Jesus' General has more on this very special endorsement.

Open thread below...

Jimmy Reed is one of my all-time musical heroes, and this is one of my favorite tunes of his. Who are some of your musical heroes?

According to Bloomberg News, energy investor and oil industry commentator Matt Simmons has died of an accidental drowning at his home.

Simmons had been frequently mentioned in news reports about the blowout of the Deepwater Horizon. He appeared as a commentator on MSNBC to discuss issues around offshore drilling, and was a proponent of using small nuclear devices to stop the oil flow from the well.

Bloomberg:

Matthew R. Simmons, an energy investment banker and a leading proponent of the “peak oil” theory that claims the Earth is running out of crude, died yesterday.

Simmons, 67, died in an accidental drowning at his home in Maine, local officials said.

Heart disease may have been a contributing factor, according to reports.

Emergency medical workers responded to Simmons’s home a little before 10 p.m. local time yesterday, said John Dietter, a crew chief in North Haven, Maine. The official cause of death is drowning, and he was found in a hot tub, said Tara Harrington, medical associate at Maine’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner.

“It was an accident,” Harrington said today in a telephone interview. She said “heart disease” was listed for the category of “other significant conditions” on the death certificate.

(Helen Gahagan Douglas - coined the phrase "Tricky Dick" in referring to Nixon)

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Helen Gahagan Douglas had several distinctions during her short-lived career in politics. She was one of the first women to be elected to Congress, one of the very first who went from an acting profession to politics (and you thought Reagan was the first), and was probably the first to be the victim of the vicious smear tactics employed by another upstart Congressman, Richard Nixon. It was during a particularly virulent campaign that Douglas coined the phrase "Tricky Dick" in referring to Nixon. Nixon, in turn claimed "Douglas was Pink all the way down to her underwear". Ah, the good old days of ruthless personal smears!

Helen Gahagan Douglas was a Congresswoman from California who went on to be defeated in her bid for the Senate in 1948 by Richard Nixon. But up to that time, she was a tireless advocate for Civil Rights legislation and had introduced several Anti-Lynching bills to the House in the 1940's.

This talk, given in 1948 follows that theme, the subject of racial discrimination in hiring and housing.

Helen Gahagan Douglas: “We are a nation blessed by God with material riches beyond all others, Our mountains, our plains, our rivers, our harbors, have given us industry and commerce, agriculture and mining resources that are the envy and the despair of the rest of the world. Our richest and our greatest resource however, is people. People living under free and fair institutions which permit them to develop fully the talents God gave them. We waste this resource if we sanction discrimination.”

Sadly, none of her introduced legislation ever won passage and she left politics after suffering a 59% defeat in her bid for the Senate. She is probably better known today as the Woman Nixon smeared by allegedly tying her to Communist causes. But at the time she was trying to make a difference. History wound up being on her side in the end.

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Keith Olbermann talked to Sam Seder about this report from The Hill where it looks like the DSCC is cutting their losses with Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas who is about 20 points behind her Republican challenger. As Keith and Sam discussed, it's expected for the party to back incumbents as they did here, but there was no excuse for the antagonistic attitude towards the unions for them backing Halter. He was the better candidate and would have had a better chance of winning than Lincoln. They would have been better off listening to their base in this case.

And Bill Clinton was one of the worst out there campaigning for Lincoln. I didn't post any of the video back in June because about all I really could have mustered at the time would have been one bleeped expletive after the other ending with telling him to bite me. I was really angry after watching him out on the stump for Lincoln. How's that union bashing working out for you now Bill?

Looks like the unions were not the ones wasting their money, the party establishment was. And now they're throwing their hands up in the air and admitting she can't win. But then we knew that back when we were backing Bill Halter. No one can say he'd have won either but he would have had a better chance than Lincoln does and Halter might have generated some enthusiasm from the base to vote for him. It looks like Arkansas is going to get a Republican that has an R behind their name instead of a D this time around.

DSCC must decide where to cut losses as tough races add up:

Democratic leaders face tough decisions on how much to spend on the campaigns of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and other party candidates whose chances for winning in November seem dim.

Money that goes to Lincoln rather than Democrats thought to have better odds at the polls may be seen as wasted. And it could upset one of the party’s biggest financial supporters, labor unions, which spent millions in an unsuccessful attempt to defeat her in the primary.

