Mon, 21 Jul 2008 10:00:08 -0400
The best Kerry surrogate to fight the swift-boaters. Campaigning his heart out to help Democrats in so many out of the way places back in 2006. First major name to endorse Jim Webb back in 2006; and the Only Democrat that Tester wanted to be seen on stage with. Devoting so much energy to Claire McCaskill's campaign (ugh).
And all those fighting Congressional Dems!
Always trying his darndest to have the Democrats perceived as a Full-Service Party. The party that could make America secure.
So who does Obama pal around with? Hagel and Nunn. Who does Obama host a nuclear proliferation conference with? Nunn. Nunn, who ALSO (like McCain) thinks Chekoslovakia is still the proper name for that country. Nunn, who had a hissy fit when Bill Clinton broached the topic of "gays in the military".
So now Obama has 300 people advising him on National Security, but Clark is not included. What a petty and thankless business politics is.
Mukasey 's Plan for Congress to Delay Gitmo Habeas Proceedings
In a speech today (text here), Attorney General Michael Mukasey called on Congress, rather than federal judges, to make the rules for detainees filing habeas challenges.
The Center for Constitutional Rights responds:
“What Mukasey is doing is a shocking attempt to drag us into years of further legal challenges and delays. The Supreme Court has definitively spoken, and there is no need for congressional intervention. The Supreme Court explicitly said in Boumediene that the two prior attempts by Congress to intervene to prevent detainees from having access to the courts were unconstitutional.
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“For six and a half years, Congress and the Bush Administration have done their level best to prevent the courts from reviewing the legality of the detention of the men in Guantanamo. Congress should be a part of the solution this time by letting the courts do their job.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
any vp polls out there w/our general anyone???
hello???
polling polling polling keep them polls a pollin
rawpoll rawpoll (sung to rawhide)
been so long..
A Netroots Crossroads?
The Washington Post has a postmortem of the Netroots Nation Convention:
. . . Obama . . . is Topic A among the Netroots, his fate somewhat married to theirs. . . . But these are changing times, and Obama, in his calls for getting past blue vs. red America, and in his recent positions on issues such as telecom immunity, is somewhat of an enigma. With the Dems taking back Congress in 2006 and the prospect of an Obama victory come November, many in the influential Netroots are left in a precarious, ambiguous position. The question is, who needs whom: Does Obama need the Netroots, or vice versa?Obama does not need them of course but neither does the Netroots need Obama. What the Netroots needs is some idea of what they are about. Right now, let's face it, they are about nothing but being a mirror image of the Right blogs. Obama - right or wrong.
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I have been critiquing Obama for many years now because the political rhetoric and style he has practiced is, in my view, not a force for real substantive change. I have long been (at one time my view was pretty universally held in the Netroots) an advocate of a politics of contrast and definition and for negative branding of the Republican Party. Obama's Post Partisan Unity Schtick utterly rejects these approaches. From the WaPo article:... Two years ago, frustrated by bloggers' reaction to two Democratic senators who voted to confirm John Roberts as chief justice, Obama wrote a posting on Daily Kos:
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"According to the storyline that drives many advocacy groups and Democratic activists -- a storyline often reflected in comments on this blog -- we are up against a sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners Republican party," wrote Obama, who voted no on the Roberts confirmation.And demonstrating that the unwillingness to fight was not merely stylistic, but substantive as well for Obama, he did a 180 on FISA Capitulation. But the fact that Obama is practicing a brand of politics that the Netroots once vehemently disagreed with, including the adoption of blatant Hoyerism on FISA, is no longer of importance to the Netroots. From the Wapo article:
... "Think about it: Netroots was born at a time when the Democrats were in opposition, and it's learning how to be a force of good when the Democrats are in power -- and could have more power next year," says Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network. A speaker at the confab, Rosenberg is a bridge of sorts between Official Washington (he worked in the first Clinton White House) and New Washington (he wrote the foreword to "Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics," which Kos co-authored).
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Adds Andrew Rasiej, also a speaker at the convention and founder of Personal Democracy Forum, an online think tank that analyzes how the Internet affects politics: "For most everyone in the Netroots, the main goal right now is get Obama elected. Period. Now how the Netroots and Obama move forward after November, if he is elected, is another issue."Ahh, AFTER the election. Sure, because there are no more elections after this one. This is ridiculous. It does not wash. Personally, I do not see how the Netroots regains its previous focus. No doubt that many bloggers will transition into the Media and do quite well for themselves. They may even win a substantive argument or two. But the idea of Fighting Dems, of politics of contrast, of negative branding - that is over. And not a shot was fired by the Netroots in the battle.
