Louisvillian and WaPo staffer, Perry Bacon Jr., typed up one big, fat concern troll peice of work that ran in Post yesterday and in the C-J today. It oozes with phony "set the record straight" piety all the while fueling the ugly wingnut lie that Barack Obama is a Muslim. Faux Newz would be proud of this crap:
Despite his denials, rumors and e-mails circulating on the Internet continue to allege that Obama, D-Ill., is a Muslim, a "Muslim plant" in a conspiracy against America, and that, if elected president, he would take the oath of office using a Qur'an, rather than a Bible, as did Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the only Muslim in Congress, when he was sworn in earlier this year.
In campaign appearances, Obama regularly mentions his time living and attending school in Indonesia, and the fact that his paternal grandfather, a Kenyan farmer, was a Muslim. Obama invokes these facts as part of his case that he is prepared to handle foreign policy, despite having been in the Senate for only three years, and that he would literally bring a new face to parts of the world where the United States is not popular.
Oh! I get it! He mentions that Obama's (or is it REALLY Hussein Osama?) dad was a Muslim and that makes it OK and somehow legit to call lies and deliberate smears, "rumors." Hey Bacon! When did you quit beating your wife? At least someone at the Post gets it.
I was blown away last night after waiting and waiting for Ms. Brown to disclose the fact that she is married to Dan Senor, former WH hack and assistant to Paul Bremmer. So I did a little Googling to refresh my memory of just how spectacular a failure he was at "reconstructing" Iraq. Google "Dan Senor" yourself for a trip down memory lane! I found this:
According to a November 9 Broadcasting & Cable article, former NBC News anchor Campbell Brown will "make her debut" on CNN as a "panelist" during the November 15 Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, moderated by CNN host Wolf Blitzer. Brown, who was hired by CNN in July, is married to Dan Senor, a former adviser for the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq who is now reportedly serving as an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Given Brown's role in the upcoming Democratic debate, will CNN disclose her husband's link to Romney's campaign?
According to the December 12, 2006, edition of National Journal's The Hotline
Dan Senor, reported by CNN to have joined Romney's communications team, won't play an official role in the campaign. He's been informally advising Romney on foreign policy and helped to set up meetings with experts in the field, but he will not be paid by the campaign as a consultant.
OMG. Not only does Rudy have a Kerik problem and a mob problem, but now he's got a love nest problem. The NY Post has this report:
Rudy Giuliani faced new questions Wednesday about his illicit affair with Judi Nathan after records emerged suggesting the tab for cops guarding their Hamptons love nest was buried in obscure City Hall accounts.
It has been known since 2000 that then-Mayor Giuliani used his official, taxpayer-funded NYPD detail to escort him to weekend getaways at Nathan's Southampton condo as early as 1999, well before his marriage to Donna Hanover dissolved the following spring.
Back then, the Giuliani administration stonewalled reporters trying to nail down the costs for guarding the mayor during his Nathan liaison. The full tab remains a city secret.
But the documents obtained by the Politico.com Web site through Freedom of Information laws now show for the first time how Giuliani's administration seemed to scatter travel costs for security details during that time among obscure mayoral offices.
Whew! I SO hope he's the GOP nominee. He perfectly reflects his party's "values."
Why yes, Jim. Yes there is. It is an outrage that Democrat Jim King was caught leaving a $500 a plate fundraiser for Mitch McConnell! Read the Hillbilly Report here
According to Shawn M. Reilly a group of 25 Anti-War protesters out side of Larry Bisig's house on Cherokee Terrace last night at a $500 a head fund raiser for Senator Mitch McConnell were taken aback when Democratic Councilman Jim King walked out of the Fund raiser. According to Shawn Reilly, he Jim King was obviously startled when he realized the the protesters knew who he was.
If in fact Councilman Jim King attended a $500 per person fund raiser for Sen. Mitch McConnell, he Jim King needs to change his party registration from a Democrat to Independent or Republican and the Democratic Party needs to call his hand.
The Democratic Party can't expect regular folks to knock on doors and man phone banks for Democrats that give money to Republicans like Senator Mitch McConnell.
I suspect this shit is going on all over Kentucky and the time for it to stop is long overdue!!!!!
CNN's Republican Debate was a sad and depressing affair. Anderson Cooper did a much better job of moderating it than Wolf Blitzer did with the Dems, but the "material" (old white men) he had to work with was just scary.
Giuliani appeared to be quite rattled throughout most of the debate, even though he was thrown only one softball corruption question from Cooper. He was aggressive and nasty--his usual state of being.
Fred Thompson stammered around and appeared to be "Reaganesque" only in the sense that he had no clue what he was talking about several times
Romney was confident, slick and wildly wingnutty. He is still unwilling to call waterboarding torture.
