargain rate and cut your payments in half. New home buyers, stretching to afford something in a super-heated market, didn't even need to produce documentation, much less a downpayment.
hose who took the bait are in for a nasty surprise. While many Americans have started to worry about falling home prices, borrowers who jumped into so-called option ARM loans have another, more urgent problem: payments that are about to skyrocket.
The option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) might be the riskiest and most complicated home loan product ever created. With its temptingly low minimum payments, the option ARM brought a whole new group of buyers into the housing market, extending the boom longer than it could have otherwise lasted, especially in the hottest markets. Suddenly, almost anyone could afford a home -- or so they thought. The option ARM's low payments are only temporary. And the less a borrower chooses to pay now, the more is tacked onto the balance.
[...]
Because banks don't have to report how many option ARMs they underwrite, few choose to do so. But the best available estimates show that option ARMs have soared in popularity. They accounted for as little as 0.5% of all mortgages written in 2003, but that shot up to at least 12.3% through the first five months of this year, according to FirstAmerican LoanPerformance, an industry tracker. And while they made up at least 40% of mortgages in Salinas, Calif., and 26% in Naples, Fla., they're not just found in overheated coastal markets: Through Mar. 31 of this year, at least 51% of mortgages in West Virginia and 26% in Wyoming were option ARMs. Stock and bond analysts estimate that as many as 1.3 million borrowers took out as much as $389 billion in option ARMs in 2004 and 2005. And it's not letting up. Despite the housing slump, option ARMs totaling $77.2 billion were written in the second quarter of this year, according to investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc.
[...]
Gordon Burger is among the first wave of option ARM casualties. The 42-year-old police officer from a suburb of Sacramento, Calif., is stuck in a new mortgage that's making him poorer by the month. Burger, a solid earner with clean credit, has bought and sold several houses in the past. In February he got a flyer from a broker advertising an interest rate of 2.2%. It was an unbeatable opportunity, he thought. If he refinanced the mortgage on his $500,000 home into an option ARM, he could save $14,000 in interest payments over three years. Burger quickly pulled the trigger, switching out of his 5.1% fixed-rate loan. "The payment schedule looked like what we talked about, so I just started signing away," says Burger. He didn't read the fine print.
After two months Burger noticed that the minimum payment of $1,697 was actually adding $1,000 to his balance every month. "I'm not making any ground on this house; it's a loss every month," he says. He says he was told by his lender, Minneapolis-based Homecoming Financial, a unit of Residential Capital, the nation's fifth-largest mortgage shop, that he'd have to pay more than $10,000 in prepayment penalties to refinance out of the loan. If he's unhappy, he should take it up with his broker, the bank said. "They know they're selling crap, and they're doing it in a way that's very deceiving," he says. "Unfortunately, I got sucked into it." In a written statement, Residential said it couldn't comment on Burger's loan but that "each mortgage is designed to meet the specific financial needs of a consumer."
[...]
Banks that hold lots of option ARMs on their books will surely be hit by loan defaults in coming years. "It's certainly reasonable to expect to see some excesses wrung out," says Brad A. Morrice, president and CEO of New Century Financial Corp. But even here the damage will likely be limited. Banks use insurance and other financial instruments to protect their portfolios, and they hold real assets -- homes -- as collateral. Christopher L. Cagan, director of research and analytics at First American Real Estate Solutions, a researcher and unit of title insurer First American, forecasts total defaults of $300 billion across all types of loans, not just option ARMs, over the next five years -- less than 1% of total homeowner equity. (In comparison, JPMorgan Chase & Co. alone has a mortgage portfolio of $182.8 billion.) Cagan estimates that banks will end up losing only $100 billion of it all told.
Most of the pain will be born by ordinary people. And it's already happening. More than a fifth of option ARM loans in 2004 and 2005 are upside down -- meaning borrowers' homes are worth less than their debt. If home prices fall 10%, that number would double. "The number of houses for sale is tripling in some markets, so people are not going to get out of their debt," says the Ford Foundation's McCarthy. "A lot are going to walk."
Jennifer and Eric Hinz of Somerset, Wis., are feeling the squeeze. They refinanced out of a 5.25% fixed-rate, 30-year loan in June, 2005, and into an option ARM with a 1% teaser rate from Indymac Bank. The $1,483 payment for their original mortgage dropped to as low as $747 with the new option ARM. They say they had no idea when they signed up, however, that the low payment adds $600 in deferred interest to their balance every month. Worse, they thought the 1% would last three years, but they're already paying 7.68%. "What reasonable human being would ever knowingly give up a 5.25% fixed-rate for what we're getting now?" says Eric, 36, who works in commercial construction. Refinancing is out because they can't afford the $15,000 or so in fees. "I'm paying more, and the interest is just going up and up and up," says Jennifer, 34, a stay-at-home mom. "I feel like we got totally screwed." They say their mortgage broker has stopped returning their phone calls. Indymac declined to comment on the loan's specifics.
[...]
Fair-housing pundits suggest that mortgage lenders follow the lead of the securities industry and require that mortgage borrowers be not only eligible for a product but also suitable -- meaning the loan won't impose hardship. Says Consumer Federation of America's Fishbein: Buyers have to have a "reasonable prospect of being able to handle the payments, not at the initial rate, but [assuming] the worst-case scenario."
So far, banks have shown little desire to raise their standards. In February, Golden West announced it would raise its minimum option ARM payment to 2.6% of the loan. In March, Golden West's Sandler wrote a nine-page letter to the Office of Thrift Supervision decrying the lax lending standards he was seeing. "Foolish lenders who eventually stumble under the weight of their missteps will bring down innocent borrowers with them and leave the rest of us to clean up the mess," he wrote. But on May 7, Golden West announced it was selling out to Charlotte (N.C.)-based Wachovia Corp. (WB ). By June it had dropped its option ARM rate back down to 1.50%. Sandler says the rates were changed according to the bank's interest rate outlook.
This is what passes serious political commentary?
There is so much wrong with Broder's entire column I don't know where to start.
The thrust is that he doesn't like that New Hampshire wont be the first Democratic Primary state and Iowa the second, unless they change the date of their primaries.
Only, he alledges that Democrats have a problem with Iowa and New Hampshire because they are "overwhelmingly white" while Nevada is Hispanic, and South Carolina is African-American.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
What does the race of the voters have to do with anything related to the timings of primaries?
I hope that the Washington Post asked for a refund for this column.
Like the game Clue®, there has been a big whodunit going on in Washington and around Blogistan.
An unknown Senator put an anonymous hold on a Senate bill to create transparency in pork spending. This bill had wide support in Congress, and who put the hold on the bill became a game of cat and mouse.
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was finally revealed as the culprit. When pressed as to why he would put a hold on a bill that actually seemed to be a good thing, the response was:
Stevens' office has asked Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the sponsor of the bill, for "a cost-benefit analysis to make sure this does not create an extra layer of unnecessary bureaucracy," spokesman Aaron Saunders said. The Senator "wanted to make sure that this wasn't going to be a huge cost to the taxpayer and that it achieves the goal which the bill is meant to achieve."
I watched this last night, and my only regret is that everyone hasn't seen it yet.
After watching this video, go to YouTube and rate it so that it gets more exposure.
Technorati Tags: Keith Olbermann, Donald Rumsfeld
Maybe there is more talk around Washington about this, but I happen to agree with Mark Warner.
The South is not lost:
"We do our party and the country a disservice if we're not competitive in the South and the balance of the Midwest," Warner said. "I'm disappointed in campaigns that write off the South and leave behind wide swaths of our country."
I know that Republicans like to hold up the few examples of Democrats who have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar as proof that Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans.
However, this takes the cake:
State Department investigators have concluded that Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, improperly hired a friend on the public payroll for nearly $250,000 over two and a half years, according to a summary of their report made public this afternoon by Democratic Congressional staff members.
They also said that Mr. Tomlinson, whose job puts him in charge of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, used his government office for personal business, including running a “horse racing operation” in which he supervised a stable of thoroughbreds he named after leaders from Afghanistan, including President Hamid Karzai and the late Ahmed Shah Massoud, that have raced at tracks across the United States. They also said that Mr. Tomlinson repeatedly used government employees to do his personal errands and that he billed the government for more days of work than the rules permit.
