Dreaming of a Clintonless Democratic Party

Still yet another reason to hope that the Clintons will simply go away:

It’s one thing for a good presidential candidate to embrace a bad idea. It’s worse when the candidate knows it’s a bad idea. It’s worse still when the candidate attacks her rival for failing to embrace a bad idea. And it’s the worst when the candidate feels so strongly about the bad idea that she starts running television commercials about it.

Of course he's talking about Hillary Clinton and her support of John McCain's incredibly stupid gas tax holiday. Now we know it's stupid because Fred Barnes thinks it's a good idea. It's so stupid that even Thomas Friedman thinks it's stupid and He's rarely right about anything. Jonathan Alter calls it what it is:
Political Pandering
Suspending the federal gas tax is a crass ploy for votes. Why Hillary Clinton and John McCain should know better.

Hillary Clinton has now joined John McCain in proposing the most irresponsible policy idea of the year—an idea that actually could aid the terrorists. What's worse, both of them know that suspending the federal gas tax this summer is a terrible pander, and yet they're pushing it anyway for crass political advantage.

Clinton and McCain have learned a destructive lesson from the Bush era: as Bill Clinton said in 2002, it's better politically to be "strong and wrong" than thoughtful and right. The goal is to depict Barack Obama as an out-of-touch elitist. By any means necessary.

I could highlight a long debate among economists on suspending the gas tax, but there is no debate. Not one respectable economist—and not one environmentalist or foreign policy expert—supports the idea, unless they are official members of the Clinton or McCain campaigns (and even some of them privately oppose it). To relieve suffering at the pump, send another rebate check or provide tax credits or something else, but not this.

So why is it so stupid? Alter explains:

* It's a direct transfer of money from motorists to oil companies, which are getting ready this week to again report record obscene profits. If the federal excise tax were lifted, oil companies would simply raise prices and pocket most of the difference. Clinton's proposal to recover the money with a windfall profits tax on oil companies sounds nice but won't happen. That tax was easily blocked by the Senate in December and would likely be blocked again.

* It offers taxpayers only peanuts. The Congressional Budget Office says the average savings to motorists this summer would be a total of $30. Did I miss something, or was that measly number somehow not included in Clinton's explanation of her support?

* It sends more hard-earned money to the Middle East, which is terrible for our national security. Remember, 15 of the 19 terrorists on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia. How did they get the terrorist training? The madrassa indoctrination? Oil money.

* It worsens global warming by encouraging gasoline consumption. When you flee your house in 2020 because of flooding, remember which politicians pandered.

* It makes it more likely you'll have a car accident or will waste even more time in traffic. The proceeds from the gas tax go for highway construction and upgrades. Because the tax (24.4 cents a gallon on diesel fuel) was last raised 15 years ago, our infrastructure is a mess, with potholes and dangerous crossings practically everywhere. Thousands of repair projects will be further delayed.

* It will cost 300,000 construction jobs, according to the Department of Transportation. Makes it kind of ironic when Clinton starts her rallies saying she wants "jobs, jobs, jobs."

* It will cost the U.S. Treasury at least $8.5 billion and probably much more, according to state highway officials. For McCain that's no money at all—merely one month in Iraq. For Clinton it's money she's already spent. She has said in the past that any proceeds from a windfall profits tax would go for renewable energy. The $8.5 billion figure assumes the tax would be reapplied after Labor Day. Fat chance. The one-year costs are probably closer to $30 billion.

* It won't happen anyway because Congress isn't usually quite that stupid, and if it is, President Bush would veto the bill.

What I have heard few talk about are the reasons behind the sky rocketing fuel prices. Of course we have reached peak oil which I first discussed here almost four years ago. But that doesn't explain why the US is being hurt much more than Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The reality is that oil costs a lot more dollars because the dollar buys a lot less. A majority of Americans now realize that the occupation of Iraq is responsible for much of our economic woes. That includes the price Americans pay for gasoline. The occupation of Iraq costs about three billion dollars a week. That money is all being borrowed driving up the national debt and driving down the value of the dollar. Now an gas tax holiday won't increase the supply of oil and if anything will decrease the value of the dollar driving up prices even more.

Now John McCain has admitted he doesn't know anything about economics so perhaps he doesn't realize how stupid the gas tax holiday is. I can't believe that Hillary Clinton doesn't know any better making her support even worse.

Finally they notice

Via upyernoz at Rubber Hose the New York Times has finally figured out what many of us have been saying for months - the US and the Iranians are on the same side in Iraq.
U.S. and Iran Find Common Ground in Iraq’s Shiite Conflict

BAGHDAD — In the Iraqi government’s fight to subdue the Shiite militia of Moktada al-Sadr in the southern city of Basra, perhaps nothing reveals the complexities of the Iraq conflict more starkly than this: Iran and the United States find themselves on the same side.

The causes of this convergence boil down to the logic of self-interest, although it is logic in a place where even the most basic reasoning refuses to go in a straight line. In essence, though, the calculation by the United States is that it must back the government it helped to create and take the steps needed to protect American troops and civilian officials.

Iranian motivations appear to hinge on the possibility that Mr. Sadr’s political and military followers could gain power in provincial elections this fall, and disrupt the creation of a semiautonomous region in the south that the Iranians see as beneficial.