McCain was loudly booed over some of his his Iraq war defenses, especially when he accused Paul of "appeasement" for not supporting the invasion of Iraq on par with coddling Hitler. He came off as bitter and angry.
Huckabee was the most likable and (sit down!) moderate of them all. But still came off as a "Christian" kook.
Ron Paul got major applause throughout the night but the crowd broke bad on him at one point (I didn't catch the question) and he was roundly booed.
Duncan Hunter was just his typical, one trick pony, "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE EVIL!!!!!!!!! self. An ass, in other words.
Tancredo : Totally NUTS. 'Nuff said.
Interestingly, none of the GOP candidates would take a pledge NOT to raise taxes.
Hillary Clinton was the wicked witch of every last one of their attacks on Dems. Krikey! Can these jerks just grow UP already? No matter how much she and Bill try to make nice with these assholes, they keep on making baseless attacks. It would be greatly appreciated if they'd (the Clintons) just stop trying to appease their torturers. I don't see a lot of respect for that tactic. That's just my opinion, anyway.
This was joked about on the National DL conference call a few weeks ago, but it's true! Take a look here:
"I don’t know about you, but I’d like to learn a little more about that Drinking Liberally group." – Ex-White House adviser Karl Rove
"The only phrase I identified with on the screen was Drinking Liberally."– Ex-Senator Max Cleland (D-Georgia)
This afternoon I hit up an invite-only conference sponsored by Yahoo (okay, Yahoo!), “Citizen 2.0: Radically Rethinking Democracy in the Political Age.”
The two keynotes, Karl Rove and Max Cleland, didn’t have much in common besides their receding hairlines — though they did get along swimmingly, considering everything and all. And they did both take the opportunity to riff on the lefty drinking club with chapters nationwide, featured in a video segment prepared by Yahoo!, Drinking Liberally.
Their utterances were separated by about 30 minutes, so one could say it was a recurring theme. All the more so, the Drinking Liberally badinage continued on as Cleland self-deprecatingly compared his own medicore Internet skills to common blood alcohol levels, coining a term no less silly than Yahoo’s!: Citizen 0.1.
I love Page One Kentucky! They have a great post up wondering if Trent Lott resigned because he's another "closet case" ReThug running on "family values" while gay. Not that there's anything WRONG with that! Unless you're a bigoted hack like Lott or--say--McConnell. Have a look at this:
Far be it from us to jump on any bandwagon but this has legs. Sen. Trent Lott resigned unexpectedly today and for unspecified reasons– other than to state he wants to spend more time with his family.
Big Head DC is now reporting that Trent Lott is the latest GOP hypocrite to be outed as a known homosexual. Lott is alleged to have had numerous encounters with gay escort Benjamin Nicholas.
"Hahahahahahah! The minute Mr. Dear Leader and I heard the news that Trent was resigning, one year into his new election, we thought a sex scandal must be afoot. Our crack journalists, naturally, attributed it to a future in "lobbying" or "making money in the private sector." Their tiny minds never smelled a rat from this GOP (STROM) strongman, a mere year into his re-election. Wow. It's always OK If You're A Republican with these chumps.
The wreckage of the Bu$h years will be felt for generations. On most people's minds, obviously, are the seemingly doomed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and our wrecked moral standing in the world. But read this article in Vanity Fair to see just how devastated our economic infrastructure has become under Bu$h's reign and see where the certain, looming wreckage his failed economic policies are bound to take us.
When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page.
I can hear an irritated counterthrust already. The president has not driven the United States into a recession during his almost seven years in office. Unemployment stands at a respectable 4.6 percent. Well, fine. But the other side of the ledger groans with distress: a tax code that has become hideously biased in favor of the rich; a national debt that will probably have grown 70 percent by the time this president leaves Washington; a swelling cascade of mortgage defaults; a record near-$850 billion trade deficit; oil prices that are higher than they have ever been; and a dollar so weak that for an American to buy a cup of coffee in London or Paris—or even the Yukon—becomes a venture in high finance.
NPR reported that an expected 500,000 jobs will be lost next year to the housing bust.
Jeepers H. Christmas! Bu$h is once again banging on and on about how much Hard Work Prezniting is. With a skull as empty as his, I imagine breathing is a chore. Take a look at this Salon column and wonder at how reporters and news anchors keep from falling on the floor, laughing their asses off every time he opens his mouth. Here are a few snips:
In an interview with ABC's Charles Gibson Tuesday, George W. Bush said he thinks the 2008 presidential contenders don't understand how hard it is to be the president.
