skippy the bush kangaroo

Saturday, June 30, 2007

big surprise there!

from sfchron:
the democrats admit that public frustration with the continuing war in iraq has hurt their popularity after six months in control of congress, especially after they campaigned on a platform that promised a new direction in Iraq policy.

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posted by George at 9:49 AM | 0 comments

Saturday, June 23, 2007

kudos to sentor johnson (d-sd)

and our prayers to him for a speedy recovery so he can do more "good" in congress.
thousands of trailers have been idling in arkansas and texas, prompting criticism about government waste. they originally were purchased to house people displaced by the hurricane, but fema officials said regulations against placing the homes in flood plains prevented their use on the gulf coast.

sen. tim johnson, d-sd., urged the agency to donate the trailers to american indian country, but the agency said federal law dictated the trailers must be used for disaster victims.

in september, johnson pushed through legislation allowing to sell or donate the trailers.

"i saw pictures of tens of thousands of empty mobile homes sitting unused in hope, ark., while south dakota's indian tribes were struggling through a tough winter with inadequate housing," johnson said in the statement.- ap

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posted by Cookie Jill at 10:23 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

guess all apologies look alike to fox noise

the bradblog received a statement from rep. john conyers, who apparently is not satisfied with fox news' "lackluster" apology for showing video of conyers while discussing the indictment of william jefferson yesterday:

yesterday, fox news channel broke the story of rep. william jefferson's indictment with video of house judiciary committee chairman john conyers greeting attorney general alberto gonzales at a recent judiciary committee hearing. the network apologized on-air for airing the wrong video; however, they did not personally apologize to mr. conyers or describe the video they aired the previous day. chairman conyers responded today:

"fox news has a history of inappropriate on-air mistakes that are neither fair, nor balanced. this type of disrespect for people of color should no longer be tolerated. i am personally offended by the network's complete disregard for accuracy in reporting and lackluster on-air apology." - house judiciary committee chairman john conyers, jr. (d-mi)

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posted by skippy at 5:23 PM | 0 comments

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

sheehan resigns

cindy crushed by democrats giving in to boy king.

democratic "leaders" were afraid to turn down $100 billion to the man who couldn't get bottled water to new orleans. what makes them think any of it ends up with "the troops"?

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posted by George at 8:37 AM | 1 comments

Sunday, May 27, 2007

thanks for everything, kos; or, ralphie boy was right

by now everyone should be over their initial depression of the democrats selling out to awol's war earlier this week.

tho we ourselves had high hopes that the dems had grown spines ( indeed, there had been some reports of such skeletal formations spotted in the last few months), we were not at all surprised when the very people that were elected to stop the war in iraq pulled down their pants, bent over and said "thank you sir, may i have another?"

the majority of americans think things are going badly in iraq; the majority of americans think we never should have gone into iraq; the majority of americans support a timetable for withdrawl from iraq.

and yet, the democrats that america voted into office last fall gave up their fight to acknowledge and appease such majority views.

thanks, democrats. oh, and thanks, markos, for convincing us to vote for those democrats.

the brooklyn rail, reviewing crashing the gates last year, pointed out markos' platform vis-a-vis progressives:

kos has repeatedly called for progressives to approach the party as a “big tent,” with room for positions that deviate from the ostensible party line on abortion, gun control, the death penalty, the environment—or the legion of “social” issues that the pundits argue have made it a pariah in many states.
and so we voted for anyone who had a big "d" next to their name...whether or not he or she actually believed in, not only what we believed in, but also in what he or she actually said he or she believed in.

in his quest to become the "not leader" of liberal blogs, markos banned jews, palestinians, feminists, and everybody who posts at my left wing.

yes, mid-ameirca can now read the daily kos without see the "f" word in the titles of diaries. and the right-of-center can rest easy that nobody will raise the ugly spector of issues like abortion or what really happened on 9/11.

