|
| |
The Liberal Doomsayer
My blog deals primarily with national politics in the U.S. as well as, on occasion, local politics in Pennsylvania. From time to time, I may have something to say about sports and entertainment as well. I try to interpret information that shapes the news and provide context to current events. I am definitely left of center politically, but I believe no one knows everything.
|
Statistics
Unique Visitors:
Total Unique Visitors:
Visitors Out:
Total Visitors Out: |
128
1241
2682
2682
|
|
|
| Articles
|
More Standup Tragedy With Mike Huckabee
2007-10-10 21:43:09
Gosh, where’s Major Bowes’ hook when you need it, huh boys and girls?It seems that pretend Repug presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is trying to tickle our funny bones again and failing miserably, this time over the matter of killing yourself.I gotta hand it to you, Mike; I haven’t had this many laughs since my last tooth extraction.And here are more uproarious moments. Enjoy. ...
Huckabee
Mike Huckabee
Tragedy
|
Mercy From The Executioner?
2007-10-10 21:02:52
According to this Yahoo News story, it seems that President Brainless has picked an interesting time to decide that this country is, after all, a member of a community of nations that should abide by international agreements and laws.There’s a lot going on here, so I’ll try to break it down as much as I can.Jose Ernesto Medellin, a Mexican immigrant, was convicted of raping and murdering two adolescent girls and sentenced to death. However, Dubya is trying to stay his execution and review his case as well as the convictions of 50 other Mexican nationals because they were not offered access to Mexican consular officials after their arrests. This is out of deference to the International Court of Justice in The Hague (where, one day God willing, he will stand as a defendant along with Deadeye Dick Cheney and Rummy as accused war criminals). And The Supremes are scheduled to hear the case today.And as writer Massimo Calabresi notes trenchantly here…The raucous right is in an uproar, ...
|
I Think You're "De 'Ho," Larry
2007-10-10 14:47:34
Yep, I know I'm late again on another story, this one having to do with Larry Craig's induction into the Idaho Hall of Fame (so much snark, so little time).Well, here is a tribute to Senator "Wide Stance" for this recognition (and once again, thanks to Our Man Arlen Specter for convincing Craig not to resign).And bad luck there on not being able to withdraw your guilty plea, Larry - what a shame...not! ...
|
Tuesday Videos
2007-10-10 05:03:59
Live ("Operation Spirit," going back to 1991)......three rock icons coming up; Happy Birthday to Jackson Browne ("Late For The Sky," recorded on the program "Soundstage" from Chicago in 1976 - the video and audio is a little beat up, but I won't pass up a chance to link to this song)......John Entwistle of The Who would have been 63 today ("Substitute," from the Monterrey Pop Festival in 1967 - you barely saw him, but they wouldn't have been The Who without him)......and John Lennon would have been 67 ("Working Class Hero"). ...
Videos
|
Tuesday PA Dem Wrapup
2007-10-10 00:21:35
This letter appeared today in the Bucks County Courier Times…Commendations to Congressman Patrick Murphy for being one of the first co-sponsors of House Resolution 282, which prevented the Postal Service from contracting out letter carrier work. In some cities, USPS was hiring private contractors, for low wages and no benefits, to deliver mail.The National Association of Letter Carriers could not reach a new contract with the USPS. Thanks to two pieces of legislation, including HR 282, USPS came back to the bargaining table. In our new agreement, there is a five-year moratorium on contracting out all city delivery routes, which includes communities like Bensalem and Levittown.Letter carriers are the eyes and ears of the communities they serve. Thanks to this legislation, your letter carrier will remain someone who you know and trust.Bill LuciniBristol Township, PAAnd this editorial appeared also…It's easy to criticize; it's a lot harder to offer positive solutions. And so we asked ...
|
Perino Punts On The Kurd “Turkey Shoot”
2007-10-09 23:49:07
More Bushco distortions and evasions coming up (from here)…MS. PERINO: Hello. I have nothing to start with, so --Q Is the United States concerned about Turkey's plans to conduct military operations in Iraq in pursuit of Kurdish rebels?MS. PERINO: You're talking about the action they're discussing in their parliament today?Q Yes.MS. PERINO: Let me go back a couple steps. We have long been supportive of Turkey, to make sure they have what they need in order to stop terrorist activity in northern Iraq. And the Iraqi government is in agreement with that, as well. And on September 28th, the Turks and the Iraqis came together on an agreement to work together, cooperatively, against terrorism. We're supportive of those efforts. And I think it's hypothetically charged to talk about an incursion or an invasion, so I think I'll decline to comment on that.Leave it to Bushco to typically avoid the question in a preamble of sorts to its actual answer, and then huffily decline to give the answer a ...