"I would tell you what I think, uh, these candidates don't really understand is how complex the environment is inside the Oval Office," ABC's transcript has Bush saying. "And how important it is, to have a set of principles from which you will not deviate, and, so that you can make good sound decisions. It is impossible I ... maybe not, but I think it's impossible for anybody to fully comprehend, you know, how much incoming there is into the Oval Office, and therefore it's important, to have a very orderly ... disciplined process, that enables people to come in and give you their opinion, in a timely fashion, so that there's enough data available for the president to deal with the problems in the world."
[. . . ] Bush on how quickly his presidency is passing:
"You know, just last year I was thinking about, how to deal with Iraq, I -- you know, I was, I was part of the people who didn't approve of Iraq. And when they asked the endless questions -- 'Do you approve of Iraq?' -- I was one, no, I didn't approve of what's going on. And wanted to do something about it and was confronted with a serious decision. It was just a year ago ... that I was, you know ... listening to people and getting ready to make the -- make the decision, and it just seemed like ... it was just yesterday, I mean it's unbelievable how much time's passed."
Hoo, boy! The whole Steve Henry saga has had a stink about it from the get-go. Page One KY has the scoop on it. Read it by clicking on this link weep.
In Ryan Alessi’s story about Steve Pence, there’s a juicy tidbit about his investigation of Steve Henry. Turns out the FBI wanted to prosecute Henry criminally for Medicare fraud but Pence wouldn’t budge. The quest to nab him went as high as “Let the Eagle Soar” John Ashcroft’s office.
Steve Henry, the former Lt. Gov. in the Patton administration, is currently under investigation for serious campaign finance violations. For the purposes of disclosure: I’m (Jake) one of the former Henry employees who delivered evidence alleging Henry’s wrongdoing and look forward to discussing that evidence when it’s all said and done. (Which will hopefully be soon) Until then, this revelation by Alessi is quite telling. Proof that Henry is capable of serious criminal offenses.
Dirty, stinking pols like Steve Henry need to be banished from all of KY politics if our ignorant, corrupt state is ever to move forward in a progressive and much needed way. Good job, Page One!
The Bu$h Administration (under the actual rule of Darth Cheney) has been cloaking every illegal, un-American and sneaky thing it does in near total secrecy. Hell, it even classifies information that has been publicly documented in news reports world wide! With the help of Bu$h allies in the press, in the courts and in Congress, we have a near dictatorship in America today. TPM has documented the atrocities and they are numerous and frightening .
Another year has almost passed under the Bush Administration, and so it's time to review how much less we know.
Last year, we launched the insanely ambitious project of recording every significant instance of this administration stifling government information. As we said then, "they've discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps." To be sure, the list will continue to grow through January, 2008
[. . .]
* The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has to date failed to produce a congressionally-mandated report on climate change that was due in 2004. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has called the failure an "obfuscation."
* A rule change at the U.S. Geological Survey restricts agency scientists from publishing or discussing research without that information first being screened by higher-ups at the agency. Special screening will be given to "findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy, or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed." The scientists at the USGS cover such controversial topics as global warming. Before, studies were released after an anonymous peer review of the research.
This list is HUGE and it's important to view the entire and sickening thing to see just how far away from our democratic principals Bu$h and Company have take our country.
Hahahahahahaha! Australia tossed Bu$h loving John Howard out on his ear. The election was largely decided by dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and disgust with the "politics of fear" the "Liberal" Party ran on. BTW, the "Liberal Party" in Australia is the equivalent of our Conservative party. More proof that Bu$h is global political poison
Prime Minister John Howard of Australia suffered a comprehensive defeat today, with a coalition led by his Liberal Party losing its majority in parliament.
After four terms in office, he will be replaced by Kevin Rudd, a Labor Party leader and former diplomat. Mr. Rudd, 50, campaigned on a platform of new leadership looking for new answers for new challenges. He has said his first acts as prime minister will include pushing for the ratification of the Kyoto climate agreement and to negotiate the withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq.
[. . .}
Early estimates had the Labor party gaining some 20 seats, to gain a14-seat majority in the 150-seat lower house. Television prediction [s]even had John Howard suffering the indignity of losing his own seat in the Sydney suburb of Bennelong in parliament to a former television anchor and rookie politician, Maxine McKew. He would be the first sitting Prime Minister to lose his seat since 1929.
Hoo, boy! It's getting harder and harder for the wingers to defend their moron of a preznit. Check this out from Think Progress:
Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) “raised some eyebrows” with his recent remarks about President Bush’s knowledge about Iraq. His comments “about his experiences with the White House during meetings on the war in Iraq” left some conservatives in the crowd “befuddled.” Chattanooga’s NewsChannel 9 reports:corker
“I was in the White House a number of times to talk about the issue, and I may rankle some in the room saying this, but I was very underwhelmed with what discussions took place at the White House,” Corker said.
A few minutes later during a question and answer session a man in the audience asked him to clarify his statement.