but as a wiser man than we once said, "those who stand for nothing, fall for anything." sure, there are numbers of great quantity in the middle, but the fire is along the edges of american politics.

bob fertik says today at democrats.com:

kos the impeachment koward just kondemned one of my favorite progressive bloggers, poputonian:

digby defends the iraq supplemental bill out of the house. this, on the other hand, is utter horseshit. there's little worse in progressive politics than "holier than thou" purity trolls. they are just as destructive to the progressive movement as dlc trolls.
what did poputonian write to get kos so enraged?

poputonian quoted david swanson's criticism of democratic house leaders for blocking a vote on the lee amendment, and swanson's criticism of moveon for aiding and abetting that vote denial through their dishonest member "poll"…

so apparently if you agree with any of these points, kos believes you are a "holier than thou" purity troll who is just as destructive to the progressive movement as [a] dlc troll.

it seems that those of us fought to the end for the lee amendment have touched a very sensitive nerve by objecting to the manner in which it was killed by house democratic leaders and their allies in the "progressive" movement, most conspicuously moveon.

if moveon, sirota, and kos were mere spectators in that effort, their lies and vicious attacks wouldn't make much sense.

could it be that some of our "progressive" allies were working with house democratic leaders in the runup to the supplemental to help them kill the lee amendment?

maybe poputonian unwittingly hit the nail on the head when (s)he wrote america: still an insider's game?
and markos has tried like hell to become one of those insiders in that past months.

congratulations, markos. you've made it. the stephanie herseths, the jim webers, the john testers owe you a big, big debt of thanks for helping get them elected.

those are the guys who voted for the stripped down iraq funding bill, right?

now, we don't think markos is to blame for the dems' caving on the iraq funding bill (he is, however, obvioulsy responsible for the virginia tech massacre).

but we do think that his pointed efforts to "play to the middle" at the expense of actual convictions, plus his obvious work for getting anyone elected that claimed to be a democrat, is indicative of the core problems with the entire party.

the repubbblicans, for all their wrong-headedness, bigotry, selfishness and fantasy-world beliefs, at least have some beleifs. we often (and lately especially) have come to think that the only thing elected democrats believe in is getting elected.

and to those who say the democrats are acting just like repubbblicans, we ask: does the name ralph nader ring a bell?

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posted by skippy at 6:49 PM | 8 comments

Thursday, May 24, 2007

rich white guys are the only ones fit to rule

prose before hos points out that the us has a disproportionate mix of people in government in realtion to the demographics they represent. for instance:

women - women of voting age represent 51.6 percent of the voting age population yet are 16.3% of the congress, putting america below the global average of 17% female representation at parliamentary level. as of 2007, the us ranks 68th in terms of women holding office in the legislature — this puts the us just above turkmenistan, and just below el salvador and panama.

latinos - hispanics represent over 14% of the u.s. population, while their congress representation is 3% in the senate and about 5% in the house.

african-americans - the senate is 1% african american and the house is roughly 9.2% african american compared to the 12.3 percent of american population that are of black or african-american descent.

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posted by skippy at 9:02 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, May 17, 2007

a little whine with your crow?

taylor marsh thinks the hardly-ever-right wing bloggers doth complain too much:

it's all about procedural votes and "the motion to recommit," a tool that belongs to the minority party. to say i'm not a house parliamentary expert is an understatement, so please refer to the link. but it boils down to this. after a bill is read three times and before the speaker calls for a vote, the minority party can offer a "motion to recommit," which allows them a last chance to amend or kill the bill. (if you're an expert on this stuff and have something further to offer on it, please put your two cents in the comments.) but that's basically what's at the crux of this little republican tantrum. so, keeping that in mind...

earlier, when i took a trip over to memeorandum all of a sudden i noticed all of these right-wing posts popping up with screaming headlines and fulminating text (common to most wingnut posts):

alert: shutting down the floor - chief dep. whip eric cantor

breaking news from the house - john hinderaker

democrats, tired of losing, change the rules to disadvantage minority - "republican study committee" (don't you just love that title?)

and the best one...

pelosi's gambit - jonah goldberg
pray tell, what is all this hubbub about? in a word, nothing. from hoyer's office:

"despite republicans' claims, no rule change to end this political gamesmanship has been formally proposed.

