Reid pushing Iran Intel Accountability bill

Harry Reid is unveiling his new legislative proposal to hold the Bush administration accountable at the Yearly Kos conference tonight:

Reid said Democrats will take new steps to hold senior Bush administration officials accountable for their statements on Iran, similar to their fight to hold them accountable for their statements about the Iraq war.

"All of us as Americans need to review how the Bush Administration cherry-picked and hyped the case for war with Iraq to sell it to Congress and the American people, so we can make sure it never happens again," Reid said.

Reid's proposed bill, called the Iran Intelligence Oversight Act, would require an updated national intelligence estimate on Iran, with an unclassified summary made public.

It's unfortunate that legislation is needed to prevent Bush from lying to get us in to another war. It's unfortunate that the Democrats have to spell out for the Republicans what their oversight role is. It's unfortunate that Bush will probably lie and break this law, too.

The only way to rein in Bush is with a Democratic Congress...it's the only way. Read More......

Saturday Night Open Thread

What do we need to know? Read More......

Bush happy it was Brownie, not Bush, who took the heat for Katrina

Now it's clear why Bush thought Brownie was doing a heckuva job. He was the perfect foil. From E&P;:

This was the text of the email message to Brown read on the air: "I did hear of one reference to you, at the Cabinet meeting yesterday. I wasn't there but I heard someone commented that the press was sure beating up on Mike Brown, to which the President replied, 'I'd rather they beat up on him than me or Chertoff.'"

Yeah, because with Bush, the buck stops anywhere but the Oval Office. Read More......

The GOP loves Coulter

Mary Matalin, who is ubiquitous spokesperson for the GOP, defended the hate rhetoric of Ann Coulter yesterday. Think Progress has the transcript.

Coulter does speak for the Republican Party. They love her. Read More......

Watching the Foreign Policy panel at YearlyKos

Ariana is really quite amazing. The woman is SMART. I don't have a large enough font to truly express how intelligent this woman is. Smart, smart, smart. Okay, I'm gushing. Off to another panel I'm speaking at, then I can give you a longer update on the conference. It's been fascinating.

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Reid to Bush: Don't just talk, do something

Harry Reid challenged Bush to actually come up with a strategy at the retreat he's having at Camp David about Iraq:

"Our troops and the American people have been exceedingly patient as previous mileposts in Iraq have passed without progress. The president is asking too much if he expects us to do it again," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said in the Democratic radio address. "With Zarqawi gone and the cabinet filled, we need more than platitudes next week when the president convenes a conference with Iraq's leaders and his war Cabinet."

Over three years in to the quagmire, there is no strategy to finish the job (whatever "the job" is.) Bush and his "war cabinet" spend a lot of time on political spin about Iraq. But, they don't do much about the real policy. Read More......

Blog conference makes NY Times -- twice

Adam Nagourney's in Las Vegas documenting the growing political power of the progressive blogosphere:

If any more proof were needed of the rising influence of bloggers — at least for the Democratic Party — it could be found here on Friday on the Las Vegas Strip, where the old and new worlds of American politics engaged in a slightly awkward if mostly entertaining clash of a meeting.

There were the bloggers — nearly a thousand of them, many of them familiar names by now — emerging from the shadows of their computers for a three-day blur of workshops, panels and speeches about politics, the power of the Internet and the shortcomings of the Washington media. And right behind them was a parade of prospective Democratic presidential candidates and party leaders, their presence a tribute to just how much the often rowdy voices of the Web have been absorbed into the very political process they frequently disdain, much to the amazement, and perhaps discomfort, of some of the bloggers themselves.

UPDATE: Wanted to make sure we highlight the key paragraph from Nagourney:

As became clear from the rather large and diverse crowd here, the blogosphere has become for the left what talk radio has been for the right: a way of organizing and communicating to supporters. Blogging is nowhere near the force among Republicans as it is among Democrats, and talk radio is a much more effective tool for Republicans.

And Maureen Dowd weighs in:

I, Old Media, came here to attend a New Media convention of progressive political bloggers aiming for a technological revolution that would dispatch mainstream media to the tumbrels. It was the journalistic equivalent of mingling with your own pod replicant in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."

"Bloggers meet mainstream media," crowed one young man, as he had a friend take a picture of us together at the Riviera Hotel.

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Freedom fry this - why does Congress hate competition?

If the GOP and misguided Democrats want to see what true competition and innovation is all about, they can come to France to watch and learn. Yes, the French can teach the US a thing or two about business competition. I guess their campaign contributors might not give them a long enough leash to do it though. They're all just an army of poodles for Big Telco. Woof, woof and bark for your meal.

France's top three broadband providers, France Telecom, now known as Orange, IPO candidate Neuf Cegetel and Iliad have started rolling out services that allow cellular phone customers to use mobile and Wi-Fi networks with the same handset.

Such efforts have turned France into one of the world's most advanced markets for dual-mode Wi-Fi mobile services, which, some analysts predict, could profoundly change operators' business model in the months to come.

Why the Soviet model in the US? Why does Congress hate the American tradition of competition?

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GOP and many Democrats vote against competition

Once again, what happened to those that used to talk about the US winning the Cold War due to our market competition? Those days of freedom and competition are sooooooo long ago and we are now the Soviet Union, content with no choice and rampant cronyism. At every turn, Congress votes to support their financial contributors, giving the shaft to freedom of competition and the American public at large. I have come to expect this from the GOP who have repeatedly supported Big Telco, Big Oil, Big Pharma, etc, but why are the Democrats also on board with this? Yesterdays vote was a bloodbath for net neutrality and now that it heads into a GOP controlled Senate, the writing is on the wall.

Sadly, I discovered that even my Democratic Congresswoman, Allyson Schwartz, voted against neutrality. I know that cable giant Comcast looms large in Philly and politicians seem to trip over themselves to cater to their every whim despite an awful track record of being good for consumers, so I hope that was not the reason why she voted so poorly. As an aside, it's not possible to use the online emailing system to ask questions to her probably because I'm overseas. I guess some of us are more equal then others. Read More......

Saturday Morning Open Thread

What a week that was, huh? Read More......

Zarqawi story gets even more exciting

First he was dead. Next day, he was alive but only lasted briefly. Today, the AP headline gives it that extra umph to stretch just a little more drama and squeeze another day out of the dead Zarqawi story: A dying al-Zarqawi tried to get away. (Of course the classic grisly photo is included in the story.) Sounds a lot more exciting and dramatic then "he tried rolling off of the stretcher before dying" which is what the story actually tells us. Fortunately there are enough voices out there in the media who are balancing out what sounds like Pentagon-sponsored hype with the reality that while he was a destructive man, he was a small piece of a big problem. Read More......

Open Thread

Take it through the night... Read More......