It has been a long hard slog to get to this point, but now I see that Democrats are calling it like it is:
"Secretary Rumsfeld's efforts to smear critics of the Bush Administration's Iraq policy are a pathetic attempt to shift the public's attention from his repeated failure to manage the conduct of the war competently," said Pelosi in a press release received by RAW STORY.
[...]
"Secretary Rumsfeld’s reckless comments show why America is not as safe as it can or should be five years after 9/11," said Reid's statement. "The Bush White House is more interested in lashing out at its political enemies and distracting from its failures than it is in winning the War on Terror and in bringing an end to the war in Iraq."
"If there's one person who has failed to learn the lessons of history it's Donald Rumsfeld," Reid said.
[...]
"The policies that led to the horrors at Abu Ghraib were developed on Mr. Rumsfeld's watch," said Pelosi. "For him to now lecture on moral clarity is a fresh embarrassment to the nation."
"His comments offer additional evidence that the end of his tenure as Secretary of Defense can not come soon enough," added Pelosi.
"Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more insulting than if you spoke right out at once."
-Evan Esar
Matt Yglesias at TPM:
So, here's Iran. Outgunned by its two leading religio-ideological antagonists, Israel and Saudi Arabia, in the region. One immediate neighbor is Pakistan, with a larger population base and a nuclear arsenal. Another immediate neighbor, Afghanistan, is occupied by soldiers under the command of an American president who has spurned peace offers and threatened to overthrow the Iranian government. A second immediate neighbor, Iraq, is occupied by a larger number of soldiers from the same country. The Iranian military's equipment is outdated and essentially incapable of mounting offensive operations. So Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons and missiles to deliver them. Under the circumstances, wouldn't you? Don't you think a little deterrence capability would serve the country well under those circumstances?
I'm sorry to have gone on at such great length here, and a little nervous about stepping outside the "sensible" zone with my commentary on this topic, but somebody needs to call bull$#*t on the prevailing elite consensus about Iran. Of course it would be better to find a way to persuade, cajole, whatever Iran out of going nuclear -- the spread of nuclear weapons is, as such, bad for the USA. But there's no need -- absolutely no need -- for this atmosphere of panic and paranoia.
At least this time it is not an agency of the federal government:
Hackers broke into one of AT&T Inc.'s computer networks and stole credit card data and other personal information from several thousand customers who shopped at the telecommunication giant's online store.
AT&T said it was notifying "fewer than 19,000" customers whose data was accessed during the weekend break-in, which it said was detected within hours.
Via Charles Kuffner we learn that Governor Goodhair has finally gotten off his duff to call a special election for the remainder of DeLay's term.
This has to be a bit of a ploy to get Shelley Sekula-Gibbs name on the ballot so that people can see it, and spell her name correctly in the general election portion of the ballot.
Also, it sets up the possibility of one candidate being elected for a term from November to January, with the regular term starting in Jaunary. If one of the candidates wins both the special election, and the general election, there is 60+ days worth of seniority over any other candidate elected in the general election.
Or, we end up with a newly elected lame-duck congressperson for the remainder of DeLay's term.
In either case, Rick Perry has made this already intractable situation worse, by waiting to declare the special election. As Kuff pointed out, even with the legal wranglings that have been going on, Tom DeLay was officially resigned from Congress, 7 June. Even with everything else that was going on, it was clear that DeLay had no intention of serving out his term. Additionally, the final selection for the GOP candidate was made on 17 August.
So, why did Perry wait?
Technorati Tags: Tom DeLay, Nick Lampson, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, TX-22, Special Election, Rick Perry, Governor Goodhair, Texas
Is the sound of desperation of a career failing:
Poor Rita Cosby.
Thanks to Atta J. Turk for the light laugh.
"Think twice before you speak, and then you may be able to say something more insulting than if you spoke right out at once."
--Evan Esar
John at Americablog has it right, who are the Americans who say we should appease the terrorists?
So please, dear media, just like you pestered John Kerry incessantly about who those supposed "world leaders" were who didn't want Bush to win re-election, please demand that the vice president name names and provide us with quotes. The American people deserve to know who among us has outright said that we should "appease the terrorists" in the hope that if we make them happy they won't hit us again.
Because if he can't prove what he's saying, then that means Dick Cheney is lying to the American people about the war on terror in an effort to sway the election. And that, if true, is big news and a serious offense.
Democrats pretending they have already won:
Barring an unexpected and big event, Democrats will win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November and conceivably the Senate, too. Whether it's a tsunami or just a powerful wave, the political dynamics are moving in that direction, or more accurately, against the Republicans and President George W. Bush.
Democratic insiders, who months ago thought their chances of winning a majority in the House were no better than even, and that the Senate was a lost cause, have become far more optimistic. Now, they say, winning the House is a lock, and the Senate is within reach.
``We have to go back to 1974 (during Watergate) to find such a favorable environment,'' says James Carville, who ran Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign. ``If we can't win in this environment, we have to question the whole premise of the party.''
More telling is that the smartest Republican political minds agree. ``The issue matrix and political dynamics are not good for us,'' says Representative Tom Davis, a Virginia Republican. ``Only some big national or international event before the election can change that.''
It seems that 2006 will be the year that the Republican Congress rebukes the Republican President
All this Republican uneasiness underscores the importance of the New York Times-CBS poll showing that 51 percent of those surveyed found no link between the war in Iraq and the broader war on terrorism, an increase of 10 percentage points since June. A majority now rejects the administration's core foreign policy argument.
The cracking of Republican solidarity in support of Bush on Iraq has short-term implications for November's elections and long-term implications for whether the administration can sustain its policies.
With a growing number of Republicans now echoing Democratic criticisms of the war, Republican strategists will have a harder time making the election a referendum on whether the United States should "cut and run" from Iraq, the administration's typical characterization of the Democrats' view.
And even the war's strongest supporters are offering increasingly critical assessments of past decisions. Last Tuesday Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) recited a litany of past administration statements -- "stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders" -- as indications that "we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be." On Friday McCain reiterated his loyalty to the Iraq mission, but he had already made his point.
The Republicans' restiveness suggests that Bush may not be able to stick with his current Iraq policy through Election Day. Even if he does, he will come under heavy pressure from his own party after Nov. 7 to pursue a demonstrably more effective strategy -- or to begin pulling American forces out.
After one year since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, what has been done?
Not much.
Jonathan Alter:
A year ago, in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, NEWSWEEK published a cover story called "Poverty, Race and Katrina: Lessons of a National Shame." The article suggested that the disaster was prompting a fresh look at "The Other America"—the 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. "It takes a hurricane," I wrote. "It takes the sight of the United States with a big black eye—visible around the world—to help the rest of us begin to see again." I ended on a hopeful note: "What kind of president does George W. Bush want to be? ... If he seizes the moment, he could undertake a midcourse correction that might materially change the lives of millions. Katrina gives Bush an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China opportunity, if he wants it."
After all the heat he took last year, how could Bush have blown the aftermath of Katrina? It's not as if he lacks confidence in the power of his office. He believes he can fix Iraq and transform the Middle East. He aspires to spread democracy to the far corners of the globe. But the fate of an American city and millions of his impoverished countrymen are apparently beyond his control, or perhaps just his interest
The Dutch know a thing or two about staying dry. Most people in the Netherlands live below sea level, and the country's major cities are in continual danger of being washed away. Or they would be, if Dutch engineers weren't so good at designing levees and floodgates to keep storms at bay. The Netherlands hasn't suffered a catastrophic storm-driven flood since the 1950s, when it began building the current system. Over the decades, North Sea storms have battered the country, and the dikes have held. The Dutch are, no argument, the world's experts. Which raises a question as U.S. politicians and bureaucrats dicker over whether and how to fortify New Orleans against future storms: why not hire the Dutch?
[...]