“I was concerned about your statement that you were underwhelmed with what was going on in the White House. Did you mean with him or with his staff?”
In response, Corker said, “Let me say this. George Bush is a very compassionate person. He’s a very good person. [editorial comment: Hahahahahaha! You CANNOT be serious!] And a lot of people don’t see that in him, and there’s many people in this room who might disagree with that…. I just felt a little bit underwhelmed by our discussions, the complexity of them, the depth of them.”
Hahahahahaha! Hear that, Mitch? Your boy, W, is a moron and everyone knows it, OK? Even a kook like Corker knows it.
Happy Thanksgiving, DLers! I'm thankful for the pleasure of your company at the BBC (and beyond) each week. Here are a few more things I'm thankful for on this day:
Gov. Ernie Fletcher has been fired by Kentuckians.
Gay bashing as a political tactic flopped, Big Time, here in KY for the GOP in the last election. Let's hope it never rears its ugly head again. Hey, I'm an optimist!
Dear Leader Maria is part of my family.
Dogs, cats, kids and good food.
Beer.
See you fine peeps next Thursday! Enjoy the long weekend!
Hank scores again with this link. Lexington's McClatchy run paper is far superior to the Louisville rag, the C-J. We are ruled by fools, clowns and idiots. These freaking anti-environmental hacks in the KY legislature are in the pockets of Big Coal and there is no amount of Tom Foolery they won't embrace to protect their contributors.
Global warming is a myth concocted by former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, Hollywood and the news media, Kentucky lawmakers were told yesterday.
The interim joint Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to dispute the idea that the Earth is warming, at least in part because of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere produced by industrial activity.
Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, a longtime ally of the coal industry, said he purposefully did not invite anyone who believes in global warming to testify.
"You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times," said Gooch, whose post makes him the House Democrats' chief environmental strategist. "We hear it every day from the news media, from the colleges, from Hollywood." (?)
Neither of Gooch's invited panelists was a scientist.
This freak should be "rode" out of government office on a rail. What a buffoon. Much thanks for this, Hank.
THE young men and women crowded into the basement of the Union Hall bar in Brooklyn looked as if they were used to spending time in dark steamy rooms. Dressed in plaid flannel shirts and corduroy coats, and carrying canvas bags, they could have come in search of the latest breakthrough band.
But on a recent Wednesday night, they were waiting to see a performance by Dave Maiullo, a support specialist for the Rutgers physics department, who stages demonstrations to illustrate scientific principles.
Thanks to Hank for the story and link! This makes me think of our own DL mad scientist, Brad.
"Congress, as you know, is away for its two-week break," Perino said. "They did not approve funding for our troops."
Perino has got it exactly backward, of course. The House of Representatives has approved $50 billion of funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the money just happens to be tied to a plan for a phased withdrawal and a "goal" of having most troops home by the end of 2008. Fifty-three members of the Senate stand ready to approve that measure and send it to the president's desk, but Republicans -- with the help of Joe Lieberman -- have prevented the bill from coming to the Senate floor.
So who's to blame for the parade of horribles Perino has begun trotting out? It seems to us that Democratic Rep. Davd Obey has the better of this argument: "If the president wants that $50 billion released, all he has to do is to call the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and ask him to stop blocking it," Obey said at a press conference with Rep. Jack Murtha today. "That phone number is 202-224-2541, in case anybody's interested."
Interested? McConnell doesn't seem to be. His office tells us that he has already left Washington for Thanksgiving in Kentucky.
Just in time for the holidays, there's a special place in Hell just waiting to be filled by some as-yet-unknown Pentagon bureaucrat. Apparently, thousands of wounded soldiers who served in Iraq are being asked to return part of their enlistment bonuses -- because their injuries prevented them from completing their tours. From Pittsburg's KDKA: Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.
A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.
"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back," he explained.
What kind of monster came up with this policy and who in their right mind would implement it? This is the highest of all the many outrages thrown at "The Troops" that Bu$h supposedly loves so damn much.
"The Palestinians need to become really conscious of and sensitive to the horror of the Holocaust. ...We must understand the importance and significance of the Holocaust to the Jews, while insisting that the Jews understand the tragedy of Palestine for the Palestinians."
- Rev. Canon Naim Ateek, founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem
[. . .]
Though he advocates nonviolence as "the only option, and the only strategy," Ateek does not shrink from making extremely trenchant criticisms of Israel's policies. Which is why a late October conference at Boston's Old South Church, featuring Ateek, was provocatively titled, "The Apartheid Paradigm in Palestine-Israel." Underscoring the apartheid parallel, the keynote speaker for the conference was Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town and one of the guiding spirits of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1970s and 1980s.