Turkey
|
Alphonso Jackson's House Of Cards
2007-10-09 22:50:11
At least I’ll say this much about Bushco; when it comes to cronyism, hubris and incompe- tence, they’re definitely “equal opportunity offenders.”With that in mind, here’s a story that appeared in the New York Times last Thursday (a little late on this, I know)…WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 — The Justice Department is investigating ties between Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso R. Jackson and a friend of Mr. Jackson’s who was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by him for rebuilding work in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, federal officials said Thursday.The investigation, they said, centers in part on whether Mr. Jackson was fully truthful in Congressional testimony and in interviews with federal investigators when he said he had not steered housing contracts to friends and administration supporters.I really don’t know what to say about Jackson as I read this story (as well as rereading this prior post, and georgia10 has more here).I mean, we know Bushco is ...
House
|
"Clap" Hanson And Ramadi In Chaos
2007-10-09 20:48:42
I hadn’t heard from that noted classicist and war pornographer Victor Davis Hanson for a little while in the Bucks County Courier Times, and being a curious sort, I decided to find out what he was up to.Well, lo and behold, he’s still preaching “the gospel of the surge,” which “of course” is working as far as he’s concerned (in this NRO link – sorry to inflict this on you)……we might well be witnessing an historic change in Iraq that would have profound effects throughout the region. The Iraqis are just beginning to step up effectively to their own defense, and are reaching out to the Americans-rather than solely vice versa as was mostly true between 2003-6. The result is that in a once frightening place like Ramadi — declared “beyond repair” in 9/06 in a sober and carefully written Marine intelligence report — Marine casualties have plummeted, reconstruction is underway, and everyone seems to be a bit dazed about the sudden calm after the horrific past storm ...
|
Fall Labor Pains
2007-10-09 19:38:20
I’ve been reading about the decision by the Service Employees International Union not to endorse a particular Democratic candidate for the party’s nomination, and I keep trying to figure out how this is a positive development (for someone besides Hillary Clinton, I mean).True, the Edwards campaign will receive the support of “hundreds of thousands of SEIU members,” as spokesman Eric Schultz pointed out, which is bound to provide a shot in the arm, as it were, in terms of money, backers, and workers doing the nuts-and-bolts leg work for the campaign (and of course Barack Obama and Clinton herself will be helped out, as well as other Democratic candidates reaping benefits of varying degrees).But to dilute the clout of a single national endorsement for anyone dilutes the power of organized labor in general in the campaign, as far as I’m concerned.And for a bit of a history lesson on this, I went back to this article by Ryan Lizza of The New Republic from 2003 in which the SEIU t ...
Labor
|
Monday Videos
2007-10-09 15:03:03
October Project ("Bury My Lovely," something gothic and appropriate for a turn in the weather for these parts that should arrive shortly)......and happy belated birthday to singer/songwriter Don McLean, which I couldn't note last week because of the technical issues ("If We Try," from the "American Pie" heyday; this was always a sentimental favorite - I have no clue as to what is going on with this slide show, but it's still nice just to hear the song). ...
Videos
|
Our Corporate Media Tips Its Hand
2007-10-09 00:37:42
From the AP’s Nedra Pickler (here)…NEW HAMPTON, Iowa - Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken the lead among Democratic presidential candidates in an Iowa poll, an encouraging sign of progress toward overcoming a big hurdle in the race.(Oh, and by the way, here is Pickler in action taking a partisan shot at Barack Obama, and here is Pickler allowing Bill Donahue a soapbox from which he can slime Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwen to the point where they decided to leave the John Edwards campaign, though Pickler didn’t bother to look into some of Donahue’s infamous remarks.)“An encouraging sign of progress,” huh? Well, at least Pickler didn’t write about Clinton’s “laugh,” which many other corporate media stooges are doing (I’m not going to say more about it; it truly isn’t worth it).Gee, I don’t know who edits copy over at the AP, but I can tell you that some of my journalism profs would have “ripped me a new one” if I’d handed in stuff like this, to say nothi ...
