November 07, 2008

Just go Joe

By Libby

Reid and Lieberman had some kind of private confab yesterday. Here's Joe's press statement afterward.



Options? He has options all right. He should opt to not let the door hit him on the way out.

Jane Hamsher tells us he's having a series of meetings with Reid to decide what to do. What's to decide? He should resign his committee gracefully and leave the caucus for his new BFFs in the GOP. Make it official already. He hasn't voted with the Democrats on anything important in literally years.

Why bother with this silly charade? They don't need him if he doesn't come through the votes anyway and if he goes to the GOP then he can be all bi-partisanish when he crosses the aisle to support President Obama's proposals.

It's a simple choice. Joe must go. If you would like to make that clear to the Dems, sign the No More Joe petition.

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November 05, 2008

The audacity of hope

By Libby

Barack_baby It was quite a night, wasn't it? I laughed. I cried. I'm still tearing up at intervals as I look at the photos and the full impact of this historic moment hits me. I feel about as stunned as I did on this day in 04, only this time it's in a good way. I want to stand on my deck and shout, "Thank you America for repudiating the lies and the hatemongering of the extremists who hijacked our country for so many years."

I want to go out and hug every single person who fought so hard to make this moment happen. Every campaign worker who toiled beyond human endurance to get out the largest vote in a hundred years. Every person who talked to their friends and families and neighbors and sold them on the idea that hope still exists and can overcome hate. Every blogger that risked carpal tunnel in a relentless assault of pixels on the intertubes, pushing back against the false narratives that threatened to turn this election into an American Idol contest.

Of course, the election of President Barack Hussien Obama is not the end of this fight, it's just the beginning. It's clear that he understands that too. I was struck by the tone of his acceptance speech. There was little jublilation over victory in his sober rhetoric as he hoisted the weight of his new responsiblities onto his slender shoulders. One can see the heaviness of that burden already manifesting in the increasing lines in his face and the new gray in his temples.

There's much work left to be done in bringing the millions of citizens who are even now stockpiling weapons against what they apparently truly believe will be the coming of some kind of Marxist-Socialist-Communist-Muslim-Gay-terrorist coup, back into reality, (assuming that can ever be done) and the dire problems that plagued us two days ago didn't disappear with President Obama's election. The world as we knew it before Bush won't ever return again. But I don't want to deal with that today. For this one day, I just want to savor the moment.

The whole world changed last night and although the challenges ahead are great, I believe we finally took a step in a better direction. For the first time in eight long years, I woke up without that crushing weight of concern bearing down on my chest about the future of my child and my grandchild. For this one day I just want to breathe that in. I want to wallow in the audacity of hope, and relish my rekindled pride in my President and our country. It's been a long time since I've felt it. [photo credit]

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

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November 04, 2008

Voting stories

By Libby

This first one is from yesterday but I'm including it anyway. Hecate passes on a beautiful story and photo from an Obama rally in Raleigh, NC.

Hecate also pulls a Tarot card. It's a very good omen. Might be NSFW if you work in very straight-laced place. It's just a picture of a card with a naked female angel, but use caution.

Pete Abel in Missouri saw lots of young people excited about voting.

1000 students lined up at Penn State.

Twitter the vote.

Turn out stories from many different locations.

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Moved to tears

By Libby

Although I weep at the end of It's a Wonderful Life every year, I'm not really one to cry over every little thing. I've been surprised how often a story about this race has made me so teary-eyed. Today's tear jerkers: First a voting story from Glen.

And I have a wonderful image from my small precinct to share. A young African-American mother can to vote with her three young daughters — we have those partially-enclosed plastic "booths." When she went to mark her vote, she told the girls "come, touch my hand, be a part of this — it's something you're going to remember the rest of your life."

Obama's first statement about his grandmother's death.


I'm just crushed that she didn't live one more day to see him to the end of his long journey. One bright spot in this dark moment is that yes, her vote will count.

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Yes. We. Can.

By Libby

Obama_rally_manassas_vi

Election day at last. I'm so jazzed today that I almost can't focus enough to blog so I'm just going to cross posting election day stories from my place. People in my internet circles are reporting long lines and no lines. Everyone is a good mood. You can feel the hope. It's so palpable, you could eat it for breakfast.

Dixville Notch, NH, traditionally the first to report results has it for Obama in a landslide, 15-6.

Obama closes out his campaign with 90,000 at a rally in Manassas, Virginia last night. This morning in Richmond, all their voting machines broke down. Some confusion at first, but they now have paper ballots. Good. Harder to steal the vote that way.

Sean is on the road and takes a look at the Obama ground game in Georgia. I'm too superstitous to make predictions but that state could surprise us.

Over in Right Blogstantinople and Wingnut Punditryville, heads are already exploding. Take your pick of comical coverage here. Breathless posts on McCain's optimism, horrified indignation over imagined voting fraud or dire warnings about our country lurching to the left.

Meanwhile, I don't know how much blogging I'll be doing today. I'm not much for hour by hour analysis, but I expect to be sharing voting stories as they come in. In the interim, visualize victory.

[Photo credit] (Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

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October 31, 2008

Stealing the election

By Libby

Adding some context to Jay's post, here's a rundown of some of the voter suppression efforts that appear not to working as well as the GOP hoped they would.

McCain has taken to guaranteeing his supporters he will be victorious next week. Makes you wonder what he knows that we don't. Could be he's counting on things like the flyers being sent out by the PA GOP, targeted at Jewish voters, making false allegations against Obama and likening him to Hitler. Or the flyers in Virginia being distributed by an unknown organization falsely telling people that Democrats aren't supposed to vote until the day after the election is over?

More likely he's depending on the GOP's voter purges though. One in six voters in New Mexico are being challenged, like this supervisor of elections who happens to be Hispanic. 50,000 purged in Georgia, like this student who received notice she was struck from the rolls because she's not a citizen. Except that she is a citizen and received the notice days after the deadline to fix the problem passed. She will now be forced to use a provisional ballot. 10,000 registrations ruled invalid in Colorado.

And in Florida, "The state released a new and larger "no match" list Monday of 12,165 names, compared with 8,867 on an earlier list released Oct. 16. The list is disproportionately made up of African-Americans, Hispanics, Democrats and residents of South Florida. African-Americans and Hispanics combined account for 55 percent of would-be voters on the latest list, which includes 6,194 Democrats and 1,440 Republicans."

Hundreds of thousands of voters across the country are being targeted by GOP operatives - enough to steal an election in a close contest. I urge you once again, to check your registration status before next Tuesday to protect your vote.

(Originally posted at the Detroit News.)

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

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The straight ticket trap

By Libby

I haven't been around for a number of reasons too complicated to explain but I've been posting a lot at the Detroit News trying to reach out to McCain supporters and inform Obama voters about the potential pitfalls of the various methods of voter suppression. With the kind indulgence of my co-bloggers, I'm going to cross post some of these in the next few days here. Here's the first one.

Here in Michigan, as in my new home state of North Carolina, they still offer the straight party option to save time when you're filling out your ballot. Don't use it. It's a trap that could leave your vote uncounted.

THE PROBLEM: "Straight party voting" on voting machines is revealing a bad pattern of miscounting and omitting your vote, especially if you are a Democrat. Most recently (Oct. 2008), a firm called Automated Election Services was found to have miscoded the system in heavily Democratic Santa Fe County, New Mexico such that straight party voters would not have their presidential votes counted.

States with the straight ticket option are Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Here in North Carolina, if you use the option, it covers all the races except for president. You still have to fill that oval out separately or your vote for that office won't count. The disclaimer on my ballot is very hard to find, not to mention hard to read in the tiniest of type. So take the time to make all your choices separately even if you plan to vote only one party for every race. It only takes a minute or two more and it's worth it to protect your vote. And please pass the link on to everyone you know in these states.

[ Find Your Polling Place | Voting Info For Your State | Know Your Voting Rights | Report Voting Problems ]

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October 26, 2008

McCain supporters making fraudulent contributions

By Libby

The A-list wingers at The Corner and their cohorts in Right Blogstantinople have been busy trying to gin up a fundraising controversy in their latest ploy to smear Obama, with an eye to cast doubt on an Obama victory. I see the WaPo finally picked up on the theme and is asking if campaigns funded by the people instead of big money interests isn't really a threat to democracy.

Leaving aside that we're talking about 1% of Obama's fundraising here at best, hardly a massive problem, the WaPo is asking the wrong question. The Corner's minions have embarked on a huge effort to deliberately make fraudulent contributions to Obama's campaign in order to 'prove' the fraud exists. This is illegal. The perps are making public confessions, boasting of their criminality. So why aren't they being arrested?

Update: Thanks to the commenter who complained in comments, Mark Kleiman confirms the fraudulent contributors are breaking two different laws.

[Cross-posted from The Impolitic where the comment section is not amused]

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October 18, 2008

The new McCarthyism

By Libby

Apparently mistaking a recent Hardball appearance as an audition to become the latest face of reckless demagoguery, Rep. Michele Bachman gave voice to the most rabid and vile imaginings of the increasingly violent GOP base. She hints darkly of widespread anti-Americanism within the Congressional chambers. The video is at the link, I can't bring myself to repeat it here.

Immediately after the segment, Katrina Vandenheuvel issues the appropriate, and surprisingly impassioned, rebuke.

Chris, I fear for my country. I think what we just heard is a congresswoman channeling Joe McCarthy, channeling a politics of fear and loathing and demonization and division and distraction. Not a single issue mentioned. This is a politics at a moment of extreme economic pain in this country that is incendiary, that is so debased, that I'm almost having a hard time breathing, because I think it's very scary.

Bachman's hateful remarks are not only scary, they verge on criminally irresponsible. I think she should be immediately censured by her peers. If you agree, join concerned Americans and sign the petition and pass the link on. The signators have already doubled in number in the last few hours.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic)

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October 17, 2008

Joe the Plumber works for McCain

By Libby

I don't mean he's replacing the toilets in McCain's eight homes or that he was a plant as I've seen suggested, but I'm wondering if McCain's repeated invocation of the his new blue collar BFF, was really just another wildly implusive gimmick or a deliberate pre-emptive trick to manipulate the news cycle. Think about it. On the day after another poor debate performance by McCain that could easily have been anticipated by Steve Schmidt, the media has been talking about Joe the Plumber all day long. They're still talking about him this morning instead of focusing in on McCain's obfuscations and false talking points. On those terms, the Joenanza frenzy is working in McCain's favor.

Anything that takes the focus off McCain specifically is a net plus at this point. Starting from the 'leaked' reports that Schmidt was furious at McCain for repeatedly bringing him up because of the man's connection to the Keating Five, which now may turn out not to be true, to the myriad of details that emerged in the media feeding frenzy, it suggest to me that the campaign actually did vet Joe the Plumber before deciding to make him the sacrificial lamb for one last distraction in the final days of the race.

As a poster boy, Joe is obviously fatally flawed but it fired up the wingnut noise machine and today their narrative has turned to hypocritical accusations that the "angry left" is irresponsibly destroying the man with undue scrutiny. Joe provides a new focal point to reinforce the ongoing meme of beleaguered conservatives as victims just at the moment that Palin's popularity, and thus usefulness in that regard, has tanked. And it keeps the whole "spreading the wealth" socialism theme that so charges up the base alive for the duration. So is it coincidence or contrievance?

That Joe the Plumber will live to regret his casual confrontation with Obama is clear enough. Every ugly detail of his personal life has been revealed to a national audience. He's been exposed as a fraud. That's embarassing, but this, in particular, will surely come back to haunt him.

“All contractors are licensed, and he does not have a license, either as a contractor or a plumber,” the union official said, citing a search of government records. “I can’t find that he’s ever even applied for any kind of apprenticeship, and he has never belonged to local 189 in Columbus, which is what he claims on his Facebook page.”

The upshot being, he's been plumbing illegally and will probably find himself unable to work before his fifteen minutes of fame are over. Instead of a poster boy, he's now set to become a martyr in the eyes of the rabid base and it might just work to get some of those who were planning to sit the election out after the Palinmania wore off too soon, to get to the polls after all.

It appears it will work. The base, of course, is blaming the left, rather than admit McCain is so crass that he would sacrifice one of their own simply to keep their hate of all things liberal alive long enough to get them to the ballot box.

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October 15, 2008

Bush busy behind the scenes

By Libby

While the nation worries, watching their investments melt away and their fellow citizens meltdown into pockets of partisan rage, Bush has been making the most of his remaining 96 days to quietly complete the total destruction of corporate oversight. Steve Benen has the story.

Corporate America has been calling for some mechanism to "preempt" product-liability litigation for years, and Bush had promised to deliver. The White House, however, had limited options in dealing with a Democratic Congress which cares about consumer protections.

So, the Bush gang is adding provisions to obscure federal regulations that will block product safety lawsuits by consumers and states. The scheme would affect products ranging from cars to prescription medication to railroad cars.

And don't be lulled into thinking there's a easy fix with a new administration taking power.

These new rules can't quickly be undone by order of the next president. Federal rules usually must go through lengthy review processes before they are changed. Rulemaking at the Food and Drug Administration, where most of the new pre-emption rules have appeared, can take a year or more.

And that's not all. Bush is also busy cementing unitary executive privilege with yet more signing statements.

In the authorization bill, Mr. Bush challenged four sections. One forbid the money from being used “to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq”; another required negotiations for an agreement by which Iraq would share some of the costs of the American military operations there.

The sections “purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the president’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations,” including as commander in chief, Mr. Bush wrote.

In the other bill, he raised concerns about two sections that strengthen legal protections against political interference with the internal watchdog officials at each executive agency. One section gives the inspectors general a right to counsels who report directly to them. But Mr. Bush wrote in his signing statement that such lawyers would be bound to follow the legal interpretations of the politically appointed counsels at each agency.

The other section requires the White House to tell Congress what each inspector general said about the administration’s budget proposal for their offices. Such a requirement, Mr. Bush wrote, would infringe on “the president’s constitutional authority” to decide what to recommend to Congress.

He may only have a little over three months left in office, but clearly he can still do a great deal of damage in that short span of time. I think it could take generations to undo it all. The Democrats may find they will rue not impeaching him in 06 when they had the clear mandate to do so. As the full scope of the Bush regime's misdeeds are exposed over the coming years, the public's anger will yet turn on them for their failure to follow through.

On the bright side, this may finally be the way we get rid of Reid, Pelosi and the rest of the entrenched and corrupted old guard and replace them with better Democrats. One can hope anyway.

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October 12, 2008

Joe Biden brings it on

By Libby

Joe Biden calls out the McCain campaign's catty tactics of smearing Obama and Biden behind their backs:

"Sarah Palin had great fun saying Joe Biden thinks paying taxes is patriotic. Well, let me tell you what Joe Biden thinks," the Delaware senator said at an outdoor rally. "Joe Biden thinks that anybody who takes millions of dollars offshore to avoid paying their fair share is unpatriotic."

"That is not patriotic and it will stop, it will stop in an Obama-Biden administration! Enough! I've had it up to here! Don't lecture me on patriotism," shouted Biden, getting drowned out by the applause of his supporters. "I'm dead tired of being taken advantage of. I'm getting tired of it."

In full fire mode, Joe goes on to mock McCain and Palin's lack of courage in making the same false accusations to their faces:

"In my neighborhood you want to say something about me, look me in the eye and tell me," said Biden. "Say it to me straight up. Say it to me head on. That's the code, that's the ethics! Say it to me! Ladies and gentlemen, I'm tired of losing, I'm tired of taking this stuff, I've had enough."

I got tired of it about eight years ago but even if it's late in coming, I'm glad to see Democrats finally ready to fight back. I hope Obama and Biden are also ready to clear out some of the dead wood on our side of the fence too. Reid and Pelosi would be a good place to start. We need new leadership all around.

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October 10, 2008

True colors

By Libby

I have to admit, this geeky stuff goes right over my head. I don't have a clue about what Waxy is doing here and with my old computer already running at a near glacier speed, I'm not going to download the algorithum to figure it out but maybe some of the techies around here can explain this to me in simple terms. I'm particularly interested because three of the blogs I post to, Newshoggers, my own blog The Impolitic and The Reaction are all on the list.

While most political blogs are extremely partisan, their biases aren't immediately obvious to outsiders like me. I wanted to see, at a glance, how conservative or liberal the blogs were without clicking through to every article.

The colors don't necessarily represent each blogger's personal views or biases. It's a reflection of their linking activity. The algorithm looks at the stories that blogger's linked to before, relative to all other bloggers, and groups them accordingly. People that link to things that only conservatives find interesting will be classified as bright red, even if they are personally moderate or liberal, and vice-versa. The algorithm can't read minds, so don't be offended if you feel misrepresented. It's only looking at the data.

The only part I understand is that the colors show your partisan leanings in terms of linkage, not content. I don't get the scoring at all. Maybe a braver soul than me can run the program and tell me what our colors are?

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October 09, 2008

We're all terrorists now

By Libby

As I've been saying for at least the last two years, every day we take one step closer to a police state. Here's the latest little encroachment.

Despite pledges by President George W. Bush and American intelligence officials to the contrary, hundreds of US citizens overseas have been eavesdropped on as they called friends and family back home, according to two former military intercept operators who worked at the giant National Security Agency (NSA) center in Fort Gordon, Georgia.

The administration and its apologists will tell you that they only target "likely terrorists" but according the one whistleblower, "likely" is loosely defined.

Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism." She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.

According to another whistleblower, who came forward independently of Kinne, at least the eavesdroppers are having a great old time on the job.

Faulk says he and others in his section of the NSA facility at Fort Gordon routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted, alerting office mates to certain time codes of "cuts" that were available on each operator's computer.

"Hey, check this out," Faulk says he would be told, "there's good phone sex or there's some pillow talk, pull up this call, it's really funny, go check it out. It would be some colonel making pillow talk and we would say, 'Wow, this was crazy'," Faulk told ABC News.

So much for the right to privacy, but that has already become as quaint as the constitution in the administration's mind. Meanwhile, here at home, the definition of terrorist has been stretched to include innocent activists.

The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday.

Police Superintendent Terrence B. Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was disclosed in July.

In the understatement of the year Sheridan told a Senate committee, ""The names don't belong in there. It's as simple as that." If only the wholesale destruction of our civil rights would be as easy to restore as it was for the Bush administration to destroy, I would be sleeping better at night.

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October 05, 2008

When politicians panic

By Libby

Avedon reminds me I meant to get to this earlier. TChris at Talk Left noticed a disturbing addition to the "improved" Wall St. rescue. This is what happens when the Congress rushes through legislation and trades off amendments for votes.

The bailout bill also gives the Internal Revenue Service new authority to conduct undercover operations. It would immunize the IRS from a passel of federal laws, including permitting IRS agents to run businesses for an extended sting operation, to open their own personal bank accounts with U.S. tax dollars, and so on. (Think IRS agents posing as accountants or tax preparers and saying, "I'm not sure if that deduction is entirely legal, but it'll save you $1,000. Want to take it?") That section had expired as of January 1, 2008, and would now be renewed.

What a waste of resources. As TChris goes on to point out:

We don't need IRS sting operations. There is no shortage of tax evasion schemes for agents to pursue without trying to sting taxpayers into committing new crimes. Increasing the audits of the wealthy taxpayers who are most likely to abuse the system would be a more reasonable approach to tax crime enforcement.

Exactly and that has certainly been a low priority under the Bush administration. They're much more interested in chasing down some bottom of the ladder taxpayers who wrongfully accept the Earned Income credit.

But this can't all be blamed solely on Bush or even Republicans. This rush to pass bad bills under political panic is same dynamic that gave us the Patriotic Act and a multitude of other bad legislation. Democrats are just as guilty for failing to exercise their leadership after 06 and their responsibilites as the oppositional minority before that. Small wonder 59% of the electorate would like to throw all the bums out and just start over.

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McCain campaign unmuzzles Palin

By Libby

Palin reminds me of nothing so much as those fine "Christian ladies" I used to encounter back in the days I taught Sunday School. They were well dressed, perfectly coiffed and pillars of the church, mainly because they donated lots of money. Usually they had a stained glass window or at least a pew named after them with a little brass plaque. They were sugary sweet to everyone to their face, but would make oblique insults about parishioners they didn't like behind their backs, subtly mocking their clothes or their social status. They took their greatest delight in making themselves feel bigger by tearing others down. That's Palin in a nutshell, with her desperate attempts to resurrect the long dead meme of Obama's nonexistent 'terrorist pals' with its thinly veiled racist subtext.

And proving once again that the rabid right thrive on cognitive dissonance, Palin apparently garnered great applause by quoting a Starbucks coffee cup. Leaving aside that she couldn't even get a single sentence quote right, for eight years now I've been hearing the right whine about "limousine liberals" who drink Starbucks coffee. So how come it's suddenly acceptable and how does that fit the "hockey mom" image? I thought they only drink Dunkin Donuts coffee.

I also wonder how she would have played that line if Hillary was Obama's VP? Personally, one of the things I find most offensive about McCain's little snarling pit bull is her selfish co-opting of all the work Hillary did in cracking the ceiling that gave her this opportunity she doesn't at all deserve.

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October 03, 2008

Biden soars, Palin bores

By Libby

I don't have a whole lot to say about the debate. I put up my requisite post debate analysis at Detroit News so all I'd add here is that Biden did great under difficult circumstances. He had to dance a fine line between shredding Palin on her still obvious ignorance and appearing too aggressive in doing so. I think he rose to the occassion admirably and managed to keep the focus on the top of the ticket rather than take the numerous cheap shots Palin offered up as targets.

Palin for her part managed to meet the sub-zero expectations of her perfomance but didn't manage to exceed them, not even by a subatomic particle. Her fan club will praise her as the winner, the rest of America will yawn at hearing the same talking points she's been pimping since the day McCain dragged her on stage. The only point that really resonated was her open admission that she wants the office of VP to accrue even more unlimited power than the wildest of Cheney's wet dreams. Low info voters probably won't pick up on that point, but if this debate changed anything, it will be to energize the Obama supporters to work even harder to prevent the disaster that a McCain administration would bring.

Bottom line, Biden came across as a serious candidate for a serious office at a critical time in our country. Palin came off as a vapid beauty queen with a fake, fixed smile and a badly hidden mean streak, running for Miss America. I don't think it will affect the polls much at all. It may reenergize the base for a while, but to the extent that the debate was any kind of game changer, it's that Palin showed she has nothing new to say and the media may start ignoring her and put the focus back on Obama and McCain, where it belongs. On those terms, it's a win for Obama.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

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October 01, 2008

Palin improving in interviews

By Libby

I watched Palin's latest interview with Couric last night and her diction is improving. Her answers to the questions, not so much.

"Couric: And when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?

Palin: I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

Couric: What, specifically?

Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

Couric: Can you name a few?

Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news, too. Alaska isn't a foreign country, where it's kind of suggested, "Wow, how could you keep in touch with what the rest of Washington, D.C., may be thinking when you live up there in Alaska?" Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America."

They've obviously been coaching her, a la Eliza Doolittle, to speak "proper" English, although if you watch the video and see the clip where she's speaking at rally, she's all folksy twang there. As for her answer here, it boggles the mind that she couldn't even come up with the name of her local newspaper in response. I'm betting the first thing that came to her mind was People magazine and she could hardly admit that.

Interestingly, I had a similar question on a Zogby poll I filled out recently and I struggled to narrow it down to a dozen news sources and blogs that I read every single day. If I had to include all that I read regularly, I would probably still be filling in that answer, yet I would hardly qualify them as ALL of the available sources. For the record, I listed NYT, WaPo, LAT, Detroit News, Politico, all major network and cable news internet sites, Washington Monthly, Sideshow, Balloon Juice, Eschaton, and of course Newshoggers, The Reaction and my own blog, which is hardly an exhaustive list of even my daily reads.

I'd be curious to know what our readers would list. Please share in comments if you're so inclined.

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September 29, 2008

I get mail - Worthy causes

By Libby

Even though I'm just a B-list blogger I get asked all the time to review books and pitch worthy causes. I often don't get around to even reading them before it's too late but this one is a really worthy effort and you still have one day to participate.

The International Medical Corps has been named as a finalist in a contest sponsored by American Express. International Medical Corps has been matched to one of the Top 25 in American Express’ Members Projects, ‘Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children.’

Chosen out of 1,190 projects, “Saving the Lives of Malnourished Children” is now eligible to receive up to $1.5 million in funding. The project with the most votes receives $1.5 million, 2nd receives $500,000, 3rd $300,000, and 4th and 5th $100,000. The funding – made possible by your votes – would bring a vital lifeline to hungry and malnourished children around the world. We need your help between now and September 29th.

Voting is easy and doesn’t cost a thing! In just a click, you can save the lives of thousands of malnourished children. Click here to vote:

For severely malnourished children, we offer a step-by-step treatment program that gives them what they need to recover, including nutrient-dense food supplements like the peanut-based product, Plumpy'Nut. Our comprehensive monitoring system saves more than 90 percent of children being treated in our feeding centers. Being one of the Top 5 would mean our nutrition could reach more children around the world who need our help.

It's a little complicated to vote, you have to join the group first, but I checked out the greater project and it's legit. You won't be charged any money and of the 25 projects, I liked this one the best. So if you have a few minutes, it's good way to spend it to end world hunger.