Congress has given the Army Corps of Engineers $20 million to come up with a comprehensive design to protect the city permanently. American engineers have been in consultation with Dutch designers, and in the meantime the Corps has asked a Dutch firm to design a 100- to 200-year floodgate system for the western end of Lake Borgne. Dan Hitchings, the Army Corps official in charge of Gulf Coast protection, says it may ultimately bring in more Dutch help. But it likely won't know for sure for more than a year. The Corps has until the end of 2007 to complete its study, and it shows no signs of speeding things along. Hitchings says the Corps has to give Congress a range of options and price tags, to "make sure the nation wants to do what the Netherlands did."
Vrijling, for one, can't understand what the Corps is going to study for so long. The technology already exists and has been tested over decades in the Netherlands. He says Dutch and American engineers, working together, would need only "a couple of months" to draw up a detailed plan. "If we had the will and one month's money from Iraq, we could do all the levees and restore the coast," says Ivor Van Heerden, a Louisiana State University hurricane scientist who warned for years about a Katrina-like disaster. "We can save Louisiana. It is very doable."
"This is the greatest lost opportunity I've ever seen in public life," Sen. John Kerry told me last week. "The Jackson Square speech ought to stand as one of the all-time monuments to hollow rhetoric and broken promises."
Eventhough it is only the end of August, the lunacy of last years "War Against Christmas" has started already:
It appears the battle against what some call the politically correct title for Christmas has already begun. A pro-family group is highlighting ad on page 69 in the Sam's Club in-house magazine, Source, that promotes "holiday" cards, ribbons and gift bags, despite all the products obviously being designed for Christmas.
A message to our Members inquiring about “Christmas” and “Holidays”
We have received some comments about using the word “holiday” in place of Christmas in our August/September 06 Source Magazine.
SAM’S CLUB serves 47 million members with different faiths across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Brazil and China. We attempt to take a very thoughtful approach to the words we choose in communicating with our members.
In some cases, we use the word “holiday” or phrase “happy holidays” to include the season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. In other cases, we name specific holidays such as Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa or Easter. In our upcoming December/January 06 Source Magazine we plan to reference specific holidays such as Christmas and others, as we have in the past. For example, in our Spring 06 catalog, we referenced Easter on the inside cover, pages 4-6 and provided menu ideas for Easter as well as Passover entertaining.
We value each and every member of SAM’S CLUB and want to make you aware of our efforts to be respectful and inclusive.
"Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people."
--W. C. Fields
Real wages stagnate:
With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.
[...]
The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.
State Farm Insurance is being accused of destroying documents to avoid paying any claims for damages from Hurricane Katrina:
State Farm Insurance supervisors systematically demanded that Hurricane Katrina damage reports be buried or replaced or changed so that the company would not have to pay policyholders' claims in Mississippi, two State Farm insiders tell ABC News.
Kerri and Cori Rigsby, independent adjusters who had worked for State Farm exclusively for eight years, say they have turned over thousands of internal company documents and their own detailed statement to the FBI and Mississippi state investigators.
DCCC chairman Rahm Emanuel reaches for stupid:
Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, expressed confidence that Democratic turnout would be strong for the House races in Connecticut.
“Explain to me how two Democrats running is bad,” Mr. Emanuel said in an interview.
"Oh, come on. If you can't laugh at the walking dead, who can you laugh at?"
--Unknown, Dan Fielding in "Night Court"
The thought that a Bush supporter would put this on his blog:
Really, though, this is just what happens when a major political movement becomes more about opposing the other side than doing what is best for the country.
"The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened."
--Saki
Shorter Charles Krauthammer as explained by the eminent Dr. Atta J. Turk:
Before we bomb the Iranians, we have to bomb the French.
The vast bulk of the world's oil, gas and strategic minerals resources either is coming under or is already under the control of authoritarian, or less-than-democratic, or leftist, or otherwise radical regimes either with a decidedly anti-Western political stance and ideology or pointedly decreased sensitivities to strategic US interests.
It is difficult to name more than a handful of resource-rich states that are liberal democracies and that are still significantly aligned with the West. Only Canada and Mexico come immediately to mind, and even Canada is increasingly embracing China and the East in the sphere of strategic energy deals and agreements.
"The time not to become a father is eighteen years before a war."
--E. B. White
This sentiment is especially poignant to me.
I have an 8 year old son.
Blogger appears to be bloggered today (for me anyway).
Until things resolve, light (if any) posting.
--
David (Austin Tx)
http://supremeirony.blogspot.com
What's this?
The New York Times is challenging the neocon agenda?
The last thing this country needs as it heads into this election season is another attempt to push the intelligence agencies to hype their conclusions about the threat from a Middle Eastern state.
That's what happened in 2002, when the administration engineered a deeply flawed document on Iraq that reshaped intelligence to fit President Bush's policy. And history appeared to be repeating itself this week, when the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, released a garishly illustrated and luridly written document that is ostensibly dedicated to "helping the American people understand" that Iran's fundamentalist regime and its nuclear ambitions pose a strategic threat to the United States.
It's hard to imagine that Mr. Hoekstra believes there is someone left in this country who does not already know that. But the report obviously has different aims. It is partly a campaign document, a product of the Republican strategy of scaring Americans into allowing the G.O.P. to retain control of Congress this fall. It fits with the fearmongering we've heard lately — like President Bush's attempt the other day to link the Iraq war to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Some say they are too expensive:
With solid concrete walls and roofs and laminated glass windows protected by storm shutters, a house can be built to withstand nearly any hurricane. But very few are.
Even in the most vulnerable U.S. coastal areas, virtually no one builds homes or buildings to survive a Category 5 hurricane -- a monster storm with winds higher than 155 miles per hour (250 km per hour) that can crush ordinary houses.
It costs too much.
Yesterday, at a fundraiser, Karl Rove said that the government should be free to spy on Americans.
No doubt he got cheers from the Big Brother lovin' Republican supporters.
At what point will the fact that the Bush Administration is subverting everything America stands for, filter into the media?
It is not just a fact to be reported, the George Bush, and Karl Rove believe the Federal Government have an obligation to spy on American citizens. They are advocating subverting the very Constitution that defined the America they are supposedly trying to protect. Is it the position in the media, that this is acceptable?
Technorati Tags: Domestic Spying, Terrorist Surveillance, Karl Rove, George Bush, Anna Taylor Diggs, Constitution
First Texas Congressman John Carter says that his opponent Mary Beth Harrell has to "earn the right to debate" him, because she has no "credibility".
Today Carter lies about what he said about participating in debates.
Carter was asked if he told the Austin American-Statesman that Harrell had not earned the right to appear with him on stage.
“No, not exactly,” he said. “(To) the American-Statesman, what I said was, ‘you earn the right to debate me - by (showing) your credibility,’” Carter said.”
“No, no, no - I don’t believe I’m going to be able to do that,” Carter said. “I mean, that’s public television and that’s public radio. I will have to think about that. I might do it. I haven’t decided yet.”
Literally
Where have we heard this before?
In the thick of an election campaign, President Bush has revived and retooled his argument that the U.S. must fight terrorists overseas or face them here. Despite the unpopularity of the Iraq war, some GOP candidates are borrowing Bush's line.
"We leave before the mission is done, the terrorists will follow us here," Bush warned at a news conference this week.
[...]
The fight-them-there theme has been part of Bush's national security stump speech since 2003. But the "follow us here" part is a relatively new twist.
Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women, and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, in Washington, and Pennsylvania. There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq -- who is also senior commander at this base -- General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said: "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."
With the revelation that the Bush administration is going back reclassifying Cold War missile data, America's Finest News Source tried to get the public's reaction:
Jerome Bahn,
Stamp Collector
"Nothing wrong with
admitting you made
a mistake—in this
case, telling the truth
to an informed public.
But it's not too late to
correct that mistake."
"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated."
--Poul Anderson
The US-Iran war sales pitch is being ramped up:
Some policy makers have accused intelligence agencies of playing down Iran’s role in Hezbollah’s recent attacks against Israel and overestimating the time it would take for Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
The complaints, expressed privately in recent weeks, surfaced in a Congressional report about Iran released Wednesday. They echo the tensions that divided the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency during the prelude to the war in Iraq.