The American-Iranian convergence is all the more remarkable because of mutual animosity. The United States says that Iran has backed thousands of attacks on American troops in Iraq, bitterly opposes its nuclear program and has not ruled out bombing Iran if Iranian policies do not change. Meanwhile, at the level of senior officials at least, Iran takes quite seriously its depiction of the United States as the planet’s Great Satan.

I made this observation below:

They are constantly ranting about Iran but they have and continue to do all of Iran's dirty work in Iraq. They toppled Iran's arch enemy, Saddam, they put the most pro-Iranian elements in Iraq in power and they continue to defend those elements with US blood and treasure.

and upyernoz explains:

for years the iranian government has backed the same iraqi government as the u.s. over a year ago, bush met with the leader of what was then called the SCIRI (now called the ISCI) to pressure them to join the maliki government. the SCIRI/ISCI is one of the most overtly pro-iranian group in iraq. the members of the ISCI's militia, the badr organization, actually draw their pensions from the iranian revolutionary guard. bush was, quite literally, pushing iranian agents to become part of the u.s. supported iraqi government.

The Bush administration is supporting a group that is literally on the payroll of the Iranian government - the Badr Organization.

I have to wonder if al-Sadr remains in Iran because the Iranians won't let him return. The last thing the Iranians what is as al-Sadr in power.

Bring em on!

I have spent the last several years trying figure out if the Bush/Cheney administration and the neocons are stupid and delusional, just plain crazy or if there is some bizarre method to their madness. I'm beginning to think it must be all of the above. They are constantly ranting about Iran but they have and continue to do all of Iran's dirty work in Iraq. They toppled Iran's arch enemy, Saddam, they put the most pro-Iranian elements in Iraq in power and they continue to defend those elements with US blood and treasure. The latest example is this:
Iraqi Army Takes Last Basra Areas From Sadr Force
But of course they didn't do it alone.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters.

By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad.

While the administration talks about about Iran's support for al-Sadr the Iranians are laughing. They like al-Maliki's government just fine since it is supported and controlled by the pro-Iranian ISCI and Da'wa party. The Iraqi security forces are primarily members of the Badr Brigade - a creation of the Iranians.

While that is stupid it is not nearly as stupid as this:
Secretary of State Rice Mocks Muslim Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a Coward

BAGHDAD — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mocked anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as a coward on Sunday, hours after the radical leader threatened to declare war unless U.S. and Iraqi forces end a military crackdown on his followers.

Now the American and British air strikes may have driven the Mehdi army underground but only to fight another day. The always stupid and incompetent Rice has just poured gasoline on embers which will flare up even sooner resulting in the deaths of both Iraqis and Americans. This administration is criminally stupid and incompetent.

The real insult!

As I said from the begining what Barack Obama said about rural voters may have been unwise but it was accurate. John Baer of the Philadelphia Daily News agrees.

As a native-born, small-town Pennsylvanian, a son of native-born, small-town Pennsylvania parents - one from the coal region, one from Lancaster County - let me assure you that the so-called offensive, condescending things Barack Obama said about the people I come from are basically right on target.

[.....]

So, despite carping from Hillary Clinton and annoying yapping from her surrogates (really, it's like turning on the lights at night in a puppy farm), I take no offense.

What's offensive to me is suggesting that small-town, working-class, gun-toting and/or religious Pennsylvanians are somehow injured by a politician's words.

[......]

They've been injured from decades of neglect by political cultures in Washington and Harrisburg driven by special interests.

They're injured by a system of isolated, insulated political leadership that protects itself and the status quo above all else.

They've been harmed by a lack of political guts to fix a health-care system that works against the poor and forces middle-class families to pay more for less, while at the same time giving politicians the best coverage taxpayer money can buy.

They've been taken for granted by political parties and candidates who stay in power by - and this was the apparent gist of Obama's remarks - forcing attention and debate on issues tied to guns, religion and race (precisely because such issues resonate) rather than real problems such as health care and the economy.

Yes, Obama's remarks may have been unwise because he should have known that the Rovian campaigns being run by both John McCain and Hillary Clinton would jump all over it and be aided by the corporate media and their infotainment that pretends to be news. But the reality is the politicians and the pundits reacted the way they did because it was on the money and hit a little too close to home. Baer concludes with this:

So the question is whether Obama effectively defuses this, as he did the controversy surrounding his former minister. And that remains to be seen.

Just don't tell me that he insulted a state or, given his background, that he's an out-of-touch elitist.

And I especially don't want to hear such arguments from a candidate who spent decades in the bubble of a governor's mansion, the White House and the U.S. Senate, and under the blanket of $109 million income during the last eight years.

Pennsylvanians might cling to religion and guns. I hope they don't cling to stupidity.

And the winner is!

Many predicted when the Bush administration invaded and occupied Iraq that the ultimate winner would not be the United States but Iran.
Iran leader's Iraq visit eclipses US, Arab ties

BAGHDAD, March 2 (Reuters) - Pomp and ceremony greeted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his arrival in Iraq on Sunday, the fanfare a stark contrast to the rushed and secretive visits of his bitter rival U.S. President George W. Bush.

Ahmadinejad held hands with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as they walked down a red carpet to the tune of their countries' national anthems, his visit the first by an Iranian president since the two neighbours fought a ruinous war in the 1980s.

His warm reception, in which he was hugged and kissed by Iraqi officials and presented with flowers by children, was Iraq's first full state welcome for any leader since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.