Another project I've been asked to promote is Ban Cluster Bombs. They don't seem to be involved in any time sensitive project but with the world at perpetual war and seeing our country is also an offender, it's worth a few minutes to check out their site. It's an eyeopener.

Finally, I don't generally pitch books I haven't read, but this request was so polite, you might want to check out Oxford University Pres who are promoting a book on the Bush Doctrine that looks interesting based on the review they posted.

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September 28, 2008

Palin personifies the decline of the Republic

By Libby

Matt Taibbi has a good rant going on at the Smirking Chimp about the taint of what now passes for conservatism on society and the decline of an informed electorate after eight years of sustained assault by the Rovian culture warriors.

The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance. A classic example of what was at work here came when Palin proudly introduced her Down syndrome baby, Trig, then stared into the camera and somberly promised parents of special-needs kids that they would "have a friend and advocate in the White House." This was about a half-hour before she raised her hands in triumph with McCain, a man who voted against increasing funding for special-needs education.

Not all cheering for a Sunday evening, but worth reading in full for his astute analysis on why poor rural Americans vote Republican against their own interests and far removed from any common sense.

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September 27, 2008

Where was Sarah Palin?

By Libby

Whatever your take on the debate was, the real story wasn't what happened on stage, it's what didn't happen in the spin rooms after the debate was over. Joe Biden was out there doing a fine job of deconstructing McCain's cranky performance.



Conspiciously missing however, was Mr. McCain's running mate. Instead of his pet pit bull with lipstick, he had his drag queen from the Big Apple, Giuliani, doing the honors. And where was the illustrious contestant Ms. Palin? They dressed her up like a local sports fan and sent her to a bar in Philly.

Palin appeared at the bar on 20th and Walnut streets last night to shake hands with her fans for about an hour before the first presidential debate. While the crowd inside was friendly, hundreds of people lined the street outside in protest with signs that read things like "Palin is Santorum With Lipstick."

Palin did not take questions from reporters nor did she talk policy. She posed for pictures and chatted with supporters, many of whom were from outside the city limits, and made an approximately minute-long statement.

Ironically, although it was the campaign keeping her under wraps, the networks were receiving hate mail from McCain supporters about their bias in preventing their hot hockey mom from imparting her astute analysis of the event. I guess if you're deluded enough to think that she's qualified for office, it wouldn't occur to you that the media has been griping for weeks that they can't get any face time with her, so naturally they believe it's a conspiracy by the 'liberal' media.

I wouldn't be surprised if the McCain sends out a fundraising letter stating just that. Why not? They lie about everything else.

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Pulpit politics

By Libby

If there's a heaven and the Founding Fathers are looking down at us from it, they must be wondering why the hell they saved us from England in the first place. They did this in 04 as well, but of course no one was prosecuted except for some 'liberal' church in California, so they're at it again.

Setting the stage for a collision of religion and politics, Christian ministers from 22 states will use their pulpits Sunday to deliver political sermons or endorse candidates — defying a federal ban on campaigning by nonprofit groups.

The ministers' advocacy could violate the Internal Revenue Service's rules against political speech with the purpose of triggering IRS investigations. That would allow their patron, the conservative legal group Alliance Defense Fund, to challenge the IRS' rules, a risky strategy that one defense fund attorney acknowledges could cost the churches their tax-exempt status.

Congress made it illegal in 1954 for tax-exempt groups to support or oppose political candidates publicly.

"I'm going to talk about the un-biblical stands that Barack Obama takes. Nobody who follows the Bible can vote for him," said the Rev. Wiley Drake of First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif.

Needless to say, by the time the legal challenges wend their way through the system, the election will be long over. The only justice we might ever see is if these churches finally lose their tax-empt status so they can never subvert the separation of church and state again.

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The debate: Morning after analysis

By Libby

I liveblogged the debate and put up my initial analysis and roundups at the Detroit News last night. Of course, I was spinning hard for Obama but here's my unspun morning after thoughts. Obama did a good job of drawing a pretty bright line between himself and McCain on the issues. I would have liked him to challenge McCain harder on the maverick reformer meme. I thought Obama missed a lot of opportunities to do so.

The best moment was when Obama brought up his actual voting record and McCain almost boiled over. I think if he had pressed harder, we would have seen a McCain meltdown. I'm hoping he's just saving that strategy for the last debate so it will be fresh on the voters' minds when they get to the ballot box.

I've always hated that Obama is adopting the "surge worked" and "Iran is teh big scary evil" themes but I don't really see how he can avoid that and still win over the low info voters. We can only hope that reflects political expedience and not so much his mindset. Not that it's a dealbreaker in comparison with bomb, bomb, bomb McCain.

Biased as I am, I tried to be a neutral observer and I thought McCain came off as mean, cranky, evasive and lost in the past. I don't know how much his inability to make eye contact is going to hurt him. I suspect not much with the low info voters but it was widely criticized in the high info crowd. Obama came off as cool, collected, knowledgeable and ready to lead into the future.

As for who "won" I'm not sure it makes any difference since there weren't any dramatic moments for the punderati to obsess over for the next few weeks. In the immediate response they were pretty much calling it for McCain with the exception of KO and I assume Rachel, although I never caught her response. Tweety was kind of the fence. Initially he was saying McCain but then I saw him later and he was leaning more towards Obama. I read this morning the media are now calling it for Obama. I suspect that's in reponse to the voter polling which overwhelming was going to him.

For myself, I'd say it was Obama's night. He didn't hit it out of the ballpark but McCain didn't score either and this was supposed to be his night to prove his superior foreign policy creds. Obama was a little too wonky but he demonstrated his creds well enough and goes into the next debate on the economy with the advantage. It will be interesting to see if he gets a bump in the election polls from it.

(Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

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September 24, 2008

I was push-polled!

By Libby

Well I was just push polled by some apparent Liz Dole operatives. This was their second try. Yesterday they called looking for the youngest voting age male in the house. Since there are none here, the woman hung up yesterday but today the guy who called said he wanted to poll me anyway. The questions were pretty weird. He asked about my opinion of Chuck Schumer ( Chuck Schumer of NY?) and a few about the presidential race but mostly about the Dole and Hagan Senate race.

Most of the questions were pretty benign. What have I seen about the candidates; how it affects my vote; who do I think is more negative. The question on my most important issue was a little weird. He read off a long list starting with illegal immigration and running through the Wall St crisis all the way to healthcare and Iraq. My stand on pro-choice was a specific question that stood out in its emphasis.

But the real tell came at the end. He asked how it would affect my vote if I knew that Dole, as a member of the banking committee was working so very hard against corruption, greed and deregulation of Wall St. It was a much longer narrative but that's the gist of it. I laughed of course and asked if they had a box to check for I think that's total BS. Then he asked if it would affect my vote to know that Hagan sat on a similar state committee and while she was in office the unemployment rate here rose considerably. The wording was carefully couched to imply it was Hagan's fault without actually saying so, since of course it's not her fault the GOP's policies have ruined the economy in general.

Even more interesting, he asked for my name and if my phone number was listed but when I asked him what agency he was calling from he said he couldn't tell me. Well, he had already told me at the beginning of the call, so I asked him to confirm he was indeed calling from the Tarrance Research group. When I asked him to spell it, he hung up in mid-sentence. Or was cut off by his supervisor. I assume it was this Tarrance Group. Very creepy.

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September 23, 2008

Hey Big Media -- here's an idea

By Libby

The McCain's campaign strategy is pretty clear. Ask McCain and Palin no questions so they won't have to explain their lies. It's been 40 days since McCain has had a press avail and it's been 24 days since he unveiled his wind-up Palin VP doll and she has still not answered a single question in an open format. They weren't even going to let the national media into her drive-by photo op tour of NY today.

Big media is not happy. I don't blame them. They look like idiots chasing after their former hero while he completely blows them off after he got what he wanted from them. A big glam photo-op for his plastic fantastic running mate to build her phony metaphorical foreign policy creds, in trade for 30 seconds of eavesdropping time on those really excellent meet and greets.

So here's my idea Big Media. How about standing them down instead of letting you play you like a rube at at a Three Monte card game for the free air time? Call their bluff. It's so simple really. No press avail, no free press. Don't cover events where there isn't a press avail at the end, for any candidate. If it leaves you with air time to fill, well you could always do a historic retrospective of Keating Five or ask for McCain's health records. And while you're waiting for those you could convene panels of very serious pundits on the survivability rates of melanoma victims and the real life consequences of relying on metaphorical experience in crisis situations.

Just a thought. It's not like civilization as we know it depends on it or anything.

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Don't count your votes before they're stashed

By Libby

I'm suddenly wondering if this "shock and awe" Wall St meltdown wasn't part of the plan to keep us distracted from demanding verified voting. Via Avedon, this from Brad Blog.

The unbelievable is still happening in Palm Beach Co Florida. The county counted, re-counted by machine all previously machine counted ballots and recounted by hand all under and over voted ballots. The recounts showed that thousands of ballots were suddenly missing from the original count totals. A search was carried on by elections officials, police and fire personnel. That search found all of the missing ballots plus more. Now, under orders from the courts, a new recount is underway. The machine recount has added votes for both candidates from the original count, 227 ballots more than election officials reported were cast during the primary and 29 more ballots than officials said they had in their possession after the search and ballot count. Supervisor of Elections Arthur Anderson didn’t show up for the search or the re-recount that is still going on today and will probably not finish until tomorrow. He called in sick. Probably the right move and maybe he should just resign and let someone else fix the problems....

I suppose it's too late to demand paper ballots but I might suggest everyone request absentee ballots and photocopy them before sending them in. It won't stop them from 'losing' the ballots but at least we would have proof of the fraud.

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September 22, 2008

My hero, Zero

By Libby

I read about this poll and the first thing I thought of was the old Schoolhouse Rock video from whence I stole the title of this post. As regular readers know I don't generally put much stock in these things but I do follow them to some extent and I don't believe I've ever in my lifetime seen one that showed a metric of zero. Yet, here we have a poll with that result.

A new American Research Group poll shows that “[n]o Americans say that the national economy is getting better,” while 82 percent say it is getting much worse. Only 17 percent approve of President Bush’s handling of the economy, with 78 percent disapproving. Even among Republicans, more disapprove of his economic performance than approve:

Among Republicans, 46% approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 48% disapprove. Among Democrats, 97% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy and 2% approve. Among independents, 8% approve and 87% disapprove of the way Bush is handling the economy. Bush’s overall approval rating fell to 19 percent, from 30 percent last month, with 76 percent disapproving.

Quite astounding really. I doubt we'll ever see such a thing again.

Meanwhile, speaking of polls, despite the GOP and their remaining loyalist's best efforts to paint the Democrats as the cause of the current economic meltdown, the majority of Americans aren't buying that line. "A new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll suggests that by a 2-to-1 margin, Americans blame Republicans over Democrats for the financial crisis that has swept across the country the past few weeks..."

Considering how completely ineffectual the Democratic party has been in the last 8 years, the only surprise there is that the poll didn't also show a zero return. I guess the ones willing to blame the Dems are the same ones that think Sarah Palin was a great choice as a Veep.

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September 17, 2008

Today's 30 second activism - save access to birth control

By Libby

It's been a while since I've asked you to do a point and click activism but this one is important and time is short. Via Southern Beale, Planned Parenthood is trying to drum up some public input into this Bush administration scheme to eliminate birth control from Title X funded programs that serve the poor.

President Bush's regulatory change lets health care providers define abortion, which could threaten access to birth control and broader reproductive health care, and allow federal funding for so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" that refuse to inform patients of or provide patients with a full range of reproductive health care options.

Now that the new rule has been issued officially, we need you to speak out during the official 30-day comment period before the rule can go into effect.

We need as many people as possible to submit comments to the Department of Health and Human Services before the official comment period ends on September 25.

If you have time to edit the form letter, all the better, but even signing the point and click form will help greatly. It's just a name and email input. Less than thirty seconds to save access to birth control.

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Two minutes with Obama

By Libby

It's worth much more than two hours of overinflated gasbagging from McCain.



Via John Cole who wonders if it is too long at two minutes to hold the attention of the average voter. Well I certainly hope that's not true, because Obama packs a lot of substance into 120 seconds and it would do the average voter a great deal of good to listen to it.

John notes it won't be playing on the media talk shows because it's too much substance and no scandal. I think he's right about that so pass it on however you can. (Cross-posted at The Impolitic.)

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September 16, 2008

Press pack wants their Mac back

By Libby

I had three reactions when I read this Jonathan Martin post.

Reporters traveling with John McCain are slightly miffed that the senator hasn't had any face time with them in, well, a month and three days (but who's counting?).

So, when Straight Talk Air departed Tampa today, a dozen reporters chanted, "Bring Mac back! Bring Mac back!" (Some reporters expressed concern that chanting at takeoff could be against FAA regulations. Others joked that they could be taken away by the Secret Service agents on board.)

The chanting lasted under a minute as staffers in the business cabin smiled and then promptly closed the curtain between business and coach. No word on whether McCain heard the chanting.

But, alas, he never made it back.

My first reaction was, didn't that really just say everything about how cozy the traveling press gets with the candidate that they call him Mac? My second reaction was to wonder if they they were asking for him to come back and talk or were they lamenting the loss of their old buddy Mac who used to be so jovial and entertained them on these trips, giving them the run of the house.

My third was, I'm glad they did it. Maybe this means that the McSpell is broken.

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September 14, 2008

Signs of hope for Obama supporters

By Libby

It's been a depressing couple of weeks with all the brouhaha over Palin but it's useful to remember that she's only really energized the same crowd that would have voted for McCain anyway and while they're noisy, they're not really growing. Don't forget they couldn't fill the hall at the RNC and a lot of this hype is just a media invention. This being the same media that relentlessly hyped the PUMA revolution and insisted the Clintons would sabotage the DNC.

In any event the latest news out of Alaska is encouraging. Mudflats reports from the scene of the anti-Palin protest. Lots of pictures and commentary at the link and he just posted this video.



Mudflats also reports from the scene at Palin's welcome home rally. The elite media was reporting that as a big deal, but Mudflats says it was not that much. I think he's right that if this hall holds 5000, that is not 2000 people in this photo. You might think if a new popularity survey was held today that Gov. Palin would no longer be polling at 80 percent in her home state.

In other news, regular readers know I don't believe much in polls, but if you do, Obama just opened up a double digit lead in Iowa. I'd also note this old link I didn't get around to posting on registration numbers.

"Since the last federal election in 2006, more than 2 million Democrats [were added] to voter rolls in the 28 states that register voters according to party affiliation. The Republicans have lost nearly 344,000 thousand voters in the same states. The number of unaffiliated voters dropped by nearly 900,000 since 2006. Many joined the Democratic Party to take part in the primaries and caucuses."

I'd say that's a comfortable overall gain on the Dem side, which is why I don't put much stock in polling. Take heart dear readers. Certainly vigilance is required and nothing is guaranteed in politics, but neither is another four disastrous years of GOP rule assured.

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Drill baby, drill

By Libby

That's become the mantra of the McCain-Palin ticket and after having cruised some right wing and some truly wingnut blogs in the last 24 hours, it seems an apt one. The Bush - neocon loyalists have been depressed for months. Their former hero became a laughingstock that even they could no longer excuse. They had a standard banner in McCain that they didn't like in the first place and bored them besides. Enter Sarah Palin. Whoppee. They have a a new hero. Fresh face on the same old lies and I'm not talking about the stupid bridge to nowhere; I'm talking about the failed conservative agenda.

Palin drilled into their disturbed psyches and struck the mother lode of cognitive dissonance again. These people have never admitted it was the agenda that failed. It was always that the agenda of hate, fear and shortsightedness is great, but it just needed the right person to execute it. So in skates the hockey mom to save the day. And all the same old illogical excuses come gushing out again to pollute the discourse.

So she fires competent administrators and stacks the bureaucracy with incompetent cronies? No problem. Holds grudges and uses the power of her office for revenge against her enemies? What's the big deal? Illegally uses private email accounts to conduct state business and refuses to disclose them? So what? Wants to ban books about homosexuals? Who doesn't? Ran her tiny little city into a deep financial hole they're still digging out of? Oh, look at that shiny thing over there. She doesn't know Shia from shinola about foreign policy, has no grasp on domestic policy, makes snap decisions and refuses to back down if she's wrong? No problem. Competency is elitist. Knowledge is for losers. She's "one of us" and get this -- the exact opposite of Bush.

You can't cap that poisonous well of dissonance with reasoning and facts. All you can do is try to contain the toxic spill into the smallest area possible.

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September 13, 2008

The police state grows, and grows

Arrest_rnc_08
By Libby

Every day the police state gets a little bigger. The Bush administration just revised the rules for FBI intelligence gathering. It's all rather awful but this last bit is really disturbing.

One of the areas still under discussion, according to a senior Justice Department official, is the standard for the FBI's rare involvement in responding to civil disorder. Under the current standards, FBI involvement requires the approval of the attorney general and can last for only 30 days.

The new approach would relax some of those requirements and would expand the investigative techniques that agents could use to include deploying informants. FBI agents monitoring large-scale demonstrations that they believe could turn dangerous also would have new power to use those techniques.

Policy guidance for FBI agents and informants who work as "undisclosed participants" in organizations is still being written, the officials said yesterday.

In other words they're trying to figure out how to make infiltrating activist groups and acting as inside agitators to encourage violence, legal. This is particularly troublesome in light of what happened at the RNC. I didn't get around to blogging it at the time but it was the most frightening evidence of law enforcement overkill I've seen since the 60s.

By the end of the covention 818 people were arrested or detained. Most were innocent bystanders and many were raided before the convention even began. Of those, most were peaceful activists who were there to either record or simply observe the demonstrations. Granted there were a few anarchist types in the city intent on doing damage, but to my knowledge they only arrested a handful of those.

They arrested journalists, some even from the elite media. Amy Goodman's arrest was particularly horrifying. They stole her press credentials. The twitters made my blood run cold. And the police press conference was a brilliant exercise in double speak. If not for the bloggers there, probably no one would have asked the right questions.

And now our government is clearly planning for major protests. Send my tin foil if you must, but I have to wonder why they think there will be a need for such planning. Considering the problems being reported with voting machine glitches in early elections, I have to think they're planning to steal another election and they're afraid that this time the people might fight back.

By the way, has anybody heard how construction is going on those detention camps they ordered in case of an "immigration emergency?"  [Graphic via avye - check out the whole gallery]

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September 12, 2008

Diplomatic relations severed south of the border

By Libby

Building a bit on Ken's post, I meant to get to this earlier. Charles at Mercury Rising broke this news that I hadn't heard.

The Russians have landed long-range bombers in Venezuela and may soon be doing joint naval exercises. and both Bolivia and Venezuela have cut diplomatic ties over US meddling. Bolivia accuses the US of supporting separatists that have blocked highways, blown up a pipeline, and shut down the export of natural gas, thereby shutting off revenues to the central government. Chavez says he has new evidence of the US participating in a coup plot against him.

The Bush administration has a long history of meddling in Venezuelan politics and I don't doubt they could be agitating for yet another coup attempt against Chavez. I've also been aware that Bush and Morales' personal relations have been tense over the latter's stance on legalizing the coca leaf and trade relations, but while I heard some rumblings about US interference in Boliva I hadn't realized that the tensions had risen to this point in both countries.

I wonder how many more countries Bush will manage to completely alienate in his last few weeks in office?

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Big Brother vs. Big Business and other stray thoughts

By Libby

I haven't been around here much because I've been jobhunting like mad and I have this Thursday gig at AOTP. My last post generated another really interesting discussion thread. And Mark at Publius Endures has a couple of great posts at his place inspired by the debate. I'm finding out I have a lot more in common with libertarians than I thought.

I've also been burning up the blog at the Detroit News lately. I covered Palin's interview over there this morning. I'm as appalled as everyone else at her obvious lack of knowledge on world affairs. But I've been mostly focusing on McCain and his relentless lying. Those posts are before my Palin take.

Meanwhile, I just ran across a great quote myself at Sully's place. Sent in by a reader.

"John McCain isn't running against Barack Obama. He's running against reality."

I'd say that sums it up perfectly.

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September 10, 2008

McCain's insult to feminism

By Libby

I just had an ephiphany about Sarah Palin and posted my thoughts at Detroit News. I can't cross post it, but I can quote myself on what really bothers me about the campaign's handling of Sarah.

As I said in an earlier post here I've come to believe that she wasn't a rash pick at all, but was rather long in the planning and the lack of vetting was simply to preserve the shock value. Neither is she a fragile little neophyte. She has had years of political experience and has dealt extensively with the national press over the long course of Ted Stevens many scandals. The campaign is pushing that narrative to keep expectations low. But here's the key point.

She is perfectly capable of speaking for herself, yet the McCain campaign insists on muzzling their "pit bull." They aren't allowing her to make her own speeches. They aren't allowing her to talk to the crowds that are showing up to meet her after the event. She's not even allowed to make conversation with people when the campaign does meet and greet drop-ins at restaurants and wherever. She can only smile, shake hands and get back on the bus.

All she's being allowed to do is introduce McCain at events, using the same applause lines from her prewritten campaign speech, over and over again. In effect, they've turned this perfectly capable woman into arm candy for McCain. I can't think of anything more insulting to women than that.

If it wasn't for her far right fundie beliefs, I could admire Sarah Palin on a lot of other levels. It's really a shame that she's allowed herself to become the political version of a trophy wife.

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Radley Balko, live tonight at AOTP

By Libby

Art Of The Possible is hosting my long time fav, Radley Balko in a live chat tonight.

Radley Balko, Senior Editor of Reason, will appear here, on AoTP’s front page, on Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 7. p.m.[EDT]. We will have a post describing his superlative work in exposing drug “war” outrages and his other accomplishments shortly prior thereto on Wednesday, and Radley will take real-time questions in the comments to that post. Again, this WILL NOT take place in the chatroom!

I'm glad it's not in the chatroom. I'm not so good at using that format. Much easier to for me to chat in comments. It should be a great conversation. Hope to see you there.

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September 09, 2008

Pig lipstick - Updated with video

Pig_lipstick_2By Libby

I wouldn't even bother to answer the latest wingnut outrage over lipstick on a pig but Christy came up with such a great response that it's worth noting for that reason. Obviously, it's a common phrase and it's a huge stretch to make this into a sexist remark against Palin. But the attempt to manufacture some feminist outrage becomes more amusing when viewed in light of this quote that Christy dug up from McCain in Oct. of 07.

While [McCain] said he had not studied Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton's health-care plan, he said it was "eerily reminiscent" of the failed plan she offered as first lady in the early 1990s.

"I think they put some lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig," he said of her proposal.

Even more amusing, McCain actually held an emergency press call about this. (Sigh.) It's going to be a long couple of months until November.

As Christy points out, a guy who jokes about rape, calls his wife a trollop and a c*nt in public and jokes about Chelsea Clinton being ugly because her father is really Janet Reno, is in no position to throw charges of sexism around. Maybe the campaign could get one of those community activists, who have all this free time since they have no responsibilites, to explain common idioms to them. [Graphic via Ariya]

Update:

This is my last word on this faux outrage.


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Barbara Boxer throws a punch

By Libby

Via Avedon, here's something that's likely to slip under the radar. Boxer comes out swinging against McCain in a recent appearance.

I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.

I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.

I have seen him fight against a women's right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.

I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.

I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system "an absolute disgrace."

And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.

Refocusing on McCain instead of feeding the media's Palinmania strikes me as the right tactic in the long run for the Democratic politicians. Too much negative rhetoric against her only feeds the idiots who somehow have convinced themselves that Palin is at the top of the ticket and then their outrage is the news, instead of the issues.

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Reframing the McMavericks

By Libby

This new Obama ad knocked my socks off.


TPM's new video is good too, but I'm not sure I like the last line. I think it should have been phrased as a question.

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The good, the bad and the deluded

By Libby

I'm not inclined to panic over Palin just yet. I think once the novelty wears off, most thinking people will realize what a hoax this ticket is, but somebody please tell me that there really aren't that many voters who are this stupid. T Steel at TMV tells us this true story.

My “ultra-conservative till since the Great Wall” (his words) neighbor unveiled his new bumper sticker this morning to me. “Sarah all the way, baby!”, he exclaimed with a big grin on his face. “What happened to McCain?”, I asked. His reply:

McCain who? All my wife and I see is Sarah Palin. She can run with Donald Duck for all I care!

Stunning. Click over to see the bumper sticker. Do these people not understand that she's running for Vice President and if the ticket wins, they still get stuck with McCain in the top slot?

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September 08, 2008

Palin's pipeline

By Libby

What makes Palin so dangerous is she lies by implication and she does it really well. With carefully couched language that contains a germ of truth, she creates a false impression that the McCain campaign spins into conventional wisdom. The pipeline statement in her speech is a classic example.

The Anchorage Daily News takes note and debunks the spin saying, "In fact, no building has begun and actual construction is years away, if it ever happens." The piece goes on to summarize the situation but readers here are likely to be aware of the basics by now.

Meanwhile, Andrew Halcro gets deep into the weeds of the pipeline project and fills in a lot of details. It's a long piece not easily excerpted, but these two poll questions give you a sense of the flaws and potential landmines in the deal.