Just why is a capitol crime to point out the obvious here? Israel IS an occupying power over Palestine. And how can ANYONE miss the fact that the apartheid model works here?
OMG. If you think Tom Friedman has already put his worst columns behind him, (you know, the ones where taxi drivers in the Middle East talk foreign policy with him, or about Bu$h's brilliant war strategy?) you are mistaken. in Crazy Tommy's latest bizzarro world column, he argues for an Obama / Cheney Ticket for '08 Here's a snip:
And that brings me back to the Obama-Cheney ticket: When it comes to how best to deal with Iran, each has half a policy — but if you actually put them together, they’d add up to an ideal U.S. strategy for Iran. Dare I say, they complete each other. [my bold]
[. . .]
If she [Rice] were taking advantage of Mr. Cheney’s madness, Secretary Rice would be going to Tehran and saying to the Iranians: “Look, I’m ready to cut a deal with you guys, but I have to tell you, back home, I’ve got Cheney on my back and he is truly craaaaazzzzy. You guys don’t know the half of it. He thinks waterboarding is what you do with your grandchildren at the pool on Sunday. I’m not sure how much longer I can restrain him. So maybe we should have a serious nuke talk, and, if it goes well, we’ll back off regime change.”
[. . .]
Mr. Obama, by contrast, has “yes” down pat. As he said on “Meet the Press” last week: “I would meet directly with the leadership in Iran. I believe that we have not exhausted the diplomatic efforts that could be required to resolve some of these problems — them developing nuclear weapons, them supporting terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas.”
Fried-man needs to find other ways to amuse himself and he needs to quit trying to "get [y]our attention." Schmuck.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, has hurt the soul of our nation under this mis-administration more than the lack of justice under the reign of GW Bu$h. Justice has been denied, destroyed and thrown into a pit. We have "black sites," where the USA tortures people in secret prisons around the world. Our voting machines are are hackable and were sold to states by unaccountable GOP party hacks who made them. The Justice Department of the USA is currently being run by folks who have nothing better to do than wreck the Civil Rights Division and stack the department and the courts, nationwide, with hacks who serve to protect all the illegalities of this administration and frustrate justice for everyone who gets in their way. How far we have sunk? Our uselessly named "Justice Department" is now controlled by a "man" who has no use for basic civil rights, who condemed yesterday's civill rights protest and cannot even admit that waterboarding is torture.
Earlier this month, USA Today reported that “the Justice Department is prosecuting the fewest hate crimes in 10 years” with 22 people charged with hate crimes by the department last year, which is “down 71% from 76 in 1997.” The decline in hate crimes prosecutions accompanies a series of high-profile “racially charged incidents over the past year and a half” — such as the Jena 6 controversy — that have ignited the passions of the civil rights community.
That passion was on display today in Washington D.C., where thousands of protesters encircled the Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building, demanding, in the words of Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), either “stronger laws” or “a more aggressive commitment from the Department of Justice.”
>
Thanks for confirming another "Loyal Bu$hie", Schummer and Feinstein.
Well, well. Turns out the REAL reason Bu$h vetoed the latest Congressional spending bills is because the Dems cut out over a billion dollars in pork that W had added to benefit the pet projects of his wife and father. What a Jackass!
Bush Stuffs Spending Bills With Earmarks For Dad’s Foundation, Wife’s Librarian Program
On Monday, President Bush explained his veto of the recent Labor-HHS bill, claiming the “majority” in Congress had abandoned his “clear goals for the Congress to reform the earmarking process” and was “acting like a teenager with a new credit card.”
In reality, Bush “stuffs his budget with billions for pet projects.” According to Senate Democrats, Bush placed 580 earmarks worth $15.6 billion in a recent military and veterans appropriations request, along with “billions” in the energy and water spending bill:
Some presidential earmarks have obvious roots, such as $24 million for the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The president earmarked a billion dollars for the Reading First program, which was criticized by government auditors for steering contracts to favored companies. He also sought $8.9 million for the Points of Light foundation, a pet project started by his father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Congress slashed $676 million from Bush’s request for Reading First and eliminated the Points of Light funding. Bush retaliated by vetoing the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education bill.
What do you think the odds are that this will make the evening news?
Bu$h is out there again, running his mouth about fiscal "responsibility" (Hahahahahahaha!) and about all the wasteful pork Democrats are adding to spending bills. As usual, He has no idea what he's talking about,
Yesterday, after President Bush used his sixth-ever veto to squash “a measure to fund education, job training and health programs,” he criticized the fiscal responsibility and spending priorities of “the majority” in Congress:
The majority was elected on a pledge of fiscal responsibility, but so far it’s acting like a teenager with a new credit card.
White House press secretary Dana Perino added that it was “not only the extra spending” that raised White House objections, but “also 2,000 earmarks that the president would like to see stripped out.”