I do not think it is possible to go back to arguing for a contrast approach after you have unquestioningly cheered on the candidate who stood for the exact opposite of it. The Netroots has been coopted. It is now an effective cheering section for the Democratic Party. But little else. Sure there will be small victories - a Donna Edwards here, A Ned Lamont there, but the idea of what the Netroots once was no longer exists. Obama has swept it away.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
And the majority of the lefty netroots trusts the media in supporting Obama, why?
The New York Times’ refusal today (Monday) to run an op-ed piece by John McCain challenging an article in the paper less than a week ago by Barack Obama is sure to further fuel the belief that much of the major media is biased in favor of the Democratic candidate.
~ snip ~
The idea that reporters are trying to help Obama win in November has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, taken just before the new controversy involving the Times erupted, found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help the Democrat with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago.
Just 14% believe most reporters will try to help McCain win, little changed from 13% a month ago. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.
In the latest survey, a plurality of Democrats—37%-- say most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of the campaign. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe most reporters are trying to help Obama and 21% in Obama’s party think reporters are trying to help the Republican candidate.
Among Republicans, 78% believe reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage.
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As for unaffiliated voters, 50% see a pro-Obama bias and 21% see unbiased coverage. Just 12% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the reporters are trying to help McCain.
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In a more general sense, 45% say that most reporters would hide information if it hurt the candidate they wanted to win. Just 30% disagree and 25% are not sure. Democrats are evenly divided as to whether a reporter would release such information while Republicans and unaffiliated voters have less confidence in the reporters.~ snip ~
These results are consistent with earlier surveys finding that large segments of the population believe the media is biased It is also clear that voters select their news sources in a partisan manner. During Election 2004, CNN viewers heavily favored John Kerry while Fox Fans preferred George W. Bush.
Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
jinx. When 2 peeps say/blog the same thing
at the same time, you're supposed to call
"jinx." Yeah, I know it's stupid. :/
From wiki -
"A jinx can be initiated when at least two people in casual conversation unintentionally say (or type, in the case of Internet jinx) the same word or phrase at the same time. If one of them (the "jinxer") yells "Jinx!" before any further conversation has begun, the other person (the "jinxee") is in a state of being "jinxed" and may not speak further until they are "released" from the jinx. The rules for what constitutes such a release vary. Traditionally, a jinx is ended when anyone speaks the jinxed person's name. However, a common variation says that only the jinxer can free the jinxee from their obligation to remain silent. (This is sometimes called a "private jinx" or "jinx personal lock".)
The game ends when either the jinxee is released from the jinx or when the jinxee "breaks" the jinx by speaking while in a state of being jinxed. In the latter case, the Jinxee loses the game and a penalty is exacted.
Simultaneous speaking that is planned or expected, such as during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance or during the singing of a song, is ineligible for a jinx to occur. A jinx may only follow a spontaneous and unexpected overlapping of conversation by both parties."
"You owe me a beer." If you say it first (after the jinx moment), the other person is suppose to owe you a beer.
You also have to tap the person to make it stick (before they tap you and say, "You owe me a beer."). So there's usually some ducking/dodging to prevent from being taged. You can't do that on-line though. ;)
a kid's saying when you accidentally say or do something simultaneously with another person. Have no idea where it came from, but back in the day, we called it something else. Forget exactly what, but as I vaguely recall, it isn't printable here.
In times of war or peace, democracy requires dialogue, disagreement, and the courage to speak out. And those who do it should not be condemned but be praised." WKC
The war criminal Karadzic, aka The Butcher of Bosnia, has been captured! Yea!! Off to the Hague with him.
"This Administration has taken us on a path to nowhere - replete with hyped intelligence, macho slogans, and an incredible failure to see the obvious. It started with a fight we didn't finish against Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and included a war we didn't have to fight in Iraq. Along the way we've failed to halt proliferation with both North Korea and Iran and the Administration has shown tragic incompetence in everything from nation building in Iraq to disaster relief in Louisiana.
Let's face it: we're not going to win the war on terror unless we start making more friends and fewer enemies in the world, and we're not going to be able to protect the American people without a new strategy."
-Retired General Wesley Clark giving the Democratic radio address April 2004.