Congress passed a loan guarantee for $18 million dollars in 2004 to help promote the development and building of the gas pipeline. But TransCanada proposes to use that $18 million dollars, not to get going, which is the purpose of the loan, but to use some portion of the money to cover its cost overruns. What this means is TransCanada is asking US taxpayers to pay for any cost overruns of the project that TransCanada is managing. Do you feel…(READ LIST)

TransCanada’s plan asks for the U.S. Government to assume some of the project risk by agreeing to pay billions of dollars in pipeline transportation fees as a “bridge shipper,” in case initial gas commitments from the major oil companies are not enough to run the gas line at full capacity. Do you feel…(READ LIST)

A majority of Alaskans don't think it's worth the risk and prefer an alternate proposal. Unfortunately, I'm betting that John Gibson won't be getting into such an unsexy line of questioning when he conducts his powder puff interview with Palin later this week.

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September 07, 2008

The Palin Trap

Palin_and_stevens

By Libby

I haven't been blogging much here for a few reasons. One, I'm job hunting. Two, I'm blogging up a storm at The Detroit News on the premise that I'm reaching the most McCain supporters there. Three, I've been arguing for days with libertarians. And four, I've been doing a lot of research on Sarah Palin, trying to figure out the GOP strategy beyond the obvious ploy of keeping her away from the media in any sort of unscripted format in order to avoid a Fred Thompsonesque crash. I've come to the conclusion that we've walked into an incredibly intricate, Rovian trap that is breathtaking in the scope of its long range planning.

The current, carefully built narrative speaks of a hasty and rash pick, plucking a fragile and shallow neophyte, unprepared to battle with the big guns of the Village out of the wilds of Alaska, who nonetheless is showing her mettle and proving her critics wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. For one thing, she's been in politics for a long time and from her tiny fiefdom in Wasilla to the statehouse in Juneau, she has demonstrated a strong ability to practice the ruthless politics of personal destruction. She forms alliances of convenience and does not hestitate to stab her allies in the back to further her own goals.

Continue reading "The Palin Trap" »

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September 04, 2008

Sarah Palin = Fred Thompson

By Libby

My friend Capt. Fogg flags a new poll showing that the McCain campaign's tactic of making Palin's pregnant daughter the center ring attraction in a media circus and then complaining about Sarah being victimized by all the attention appears to be working.

I saw it myself during a luncheon yesterday; hearing people complaining about how bad it was that "people" were harping on her daughter's plight - an idea they got all gift-wrapped in red paper from the media, of course.

There's a germ of truth there, but it had largely blown over already, and to say Sarah Palin is a victim of malicious press seems as woefully far from the truth as her assertion that the Pledge of Allegiance in it's 1954 edition was "good enough for the Founding Fathers." None the less, they have managed to draw attention away from the legitimate and serious concerns by stressing a non-issue about her daughter and dressing her up as a victim. It works.

Fogg laments the relentless gullibility of the deluded voting demographic that keeps falling for the same old tricks. I was initially appalled myself, but on reflection, I'm inclined to find it amusing. I found myself remembering Fred Thompson.

Fred, as you recall was going to be the great white hope of the GOP. As long as he managed to avoid any public appearances, he enjoyed mindboggling support from the same people who are now praising their new glamorous "It" girl as the latest, greatest player in politics. But once he was forced to enter the arena and deliver the goods behind the carefully crafted image, he couldn't close the deal.

Six days ago, nobody knew who Palin was and they still don't. She's made three public appearances that I know of, including last night's speech, which was very good for what it was, but it hardly constitutes any kind of test of her abilities. She may have played really well with the good ole boys who just loves themselves some VPILF, but it's too early to tell if McCain's crap shoot is going to come up 7/11 or just another snake eyed craps.

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September 03, 2008

My predictions for tonight's RNC

By Libby

Sarah Palin will give a great speech. She will lie her face off.

The GOP base will go wild and proclaim that this proves she is a true reformer who is ready to lead.

They will not see the irony in that they have been accusing Obama of being a candidate who only makes great speeches but is too inexperienced to lead.

The punderati will declare this brilliant stroke a gamechanger.

Everyone else will say yes, it was a great speech but she lied her face off and by the way when is she is going to give a press interview and -- you know -- answer questions about her vast knowledge of world and domestic affairs.

The base will howl about how the left is 'attacking' Palin with the facts and they're being mean to her because she is a good, God fearing Christian woman.

The McCain campaign will issue an outraged statement saying the Democrats have crossed the line with this over the top line of attack and use it as an excuse to avoid any future press avail.

Somewhere, in an undisclosed location, Karl Rove will be chortling and popping a bottle of champagne.

[Begging my co-bloggers indulgence, this is a cross-post from The Impolitic]

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Palins beg for privacy while parading daughter in public

By Libby

Call me crazy, but if the Palin family really wanted the media and everyone else for that matter to leave her daughter Bristol and the father of her illegitimate child alone, wouldn't it more appropriate for the two of them to stay out of the spotlight instead of appearing together at the Republican National Convention?

It seems to me that the story is polling well with the extreme religious right and the McCain campaign is willing to use the teens to score points with the base they badly need to energize. If the Palins really want to keep this a "private matter" then they shouldn't parade them around in front of the national press.

I'm beginning to think this whole Palin pick was just a Rovian trick to keep McCain out of the spotlight because if he gets too much scrutiny, his obvious unfitness for office would be the story instead.

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September 02, 2008

Whence once I loved McCain

By Libby

I don't know about you but I've been somewhat shocked to see the elite media suddenly noticing the Straight Talk Express is really just the Double Talk Daily spin. Josh Marshall has a post up reflecting on the media's apparent breakup with McCain, most recently evidenced by Campbell Brown's scathing interview with Tucker Bounds.

I think the reason may be slightly different. A lot of Washington reporters have spent a decade loving John McCain. Just a few days ago a friend of mine who was once among the courted explained to me just how different and successful McCain was in the courtship. Off the cuff, frank, entirely accessible. Because of all that, a lot of these people got heavily invested in the maverick and straight-talker image. I'll be honest: back in 2000 and probably until 2002 I was pretty invested in it. Why a lot of people have held on through the last half dozen years of contrary evidence is another question. But the Palin pick is that paradigm-breaking piece of evidence that takes you from 'maverick' to 'reckless' or worse. And claiming that Palin has 'military command' experience as head of the Alaska National Guard gets you from "straight talker' to 'bullshit artist'.

He reminded me that I also loved McCain back in 2000. I believe I may have become disaffected sooner than 02, but still, back then he really did seem like a maverick. I think maybe he really was, but something happened along the way. The McCain of today has no resemblence whatsoever to the man I once admired.

By the way, if you would like to thank Campbell for that fabulous interview and let her boss know you thought she did a great job, contact info here at the GOS.

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August 31, 2008

When the little head does the thinking

By Libby

I've seen a lot of commentary on the Palin pick that suggests this was some kind of brilliant move on McCain's part. Sure he managed to steal the news cycle from Obama's historic and incredible speech. For the last 48 hours it's been all Palin, all the time but much of it has been negative. I mean how is it smart to give Leftopia an oppo project on a holiday weekend where otherwise we would be searching for content?

For myself, I've been burning up the Detroit News blog with her negatives. I own the real estate over there at the moment. I've posted so much my regular critics are having apoplectic fits in the comment section. This incomprehensively stupid pick has been the gift that keeps on giving.

And tomorrow's still a holiday. Having made my case about Palin, I plan to ignore her and blog Obama's speech for the next 48 hours, as people come home and are ready to pay attention. I have a lot of links saved and I haven't blogged it all. The long range dynamic works in Obama's favor for my purposes.

McCain made this choice on his own and he didn't think it through at all. He spent a sum total of four or five hours with her, which included a private tete-a-tete in the back forty at Sedona, interrupted only by Cindy. Today he told Fox News that in that time he discovered a partner and a soulmate in Palin. His 'thought process' on this choice is painfully apparent.


Need more proof? It's clear to me McCain didn't make this choice with his left brain.

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No-shows grow for RNC

By Libby

So what if they Republicans held a convention and nobody showed up? In sharp contrast to the DNC, where they couldn't find enough room on the schedule for all the party bigwigs who wanted to speak, the RNC's guest list is looking a little thin with all the major players who are sending their regrets. "Only three incumbents in hotly contested races, including Kentucky's Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, will join the partygoers."

Among the missing will be Schwarzenegger, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Ted Stevens, Larry Craig, John Sununu, Susan Collins, Elizabeth Dole, Chuck Hagel, Richard G. Lugar and Pat Roberts of Kansas. Some have legitimate issues to provide cover for opting out but "an aide to a Republican senator, who spoke on condition of anonymity, offered another reason for the no-shows."

"The party brand is in tatters," said the aide. "The president is highly unpopular. There doesn't seem to be much excitement around the candidate. And there's a real fear of being tagged with the Republican label and being seen with George Bush."

Which again raises the question, if even the party loyalists don't want to be associated with the GOP brand, where are the pollsters finding all these people who allegedly support McCain?

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The United Police State of America - an ongoing series

By Libby

Apparently, it's no longer necessary to actually commit an act of civil disobedience to be considered a threat by our government. In Bush America, you can now be arrested for thought crimes. Glenn rounds up a goodly amount of links to eyewitness accounts, including his own, along with video of political activists being subjected to preemptive intimidation yesterday in SWAT style raids in the Twin Cities where various groups are assembling prior to the kickoff of the Republican National Convention.

To be fair, one group, the RNC Welcoming Committee, may actually have been planning to conduct protests that involved property damage and would certainly justify scrutiny but arresting them before they do anything certainly belies the notion of "land of the free." Even more disturbing, most of the raids were conducted against peaceful groups. Food not Bombs has no history of violence, unless you feel assaulted by being offered vegan stew and brown rice, yet a house where some members were assembled was subjected to a terrorist strike by the LEOs wearing camo or SWAT suits and carrying drawn rifles.

The same thing happened at home hosting LegalWatch members who were not even going to protest. They were just there to observe and the group included lawyers. A woman at that site simply asked to see warrant, and was immediately taken into cutody. The same scenario played out at another site where I-Witness Video, "a New York-based group that monitors police conduct during protests, were staying." Most of victims of these military style raids were merely detained, meaning they were handcuffed and forced to lie on the floor at gunpoint while the police made intimidating remarks, and eventually released without charge. To the best of my knowledge less then ten people were actually arrested and at least one of those was for "conspiracy to riot," a charge so vague that it's never been used before and thus its constitutionality hasn't been tested in court.

You'll recall the mass arrests in NYC in 04 at the RNC, where thousands of people, including innocent bystanders were swept off the streets and held without charge for over 24 hours. It's telling that the footage taken at that time by I-Witness Video was instrumental in the recent court ruling that awarded those detainees damages in New York and now the group is pre-emptively targeted today.

Those arrests were a travesty of justice, but at least the LEOs waited until the people were actually on the street. Now they've lowered the bar to detaining activists for merely assembling in private homes. As Glenn puts it, "This is truly repugnant, extreme police behavior designed to intimidate protesters, police critics and others, and it ought to infuriate anyone and everyone who cares about basic liberties."

It certainly infuriates me. Moreover it terrifies me to watch our country continue its relentless slide into fascism because when I ask myself how we're going to stop it, I don't have an answer.

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August 29, 2008

Marc Ambinder assists McCain

By Libby

I don't know how much more obvious it could be that Palin was an panicked 11th hour pick after Obama's incredible speech last night. They clearly didn't vet her first. In her acceptance speech, Palin touts her anti-pork creds by noting that she nixed now indicted, Sen. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens pet project.

However, Marc Ambinder notices her website features an endorsement ad from the good Senator. Marc advises the McCain campaign to scrub the site. And shortly thereafter the damning video disappears. But nothing really dies on the intertrons. Catch it before it's pulled from YouTube. [via]

Update: She wasn't against the Bridge to Nowhere until it became a political liability and a national laughingstock. In fact, she was rather fond of pork projects as recently as March of this year.

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August 28, 2008

Looks like a unity pony to me

By Libby

I already have posts at Art Of The Possible and Detroit News about last night's convention speeches, so I won't repeat the points here. Suffice it to say that I thought the Democrats did good. As Ron already pointed out, Bill Clinton rocked, Kerry came through with a surprisingly strong showing and I'd add all the speakers did a good job of tying McCain to Bush and failed neo-conservative policies.

But Karen Tumulty may be on to something here. This was my one gripe about the speeches too.

But Democrats might find it would be more effective if they explained why they're so disappointed with their friend John McCain. How did this great guy they admire so much became a candidate whose positions appall them? It wasn't a fluke, it wasn't like he had a personality transplant. And the answer would seem to fit perfectly into a powerful Democratic narrative. John McCain changed because that's what he had to do to win the Republican nomination. That's what the reigning conservative ideology and interests demanded of him.

They do need better framing if they're going to use such a soft touch in going after McCain. As Tumulty notes, "Their current version leaves open the possibility that this good, decent man could revert to his old self--and that's not something Democrats want undecided voters to believe." Amen to that.

Meanwhile, the high point of the evening for me was watching the elite media meltdown as their fake narratives were slowly destroyed. For a while there, I didn't think Tweety was going to make it.

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August 27, 2008

Live Chat with Glenn Greenwald - Updated

By Libby

There's a live chat going on from 6:30-7:30 -- that would be right now -- at Art of the Possible with Glenn Greenwald, who will be talking about what's going on in Denver at the convention. Glenn is covering the big show as a credentialled journalist from Salon. Head on over and join in the conversation.

Update: You missed the chat. It was fun. John Cole showed up. Glenn told us that the Power of the PUMAs is a media manufactured myth, that the media elites are just as shallow and boring in real life as they are on camera and that the real action in Denver is happening at the corporate soirees that only the Village power brokers get invited to. Media, old and new, are not welcome. I hear he and Jane Hamsher had a bit of trouble outside the ATT event. Thanks to Mona for hosting the event.

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Happy Birthday Cernig

By Libby

Well, since he outed himself in comments, I'm editing the post.

Somebody here has a birthday today. I'm not telling you who, All the best Cernig and many happy returns. If you want to show him some love and you have a few spare bucks, how about hitting the donate button on our side bar? If you don't have the bucks to spare, that's cool but leave him a good wish here. Or if you're shy, you can email him.

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Freudian slip in GOP war room

By Libby

While the Democrats are enjoying their big party at the Pepsi Center, over at Dirty Tricks Central:

In an alley behind a non-descript row of brick buildings on North Speer Boulevard, and on the other side of a large metal gate with armed guards standing in front, Republicans have set up a "war room" in Denver.

In this west side location that is not far from the Pepsi Center yet out of sight from Democratic delegates and protesters walking downtown, Republicans will be crafting anti-Barack Obama messages nearly round the clock this week.

Republican National Committee Chairman Mike Duncan said the team of nearly two dozen staffers at the opposition headquarters will be "fact-checking" statements made by the Obama campaign and by speakers during the convention.

"Just consider this the Ministry of Truth," quipped Dick Wadhams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party.

Hmmm.... Where have we heard that before? Am I the only one that's reminded of Bush's musing on dictatorship? [h/t Jules]

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Hillary delivers, Schweitzer shines

By Libby

Of course the big buzz this morning is about Hillary Clinton's speech. It was a great speech. Probably one of the best she's ever given, but if she wasn't the headliner last night, this speech would be the talk of The Village today. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer was brilliant.


In cruising the intertubes, it seems just about everyone to the left of Fox News is praising Clinton to the heavens. A rare dissenter is Anonymous Liberal who is taking a fair amount of flack for his less than enthusiastic response.

He makes a good point though. It was a great speech, and she gave a strong endorsement to Obama's candidacy but she did stop short of endorsing Obama's character and didn't really do much to negate the "he's not really ready to lead" meme that she helped push during the primaries. So while the prevailing charaterization of her having "knocked it out of the park" is true, without that additional talking point, it wasn't really a four run homer.

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August 26, 2008

Rachel rocks

By Libby This is why I really love the internets. I heard about this segment last night but I missed it because I was watching CSPAN. However, thanks to YouTube, one never has to miss any of the good stuff.

Rachel so rocks. [via Creature]

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Michelle wows the crowd at convention

By Libby

Thank goodness for CSPAN. If I would have had to make it through the event listening to the cable news pundits interpret the proceedings, while they desperately searched for signs of dissent, I wouldn't have made it. But thanks to CSPAN's commentator-free zone, I saw it all unfiltered and I came away impressed.

Pelosi's speech was the weakest of the big name speakers but she did all right and was mercifully brief. The Kennedy tribute came off well. Caroline's introduction might have been a little overlong but I expect that was to allow Ted to keep his own remarks brief in deference to his current medical problems. The mini-documentary was very good, sentimental but not maudlin, and the Kennedy family's gift for lofty rhetoric was fully apparent in his speech, which had many viewers reaching for the kleenex.

However, it was Michelle Obama who stole the show. One would have to have a heart of stone not to be moved by her story. She looked elegant but came across as geniune and unpretentious and although we know the speech was scripted, she delivered it in a manner that made it feel extemporaneous. Americans could feel very proud to call her our First Lady. And the unscripted exchange between Obama and the children afterward, ended the event on a perfect note.

I hear Carville is complaining that the Democrats didn't draw enough blood on this first day. Not surprising coming from a card carrying member of the lazy pundits who seek to gin up meaningless controversy where none exists in order to avoid having to do any real analysis. In any event he's wrong. The lesser known speakers did fine with drawing a clear line between the choices in November and the Obamas did what they needed to do. Introduce themselves as a typical American family who are striving for and reaching their dreams. I'd say the Dems are off to a great start.

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August 25, 2008

RNC shows Hillary some love with happy hour

By Libby

This is hilarious. As part of their outreach to PUMAs and independents, the Republicans are hosting a Happy Hour for Hillary today. But few of her supporters will be likely to get in.

Space is limited, and attendees must present both a valid DNCC and press organization credential to gain admittance.

If you're one of the lucky few who have the credentials, run over to the Paramount Café from 8:30 p.m. – 10:30 p.m. Sounds like it will be as much fun as root canal. [via]

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Dueling polls

By Libby

Interesting jutxaposition in the polling this morning. Over at CNN Money, they ask if you're better off than you were seven years ago, worse off or about the same. When I looked, the results were about even on the first two, with better off holding a slight margin and 11% saying about the same. Somehow I doubt working class Americans are reading CNN Money and taking the poll.

In contrast, "A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds, 'Eight in 10 say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the USA, and even more rate the economy as ‘only fair’ or poor. Seven in 10 say it’s getting worse.' That sounds like a more realistic reflection on how ordinary Americans are feeling.

But the real lesson is, the media takes too damn many polls. Polls are easily manipulated to produce pre-determined results. You really can't trust them.

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This post is not telling you how to vote

By Libby

Avedon rarely posts a full length rant, but when she does, it's always brilliant. Read the whole thing but here's the closer.

As I said above, this post isn't about me telling you how to vote. But it is about how you can't trust politicians, you can't wait for one guy to come and be your leader - you have to fight like hell to push the country in the right direction, and you can't just pretend that the fight is over at the election, or that you can break the work up into electoral cycles. You can't blame the older generation or the younger generation, you can't let people get divided up by race or sex or by whatever jobs they do or talismans they wear. You have to recognize that we're all in this fight, that we all have things to bring to the table and concerns that matter. We are not "special interests", we are We The People, and that matters more than any individual politician or any tribal signifiers that might, even for an instant, make you forget that your real enemy is someone who is not listening and will not be stung by your insults, although your potential allies will be.

I have only a small quibble on not looking at the fight in terms of electoral cycles. I think sometimes you have to concede some ground at election time to change the power structure, small though the potential change may be. But she's right on with the notion that the work doesn't stop at the election. In fact I'd say it starts there.

It's the tedious holding the feet to the fire over the months between the elections that is going to change the dynamic. It's the relentless writing to your Congresscreatures to let them know you're watching. It's writing LTEs to your newspapers and talking to your friends and neighbors and long range planning for primary challenges against the entrenched pols who have long ago sold out to corporate interests.

I'm afraid a lot of people get caught up in the excitement of the contests but then don't follow through on accountability. The real change we can believe in will come when the voters pay attention all the time instead of once every four years.

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August 24, 2008

Things I learned from Atriots

By Libby

I spend entirely too much time in Duncan Black's comment section, but I find links there I would have missed otherwise. For instance, this old gem about McCain's military career from 3-20-00, when Rove was probably supplying the oppo to the media.

The instructor added that McCain was "positively one of the weakest students to pass our way, and received consistently poor marks and a number of Dangerous Down grades assigned by more than one instructor. He had no real ability and was clearly out of his element in an airplane, and way over his head even as a junior naval officer."

McCain crashed three planes, ruined another by flying too low and hitting power lines and one exploded on deck. He only saw 20 hours of actual combat. Which is not to imply that he didn't serve honorably. It's just that his service wasn't particularly exemplary or notable. This is the experience he's basing his campaign on and it's weak. If we had a functional media, this factual history would have replaced the mythical narrative a long time ago. [via]

I didn't spend much time with this map, but it looks like it might provide hours of fun for the wonks around this place. An interactive map of US military presence around the globe since 1950. [via chicago dyke]

And, if you stayed in a Holiday Inn, I don't know if you're smarter, but you're certainly luckier. If you stayed at a Best Western, your luck may have run out. A criminal hacker breached the booking system of the chain, and stole the personal information of every single guest of Best Western's 1312 continental hotels since 2007. The theft compromised an estimated eight million people. I hope you're not one of them. [via]

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Poppies still prop up Taliban

Poppy_carolyn_cole_lat By Libby

What progress has been made in the north and east regions of Afghanistan in eliminating the poppy trade, is being threatened by a failure to follow through on promised alternative economic development for the poverty stricken farmers.

Oguz said it was critical that the Afghan government and the international community 'show that they will ensure food supplies and massive and targeted long and short-term development' areas where farmers decided not to plant poppy last year. 'I am not sure that is going to happen,' she said in an interview in Kabul.

The locals certainly are losing their faith in the pledged support.

'We did not plant opium last year because the government banned it and said we would get dams, roads and jobs,' said Zarjan Adalkhel Shinwari, a local elder. 'People are wavering. We need the money and none of their promises have been fulfilled. But it is illegal.'

Ironically, the growing international food shortage may help more than all the eradication programs money can be wasted on.

However, the poppy harvest has been affected by a glut on the market which has lowered the price paid 'at the fa rm gate' and high global wheat prices which have made other crops more attractive.

Meanwhile, Karzai's area of government control, which has been limited mainly within a certain geographic range around Kabul, appears to be shrinking.

While clashes in remote Helmand dominate the headlines, another battle is being waged by the insurgents on Kabul's doorstep. There, the Taliban are winning support by building a parallel administration, which is more effective, more popular and more brutal than the government's.

It's said that the Taliban partly finance their activities by taxing the poppy growers and the processing of the opium which used to be conducted outside of the country is increasingly being done by mobile labs inside. It doesn't appear Afghanistan's politics will be kicking its poppy co-dependence any time soon. [via Moonbootica]

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The downside of Biden

By Libby

As events have unfolded in the last 24 hours, I'm generally satisfied that Biden was a good choice for VP. However, Radley flagged the one big negative that I've been reluctant to bring up in an effort to prolong the positive coverage. But since Radley didn't show my restraint, it's worth noting that Biden's record on the war on some drugs is abysmal.

In fact, Biden is largely responsible for every inane and counterproductive present day policy from asset forfeiture to the atrocious RAVE Act. The one mitigating position he currently holds is "a fairly strong position against federal raids on medical marijuana clinics." Which is not to imply he supports medical marijuana. He doesn't.

All that being said, it's still not a deal breaker. None of the candidates have anything close to resembling common sense drug policy planks, well except Bob Barr, who seems to have seen the light but has no appreciable chance of becoming president. So it's better to focus on Biden's positives. Clearly, after watching his debut, he's willing to get down and dirty to fight the GOP smear machine on its own ground. Better to help him win now and worry about the policy squabbles later.

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August 23, 2008

McCain's craps addiction

Dice

By Libby

Shades of Bill Bennett. It seems McCain has a gambling habit and he loves to play against the odds. Reminds me of Cheney and his One Percent Doctrine.

Word has it McCain "tends to play for a few thousand dollars at a time and avoids taking markers, or loans, from the casinos, which he has helped regulate in Congress." He has only recently stopped shooting craps and even then, only at the insistence of his handlers.

In the heat of the G.O.P. primary fight last spring, he announced on a visit to the Vegas Strip that he was going to the casino floor. When his aides stopped him, fearing a public relations disaster, McCain suggested that they ask the casino to take a craps table to a private room, a high-roller privilege McCain had indulged in before. His aides, with alarm bells ringing, refused again, according to two accounts of the discussion.

Of course, when you're as wealthy as McCain, I guess losing thousands on a roll of the dice isn't a such a big deal. In sharp contrast, Obama favors low stakes poker.

But he always had his head in the game. The stakes were low enough — $1 ante and $3 top raise — to afford a long shot. Not Obama. He studied the cards as closely as he would an eleventh-hour amendment to a bill. The odds were religion to him. Only rarely did he bluff. "He had a pretty good idea about what his chances were," says Denny Jacobs, a former state senator from East Moline.

Kind of a perfect metaphor for this election. Your choice is between a reckless guy who shoots crap and doesn't give a damn about the potential losses or a careful card player who's willing to take an educated risk, but only when he has a good hand. The safe bet in November couldn't more obvious. [via Tim F.]

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Barak Obama did not approve this message

By Libby

But I approve it. A blast from the past. McCain on illegal immigrants in April of 2006.