Corporate
Media
Tips
|
Ensign Plays "Nevada Hold 'Em"
2007-10-08 20:32:42
The following letter appeared in today’s New York Times…Your Sept. 27 editorial “Let the Sunshine In” left your readers in the dark on the issue of transparency in the Senate. I support electronic filing of fund-raising reports in the Senate because, as we probably agree, disclosure leads to more transparency in government. I have never had a secret hold on this bill.In the same spirit of transparency, I requested a vote on my amendment that would require groups filing ethics complaints against senators to reveal who is financing their efforts. Light needs to shine on this increasingly abused process, but Democrats are clearly afraid of voting on my amendment.Your editorial compared the House and the Senate, but on this issue there is a big difference. In the House, a member of Congress has to file a complaint. In the Senate, there are no requirements — anyone can do it anonymously, without even a signature. The result of the Democrats’ blocking my amendment is that people ...
|
Another Infamous Milestone
2007-10-08 19:49:57
One year ago yesterday, Anna Politkovskaya was murdered (this provides the background).Also, this Moscow Times article describes the difficulties faced by those who traveled to attend a demonstration in her honor (including Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service blocking a transfer of $30,000 from the National Endowment for Democracy based in the U.S. to stage the event, as well as members of human rights organizations from other countries being denied rooms they had reserved at local hotels).This New York Times article also tells us that independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta and Russian prosecutors know the identity of the man who killed her.And if anyone has any doubt that Russia is sliding back into some version of a dictatorship based not so much in ideology as in something like a “corpocracy” (with the power controlled ultimately by Vladimir Putin and that country’s vast energy market), then you need only read here about how Putin, as opposed to stepping down as presi ...
|
An Unholy "Conversion"
2007-10-08 18:46:52
In today’s New York Times, we are treated to more flimsy rationalizations from the Repugs on their opposition to fighting President Numbskull’s typically idiotic (and particularly cruel) SCHIP veto last week (this story may end up having more traction than the “General Betray Us” ad – it certainly should, anyway).And we are also treated to the following from one of their leading “lesser lights”…“If this was October of next year, I’d be really worried,” said Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri (pictured), the second-ranking House Republican. “But this is October of this year and the beginning of us getting our credibility back by showing that we are willing to take principled stands on spending.”It continually amazes me to read quotes like this from the Repugs, since these insights end up stating at least as much about how they feel towards the vast majority of us than their actual positions.Basically, Blunt thinks we’re stupid and we’ll just forget about ...
Unholy
|
Sunday Videos
2007-10-08 05:28:27
I think the technical difficulties have been resolved - I hope so anyway, so I'll try to get back into the video thing...Tegan and Sara ("Back In Your Head")......and happy belated birthday to blues legend Duke Robillard ("Sewed Up," with Kid Bangham and The Fabulous Thunderbirds). ...
|
Where The Rubber Meets The Road (10/5/07)
2007-10-08 02:21:11
As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.HouseChildren's health care. The House passed, 265-159, and sent to the Senate a five-year renewal of the State Children's Health Insurance Program set to cost $60 billion, up $35 billion from current spending on the program designed mainly to insure needy youth not covered by Medicaid.A yes vote was to pass HR 976.Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Schwartz (D., Pa.), Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) and Christopher H. Smith (R., N.J.).Voting no: Joseph R. Pitts (R., Pa.) and H. James Saxton (R., N.J.).And as noted here, Saxton was targeted immediately for this vote, as well he should be.And I actually can’t think of a word to ...
|
Today's Random Thought
2007-10-07 02:39:18
Did anyone besides me notice that the Google ads have gotten really interesting lately (and a bit graphic too)? ...
|
The Good And The Bad...And The Good
2007-10-06 05:52:53
Good for Max Baucus on SCHIP......and bad for Flush Limbore and the Repugs for trying to make money off the "phony soldiers" mess, brought to us by the pre-eminent right wing propagandist of the airwaves......and good for John Edwards (to help, click here). ...
|
The (Non) Trouble With Harry
2007-10-06 00:07:24
A man named Harry S. Dent, Jr. passed away on Tuesday, and I’ve been thinking about him a bit off and on since then. And before his name disappears into history, I just wanted to say something about him.You know how much we detest Republicans for their “southern strategy” of catering to racists for their votes, codifying their language with phrases such as “states rights” in particular, as well as emphasizing “law and order”?Dent invented the so-called southern strategy, and the first person to use it was Richard Nixon when running for president in 1968.As the New York Times tells us here…When President Lyndon B. Johnson championed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, some Republican strategists saw a potential bonanza in the South. They thought their party could reap the votes of white people uneasy with Democrats, or downright hostile to them, for advancing the cause of black people.(South Carolina Senator Strom) Thurmond became a Republican ...
|
How About A "No Nuke" Compact?