Four public polls this month showed the two-term incumbent, who chairs the Agriculture Committee, trailing her Republican challenger by an average of more than 20 points.

Where to prioritize Lincoln’s race is one of several difficult decisions Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) Chairman Robert Menendez (N.J.) has to make to fend off an anticipated anti-incumbent wave in November. Read on...

Transcript from last Friday's Countdown below the fold.

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To Robert Gibbs, the "professional left," should, in his words, just suck it up and back the administration and stop bellyaching about what the President is doing:

The White House is simmering with anger at criticism from liberals who say President Obama is more concerned with deal-making than ideological purity.

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

Robert Gibbs should resign immediately. He just spit on the face of those who helped Barack Obama get elected and routinely defend him day in and day out against vicious smears from the right. Where did he come up with the term professional left? I thought we were the Cheetos-eating basement dwellers? Has Gibbs looked at all the polling data? As Chris Bowers pointed out, Obama lost 13 points of support from the Liberal community.

BOWERS: Well, currently, Chuck, President Obama‘s approval rating, according to Gallup, among liberals is 76 percent. But in 2008, he received 89 percent of the liberal vote, that‘s a drop of 13 percent. When you compare that to what he received among moderate voters in 2008, he got 60 percent of their vote and his approval rating among moderates is 54 percent.

He got 20 percent of the conservative vote in 2008 and he‘s currently has a 13 percent approval rating among conservatives.

So, even though he has a much higher approval rating among liberals, he actually has a more significant drop among liberals than among any other ideological group.

If you add that to his latest job approval rating of 46% then he would be well over the 50% barrier. This is Politics 101. You never spit on your base. You never saw Bush do that, even though his base destroyed his plans for immigration reform. And his mea culpa was ridiculous.

Robert Gibbs, under fire for his attack on the "professional left," sends over a statement walking it back, conceding it was "inartful," and clarifying that the views he expressed frustration about are not widely held:

I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day, it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout -- but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.

So what I may have said inartfully, let me say this way -- since coming to office in January 2009, this White House and Congress have worked tirelessly to put our country back on the right path. Most importantly, to dig our way out of a huge recession and build an economy that makes America more competitive and our middle class more secure. Some are frustrated that the change we want hasn't come fast enough for many Americans. That we all understand...read on

Hey Robert, I watch too much cable too, but I don't lash out at C&L's team (Team Crooks,) or Digby or Howie. Why would republican talking points said by republicans make him attack us? If they are so mad at what they see then they should stop being the great compromisers and take it out on the Party of No. We're the ones that want to see real change implemented in our country, not Republicans. I never attack my closest allies. That's not my personality anyway, but if I thought about it logically---it's still counterproductive.

I think he should resign over his inartful words since it wasn't an apology and I also think it's time for President Obama and the White House to hold a meeting with the "Professional Left." It's time to clear the air. We have the midterm elections coming up and as disappointed as we are because this administration seems not to care about his progressive base, we do. We want to elect more and better Democrats while weeding out the ones that side with Conservatives. That's what Gibbs should have been worrying about.

Digby writes:

But what's dangerously myopic about going ballistic as Gibbs did in his statements is that just 10 years ago we had a little event in which only a tiny portion of the base went with a third party bid from the left --- and the consequences were catastrophic. Democrats, of all people, should remember that every vote matters.

It's embarrassing to have David Frum point out the obvious --- that the Republicans fear their base and the Democrats hate theirs, but it has been so since I was a kid --- a long time ago. At some point they are going to realize that their demanding activist base is the way it is and that they need to figure out a way to deal with it rather than rail against it. You cannot browbeat people into loving you and you can't argue them into being enthusiastic. Certainly characterizing them in cartoon terms by saying "they want to eliminate the Pentagon", they are on drugs and --- worst of all --- suggesting they are not part of America --- isn't going to get you there.

Glenn Greenwald has more.

I almost can't believe I'm writing this, but yesterday the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights received a license that allows them to sue the government -- for ordering the assassination of a U.S. citizen, away from the field of combat, without due process of any kind:

“The license issued by OFAC today will allow us to pursue our litigation relating to the government’s asserted authority to engage in targeted killings of American civilians without due process. While we appreciate OFAC’s quick response to our lawsuit, we continue to believe that OFAC’s regulations are unconstitutional because they require lawyers who are providing uncompensated legal representation to seek the government’s permission before challenging the constitutionality of the government’s conduct. Notably, OFAC has indicated that the license issued to us today can be revoked at any time. We will pursue our claim that OFAC’s attorney-licensing regulations are unconstitutional and should be invalidated.”