For context, here's the text version from Tom Tomorrow. I guess if you can afford to blow thousands on craps and a cool quarter of million or so on household help, it's easy to believe that "You can't do it my friends." Not even for fifty bucks an hour. [via]

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One House, One Spouse, Obama/Biden 08

By Libby

All of Blogtopia has weighed in on Biden and I've posted at The Impolitic already, so I'll just recap the positives on an unexciting but pragmatic pick.

Lefties are not wildly excited but neither are they unduly alarmed. I'm hearing their parents like the choice and it's moving the senior citizens towards support of the ticket. I'm also hearing he has a decent voting record on women's rights and he did apologize for supporting the AUMF. Further, he hasn't parlayed his many years inside the Beltway into a personal fortune. He's one of the poorest politicians, he donated his $800,000 in speaking honoria to charity, and his wife hasn't made money on their political connections. She's a schoolteacher.

Biden also teaches constitutional law and his understanding of foreign policy is pretty unassailable. But the clip below demonstrates what some are viewing as a potential timebomb, but I think is his strongest positive. His outspokeness.



He's a fighter and he'll be able to strike back against the GOP smear machine in ways that Obama can't. On the balance, I'm thinking they're going to make a formidable ticket. And by the way, if you like the title of this post, you can get the bumper sticker here. [links via Atrios and Ellroon]

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August 22, 2008

Fox airs illegal ad 'by mistake'

By Libby

Not content with an endless parade of incorrect chryons, Fox News went with the big error today and inadvertently aired an ad they had allegedly refused to run by the extreme right wing group American Issues Project which has ties to McCain through one of its board members.

The right-wing American Issues Project has spent $2.8 million on an ad questioning Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) relationship to William Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. ...

... Fox News accidentally aired the most of the ad. During a segment about Obama’s ties to Tony Rezko, Fox News attempted to play McCain’s latest ad on the subject. However, the Ayers ad began playing instead.

One has to ask, if they weren't going to run the ad, what the heck it was doing in the queue just waiting for someone to press the wrong button, but the mistake whether actual or contrived, may just have a silver lining.

Election experts yesterday raised concerns that this ad may violate election law. Laura MacCleery of the Brennan Center for Justice told Huffington Post that the ad is clearly “express advocacy” and “cannot legally be paid for with corporate money, including those of a non-profit.” In response, the American Issues Project has agreed to disclose its individual donors to the FEC.

I can't wait for someone to leak those names, which I believe the group has been keeping secret despite calls for disclosure. It would be very interesting to see who's financing this smear campaign.

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I'm not perfect

By Libby

I haven't been posting much here lately because I've been concentrating my efforts at the Detroit News, where the readers need educating on the inherent danger of voting Republican. Now, I have to agree with Hilzoy that in a perfect world, I would be posting about "how McCain doesn't know what an economic stimulus is, how he doesn't understand what a cap and trade system is and about his hysteria-based foreign policy." Unfortunately, we don't live in that world and I often post on the trivial non-issues of the day as determined by the elite media. Like houses.

However, when I see "Obama's 46% to 39% statewide advantage is especially aided by a 39-point bulge among voters in Wayne County, including Detroit," I'd like to think I had something to do with that, so it's worth it. I suppose that's really just wishful thinking, but I hear Michigan is going to be a swing state and I did inspire a letter to the editor the other day, so I just keep doing what I'm doing and hope it really does help.

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August 21, 2008

Unsung heroes

By Libby

Dan at Pruning Shears looks at those few brave souls who publicly stood up against the excesses of the Bush administration before his approval ratings fell into the toilet.

That Mori, Zanetti and the jurors were willing to do otherwise speaks eloquently of their high character, as does Radack’s insistence on serving the interests of justice even at substantial personal cost. A great many people have just gone along, or perhaps resigned in protest and quietly went away. The ones who did not, and chose instead to go against the prevailing culture and speak up, have rendered a great service to our country. Their names deserve to be remembered more than those of the ones they strove against.

Sadly, unlike the enablers that didn't jump ship until it was sinking, none of them got cushy jobs on talking head teevee and their names did not become familiar.

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The incredible rightness of being a POW

By Libby

Almost unbelievable. McCain admitted he didn't know how many houses he and Cindy own and after floating a couple of responses to the ensuing reaction from the Democrats, they settled on -- wait for it -- pulling the POW card that old Johnny just hates to talk about. Again.

"This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years -- in prison," spokesman Brian Rogers told the Washington Post. [...]

Also, Rogers made sure to play the anti-intellectual card: "In terms of who's an elitist, I think people have made a judgment that John McCain is not an arugula-eating, pointy headed professor-type based on his life story."

And which life story would that be Mr. McCain? The true one, or the one based entirely on lies?

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Zoning laws run amok

By Libby

Via Avedon, here's a fine example of nanny government taken to the extreme.

Jon Tennett loves to tinker in his garage. It's not an uncommon pastime for an 81-year-old man, but what is unusual is the city's response.

Because Tennett fixes his neighbours' lawn mowers and other small machines, the City of Pickering has charged him with operating an illegal business - even though he's never charged a penny for his work. [...]

Tennett's case is currently before the courts and if he loses, he could be fined up to $25,000. He's already refusing to pay. "They ain't getting it," he fumes. "I'll do jail time."

One expects it won't come to that, as the residents of the town appear to be as outraged as Mr. Tennet about the over zealous enforcement of the ordinance. But still, what a long way we've come from the days when they used to say, "A man's home is his castle."

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The new working poor

By Libby

The conventional wisdom is you go to school, get a good education, work hard and you'll live the American dream. Heather Ryan, a summa cum laude undergrad with a master's degree should have fit that description, and yet:

We only had to do it once last summer. Only once because when friends got wind of what was happening, they sent gift cards to Albertsons and Safeway, money even. I'm a writer, so I'm supposed to know how to say difficult things, how to blend the mundane with the significant, how to tell a story, how to make the sad at least bearable. I started e-mails in which I blathered on about my love for Mary Jane shoes, or my obsession with Neko Case, hoping to find a moment where I could say, "By the way. Last week? I took the kids to a soup kitchen." I wrote e-mails about Cuba and the welfare system and the crumbling middle class, yet none of them landed in an in box with the admission that I had taken my kids one Tuesday in July, drove downtown and walked into a soup kitchen to eat dinner -- parking far enough away so that no one would see we actually had a car. [...]

The entire summer of 2007, as I struggled to keep us fed, I hated thinking of politics, an unusual characteristic for me. It hurt to listen to any presidential candidate talk about the working poor, and not because they weren't genuine, but because all their talk was just that -- talk. It was like listening to my former self, the one who didn't know how bad things could get.

I don't doubt she has greater empathy for the poor now, but I think she may overstate the depth of her understanding. She had a good job with employer provided health and dental insurance. A 401k plan. She had a long way to go to truly experience poverty. For her this was a temporary setback, more a cause for embarrassment than hopelessness. Until you've faced an empty cupboard with no prospect of finding food, it's really impossible to fully grasp hunger.

For many at that soup kitchen, and I suspect most of them had at least minimum wage jobs, these sorts of programs become a permanent solution and their numbers are growing. They don't have friends who can help out and can't afford to stop working to pursue college degrees. And even if they could, they would be competing for jobs against people like Ms. Ryan, who was underemployed with her masters, and still be at the bottom of the employment chain.

It's our national disgrace that after years of what the experts described as a booming economy, not only did that wealth fail to trickle down, but poverty continues to trickle up. [via Avedon]

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August 20, 2008

Meet the marijuana users

By Libby

When you broach the subject of legalization of drugs, inevitably you hear howls of indigination from outraged non-consumers who predict mass addiction and decry the coddling of disgusting drug addicts. Of course, their doomsday visions of crack addicts lined up at the local Quickie-Mart is far removed from reality. Under a total legalization plan, hard drugs would be limited to controlled clinical settings designed to enable addicts to kick the habit, not encourage them to continue it, but that's an argument for another day. For the moment, let's just look at marijuana, a non-addictive herb that over 25 million Americans admitted using in 2005. Who are these marijuana consumers?

They are your friends, your neighbors, your shopkeepers, even your doctors and lawyers who won't be included in any statistics because they could never admit they might occassionally take a puff on a marijuana cigarette to relax at the end of a stressful day. They are the terminally ill who find more pallative relief in herbal medicine than they did in pharmaceutical toxins. They are responsible, otherwise law-abiding citizens who pose no danger to society.

Looking beyond the numbers, Marijuana Policy Project's new video documentary on the human cost of marijuana prohibition puts a face on these consumers. In Part One we meet a student who was denied financial aid for college solely on the grounds of a misdemeanor possession charge as a teenager. In Part Two below we meet a senior citizen, who grew some plants for himself and a few other medical marijuana users to whom he provided the herb at no charge.

Continue reading "Meet the marijuana users" »

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August 19, 2008

Breathtaking hypocrisy

By Libby

Even under the low standards set by the Bush administration, this is remarkably obtuse.

"Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power," Rice told reporters en route to an emergency meeting of NATO foreign ministers set for Tuesday. "That's not the way to deal in the 21st century."

Maybe Condi could have mentioned that to her boss a few years ago and saved us a world of grief. [via]

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August 18, 2008

Quote of the Day

By Libby

Avedon's got it.

My friends, if having been a prisoner of war is now going to be an automatic qualification for the presidency, could we please start looking at the records of other POWs to see if we can't find someone who is less of a lying, cheating, right-wing crackpot? I'm sure there must be several.

Funny. I was just thinking the same thing but Avedon said it better. She also has a very interesting snippet of the official transcript from the Saddleback Scam. Draw your own conclusions.

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McCain cheated on 'cone of silence'

By Libby

It appears that the "cone of silence" at the Saddleback event was about as serious as the one in the old teevee series Get Smart. McCain arrived in his soundproof booth a half hour late, giving him plenty of time to be briefed on the questions. That could explain his seemingly well-prepared 'spontaneous' answers. Furthermore, he lied by ommission when asked about it directly at the beginning of his segment.

Mr. Warren started by asking Mr. McCain, “Now, my first question: Was the cone of silence comfortable that you were in just now?”

Mr. McCain deadpanned, “I was trying to hear through the wall.”

Warren said we'll have to take McCain's claim that he didn't try to game the interview on faith. Meanwhile, the McCain camp is appalled that anyone would dare question their man's integrity, saying, "The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous."

However, the denials have been somewhat nuanced. McCain's team hasn't flatly denied that no one in contact with McCain accessed the program while he was in enroute, although another McCain spokesman said they have no to reason to lie. But as Jake Tapper points out, obviously they had every reason to do so. And as I added in a post at the Detroit News, our "above all criticism, former POW" has a long history of outright lies.

I don't suppose this will have much effect on McCain's support among the hard core fundies, but one can only hope that some of it filters out to the sane voters and cracks the "straight talk" facade at least a little bit.

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Who changed your world?

By Libby

Here's a moment's amusement for a Monday morning. Vote to determine the Top 10 Who Are Changing the World of Internet and Politics in the ninth annual PoliticsOnline and the World eDemocracy Forum awards.

This prestigious award seeks to recognize the innovators and pioneers, the dreamers and doers who bring democracy online. This year marked the toughest year ever in choosing the 25 finalists. The integration of politics and the Internet are reflected in this year's diverse, international nominees.

The winners, those top 10 nominees who receive the most votes, will be invited as honored guests to the world eDemocracy Forum October 16-17, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, (Paris, France), where they'll take part in an awards ceremony and other special programs throughout the two-day forum.

Really interesting list of nominees including 10 Downing St, Barack Obama and MTV's Choose or Lose. I haven't voted yet myself. I'm torn between Brave New Films and the Sunlight Foundation. [h/t George L]

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August 17, 2008

Reaching the depths of depravity

By Libby

Ruth at Cabdrollery flags a disturbing under-reported story on an alleged 'terrorist' that appears to have been abducted and held without counsel for the last five years by our own government.

Take the case of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who grew up in the US and went to top universities including the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The woman who had been a star student and a topper throughout a remarkable career had to leave the US when the authorities began harassing her and her husband for their charity activities in the wake of September 11 upheavals.

The family settled down in Karachi and was never involved in any illegal activities. One day in March 2003, this talented young woman went missing with her three children when she was on her way to Karachi airport.

Five years later, she suddenly appeared in a New York court this month, billed as a 'top Al Qaeda terrorist'. She was reportedly barely able to walk and speak. She's not being charged with terrorism, but rather assault on FBI agents in Afghanistan. A charge, her attorney Liz Fink calls, "patently absurd."

Jim Henley picks up the story and adds much more, including some earlier coverage claiming "Siddiqui was concocting a plan to use biological agents to contaminate former president Carter’s water," among other implausible and nefarious plots against high ranking political leaders. As Jim remarks, this administration has become so arrogant they don't even try to come up with plausible lies anymore for their abuses. Worse yet, no one seems to know what happened to the children.

As an aside, I'd note that I know Liz Fink, having worked with her on a big federal case many years ago. She's an excellent lawyer and I'm glad to see she's the defense counsel. At least we can be sure that Siddiqui will have superior representation and if anyone can get to the truth on this one, Liz is the one that can do it.

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August 16, 2008

The United Police State of America

By Libby

The Bush administration takes us one step closer to a full out police state. Their latest ploy, streamlining intelligence information sharing, effectively makes your local cop a deputy spy for the feds.

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

Read it and weep for our formerly free country. The measure seeks to roll back the protections against government excess that arose out the Watergate era, ignoring the fact that the reasons those protections were enacted in the first place was because of abuse of the existing powers. It would be nice to think that Obama would fix all this when he's elected president, but as emptywheel notes -- don't hold your breath.

And let me repeat something I have said before: once law enforcement, political and prosecutorial entities are vested with power and dominion such as described herein; it is never substantially relinquished; it becomes the new norm.

And as I often say, the transformation to a police state is made in such tiny increments as to be almost unnoticed. I ran across this old link today, from when Al Gonzales was on the hot seat over the Ashcroft hospital visit seeking to authorize a domestic surveillance program that was so illegal Ashcroft wouldn't sign off on it. Back then, notes just released by FBI Director Robert Mueller, notes he made because he thought the situation was so unusual he felt the need to document it, contradicted the AG's sworn testimony.

The notes were heavily redacted and Conyers swore he would get an unredacted version. As far as I know he never did and we still don't know what this particular "Terrorist Surveillance Program" really was. All we know for sure that the ethical players at Justice were ready to quit over it. And anybody remember the 'Clergy Response Team' that helped avoid a public outcry over the quasi-martial law declared in NOLA in the wake of Katrina?

They enure us slowly to these encroachments, just like that proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water. And just like the frog, by the time we realize we're in danger of completely losing our liberties, it's going to be too late.

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Peter Pan arrested at Disneyland gates

By Libby

Mickey and Tinkerbelle too, along with a host of other characters involved in a workers' protest at the front door of the amusement park. It seems the Big House of Mouse wants to reduce costs on the backs of its poorest workers.

The dispute involves about 2,300 maids, bell hops, cooks and dishwashers at three Disney-owned hotels: the Paradise Pier, the Grand Californian and the Disneyland Hotel.

The workers' contract expired in February and their union says Disney's latest proposal makes health care unaffordable for hundreds of employees and creates an unfair two-tier wage system. The union also says Disney wants to create a new category of part-time employees who would receive greatly reduced benefits.

Creating a part time class of workers has been a classic corporate response to a downturn in revenues for as long as I remember, but taking away the established workers health benefits is relatively new. So I have to admit, although I'm a little conflicted about the idea of three year olds being traumatized by seeing Mickey arrested, I understand why they're doing it and I'm glad their dramatic protest is bringing some public attention to the issue.

The Sun has a slideshow of photos of the beloved characters being frogmarched to the pokey. Video coverage, here and here. [Thanks to our researcher Kat for the tip.]

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August 15, 2008

McCain's celebrity solution for healthcare

By Libby

If it wasn't such a serious problem, this would be more hilarious. McCain's plan for the crisis in rural health care. Send in celebrity athletes to inspire kids to lose weight and adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Now, there's nothing wrong with having Shaq inspire kids to be healthy, but what rural residents need right now is more health care providers. That doesn't seem to be mentioned in McCain's overall strategy. Indeed, it doesn't seem that McCain has much of a strategy at all outside of letting Shaq handle it.

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Russian roulette

By Libby

My co-bloggers have been covering the geopolitical implications of  the Georgia/Russia situation very well here so I'm not even going to try to get into the weeds on the wonkery but I think these two quotes sum up the bone-crushing irony of the Bush administration's response. On Wednesday Condi Rice said:

"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

And today the NYT reports these words from our DefSec Gates.

“My view is that the Russians — and I would say principally Prime Minister Putin — is interested in reasserting Russia’s, not only Russia’s great power or superpower status, but in reasserting Russia’s traditional spheres of influence,” he said. “My guess is that everyone is going to be looking at Russia through a different set of lenses as we look ahead.”

I'll bet that's true, as they will be also be looking at the US through "a different set of lenses." Right now, thanks to the ongoing occupation of Iraq, we look like nothing so much as a little kid with a popgun, brandishing our 'fearsome' weapon in the face of a fully armed, oncoming military brigade. I suspect there's more than one world leader viewing the situation with amusement at our predicament, rather than respect for our ability to respond in any meaningful way.

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August 14, 2008

SWAT raids - it could happen to you

By Libby

Warren "Bones" Bonesteel emails in response to my latest SWAT raid post and kindly digs up Radley Balko's invaluable white paper and the interactive map on the subject. Bones appears to be pretty much on the opposite side of the fence politically, but the insanity of the war on some drugs provides us all with common ground. Let me quote briefly from his email.

Be assured that more than one family in your state has had this happen to them, which can be said of every state in the Union. Had Mayor Calvo not been who he was, living where he lived, and had he not known exactly what to do and say to protect his rights, you would have read and heard an entirely different story from the media, if you had read or heard about it at all. ...

This is not an issue about left vs right, Republican vs Democrat or religion vs secularism. This is not about race or nationality or even about the poor vs the wealthy. It isn't about the drugs. This is about Freedom.

Governments are about control and tyranny. Aside from controlling you, governments don't care who you are. The bigger the government, the worse the tyranny. The more powerful the government, the greater the tyranny, the more extreme the human rights abuses become.

Amen to that and it doesn't matter which political party is in control. The abuses of the war on some drugs have been perpetrated for decades through both Republican and Democratic administrations and did in fact lay the groundwork for the abridgement of our civil rights today in Bush's equally bogus 'war on terror.'

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August 13, 2008

SWAT team mentality

By Libby

My old friend David Borden has been at the forefront of drug policy reform for decades now at the helm of stopthedrugwar.org. Their website has evolved into a must read stop for those interested in ending the insanity called the war on some drugs, particularly their Speakeasy blog where I found this graphic that appeared on the website of the Lima, Ohio, SWAT team prior to their murdering an unarmed mother and maiming her infant child in a botched drug raid. (They were just acquitted of any wrongdoing in the matter by the way.) I can't think of a better illustration of the mindset of the SWAT team strategy.

Scrolling down at the blog, I find another post that enlightens us on the inherent danger of funding the LEOs via forfeiture laws.

A new push by Annapolis police officers to crack down on drugs and violence in the city is having an added benefit: Record vehicle seizures and revenues. Sgt. Dave Garcia, who oversees the vehicle seizure program, said city police seized 120 vehicles in the first six months of this year, netting $23,960 in the process.

That's a lot of cars for not that much money. This would suggest that (a) it's as much about power as it is about deterrence and (b) a lot of small time users are losing lower value vehicles to these seizures.

Time was police departments would exercise discretion and only seize property from perceived 'kingpins' in the drug trade. But since the zero-tolerance craze started, they will take your car no matter whether they find a cold marijuana pipe in the glove compartment or 50 pounds of heroin in the trunk. The cost and the hassle of regaining possession of the car are so prohibitive that most people don't bother to try. Often the cost alone is more than the value of the car anyway.

Meanwhile, our government spends a minimum of $40 billion a year on enforcing laws indiscriminately against reponsible consumers and problematic abusers alike while the availability of street drugs hasn't appreciably changed except I hear that the price of cocaine has dropped. Surely, there are better ways to spend this money.

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Cooking the books

By Libby

As regular readers know, I'm suspicious of polls and other statistical analysis that use weighted metrics. I ran across this post the other day that shows an interesting chart and would seem to prove my point. It suggests inflation is really much worse than the experts are telling us.

Fodder for thought for those curious about U.S. economic statistics. While conventional wisdom (or publicized rationale) often claims that the recent adjustments to the core methodology remove components that are "more volatile", the evidence here suggests that the new method basically removes 3% from the previously computed rates. Remarkable how stable this difference is over time.

As the author notes, "the secret is in picking the right comparables." I've been thinking for a long time that "weighted" analysis is really just a code word for cooking the books. Am I wrong?

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August 12, 2008

100% Snake Oil

By Libby

Today's editorial in the WaPo tries very hard to minimize the latest effort of the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund with a weak attempt to pump up the GOP's cruelly false promise that offshore drilling would lower the price of gasoline now -- or ever. But apparently, even the WaPo editorial board has its limits and is forced to admit, buried at the end of course, that, "No, the United States cannot drill its way to energy independence."

The worst part is Rasmussen Reports latest survey shows that too many Americans are gullibly buying the lie. They found "nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) support going ahead with offshore oil drilling." I suppose if you put the environmental concerns aside, some argument could be made for that position. Even if you accept the fact prices won't be affected, most people seem to find it difficult to believe that clean energy technologies will be able to supply enough alternate fuels for our needs in the next decades and want to extract every last drop of crude from the earth.

Much more disturbing though is that 42% believe "offshore oil drilling would have the biggest impact in terms of reducing the price of oil." That, as the Action Fund puts it, is "100% Snake Oil" and a frightening illustration of how successfully the GOP can still push false propaganda despite their ever diminishing credibility with the voters.

Meanwhile, if you're in the group that believes offshore drilling isn't the answer at all, today's thirty second activism is to send a point and click letter to your Congresslizards and let them know you're not buying the snake oil and want them to stop selling it.

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August 10, 2008

Surge success illustrated

By Libby

This post at Crooks & Liars didn't receive nearly enough attention. A Guardian journalist, who is a native Iraqi, returns to Baghdad to video the scenes the elite media can't show us because they would be killed if they tried to get the footage. Watch it in full. It's under 15 minutes long in total. This is what "the success" of the surge looks like.

Part Two: The Killing Fields.

Part Three: The Lost Generation.

Does this look like peace and normalcy to you? It surely doesn't to me.

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August 09, 2008

McCain needs his sleep

By Libby

Well I guess that McCain won't be making any "3:00am ads" after this awkward confession, obviously made in a moment of fatigue. And it's only the beginning of August.

"If I put in three or four 18-hour, 20-hour days in a row, I'm not sharp. It's just a fact," the Republican senator from Arizona said.

"I'm more sharp if I get a little rest." McCain said he feels best sleeping until 7:30 or 8 a.m., as opposed to his usual morning drill of rising at 5:30 or 6 a.m.

"It seems to help me to get up a little later in the morning," he said, joking, "Sorry to bother with that intimate detail."

What a comforting thought. If a major world crisis comes up and doesn't resolve in three or four days, the guy with his finger on the nuclear trigger, who is still fighting the Vietnam War in his head, would be feeling "not so sharp."   Of course, that describes the current occupier of the White House too. [via]

Update: Jed Report has more thoughts including this astute quote. "The fact is, McCain isn't doing one of his 2 jobs, he's doing the other one at half strength, and he's whining about it. Meanwhile, lots of American families are every bit as tired as he is, but without $100 million in the bank."
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August 08, 2008

From the mouths of conservatives

By Libby

I posted at Detroit News yesterday about McCain's questionable bundler, Harry Sargeant III, owner of an oil-trading company who is currently under investigation by Congress over the almost billion dollars in no-bid contracts he was awarded by the Pentagon. Surprisingly, even Marc Ambinder notices the hands-off policy of the elite media on McCain's dicey fundraisers.

If there were a group of questionable donations all with the name Abdullah, that were funneled through a guy in Jordan, who is a Jordanian national, who is under investigation for war profiteering, and it were Barack Obama, instead of John McCain, would this be a bigger deal?

They barely mention it in passing but you can sure we will be treated to non-stop coverage of the 'vital' story of John Edwards tawdry affair. As if who Edwards screws is more important than McCain's grand plan to screw us all over in favor of the interests of Big Oil.

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Money Bomb

By Libby

Today is the anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation and also the day of the Strange Bedfellows money bomb. The Caucus has the short version of the current plans for the money.

AccountabilityNow, which aims to play a political role from which groups like the American Civil Liberties Union are barred, plans to buy print ads with the new funds criticizing Mr. Hoyer and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami-area Republican, for co-sponsoring a measure endorsing a naval blockade of Iran, and they also plan to buy space to call for Congress to look into the F.B.I.’s handling of the anthrax investigation. By 2010, AccountabilityNow hopes to field primary candidates that support its civil libertarian, anti-war positions.

We could certainly use more candidates with those kind of creds.

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SWAT team insanity

By Libby

The Baltimore Sun continues to follow the story about the Maryland mayor whose home was raided. The added details are horrendous.

When the shooting stopped, two dogs lay dead. A mayor sat in his boxers, hands bound behind his back. His handcuffed mother-in-law was sprawled on the kitchen floor, lying beside the body of one of the family pets that police had killed before her eyes.