While Bush is trying to cast the majority in Congress as “acting like drunken sailors with federal tax dollars” because of earmarks, he should take notice of who placed the largest earmarks in the bill he just vetoed: Republicans.
According to the November 6 edition of CQ Today, the two largest individual earmarks in the bill were placed by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) [my bold]
Oh, I thought we elected Dems to get us out of Bu$h's "war" and restore the Constitution. Silly me.
Karl Rove Hired As Newsweek Contributor To ‘Balance’ Markos
Earlier this week, Newsweek announced that it is hiring DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas as a contributor for the 2008 presidential campaign, offering occasional opinion pieces. Markos said, “Newsweek is ‘balancing’ me out with someone that should make heads on our side explode.”
Now we know who. Newsweek has announced it is hiring Karl Rove to become a Newsweek contributor. From a Newsweek press release:
“Newsweek has a long tradition of asking practitioners and opinion-makers to offer our readers the benefits of their experience in occasional opinion essays,” said Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham. “Whether one agrees or disagrees with Karl, there is no arguing that he has been a critical player in the political world with insights and experiences that we think will give our readers something unique.”
The right wing has been up in arms, claiming Markos’ hire is an example of liberal bias in the media. Last night on Hannity & Colmes, NPR’s Juan Williams claimed journalism is being hijacked by angry, offensive individuals making “extreme statements“:
Hahahahahahahaha! Williams works for Faux Newz, for crying out loud!
Seriously. State Sen. Damon Thayer (R) writes an ode to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) for the extremist right-wing website Human Events, and — from the title to the very last sentence — it has the sound of a fifth grade book report. Is the average Republican legislator in this state functionally illiterate? I know some of them are, but is that the average?
Why yes. Yes they are. In fact, I bet many 5th graders would find them too damned stupid for words.
Whew! I love and admire real, live elephants and the REAL story here is sad and tragic. Still, I could not resist the impulse to pretend that GOP wingnuts heart DL. There is virtually nothing to suggest that they have ANY compassion for anyone or anything but their party or their fading grip on power. The AP had to retract its story that Paris Hilton wanted to save the drunken Indian elephants. Dumb blondes.
GAUHATI, India - Six Asiatic wild elephants were electrocuted as they went berserk after drinking rice beer in India's remote northeast, a wildlife official said Tuesday.
Nearly 40 elephants came to a village on Friday looking for food. Some found beer, which farmers ferment and keep in plastic and tin drums in their huts, said Sunil Kumar, a state wildlife official.
They got drunk, uprooted a utility pole carrying power lines and were electrocuted in Chandan Nukat, a village nearly 150 miles west of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya state, Kumar said.
I mean, like, duh? Hilton actually gives a rip about anything but her small little world? Ditto the GOP? Hahahahaha. Media should have smelled that rat!
Last week Paul Krugman, of the NYTimes, wrote a column slamming the right wing for trying to re-write history by claiming there was not ill intent on St. Ronald Reagan's part when he made his first speech in Philidelphia, MS after winning the GOP nomination and thundered about "state's rights" to an all white crowd. David Brooks responded a few days later with an unintentionally hilarious column of his own, praising Reagan for his high mindeness and utter lack of racism. Well, today Bob Herbert sets the record straight once and for all. The column is fantastic. Here's a snip:
Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean-spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people. There is no way for the scribes of today to clean up that dismal record.
To see Reagan’s appearance at the Neshoba County Fair in its proper context, it has to be placed between the murders of the civil rights workers that preceded it and the acknowledgment by the Republican strategist Lee Atwater that the use of code words like “states’ rights” in place of blatantly bigoted rhetoric was crucial to the success of the G.O.P.’s Southern strategy. That acknowledgment came in the very first year of the Reagan presidency.
I guess all his [Reagan] talk about "young bucks" and "wellfare queens" was entirely innocent, too. "Bobo" Brooks has an amazing gift for judging character, huh?
Sorry. I love New Albany, but if Bu$h thinks going there will drum up support his deeply despised, crack crazy proposals, he's in for a shock. These folks are NOT his bitches! And they are NOT crazy. WTH is New Albany thinking by inviting him?
Bu$h Is Invited by area business leaders,
President Bush plans to make his second visit this year to New Albany on Tuesday, this time to talk about the federal budget and the U.S. economy.
There goes New Albany's economy! Great thanks to Hank for this link. You the man!
Why is this man still running his mouth? I think the reaction from the audience was the only appropriate response.
