Sen. Harry Reid, just now: “You can run, but you can’t hide. We are going to debate Iraq.”
Sen. Warner just showed us his true colors, indicating his intent to vote against his own resolution heading to the floor.
Update: Sen. Warner did, indeed, vote against his own resolution. I guess that’s a reality check on any hopes I might have had for him. As a note, Sens. Coleman (R-MN) and Collins (R-ME) actually voted FOR debating the resolution.
Because I’m just so far behind.
The most important discussion arising from the ridiculousness in Boston: 70s haircuts.
Your local news . . . from Bangalore! (Keep in mind that unless you live in a major metro area, you probably don’t get your “local” news from anywhere reasonably considered local. So what difference does this really make?)
I’m less than enamoured with the junior senator from New York. I don’t have any problems with Sen. Clinton’s electability, or “divisiveness” or any of the other ridiculous junior high tests people seem to like to talk about. It’s that I simply don’t think that she’s at all committed to anything but herself. Now, that can be said about many politicians, but it shouldn’t be the sole driving force behind all of their decisions. (Hell, even Dick Armey can say he was wrong on Iraq.) All that said, I’d become much more appreciative of her if she’s really serious about this.
Non-disclosure agreements for state legislators? Sounds like a pretty clear breach of Do No Evil, Google. And since I think Robert X. Cringley may well be onto something with his theory that Google’s planning to build datacenters in most states . . . well, we should all be on the lookout.
I’ve added a new link under Media, to the right. It’s Fora.tv, best summed up as a YouTube for thinking people. Check it out.
Chris Bowers highlights a recent Center for Public Integrity study of campaign finance reports. Some noteworthy extracts:
- About 600 professional consultants were paid more than a combined $1.85 billion in the 2003-2004 federal campaigns.
- Media consultants, who offer political and strategic advice and handle political advertising, were paid $1.2 billion, or 65 percent of all consultant spending.
- Direct mail consultants billed the second-largest amount, $298 million, totaling 16 percent of all consultant spending.
- Consultants routinely pitch campaign plans that rely heavily on their own specialty because there is a financial incentive to do so.
- Fundraising consultants, whose services are necessitated in large part by the rising amounts campaigns spend on other consultants, cost candidates at least $59 million.
That’s a little shocking, in the aggregate, but it’s something to keep in mind when Chris says this:
When it comes to political contributions and the progressive movement, the flow of money is almost entirely one-way. To the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, it is sucked out of the movement, and pocketed by the establishment.
It’s something we should all keep in mind, the next time we’re asked for a contribution.
I’m still getting used to not cringing when I hear the voice on the radio start a story with “The House voted to . . .” or “Senate leaders are . . .” Been down so long, I’m still not used to up.
But things most certainly are looking up. In just a couple of short weeks, the House has already acted to:
And it doesn’t stop there. In the Senate, I’ve gone from having two Iraq war cheerleaders to two Senators who publicly oppose Bush’s Iraq plans. Now, I expect much more than this from my representatives, but this is a damn good start . . .
Markos reminds us:
Remember, the primaries are less than a year away. And what a year it will be. It’ll be non-stop bashing of blacks, women, Muslims, trial lawyers, and brown people south of the border. And the GOP’s hatred for anyone who isn’t a privileged (by birth) white male will be in full display.
With Iraq burning out of control, the GOP senses its imminent 2008 disaster. It’s a cornered, wounded animal with little chance of escape.
And those are the most dangerous of all.
What prompted this? Oh, just some harmless little speculation on Fox about Barack Obama’s being schooled by terrorists . . .
So, you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday in Georgia. Not just this Sunday. Any Sunday. As you can imagine, this is sort of annoying. More than one Sunday afternoon has been marred by the inability to crack open a cold one on your deck, because you hadn’t quite planned ahead for that moment of desire for a beer. Now the Georgia legislature wants to put the matter up for a referendum. Which, as you might imagine, would almost certainly do away with this antiquity of a law. So, what does Gov. Sonny Purdue think? The AJC tells us:
Gov. Sonny Perdue said Wednesday he does not support letting Georgians vote on the question of allowing Sunday beer and wine sales at grocery and convenience stores.
“Think of it this way,” the governor added in the radio interview. “It really helps you plan ahead for the rest of your life — buying on Saturday, rather than Sunday. Time management.” [emphasis supplied]
Perdue did not elaborate on why he does not support Sunday sales, and his aides declined to clarify the matter. A religious conservative who does not drink, Perdue has vetoed several alcohol bills in the past.
God knows best, you see. And Sonny’s just his messenger. And his time management guru, it seems.
Josh Marshall & Co are on what I suspect is a very important story:
Okay, so we already know that the White House has now taken the unprecedented step of firing at least four and likely seven US Attorneys in the middle of their terms of office — at least some of whom are in the midst of corruption investigations of Bush administration officials and key Republican lawmakers. We also know that they’re taking advantage of a handy provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the White House to replace these fired USAs with appointees who don’t need to be approved by the senate.
Now go look at the qualifications of one of the replacements. Really, there isn’t anything these people won’t do.
So it seems Dick Cheney is upset that Congress is actually acting like a co-equal branch of government:
Congressional opposition will not influence President George W. Bush’s plans to send more troops to Iraq, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday, dismissing any effort to “run a war by committee.””The president is the commander in chief. He’s the one who has to make these tough decisions,” Cheney said.
“He’s the guy who’s got to decide how to use the force and where to deploy the force,” Cheney said. “And Congress obviously has to support the effort through the power of the purse. So they’ve got a role to play, and we certainly recognize that. But you also cannot run a war by committee.”
Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, let’s remind Congress what CAN be done by committee – impeachment.
Update: And George has Dick’s back:
Asked if he believes that he, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, has the authority to order troops to Iraq in the face of congressional opposition, Bush said, “In this situation, I do, yeah.”“I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it,” he said. “But I made my decision, and we’re going forward.”
This is insane.
There’s been some light buzz about National Review contributor Rod Dreher’s recently broadcast NPR audio essay. In short, the scales have fallen from his eyes. I can’t say that I’m particularly moved by it, but it has generated some interesting analysis.
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Bet you didn’t know that, in addition to the prying eyes of the FBI, the NSA, and the TSA, you’ve now got to contend with . . . the United States military:
The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering.
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Oh, I really want to go here. The New York Times, despite its other journalistic failings, has a reliably excellent travel section (I particularly like their 36 Hours in ____ feature). How could they make it better? Well, I might find a way to make myself available for an assignment or four . . .
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I love the Gmap Pedometer.  The link is to my ride this afternoon. It was, because of the trip (and feeling really awful after it), the first ride of the year. Final road bike mileage for last year was 1,961 miles, which was a fair bit less than what I’d hoped. I started to kick myself for not heading out for a long ride before the trip so I could at least claim at 2k, but then I decided I could count my mountain biking mileage towards the total (I don’t know what it is, but it’s certainly more than 39 miles . . .).  Goal for this year? At least 6,500km. I’d originally written – “At least 4,000 miles.”, but then, inspired by this thread at Slashdot, I’ve decided to at least try to get a better feel for a kilometer. So now the Flight Deck is set to kilometers, instead of miles.
Nice. From a recent letter to select constituents:
The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.
[ . . . ]
I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.
More here.
(I’ll shortly be on my way to spend some time in a very Muslim country – Pakistan. When the discussion (inevitably) turns to politics, I’m sure that someone will say that the US is acting as it does because it fears and hates Muslims. Thanks, Virgil Goode, for putting the facts on their side. Asshole.)
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