Even if they were guilty, how unnecessary is that sort of intimidation? Are we to believe a bunch of armed cops might feel so threatened by an old lady that she has to lie on the floor for two hours next to a dead dog? Worse yet, the cops did not have a no-knock warrant and tracked the dog's blood all over the home while they were ransacking it looking for some justification for their over the top Gestapo tactics.

The town's chief of police is still livid about not being notified in advance of the raid, noting the sheriff's SWAT team was "wearing street clothes, masks and carrying weapons as they approached the mayor's house." For all the local cops knew, this could have been a criminal home invasion and a confrontation could likely have become a shoot out.

It's clear that this use of force was completely unwarranted in this instance and I was right in thinking this was a set-up.

This week Prince George's police arrested two men for orchestrating a plot to deliver marijuana to the addresses of unsuspecting recipients -- among them, Calvo's wife, Trinity Tomsic.

One wonders what happened to the other people who were targeted? Maybe those raids were called off after this fiasco, but the long history of SWAT team drug raids is rife with the same kind of misconduct. The only good news is, with such a high profile victim as the mayor, maybe the issue will finally get the attention it deserves and something will be done to stop it.

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August 06, 2008

Paris responds to McCranky

By Libby

This time it's real. Paris Hilton responds to McCain's slam ad and does a pretty good of it. If you had to choose between the two of them, Paris would be the obvious choice. At least she knows how to deliver her lines.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Normally, I wouldn't bother fact-checking a parody like this but the elite media has picked it up so it's likely more low-info voters will see this ad than bother to watch the real ones and it's worth noting that Paris makes one truly egregious statement. That being that off-shore drilling would offer an immediate solution to "tide us over" until technology can rescue us from foreign oil dependence.

Steve Benen covers that point and going one step further, Joseph Romm outlines the high points of Obama's proposals. As Romm notes, it's far superior to what McCain laughably calls his plan.

Update: As I feared, CNN has a poll at the bottom of the home page right now that shows Paris' "plan" is beating out both Obama and McCain. Current standings are McCain 27%, Obama 33%, Hilton 40%, with 120,908 total votes. I also see some commentators are calling it an pro-McCain ad, but really it's just pro-oil corporation, which come to think of it, is sort of the same thing.

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August 03, 2008

Braising McCain

By Libby

Okay so Paris Hilton and Britney Spears aren't going to deliver a scathing video response to McCain's smear ad, but thanks to my old friend and long time reader Bruce Simpson, for sending me this really good parody.


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August 02, 2008

Blackwater seeps into domestic law enforcement

Ca_drug_raid_blackwater By Libby

You might read about this raid on a medical marijuana dispensary and think it was disgusting but not particuarly remarkable. Just your customary SWAT team thuggishness.

At the dispensary agents left behind trash, counters strewn with open and empty glass jars, piles of receipts thrown on the ground, upturned couch cushions, bits of marijuana on the edges of counters and an ATM with its doors torn open and emptied.

In the residents' rooms a safe was cut open, dresser drawers pulled open, and rumpled clothes and knickknacks thrown on the ground. An outdoor vegetable garden had plants uprooted, along with marijuana plants removed by the agents. [...]

Clyde Carey, 50, of Marina del Rey was at the store Friday visiting a friend when agents burst in through the locked front door, he said.

"We heard some noise outside, and then the door literally burst in, and the DEA came in in full combat gear, told everybody to get on the floor and put their hands behind their heads," Carey said. "It was like, literally, an episode of "24," when they bust in on a terrorist cell."

Nothing unusual in that but here's where it gets interesting. If you look closely at the photo, you'll notice the agent is wearing a Blackwater t-shirt. Now, one might think maybe it was just a freebie from a narc's convention, but Radley tells us that the photo was removed from the gallery after he posted about it. You have to wonder what they're trying to hide.

If that's not enough to make you a little nervous, how about the news [via] that Blackwater is now actively marketing itself to Fortune 500 companies, with the division being run by J. Cofer Black who is also Chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, a private intelligence gathering group. The same guy who reportedly told an audience at the Special Operations Forces Exhibition in Amman, Jordan, that Blackwater could supply a "brigade-sized force on alert." Wouldn't that come in handy for a president who wanted to declare martial law?

Even if Blackwater isn't really assisting the DEA in drug raids, looking at the numerous scandals over their recklessness in Iraq and the reports on their private duty work in NOLA during Katrina, it's clear they're a dangerous 'security' force. The problem is their mission appears to be to keep the government safe from us.

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Paris and Britney slap McCain

By Libby

Well this could be really amusing. Apparently, hell hath no fury like a startlet scorned. Andy Borowitz reports:

One day after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) broadcast an anti-Obama ad in which he compared the presumptive Democratic nominee to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, the two tabloid mainstays fought back with an eviscerating anti-McCain spot of their own.[...]

In their anti-McCain spot, the two starlets fight fire with fire, comparing Sen. McCain to the Joker from the smash-hit film "The Dark Knight."

"It's perfectly fair," Ms. Spears said of the ad. "They both have pasty white faces and totally creepy smiles."

Heh. That's the most intelligent thing I've ever heard her say. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a link to the video. I never thought I would be saying this about anything that Paris and Britney created, but I can't wait to see it.

[Note: Unfortunately, this is a spoof, so there will never be a video. But maybe it will inspire the pair to create one. One can always hope.]

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Blogger problems update

By Libby

Following up on yesterday's Blogger lockout, it appears that the problem was wide-spread and not confined to one category of blogs, so it wasn't that you were posting any particular content. However, the lockdown does remind me this morning about the importance of internet neutrality. If we lose it, this sort of thing could happen all the time and it could easily be content related.

Anyway, most of you should be unlocked by now but there's a new problem that affects the whole system. No one can open any Blogger blog in IE. Avedon figured out that it was a sitemeter issue. If you remove your sitemeter code from the template, it seems to solve it.

Good reason to switch to Firefox as your browser but in the interim, for those who can't give up their IE, I removed the sitemeter from The Impolitic until Blogger figures out what they broke when they fixed the lockdown.

Update: This is amusing. A lot of rightwing blogs were also affected and shockingly, immediately blamed the vast left-wing conspiracy and/or Obama supporters.

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August 01, 2008

Applause please

By Libby

Mad props to our long time favorite Mad Kane for receiving the 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award for Humor, along with a handwritten note from Bob Newhart. She certainly deserves the recognition.

John Cole has created a new award for media morons that may not be safe for work. His first awardee clearly deserves the 'honor.'

I feel like sending this judge some flowers for making this wise observation from the bench, where he presided over a trespassing case against some people trying to make a citizen's arrest of Karl Rove.

There's no award associated with this project yet, but I bet they could borrow a trophy from John Cole once Josh finishes tracking the media complicity in McCain's smear attacks. I'm betting a clear winner will emerge from the statistics. You can help.

And kudos to those wise respondents who voted correctly in this poll. Add your voice.

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Locked out...

By Libby

I had just posted to my personal blog last night and tried to go back to edit in a link I missed when I got this message:

Your blog is locked.

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive. We received your unlock request on August 1, 2008.

On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam.

I discovered I'm not the only one and at first it appeared it was only DFH lefty blogs that were hit. I've heard since it also happened to non-poliblogs so I guess I can put away the tinfoil for now. Anyway, you can still read the blogs and leave comments but the authors can't post until a human being "reviews your spam status."

Ellroon of Rants from the Rookery is not locked and is posting a list of known locked lefty blogs, which will be updated through the day. If you're locked out leave a comment over there. Here's the list so far.

SteveAudio
Sinfonian of Blast Off
Libby of The Impolitic
Fourlegs at Plush Life
Dr. Dawg at Dawg's Blawg
skippy of skippy the bush kangaroo

Update by Fester:  The old Newshoggers is also under suspician of being a spam blog --- I think one of the drivers might be the high density of linking and potentially any Google bombing/SEO techniques may have tripped a poorly designed algorithym. 

Check with Ellroon for updates and a handy tip on how to leave a notice for your readers.

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July 31, 2008

SWAT team murders mayor's dogs

By Libby

It's been a while since we looked at the war on some drugs and here's a particularly egregious abuse of law enforcement resources. The county Sheriff's SWAT team in Maryland raided a local mayor's home and killed his dogs.

The short backstory is someone sent a 32 lb. package of marijuana to Mayor Cheye Calvo's home. It was left on the porch while he was out walking his dogs. When he got home he brought in the package and went upstairs to change. The SWAT team broke down the door and shot the black Labs on entry. The younger pup was trying to run away and was shot in the back. They then handcuffed Calvo and his mother-in-law and interrogated them for hours while the dead dog's blood pooled on the floor around them. Calvo was in his underwear.

They hadn't bothered to notify the local police beforehand and justified the violent raid as necessary. But as one local spokesman noted, it's seems to hard to believe that the Chief of Police couldn't have simply knocked on the door and asked his honor about the package. And Calvo could hardly have flushed 32 lbs of marijuana down the toilet if they had waited for him to answer the doorbell.

This kind excessive use of force is the poison fruit of the forfeiture laws. The LEOs get to keep the money they make on busts but they can only spend it on equipment. So they buy all this cool SWAT team stuff and then of course they want to use it. So, every single bust becomes a life or death raid.

As to why the mayor was having marijuana delivered to his door in the first place, I'd speculate it was a set up. Nobody in their right mind would ship that much cannabis by public courier. Hell of way to discredit him though. Hmmm.... Anybody got 32 lbs of pot and Karl Rove's address?

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July 29, 2008

Republicans can't parody

By Libby

Pete Abel got a parody video from the RNC that is so bad it should have been funny, but it wasn't. It was just pitifully lame.

Slightly more amusing is the latest burst of innuendo out of wingerville. Apparently they've concluded that Obama drew such a huge crowd in Berlin by somehow bribing 200,000 people with food and booze. And yet, they call Obama's base crazy for believing in hope? The ulimate response to that leap of logic goes to a commenter at Cole's place.

I heard he fed the entire crowd with five bratwursts and two Heinekens.

Now that's funny.

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July 28, 2008

Let's get rid of Harry Reid

By Libby

I read in the WaPo this morning about the pending Tomnibus bill that the Senate is supposed to pass before they take their weeks long summer vacation and had the same reaction as Booman. Why is it that Reid could ignore Dodd's hold on the FISA bill but allows this yahoo Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) to block dozens of bills that have large bi-partisan support? Why didn't he just hold the damn votes right along? That's what the Republicans did when they held the majority.

I'm predicting this omnibus bill will get mired down in Beltway kabuki and will be tabled untl September, no matter how critical the included bills are to the people. Reid is a miserable failure as a leader and Pelosi has been almost as bad. We need better Democrats than this if we're ever going to repair the damage of the Bush regime.

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July 27, 2008

Anything sounds good to McCain

By Libby

If McCain wasn't running for president and still polling at 40% his pathetic cluelessness would be amusing. Today he denied ever using the word timetable in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, conducted at his Sedona ranch where he's entertaining the media and some powerbrokers this weekend. Needless to say, he did use the word while 'refining' his views on withdrawing troops. He also insisted that we had too been greeted as liberators in Iraq. But this boast was the lowlight of the day.

“I’m not going to telegraph a lot of the things that I’m going to do because then it might compromise our ability to do so. But, look, I know the area, I have been there, I know wars, I know how to win wars, and I know how to improve our capabilities so that we will capture Osama bin Laden — or put it this way, bring him to justice…We will do it, I know how to do it.”

One has to ask, if that's true, why he hasn't shared his superior strategy with the Pentagon? Surely, they would be interested in a foolproof method to catch America's most wanted terrorist. Isn't holding back that information, the ultimate in caring more about winning an election than winning the war on terror?

He also reversed his position on affirmative action, bringing Steve Benen's flip-flop list to 70 and it's only July. Steve didn't think it would go that high. I'm betting it will pass 200 by November.

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Declaring victory

By Libby

Well I've been asking for a long time for this and today Michael Totten defines victory in Iraq. I'm not going to bother to dispute what I see as the factual inaccurracies of the post. That ground has been well covered here by the other bloggers but I did find this bit rather curious.

Part of the problem here is that the war in Iraq is usually thought of as a single war in Iraq. But there have been at least three wars in Iraq since 2003 – the U.S.-led war against Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party regime, the civil war between Sunni and Shia militias, and the insurgencies against government and international forces waged by a constellation of guerrilla and terrorist groups. All three wars are distinct from each other, and two of the three are already over. [...]

Did I miss the day when the war mongers admited that there was a civil war going on in Iraq? I thought they were all about denying that there ever was one. But maybe this is a clue.

The civil war between Sunni and Shia militias likewise is over. We know that now because we can look back in hindsight. Not one single person was killed in ethno-sectarian conflict in May or June of this year. That particular conflict had been winding down since December of 2006 when the monthly casualties began freefalling in an almost straight line from a high of more than 2,000 a month down to nothing. Nobody won that war. It’s just over.

So is he saying that we can now acknowledge there was a civil war but it doesn't matter because the Shia and Sunni now are in complete accord and all that's left is the proverbial handful of insurgents? And isn't that what they were saying back in 2003?

Maybe I should stop trying to make sense of what passes for logic in that crowd and just be glad they're willing to declare victory and go home. Not that it appears Maliki left them much of a choice at this point.

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Learning to love tyrants

By Libby

Avedon is on fire today. Everything she linked to is worth reading but these two in particular are likely to fall under the radar.

Nearly everybody loves to hate Hugo Chavez and when he first offered free fuel oil to poor New Englanders, the GOP in New Hampshire thwarted a program that would have offered that relief to their state's economically disadvantaged residents. Apparently, not even Yankee pride can overcome the obvious impossibility of meeting fuel costs this winter and they're now willing to put aside their distaste for Venezuela's president and take him up on his offer.

Meanwhile, since Afghanistan's heroin trade dependency is in the news again, it's useful to remember that Bush gave the Taliban $43 million in May 2001.

Despite the fact the Bush Administration knew the Taliban was hosting Osama Bin Laden's terrorist camps, despite the fact that the U.S. Government had been trying to kill him for several years, the Bush Administration decided to give the Taliban $43 Million in hard, cold cash. For what? The War on Drugs. Yep. That superceded every known fact about the repressive Taliban regime and their special guest, Osama Bin Laden.

Of course, as any drug policy reformer already knows, the Taliban's poppy ban was a scam.

To make matters worse, U.S. officials were naive to take the Taliban edict at face value. The much-touted crackdown on opium poppy cultivation appears to have been little more than an illusion. Despite U.S. and UN reports that the Taliban had virtually wiped out the poppy crop in 2000-2001, authorities in neighboring Tajikistan reported that the amounts coming across the border were actually increasing. In reality, the Taliban gave its order to halt cultivation merely to drive up the price of opium the regime had already stockpiled.

Considering that the total GDP of Afghanistan at the time was about $2 billion, one might say that George Bush helped the Taliban become the threat they are to us today and was at least peripherally responsible for bin Laden's success on 9/11.

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July 26, 2008

Obama shows the audacity of intelligence

By Libby

ABC News is billing this as a private conversation that was picked up on air unbeknowst to Obama and UK Tory Leader David Cameron. Ms. Althouse thinks they were well aware they were being recorded. Maybe they knew. It doesn't really matter. It's still an intelligent conversation, quite a contrast from the candid convos our current Cretin in Chief has at these sort of events.

"That's exactly right," Obama said. "And the truth is that we've got a bunch of smart people, I think, who know ten times more than we do about the specifics of the topics. And so if what you're trying to do is micromanage and solve everything then you end up being a dilettante but you have to have enough knowledge to make good judgments about the choices that are presented to you."

Meanwhile, in case there was any question about why the wingnuts are losing the war of ideas, in the new media, here's Exhibit "A" from one of the more popular blogs in Wingnuttia. This is what they apparently consider smart analysis.

All the anointed one has done for the past year is campaign. Which involves giving the same stump speech once or twice a day and shaking hands with a few people — but mostly it entails a lot of (highly pampered) traveling.

Therefore, campaigning should afford a candidate plenty of time to think.

This is the sort of idiotic commentary that destroys the credibility of the handful of thinking bloggers on the conservative side of the fence.

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July 25, 2008

Giuliani's son sues Duke University

Giuliani_son

By Libby

I'm surprised, considering their long time fixation on the other Duke scandal, that the wingnuttians haven't gone into outrage mode about this story. Surely it's proof of a liberal academian plot against the dreams of a young Republican.

DURHAM - Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has sued Duke University, saying the school breached a $200,000 contract with him by kicking him off the golf team.

The younger Giuliani claims in the court filing to be a victim of a "bizarre 'Lord of the Flies' scheme" by the new coach, who replaced the now deceased coach who recruited him, to kick him off the team for alleged misconduct that included throwing and breaking golf clubs and an altercation with another team member.

For what it's worth, his golf skill isn't an issue. His handicap was a plus-2 in 2007 and at least some of his teammates think he's getting a raw deal. In any event, it appears Andrew's dream of becoming the next Tiger Woods may have ruined. [photo from Duke athletics]

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More signs of the police state

By Libby

Nobody really knows how widely the Bush administration has breached the Fourth Amendment and violated our privacy rights. Maybe we'll never find out, but Salon offers up a disturbing clue here.

According to several former U.S. government officials with extensive knowledge of intelligence operations, Main Core in its current incarnation apparently contains a vast amount of personal data on Americans, including NSA intercepts of bank and credit card transactions and the results of surveillance efforts by the FBI, the CIA and other agencies. One former intelligence official described Main Core as "an emergency internal security database system" designed for use by the military in the event of a national catastrophe, a suspension of the Constitution or the imposition of martial law. Its name, he says, is derived from the fact that it contains "copies of the 'main core' or essence of each item of intelligence information on Americans produced by the FBI and the other agencies of the U.S. intelligence community."

An article in Radar magazine in May, citing three unnamed former government officials, reported that "8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect" and, in the event of a national emergency, "could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and even detention."

There's talk inside the Beltway about forming a body modeled on the Church Committee to investigate White House criminality in the matter. I wonder how much good that will do. If Bush decides to use this against us, he would do it in the next six months. I expect it would take that long just to form the committee.

I suppose with private entities tracking our every move electronically, it's unrealistic to expect the same level of privacy we enjoyed before computerized records. Heck, my computer knows more about my habits than I do. Nonetheless, a database of this magnitude held by our government clearly isn't designed to protect us. It's designed to protect the government from us. [Via Avedon]

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All rogues lead to Rove

By Libby

Shades of Valerie Plame. Brad Blog reports on new developments in Ohio where at least a few people haven't forgotten the voter fraud of 04.

Karl Rove has threatened a GOP high-tech guru and his wife, if he does not "'take the fall' for election fraud in Ohio," according to a letter sent this morning to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, by Ohio election attorney Cliff Arnebeck.

The email, posted in full below, details threats against Mike Connell of the Republican firm New Media Communications, which describes itself on its website as "a powerhouse in the field of Republican website development and Internet services" and having "played a strategic role in helping the GOP expand its technological supremacy."

Epluribusmedia has more. Rove, being a master at covering his tracks, didn't directly deliver the threat to Connell. It was sent by proxy, but the basic message was -- fall on the sword or your wife gets indicted for lobbyist fraud.

Connell, of course, is no angel. His fingerprints are all over every dirty electronic election trick the GOP has managed to get away with in the last several years, but in the interests of justice, I'd be happy to see him get off scot free if it helps to finally nail Rove for his lifelong perfidy.

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July 23, 2008

News you can view

By Libby

Since my colleagues are burning up the blog today with the important news along with their usual stellar analysis, I'm just going to share a few video links I picked as I cruised the intertubes.

Over at the Great Orange Satan, they have embedded videos of Barack in Baghdad. About 3,000 people from bureaucrats to GIs showed up at the embassy to enthusiastically greet Obama and listen to his short speech. But that's become somewhat par for the course. Much more astounding is a clip of Chris "Tweety" Matthews asking America to vote for Obama. You have to see it to believe it.

This new Obama attack ad is devastating. The credits are short, so allow me to point out the perps are those heinous un-Americans, Watertiger, Thers and Dan McEnroe. [Warning: profanity alert. May be NSFW]

On a different note, I never write about gun issues because my views on gun owner's rights lean to the rightwing side. I believe the Second Amendment clearly allows private citizens the right to bear arms, even those hideous "black guns." However, I also believe in far stricter gun control laws than most SA proponents do, and this video is a good illustration of why they're needed. Some people just aren't responsible enough to be trusted with firearms.

Finally, this is the must view video of the year and should be posted far and wide. McCain in his own words...

I believe this is what the McGeezer calls straight talk. [Via a post that should be read in full.]

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July 22, 2008

Fluffing Cindy McCain

By Libby

Yet another fluffer of a profile piece on Cindy McCain in the WaPo. It was so similar to one they ran recently, I had to check the date and make sure I wasn't reading the same piece again. That's okay. I don't really care if the WaPo wants to make the case that Cindy Lou is the perfect Republican political wife but is it too much to ask that traditional journalists like Ms. Copeland learn to use the google? I mean, this is just irritating.

John McCain had much the same reaction at a party in Honolulu in 1979. He was working as a naval liaison to the Senate and, by some accounts, was separated from his wife, Carol Shepp, who'd raised their three children alone during her husband's 5 1/2 years as a North Vietnamese prisoner of war. (Years later, McCain would acknowledge what biographer Robert Timberg called "dalliances" after his return from war. In one of his autobiographies, he would attribute the collapse of his first marriage largely to "my own selfishness and immaturity.")

Emphasis mine. The only people saying McCain was already separated when he was courting Cindy are Ms. Copeland and McCain himself in his memoirs. The court documents tell the true story. "In fact, when McCain obtained a marriage license to marry Cindy, on March 6, 1980, he was still married to Carol — and would be for nearly a month longer."

The first Mrs. McCain isn't talking, but either Cindy knew he was still very much married while he was courting her, or John McCain lied and she believed him. Either way, journalistic ethics would dictate that this be made clear in any account of the current Mr. and Mrs. McCain's history.

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Fight back against unfair credit card practices

By Libby

If you use credit cards, chances are you've been caught by the multitude of rules the industry uses to pad their profits with user fees. I recently got hit with a late fee myself when I forgot that my payment date hit on a Monday holiday and missed the cutoff for electronic payments by an hour. The good news is our government is proposing new regulations to prevent some of the more egregious tricks and you have until August 4th to tell the regulators what you think.

In May, the Federal Reserve proposed a sweeping set of rule changes that would ban a wide set of consumer-unfriendly bank practices. The rules would prevent credit card issuers from charging retroactive rate increases on outstanding balances, for example, and ensure that bills are mailed at least 21 days before the balance is due. It would also make it harder for banks to change overdraft fees in some cases, and clarify a wide set of bank practices that sometimes seem like booby-traps designed to cost consumers.

Industry insiders are using their considerable clout to lobby the regulators and dilute the changes as much as possible. The good news is you can weigh in with counter-arguments by leaving a comment at the Fed's web site. Scroll down to the bottom at the link. You can also leave comments on bank lending and savings practices.

Comments have already reached a nearly record 31,000 but the more the better. They won't know what you think, if you don't tell them.

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July 21, 2008

McCain groping for a campaign message

By Libby

Poor old McCain. Maliki ruined his campaign strategy and now he's left to mumble about how smart he was to support the surge. In making the rounds of the teevee talk shows he repeated this theme about Obama's trip throughout the day.

"He'll be able to have the opportunity to see the success of the surge. It is a success. This is the same strategy that he voted against, railed against," McCain told ABC News' Diane Sawyer.

I'm not going to bother to debate whether the surge was really a success. That notion has been thoroughly debunked by my colleagues here. But, I think McCain is setting a trap for himself. Even if one was inclined to agree that the surge was a success, the surge would not have been necessary at all if we hadn't invaded and occupied Iraq in the first place. Additionally there's reason to think Afghanistan wouldn't be in the mess we're in now, if we had stayed there instead of moving the operations to Iraq.

McCain may have quibbled with the White House over strategy but there's no escaping the fact that he supported the boneheaded policy of invading Iraq in the first place and thus is very much responsible for the disaster that is the Bush Doctrine. If we're to measure judgment calls by outcomes, Obama still comes out way ahead.

On another note, I know my posting has been light here lately. That's due to a number of reasons. I'm having some personal problems that are taking up a lot of time. I've been a little burned out generally and I've been doing most of my McCain bashing at the Detroit News on the premise that those readers need the education more than you well-informed readers here do.

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NYT finds unlikely support in London

By Libby

The outrage of the day in the wingosphere is over the NYT's refusal to publish an op-ed by McCain. I can't bring myself to link directly to Drudge, the King of Sludge, but you can find the link here, where he posts the proposed op-ed, along with links to the winger reactions. I don't blame the NYT for asking for a rewrite.

The op-ed was lame, a typical old geezer whine by McCain. Shockingly, the Times of London. who normally favor the right wing narrative, agrees.

Well, political pieces by elected officials or candidates can often be very boring - safe, unrevealing and tediously partisan. In general I required such pieces to jump over a pretty high importance barrier before I ran them.

Obama's piece vaulted that hurdle. It outlined his views, pretty much avoided point scoring, and dealt with the issue.

McCain's piece, on the other hand, knocked the hurdle over. It wasn't about Iraq. It was about Obama. If I received it I would have done exactly what the NYT did - send it back and ask them to redraft it so that it was about Iraq and was more, well, interesting.