Speaking in the UK yesterday, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) predicted that if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, he or she would seek to install universal health care, similar to the system in Britain. This possibility “received thunderous applause.” DeLay claimed that, under the U.S. system, “no American is denied health care: By the way, there’s no one denied health care in America. There are 47 million people who don’t have health insurance, but no American is denied health care in America." [sez moron Delay.] The audience, understandably, greeted DeLay’s preposterous claims with “derisive laughter," [my bold] according to the AP. A recent report showed that for the sixth straight year, jobholders continued to see a decline in employer-provided health insurance, with 38 states seeing “significant” drops in benefits offered by employers.
The lack of accountability in the Iraq invasion is simply amazing. Truckloads of guns are missing, billions of dollars are up in smoke and contractors gone amuck are the norm. from the Times
As the insurgency in Iraq escalated in the spring of 2004, American officials entrusted an Iraqi businessman with issuing weapons to Iraqi police cadets training to help quell the violence.
By all accounts, the businessman, Kassim al-Saffar, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war, did well at distributing the Pentagon-supplied weapons from the Baghdad Police Academy armory he managed for a military contractor. But, co-workers say, he also turned the armory into his own private arms bazaar with the seeming approval of some American officials and executives, selling AK-47 assault rifles, Glock pistols and heavy machine guns to anyone with cash in hand — Iraqi militias, South African security guards and even American contractors.
That great and saintly Gen. David Petraeus oversaw a great deal of this mess by arming Iraqis quickly but with no tracking system in place. Heckuva job, General!
The Bu$h administration has an appalling record of "supporting the troops" on both the battlefront and the homefront. Playing dress up and using military personell as props and political cover is shameful. None of the incompetents in the Bu$h administration seem willing or able to grapple with the problems facing wounded and returning Vets, so Congress needs to do it for them. It's time to end the SNAFU.
UPDATE
Kennedy, Cleland: ’stop messing with vets’ jobs.’
As Americans observe Veterans Day today, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and former senator Max Cleland note that the federal government has failed in its responsibility to help troops return to civilian life when they come home from battle:
It’s a disgrace that tens of thousands of National Guard troops and Reservists return home and find they’ve been laid off, demoted, or denied salary and benefit increases they should have received. It’s wrong for employers to turn their backs on those who risk their lives for our country.
The past month has not been a good one for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The candidate he endorsed in Kentucky's gubernatorial election was trounced by his Democratic challenger. McConnell himself is embroiled in a possible ethics scandal involving a $25 million earmark he secured for a British defense contractor under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. And the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is openly targeting his seat in 2008.
This dude is in real trouble. His latest gay bashing, slandering push to help re-elect Ernest Lee Governor failed, so now he's running ads promoting himself as a LEADER. Hahahahahaha! Have a look.
Speaking today at the Johns Hopkins Center for Politics and Foreign Relations, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) accused “left-wing blogs” of making up “conspiracy theories” about the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which passed the Senate last month. It designated part of the Iranian army a terrorist organization. Lieberman called opponents of the amendment “politically paranoid” and “hyper-partisan.”
He also claimed that the “amendment contained nothing” that could be seen “as a green light” for war:
These were absurd arguments. The text of our amendment contained nothing–nothing–that could be construed as a green light for an attack on Iran. To claim that it did was an act of delusion or deception.
On the contrary, by calling for tougher sanctions on Iran, the intention of our amendment was to offer an alternative to war.
Lieberman’s argument is the only “deception” going on. It didn’t take “conspiracy theories” to realize that the amendment would move America closer to war with Iran. In the original version of the bill, which was only changed after pressure from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), language was included that explicitly endorsed the use of “military instruments” against Iran:
"We’re thinking globally and dining locally in this year’s LEO Dining Guide! Our annual comprehensive list of local eateries is a useful guide that you’ll want to save for ready reference all year. Plus, Robin Garr features an offbeat look at “food miles,” comparing a fine restaurant dinner made entirely from local produce against a sumptuous (theoretical) meal with a carbon footprint the size of Montana. All this, plus a quick look at a couple of dozen quality sources of local meats and produce whose names you’ll often see on upscale menus.
More than 400 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have turned up homeless, and the Veterans Affairs Department and aid groups say they are bracing for a new surge in homeless veterans in the years ahead.
The House on Wednesday approved a bill granting broad protections against discrimination in the workplace for gay men, lesbians and bisexuals, a measure that supporters praised as the most important civil rights legislation since the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 but that opponents said would result in unnecessary lawsuits.
I can already hear Nancy boy Mitch shrieking about "special rights" now.
This is just freaking awesome! This retired AT&T tech leaves no doubt whatsoever about the illegality of our government's warrantless wiretapping program. Check it out here:
Klein is the retired AT&T technician who disclosed in late 2005 how his former employer had allowed the NSA to use Room 641A of 611 Folsom Street in San Francisco as a vacuum cleaner to capture untold millions of phone and e-mail communications. (You can read his first-hand account here, in a pdf.) His revelations formed the basis for a lawsuit, Hepting v. AT&T, currently before a federal court. Now he's trying to convince Senators not to preempt the case, reports The Washington Post.