His visit not only marks the cementing in ties between the neighbours, both run by Shi'ite majorities, but is seen as a show of support for the Iraqi government and an act of defiance against Iran's longtime enemy, the United States, which has over 150,000 troops Iraq.

A line of senior Iraqi political leaders welcomed Ahmadinejad when he arrived at Talabani's palatial home.

Ahmadinejad's well publicized and public visit is in stark contrast to George Bush's short secret sorties into the country. He not only was received warmly but got the flowers that were supposed to go to the Americans. This is just another indication of the misguided incompetence of the Bush administration and the neocons. Over two thirds of the Iraqis want the US out of their country and nearly two thirds of the American people want the US to leave Iraq. The US ousted Iran's long time enemy Saddam Hussein and made it possible for a Iranian friendly Shiite government to gain control.

Rush and McCain

***Crossposted from "Chuck for..." some friends of mine got pretty good chuckles out of this at our Super Tuesday Party so I thought I'd slip it over here***

Holy cow, you'd think John dumped one of the Rushbo's Oxy pill bottles, talk about unhinged on his Monday show... In case some of you dangerous traitorous Democrats hadn't noticed John McCain is out to destroy the Republican Party in revenge of his 2000 S Carolina loss. In fact he'll see to it that, "The Republican Congress will effectively be neutered." I don't want to throw a wet rag on his addled pate but chances are real good that voters will continue that particular process they started in '06. Not to mention that the squealing coming from him is rather indicative of that condition.

ABC News didn't seem nearly as amused as I am when they noted Rush warning that McCain is a "liberal" though you know as well as I it was pronounced librule. They didn't note whether he slobbered on himself when he accused McCain of courting the pro-choice voters though how that works with McCain's staunch anti-abortion stance must be a product of unspilled pill bottles. Rush wasn't quite as narrow as to just hit McCain with spray, Fred Barnes (for whom I have about as much respect - his wisdom probably comes from martini glasses rather than 'script bottles) came in for some for having the temerity to suggest conservatives give McCain a chance for reaching out to them. "Fred, you used to be one of us!" Limbaugh said. "Now you seem to be all for Republicans having its liberal wing too."

Not to pile on Rush, but I seem to remember your rants having the liberals as the only ones who coddled drug addled loons, you know, sort of like fat addicted radio hosts would be. As a dedicated Republican water carrier I'd sort of think that liberal Republican wing would be a natural home for you. I don't know, seems that devil weed must be worse than Oxycontin though the number of felonies involved in getting a weed buzz are significantly fewer, maybe it involves melanin levels.

The old standby never is far from the hand of Rush, the effete elite liberal media is naturally involved in the conspiracy, "It was just six months ago that if a candidate was endorsed by the liberal media we were instantly suspicious of them," now he said, "we've got drive-by media organizations having orgasms about McCain." You could take that as a reference to the NYT or maybe a slew of West Coast papers from Seattle to LA, but if they're not owned by Moonies they're suspect. We all know what the Oregonian is like, I mean after all look at that left wing nut cake Saxton they endorsed for Governor - you know the one, the moderately liberal Kulongoski wiped the floor with in Blue Oregon. That would be the same left loon Oregonian that endorsed McCain.

Probably McCain's worst sin is, "He's going to reach out to Democrats in Congress," which is entirely reasonble for somebody who wants troops in Iraq for the next one hundred years. Yessiree, that ought to get some slowdancing going on, right after the pro-life anti-gay Christer rant he'll give. I knew a guy who was crushed by a 6,000 pound gear that fell off a chainfall and spent a year in the hospital getting addicted to Oxycontin and even awhile after cleaning up he'd have "spells." That's a polite Southern word isn't it, Rush? Kinda State of Misery sort of word, a down home Cape Girardau effete child of privilege sort of word? A cyste on the butt 101st chAirborne microphone warrior sort of word?

I don't like John McCain's politics one bit, but while he was busy getting knocked out of the sky this faux good ole boy was nursing a cyste where his brain lives. Oh yeah, it's a serious thing those cystes, about one day in the hospital and it's gone sort of life threateningly oh no sort of military 4F sort of thing. I've got to admit, considering all their problems going into an election McCain doing their President's bidding on immigration and a toothless campaign finance law are definitely the biggies. Is it going to bother me a bunch to watch these rabbid rabbits tear themselves apart from the inside out? Only if they start handing out purple heart bandaides to McCain supporters. This is going to be fun in a sick sort of way, you know, like a multi-car NASCAR crash replay in slooooowwww motion.

The Trouble With Obama

I don't really care what Barack Obama's intent was when he made his statements about Ronald Reagan. Just like his comments on Social Security he was validating Republican talking points and that's not only wrong it's stupid. Over at The Left Coaster eriposte did a good job of taking down Obama and Markos Moulitsas' defense of them. Today Paul Krugman, who thinks even less of Obama than I do, explains why Obama's comments were ill advised at best.

Historical narratives matter. That’s why conservatives are still writing books denouncing F.D.R. and the New Deal; they understand that the way Americans perceive bygone eras, even eras from the seemingly distant past, affects politics today.

And it’s also why the furor over Barack Obama’s praise for Ronald Reagan is not, as some think, overblown. The fact is that how we talk about the Reagan era still matters immensely for American politics.

Bill Clinton knew that in 1991, when he began his presidential campaign. “The Reagan-Bush years,” he declared, “have exalted private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family. The 1980s ushered in a Gilded Age of greed and selfishness, of irresponsibility and excess, and of neglect.”