"yet, for the last six hours, republicans have unfortunately and irresponsibly delayed consideration of a bill critical to our nation's defense.

"i have told leader boehner that i will continue my discussions with him and that there will not be a change before the memorial day recess."
no. there. anywhere.
but, but, but...at least those guys sign their real names to their words, so we know who's a big baby and not some pseudononymous hippie!

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posted by skippy at 9:43 AM | 1 comments

Thursday, May 10, 2007

banned

4 minutes of truth some congressmembers can't handle.

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posted by Cookie Jill at 7:53 PM | 0 comments

Monday, May 07, 2007

let's go swarmin'

blue girl, red state is trying to get a blog swarm started for a good idea. seems she received an email from a reader who wants america to let the administration know how much we hate awol's veto of the appropriations bill for the iraq war:

i got the following email in my inbox, and i am flattered anyone thinks my little blog is important enough to launch something like this. so i did what any realist with a hundred and fifty hits a day would do - i forwarded it to edger and skippy. they know how to get a party started.

i've been reading your comments on kevin drum's blog and lately on your own blog. i was thinking back to the viet nam era and remembering the day that was referred to as the viet nam moratorium (october 15, 1969). a couple hundred thousand people marched on downtown boston (the part i remember) and other american cities to protest the nixon policies. what made it effective politically was that it signified the first time that lots of normal-appearing people showed up in their jackets and ties to protest. when the lawyers and businessmen and housewives protested, that was a major signal to the political establishment.
the bush veto of the appropriations bill is worthy of just such a national protest. i fear that the congressional leadership may waver, but a large public outcry would provide a little stiffness to their backbones. i would like to suggest a national day of mourning and protest to be held perhaps on may 22 (ie: the third week anniversary of the bush veto). we should mourn our dead, honor our military, and protest the bush veto. the underlying strategy is to limit how far the congress can compromise on the next edition of the supplemental appropriations bill. getting a million people out to protest would make a big difference.

would you be interested in promoting this idea? the publisher of our blog (citywatchla.com) would like to cover the story, but does not want to be the story, so i am looking for somebody who already has a following to make the initial public proposal.
so...whaddya say folks? let's get our peace march on saturday, may 19? (since the three week date of the 22nd is a tuesday, turnout might be hard to get...)
count us in!

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posted by skippy at 12:10 PM | 1 comments

Sunday, May 06, 2007

but who will be immune from blogging?

via newscoma, we find that blogging is headed towards freedom of press protection in congress, at least as far as shield laws go. bill hobbs:

bloggers engaged in journalistic pursuits would be granted immunity from divulging confidential sources under a new bill pending in both chambers of congress. the proposed federal shield law would extend to anyone engaged in journalism - not just to reporters and editors who work for media institutions such as newspapers, book publishers, broadcast media, etc. the bill bill defines journalism as "gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public." details from news.com

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posted by skippy at 12:33 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, May 03, 2007

bringin' democracy over there

after the u.s. congress fails to set benchmarks for the u.s. government and its invasion controlled by awol there is talk about compromise. the compromise talks are about setting benchmarks for iraq's government.