2007-10-05 21:58:31
The Washington Post tells us here that U.S. House Reps Howard Berman (D-CA), Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL, of course) are pushing for a nonbinding resolution concerning “constraints on future nuclear dealings with India.”I actually thought these three might have been doing the right thing (silly me), until I read about the so-called Hyde Act that was devised when Dubya and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in July 2005 (which is what the three are contesting).This post about the act states the following…On the nuclear front the Act offers India access to technology for new, bigger, and better reactors, as well as uranium for those reactors - something we are short of domestically. On the foreign policy front the Act shows that India can now create a space for itself and eventually be recognized as a nuclear state. By no means are these achievements to be scoffed at.Critics point out that what it offers, the Act can also take away…Nuclear cooperation ...
|
Win Ben Stein A Conscience
2007-10-05 18:19:08
As most people living in this locality know by now, the Bucks County Courier Times, on occasion, does feature enlightened commentary on its editorial page from people such as Gene Lyons, Marie Cocco, Paul Campos, and others of a liberal/Democratic/progressive persuasion. However, much more often than not, it is home to a seemingly endless parade of self-righteous freeper pundits who are only too happy to scold others whose only offense is to live lives or engage in a particular thought or behavior deemed repugnant by someone who has been granted column space.I know it is pointless to answer these people and counterproductive ultimately. I don’t have any raw numbers on this, but I would guess that the audience that actually thinks these right-wing egotists know what they’re talking about is shrinking by the minute. However, I sometimes find their behavior too offensive to ignore.And today is one of those times.Apparently, Ben Stein, the sometimes actor, wannabe comedian and full-tim ...
|
There's The Matter Of Torture, Senator
2007-10-05 00:24:36
This Boston Globe story notes that Sen. Patrick Leahy wants Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey to answer a range of questions about how Bushco operates, from the warrantless wiretaps to the firing of the prosecutors who didn’t do the bidding of Abu G and the Senate Repugs.(Hmm, “Abu G. And The Senate Repugs”; does that sound like a name for a punk garage band playing at the Khyber in downtown Philly or something? Just wondering…).However, as important as those other issues are, the story only makes a passing reference to torture, or, as the Globe puts it, “interrogation methods with captured terrorist suspects” (a matter which, along with just about everything else, is “off limits” as far as White House lawyer Fred Fielding is concerned).Gee, Fred, Vermont is lovely this time of year. What else is Leahy supposed to talk about, then? The onset of the fall foliage season?One day we will be governed by adults again (and of course, White House spokesperson Dana Perino ...
Senator
|
No Doubting Thomas, Sadly
2007-10-04 22:31:58
So Supreme Court flunkie justice Clarence Thomas had a big party the other day to celebrate the release of his new book with his other neocon fellow travelers.Whoop-de-freaking-doo…I don’t think there is anyone else in public life, with the possible exception of Dubya, who has risen to a position of prominence so far above his qualifications who is so resolutely bitter about it, imaging enemies everywhere he looks.But the only reason why I’m bothering to take any time on this subject is because of the following from this Washington Post story…NAACP Chairman Julian Bond and Thomas talked about Georgia. Thomas posed for a picture with a woman in a huge red hat. "I like that hat!" he said to Linda Softli of the Black Republican Women.Given Bushco’s contempt for African Americans in this country (one word: Katrina, and other evidence is provided here), can someone please explain to me why the leader of an organization that ostensibly represents African Americans would have any re ...
|
The World According To “Genghis” Cohen
2007-10-04 20:46:42
My goodness, is Roger Cohen in a spirit of jingoistic right-wing triumphalism today in the New York Times, or what (here)? I haven’t seen such armchair warrior ferocity since Don (“The Defense Secretary We Had”) Rumsfeld skipped out of Washington, D.C. for the comfy confines of the Hoover Institution.Tristero over at Hullaballo (h/t Atrios) addressed a good bit of what I’d planned to say very well here, so I’ll just point you over there. However, Cohen did manage to sneak in some other propaganda that I want to comment on, to wit…When John Kerry was vilified as a flip-flopping liberal by those armchair warriors, Bush and Cheney, I knew where I stood. When Michnik and Kouchner are neocons and MoveOn.org is the Petraeus-insulting face of never-set-foot-in-a-war-zone liberalism, I’m with the Polish-French brigade against the right-thinking American left.(Cohen defines somewhat who Koucher is, but he really doesn’t bother to say much about Michnik – oh well…).More to th ...