Contrast that with Mr. Obama’s recent statement, in an interview with a Nevada newspaper, that Reagan offered a “sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”

Maybe Mr. Obama was, as his supporters insist, simply praising Reagan’s political skills. (I think he was trying to curry favor with a conservative editorial board, which did in fact endorse him.) But where in his remarks was the clear declaration that Reaganomics failed?

Reagonomics not only failed it's still failing which is why we are in a recession now. Of course the only reason it is a recession is because the stock market is tanking so the investor class is taking the hits most Americans have been taking for seven years. Krugman continues:

For it did fail. The Reagan economy was a one-hit wonder. Yes, there was a boom in the mid-1980s, as the economy recovered from a severe recession. But while the rich got much richer, there was little sustained economic improvement for most Americans. By the late 1980s, middle-class incomes were barely higher than they had been a decade before — and the poverty rate had actually risen.

When the inevitable recession arrived, people felt betrayed — a sense of betrayal that Mr. Clinton was able to ride into the White House.

Given that reality, what was Mr. Obama talking about? Some good things did eventually happen to the U.S. economy — but not on Reagan’s watch.

For example, I’m not sure what “dynamism” means, but if it means productivity growth, there wasn’t any resurgence in the Reagan years. Eventually productivity did take off — but even the Bush administration’s own Council of Economic Advisers dates the beginning of that takeoff to 1995.

Everyone talks about how Hillary Clinton is a triangulating politician, which she is. But are you going to try to tell me Barack Obama is not worse? And Krugman concludes with why Obamas comments were ever so wrong:

Now progressives have been granted a second chance to argue that Reaganism is fundamentally wrong: once again, the vast majority of Americans think that the country is on the wrong track. But they won’t be able to make that argument if their political leaders, whatever they meant to convey, seem to be saying that Reagan had it right.

Just In Case

you didn't realize just how dangerous BushCo is to the liberties of this nation, a little walk back in time to the Hoover FBI might be in order. July 7th, 1950 J Edgar sent the Truman White House his plan to suspend Habeas Corpus on the reach that the clause “unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it” included “threatened invasion” or “attack upon United States troops in legally occupied territory.”

The plan called for the arrest and indefinite detention of 12,000 Americans 97% of whom were citizens from a list compiled from 1948 when Attorney General Tom Clark gave the F.B.I. the go ahead to make a list of people it considered "dangerous." Some of this may sound familiar.

The prisoners eventually would have had a right to a hearing under the Hoover plan. The hearing board would have been a panel made up of one judge and two citizens. But the hearings “will not be bound by the rules of evidence,” his letter noted.

Why bother with the niceties of evidence when these people wouldn't have been swept up if they weren't guilty of 'something.' Surely the Hoover FBI could be trusted. Now that volume of people would create a certain problem, for which Hoover was prepared.

Hoover’s plan called for “the permanent detention” of the roughly 12,000 suspects at military bases as well as in federal prisons. The F.B.I., he said, had found that the arrests it proposed in New York and California would cause the prisons there to overflow.

Sometimes history and stupidly dangerous ideas have a way of repeating themselves, though there is no evidence that Harry Truman ever instituted this mess. Too bad such can't be said for George II.

This is so Republican

Jazz and I briefly discussed this on Mid Stream Radio this morning.
GOP will demand 'oath' of February primary voters

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- If you're planning to vote in Virginia's February Republican presidential primary, be prepared to sign an oath swearing your Republican loyalty.

The State Board of Elections on Monday approved a state Republican Party request to require all who apply for a GOP primary ballot first vow in writing that they'll vote for the party's presidential nominee next fall.

There's no practical way to enforce the oath. Virginia doesn't require voters to register by party, and for years the state's Republicans have fretted that Democrats might meddle in their open primaries.

This is not a surprise the current Republican Party demands lock step loyalty above all else. Karl Rove was constantly warning Republican lawmakers to give George everything he wanted or they would pay. But it's really stupid and makes the Virginia Republican party look petty and stupid. It's without any legal standing and unenforceable.

Even the NRO agrees:
Totally Bizarre And Out of Line

I would feel differently if this were a private, party-funded event to pick the nominee — in that case, they can make you stand on your head for all I care. But Virginia has an open primary that is funded by the government. It is extremely strange that the state Board of Elections would allow this.

No surprise here!

It appears that work at the gigantic permanent occupation headquarters embassy in Baghdad is not going too well. The rest of the Bush/Cheney administration's debacle in Iraq has been a cluster fuck so this should be no exception. Of course one of the main reasons should be of no surprise either, an almost total lack of oversight, on of the many things that will make up the Bush legacy.
Even sprinkler systems fail at U.S. embassy in Baghdad

WASHINGTON — The latest problem with the trouble-plagued new U.S. embassy complex in Iraq is that the sprinkler systems meant to contain a fire do not work, according to officials in Congress and the State Department.

The previously undisclosed problem in the $592 million project was discovered several weeks ago when the fire-safety systems were tested and pipe joints burst, State Department representatives recently informed Congress.

The embassy complex, being built by First Kuwaiti General Trade and Contracting Co., has been marred by repeated problems. In May, when kitchen facilities at a guard camp that is part of the embassy complex were tested, the electrical system malfunctioned and wires melted. A subsequent inquiry showed that First Kuwaiti had used counterfeit electrical wiring that did not meet specifications, according to testimony at a congressional hearing in July.

