Is Sarokozy trying to be a GOP Presidential candidate?

With the announcement of his divorce, which will be his second, he must be trying to reach out to the GOP who have a lot of depth and experience in such matters. It's not much of a shock to anyone in France despite what the media is reporting. The timing of the announcement was interesting, coming on the first day of the first national strike against the proposed changes to the retirement plans for state workers which is not unlike the Bush team releasing bad news on Friday afternoons.

Thinking back, it is interesting to wonder whether voters would really have cared about the marital status of Sarkozy during the election. The French are not religious moralizers like we often see in US politics though his core voters were definitely conservative. I doubt they would have cared, especially considering the marital status of her competitor who was living with the father of her children but who separated shortly after. Can you imagine any US candidate going into an election divorced and single? Read More......

Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 10/19/2007

Another week. More preposterousness to report.



I am short on time, but as you can see, I have come bearing video. Yes, this is not the usual Cliff's Corner. But, to be honest, I can't think of anything more preposterous this week than the prospect of a tinhorn-tyrant-cum-cousin-marrying-faux-enforcer becoming our next President.

And luckily, the abject aburdity of His NineEleveness is summed up perfectly in this short video produced by the fine folks at Brave New Films (a place where I just happen to be employed).

Do you want an investigation into Rudy Sunshine's no-bid contract from Motorola for radios that didn't work, so that on 9/11 firefighters were left to fend for themselves with radios that had been deemed dangerously oudated in 1990? Do you want accountability in our government? Do you want Oral Roberts University to stop Mrs. Oral Roberts Junior from texting cabana boys at 2AM? Ok, the last one I can't help you with.

But to providing the potential for progress regarding the first two, watch the video and come on over to The Real Rudy and sign our petition! Nothing is at stake. Oh yeah, except preventing an authoritarian ass from becoming First Husband to Judy Nathan. Read More......

Open thread

Just spent two hours trying to get my Airport Extreme and my Tivo to start talking. No luck yet. It never ceases to amaze me how advanced technology has become, and how difficult it still is to use. Read More......

Housing/credit problems still plague Wall Street

That whole crisis in the housing and credit markets -- it isn't over yet:

Stocks fell sharply and money gushed into safe investments today, as Wall Street experienced a bout of deja vu from the turmoil of August.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 367 points, or 2.6 percent, in its sixth decline in the past eight trading days, and other indexes notched similar declines. Ultra-safe government bonds soared, with two-year Treasury notes recording their best weekly gain since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, according to calculations by Bloomberg News.

Investors, who in early October started to shrug off worries about a downturn in the housing and credit markets, have developed renewed fears that those problems will be a drag on corporate earnings in the coming year. Since hitting an all-time high on Oct. 9, the Standard & Poor's 500, a broad measure of U.S. stocks, has fallen more than 4 percent. It remains above the lows it hit in mid-August, however, in the middle of the credit crisis.

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Looking more like the right-wingers don't love their choices for Prez.

The Dupont neighborhood is crawling with religious right fanatics attending the Values Voters summit. Haven't managed to get over to the festivities.

The media are all over the place too. Seems they are finding that there is not a lot of affection brewing for the GOP candidates today at the right wing hatefest:

Religious and cultural conservatives, a political force skeptical of the leading Republican presidential candidates, are caught in a tug of war between pragmatism and ideology.

"My head and my heart are fighting with each other," said Phil Burress, an Ohioan who has lobbied hard for federal and state bans on gay marriage.

The vexing choices facing these voters:

-Rudy Giuliani, a thrice-married New Yorker who differs with them on abortion, gays and guns but who polls show offers a strong chance to beat a Democrat next fall.

-Mitt Romney, a Mormon from Massachusetts who didn't entirely share their views in the past but who insists he now does.

-Fred Thompson, a Tennessean who hasn't been a vocal champion of their core issues but who had a right-leaning Senate voting record.

-John McCain, an Arizona senator who has a clear socially conservative resume but who dismissed their leaders "agents of intolerance" in 2000.

-Mike Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister and true believer who has an extraordinary hill to climb for the nomination.

Tough times for the fundies. They've got no one to love.

But what about Duncan Hunter, who is possibly the biggest buffoon in Congress? Don't hear much about his campaign, but I did see what appears to be THE entire Duncan Hunter campaign parked on my street today:
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Comcast regulating how much Internet you're permitted to use

I.e., if you like YouTube a little too much, or own a Slingbox, they might interrupt your Internet service. This isn't the first time this has happened either here or in Europe. At some point, there's going to need to be government regulation to ensure that the Internet providers don't treat the Internet as their own little toy that they can ration out as they choose. Read More......

Iraq continues non-U.S. contracts

In the wake of a weapons deal with China, Iraq has reportedly contracted with China and Iran to build major power plants in Iraq. All told, the deals are worth $1.1 billion.

The US is apparently claiming that Iran will use the project to "mask" military efforts, but the real worry is, I think, that these countries will succeed where we haven't. In particular, the Iranian project will apparently be built in the heart of Baghdad's Sadr City, an overflowing neighborhood of poor Shiites who largely support Moqtada al-Sadr. The US can barely influence this area, never mind control it, and if Iran sauntered in and started providing services, it would be a clear indication of US impotence.

The China deal, in any case, is much larger than the one with Iran. In the Times report, it's almost pathetic to hear officials whine about the deal while also to maintain support for a free market in Iraq.

Despite continued problems with the generation and distribution of electricity, the Electricity Ministry is reportedly one of the most competent. It will be interesting to see whether these other nations can succeed where we've thus far failed. Read More......