The plain-spoken, bespectacled Klein, 62, said he may be the only person in the country in a position to discuss firsthand knowledge of an important aspect of the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. He is retired, so he isn't worried about losing his job. He did not have security clearance, and the documents in his possession were not classified, he said. He has no qualms about "turning in," as he put it, the company where he worked for 22 years until he retired in 2004.
"If they've done something massively illegal and unconstitutional -- well, they should suffer the consequences," Klein said. "It's not my place to feel bad for them. They made their bed, they have to lie in it. [my bold] The ones who did [anything wrong], you can be sure, are high up in the company. Not the average Joes, who I enjoyed working with."
The Bush administration says granting immunity is a matter of basic fairness. One (occasional) administration dissenter from the surveillance program, ex-AG John Ashcroft, agrees -- though Ashcroft now lobbies on behalf of telecoms, so that might, um, inform his perspective.
You have to wonder how the Corporate Sellouts in Congress will spin this one.
Governor Fletcher was trounced by Liberal Steve Beshear. With the exceptions of Agriculture Secretary and [Correction! Make that Secretarty of State. Jack Conway won election as Attorney General. Sorry!] Attorney General, Dems swept the state elections. I happen to think the Dem would have made a better choice for Secretary of State, but our rag, the C-J, claimed that the current GOP Sec. Of State was unspoiled by scandal (what a high bar!) in the Fletcher administration and should therefore be retained. That is ridiculous, but not the end of the world. The Dem nutjob who was running for agriculture sec. approved of abolishing the State Legislature, so who the hell needs that guy, right?
It was a good night in the State of Kentucky! It was s a good night to be a Liberal and a good night to Live Liberally! Let's hope this election is a bellwether of things to come.
I've gotten 3 different bigoted calls bashing gays in the last 24 hours from various GOP operatives in the state. This disgusting practice of illegal, slanderous calls must not only end, but be prosecuted. Here is what Page One KY is reporting:
BlueGrassRoots is reporting that robocalls are being made across the state today originating from a pro-gay organization that doesn’t exist. The calls allegedly are in support of Steve Beshear. Regular readers may be aware that this sort of activity is highly illegal and a blatant violation of campaign finance law.
KRS 121.015(7)(c),(12) identifies independent expenditures as being made without coordination, consultation or cooperation with candidates or campaigns. If we find that calls are being made in coordination with Fletcher in any way, you can bet a Kentucky Registry of Election Finance complaint will be promptly filed.
Further, independent expenditures are subject to KREF filing requirements and must report directly to the Registry. If an organization or individual isn’t properly reporting to KREF, that’s another complaint waiting to happen.
Do these fools have no morals or boundaries when it comes to hate and ignorance? Fletcher’s gay sidekicks should be ashamed.
They HAVE no shame. It is obvious that the State and national GOP party is a sleazy, dishonest, sliming machine.
Down to the last two days before voting booths open, Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher urged supporters to disregard polls that show him behind, while his running mate referred to the Democratic candidates as “San Francisco treats.”
Several Republicans — including the entertainer, Pat Boone — criticized Democratic gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear and his running mate Daniel Mongiardo this weekend for being endorsed of the Committee for Fairness and Individual Rights, a group that advocates equal treatment of gays and lesbians.
Boone, the singer and descendent of Daniel Boone, recorded a phone message for the Kentucky Republican Party that asked voters whether they “want a governor who’d like Kentucky to be another San Francisco.” Those calls went out to tens of thousands of homes Friday. Click here to listen to Boone's message.
I've gotten 3 robo calls with a gay bashing theme so far. Not Gay Mitch's finger prints are all over this sleaze.
Cheves takes Mitch to task. Sen. Mitch McConnell is taken to task by the Herald-Leader’s John Cheves for his sickening $25 million earmarks. The National Legal and Policy Center is up in arms as well. The funds, you’ll recall, are for British defense contractor BAE which is under investigation for bribery. We’re just surprised BAE isn’t red Chinese. [H-L]
This has just got to end. Actual consumers of food need to demand that Congress put the public-at- large ahead of their Corporate Sponsors in agribusiness. Congress needs to get off the lobbyist's tit and listen to real people--their constituents--and do the correct thing. It wouldn't hurt to get all the dirty, filthy money out of the campaign coffers of our *elected officials*
FOR Americans who have been looking to Congress to reform the food system, these past few weeks have been, well, the best of times and the worst of times. A new politics has sprouted up around the farm bill, traditionally a parochial piece of legislation thrashed out in private between the various agricultural interests (wheat gr
