Drinking Liberally®

Paul Krugman's twice-weekly Op-Ed is avalable to all now that Times Select, the New York Times on-line subscription program, has ended. Now it's time to go hit the Krugman archive and read up on what we've been missing! He also has a blog!

I also recommend Bob Herbert.

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The 2007 local election is October 9th. In fact, early voting for Wake Couty has already begun in downtown Raleigh. There is a second location in Cary which will open on 10/3. Here are the locations, dates and times:

Wake County Board of Elections Office
337 S. Salisbury Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 5:00 pm
September 20th - October 5th

Herbert C. Young Community Center
101 Wilkinson Ave.
Cary, NC 27513
11:00 am - 7:00 pm
Wednesday, October 3rd - Friday, October 5th

Here a link to the WakeGOV.com site for more information, plus an article from the N&O.

Get out and vote AND encourage others to do the same!

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Alan "The Maestro" Greenspan's idiocy, in four delightful panels:

This Modern World

Posted by wdpankow at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

An amazing story of shared sacrifice.

Band of Five Brothers

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When you hear some bonehead talking about the "liberal media", tell him/her about this:

Charge: Desperate To Curry Favor With Bush, CBS Execs Tried Not To Run Abu Ghraib Story

...
Specifically, buried in the lawsuit is the allegation that top CBS execs, under intense pressure from government officials, refused for weeks to air the torture story, despite mounting evidence that the story was solid. The execs fingered are CBS News president Andrew Heyward and senior vice president Betsy West.
...
40. Even after obtaining nearly a dozen, now notorious, photographs, which made it impossible to deny the accuracy of the story, Mr. Heyward and Ms. West continued to delay the story for an additional three weeks. This delay was, in part, occasioned by acceding to pressures brought to bear by government officials urging CBS to drop the story or at least delay it. As a part of that pressure, Mr. Rather received a personal telephone call from General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, urging him to delay the story.
...

Even if the majority of reporters/columnists identify themselves as liberal-leaning, the direction of content comes from above - those suck-ups trying to earn favor with Republicans and the Washington D.C. establishment (Daveid Border, et.al.).

Posted by wdpankow at 10:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Matthew Yglesias lays it out for us:

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The only showdown that mattered happened months ago. Democrats passed a war appropriation that funded the phased withdrawal of troops. Bush vetoed that appropriation and said he would only sign an appropriation that funded open-ended war. Bush sought to portray a congressional refusal to appropriate money for an open-ended military involvement in Iraq as some kind of plot to leave the troops starving and without bullets in Iraq. The press largely bought into this frame, which was re-enforced by the fact that many leading Democrats immediately decided to buy into as well. The party then decided not to try to fight to reframe the issue but, instead, to accept it. Given that framing of the question, the only thing to do was surrender and give Bush his money. And given that precedent, the only thing to do is to keep on surrendering any time Bush rhetorically holds the troops' well-being hostage to his preference for perpetual war.

...

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Local event this weekend, September 20-23 in downtown Raleigh.

SPARK CON
igniting the creative hub of the south
September 20-23 2007

From the site:

What is SPARK CON?

SPARK CON grows every time a new person gets involved with a SPARK. They can create their own SPARK, or they can join in to help an existing one. It's an open-source, "for the people, by the people" approach to an incredible series of events. It's definition and focus is dynamic. In 2007, we have over 40 volunteer organizers developing these events.

Posted by wdpankow at 06:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Several of us regular DLers attended a live broadcast of the show 'Monkey Time' tonight, hosted by Todd Morman. It airs every Wednesday at 8pm on Raleigh cable channel 10, with reruns Thursday at midnight. We had a lot of fun and a good laugh. Set your DVR/TiVo to record the show, which is definitely worth your time.

For an idea of the kind of topics covered in this call-in show, see the Monkey Media Report at http://www.monkeytime.org/.

Todd Morman
Photo by Shawn Soni

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Suddenly there's a new, more popular attraction in Minnesota than the Mall of America!