Former top investigators for State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard have charged that Krongard refused to aggressively investigate allegations of misconduct by First Kuwaiti and deficiencies in the Baghdad Embassy.

Krongard has disputed his former aides' version of events, and is expected to testify before Congress later this month.

The one-time aides to Krongard, including former Assistant Inspector General for Investigations John DeDona, have told Congress that the inspector general did not pursue allegations that First Kuwaiti failed to construct blast-resistant walls to protect the embassy, as required by its contract.

Krongard also took the unusual step of personally investigating allegations that First Kuwaiti abused foreign workers and illegally brought some workers to Iraq against their will, the aides have told Congress.

But every thing will turn out OK because Condi is losing patience.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that it is unclear whether the embassy's problems are more than normal contracting delays, but he hinted that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's patience is wearing thin.

Fuck!!!!

When Henry Met Stupid

The seven stages of dumb, nasty bad behavior run the gamut from casually, less than brilliant bad intentions to mind bogglingly, criminally evil stupidity. And it pops up on both sides of the aisle far too often. But frankly, I can't identify where this hell this falls on that scale. It seems that somebody is trying to play some games on the web with GOP sort-of candidate Fred Thompson. (Courtesy of Capt. Ed.)

Apparently hoping to confuse web surfers looking for Fred's website at http://www.imwithfred.com/, a new site has appeared at http://www.imwithfred2008.com/ -- only this site welcomes people to the Ku Klux Klan, "Bringing a Message of Hope and Deliverance to White Christian America!" It includes links to a variety of disgusting racist sites.

Who would post something like this as a smear on Fred Thompson? Someone a little too stupid to cover his tracks, possibly? A DNS search gives us an answer. The domain name, registered through GoDaddy (no great shock there), belongs to:

Henry Reynolds
500 California Ave. #5
Santa Monica, California 90403
United States

Ed's article goes on to point out that Mr. Reynolds is an attorney and a regular contributor to MoveOn, John Kerry, DNC and such.

As I noted in Ed's comments section, there is more information to be gathered before anyone can be absolutely sure of what's going on here. I mean, it's certainly possible that Henry is actually a gay member of the KKK with a life partner named Fred who will celebrate their anniversary in 2008, but somehow it seems to lack the ring of truth.

Seriously, now... how effective could anyone think this could be? Whether you care for Thompson or not, he's a pretty high profile person in the political scene. He could never have risen past the level of city dog catcher if he was stupid enough to have his name associated with this type of material.

Stupid? Evil? You be the judge.

Stranger and Stranger
The URL above imwithfred2008 now goes to an ad for John Edwards. Not good for Edwards and looking almost Rovian in nature.
Ron

Stranger and Stranger II
The link now re-directs us to Wikipedia entry for Fredric Jameson. Hat Tip to Ed.

Update From Ron
It should be pointed out that in addition to being stupid this is just plain wrong. It is the very thing that we have been accusing the other side of doing, accurately at times.

King George and the Law

The DOJ is a part of the Executive branch and can be ordered about by George W. He asserts that "the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege," according to the WaPo . This is rather sticky for Congress, the law states that a House or Senate statutory contempt citation must be submitted to the DC US Attorney "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

"A senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. "And a U.S. attorney wouldn't be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen."
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue publicly, added: "It has long been understood that, in circumstances like these, the constitutional prerogatives of the president would make it a futile and purely political act for Congress to refer contempt citations to U.S. attorneys."

So apparently being President means Congress can just go take a hike and is what you might call - inconsequential. Fit for doing the bidding of the Supreme Executive, and you may have noticed that they will do just that rather than be accused of being soft on terror - so they'll be soft on spying. So, the Supremes are very nearly a BushCo creation, Congress is his yapping lap dog, and what's left? I suppose it's the ballot box or the Second Amendment, it's a pretty sad state of affairs when there is actually reason to wonder which is most utilitarian.

Theater of the absurd - hubris edition

Bush, Democrats struggle for spy deal

Congress and the White House struggled Friday over expanding authority to eavesdrop on suspected foreign terrorists in a high-stakes showdown over national security.

"We're still hopeful that something can be worked out," said Ellen Cioccio, a spokeswoman for Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, after a day of fitful negotiations. "They're still talking."

Democratic leaders cleared the way for votes on different measures — at least two in the Senate and one in the House.

That left the outcome in doubt hours after Bush implored Congress to send him a bill before leaving this weekend on a monthlong vacation.

In the House, Democrats claimed they had acceded to White House requests, but Bush's aides disputed that.

So Bush insists they the House and the Senate Stay in session until they give him the bill he wants. That worked pretty well in Iraq didn't it? So what does Bush want? This is double hubris.

The president threatened to veto any bill by the Democratic-led Congress that his intelligence director deemed unable "to prevent an attack on the country. . . McConnell and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would oversee the eavesdropping process, according to the White House plan. That prompted howls of protest from Democrats who distrust the attorney general to protect privacy rights. "We need a legal framework around this program," Reid said. "No more blank check for this attorney general, no more blank checks for any attorney general."

That's right Alberto Gonzales is going to oversee the program. You know Gonzo, the guy even the most partisan Republicans think is incompetent and everybody else thinks is a pathological liar, political hack and Bush/Cheney sycophant.

But of course security is not what it's all about, as lambert at Corrente explains.