Doubtless, the wingers will continue to rail about media bias for days over this, but their energy might be better spent in helping their candidate rewrite the witless prose to give it some relevancy to the issue, instead trying to sleaze through a free campaign ad.

For myself, I say good for the NYT for standing their ground. For the first time in ages, I have a glimmer of hope that our media might rediscover that their mission is to inform the public instead of acting as campaign cheerleaders.

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July 19, 2008

US Navy steaming to South America

By Libby

I missed this announcement earlier in the month. William Kern at TMV notes South Americans are somewhat alarmed over the resurrection of the U.S. Navy’s Fourth Fleet, which has been in mothballs since the 1950s and is being deployed south of the border. He flags a translated newspaper account from Argentina.

What reason could the United States have, to send such a powerful naval force to a region at peace, without nuclear weapons, without conflict or any real military threats? “They’re never going to admit that it’s because of our natural resources, but it’s no coincidence that this decision comes just as a structural change is underway in the global economy, in which reserves of fresh water, food and energy resources (which our region has in abundance) have assumed such vital strategic value,” said Clarín Khatchik Der Ghougassian, specialist on security issues at the University of San Andrés [Argentina].

This is way out of my realm of knowledge, so I'll leave the analysis to the resident wonks here, but I do find it odd myself and can't fail to notice that the timing seems to coincide with the discovery of the big oil reserves outside of Brazil. I don't blame the South Americans for being nervous.

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Don't you hate when that happens...

By Libby

Following up on Cernig's post, this is amusing. The White House accidentally promoted the story when an staffer who intended to send it to an internal list under the heading "Iraqi PM backs Obama troop exit plan - magazine" apparently pushed the wrong button and sent it to their media list instead. Ouch. Haven't we all done that at least once?

Not that there's any great harm done. One imagines the media would have picked this one up without the help, but I suppose that the last thing the administration wanted to do was draw more attention to the fact that they are suddenly adopting all of Obama's policy positions as their own.

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July 17, 2008

Eating my words

By Libby

Chomp. Chomp. Chomp. Hmmm, could use a little salt... Obama released his June fundraising figures today.

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign raised $52 million in June, his campaign manager said this morning - not quite a record for the high-flying campaign, but close to it. The campaign had raised $55 million in February, during the Democratic primaries. But it's still more than twice what Republican rival Sen. John McCain raised during June -- $22 million.

Guess the FISA effect wasn't all that I thought it would be and I'm happy to be proved wrong. Meanwhile, McCain is obviously pulling in big bucks donations and will probably continue to do so from the big business interests that would love to own the next president.

I think I'll make that donation to Obama now. His framing has been a whole lot better in his speeches lately and if you need more incentive, I understand if you donate any amount before the end of the month, you're in a contest to be one of ten people that get to be Obama's guest at the convention, which includes a spot backstage when he makes his acceptance speech. Can't get a better seat than that for the festivities. And you get to bring a friend.

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Obama v. McCain - the myth of media bias

By Libby

I see the McCain camp is whining that Obama gets more coverage than he does in the media. Apparently he does.

The imbalance has appeared in various analyses of the news coverage. The Tyndall Report, a news coverage monitoring service that has the broadcast networks as clients, reports that three newscasts by the traditional networks — which have a combined audience of more than 20 million people — spent 114 minutes covering Obama since June; they spent 48 minutes covering McCain.

However, the difference is that at least fully half the coverage on Obama is spent obsessing about his negatives, as they perceive them, and McCain gets a fluffer from the press almost every blessed time, no matter how badly he stumbles or how often he contradicts himself. And I'd like to see how many minutes they devoted to Iraq. I'd bet it was under ten. Additionally, I'd like to see the stats on the coverage of the ongoing revelations about White House criminality. I'd be willing to bet those stories didn't get any significant time either.

Not that it will stop the usual suspects from using this piece to "prove" bias towards the Democratic party in the "liberal press."  Which I suppose explains why they devoted so much ink to Hillary's new hairdo.

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July 16, 2008

Building a bigger police state

By Libby

If you still think that the US is not slipping slowly into totalitarianism, this is the must read of the day. The police state is knocking at our door. China is leading the way with the help of US corporations with their own version of homeland security called Golden Shield.

This is how this Golden Shield will work: Chinese citizens will be watched around the clock through networked CCTV cameras and remote monitoring of computers. They will be listened to on their phone calls, monitored by digital voice-recognition technologies. Their Internet access will be aggressively limited through the country's notorious system of online controls known as the "Great Firewall." Their movements will be tracked through national ID cards with scannable computer chips and photos that are instantly uploaded to police databases and linked to their holder's personal data. This is the most important element of all: linking all these tools together in a massive, searchable database of names, photos, residency information, work history and biometric data. When Golden Shield is finished, there will be a photo in those databases for every person in China: 1.3 billion faces.

It's the ultimate tool for population control. It was used in the recent protests in Tibet in conjuction with local police and state friendly media. It's being built with the help of corporations like L-1 Identity Solutions, a major U.S. defense contractor that produces passports and biometric security systems for the U.S. government, who managed to find a loophole in the prohibition against providing such technology.

The company intitally denied any involvement and when confronted with proof of its business dealings, refused to comment. They already have their own database of 60 million records of Americans. And L-1 is not the only company interested in breaking into the Chinese surveillance state market. GE, IBM, UT and of course, Google and Yahoo have all done trade related in some way Golden Shield. The financial incentives to break into a global market worth an estimated $200 billion are great. China alone is estimated at $33 billion. What's a little human suppression compared to that kind of dough?

But that's in China and we're not like them, you say? Think again.

Empowered by the Patriot Act, many of the big dreams hatched by men like Atick have already been put into practice at home. New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., are all experimenting with linking surveillance cameras into a single citywide network. Police use of surveillance cameras at peaceful demonstrations is now routine, and the images collected can be mined for "face prints," then cross-checked with ever-expanding photo databases. Although Total Information Awareness was scrapped after the plans became public, large pieces of the project continue, with private data-mining companies collecting unprecedented amounts of information about everything from Web browsing to car rentals, and selling it to the government.

The Fourth Amendment prohibition against illegal search and seizure used to protect us from this sort of infringement but thanks to a power mad administration and the spineless legislative branch that enabled them, that's no longer true. We don't even have redress in the courts any more. As the NYT reported yesterday:

President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-to-4 decision.

Think about that. The president has the power to declare any US citizen or legal resident an enemy of the state and can hold then indefinitely without charge. And don't hope for technology to save you. When the protests started in Tibet, the Chinese government limited or blocked access to the internet, blocked phone calls and assembled their most wanted list from surveillance tapes, which were duly publicized by their media. They didn't even need to send in the storm troopers to gain control.

You don't need a crystal ball to see that China's present is our future. [hat tip to our invaluable researcher, Kat]

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July 15, 2008

Conference call with David Walker

By Libby

Frankly, I can't imagine why I was invited, but I sat in on a conference call this afternoon with former US Comptroller General Dave Walker, who is now the CEO of The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a new non-partisan think tank that's on a billion dollar mission to wake up America to its pending fiscal crisis. Considering that one its partners is Ross Perot, I wasn't expecting much.

Surprisingly, I found myself mostly in agreement with his broad definition of the problems but the presentation was a bit vague on solutions. I wasn't planning on talking myself, but I ended up rudely monopolizing the call by pressing for details. I was surprised they didn't cut me off sooner.

But even there I found more common ground than I expected. Hard to find fault with the idea of teaching children fiscal and civic responsibility and discouraging rampant consumerism. And demanding accountability from politicians is an easy sell. However, his big hobby horse is the dreaded entitlement programs.

I don't disagree Medicare is the biggest money pit and his suggestion to have a national standard of care is good one in terms of protecting doctors from lawsuits when it comes to end of life decisions. It may sound callous, but it doesn't really make sense to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a 90+ year old with multiple medical problems, simply to give them a few more weeks or months of a diminished life. That's true no matter how the health care system is funded.

However, we diverged from there. I thought he put too much onus on the citzenry and not enough on the corporate exploitation of the system. He's sharply critical of the Medicare prescription benefit plan but when I pointed out that that atrocity was written for the benefit of the pharma corps, he made some vague illusions to long term reform of the election process. In fact, despite having grilled him for 15 minutes, I came away with no real specifics on their proposed solutions.

I left with the impression that the Foundation has some worthy goals but will be pushing an agenda towards privitatization. Certainly single payer health insurance isn't in their lexicon. Still I was impressed by his willingness to engage me in discussion. He's a good speaker and he comes across as genuinely concerned. You can see for yourself in this 60 Minutes segment.

As to whether he's overstating the problems, I'm no wonk, I don't know. But I have a feeling The Foundation's movie may convince a few people that there is one. Watch the trailer for yourself and see what you think.

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Under the cover

By Libby

I'm already tired of hearing about the New Yorker cover but the debate is still raging on all over the place so I'll share a few last thoughts. I didn't think it was funny. Good drawing. Bad satire. My friend Jules shows us how it could have been done better.

Jonathan Alter makes a good case for those who are arguing that it perpetuates the meme rather than succeeding in mocking it. That's probably true, but I don't know that it matters much. Those who are convinced about the veracity of the smears aren't likely to be swayed by logic or truth. The anecdotal evidence for that is this comment left on a listserv I'm on.

I've already had it sent to me a dozen times by wingers claiming it's proof that even the Liberal New Yorker knows what Obama's REALLY like, and that all the Democrats WANT this because they're all anti-american proMuslim terrorists...

But the best critique I've seen came from the imcomparable Jon Swift. Now he's funny. As they say, read it all, but here's a quick clip.

The illustration might also have been acceptable if the New Yorker ran it on the inside of the magazine where people who are sensitive to mockery would not have run across it casually on a newsstand. Or they might also have enclosed this issue in a brown paper bag the way pornographic magazines sometimes are to keep it away from the eyes of children and people with heart trouble (how many children have been traumatized for life and how many deaths this cover has caused will only be known in the coming weeks). While the cover may have met the community standards of a place like New York where people apparently don't mean what they say, there are some parts of the country where satire is just not acceptable in public.

Meanwhile, while all the chatter is over the cover, I wonder how many people have bothered to read the article? I suspect not many.

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July 13, 2008

SOFA agreement snags on details

By Libby

If this is true, I'm enormously relieved to hear that Bush has been thwarted in saddling the next administration with his self-serving goals for the Middle East via the SOFA agreement. Following up on Ron's post, it appears that the Iraqi government not only wants to take control of the Green Zone, they want to assert their sovereignty over the whole country.

The WaPo is reporting that negotiations over the SOFA have stalled and are unlikely to be resolved before the next president takes office. The sticking points are enormous.

In May, Iraqi and foreign media published U.S. negotiators' demands that one administration official now describes as "frankly unrealistic," including unilateral control over U.S. combat and detainee operations, immunity for U.S. personnel from Iraqi prosecution, and control over Iraqi airspace. Additional accounts outlined a list of 58 separate military installations that would remain under U.S. control.

The emphasis is mine, but I find it significant that the WaPo described the coverage in those terms. It's just one more indicator of the failure of the US media to properly inform Americans about what this administration is doing behind their backs. Granted this was covered to some extent in the US newspapers but I believe the teevee news barely mentioned it. Small wonder the average low-info voter isn't as alarmed as we are about the steady destrtuction of our system of government. I expect most Americans don't even know that Bush has been negotiating a long term binding agreement without the endorsement of Congress.

The negotiations have now moved to trying to hammer out a short term pact to keep US troops in the country through 2009. It's ironic that Maliki feels bound by stricter parameters than our own president does.

According to U.S. officials, Maliki also hopes that a temporary protocol would circumvent the full parliamentary review and two-thirds vote he has promised for a status-of-forces agreement. "He is trying to figure out, just as we did, how you can set up an agreement between the two and have it be legally binding," one official said, "but not go through the legislative body."

I guess the Iraqis, have higher expectations that their leaders follow the rule of law than Americans do. I suppose it's easier to pay attention since they can't just slap on the iPods and go shopping at the mall to distract themselves. And their media apparently reports on issues of import instead of spending days obsessing about the musings of bit players peripherally connected to their leaders.

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July 12, 2008

The FISA effect on fundraising

By Libby

I'm finding it curious that Obama hasn't released the June fundraising figures yet. I'm figuring the numbers are dismal or they would have done so by now, particularly in light of McCain's numbers looking good. In fact, I'm wondering if he came out with less than McCain for the month.

The WaPo said yesterday Obama's internet contributions have slowed. This is no doubt partly due to the usual summer slump in fundraising for everything and also partly due to the dynamics of campaigns in general. Nell, in comments, flagged this from TPM that describes that last point well.

But small dollar giving seems highly dependent on the intensity of the moment and the spikes of the campaign cycle. During the heat of the Obama-Clinton battle, giving money was one of the most direct ways supporters around the country could participate in the fight -- except when the campaign trundled into their states. And that applies to both campaigns since, by any standard other than up against Obama, Clinton's 2008 monthly numbers were astounding too. [...]

Perhaps too, when you hear that Obama's going to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, that the sense of participation you get from sending in your $25 isn't quite as great.

Good points but as Nell rightly notes, Josh ignores the FISA factor and by that I don't mean just FISA, although I think that's the most important, but the change in the way that Obama is framing the debate by more and more embracing conventional wisdom narratives instead of challenging them. It makes him look weak. The public is tired of the GOP's dirty tactics but they still want a fight, albeit a fair one. The more he embraces the same old centrist-bipartisan schtick that has resulted in a Congressional approval rating in the single digits, the more that earlier enthusiam dims.

The enthusiam that Obama generated among the young and first time older voters arose from the perception he was offering something completely different and had the courage to stand up to the entrenched interests inside the Beltway. Centrist rhetoric doesn't convey that same courage. I think the newly energized voters that drove his moneymaking machine feel betrayed by it and are not only closing their wallets, they're likely to stay home in November.

It's not too late to change that dynamic, but if Obama's 50 state strategy becomes a 50% plus one game instead, I have a bad feeling we're all going to lose.

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July 11, 2008

Simple answers to stupid questions

By Libby

First Read in a long and whining post about this A.D.D. election season and how peripheral nonsense is dominating the coverage, asks:

But seriously, can either of these candidates get the message THEY want out there for even a 48 hour period?

Well no, not as long as all you wankers in the media decide to brew up imaginary scandals 24/7 instead of -- you know -- covering the substantive issues.

Ironically the post goes on to prattle at length about the nonsense. And by the way, am I the only one that missed the outrage over Michelle Obama's earrings? I never saw a word about it.

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Texas justice: Arrest first - investigate later

By Libby

The backstory: A teenager who apparently has a bad temper got into some trouble and was ordered into community service. He fulfilled that obligation by working for MADD, who had him out delivering cookies to police stations. The cops found this suspicious.

Phillips, 18, was arrested Tuesday after Lake Worth officers smelled marijuana in the basket and their preliminary tests detected LSD, Chief Brett McGuire said.

I'd like to know what kind of test they did. Granted it's been a long time since I've been part of the drug culture but while I remember drinks being laced with it, I don't recall that LSD could be baked into cookies. I would think the heat would render it useless. In any event, it was a false alarm.

[L]ab results released late Thursday afternoon confirm that no drugs were present in any of the cookies. L. Patrick Davis said initial tests found no traces of LSD inside the cookies taken to police in Lake Worth, where Christian V. Phillips remained jailed on $75,000 bond on a charge of tampering with a consumer product. In the wake of the test results, Lake Worth Police dropped the charges against Phillips.

Whether or not this will prevent Phillips from clearing his record on the initial offense that left him delivering cookies in the first place remains to be seen. He would have fulfilled the terms of the agreement with the court on the day after his erroneous arrest on this charge. Ironically he was ordered into an anger management class as a result of that first offense. I have a feeling he's going to need all the anger management he can get after this incident.

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July 10, 2008

FISA fight far from over

By Libby

We may have lost the Senate vote on FISA but as my first husband was fond of saying -- payback's a bitch. The feckless fools that didn't think it was important to stand up for the Constitution will find there is a price to be paid for their complicity. And those who courageously took up the battle on the front lines will be rewarded. Digby has the details on how the Blue America PAC will be using their funds to do both.

Obama, as he and we well know, will not be punished in this effort even though he let us down tremendously. Neither will he be rewarded. Rather than receive rich praise, he will continue to reap criticism unless he finds a way to communicate his constitutional stance much more forcefully on the side of civil rights and the rule of law. Slate publishes a good article along those lines that offers some sound advice to the candidate, including this about his rhetoric on the Supreme Court.

Obama doesn't have to stumble here. Nor should he maintain the curious silence that leaves his supporters wondering about his constitutional values. A growing number of Americans believe the Roberts Court is too conservative. Polls indicate that the public likes progressive judicial results: The public responds favorably to questions asking whether judges should strongly protect civil rights and civil liberties, rule for the powerless over the powerful, and ensure broad access to justice. Put simply, Americans want to live in Justice Stevens' America, not in Clarence Thomas'.

If McCain genuinely thinks it's smart politics to run against the Warren Court in 2008, Obama simply needs to run against the Roberts Court. He must promise to nominate Supreme Court justices who will protect civil liberties, civil rights, and ensure equal access to courts and justice. He needs to talk and talk about these issues not because these are tender, liberal values he wants his judges to share, but because they are values enshrined in the Constitution, values that have been corroded and neglected in recent years.

Digby also sums up what's been bothering me about Barack's style in the last few weeks.

One of the things I had been hoping the Obama campaign would do was creatively frame the agenda on new terms rather than the old reliable issue matrix. It's not easy to do it because people see politics in a sort of shorthand and it's hard to change years of conservative propaganda in one go. But I did think that an election where the other side has been completely discredited and we have a candidate of unusual rhetorical gifts it would have been possible to do it. Certainly, it would have fit the change theme.

That's it exactly. It's hard to believe in change when you don't see any. He's not directing the debate at all at this point. He's building the conventional narrative instead. Not good.

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FISA: don't get mad...

By Libby

Do something, like signing the ACLU's ad.

It's outrageous, unconstitutional and un-American. That's why the ACLU is prepared to challenge this law the moment George Bush signs it -- and you can rest assured, they'll be meeting our lawyers in court.

Our lawsuit will send a powerful message to those in Congress who played it safe when they had the opportunity to defend the Constitution. You can join the ACLU in sending that message by signing on to our ad letting Congress know that if they won't stand up for freedom, you and the ACLU will.

We'll be taking out a full-page ad in a major national newspaper announcing our lawsuit and expressing our outrage at this abandonment of Constitutional principles. Our goal is to run an ad that contains the names of tens of thousands of Americans who believe in the Constitution and want Congress to hear us loud and clear: next time, stand up for our rights.

Then you might want to click over to Avedon's post and get some possible good news about impeachment.

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July 09, 2008

Well, the FISA fight is over

By Libby

There's a lot that could be said about this but I'm going to outsource all the talking to Glenn and my consolations to Dan, who also thoughtfully provides a soundtrack for the victors. I'll simply say thanks to everybody who worked to defeat this abomination.

We did good to get as far as we did with the Democrats we had to work with. Next step is to get some better Democrats.

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Priceless hypocrisy

By Libby

My friend Jules sent me this little item from Wingnuttia Central. It seems Fox News runs regular interviews with the so-called PUMAs, whom I'm sure you know are the remaining disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters. Last night on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°, “businesswoman Lynn Forester,” said this about Barack Obama:

“This is a hard decision for me personally because, frankly, I don’t like him. I feel like he is an elitist. I feel like he has not given me reason to trust him.”

And who is “businesswoman Lynn Forester,” you ask? Not your average businesswoman to be sure.

Some background: Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild was introduced to her husband British banking financier Sir Evelyn Robert Adrian de Rothschild by Henry Kissinger at the Bilderberg conference in ‘98. Portfolio labeled her “the flashiest hostess in London.” She’s “mistress” of the Ascott House, the 3,200-acre Rothschild family estate in Buckinghamshire. She’s on the board of Estée Lauder. She’s friends with Tony and Cherie Blair and other big-moneyed Brits, including the utterly corrupt Conrad Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel. She also owns what has been described as “the most beautiful apartment in New York”.

Anybody care to wager that she's supporting John McCain now? Video at the link.

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How the social safety net once saved me

By Libby

In my ongoing quest to lower my blood pressure, I've stopped reading the pundits that tend to raise it alarmingly with inane or intemperate rhetoric, relying instead on those bloggers who have a higher tolerance to keep me informed on their latest drivel. But those on my DNR (do not read) list do occassionally burst forth with something worth passing on and today it's David Gerson at the WaPo talking about the food stamp program.

Hunger exacts a social cost. Hungry adults miss more work and consume more health care. Hungry children tend to be sicker, absent from school more often and more prone to getting into more trouble. Larry Brown of the Harvard School of Public Health calculates that the total price tag of hunger to American society is about $90 billion a year. In contrast, Brown estimates it would only cost about $10 billion to $12 billion a year to "virtually end hunger in our nation."

And this raises a moral issue. We have in place an automated food stamp program that is generally efficient and effective. We know it could be expanded with little increase in overhead. And we know with precision when its benefit runs out each month. So how is it then possible to justify funding three weeks of food instead of four? What additional dependence, what added moral hazard could a full month of eating possibly create?

Many social problems seem complex beyond hope. But dramatic progress against hunger is not. There are many explanations why this effort has not been undertaken -- but there are no good excuses.

I had no idea they had computerized the program but I think that's a really good thing. I assume they got rid of those awful booklets, meant I suppose to resemble travellers checks, that fooled no one in the check out line. I expect they use some kind of debit card now, which is good for tracking certainly and also spares the recipients some embarrassment.

I know that embarrassment having once been on welfare for several months when my first husband was badly burned in an accident. He was self-employed as a carpenter and obviously couldn't work and neither could I since someone had to be there to change his dressings every three hours, a process made more labor intensive because he didn't respond to the Silvadene therapy and I had to cook up saline solutions every day.

I can't begin to tell you how awful it feels to see someone you know in the checkout line when you had to whip out your foodstamps in order to eat. And they always ran out before the end of the month, no matter how frugal you were. It was the most horrible time in my life, yet without the assistance of that safety net, we would have starved. And they're not exactly free. You spend a lot of time in the welfare office regularly reviewing your needs.

You hear a lot about welfare queens, and grumbling about people who look fit enough to work, living off the system. Certainly I fit that profile but in the long hours I spent in those offices, most of the women there were like me. Caught up in a situation over which they had no control and doing the best they could to ensure their minor children wouldn't unduly suffer more from it than they were already. We couldn't wait until the day we would be able to burn our welfare cards.

Gerson is right. We have a moral obligation to help our fellow Americans when they're in trouble and those who would seek to punish the few freeloaders who cheat the system by abolishing such programs would do well to consider that who they're really hurting are the innocent children and their families who have no other choice. [via]

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July 08, 2008

Fake access to McCain conference calls

By Libby

McCain likes to play up his 'straight talking' creds with his town meetings, where he does occassionally face a tough questioner that somehow escapes the pre-screening of attendees before they ever get into the building. Apparently, not all of them carry signs. And he's made a big show of reaching out to liberal bloggers on his campaign's conference calls. But it appears they're only allowed to listen in. David Corn presents some compelling evidence that they are screening out questions from unfriendly reporters on his campaign conference calls.

His theory is backed up by TPM reporter-blogger Eric Kleefeld, who often sits in on these calls. He says "that his sense is that more of the questions that do end up getting asked come from friendly news outlets, though there are definitely occasions where tougher ones get posed. Kleefeld adds, however, that he has frequently tried to ask a question and never gotten through."

The McCain campaign refused to answer Corn's query but they did sort of deny his claim to TPM. However, as Corn points out it was hardly an unequivocal denial and there is the long pause between when the questions are submitted and when they start answering is suspicious, particularly when known to be friendly right wing bloggers appear to getting through quite easily. Kind of a handy way to pretend to be open to all points of view while controlling the message.

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Strange Bedfellows

Become a StrangeBedfellow! By Libby [links repaired]

I'm fighting off the effects of the mother of all migraine headaches today so I'm going to beg my collegeaues indulgence and just cross post this from my own little blog. Once I could stand to look at the computer today, I poked around the internets and managed to pull myself together enough to join the Strange Bedfellows. I'd urge you to do the same.

This is the coalition that formed to fight the FISA cave-in and is part of a larger effort. You can join as a sponsor at this link. They've already been running ads. Glenn has a pdf of the latest one that ran today in the front section of the WaPo. He also tells us the vote has been postponed until tomorrow and there's a new amendment on the table today. "The Bingaman amendment would merely postpone the granting of telecom immunity until 90 days after Congress receives the Inspector General's audits of the President's NSA spying program which the new FISA bill mandates, and would freeze the telecom lawsuits in place until then." You might want to contact your senseless Senators and urge them to at least vote for that one.

They'll probably ignore it but at least they'll know we're watching. As always, Jane has more on this and the upcoming money bomb for August 8th. Do what you can.

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July 07, 2008

Final showdown on FISA

By Libby

The vote is scheduled for tomorrow so it's time for one last push to try and browbeat our feckless Senators into upholding the rule of law. Christy has the latest tools. I'm sure you need no further instructions outside of this info.