The criticisms reflect the views of some officials inside the White House and the Pentagon who advocated going to war with Iraq and now are pressing for confronting Iran directly over its nuclear program and ties to terrorism, say officials with knowledge of the debate.
It only took 12 days for Senator George Felix Allen to apologize to the person he called "macaca":
Sen. George Allen personally called an opponent's aide and apologized for singling the man out almost two weeks ago with an obscure comment that has cast a shadow over the senator's White House ambitions, his campaign said.
"Senator Allen made a heartfelt apology," Wadhams said. "He told Sidarth he thought he would see him on the campaign trail, but Sidarth had headed back to U.Va., so we Googled his name, found his number and the senator called him this morning."
Not Pizza-pies
This was the mnemonic I was taught to use to remember the order and names of the planets in our solar system. Other people were taught different ones, but now:
Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.
That seems to be the latest strategy from the NRSC and its chair Liddy Dole.
What's worse, is that this blatantly racist ad is against the Republican opponent of RI Senator Lincoln Chaffee.
Just wait until the primary is over,and the NRSC goes against the Democratic candidate.
Technorati Tags: Republican, Lincoln Chaffee, Steve Laffey, NRSC, LIddy Dole, RI-Sen, Racism
One year after Hurricane Katrina wrought its devastation across South Louisiana, Mississsippi and Alabama, much of New Orleans and surrounding areas are still a mess.
The Bush administration will no doubt be doing some serious damage control, and spinning to try and paint a much rosier picture of the condition of New Orleans as a whole than reality will belie (how much the media will enable this spin remains to be seen, I look at you Anderson Cooper).
The administrations efforts will (fortunately) be hampered by the revelations of just how screwed up the administrations response was:
Finally, asked by exasperated Senate investigators what evidence he had collected showing the levees had not breached, Broderick said he had relied exclusively on two sources. The first was the Army Corps of Engineers, but the former general suspected even that agency of hyping the situation, since it had reported "extensive" flooding in New Orleans and "'extensive' is all relative," Broderick said.
The second source, Broderick allowed, was unimpeachable: CNN Headline News. Late Monday afternoon, the network aired a report from New Orleans. The focus of the video snippet was a scene on Bourbon Street, near the highest spot in the city, where people "seemed to be having a party," Broderick said.
"The one data point that I really had, personally, visually, was the celebration in the streets of New Orleans, of people drinking beer and partying because -- and they used, they came up with the word -- 'we dodged the bullet,'" Broderick said. "So that's a pretty good indicator right there."
"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."
--Dan Quayle
Survey USA
Texas:
Do you approve or disapprove of the job Rick Perry is doing as Governor?
Approve: 43%
Disapprove: 52%
Not Sure: 5%
This is the voting machine that will be used in the November election in Tom DeLay's old district.
Because DeLay withdrew from the race, the only way Republicans can get elected is through write-in candidates. The candidate that the Republicans have decided to back is, as you can see, Shelley Sekula-Gibbs.
Accoring to TPMmuckraker, Hart Intercivic, the manufacturer of the voting machine, even though the image only shows 18 characters, the machines in use have 25 character limits. But no hyphen (notice the candidates name is hyphenated), and the screen is not a touch screen, you have to use the wheel at the lower right hand corner to move the cursor.
Here is where things start to get a bit dicey.
Just how much mis-spelling of the candidates name will be acceptable for a write-in ballot to be accepted?
Are, as TPMmuckracker speculated, mis-spellings going to be the hanging chads of 2006?
Technorati Tags: Texas, Elections, TX-22, eSlate
I wonder just how long the AP had to search to find someone, anyone, who would give Bush a pass on his crass behavior.
While four-letter expletives or a shoulder massage of a co-worker of the opposite sex could raise eyebrows in many office settings, Bush for the most part gets a pass from etiquette experts.
"Part of it is he comes from Texas, and they don't stand on a lot of formality in that state," said Letitia Baldrige, who was President Kennedy's social secretary. "I think you get the Eastern kind of aristocrats, like the old days, they're always going to be more formal, they're always going to have a jacket on."
All presidents take an individual approach to protocol, Baldrige said, noting that presidents Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson also were informal at times.
Yesterday was supposed to be the end of the world.
The words you are reading might be your last. That is, if you believe the apocalyptic speculation of Internet surfers and Middle East analysts who claim that today Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hopes to spark the final conflagration in order to usher in the Islamic messiah.
Ahmadinejad is due Tuesday to deliver Iran's response to an international incentive program offered in exchange for the country curbing its nuclear program. The date, August 22, also marks the prophet Muhammad's ascension to heaven and coincides with Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem.
The Democratic Daily reports on a conference call with John Kerry and Pennsylvania Congressional candidate Patrick Murphy.
Jonathan Kaplan of The Hill repeatedly pressed the point to Murphy that Lamont's win in Connecticut helps Republicans.
After responding (twice), the following exchange occured:
After Murphy’s second response to Kaplan, John Kerry interjected his thoughts on Kaplan’s question and made it very clear to Kaplan that the press “should not allow them [the GOP] to be able to try to transform failure into an offensive policy to suggest that someone is weak because they have an alternative that works.”
Kaplan snidely responded to Kerry saying, “Isn’t that your job not ours?”
John Kerry proceed to give Jonathan Kaplan a quick lesson in what the role of the media really is — “We communicate through you,” Kerry said. “We need to invite you to hold them accountable… We speak but if it doesn’t get out there, the American people don’t hear it.”
Imposed on you:
Pornographic movies now seem nearly as pervasive in America's hotel rooms as tiny shampoo bottles, and the lodging industry shows little concern as conservative activists rev up a protest campaign aimed at triggering a federal crackdown.
A coalition of 13 conservative groups - including the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America - took out full-page ads in some editions of USA Today earlier this month urging the Justice Department and FBI to investigate whether some of the pay-per-view movies widely available in hotels violate federal and state obscenity laws.
The coalition also is trying to draw attention to CleanHotels.com, a directory of hotels and motels nationwide that pledge to exclude adult offerings from their in-room entertainment service.
"If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind."
--John Stuart Mill
Yet another day passes, and we are witness to the bunraku puppet theater of JonBenet Ramsey with the puppeteers of Fox, MSNBC, and CNN each working in concert to keep this charade going:
In heaven, JonBenet Ramsey, who, although her body stopped growing, has acquired the wisdom of ten years of soul-living, wonders why everyone is so excited to see her puppet dance, thinks it's grotesque and even a little embarassing for the same pictures to be trotted out. She asks, to no one in particular, how making her corpse dance, however prettied up it might be, can be so entertaining for hour upon hour, even if the image of her puppet body is interwoven with the immobile features of her alleged killer.
Two Marines and one sailor walk by her and hear the question. They are still trying to accept where they are. In the distance, they see a crowd of other soldiers who are waving them over. They pause behind JonBenet and watch the television she has on for a moment, and, it being heaven, a moment can be anywhere from a split second to four weeks. In that time, they see nary a mention of themselves. Finally one of the Marines tells her, "It's easier to make one single porcelain little girl dance than it is to make puppets out of three thousand grown-ups."
Deep in the field
A lone soldier stands
With mud on his boot
And blood on his hands
They left him behind
To bury the dead
And to say a few words on behalf of the leadership
Pardon me boys
If I slip off my pack
And sit for awhile with you
I'd like to explain
Why you fine young men had to be blown apart
To defend this mud hole
Now our country boys
Though it's quite far away
Found itself jeopardized
Endangered, boys
By these very gooks
Who lie here beside you
Forever near
Forever
We'd like to express
Our deep admiration
For your courage under fire
And your willingness to die
For your country, boys
We won't forget
We won't forget
At The Smirking Chimp, Kathleen Reardon wonders if Joe Scarboro's "Is Bush an Idiot" show, examining the mental capacity of our President wasn't a trial balloon for 2006 and 2008?