Fateful Bathroom Draws Crowds of the Curious

By CHRISTINA CAPECCHI
Published: September 19, 2007

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 18 — Michael Wolkomir would not consider his vacation, which included 10 days’ sightseeing in California, complete until on his way home he posed in front of what is now known as the Larry Craig bathroom at the airport here.

...

By the way, as of Tuesday, 'Times Select' is no more. The New York Times site has ended it's pay for content program. Now we can all read Paul Krugman's column again! Hooray!!!

Posted by wdpankow at 10:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

This pretty well sums up why I can't stand the 'Maestro', Alan Greenspan.

No, Greenspan Doesn’t Get To Rehabilitate His Reputation

So Alan Greenspan has a new book coming out on Monday. And it says nasty things about the Bush administration. Welcome to the club Alan - the club of Bush enablers who write books once they aren’t in power, in a pathetic attempt to pretend they weren’t culpable in Bush’s mess. But back when it mattered, back when you were in charge of the Fed, when you were lionized as the Maestro… oh, back then, when you could have actually, I don’t know, oh, done something concrete to oppose Bush’s policies, did you? No, no you didn’t.

...

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In his speech tonight, Bush will outline the supposed progress being made in Iraq due to the troop "surge". Back in January he promised specific outcomes:

As Bush Prepares for 'Surge' Address Tonight: Here Is What He Promised in January Speech By E&P Staff Published: September 13, 2007 11:20 AM ET

NEW YORK With President Bush reportedly ready to endorse a full continuation of the "surge" in Iraq through next summer in a speech to the nation tonight, a look back at what he promised in his address last January might prove illuminating, especially concerning "benchmarks."

The president said then, "I've made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The Prime Minister understands this....

"To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November. To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis. To show that it is committed to delivering a better life, the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure projects that will create new jobs. To empower local leaders, Iraqis plan to hold provincial elections later this year. And to allow more Iraqis to re-enter their nation's political life, the government will reform de-Baathification laws, and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq's constitution."

None of this happened.

...

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That's what Central Command Chief Admiral Fallon called General Petraeus.

Senator Jim Webb is requesting he be called to testify in response to Petraeus' White House-approved report.

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John Dean has a new book out titled 'Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches'. There is an excerpt from the book at Salon.com, which has a very interesting passage I want to share.

As I was writing this closing section an old friend from the Nixon White House called. Now retired, he is a lifelong Republican who told me that he voted for Bush and Cheney twice, because he knows them both personally. He asked how my new book was coming, and when I told him the title, he remarked, "I'll say the government's broken." After we discussed it, he asked how I planned to end the book, since the election was still a good distance away. I told him I was contemplating ending midsentence and immediately fading to black -- the way HBO did in the final episode of the Sopranos, but that I would settle for a nice quote from him, on the record. He explained that he constantly has to bite his tongue, and the reason he does not speak out more is because one of his sons is in an important (nonpolitical) government post, and we both know that Republicans will seek revenge wherever they can find it. How about an off-the-record comment? I asked. That he agreed to.

"Just tell your readers that you have a source who knows a lot about the Republican party from long experience, that he knows all the key movers and shakers, and he has a bit of advice: People should not vote for any Republican, because they're dangerous, dishonest and self-serving. While I once believed that Governor George Wallace had it right, that there was not a dime's worth of difference in the parties; that is not longer true. I have come to realize the Democrats really do care about people who most need help from government; Republicans care most about those who will only get richer because of government help. The government is truly broken, particularly in dealing with national security, and another four years, and heaven forbid not eight years, under the Republicans, and our grandchildren will have to build a new government, because the one we have will be unrecognizable and unworkable."

These comments summed up our current situation -- and our possible future -- as eloquently as anything I could have wished.

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A very comprehensive list of Republican corruption.

http://fluffer-union.blogspot.com/

Posted by wdpankow at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Monday, September 10th, 6-8pm:

Sierra Club's endorsed candidates Meet-N-Greet
Porter's Tavern, 2412 Hillsborough St.

Free food & drinks!

Posted by wdpankow at 11:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)