We are asking Senators to vote IN FAVOR of the Dodd-Feingold-Leahy Amendment (S.A. 5064 to H.R. 6304). We're asking for a NO vote on cloture, and a NO vote on the final bill as well.

Be sure to include this in your communcations, since I've found the staff is often woefully uninformed on what legislation is pending. So call, send a free fax, or just send an email but do it today -- please.

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July 06, 2008

The other side of child rape and the death penalty

By Libby

In light of a missed precedent, a WaPo editorial today says SCOTUS should rehear the recent child rape case and review their decision to forbid execution of the perpetrator to take into account "national opinion about the death penalty," and "accurately assess the view of the national legislature." Maybe they should, if only to acknowledge the missed case law but if they do so, then they should also acknowledge the needs of the victims, who have been woefully overlooked in the debate over this issue.

I've read thousands of words about this decision, much of it harshly critical of the court, but the two opinions that moved me the most were two courageous accounts of personal experience as victims of child abusers. The last thing they would have wanted was for their abusers to be executed. Both should be read in full but let me pull out a couple of pertinent quotes.

Barry Crimmins, whom I know personally, was viciously abused and says this:

I wouldn't have wanted my rapist put out of his own misery and into mine. I started life without blood on my hands and I aim to keep it that way. Had the man who raped me on numerous occasions not died in prison while serving his third term for sexually abusing very young boys, I might have gone to see him. My personal revenge would have been to show him that I did not become what I resisted, that I hadn't grown into a cruel and heartless man. I would have told him that he inflicted a burden upon me that almost killed me, and not just when I was nearly asphyxiated during his savage assaults. I'd have told him of the encumbrance I dragged along with me for decades that, through hard work, I had managed to lighten. In short, I would tell him that although he inflicted a lot of pain upon me, he had not succeeded in ruining me. Then I would tell him that I was sorry that he had such a miserable and wasted life. Finally, I would ask him why he thought he had ended up doing the things he did. Maybe I would have discovered some context for the man, even if I had to sort it out of the manipulative lies for which pedophiles are deservedly notorious.

Avedon in an equally eloquent post also tells us that capital punishment would not have felt like justice served for herself.

But I do know that I'm glad no one was executed "on my behalf" to satisfy adults who, as usual, would have been more interested in their own outrage than in my needs. That would only have added to the burden. [...]

I'll tell you what's pretty horrible and shocking, though: having the authorities asking you a lot of prurient questions because they are so obsessed with "getting the guy that did it" that they completely overlook what it's doing to you. I hated that.

Both overcame their trauma. I imagine it was difficult but to have also had to bear the burden of knowing, as a child, that someone was executed because of them I think would only have doubled the trauma. So what purpose would have served in executing their abusers? I'd say none.

My colleague, Capt Fogg put it very eloquently in a post at our place and again, should be read in full but here's the money quote.

Yes, I would love to inflict a great deal of suffering on people who rape children. Given the opportunity I probably would, but I do not try to fool myself that I'm talking about justice. I want revenge because revenge feels good and if feels good because like anyone who reads this, I am an animal and the heir to a host of animal instincts and emotions. Instinct is expressed as the urge to do what feels good. Somehow I believe that justice needs more justification than that.

Capital punishment is never the right answer, no matter how heinous the crime. There's no definitive evidence that proves it's a deterrent and there's ample instances of many people now being exonerated by DNA evidence after being wrongly convicted of terrible crimes and spending long years in prison. We can release them and make some reparation for robbing them of their freedom; none can be made for taking an innocent life.

Capital punishment doesn't protect us from criminals and it diminishes us as a society. Killing under sanction of the state makes us all murderers. Where's the justice in that?

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On the run again

By Libby

Our overseas White House steno of record, the Times of London, recounts the latest US-Iraqi offensive, Operation Lion's Roar, in Mosul. They went in looking for insurgents and a big bomb rumored to be stored there. They found neither but the Times breathlessly announces this is clear proof, "the insurgents are on the run." Hmmm. When have I heard that before?

5/25/2008
April 14, 2008
March 24, 2008
1-10-2008
November 30, 2007
October 01, 2007
9/28/2007
July 10, 2007
24 June 2007
Jun 28, 2005
April 26, 2005
November 18, 2004
11-17-04
Jan. 14, 1980 [This one is the Russians talking about their occupation of Afghanistan]

Every get the feeling that the insurgents plan is to keep us running in circles? This from the current Times article sums it up perfectly.

The last word was left to the beleaguered people of Mosul. Sa’ad Aziz, 47, stood in his shop, with ice-cream in the freezer and fizzy drinks and sweets on the shelves, watching the search for the Zanjali bomb in virtual darkness because there was no electricity.

His concerns were far removed from Al-Qaeda’s jihad: “We have only two hours of electricity out of 10. I need it for my business. There is only a little water in this area. We need jobs. My son has a university degree but he has no work. We’re all very tired of this insurgency.”

Not to worry Sa'ad Aziz. Our experts assure us those insurgents are on the run and we're going to turn that corner any time now.

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July 05, 2008

Portents of the police state

Jackboots By Libby

Fascism doesn't arrive overnight. By design, it creeps in by increments. Every week brings something new.

A recently passed law requires that Texas computer-repair technicians have a private-investigator license, according to a story posted by a Dallas-Fort Worth CW affiliate.

In order to obtain said license, technicians must receive a criminal justice degree or participate in a three-year apprenticeship. Those shops that refuse to participate will be forced to shut down. Violators of the new law can be hit with a $4,000 dollar fine and up to a year in jail, penalties that apply to customers who seek out their services.

I can't think of any reason for this rule other than to shut down small entrepeneurs and to facilitate searches of your hard drive when you bring it in for repairs. I assume the PI license would validate evidence obtained in such a search in some way.

Even more disturbing is this wider surveillance program deputizing municipal employees and utility workers as quasi-Homeland Security agents.

Hundreds of police, firefighters, paramedics and even utility workers have been trained and recently dispatched as “Terrorism Liaison Officers” in Colorado and a handful of other states to hunt for “suspicious activity” — and are reporting their findings into secret government databases. [...]

“Suspicious activity” is broadly defined in TLO training as behavior that could lead to terrorism: taking photos of no apparent aesthetic value, making measurements or notes, espousing extremist beliefs or conversing in code, according to a draft Department of Justice/Major Cities Chiefs Association document.

A lot of room for interpretation in those rules. Think about that. They're building a citizen's surveillance system with such broad parameters that any ordinary dissenter could fit the profile.

This is how they build the state. No one thing is so alarming as to to seem worth causing a fuss over. But taken in the aggregate, it quietly grows into totalitarianism.

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Celebrating 35 years of epic failure

By Libby

I'm a couple of days late in wishing the DEA an unhappy anniversary. Brainchild of Richard Nixon, the agency was created 35 years ago when Tricky Dick declared an open war on drugs. "At its outset, the DEA had 1,470 Special Agents and a budget of less than $75 million. Furthermore, in 1974, the DEA had 43 foreign offices in 31 countries. Today, the DEA has 5,235 Special Agents, a budget of more than $2.3 billion and 86 foreign offices in 62 countries."

What has the agency accomplished in these three and a half decades? Not much besides laying the groundwork for our budding present day police state, where it's considered patriotic in certain influential circles to support the abridgement of civil liberties in the name of false safety.

Meanwhile, a NYT editorial didn't mark this sad anniversary but did note the failure of the war on some drugs this week and correctly stated, "Over all, drug abuse must be seen more as a public health concern and not primarily a law enforcement problem. Until demand is curbed at home, there is no chance of winning the war on drugs." I would amend that to say drug abuse myself.

Today, a LAT op-ed goes them one better and looks at the costs of this failed 'war.'

The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition -- with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind.

These would be the drug lords, street gangs and terrorist groups, all of whom benefit from the tax-free profits of the black market created under prohibition. On the law enforcement side, the beneficiaries are politicians who talk tough on drugs to get elected, but legislate dumb in terms of solving addiction and abuse problems, the professional prohibitionists like those in the DEA and assorted private groups like Drug Free America and corporations that sell urine tests for example and last, but certainly not least, the prison-industrial complex which benefits greatly from the largest prison system in the entire world. Few lobbyist groups are as powerful as the prison guard union. The LAT op-ed gets it exactly right.

Ending drug prohibition, taxing and regulating drugs and spending tax dollars to treat addiction and dependency are the approaches that many of the world's industrialized countries are taking. Those approaches are ones that work.

Approaches the US is unwilling to embrace as long as there is so much profit to made in 'fighting drugs.' The beneficiaries of bad policy have no incentive to 'win' this 'war.' Until non-consuming citizens understand that these failed policies are doing much more harm than the use of illegal drugs themselves and call for an end to prohibition and its associated negative social costs, we will continue to waste tax dollars that could could be much better spent on badly needed social and civic programs that would better civil society instead of slowly destroying it. [h/t to TalkLeft and Media Awareness Project]

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July 04, 2008

What Didn't Happen

By Libby

Krugman puts on his media critic hat today with a good op-ed on the manufactured outrage over Wes Clark's wholly correct statement that McCain's experience as a POW does not qualify him for the presidency and other media manufactured myths. It's a good piece but Paul is a bit more optimistic than me about the future.

Since then, however, both the press and the Obama campaign seem to have recovered some of their balance. Opinion pieces have started to appear pointing out that General Clark didn’t say what he’s accused of saying. Mr. Obama has also declared that General Clark doesn’t owe Mr. McCain an apology for his “inartful” remarks and denies that his own condemnation, in a speech given on Monday, of those who “devalue” military service was aimed at the general.

Furthermore, my sense, though it’s hard to prove, is that the press is feeling a bit ashamed about the way it piled on General Clark. If so, news organizations may think twice before buying into the next fake scandal.

If so, the campaign has just taken a major turn in Mr. Obama’s favor. After all, if this campaign isn’t dominated by faux outrage over fake scandals, it will have to be about things that really did happen, like a failed economic policy and a disastrous war — both of which Mr. McCain promises will continue if he wins.

Right. Tell that to the horrendous Joe Scarborough and the equally despicable Andrea Mitchell. I'm sure we'll be hearing their mea culpas any day now....

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Happy Independence Day

Fireworks_flag2_2 By Libby

A safe and happy holiday to all. Don't over imbibe and drive and while you're resting up from the fireworks tomorrow, you might want to keep the celebration going by contacting your Senate sneaks and asking them to honor the occassion, and our Founding Fathers, by upholding the Constitution and protecting the Fourth Amendment.

Dan makes it easy to send them a message and you could pass along some of his suggestions if you find yourself at a loss for words.

And while you're at it, hug your favorite rabblerousers today.

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July 03, 2008

Barack answers FISA critics

By Libby

Obama posted a statement on his website in response to the group there that is organizing in protest of his current position on the FISA capititulation bill. I thought it pretty much stunk. He says he'll "work with" Dodd and Bingaman to strike the telecom immunity, whatever that means, but otherwise he's just repeating the same misguided justifications he's been giving all week.

The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.

And what exactly will come of that? It may well have exposed wrongdoing but it's not accountability. There's no consequence outside of temporary embarrassment and the perps just deny everything and go on their merry malfeasant way to continue to flaunt the law. He also repeats this canard.

The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I'm persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe -- particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention -- once I’m sworn in as President -- to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.

For the love of God, somebody send the man Glenn Greenwald's URL so he can grasp that we know this is not true and so should he. It's difficult to believe he doesn't know he's selling a load of BS. Judging from as far as I got in the comments, the true believers are buying it. But the few netrooters that weighed in that section aren't and note well that he won't lose our vote over it, but he is losing our respect and our enthusiasm. As one commenter put it so succinctly, we don't want a lesser of two evils candidate. We want to be proud to cast our vote for the next president.

I'll give him props for answering his critics directly but he's not making me proud right now. I'm withholding the campaign donation I intended to make from my stimulus check -- which I just received. Looking around the netroots I'm not the only one. I see even Kos is withholding money on the same premise. No one is feeling keen to reward bad behavior.

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Another Bush crony resigns suddenly

By Libby

This story barely made a blip on the radar today, but I'm finding this abrupt resignation of a long time Bush crony curious.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin will be leaving his job this month, according to White House spokesperson Dana Perino. [...]

Hagin, an Ohio native, has been with President Bush since the 2000 campaign. Combined with experience during the first Bush presidency, Hagin has served 14 years in the White House.

Hagin was a behind-the-scenes player, who had a huge role in the post 9/11 reorganization of the U-S government and how terrorist responses would be reformed.

What do make of that dear readers? I don't recall anyone resigning who wasn't either about to be indicted for something or who wasn't suddenly struck by fear of retribution for actively participating in activities they knew were illegal. Considering the vast amount of illegal practices instituted in the aftermath of 9/11, I'm wondering what Mr. Hagin knows, that we don't.

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Full frontal assault on FISA capitulation

By Libby

As my favorite pundit in the world, Yogi Berra, once said, "It ain't over till it's over" and the activists are in overdrive this week in organizing the opposition to the impending sellout of the rule of the law in the Senate on FISA. As usual, FDL is leading the charge and today's post consolidates the current actions. They're busier than the shoemaker's elves over there and have invented a new call tool from Blue America that makes it easier than ever to make those phone calls and more importantly to track the results on the feedback. They also conjured up a much needed tool to track public appearances of our Congresslizards while they're at home in our districts and offer some practical actions we can take to focus attention on pending issues.

Meanwhile, at the GOS, McJoan has additional actions that have the potential to greatly impact the debate. My favorite comes from my old pal Ben.

One option for fulfilling your duty as a private citizen is Ben Masel's Operation Read the Bill. Print a copy of the bill, find your Senators while they are home during this recess--the 4th of July recess, no less--and ask them if they've done their duty of reading the bill. Ask them if they know that they're about to redefine the term "WMD" to possibly include many weapons that the U.S. military uses. Ask them if they know they are about to cede even more of their power--the power of protecting us, their constituents, from unlawful surveillance--to the executive.

Finally, in case you missed it, Russ Feingold issued a terrific statement on the FISA mess earlier in the week.

The outpouring of support from you and across the country, in letters and e-mails and phone calls and the blogs has been absolutely fantastic. It really made a difference, as we mounted a challenge this week that almost nobody thought could work. We did stop this thing for now -- it is delayed until after the July 4th weekend.

I teased some of my colleagues...I said, we can celebrate the constitution on July 4th, and when we come back maybe you'll decide not to tear it up....I'm deeply grateful for your support.

As they said at FDL. this is what a real patriot sounds like. One can only hope it goes from his mouth to Obama's ears. It would be really nice to see this kind of bold leadership from our presumptive candidate. In the interim, you know what to do. We may still lose, but we could still win and in any event, it's best to go down fighting.

Update: Dan at Pruning Shears checks into comments to remind us that you can also become a citizen co-sponsor of the Dodd-Feingold Amendment to strip retroactive immunity from pending FISA legislation. I signed onto that a while ago, but if you haven't, it only takes a minute to do so.

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FISA finds a friend in the court

By Libby

This is a somewhat comforting turn of events. I've been following this case for a while and if memory serves, this group was targeted by the Bush regime's homeland surveillance team for allegedly funneling money to terrorists. In the course of the discovery process, as it wound it's way through the lower courts, the government inadvertently sent a document proving they had been illegally spying on the charity. When the mistake was discovered, federal agents stormed the charity and their lawyer's offices to retreive the document and any evidence of its existence, going as far as seizing computers. The White House has been trying to kill the case in court ever since but the federal district judge is not buying the government's arguments.

The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge for the Northern District of California, made his findings in a ruling on a lawsuit brought by an Oregon charity. The group says it has evidence of an illegal wiretap used against it by the National Security Agency under the secret surveillance program established by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a “state secret” and citing the president’s constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency’s program.

But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.

This is especially heartening because the same judge will be presiding over the about 40 civil cases against the telecoms that have been brought by various parties. Of course, if the fiasco of the so-called FISA compromise passes in the Senate, the judge's frame of mind won't mean squat since it will effectively force him to dismiss those cases but still, it's good to know there's at least one sane jurist left in the higher courts who is willing to put the rule of law above political fealty. There may be hope for us yet.

Update: Glenn has the legalese and a much fuller explanation of what's at stake in this vote.

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July 02, 2008

Drivers sacrificing safety for savings

By Libby

As the sticker shock at the gas pump continues to shake up the citizenry's sense of economic security, a new movement called hypermiling is growing. While its aims are noble and should in theory be contributing to safer roads, it appears to having the opposite effect as its practitioners take it to the extreme.

It’s a good idea, of course, to try to save on fuel. The problem comes when people who don’t know what they’re doing seize on what they think are the principles of hypermiling, leading them to adopt dangerous tactics, such as driving too slowly in traffic, tailgating larger vehicles or “drafting” (driving in another vehicle’s slipstream to reduce wind resistance) too closely, rolling through stop signs or making turns without using the brakes.

My first husband wasn't much for driving slowly but he was a early adopter on drafting off ten wheelers on the road all the back to the 1970s. I used to hate to let him drive because it was so terrifying to be staring down the tailpipes of a big rig at 75 or 80 mph. Never seemed worth the trade off to me.

The experts also suggest that you can acheive significant savings by turning off your AC and keeping the windows closed in the car. That doesn't sound worth the trade off either. The savings probably won't mean much if you pass out from heat prostration and go off the road.

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McCain tanking in Connecticut

By Libby

Having grown up in Connecticut, I always thought of it as a state with a rather conservative population. That may have changed in the forty years since I've lived there but it's clear that in the present day the Republican brand is mud.

A Quinnipiac University poll released today shows Democrat Barack Obama maintaining his wide lead over Republican John McCain among likely Connecticut voters for president. [...]

"Obama is winning among the demographic groups where he seemed to be having problems when he faced Sen. Clinton: white voters, especially whites with less than a college degree," said Douglas Schwartz, the poll's director.

As for McCain's new BFF, Joe Lieberman is clearly more an albatross than an asset.

Thirty-two percent of voters say they would be less likely to vote for McCain if Lieberman is his running mate, while only 14 percent said that including the Connecticut senator would make them more likely to support McCain.

It's also interesting to note that Clinton wouldn't add any apparent value to Obama's ticket.

Clinton is not as risky a choice for Obama in Connecticut as Lieberman would be for McCain. Twenty-five percent of voters say they would be less likely to vote for Obama with the New York senator on the ticket, while 18 percent were more likely.

Looking at these stats makes Obama's recent embrace of GOP rhetoric all the more puzzling. It could hardly be more apparent that the voters are ready for change and the more Barack shifts toward the Republican/media definition of center, the more he undermines the hope of the electorate that he will be the agent of it.

It was this message that built the momentum that won him the nomination in the first place. He's polling well now, but every step he takes back from the bold ground he staked out in the primaries, is a step towards the status quo that the electorate is rejecting.

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Last look at Gen. Clark

By Libby

I posted on this yesterday at the Detroit News but didn't get around to rounding up what appears to be the last of the controversy over Clark's statement on McCain's experience. Clark to his credit didn't back down despite being undercut by the Obama campaign's almost immediate embrace of McCain's unwarranted criticism. It may well be that Clark was encouraged to hold his ground by the outpouring of support from the public, particularly from other war veterans. Steve Audio collected some pertinent reactions from the latter group and also pointed us to a letter of support from VoteVets. I would urge everyone to encourage such courageous truthtelling by signing onto that letter.

Meanwhile, in the midst of their caterwauling about the "horrible insult" to McCain's war record, a McCain surrogate, aptly named Orson Swindle, took the opportunity to issue a actual attack on Clark's own military service.

On a conference call with reporters, Mr. Swindle pointed out that Senator McCain has been endorsed by scores of former military generals, admirals and prisoners of war. “General Clark probably wouldn’t get that much praise from this group,” Mr. Swindle said. “As high ranking as he is, his record in his last command was less than stellar.”

Clark's last command was as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and as Zenpundit points out in comments to this post, he did receive some criticism during his tenure, but it's telling that Swindle avoids mentioning Clark's service in Vietnam where he commanded a large combat unit in Vietnam and led his men into a successful counteroffensive against a Viet Cong force while he was bleeding from four AK-47 wounds. McCain's supporter Swindle also fails to note that Clark graduated from the military academy at the top of his class while McCain barely made it to graduation at the very bottom of his own.

You can be certain, if Clark was speaking in support of McCain, they would be touting his superior credentials to the high heavens. But even putting all that aside, it's useful to remember that McCain himself repeatedly stated that military service shouldn't be used as a criteria in judging a candidate's fitness for the office of president. I guess the McCain campaign doesn't have to worry about the price of fueling their fleet of vehicles since the "Straight Talk Express" appears to be running on pure hypocrisy.

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July 01, 2008

What conservatism has wrought

By Libby

Since Cernig has already flagged Andrew Bacevich's excellent op-ed this morning, let me send you to Shaun Mullen who has a bullet list of his own showing how the GOP's "Contract with America," designed to combat the 'destructive' influence of the dirty 'effin hippies, worked out for us. Go to the link for the full list, but here's a few of my favorites.

* Tax cuts for the rich at the expense of everyone else, including programs like Head Start that actually work.
* Economic policies the reward Wall Street and punish Main Street.
* Despite 9/11, a flimsy homeland security apparatus and a military that is focused not on defense but projecting American might.
* An energy policy predicated on foreign oil and global warming denial.
* Using their bully pulpit not to lead and inspire but to feign piety, sow fear and wage culture wars.

As for us dirty, 'effin, pot-smoking hippies, they solved that problem by throwing most of us into the now largest prison system in the world. Quite a legacy, but hardly one to be proud of. When I look at these lists I wonder why anyone would be willing to publicly admit they support the Republican party. It's become the antithesis of everything that once defined what made this country great.

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Faith based federal funding

By Libby

I gagged on my coffee this morning when I read the initial, and unsurprisingly incorrect AP report on Obama's embrace of the Bush administration's faith-based initiative program, which of course you know was little more than thinly disguised funding for fundie-based quasi-PACs for the GOP . I was relieved to see the opposite was true. While Obama is willing to keep faith based organizations within the federal grant system, his approach is mindful of the separation of church and state.

That's what it will be when I'm President. I'll establish a new Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The new name will reflect a new commitment. This Council will not just be another name on the White House organization chart - it will be a critical part of my administration. Now, make no mistake, as someone who used to teach constitutional law, I believe deeply in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe this partnership will endanger that idea - so long as we follow a few basic principles. First, if you get a federal grant, you can't use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help and you can't discriminate against them - or against the people you hire - on the basis of their religion. Second, federal dollars that go directly to churches, temples, and mosques can only be used on secular programs. And we'll also ensure that taxpayer dollars only go to those programs that actually work. With these principles as a guide, my Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships will strengthen faith-based groups by making sure they know the opportunities open to them to build on their good works.

While many may find any funding of faith-based groups objectionable, Steve Benen reminds us that our government has been funding projects for church programs that address poverty issues for many decades without blurring the separation clause. I see no compelling reason our tax dollars shouldn't be alloted to a program that serves the needy just because it's housed and staffed by members of a particular religious group as long as religious conversion is not a requirement of receiving the aid, nor of obtaining employment in such programs.

Churches often donate their space and their members donate their time to such things as homeless shelters and soup kitchens and churches are subject to the same economic pressures as any secular organization providing the same services. To deny them funding solely because of their religious beliefs would be just as discriminatory as denying funding to a secular organization because of its political position. In this case, I think Obama is right is reaching out to everyone and anyone who is willing to assist in humanitarian programs that fill a vital need of our ever growing numbers of impoverished citizens.

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June 30, 2008

Why McCain's war record matters

By Libby

I agree with Cernig that McCain's war record shouldn't be an issue in this election. Unfortunately, McCain himself has made it one by running as a "war hero" and that refrain has been echoed endlessly in the media narrative. His time in Vietnam is being touted as a credential, an example of his experience, a test he successfully passed that in some way is supposed to better qualify him to lead us in "a time of war." 

Just look at the tag line that his campaign is promoting these days. I've seen this one everywhere. "John McCain is proud of his record of always putting the country first — from his time in the Navy, in Vietnam and through to today." Talk about empty words. What does that even mean?

Today the talking heads on the teevee are in a dither over Gen. Wesley Clark's remark that riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is not a qualification to be president. It's being painted as a 'swift boat' attack but in essence it's a simple statement of fact, not an attack on the quality of his service. Surviving five years in a cage in the jungles of Vietnam, is just not the same as making command decisions on how to prosecute a military conflict yet this is the experience McCain waves around on the campaign trail daily and uses to deflect any criticism of his current stance on military policy.

McCain in having adopted the war hero persona is the one making his military service an issue and I don't really see how we can avoid addressing it. As I said in my Detroit News post this morning, if we're to judge McCain's fitness for office by his military service, then shouldn't it be material that he graduated from the military academy at almost the very bottom of his class and he left the service and went into politics instead, when it became clear that he would never be promoted to admiral because his superiors judged he just didn't have what it takes to be a leader? And if he wasn't fit for a high ranking military command, why on earth should "his record" be used as a credential to prove his fitness for the highest office in our nation? If anything, it proves the opposite.

That's not attacking the quality of his service to our country, as the GOP swiftboaters did to Kerry. It's assessing the value of the credential McCain is using to proclaim his superior life experience, which in fact, in terms of the presidency, is effectively worthless.

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June 29, 2008

Shorter McCain: Trust me

By Libby

This one had me gagging tonight. McCain had the nerve to say Obama's word can't be trusted, unlike his own.