Cohen
|
Steve And Patrick Under Fire In Bucks, PA
2007-10-04 17:46:10
(I would have gotten to this earlier, but I've had some technical difficulties; that's why there haven't been any videos for the last couple of days - hopefully all will be made right soon).The following letter appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times yesterday…As a lifelong Democrat and one who has supported Congressman Patrick Murphy financially and politically, I was offended by Murphy’s $1,000-per-person fundraiser in Newtown at the Brick Hotel on Sept. 24.The event was the first meeting of the “Congressional Policy Group” wherein members must make a required $1,000 annual donation to Murphy’s political campaigns. Donors, through their purchased membership, will apparently have the good congressman’s ear to discuss “a range of policy issues” directly with Murphy.While I do see the value of organizing a broadly based think tank to help our congressman understand and act on the concerns of his constituents, I fail to see how the required $1,000 access fee is appropr ...
Fire
|
Can You Feel The Excitement?
2007-10-04 17:22:12
I think I have a treatment available to anyone out there in need of relaxation, and you don’t even need Diazepam. This will mellow you out faster than a Kenny G retrospective.It’s called The Fred Thompson Campaign For President.As the New York Times notes here…Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred D. Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”Then he stood face to face with a silent audience.“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter.“Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.And so charismatic and personable too, isn’t he? I guess he acquired a lot of people skills working in front of a TV camera for all those years...Mr. Thompson told few jokes and, while an easygoing presence, did not appear to have much interest in the small talk that is a st ...
Excitement
|
No Hope For Casey
2007-10-03 22:34:38
And based on this story, the same for Baucus, Bayh, Bingaman (happy birthday, schmuck), Carper, Conrad, Dorgan, Inouye, Johnson, Landrieu, Levin (the guy who once came up with this, by the way, back when he acted like an adult), Lincoln, McCaskill, Mikulski, The Nelson Brothers, Pryor, Reed, Salazar, Tester and Webb also…I found out about this from The Daily Kos, and they noted that every single Republican voted against the Feingold amendment also. Hell, at least THEY can show unanimity for a cause, however unholy it is, as opposed to those idiots I try to help in my way (who seem to be stuck on this 28 or 29 number).And remember how happy we were to see Casey, Webb, Tester and McCaskill win so the Dems could get the Senate? All four sold us down the river again here on the war.Can someone explain to me again exactly why I should support the Democratic Party? ...
Casey
|
Ready For Your Close-Up, Dubya?
2007-10-03 21:39:44
Much like a trained seal trying to balance a beach ball on its nose in lieu of not knowing what else to do, our now-and-forever red state president open up his demagogic playbook again in a speech where he took another shot at “Hollywood values.”And I guess that’s a funny remark for people such as Robert Duvall, Ron Silver, Kelsey Grammer and Cicely Tyson, among other actors who supported Dubya in ’04.It’s really not worth my time to list all of the problems facing our nation and the world once more, and it really isn’t worth your time either for me to make you read about what you already know. It’s just sooo depressing to watch Incurious George continually try to present himself as an adult in a job for which he has continually been overmatched, imagining “issues” handed to him straight from the Republican National Committee while everything else disintegrates around him, and he remains oblivious.I’ll tell you what then, Dubya, as long as you think we should take y ...
|
What’s Some Stray Missiles Between “Friends”?
2007-10-03 19:43:40
According to this McClatchy news story, the Israelis have acknowledged that “its air force had struck an unspecified military target deep inside Syria in September.”And that’s about it. However, the McClatchy story offers this possibility…One of the latest theories is that North Korea told the United States it had sold nuclear technology to Syria , which prompted the U.S. to tell Israel that North Korea had sold nuclear technology to Syria , which prompted Israel to attack the North Korean technology in Syria . Follow?And as far as I’m concerned, telling Bushco about stuff like this is as good as telling the Israelis anyway.Personally, I think something else is going on here, as noted here by Daniel Levy of The Century Foundation via Ezra Klein, as follows (dated 9/7 right after the story broke)…There has been huge speculation in Israel, throughout the summer, regarding Syrian rearmament and possible military intentions. This might have been a way of dipping one's toe in th ...
Friends
Missiles
|
| |
Show All