The overnight transformation of Michael Mukasey

On Wednesday, during the first day of his confirmation hearings, Michael Mukasey seemed like a breath of fresh air, actually intimating that he would follow the law. But something happened to him overnight. Yesterday, Mukasey was sounding like just another Bush-bot who thinks the laws don't apply to Bush. We've had one Attorney General who thought that -- and it didn't go well:

Attorney general nominee Michael Mukasey signaled Thursday he shares the administration’s expansive view of President Bush’s authority to withhold information from Congress, skirt federal statutes and authorize harsh interrogation techniques.

The retired federal judge’s statements, during the second day of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, put him at odds with the Democrats who will decide whether Mukasey succeeds Alberto R. Gonzales as the head of the Justice Department.

What Mukasey said put him at odds with the U.S. Constitution, not just Democrats. Also, it's worse because Mukasey was a federal judge who should know better.

As usual, Russ Feingold provided some clarity:

Russ Feingold, D-Wis., told Mukasey that “it sounds like, overnight, you’ve gone from being agnostic, as you and I have gone back and forth since our first meeting on this question, to holding what is a rather disturbing view.”

So, what did happen between the time Mukasey left Capitol Hill on Wednesday and when he returned on Thursday. Team Bush probably used their own interrogation techniques to get Mukasey back on their message. Read More......

The Haters convene this weekend at the Values Voters Summit to hear from GOP candidates

Big weekend in DC for the ultra-right wingers. They're having their "Values Voters Summit" at the Washington Hilton, conveniently located in the gayest neighborhood in the city.

All the GOP presidential candidates are going to be here to kiss the butts of the religious right. The religious right types aren't so enamored with the GOP candidates as the Washington Post reminds us:

For months, Republican presidential candidates such as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain have courted evangelical Christians, meeting with religious leaders throughout the Midwest and the South.

Today, thousands of Christian conservatives will gather in Washington to confront the fact that none of the candidates has won them over.

So big test for all those Republican wannabes. Can they win over the fringe James Dobson-types of the GOP?

They've already started tripping over themselves to be the most right-wing of the right-wing according to the Associated Press preview:

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's argument to woo restive religious and social conservatives comes down to this: "I have a record that can be trusted." GOP rival Mitt Romney's goes like this: "I am pro-family on every level, from personal to political."

The two are among the Republican presidential hopefuls speaking to a gathering of "values voters" in Washington. This influential part of the party's base has not coalesced around a Republican candidate, and all the major competitors are auditioning for the part in speeches this weekend.

In remarks prepared for delivery Friday and made available to The Associated Press, McCain and Romney separately challenge the candidacy of Rudy Giuliani, although neither names the former New York mayor who backs abortion rights and gay rights.

"We're not going to beat Hillary Clinton by acting like Hillary Clinton," Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, says. Adds McCain, the Arizona senator: "This is not the time to turn our back on the progress we've made on the issues that matter most."

The Hilton is across the street from me so I'll probably swing by this event today to see it for myself. I just wish Pam Spaulding was here to enjoy it with me. Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

I'm sure George Bush and his fellow Republicans slept well last night knowing they denied health care to sick kids. That must be so gratifying for them. Of course, they're all on government paid health insurance. And, you know they don't sit around worrying about deductibles and pre-existing conditions and paying for sick kids.

Well, now that Bush has screwed sick kids, he can focus on World War III again.

Start please. Read More......

This was a compromise?

Why do the Democrats let the GOP walk all over them only to get a swift kick at the end? I know the majority is slim, but to give more money to one of the worst programs ever funded by Congress was downright stupid. To get it vetoed afterwards is just salt in the wound.

To entice Republicans to support the bill, the House of Representatives agreed to increase money for abstinence-only sex education by $28 million, to a total of about $200 million a year. Abstinence-only courses, the only form of federally financed sex ed, teach that sexual activity outside of marriage is likely to cause psychological and physical harm.

If that were true, our health care system would be not only broken, but besieged. A 2002 survey found that 93 percent of American adults had had premarital sex by the age of 30.

In addition to provoking shame about a nearly universal activity, abstinence-only sex education is ineffective and dangerous. Last April, a 10-year study found that students who took abstinence-only courses were no more likely to abstain from sex than other students. Previous studies revealed that abstinence-only students avoid using contraception.

Abstinence-only is dangerous both in America and overseas where our tax dollars fund the theories of the flat-earth lunatics. There's no reason to offer compromise if the GOP refuses to compromise. Good grief, when will the Democrats ever learn? Read More......

Oil hitting new highs, jobless claims jump

The GOP special interests are really crushing the American middle class. In just a few weeks the cost of petroleum has skyrocketed out of control, from already out of control numbers and today the futures are over $90 per barrel. Add to that the continuing housing issues that had previously carried the economy plus the credit crunch and you have a real problem. Don't expect Bush to lift a finger to alleviate any the the pain that the middle class is experiencing, though do expect some sort of massive action to help out old friends and GOP special interests. It wasn't that long ago when the GOP wanted to give even more welfare to Big Oil, despite their already gaudy numbers.

While the GOP might not be able to help Big Oil, keep a close watch on how they treat the old boy network on Wall Street. The problems with the mortgage crunch have been out there for a while but it's only since the multi-billion dollar write downs that Paulson and Bush have shown any interest. Yesterday we had a very significant jump in jobless claims though the GOP could care less, expect for those poor Wall Street guys. For the rest of us, tough luck. Read More......