Think about it. If selected, visible, staunch Bush supporters begin talking about how intellectually wanting the President is, with his full knowledge and collaboration (such as chewing with his mouth open, striding motorcycles, goofing around with unappreciative world leaders), there won't be an anti-Bush platform for the Democrats. In fact, if these balloonists play their cards right, it will seem as if there isn't a nickel's worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats. Everyone will be anti-Bush. The playing field will be leveled.
It's an excellent "inoculation" tactic, too, against a possible impeachment move should the Democrats win enough seats in November. Inoculation, a persuasion strategy, works by telling people in advance of an anticipated negative event how to think about it. A phone company intending to introduce rate hikes might run ads about how people just don't use their phone books enough. Then when the rates are raised, we know who to blame -- ourselves.
DemVet has a pledge that everyone opposed to stem-cell research should be forced to sign:
"Because of my strong opposition to embryonic-stem-cell research, I hereby pledge that should I, at any point in the future, develop diabetes, cancer, spinal-cord injuries or Parkinson's, among other diseases, I will refuse any and all treatments derived from such research, at home or abroad, even if it costs me my life. Signed, ______"
Bush's supporters are falling off the deep end:
Bush has virtually never in his political career made a decision that he didn't think was the right thing to do and the right way to do it. Conservatives who are piling on the anti-Bush bandwagon should consider that this trait—which makes the Bush family historically great—is a historical rarity to be treasured. This administration would do well to be more concerned with its popularity — the President and even Vice President should appear every week in press conferences and on the Sunday talk shows — if only to strengthen the political viability of their agenda, and be able to shape the terms of debate. But it was not so long ago that Americans could only wish for a president who was obviously trustworthy, upstanding, and principled. And the day is not far off when we will think ourselves lucky to have seen this President defend the honor and integrity of his office—and the American people—for eight years. The times are difficult, and nobody could have gotten through the last five years without making mistakes. But in that station to which God called him, George W. Bush has been himself honestly, and thank God for that.
Armor of God PJs - Children's Pajamas Inspired by Ephesians 6:10-18.
Fetishists indeed.
This is a serious link.
Hat tip to August J. Pollak
If someone calls you, and tells you they tried to send a fax, and your fax machine is not picking up?
Go turn your damned fax machine on!
Thanks to people who cannot even grasp basic technological details, like the on button, or ensuring there is paper in the fax machine, I have to waste gasoline delivering something which could have been delivered electronically.
This is a story from Friday, but seeing as I found it today, let's pretend.
I am a big fan of Reggae music. Admittedly, like most Americans, my first exposure to Reggae was Bob Marley and the Wailers. Over the years I was slowly exposed to more and more Reggae artists, Marcia Griffiths, Peter Tosh, Toots and the Maytals, Jimmy Cliff, Black Uruhu, Steel Pulse, etc.
Friday Newsweek reported that a number of reissues of old Reggae songs, some as far back as 1959 have been released over the summer.
I acquired a five disk set of Toots and the Maytals a couple of months ago, as well as a reissue of Steel Pulse's Earth Crisis just last week. I have been in Reggae heaven. Now that we are seeing proper remasterings of older songs, I look forward to finding them and adding to my growing collection.
Da music make me feel irie, mon.
Technorati Tags: Jamaica, Reggae, DJ Spooky, Studio One, Trojan Records
"The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority."
--Ralph W. Sockman
It is only within the past few years that I have developed a taste for wine. Predominatly red wines, but I have had a white wine, or champagne (or sparkling wine) that I have enjoyed as well.
The problem with finding good wines, is that it can become an expensive proposition, and as I have refined my taste for wines, I have fallen into the trap that many wine drinkers have, of buying more expensive bottles of wine. I know there are some very good bottles that are less than $20, only it can be very hit and miss, unless you have a friend who has tried them already, and has the same tastes as you.
In that vein, I was excited to read this from Majikthise : Free wine for bloggers
This wine (2004 Amelie Cabernet Sauvignon - Merlot) comes from Mankas Hills Vineyards in California. I am looking forward to trying it. You can read about the details of the offer in their Blog
Technorati Tags: Mankas Hills, Wine, Cabernet, Merlot, Bloggers
Can be summed up with a single statement:
“We’re not leaving [Iraq] so long as I’m the president."
There is a lot of ink spilled about political debates, and whether an incumbent should respond, and how.
But, Congressman John Carter (R-TX31) takes the issue of responding to debate challenges to new levels of stupidity:
“People earn the right to debate me,” Carter said in the interview. “I will determine how and not them.”Oh, yes Master Carter, thank you Master Carter.
Asked what would qualify someone for a debate, Carter said “credibility.”
In a call to his office Wednesday, Carter’s spokeswoman Amy Ellsworth said his comments were still an accurate reflection of his views.
[Mary Beth] Harrell said that was ridiculous.
"This is pretty basic. It doesn’t have to do with my rights or Carter’s rights. The voters have an absolute right to know where we stand,” Harrell said. “I think it is bizarre that we’re talking in terms of whether a candidate has a right to debate. We are running for office and we owe it to the people.”
"Inanimate objects are classified scientifically into three major categories - those that don't work, those that break down and those that get lost."
--Russell Baker
I saw it, I loved it, and heartily recommend it.
If you are in any doubt as to why, read this review.
Then see the movie, and you will understand.
Technorati Tags: Snakes on a Plane, Samuel L. Jackson,
Nearly half of New Orleans was still under water when President Bush stood in the Crescent City's historic Jackson Square and swore he would "do what it takes" to rebuild the communities and lives that had been laid to waste two weeks before by Hurricane Katrina.
"Our goal is to get the work done quickly," the president said.
He promised to spend federal money wisely and accountably. And he vowed to address the poverty exposed by the government's inadequate Katrina response "with bold action."
A year after the storm, the federal government has proven slow and unreliable in keeping the president's promises.
Due to the vagaries of local network broadcasts, MTP here in Austin starts after it starts in Philly.
John McCain is the guest, and Atrios sums up the entirety of the Mavericks position:
The administration has done the wrong thing for the last 3 and a half years which leaves us with no option other than staying the course.
Via Americablog we see that CNN has gone into full-time fearmonger mode.
How pathetic
Technorati Tags: CNN, Fearmongering
"There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise."
--Gore Vidal
The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
Need I say any more?
Thanks to Lindsay for the link.
Pew Charitable Trust is conducting a blogging survey.
Go take it
NTodd pointed it out.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
--George Bernard Shaw
Yesterday it was NASCAR Dads, today it's Security Moms:
Married women with children, the "security moms" whose concerns about terrorism made them an essential part of Republican victories in 2002 and 2004, are taking flight from GOP politicians this year in ways that appear likely to provide a major boost for Democrats in the midterm elections, according to polls and interviews.
This critical group of swing voters -- who are an especially significant factor in many of the most competitive suburban districts on which control of Congress will hinge -- is more inclined to vote Democratic than at any point since Sept. 11, 2001, according to data compiled for The Washington Post by the Pew Research Center.
[...]
The study, which examined the views of married women with children from April through this week, found that they support Democrats for Congress by a 12-point margin, 50 percent to 38 percent. That is nearly a mirror-image reversal from a similar period in 2002, when this group backed Republicans 53 percent to 36 percent. In 2004, exit polls showed, Bush won a second term in part because 56 percent of married women with children supported him.
Here in suburban Columbus, one of the most important arenas in the 2004 campaign, the diffusion of this support is obvious in interviews, and the political implications are unmistakable.
Jean Thomas, a married mother of one, said she still feels a pang of fear every time she boards an airplane for work travel around the Midwest. "Terrorism," she said, "is the biggest concern on a daily basis."
But she said she is "pretty frustrated with politics driving decisions" in Washington. That is why she said she is strongly considering abandoning her support of Republicans to vote for the Democrats challenging Rep. Deborah Pryce and Sen. Mike DeWine on Nov. 7. Polls show that both Republican incumbents from Ohio are acutely vulnerable.
In case you don't remember the name Frank Wuterich, he is the one who is filing a libel suit against Pennsylvania Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha, over comments Murtha made about what happened in Haditha.