Besides, this isn’t about surveillance at all. It’s about making sure the lawbreaking of the criminal Bush regime is never exposed and retroactively legalized, and about blaming the Dems when a second 9/11 happens on Bush’s watch.

I mean, it’s all too transparent, and right out of the Republican playbook. Why are the Dems even taking it seriously?

So go ahead congress - take that vacation. You don't deserve it but if you stay you might be tempted to do something stupid.

Update
Well they didn't leave before it was too late
Senate passes Bush-backed spy bill
Ralph says it all with just a title - Democrats Cave in Senate

The end of the cultural warriors?

I predicted in 2004 that the influence of the cultural warriors of the religious right had peaked. Much too late unfortunately with Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court. I based that on the observation that Calvinistic religious movements have historically never lasted more than a generation or two in the west. The decline of the cultural warriors may have been hastened by the Terri Schiavo debacle which was spawned by the lunatic fringe of the Religious right and the scandals involving Bible thumping politicians and religious leaders. This is the subject of the Frank Rich column today:
I Did Have Sexual Relations With That Woman

IT’S not just the resurgence of Al Qaeda that is taking us back full circle to the fateful first summer of the Bush presidency. It’s the hot sweat emanating from Washington. Once again the capital is titillated by a scandal featuring a member of Congress, a woman who is not his wife and a rumor of crime. Gary Condit, the former Democratic congressman from California, has passed the torch of below-the-Beltway sleaziness to David Vitter, an incumbent (as of Friday) Republican senator from Louisiana.

Mr. Vitter briefly faced the press to explain his “very serious sin,” accompanied by a wife who might double for the former Mrs. Jim McGreevey. He had no choice once snoops hired by the avenging pornographer Larry Flynt unearthed his number in the voluminous phone records of the so-called D.C. Madam, now the subject of a still-young criminal investigation. Newspapers back home also linked the senator to a defunct New Orleans brothel, a charge Mr. Vitter denies. That brothel’s former madam, while insisting he had been a client, was one of his few defenders last week. “Just because people visit a whorehouse doesn’t make them a bad person,” she helpfully told the Baton Rouge paper, The Advocate.

Mr. Vitter is not known for being so forgiving a soul when it comes to others’ transgressions. Even more than Mr. Condit, who once co-sponsored a bill calling for the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings, Mr. Vitter is a holier-than-thou family-values panderer. He recruited his preteen children for speaking roles in his campaign ads and, terrorism notwithstanding, declared that there is no “more important” issue facing America than altering the Constitution to defend marriage.

But hypocrisy is a hardy bipartisan perennial on Capitol Hill, and hardly news. This scandal may leave a more enduring imprint. It comes with a momentous pedigree. Mr. Vitter first went to Washington as a young congressman in 1999, to replace Robert Livingston, the Republican leader who had been anointed to succeed Newt Gingrich as speaker of the House. Mr. Livingston’s seat had abruptly become vacant after none other than Mr. Flynt outed him for committing adultery. Since we now know that Mr. Gingrich was also practicing infidelity back then — while leading the Clinton impeachment crusade, no less — the Vitter scandal can be seen as the culmination of an inexorable sea change in his party.

Bush's third lost war

And it is President Bush who will be left holding the bag in history. As the new National Intelligence Estimate confirms the failure of the war against Al Qaeda and each day of quagmire signals the failure of the war in Iraq, so the case of the fallen senator from the Big Easy can stand as an epitaph for a third lost war in our 43rd president’s legacy: the war against sex.

During the 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush and his running mate made a point of promising to “set an example for our children” and to “uphold the honor and the dignity of the office.” They didn’t just mean that there would be no more extramarital sex in the White House. As a matter of public policy, abstinence was in; abortion rights, family planning and homosexuality were out. Mr. Bush’s Federal Communications Commission stood ready to punish the networks for four-letter words and wardrobe malfunctions. The surgeon general was forbidden to mention condoms or the morning-after pill.

To say that this ambitious program has fared no better than the creation of an Iraqi unity government is an understatement. The sole lasting benchmark to be met in the Bush White House’s antisex agenda was the elevation of anti-Roe judges to the federal bench. Otherwise, Sodom and Gomorrah are thrashing the Family Research Council and the Traditional Values Coalition day and night.

The dissolution of the tribe of religious cultural warriors may be even worse news for the Republican party than the administration of George W. Bush. Lee Attwater and Karl Rove built the strength of the republican party on the religious right and their opposition to Roe V Wade. That's the main reason they gave only lip service to ending it for all these years - it was the one issue that gave them a chance of electoral victories. The Republican party knows that the milk cow known as the Religious Right is dry.

Most amazing is the cultural makeover of Mr. Bush’s own party. The G.O.P. that began the century in the thrall of Rick Santorum, Bill Frist and George Allen has become the brand of Mark Foley and Mr. Vitter. Not a single Republican heavyweight showed up at Jerry Falwell’s funeral. Younger evangelical Christians, who may care more about protecting the environment than policing gay people, are up for political grabs.

Nowhere is this cultural revolution more visible — or more fun to watch — than in the G.O.P. campaign for the White House. Forty years late, the party establishment is finally having its own middle-aged version of the summer of love, and it’s a trip. The co-chairman of John McCain’s campaign in Florida has been charged with trying to solicit gay sex from a plainclothes police officer. Over at YouTube, viewers are flocking to a popular new mock-music video in which “Obama Girl” taunts her rival: “Giuliani Girl, you stop your fussin’/ At least Obama didn’t marry his cousin.”