Glenn Greenwald wrote about this back in January, and specifically about Anwar al-Aulaqi, the U.S. citizen targeted by this order:

Obviously, if U.S. forces are fighting on an actual battlefield, then they (like everyone else) have the right to kill combatants actively fighting against them, including American citizens. That's just the essence of war. That's why it's permissible to kill a combatant engaged on a real battlefield in a war zone but not, say, torture them once they're captured and helplessly detained.

But combat is not what we're talking about here. The people on this "hit list" are likely to be killed while at home, sleeping in their bed, driving in a car with friends or family, or engaged in a whole array of other activities. More critically still, the Obama administration -- like the Bush administration before it -- defines the "battlefield" as the entire world.

So the President claims the power to order U.S. citizens killed anywhere in the world, while engaged even in the most benign activities carried out far away from any actual battlefield, based solely on his say-so and with no judicial oversight or other checks. That's quite a power for an American President to claim for himself.

As we well know from the last eight years, the authoritarians among us in both parties will, by definition, reflexively justify this conduct by insisting that the assassination targets are Terrorists and therefore deserve death. What they actually mean, however, is that the U.S. Government has accused them of being Terrorists, which (except in the mind of an authoritarian) is not the same thing as being a Terrorist. Numerous Guantanamo detainees accused by the U.S. Government of being Terrorists have turned out to be completely innocent, and the vast majority of federal judges who provided habeas review to detainees have found an almost complete lack of evidence to justify the accusations against them, and thus ordered them released. That includes scores of detainees held while the U.S. Government insisted that only the "Worst of the Worst" remained at the camp.

No evidence should be required for rational people to avoid assuming that Government accusations are inherently true, but for those do need it, there is a mountain of evidence proving that. And in this case, Anwar Aulaqi -- who, despite his name and religion, is every bit as much of an American citizen as Scott Brown and his daughters are -- has a family who vigorously denies that he is a Terrorist and is "pleading" with the U.S. Government not to murder their American son:

His anguish apparent, the father of Anwar al-Awlaki told CNN that his son is not a member of al Qaeda and is not hiding out with terrorists in southern Yemen."I am now afraid of what they will do with my son, he's not Osama Bin Laden, they want to make something out of him that he's not," said Dr. Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. . . ."I will do my best to convince my son to do this (surrender), to come back but they are not giving me time, they want to kill my son.

How can the American government kill one of their own citizens? This is a legal issue that needs to be answered," he said."If they give me time I can have some contact with my son but the problem is they are not giving me time," he said.

Who knows what the truth is here? That's why we have what are called "trials" -- or at least some process -- before we assume that government accusations are true and then mete out punishment accordingly. As Marcy Wheeler notes, the U.S. Government has not only repeatedly made false accusations of Terrorism against foreign nationals in the past, but against U.S. citizens as well. She observes: "I guess the tenuousness of those ties don’t really matter, when the President can dial up the assassination of an American citizen."

This isn't a case of bleeding heart liberals being conned; everyone's aware that Anwar Al-Awlaki is a pretty dangerous individual who calls for jihad against Americans. But he's also a U.S. citizen, and deserves at least as much from the legal process as someone who holds up a bank.

That's what's supposed to make us different.

Bob Herbert at the NY Times had an impassioned op-ed last week on the insanity of our forces staying in Afghanistan even as all indications note that we're not making any progress in that country. He calls it "reading from a lunatic's manual."

War is a meat grinder for service members and their families. It grinds people up without mercy, killing them and inflicting the worst kinds of wounds imaginable, physical and psychological. The Pentagon is trying to cope with the surge in suicides, but it is holding a bad hand: the desperate shortage of troops has forced military officials to lower the bar for enlistment, thus letting in people whose drug and alcohol abuse or other behavioral problems would previously have kept them out. And the multiple deployments (four, five and six tours in the war zones) have jacked up stress levels to the point where many just can’t take it.