It is kind of hard for Wuterich to claim anything when we hear things like this:
A high-level military investigation into the killings of 24 Iraqis in Haditha last November has uncovered instances in which American marines involved in the episode appear to have destroyed or withheld evidence, according to two Defense Department officials briefed on the case.
The investigation found that an official company logbook of the unit involved had been tampered with and that an incriminating video taken by an aerial drone the day of the killings was not given to investigators until Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the second-ranking commander in Iraq, intervened, the officials said.
[...]
It says that the logbook, which was meant to be a daily record of major incidents the marines’ company encountered, had all the pages missing for Nov. 19, the day of the killings, and that those portions had not been found, the officials said.
No conclusions are drawn about who may have tampered with the log. But the report says that Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the leader of the squad involved in the killings, was on duty at the unit’s operations center, where the logbook was kept, shortly after the killings occurred, the officials said.
Right Blogistan has their panties all in a twist because those of us on the left don't wet our pants at every single terror threat:
Apparently Ace is whining that there are Americans who don't act like seven year-old girls at their first Kiwanis Halloween Haunted House who screech and go,"Omigawdomigawdomigawd" and do the pee-pee dance every time that CNN or Fox jumps the gun on a "breaking story". Quite frankly, I would have thought that the death-dealing Ace of Spades would be a tad more butch than that, but no
(As an aside I want to point out that Ace is attempting to coin the term "sinestrosphere" to describe leftwing bloggers. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be catching on, possibly because it's genesis is known only to 48th Level Berserker Nerds.)
Republicans continue to try and scare Americans. Today's installment comes from the Senator who continuously decries the level of partisan rancor in Washington:
Sen. Orrin Hatch, who continuously decries the bitter partisanship in Washington, implied this week that Democratic success in November's election could result in terrorist attacks on America.
Hatch was quoted in Tuesday's Tooele Transcript Bulletin as saying Middle East terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."
As usual, Glenn Grennwald sums up legal rulings. This on on Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's ruling that Bush's domestic spying is unconstitutional:
I have read the opinion. Here is my immediate analysis of it. It is a very strong opinion in some places, weak in others, but is rather straightforward -- and sometimes eloquent -- in its almost always unequivocal rejection of the Bush administration's arguments:
Half mid-income adults can't pay medical costs:
About half of adults in middle-income families reported serious problems in paying for their health care while even those in more affluent circumstances said they had troubles with medical bills, a new survey found.
Three-quarters of the adults surveyed said the health care system needs fundamental change or a complete rebuilding.
DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.
U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy.
"A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors."
--William Ralph Inge
The media loves to categorize people. Think "Security Moms", "Soccer Moms", and from the 2004 election "NASCAR Dads".
In 2004, more than half of the "NASCAR Dads", voted for George W. Bush. However are recent Zogby poll indicated that 56% feel the country is on the wrong track (nice pun, unintentional of course)
Almost one-third of NASCAR fans now intend to vote for Democrats in congressional races this fall, similar to the number planning to vote Republican, according to the Zogby poll. According to political analysts, this has occurred despite no significant increase in Democratic campaigning aimed at this group.
On Friday Republican Senator George Allen (2008 Presidential hopeful), speaking at a fundraiser for his Senate re-election campaign called a campaign worker (Indian-American) for his opponent, Former Navy Secretary Jim Webb, a "macaca".
As has been pointed out, in various blogs, and now in the San Jose Mercury News, that macaque (similar pronounciation), is a racial slur:
Bloggers pointed out macaque is a French Tunisian slur for people with dark skin, and Allen's mother is of French Tunisian descent. Campaign spokesman Bill Bozin acknowledged the senator's heritage, but insisted Allen did not know what the word meant.
"Stuffed deer heads on walls are bad enough, but it's worse when they are wearing dark glasses and have streamers in their antlers because then you know they were enjoying themselves at a party when they were shot."
--Ellen DeGeneres
Today George Bush issued some pardons.
Let's look at some of the offenses, shall we?
It seems that the defeat of Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut primary has caused a bit of introspection on the part of some people, both in the news media, and in left blogistan.
It is fair to say that it is George Bush, and his Republican enablers that have done it.
It is accurate to say, that I have always been a Liberal. My family comes from both an education and organized labor background, and my political beliefs were formed around the philosophy of both. Despite my chosen career path, in IT, my political beliefs have not strayed to the typically Libertarian bent that many in IT hold. That said, I have never been so politically polarized, as since George W. Bush first came on the political scene in Texas.
Texas politics has never been the collegial affair that many presumed Washington to be (pre-Clinton era). It has always had a dirty tinge to it, and successful Texas politicians have always had a bit of a mean streak. There are lots of theories about why, but no one would disagree that the mythology of Texas has fed it. So, when George Bush won the Texas gubernatorial race, it set the tone for how he would ascend to the White House. Is it any wonder that Karl Rove succeeded in Texas!
When I started reading blogs in 2001, Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum were two of the "moderate" bloggers. They held out hope (probably for too long) that Democrats and Republicans could work together, and despite the antics of the 90's probably believed that things would not degenerate to the point they are today. Since then, both Drum and Marshall have become, like most bloggers, radicalized.
Not really, as their political philosophies have not really changed, that I can detect. But they have become as strident a voice in the blogosphere as any other Liberal (or Conservative for that matter) blogger. What the Lieberman-Lamont race has done is to cause people all across the political spectrum (whether they read blogs or not), to take stock of their political leanings, and make a decision of whether "staying the course" with Republicans is the right choice, or advocating change, with the Democrats is right.
There is no middle any more. Lieberman used to be praised as some sort of "moderate" Democrat, and maybe he was, but that was when bi-partisanship was not considered a liability by the party in power.
Since Republicans now control the executive and legislative branches (and many would argue the judicial branch as well), Republicans have pursued a strategy of divide and conquer. Lieberman probably had always been a neo-conservative, to some degree or another, when it came to middle eastern issues, but those they were not the issue of the day, as it is now.
As to the domestic issues that Clinton lead the charge to the middle on, Lieberman was quick to join in. However, none of the arugments about the "political center" having moved to the right, were actually true. What has happened since, was that the Republican Party moved to the right, and dragged the political "centrists" like Joe Lieberman along (willingly?).
Why?
Because the DLC, of which Lieberman was one of the charter members, were more interested in maintaining this air of bi-partisanship, while the Republican Party was not. This new direction for the Republicans was best summarized by Grover Norquist, when he compared bi-partisanship to "date rape". Only it was the Republican Party who was doing the "raping" (horrible analogy, I know).
As the Republican Party kept dragging their members to the right, and manufacturing outrage over issues that no one gave a seconds thought to, they were able to successfully peel off layers of moderate voters, who would just as soon cast their vote for a Democrat, as a Republican. Then came 9/11. The perfect opportunity to put the final nail in the moderate coffin.
But this is all history, and anyone paying attention could see it happening, if not being able to predict the inevitable outcome.
Where does that leave us today?
Political moderates (not Joe LIeberman) have come to the realization, albeit somewhat late to the game, that by hoping to pursue a bi-partisan solution to our problems will never work in the current climate. As former Republican Party supporters (and elected members) begin to either make it clear that they will not vote for a George Bush Republican, or even switch parties, the case for a bi-partisan reconciliation between Democrats and Republicans is fading fast. Today, it looks like Democrats are heading for a majority in either the House or Senate (hopefully both), and the Republican Party, being lead by George Bush, is heading for denial-ville.
Continuing to pretend that the Iraq war is going well. Pretending that Israel's bombing of southern Lebanon was a good thing. The revelations that the Bush administration was urging Israel to attack Syria, and taking a hostile position against Iran, many have come to the conclusion that Republicans are not leading America in the right direction (if there is any direction at all).
Lieberman's loss to Lamont was, hopefully not too late, the wake up call that both the American public, and especially the American media, needed. Finally, after Dick Cheney's bizzare Al Qaeda Democrat speech, Thomas Friedman reached his breaking point.