As Margery Eagan, a columnist at The Boston Herald, has observed, even the front-runners’ wives are getting into the act, trying to one-up one another with displays of what she described as their “ample and aging” cleavage. The décolletage primary was kicked off early this year by the irrepressible Judith Giuliani, who posed for Harper’s Bazaar giving her husband a passionate kiss. “I’ve always liked strong, macho men,” she said. This was before we learned she had married two such men, not one, before catching the eye of America’s Mayor at Club Macanudo, an Upper East Side cigar bar, while he was still married to someone else.

Whatever the ultimate fate of Rudy Giuliani’s campaign, it is the straw that stirs the bubbling brew that is the post-Bush Republican Party. The idea that a thrice-married, pro-abortion rights, pro-gay rights candidate is holding on as front-runner is understandably driving the G.O.P.’s increasingly marginalized cultural warriors insane. Not without reason do they fear that he is in the vanguard of a new Republican age of Addams-family values and moral relativism. Once a truculent law-and-order absolutist, Mr. Giuliani has even shrugged off the cocaine charges leveled against his departed South Carolina campaign chairman, the state treasurer Thomas Ravenel, as a “highly personal” matter.

The religious right’s own favorite sons, Sam Brownback and Mike Huckabee, are no more likely to get the nomination than Ron Paul or, for that matter, RuPaul. The party’s faith-based oligarchs are getting frantic. Disregarding a warning from James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who said in March that he didn’t consider Fred Thompson a Christian, they desperately started fixating on the former Tennessee senator as their savior. When it was reported this month that Mr. Thompson had worked as a lobbyist for an abortion rights organization in the 1990s, they credulously bought his denials and his spokesman’s reassurance that “there’s no documents to prove it, no billing records.” Last week The New York Times found the billing records.

Mitt Romney is still trying to march to the tune played by the Religious Right and in spit of all of his money his campaign is going no where.

No one is stepping more boldly into this values vacuum than Mitt Romney. In contrast to Mr. Giuliani, the former Massachusetts governor has not only disowned his past as a social liberal but is also running as a paragon of moral rectitude. He is even embracing one of the more costly failed Bush sex initiatives, abstinence education, just as states are abandoning it for being ineffective. He never stops reminding voters that he is the only top-tier candidate still married to his first wife.

[.....]

The other problem is more profound: Mr. Romney is swimming against a swift tide of history in both culture and politics. Just as the neocons had their moment in power in the Bush era and squandered it in Iraq, so the values crowd was handed its moment of ascendancy and imploded in debacles ranging from Terri Schiavo to Ted Haggard to David Vitter. By this point it’s safe to say that even some Republican primary voters are sick enough of their party’s preacher politicians that they’d consider hitting a cigar bar or two with Judith Giuliani.

They have already done a great deal of damage but the age of both the neocons and the theocons may be at hand.

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Children Playing in Traffic

Every time I look at the Middle East I start to wonder where the adults are. No kidding, it as if the parents turned their children loose on the Interstate in heavy traffic. The really bad part is that what few adults are looking on are busy trying to pick a favorite malefactor.

Look at the daisy chain called Israel/Palestine and then tell me who is responsible. Don't do the knee-jerk "their guys," actually look at it. The Israelis have used wealth and power to oppress and ravage the Palestinians who at virtually every given chance provoke the lion and brutalize their own. No one is encouraged to act like adults. A Palestinian state given the respect and authority due a state and held to the responsibility of a state might have a reason to have secure borders and control of its citizens. An Israel faced with an actual state might have reason to reign in those who take advantage of the poverty and desperation of the Palestinians and further to offer help rather than simply offer up retribution.

Who is acting in a responsible manner in Iraq? The Iraqi "children" are playing in heavy traffic and we've thrown blindfolded soldiers amongst them as some sort of palliative measure and act aggrieved when they get hurt. The Iraqis themselves are bad enough, but we've spent decades poking at Iran with un-sharpened sticks and seem surprised that they want to poke back now that we've given them a place to do it. So the solution is to yell at the Iranians and tell bogeyman stories about the smallest faction, al-Qaeda, taking over without our troops. The Child in Chief refuses to put down the sharp object and the children in Congress are afraid to take his toys away - because of old ghost stories.

Like an ADD child we started something in Afghanistan and then lost interest, we didn't take our hands off the wheel, we just started looking anywhere but where we were going. This creates a real problem for the team we were supposed to be playing with, they're still in the game and we're leaving them out to hang.

We gave one kid a hammer to break things in Lebanon, encouraged him and then are astonished that the results in Lebanon were not to their liking and broke things we liked there. As the pieces scatter we poke more sticks at Iran. Oddly enough, we create the biggest kid on
the block and let him bully and are surprised that we aren't popular for it.

Maybe these analogies seem simple and silly, I didn't set out to do a policy proposal, what I set out to do was set up a scenario that would promote adult thinking. If you counter pose the child like actions with adult thinking I believe you'll see that there are approaches that will be more productive. Productive thinking also does not involve dealing in fear and loathing, it involves looking at reality and dealing with reality.

David Broder should resign

Harry Reid said he wouldn't argue with a Vice president who had a 19% approval rating and I refuse to argue with a brain dead DC pundit who is out of touch with reality and the American people. David Broder proved beyond all doubt that he is a brain dead - out of touch pundit in The Democrats' Gonzales.