The G.I.’s have fought valiantly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands have died and many, many more have suffered. But the wars have been conducted as if their leaders had been reading from a lunatic’s manual. This is not Germany or Japan or the old Soviet Union that we’re fighting. But after nearly a decade, neither war has been won and there is no prospect of winning.

And speaking of a lunatic's manual, here's Sven Ortmann to talk about FM 3-24, the Army's counterinsurgency manual, and its waning influence on current operations.

The tragedy is probably that the new COIN theory is likely a fair weather theory. It works if the population is willing to allow it to work. It's nothing that you can enforce.

The proper time for the new COIN theory's application in Iraq was probably 2003 and for its application in Afghanistan was probably 2002-2004. The populations were probably ready to cooperate as envisaged by the COIN theory at that time.

War sows much hate and mistrust. The environment got tainted too much and COIN was obviously unable to deliver convincing results under such conditions.

Given the current trend of things in Afghanistan, if President Obama and SecDef Gates is really serious about reclaiming "efficiencies" in defense spending, maybe they ought to think a little harder about the billions spent every month in that country, not to mention the wisdom of retaining 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Sven appropriately quotes Winston Churchill: "The Americans will always do the right thing ... after they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Well, this is just completely unhelpful, Robert Gibbs. Talking to The Hill carries its own risks. But having a hissy fit about the folks in your own coalition just misses the point entirely, especially on the day the House returns from its break for a vote on assistance to states for Medicaid, teachers and first responders.

Via The Hill:

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

Actually, what's crazy is dismissing their concerns by suggesting they're on drugs. There is absolutely nothing helpful, productive or true about that. Nothing whatsoever, particularly when it comes from the paid spokesman for the President.

And this:

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”

In a later mention, The Hill's Sam Youngman restated Gibbs' words this way:

He also said they would only be satisfied "if [Democratic Ohio Rep.] Dennis Kucinich was president."

Which is it, Youngman? There is an obvious and meaningful difference between the two statements. The first suggests that nothing will satisfy the left-sided critics; the second suggests that the type of progressivism Kucinich advances would be satisfactory. One of those quotes is right, and one is wrong. I'd like to know what Gibbs actually said, and whether we're getting accurate quotes on the rest of the story too.

Nate Silver remarks:

I don't know whether Gibbs was going "off-message" out of frustration, or whether the White House has become so jaded that they actually think this was a good strategy. Either way, it speaks to the need for some fresh blood and some fresh ideas in the White House. The famously unflappable Obama is losing his cool.

Whether Silver is right or not, his remarks give a sense of how incredulous all of us are -- whether center-left or further -- at Gibbs' petulance.

The firestorm started spreading at about 4:30 AM PDT. By 9:30 or so Gibbs had issued a statement admitting his statements were "inartful". The term "inartful" strikes me as a too-gentle term. Dumb, impulsive, intentionally inflammatory? Those all work. But inartful?

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stood by his comments to The Hill about the “professional left,” but did say they were “inartfully” put.

Gibbs became the target of liberal blogs Tuesday after The Hill published an interview with the White House press secretary, where he blasted the left.

In his statement on his interview with The Hill, Gibbs said Democrats "should all, me included, stop fighting each other and arguing about our differences on certain policies, and instead work together to make sure everyone knows what is at stake because we've come too far to turn back now."

Well, it would have been good for Gibbs to remember that ahead of his tirade. Also, maybe it would have been better if Gibbs had ranted at an ACTUAL member of the 'professional left' who at least can be trusted to report what he said accurately, as opposed to the half-quotes and intentionally inflammatory classifications invented by Youngman in his article.

I can understand his frustration. I've felt it myself. I've been frustrated that the Republicans seize and control the narrative too often while meaningful, if not perfect, progress is ignored entirely, or criticized to the point where any good it may do is lost in the din. But Gibbs is paid to communicate on behalf of the President, and this exercise in 'communication' was a self-indulgent, unhelpful, distracting gunshot in the foot of liberal efforts to build enthusiasm for the November elections.

Does anyone remember that the House reconvened today to help states pay for teachers, police, and firefighters today? Or that funds were appropriated for Medicaid assistance? Of course not, mostly because Robert Gibbs chose to indulge himself in a disrespectful rant full of the drama the White House claims to hate.