There are 83 days left until the 2006 elections. The American people are beginning to wake up to what 6 years of Republican rule was wrought. It is up to the Democratic Party to continue to present the attractive alternative, that many people, Friedman included (even if he cannot fully admit it), want. Those of us on the left, the liberals, have done all we can to convince people that the Republicans, and George W. Bush have been wrong on just about every issue since 2000. Those moderate Democrats, and others who now have realized this, are the ones that need to be targeted. People like Marshall and Drum need not be cowed by their newfound partisanship. It is the only thing that will get this country back on the right track.
Then, after things have been corrected, and America is headed back in the right direction, we can debate just how far left things should come.
Technorati Tags: Demcorat, Republican, Thomas Friedman, Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Joe Lieberman, George Bush
I am sure that when the war against Bill Clintion reached its heated pitch, Republicans were not thinking about anything beyond the immediate consequence of getting Bill Clinton.
However, karma can be a real bitch sometimes:
A lawyer plans to use a legal precedent that allowed President Bill Clinton to be sued while in office to force Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove to testify in a lawsuit brought by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband.
[...]
Cotchett, who took over as trial counsel in Plame's case on Tuesday, said legal precedent for whether Cheney and the others could claim legal immunity in the case comes, in part, from Paula Jones' sexual harassment case against Clinton.
In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a unanimous ruling that neither Clinton "or any other official has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity."
In order to be dismissed from the case or avoid testifying, Cotchett said, lawyers for Cheney and the other men would have to argue that they were acting on government business if they are found to have leaked Plame's name to the media.
Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a covert agent.
Since 2002, Republicans have decided that if you serve in the military, and are a Democrat, your military service is open to any form of attack.
This came to a head during the 2004 election with Republican groups attacking John Kerry, Max Cleland, and others, with blatant and vicious lies.
This policy of attacking members, both current and retired, of the United States armed forces continues even today with Republican Texas house member, Gene Seaman attacking his Democratic opponent, Juan Garcia, stating that he lied about his service in the Naval Reserves.
The problem with Seamen's attack?
Juan Garcia is currently fufilling his active duty requirement for the Naval Reserves and cannot respond to the attacks.
Truly, there is no bottom to the level of Republican hypocrisy when it comes to "supporting the troops".
Technorati Tags: Gene Seaman, Juan Garcia, Navy, Texas, HD-32, 2006, Republican, Hypocrisy
While many want to believe that purchasing a bunch of prepaid cellphones by men of middle eastern descent, is a crime, it isn't:
Within days of the Ohio arrests, three Palestinian-American men from Texas were charged in Michigan after nearly 1,000 cell phones were found in a van they were driving.
In the Michigan case, the FBI said Monday that it had no indication that the men had any ties to known terrorist groups. Local prosecutors, however, were standing by the charges.
Prosecutors have not said what they believe the three men intended to do with the phones, though officials have said cell phones can be used as detonators and the Coast Guard increased its patrols of the 5-mile-long Mackinac Bridge after the arrests.
Money-making scheme
Relatives of the men said they were just trying to make money by reselling the phones and were targeted because of their Arab backgrounds.
In Ohio, Houssaiky and Abulhassan were stopped by sheriff’s deputies for a traffic violation Aug. 8, then arrested after the deputies found 12 cell phones, $11,000 cash, airplane passenger lists and information on airport security checkpoints in their car, authorities said.
Prosecutors have not provided details about the passenger lists or their significance. Defense lawyers have said the flight information consisted of old papers left in the car by a relative who worked at an airport.
I seem to be focusing on Kevin Drum lately. Hmmm.
At any rate, on Thursday I pointed out a sort of contest Kevin was holding to find a name for trawling the comments sections of liberal blogs to generate column content.
The winning term? Nutpicking.
However, I refuse to call it Drum's Law, as it doesn't really convey what it is about (I realize Godwin's Law doesn't either, but it is already established).
I am sure there is a more appropriate name that could be used.
The Nutpickers Constant?
Technorati Tags: Kevin Drum, Nutpicker
There is this insane need, on the part of Republican Party supporters, who find themselves unable to commit fully to the Republican Party in 2006, to have a rational position on the Democratic Party.
Kevin Drum found an example from Andrew Sullivan the other day:
Andrew Sullivan, in an apparent attempt to drive me insane, writes today that although he's appalled by Republican ineptitude in the war on terror, he's still waiting for a serious Democratic plan to come along that he can get behind. Without that, no dice.
In just about every case, from foreign policy issues to domestic policy issues, the Democratic Party has been consistently correct.
I missed Froomkin yesterday, as I was engaged with the parental units.
However, as usual, he nails it:
By insinuating that the sizeable majority of American voters who oppose the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy, Vice President Cheney on Wednesday may have crossed the line that separates legitimate political discourse from hysteria.
"To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best."
--Margaret Thatcher
Republicans in Texas seem to be struggling as of late. First Tom DeLay brings his house of hammers down on the state party. One of the casualties of DeLay's antics, John Colyandro, has ended the aspirations of Republican Ben Bentzin:
Republican Ben Bentzin plans to drop out of the November race for state representative from western Travis County, leaving no GOP nominee for an office that the party held less than a year ago. Bentzin, a former executive at Dell Inc., cited new business opportunities and the negative tone in his earlier race for the District 48 seat as reasons for dropping out. He is not moving out of the district, so, barring an unlikely turn of events, Republicans will have no nominee challenging Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin.
[...]
At issue in the campaign was Bentzin's hiring of Republican operative John Colyandro to help with his unsuccessful run for state Senate in 2002. Colyandro has since been indicted on charges related to his role in helping other GOP groups that year.
Bentzin was never accused of wrongdoing by prosecutors.
But in one mail piece paid for by the political arm of Education Austin, a teachers' group, he was labeled "public education enemy No. 1" and his photo was shown alongside shots of Colyandro, indicted former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
If only the American media would realize what other countries think about them:
There are two sides to every conflict - unless you rely on the US media for information about the battle in Lebanon. Viewers have been fed a diet of partisan coverage which treats Israel as the good guys and their Hizbollah enemy as the incarnation of evil.That is all you have to know about this article. Certainly there is bias in just about every media outlet, but the American news media is particularly onesided. Not just about the Israel-Lebanon conflict, but on just about every single aspect of George Bush's faux war on terror. At somepoint, we all can hope that things will improve here, however, I doubt it. Technorati Tags: Media, Bias, Israel, Lebanon, America
Oliver Willis finds that RedState likes to play picture games.
My contribution:
Technorati Tags: Economy, Oliver Willis, RedState
Pamela of Atlas Shrugs is pretty whacked out, rumor has it that even Rush Limbaugh was embarrassed by just how deeply she has partaken of the kool aid, if you can believe that.
However, you don't realize just how over the edge someone is until you seem them in a real world situation
Stunned, I am.
Technorati Tags: John Bolton, Atlas Shrugs, Whackjob
as demonstrated byKen Mehlman
In the war for ideas, Ken Mehlman starts out 20 points down.
Technorati Tags: Ken Mehlman, Wanker, Weasel
Yesterday, I posted about Dick Cheney's insane ramblings.
Today, since I was away from television, the Internet, and blogs, I really haven't seen what has evolved. Scanning Atrios's site, what I have noticed is that the realization has hit many in the media, that they have been led, like the children, by the pied piper.
Only now, that the tune has become disjointed, and without any melody, do people start to come to their senses. First the American public. Next the media, obviously subject to easier manipulation. Joe Lieberman is one of those who will never stray from the path, as just the sound of the magic flute is enough for him, and those the believe as he does.
The question on the table, is just how much longer is the media going to follow, now that they are starting to wake up? The American public is turning away faster.
As I don't doubt you've noticed, there were no posts today.
Family is visiting, so very few posts until Monday afternoon.
You know what is truly pathetic?
Dick Cheney's, and insane ramblings:
Cheney said that to “purge a man like Joe Lieberman” was “of concern, especially over the issue of Joe’s support with respect to national efforts in the global war on terror.” He explained:The thing that’s partly disturbing about it is the fact that, the standpoint of our adversaries, if you will, in this conflict, and the al Qaeda types, they clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
--George Orwell
Ambassador Andrei Lysenko: There is another matter... one I'm reluctant to...
Dr. Jeffrey Pelt: Please.