A good point by point take down can be found at Think Progress, David Broder’s Continuing Embarrassment. Josh Marshall explains Broder here:

People think of Broder as the 'Dean' of the Washington press corps because of things he did in the 60s and 70s. But the man he is today is much more a product of the long conservative ascendancy of the last three decades -- an ascendancy still very much alive in the town's journalistic and editorial elite. You can hear the animus more and more sharply in this columns as his inability to grasp the political moment becomes more and more clear.

Update
Paul Begala give it to Broder with both barrels over at The Huffington Post. Go read the entire thing but here is a teaser that's right on the money.

Why Reid? Because Reid has been one of the few politicians with the courage to speak the plain, unvarnished truth to power, and the hallmark of Mr. Broder's career has been to suck up to power. Reid calls Bush a liar. Broder can't handle the truth.

Gonzales and the myth of "at will employment"

Ed Morrisey has an excellent post that puts the US Attorney Purge and the incompetence of Alberto Gonzales in realistic perspective. Like me Ed has been an employer and explains that "at will employment" is a myth. Before you can fire someone it takes weeks or even months to get all your ducks in a row. If you don't you will open yourself up to expensive legal problems. Go read the entire thing but Ed concludes with this:

Now, we have heard that the President has the ability to fire any of these prosecutors at any time, for whatever reason he sees fit, as long as it isn't to obstruct justice. That's true. It presupposes some kind of reason, however; one shouldn't fire people without having a reason. So what were the reasons for firing each of these people? Even Gonzales couldn't explain them after a month of research and preparation for this hearing. He offered some performance issues, but couldn't say whether he had ever communicated those issues to the attorneys themselves before or during the terminations. And regardless of the political nature of the appointments, the AG and the White House had to know that people would ask questions about the rather unprecedented terminations -- and it's obvious that despite their planning, they had no good or consistent response to them.

And we have a winner!!!

The best title for a blog post on the Alberto Gonzales testimony.
From politburo diktat 2.0:
Gonzo: I put Carol Lam on the hit list before I had nothing to do with it

Dinesh D’Souza asks an interesting question....

....and of course it's a foolish question from a foolish man.

As a left wing athiest I was trying to figure out how to respond to this pompous foolishness from Dinesh D’Souza,
Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?.
Before I got around to it right wing athiest Rick Moran said it all for me.
AN ANSWER TO D’SOUZA’S “WHERE IS ATHEISM?” QUESTION

As an atheist myself, I find Mr. D’Souza’s question laughably simplistic and shockingly uninformed. I daresay that atheists are standing shoulder to shoulder with people of faith this day in condemning the tragedy as well as expressing sorrow and solidarity with the families of the victims. A belief in God is not a prerequisite to being a decent human being nor does empathy for your fellow man depend on having faith in a supernatural power greater than yourself. These things are independent of religion and have much more to do with one’s upbringing and society inculcating values and modes of acceptable behavior above and beyond that which one might learn through participation in organized religion.

There is more.

It's a Brave New World......

....for companies with questionable business practices.
I discussed the saga of JL Kirk Associates in The Darwin business model - Part II. In brief Katherine Coble questioned their business practices and wrote about it in her blog. JL Kirk and their crack legal team at King & Ballow sent a cease-and-desist demand to Coble and started a firestorm of bad publicity across the blogosphere. After the Media Bloggers Association agreed to assist Coble pro bono JL Kirk and their legal team decided it was time to talk.

Attorneys for JL Kirk & Assocs. contacted Media Bloggers Association attorney Ronald Coleman shortly after receiving his letter stating that the MBA was representing me in this dispute on Thursday afternoon. Both sides expressed their wish to avoid litigation or further aggravation of the situation. JL Kirk’s main concern at the outset was that we communicate their position - which is different from the information originally told to me by a JL Kirk employee - that JL Kirk is not a continuation of the defunct Bernard Haldane company, either in terms of corporate identity or stock ownership, and that JL Kirk’s principal, Kirk Leipzig, is only a former Bernard Haldane employee but did not buy any assets or stock of Bernard Haldane. I can’t vouch for the truth of that statement because I have no first-hand knowledge of the facts, but evidently anyone who wants more information can obtain it from JL Kirk.

As you know if you read their cease and desist letter, the company disagrees with what I have said about them here, but they have told the MBA lawyer that they are interested in discussing this with my husband and me personally rather than litigating in court. I have not decided if I am interested in talking, but I don’t mind the idea of putting this behind me and moving on, and will not write on this topic again.

Brittney Gilbert explains how this demonstrates that this is a Brave New World for firms like JL Kirk.

A lawsuit was never this company's intent, if I had to guess. They just wanted to bully a blogger into taking down speech that made them look bad. Instead they set off a firestorm of fury from bloggers all across the web who take their right to tell the truth about negative corporate experiences very seriously. More seriously than even I guessed. And rightly so, because self-publishers on the web - your average, everyday citizen - no longer need to bend to the will of the ones with the most might. Bloggers no longer need to buy ink by the barrel. The ink is free.
Not only is the ink free, but so are those using it. Free to warn others about what they think is a shady business or uncooperative legislator. No longer are newspapers and television stations the only people with a platform. Through the wonder that is the tubes, a blogger with under a thousand readers a day can bring a company to its knees, especially when that company attempts to roll over an individual's First Amendment rights.

The climate has changed for for companies like JL Kirk with shady business practices and questionable ethics and they face extinction.