"You know, this election is about trust, and trusting people's word, and unfortunately apparently on several items, Sen. Obama's word cannot be trusted," McCain said in Louisville, Kentucky. The comment came as McCain criticized Obama for reversing positions on public financing and other issues.

And this on the heels of his having told a Latino audience how much he cherished "the contributions of Hispanic-Americans to the culture, economy and security of the country I have served all my adult life." He was pumping up his support of the immigration bill he has reversed on when he's talking to his fundie base.

I'm with Creature on this one. The hypocrisy is astounding. And the author's failure to point out that McCain has taken the reverse position is not only nauseating, it's inexcusably negligent.

And by the way, if you've been wondering why I've slacked off on McCain here, it's because I have a lot of blogs. I've been concentrating my bashing at the Detroit News.

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Obama shifts off-center

By Libby

I'm beginning to think I misjudged Obama. His recent swing to a Republican appeasing campaign style is leaving me thinking he's not as savvy as I thought he was. Perhaps he's forgotten that a large number of Clinton supporters defected to him because they were unhappy with Hillary's embrace of GOP style tactics and rhetoric? As usual, Glenn articulates well the problem with his "shift to center."

Beyond its obsolescence, this "move-to-the-center" cliché ignores the extraordinary political climate prevailing in this country, in which more than 8 out of 10 Americans believe the Government is fundamentally on the wrong track and the current President is one of the most unpopular in American history, if not the most unpopular. The very idea that Bush/Cheney policies are the "center," or that one must move towards their approach in order to succeed, ignores the extreme shifts in public opinion generally regarding how our country has been governed over the last seven years.

The most distinctive and potent -- one could even say exciting -- aspect of Obama's campaign had been his aggressive refusal to accept GOP pieties on National Security, his insistence that the GOP would lose -- and should lose -- debates over who is "stronger" and more "patriotic" and who will keep us more safe. The widely-celebrated foreign policy memo written by Obama's adviser, Samantha Power, heaped scorn on Washington's national security "conventional wisdom," emphasizing how weak and vulnerable it has made the U.S. When Obama took that approach, he appeared to be, and in fact was, resolute and unapologetic in defending his own views -- the very attributes that define "strength."

One of the biggest reasons I voted for Obama was because he had energized so many young people and new voters and I believed he would be able to keep them engaged through the general. Glenn is right. The reason he was so appealing to this demo was because he was willing to push back against the false memes. That apparent courage to defy the media narrative and redefine the middle was the embodiment of the "change they could believe in."

People like me will still vote for him, but the more Obama shrinks back from his former boldness and embraces the same old conventions, the more likely it becomes that he will lose the enthusiasm of those new voters. That's not what they signed up for and they may well just keep their wallets in their pockets and sit it out in November.

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Shredding the evidence

By Libby

I think I saw this list a while back but it bears repeating. Stolen from Angry Bear who has the source link.

Federal Contracts for Paper Shredding Services FY 2000-2008

Yr. Total $
2000 $452,807
2001 $456,235
2002 $752,799
2003 $1,018,191
2004 $2,329,466
2005 $2,980,375
2006 $3,068,877
2007 $3,463,610
2008 2Q * $1,148,718
*Note: FY 2008 only includes data up to first and part of second quarter.

Taken in context with the ongoing refusal of so many agencies in this administration to turn over their email archives it's not difficult to conclude that no one connected to this administration is particularly worried about being prosecuted for their crimes because they're blithely destroying the evidence in blatant disregard of the law. [via]

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Just the fax on FISA

By Libby

Dan reminds us in a longer post that should be read in full that the FISA vote is now set for July 8th and we need to taking advantage of the space to keep pounding at our Congresslizards to do the right thing.

The Senate is of particular concern because the FISA vote is set for July 8th. Tell your reps and Democratic leaders to strip telecom amnesty from it. Emails are fine, phone calls are better, faxes better still because they take up space in Congressional offices, and money is best of all because, well, it’s money. FaxZero allows you to send two free faxes per day, and Senator Obama’s fax number is (202) 228-4260. Feel free to send requests for a belated birthday present to America.

I'm sure you need no further instructions.

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Gay pride and peace

Human_peace_sign_608 By Libby

I've been slacking off all morning, but here's a timely link to live coverage of today's San Francisco gay pride parade which should be starting just about now if I calculated the time change correctly. It wasn't live yet when I checked a few minutes ago, but one assumes it will be soon.

Also, following up on my earlier post about the largest human peace symbol, as you can see in the photo, they assembled almost 6,000 people and it seems likely they will get certified as a world record. Still no YouTube of the event, but Marc A. Catone, who was there in the left branch, promises to send a link as soon as it's up. [Marc by the way may possibly be the biggest remaining Beatles fan in the US.]

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June 28, 2008

'Partriotic' Americans trust in God and Bush

By Libby

Bush's approval rating may be in the tank, but where most might see a compost pile, Bob in Fredericksburg, VA sees fertile ground for a marketing ploy. From his soapbox at Keep America Strong Vote George W. Bush 2008 he tells us "[m]illions of partriotic Americans need to know that we can write in George Bush for president in 2008" and for only $7.99 you too can have a bumper sticker to spread the good word.

Yes, we can vote for George W. Bush in 2008. We have the right to write in the name of our chosen candidate, regardless of whether or not he is officially on the ballot.

We know that George Bush was God's Candidate in 2000. We know that George Bush was God's candidate again in 2004. And George Bush has been God's president for the last 8 years. Trust in God and vote your faith. Keep America safe. Write-in George W. Bush for President in 2008.

He urges the faithful to forget about the worrisome details to "Stay the Course" and stick with God's President. But what about term limits, you may ask? Not a problem.

The important thing to understand about so-called "term limits" is that they are man's law, not God's Law. The God who parted the Red Sea is surely not worried about so-called "term limits". When you vote your faith you let Almighty God take care of the details.

Presidential term limits are not in the Bible. And they were not in our Constitution until added by an activist congress in 1951.

I'm thinking Bob may be a marketing genius. Anybody who is still deluded enough to be supporting Bush at this point is likely to buy an overpriced bumper sticker. If they believe Bush is God's answer, then I suppose it's not much of a stretch to believe God could intervene in the political process to allow their feckless hero to stay in office forever. Maybe he'll call a press conference and descend from the heavens with an executive order on stone tablets overturning the constitution -- or something. [h/t to Jules]

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Can we trade him for Joe?

By Libby

One of the more curious phenomena of this election are the party defections on both sides of the fence. The Democratic defectors get most of the attention, but the GOP defectors are much more interesting.

June 27 (Bloomberg) -- Senator Chuck Hagel declined to endorse his party's likely presidential nominee, John McCain, and said he would consider serving as secretary of defense in a Barack Obama administration.

Hagel, who last year considered a White House run as an independent, said he would remain a registered Republican: ``I don't know forever, but right now I'm not considering changing my registration.'' [...]

Hagel said his disagreement with the Bush administration and his view that the Republican Party ``has veered and shifted, and come loose of its moorings'' don't mean he has given up on the party.

The ``Republican Party is bigger than George Bush or Dick Cheney,'' Hagel said. ``I'm an Eisenhower Republican and the party today is not an Eisenhower Republican Party. Will it come back? I don't know.''

I guess this one doesn't quite count as a defection yet, but I would gladly give the GOP Joe Lieberman in trade for Chuck. Hagel is a much better Democrat than Lieberman ever was, or could hope to be. Heck, there's been times during Iraq debates I almost forgot that Hagel wasn't one of us.

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June 27, 2008

House Committee Chairs push for accountability

By Libby

It would have been more helpful if we could have seen this happen two years ago, if not seven, but really, it's never too late to demand accountability and considering that it will probably take years to purge all the incompetent crony appointments made by Bush, Wexler's new bill is bound to come in handy down the line.

The bill, known as the Government Accountability Office Improvement Act of 2008, insists the GAO have access to pertinent documents it is entitled to for conducting investigations. It also reasserts the right of the GAO to challenge any refusal of documents in court, responding to a district court decision that favored the office of Vice President Cheney in withholding energy policy planning documents from the GAO.

In a statement, Rep. Waxman said "GAO needs unfettered access to federal agencies to help Congress identify waste, fraud, and abuse in federal programs. This bill says that federal agencies and the White House can't withhold records that GAO is entitled to review."

It occurs to me that if we were able to uncover the full extent of corruption within the Bush regime, it would probably tie up the courts for decades. That's unlikely to happen but still, it would certainly be satisfying to see even a handful of the worst perps brought to justice in the end.

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Big Brother - Eyes in the Sky

Big_brother By Libby

While we're busy fighting off FISA surveillance the White House has been quietly pursuing an even more disturbing domestic spying program that's said to be capable of taking very high-resolution photographs of buildings, vehicles and people.

A Bush administration program to expand domestic use of Pentagon spy satellites has aroused new concerns in Congress about possible civil-liberties abuses.

On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment denying money for the new domestic intelligence operation—cryptically named the "National Applications Office"—until the Homeland Security secretary certifies that any programs undertaken by the center will "comply with all existing laws, including all applicable privacy and civil liberties standards."

Considering the administration's track record, I think we can safely assume that no matter what assurances they give, the chances are great that they will simply ignore the laws and do whatever the hell they want. Certainly, the DHS spokesmouth issues the all too familiar standard Bushspeak.

But Russ Knocke, a Homeland Security spokesman, told Newsweek that fears about the program are unfounded. "We've repeatedly met with Congress to answer questions about the NAO," he said. "As we have said, the purpose of the NAO is not to expand existing legal authorities. Rather, it will allow the government to better and more efficiently prioritize the use of scarce resources in support of major disasters, homeland security efforts and perhaps—in the future—law enforcement. We have also been clear that we would brief Congress before moving to support law enforcement. Efforts to further stall the NAO are misguided and keep us from making the best use of overhead imagery for a number of public safety and security missions."

Just as with every other Fourth Amendment breaching 'security program' this administration has foisted off on us from the Patriot Act onward, they need this to keep us safe from bad people and horrible disasters and the potential to use it to get around longstanding legal safeguards for use in ordinary law enforcement is so remote as to be barely worth mentioning. Just look at all the terrorists they caught under the Patriot Act and that was never used to circumvent the law.... oh wait. And how convenient that unlike that messy FISA datamining operation, existing case law seems to allow aerial surveillance without a warrant. Not that they would dream of using it for such purposes...

It's like watching a child grow up. If you see him every day, you celebrate milestones but you don't really see the incremental changes so much as someone who only sees the kid once a year and is amazed at how much he's grown. And just as you wake up one day and wonder how that darling little tyke suddenly became a surly teenager almost unnoticed, if we allow these programs to stealthily proliferate we'll wake up one day to a full grown police state. By then it will be too late to stop it.

I'm glad to see the funding blocked for now. I would like even more to see some legislation banning the use of the program for ordinary law enforcement, before it gets off the ground. [h/t to our invaluable researcher, Kat]

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June 26, 2008

Breaking - FISA vote back on hold

By Libby

Funny, I was just about to bitch about this stall on the housing bill when I saw the breaking news that the same tactic just bought us another delay on the FISA debacle.

Objections by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) will push back an overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until after lawmakers return in July, Democratic leaders said Thursday. Feingold is strongly opposed to language that would likely give telephone companies that participated in warrantless surveillance retroactive immunity from lawsuits.

"It doesn't look like it," Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said of taking up the FISA bill this week. "Sen. Feingold wants additional time and would like to postpone it until after the Fourth of July."

Good for Russ. This isn't the first time I wished he was the one running for president. It's certainly heartening to see that at least one Democrat knows how to play the game by the GOP rules. Although to be fair, I should note that Dodd tried this tactic previously with a hold on the FISA bill way back when but at that time, Reid just ignored him.

I'm not sure what the difference is this time although I'd like to think it's that progressives have finally convinced the Democratic 'leadership' that we aren't as easily fooled by procedural kabuki as they thought we were and we don't forget betrayals -- ever.

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Fear Watch

By Libby

This looks like an interesting project. HuffPo, noting that McCain's pretty much got nothing to offer but fear, has started a new page called FearWatch08.

But things are always less scary when the lights are on -- so throughout the campaign HuffPost will be conducting a FearWatch, keeping our eyes peeled for the lowest, most base attempts to scare voters into voting their fears, and collecting them on a FearWatch08 page.

And we'd like your help. So be on the lookout for examples of fear-mongering in speeches, in press releases, in local TV spots, and in direct mail come-ons -- and send any you come across to fearwatch08@huffingtonpost.com so we can add them to our collection.

Sounds like it could be a good resource if it takes off and if nothing else, it would be good to have a catch page for the little items that might not get blogged, or even noticed, otherwise.

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Obama fails completely on FISA

By Libby

Considering all the political costs involved, I was willing to give Obama something of a pass on not leading the fight against the FISA capitulation but now he's gone too far in promoting the false narrative to excuse this destruction of the rule of law.

"The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."

What a steaming crock. This bill has not changed for the better and he specifically promised to support a filibuster. It's beyond insulting that he seeks to justify his walk back on that promise by spewing the same fear mongering talking points the White House has used to justify every constitutional breach of the last seven years. Since I'm late to the party and John Cole and I have been pretty much in sync on this all week, I'll just quote his post.

Before, when he accepted the compromise but promised to fight for removing immunity, it was one thing. This is a total collapse and a rapid abandonment of principle. From a voting perspective, nothing really changes. McCain is for it, Hillary would have been, now Obama is. Obama is still the better of the three on a wider range of issues.

As to whether I like it, no. I could understand the politics of supporting the filibuster and voting for the bill, but I don’t understand or accept getting out in front of this piece of shit and giving us more of the same “You can’t handle the truth.” It is a craven capitulation, and failure to support the filibuster tomorrow really is deciding the politics of fear trump “change.” We all know there are threats- the question is one of constitutionality and the executive Presidency. We are against it.

This was a test, and Obama is failing. It is of little solace that McCain refuse to show up and Clinton would have, too.

Avedon adds another important point.

Obama doesn't understand that the 4th Amendment is national security, and he's prepared to throw it out for some illusory Republican-defined "toughness" because he hasn't got the guts to actually be tough in defense of our country. When it comes to pushing Overton's Window back into some less distorted position, Obama is not your guy. (Yes, you still should vote for the Democratic nominee, but you should put all of your other efforts into doing things like getting people into Congress who will try to keep him in line - and doing things to make them want to keep him from these continuous forays into right-wing territory. You were always going to have to do that, no matter who the nominee was.)

And NTodd puts it into historical context and reminds us that total destruction of the rule of law that served us well for almost two and half centuries is just as devastating when it happens incrementally.

This nation survived an invasion of a superpower in the early 19th century when the country was young and rather defenseless. It survived a civil war that killed more Americans than every other war we've fought. It survived the War to End All Wars. It survived the most destructive conflict this planet has ever seen. It survived the Cold War and all its attendant small wars. And now, when faced with box cutters, we decide that our civil liberties are a burden, that the Constitution is a scrap of paper, that our ideals are quaint?

As Cernig noted earlier, FDL has a list of the 15 Senators who voted against cloture and explains the procedural machinations that will make it possible for the remaining turncoats to appear to vote no on the bill when in fact they already endorsed it with this vote. It appears our only hope is for Reid to keep it off the floor and that may be worth pursuing, though unlikely to succeed. Also, for those who want talking points in order to convey the importance of this issue, for whatever it's worth at this point, Avedon has a good post explaining FISA in simple terms.

Ultimately, we've been had by the Democrats again and we're left in a bad place for November. There is no other viable choice but to vote for Obama no matter how badly he disappoints us. The alternatives are simply too horrible to contemplate. It appears he doesn't care and will be pursuing the 50 plus one percent option in trying to woo over the pee-stained pants crowd to gain the White House. That may work for him, but he pursues it at his peril. The young people and progressives who enthusiastically supported him are not so easily fooled and he will lose more of that enthusiasm every time he sells us out to pander to the so-called center. I know he's lost mine. I'll still vote for him but I'm not going to put the energy into promoting him that I would have, had he only shown some real courage here.

However, we can and should make a point of turning our energies to the down ticket races. We need to oust every one of those 80 imbeciles who find political expedience more important than the health of our republic. The only way we're going to get a change we can believe in, is to change who's running the show. If we manage to unseat enough of them, the rest will take us more seriously in the next fight.

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June 25, 2008

FISA fight still on

By Libby

After the abysmal capitulation in the House, it's looking bleak for a victory on FISA but it appears all the noise we've been making will at least stall it for a little longer. Digby reports:

Senator Reid just informed his colleagues on the Senate floor that, because of all the other bills in the queue (like the housing bill, and the Iraq supplemental), FISA may not get a vote until after the July 4 holiday recess.

It may be that it will even be delayed beyond that into August with all the other pressing matters on the calendar. Read the rest of Digby's post to get a list of the ways our privacy is threatened by our complicit Congresslizards.

Meanwhile, my posting has been off on account of a perfect storm of medical problems, so let me recap a couple of related developments I didn't get to in the last couple of days. Glenn has an excellent post about the ongoing deceit coming out of the House in attempting to paint the "compromise" as some kind of victory for oversight. As always, read the whole thing, but here's a couple of key grafs.

Just as Nancy Pelosi ran to Time to justify her support for the FISA bill, Steny Hoyer yesterday spouted his justifications to The Politico and said this:

In an interview with Politico on Monday, Hoyer called the FISA legislation a "significant victory" for the Democratic Party -- one that neutralized an issue Republicans might have been able to use against Democrats in November while still, in his view, protecting the civil liberties of American citizens.

In other words, Democrats achieved a "significant victory" because -- by giving Republicans everything they demanded -- Republicans are no longer able to criticize Democrats on this issue. What a shrewd strategy: "if we comply with all their demands, then they can't criticize us for anything." That's the Democratic Party's plan for winning, according to Hoyer.

Digby again on Steny Hoyer and the Politico's fluffer of a piece they did the other day.

What a guy. Clearly, those who demand that the party should hew closer to the positions that put it in power should be happy to have such a "masterful" leader who will sell out their most cherished principles in order to make a deal with people who would like to turn the US into a police state.

Do read the whole Politico article, which doesn't bother to spend even one paragraph describing why people were opposed to the bill. For that matter it doesn't bother to tell us why the other side was so adamant that it get passed either. The fact that it wasn't some typical congressional agenda item which might naturally be "horse traded" but rather a matter of fundamental constitutional principle isn't worth mentioning. Even the fact that the whole thing stinks to high heaven of financial corruption gets no mention.

Speaking of that financial corruption here's some numbers on telecom contributions to the Congresslizards that rolled over. They average close to $10,000 each in political payola from telecom lobbyists, with Steny Hoyer coming in at $29,000 and Rahm Emanuel clocking $28,000 prior to the sellout.

Jane has the info on who to harrass. You know what to do.

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June 22, 2008

Dems fail on more than FISA

By Libby

With all the attention focused on FISA in the last couple of days, there's a couple of other matters of some import that received short shrift. For one the testimony of Scott McLellan before the House Judiciary Committee. Emptywheel was there and came home underwhelmed. See the post for the quotes but her summation says it all.

Well there you have it--confirmation of two things we've known all along. Rove is a liar, and Cheney an oil-hungry war-monger. At least we accomplished that much.

And I didn't see much about the rubberstamping of the next round of Iraq funding. Here's the list of those who voted no in the House. You might want to respond appropriately.

My guy is on the list so I'll be sending him a thank you note. I feel lucky that I ended up in one of few, if not only districts in NC with a decent House Rep since I made the move here by necessity more than choice. I wish I could say the same for my useless Senators.

I don't remember where I got these links but probably from Avedon who is celebrating her 23rd wedding anniversary with the fabulous Mr. Sideshow. I'm sure I speak for my fellow Newshoggers in wishing them both a hearty congratulations and wishes for just as many more to come, and then some.

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June 21, 2008

World's largest human peace sign

By Libby

They're going to establish the Guinness World record tomorrow for the largest human peace sign at 3:00pm in Ithaca, NY. They're expecting thousands.

The Ithaca Festival, a 30-year tradition celebrating "our community and the creative artist in each of us," has embraced the idea as part of its "I Am Ithaca" theme for 2008. Trevor Dougherty, a sophomore at Ithaca High School, is organizing the event. Dubbed "Ithaca's YouTuber" by the Ithaca Journal last year, he will also aid in the creation and web syndication of a viral video documenting the event. One of his past videos, a video for peace, has received worldwide attention. You can view it here.

Sounds like a fun event and with no official record haven't been recorded, if you live near Ithaca -- you could help set one. I don't live nearby myself, but I like Trevor's work so I'll be looking forward to the YouTube.

[Post <a href="http://www.newshoggers.com/blog/2008/06/gay-pride-and-p.html">updated here</a>.]

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Stages of grief over FISA

By Libby [Updated below]

Tell you the truth, I can never remember exactly what the stages of grief are, but having spent the last 24 hours or so sorting through my reaction to Obama's embrace of this very flawed bill, it kind of feels like a bad breakup of a relationship you thought was sound until the moment your partner dropped the bomb on it. It's not even that I didn't half expect it, the signs were certainly there, but I guess I was just hoping for better.

The buzz of course is ongoing and the response has ranged widely. John Cole reminds us that it's not just about the netroots and my man Capt Fogg ponders whether Obama really did show leadership here, just not the kind of leadership opponents of the bill wanted. I have some sympathy for that view. To the extent that I operate outside of the Blogtopian bubble at the Detroit News, where a large portion of the readership is if not low info, at best only mildly informed on many issues, I've found FISA was a hard sell. Telecom immunity is comprehensible to them but the larger issues of surveillance and the constitutional issues involved just didn't alarm them as I thought it should. The Bush regime propaganda mill has rather successfully sold the need for the program and firmly planted the meme that it prevents terrorism somehow. So while it's true that there is no great constituency clamoring for the FISA program, neither is there as large a constituency as we might think clamoring against it.

McJoan thinks Obama's "support of the remainder of the bill is disappointing, but that would be in large part offset if he can help kill immunity." I'm not sure that's enough to offset his embrace of the whole narrative with me. He basically is reinforcing the false meme that this expanded presidential spying power is necessary for national security. It's simply not and it's destructive in a very deep way to our constitutional rights.

However, if we put in the context of where we started in this fight, which was the horrible bill Congress passed last August, and the subsequent tries to slip in reauthorization of that abomination, we succeeded in delaying the inevitable for a very long time. If Obama does step up to at least prevent telecom immunity from passing, then we're better off than we were when we started. At least we preserved an avenue for accountability that could ultimately lead to abolishing the whole sorry expansion of power when, and if, the true extent of the lawbreaking is revealed.

It's not that I'm not angry about how Obama handled this but I think I'm reaching acceptance. As I said many times before, Obama is not going to save us. He's a professional politican, the same as any other. He may profess loftier goals. Heck he may even believe in them, but in the end he's going to play the game by the current rules until he wins control of the board. Whether he will then change the rules remains to be seen but this isn't the first time he's disappointed me and I feel certain it won't be the last.

So the question becomes, what is the appropriate response? I don't think it's fair to expect him to singlehandedly wrest a better bill out of the Congress. In a rare disagreement with Digby, I don't think he's the presumptive leader of the party just yet and despite his high profile, there are hundreds of votes against his one. On the other hand I think criticism is valid and necessary. It was a horrible cave-in and we should press Obama to take a better stance, but I wonder if it won't be more productive to couch that criticism overall as a Democratic party failure rather than focus it too much on solely on Obama.

An approach Glenn Greewald is certainly taking. The first ad against against Steny Hoyer is a good start.

Update: Dan has the list of yes votes in the House. You know what to do.

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Much ado about public financing

By Libby

I've been offline for the better part of the last couple of days so I'm just catching up on the news. Most of it is more than a little depressing but I found the shirt rending over the demise of the public financing system of presidential campaigns rather amusing. The NYT practically accused Obama of single handedly murdering the system.

Glaringly missing in the prevailing narrative was any mention of McCain's ongoing and illegal gaming of the system. For those who haven't been following along TPM has a short video explanation about how McCain pulled a fast one, opting in when his campaign was broke, and then allegedly opting out when he didn't need the money. The problem with the latter is the FEC hasn't authorized the opt-out so McCain may well have been breaking the law for months now and the media offers little more than a collective yawn. Guess they're too busy figuring out ways to spin McSame's ongoing gaffes on policy as 'straight talk' instead of pure cluelessness.

The other prevailing talking point is accusing Obama of reneging on 'his promise' to opt in on public financing. McCain's favorite news outlet Politico publishes what they appear to consider some kind of damning timeline that includes the entry: "Obama again vows to “aggressively pursue” a publicly financed campaign." That's a far cry from signing a blood oath that he would take public campaign funds from the system and really, considering his huge success in amassing a war chest derived largely from small donations from ordinary citizens, isn't he actually keeping that pledge? Effectively, Obama is using public finance in its purest form. He just cut out the middleman, in this case being the government. I'm not seeing how that's such a bad thing.

Besides, does anybody believe there's a politician alive that would opt into a system that restricts their spending if they came up with a more successful model of fundraising as Obama has created? It's not like we've seen restricted spending as a result of the govenment backed system. In the 2000 campaign Bush spent $186 million to win his first term in 2000, while Gore spent $120 million and in 2004 Bush spent a total of $306.3 million while Kerry spent $241.7 million.