Ambassador Andrei Lysenko: One of our submarines, an Alfa, was last reported in the area of the Grand Banks. We have not heard from her for some time.
Dr. Jeffrey Pelt: Andrei, you've lost another submarine?
A laptop computer used by the Department of Transportation to combat fraud was stolen in Doral last month, putting the sensitive personal information of almost 133,000 Florida residents at risk of the criminal activity the agency was trying to guard against.
Social Security numbers, birth dates and addresses were on the laptop assigned to a special agent in the Miami office when it was stolen from a government-owned vehicle on July 27, acting Inspector General Todd Zinser wrote Gov. Bush in a letter on Wednesday.
[...]
The missing laptop, which by late Wednesday had not been recovered, is the latest in a string of government agency laptops stolen in recent months, including incidents at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission.
The failure of the occupation of Iraq, coupled with the Bush Administration’s unleashing of Israel, makes one thing clear: conservative foreign policy has failed. Conservatism hasn’t strengthened America’s position in the world, produced the Pax Americana that conservatives expected. It’s done the exact opposite; weakened the United States across the board. As a result, we’re witnessing the death of the conservative dream of American empire.
Kevin Drum has an interesting idea:
COMMENT TRAWLING....A reader notes that the practice of trawling through open comment threads to find wackjobs who can be held up as evidence of "crazy liberals" is on the rise. Needless to say, this practice is almost self-discrediting: if the best evidence of wackjobism you can find is a few anonymous nutballs commenting on a blog, then the particular brand of wackjobism you're complaining about must not be very widespread after all. So how can we mock this practice effectively enough to make people ashamed to indulge in it?
As a left-handed person, to the point where I can do very little with my right hand that requires any dexterity, I have always felt somehow, slighted.
No longer. As Kevin Drum found out, lefties aren't so bad off:
"Among the college-educated men in our sample, those who report being left-handed earn 13 percent more than those who report being right-handed," said economist Christopher S. Ruebeck of Lafayette College.
....And lefties, stay in school: Those who finished all four years of college earned, on average, a whopping 21 percent more than similarly educated right-handed men. Curiously, the researchers found no wage differential among left- and right-handed women.
"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
--Mark Twain
I was caught up in the moment of the Connecticut Primary yesterday, and let this story go by.
More VA data security breaches:
The U.S. Senate's top Democrat on Tuesday called on Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson to resign after the department disclosed that another batch of personal information on veterans was missing.
"Enough is enough," Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada said. "Less than a month after promising to make the VA the 'gold standard' in data security, Secretary Nicholson has again presided over loss of personal information of thousands of veterans."
The VA on Monday announced that a subcontractor reported personal information on up to 38,000 veterans was missing from the company's offices.
I know I said I was going to try and step away from Connecticut and focus on other things, but it is a useful excersize to recount what was learned from the Connecticut Democratic Primary.
Markos does an admirable job of highlighting some of the major points. There is one that I want to reinforce:
Losers
The DC beltway consultancies. Boy, they went up against an all-star team of out-of-DC consultants and got their asses handed to them. Tom Swan ran circles around the Lieberman brain trust, Bill Hillsman made the best ads of the cycle, ran far fewer than Lieberman's ad people did, and clearly had a bigger impact. Tim Tagaris, who I'm proud is a fellow Chicagoan, has shown us again how our 50-state-strategy can have unexpected benefits. While the 2004 campaign of Jeff Seemann fizzled, the campaign gave us Tim. And he tore it up in the Paul Hackett special election, and tore it up again in Connecticut. He's the best netroots coordinator in the biz and we might not have him had it not been for the 2004 Kos Dozen.
Meanwhile, the DC crowd led a popular 18-year-incumbent to defeat. Is it any wonder Republicans have been kicking our ass?
Now that Lieberman has demonstrated that his love for the Democratic Party out paced by Lieberman's love for Lieberman, I look forward to watching just how this campaign will shape up. But there are things closer to home, than the Senate race for Connecticut.
While I wont promise that I will not write anymore about Lamont and the race for Connecticut, I will continue to include him in the Supreme Irony Candidate List (link to the left), and would ask that you consider to help him out with either your time or finances if possible.
That said, let me offer one last contribution to the race result. The DSCC: Statement from Senators Reid and Schumer
“The Democratic voters of Connecticut have spoken and chosen Ned Lamont as their nominee. Both we and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) fully support Mr. Lamont’s candidacy. Congratulations to Ned on his victory and on a race well run.
“Joe Lieberman has been an effective Democratic Senator for Connecticut and for America. But the perception was that he was too close to George Bush and this election was, in many respects, a referendum on the President more than anything else. The results bode well for Democratic victories in November and our efforts to take the country in a new direction.”
Apparently the thought of a campaign was too much:
Dogged by scandal, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay intends to withdraw as a candidate for Congress, a Republican strategist said today, a step that would allow the party to field a write-in candidate in hopes of holding his seat.
Ned Lamont wins Connecticut Democratic Primary!
Technorati Tags: Ned Lamont, Joe Lieberman, CT-Sen
HH: Do you want the Democrats to win majorities in the House or the Senate, Martin Peretz?
MP: I'm...I'm appalled by some of the people who would become head of Congressional committees.
HH: Is that a no?
MP: Uh, but I'm also appalled by some of the shenanigans...
HH: But is that...I've got five seconds. Is that a no, Martin Peretz?
MP: It's a cowardly refusal to answer.
HH: (laughing) Okay. We'll carry it on, later. Martin Peretz, thanks.
The one that shall not be named:
The strategy for the Middle East is to keep Israel and Hezbollah/Lebanon fighting. Keep all attention on them. If they ever stop, then everybody would look at Americans dying.
[...]
Spc. Hsia joined the Army because he couldn't make enough as a security guard to support a wife and baby. He spent three years in the Middle East and wanted to come home for good, but part of the secret of Iraq is that we don't have enough soldiers. He was ordered back.
This time Hsia was in Iraq for a month. Now he returns to the Alfred E. Smith houses in a box.
He is placed on the list with other U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since July 1.
"It's true. I don't think Jesus polled the Pharisees before he moved in and began helping those with leprosy."
--Chris Bell (Texas Gubernatorial Candidate)
Bush's polling amongst voters 18 to 24:
Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's hopes of attracting a new generation of voters to the Republican Party may be fading, as younger Americans are far more critical of his job performance than the broader population.
A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of Americans age 18 to 24 found Bush's approval rating was 20 percent, with 53 percent disapproving and 28 percent with no opinion. That compares to a 40 percent approval rating among Americans of all ages in a separate Bloomberg/Times poll.
Much like Franklin Roosevelt attracted a new generation of voters with the New Deal, Bush and his administration have had high hopes of drawing younger voters to his party. He has sought to do that through policy initiatives aimed at creating an ``ownership society,'' and public relations tactics like a Youth Convention at the party's 2004 national convention, in which his twin daughters took the stage.
Among the initiatives aimed at drawing a new generation into the Republican fold are health-care savings accounts, elimination of the so-called marriage penalty in the U.S. tax code, and Bush's proposal to create private investment accounts from a portion of Social Security payroll taxes. `Younger Americans really want to see some leadership,'' Bush said last year as he launched his Social Security plan.
Instead, the Social Security initiative flopped in Congress after attracting criticism from the public and lawmakers of both parties, and health-care savings accounts haven't done much to expand coverage, with only about 1 percent of the U.S. population currently participating in them.
As the Lieberman-Lamont race wraps up, Mr. Sensitivity, Lanny J. Davis, wrote a sad, sad lament:
My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.
[...]
One Sunday morning on C-Span I debated Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on the Lieberman versus Lamont race. Afterwards I received a series of emails--many of them in ALL CAPS (which often suggests the hyper-frenetic state of these extremist haters)--that were of the same stripe as the blog posts, and filled with the same level of personal hate.
Mr. Lamont and all other liberal Democrats should remember the McCarthy era and not fall into the trap of the hypocrisy of the double standard--that it's not OK when Ann Coulter dispenses her venomous hatred, but it is OK when our side's versions of Ann Coulter do.