(One note on the term 'professional left'. A thorough read of Youngman's piece suggests the term was not Gibbs'. I point specifically to Youngman's characterization of Netroots Nation as a gathering of the 'professional left' -- a characterization purely from the author's standpoint with no attribution whatsoever to Gibbs.)

Other reactions:

Kos:

Furthermore, that slippage is likely a primary drive of the intensity gap that threatens to kill Dems this November.

The percentage of registered voters "very enthusiastic" about voting this November fell to 31% for July 26-Aug. 1 from 34% during the July 19-25 period. However, the decline was steeper among Democrats. Their latest 22% "very enthusiastic" figure is the lowest seen thus far in 2010, whereas the Republicans' 44% matches their average for the year.

That intensity gap is among rank-and-file Democrats, not among bloggers or Dylan Ratigan or Ed Schultz or Jane Hamsher or whoever.

If the White House thinks their problems are reserved among a handful of progressive critics, then I'm afraid, because it tells me they're really out of touch with the undercurrent of discontent faced by Democrats this year.

Jason Linkins at Huffpost:

In these cases, the "professional left" has committed no crime other than having a factual basis for their complaint and the willingness to point this out in public. Now, there have been times when the "professional left" has lost sight over the fact that President Obama does not have magical powers that allow him to supercede Congress, the filibuster, and the idiotic political maneuvers of Senator Ben Nelson. Nevertheless, there are other members of the "professional left" -- like Matt Yglesias and Ezra Klein -- who are willing to point this out, again and again. That is largely a debate the "professional left" is having with itself, continuing to this day in the remarks of Adam Green, of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:

I would only add that I agree with both of them, but believe they underestimate their reach and influence, especially when combined with groups like PCCC and DFA, among others.

Rep. Keith Ellison is calling for Gibbs' resignation:

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), an active member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Gibbs went too far. "This is not the first time that Mr. Gibbs has made untoward and inflammatory comments and I certainly hope that people in the White House don't share his view that the left is unimportant to the president," he said. "I understand him having some loyalty to the president who employs him, but I think he's walking over the line."

Ellison said that Gibbs's resignation would be an appropriate response. "I think that'd be fair, yeah. That'd be fair, because this isn't the first time. And, again, people of all political shades worked very hard to help the president become the president. Why would he want to go out and deliberately insult the president's base? And why would he confuse legitimate critique with some sort of lack of loyalty. Isn't this what the far right does? Punishes people who are not ideologically aligned with President Bush?"

Historical events, it is said, occur twice: first as tragedy, then as farce. Sometimes, though, as with the latest Republican call for a balanced budget amendment, the farce is double. Even as they call for a budget busting $700 billion tax cut windfall for the wealthiest two percent of Americans, GOP leaders including John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mike Pence can't - or won't - say where the necessarily draconian spending cuts would come from. And as the numbers show, 16 years after they first proposed it as part of the Contract with America, the Republican balanced budget amendment isn't merely a farce, but a fiscal suicide pact for the United States.

To be sure, the proposed Starve the Beast constitutional charade is hardly new. After all, Newt Gingrich's 1994 Contract with America, the 2008 Republican Platform and the 2010 Tea Party "Contract from America" all include a balanced budget amendment featuring a two-thirds supermajority to pass tax increases. But now, as The Hill reports, Republicans plan to make it a centerpiece of the fall campaign:

GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), John McCain (Ariz.) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) will lead the charge in the fall, when Democrats plan to debate raising taxes on families that earn more than $250,000 a year...

A slew of Republican candidates in strong positions to join the Senate next year have endorsed amending the Constitution.

They are Rand Paul in Kentucky, Marco Rubio in Florida, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Ken Buck in Colorado, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Mike Lee in Utah, Dino Rossi in Washington and Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

A GOP strategist familiar with internal polling in some of these races says that surveys show strong public support for a balanced budget amendment, exceeding 65 percent in at least one race.

As for the supermajority requirement, South Carolina's Jim Demint boasted about the appearance of fiscal responsibility, "The point of that is so that raising taxes won't be the default way to balance the budget," adding, "The whole idea is to cut spending."

And there's the rub. Because as they've shown by repeatedly engaging in what Senator Sheldon Whitehouse called a "debt orgy," GOP leaders like their supporters won't say what - if anything - they'd cut in order to "drown government in a bathtub."

If this all sounds familiar, it should.

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