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posted by George at 9:08 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

aWol vetoes troop withdrawal

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president bush vetoed legislation to pull u.s. troops out of iraq tuesday night in a historic showdown with congress over whether the unpopular and costly war should end or escalate.

it was a day of high political drama, falling on the fourth anniversary of bush's "mission accomplished" speech declaring that major combat operations had ended in iraq.

in only the second veto of his presidency, bush rejected legislation pushed by democratic leaders that would require the first u.s. combat troops to be withdrawn by oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later. - asspress

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posted by skippy at 8:01 PM | 0 comments

Thursday, April 26, 2007

dykes over dc

as this space reported, the inestimatable cap'n dyke went to congress as part of the house committee on education and labor investigation on equal pay. cap'n dyke writes us:

darlin' skippy, first off, it be me fine partner, dee farmer, who testified in front o' th'house committee on education an' labor (i was a mere, but fine bodyguard; although i am also a member of the walmart gender discrimination class action lawsuit).

we've never said anything before to anyone because it was still on its way to be declared a class action. now that it has been declared so and the first of wally's many appeals have been denied, its not a problem to talk about it to the degree that it is involved with our humble selves.

i can tell you that the democratic reps that were attending the hearing were very impressed with what was said and even took us back into their chambers to direct us to wherever we wanted to go on the capitol grounds and to give further congratulations for the testimoney.

first link is to th'committee website: http://edworkforce.house.gov/committee/schedule.shtml

second, go to the archived webcast under tuesday, april 24, 2007. th'hearin' was entitled "strengthening the middle class: ensuring equal pay for women". dee farmer is me lovely spouse an' she will be speaking in the second panel of that webcast. pay close attention to what the democrats say versus the rebubs. it wasn't surprising who supported the measure and the bill that will be soon introduced to help equal pay for equal work for women.

take from it what ye will an' i'll be postin' th'behind th'scenes events asap.

thanks, by the way!

love ye, me roo

th' cap'n
aye, me cap'n, raise the masts and full speed ahead!

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posted by skippy at 12:14 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

beltway blogger

the freeway blogger shows us the work of one accolyte who figured out how to write all of congress at once.

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posted by skippy at 9:47 AM | 0 comments

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Rockefeller improves Senate intelligence committee

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch:


WASHINGTON - They are an unlikely political duo, a liberal Democrat from West Virginia who is often sharply critical of the White House and a conservative Missouri Republican who bristles when the administration is attacked.


Yet, Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Christopher "Kit" Bond have joined forces to put the Senate Intelligence Committee back on track after a rocky few years by running it in bipartisan fashion.


The committee is holding more frequent and more robust hearings, engaging in aggressive oversight of intelligence agencies and issuing joint findings. Members are helping - rather than hindering - those of the other party in the crafting of legislation.


This is possible partly because Rockefeller and Bond agreed to merge their committee staffs, eliminating duplicative or even competitive work, saving resources, and allowing better results.


The impact, experts say, could be better national security.


"I think that's a very good step forward," says Tom Kean, former Republican governor of New Jersey who served as chairman of the Sept. 11 Commission, which criticized "dysfunctional" congressional oversight of intelligence. "Bond and Rockefeller are both to be congratulated."



More at West Virginia Blue.

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posted by Carnacki at 12:58 PM | 0 comments

Sunday, April 01, 2007

congress to begin impeachment proceedings tomorrow

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and remember, tomorrow is april 2.

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posted by skippy at 10:04 AM | 1 comments

Monday, March 26, 2007

same old war; brand new blogroll addition

we got an email from sailor of vidiot speak:

i don't know how you feel about the latest house resolution 'leaving iraq: unless bush doesn't want us to' but a few folks around blogtopia (y,wksctp!), including armando, (formerly of dailykos, now with talkleft as big tent democrat) have started a blogroll of folks who ... well, here's the scheme:the out of iraq blogroll is intended to be a roll of bloggers that are:

1) opposed to the supplemental.
2) opposed to funding bush's iraq debacle.
3) committed to getting the troops home as soon as possible.
4) determined to end george w. bush's iraq and mid-east debacle as
quickly as possible.
5) determined to restore some sanity to the world.

regards,

sailor
ergo, we have established a new part of our blogroll, up towards the top, titled, coincidentally, the out of iraq blogroll.

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posted by skippy at 8:35 PM | 13 comments

Friday, March 23, 2007

house passes get out of iraq bill

msnbc:

ignoring a white house veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a $124 billion war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease by sept. 1, 2008 if the iraqi government does not meet certain requirements…

“the american people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war,” said house speaker nancy pelosi, d-calif. “the american people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”

before the vote, democratic aides expressed growing confidence of success. four of the bill’s most consistent critics earlier said they had told pelosi that they wouldn't block passage of the bill.

“while i cannot betray my conscience, i cannot stand in the way of passing a measure that puts a concrete end date on this unnecessary war,” said one of the four, rep. barbara lee.

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posted by skippy at 9:54 AM | 1 comments

Thursday, March 22, 2007

they hate it when they are confronted with the facts

fdl (with some help from david corn) does a good job refuting victoria "i wrote the law, and the law won" toensing's mis-statements about libby & plame in front of congress.

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posted by skippy at 9:55 AM | 0 comments

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

reading between the lies

jane, citing scarecrow and kargox, stumbles upon the truth:

scarecrow and kagro x have noted that the white house may be anxious to have a showdown over the firing of the us attorneys because they know there's going to be a battle over something and there are other matters they are even less anxious to have probed by congress.
jane goes on to perhaps disagree, thinking that the investigation into the attorney firings could lead to something big, like tom delay.

[ed. note: we love jane, but wanting to hang something on tom delay at this point in the proceedings is rather like citing “the a team” as the reason tv sucks. got anything in this millennium to worry about, jane?]

while we don't doubt that she could be right, we would ask everyone to go back to the idea that the whitehouse knows there's going to be a battle over "something."

we maintain that the dems know this, too, as does the mmm (multi-millionaire media).

but, as if under some secret agreement reached by all parties invovled, nobody mentions the big stuff that there ought to be a battle over.

ending the iraq war? mebbe. mebbe not. workin' on it. we'll get back to you in, oh, a year and a half.

impeachment? totally out of the question. don't even bring it up again, if you know what's good for you.

uh, guys? didn't we elect the dems into office to specifically take care of these two problems? aren't you folks in congress the least bit worried that if you don't do something, and fast, the electorate will happily vote you out in 08?

sheesh, it took harry reid a whole week to even speak up about debating on fox. you'd think the dems have forgotten just how they got back into power...by our votes, dammit!

while we are happy to see congress fight the white house on anything (it's been so long), we think that the firing of u.s. attorneys would not rank high any higher than 15 or 16 on anyone's list of top 20 reasons to call awol out for a rumble.

we mentioned earlier bob fertik's exasperation w/nancy pelosi for refusing to schedule barbara lee's amendment to end the war for a vote. the blogger formerly known as armando expresses nothing but frustration at others who urge a "wait and see" attitude towards our leaders in their approach to the iraq war. and matt stoller recently cited a gallup poll showing that the dem congress's approval ratings are falling back down to pre-election levels. dissatisfaction with our recently-elected leaders is appearing not only in blogtopia and yes, we coined that phrase, but in the rest of america, as well.

yet no actions about stopping the war (let alone impeachment, and that's what they want us to do...let it alone) has made any progress in congress or in the media. (even the demonstrations last for the 4th anniversary of the start of the war were played down as "not as large as before" in the mmm).

but everyone's gung-ho about proving gonzales is a sneak. ok, we concede that it's progress. getting rid of any one of those jerks in the administration is far better than zero movement.

however, do the words "too little too late" mean anything at all to the dems in congress? they had better, in our humble opinion, wake up and smell the constituent anger. a do-nothing dem congress can raise the ire of the voting public just as much as a do-nothing publican congress did.

we would suggest those on the hill read this op-ed piece from the madison, wis. capital times:

rather, it was remarkable because these veterans have come to the same conclusion that has been reached by a growing number of honest critics of the war: that if we are determined to bring the troops home, we have to communicate our seriousness.

we cannot campaign for "nonbinding resolutions."

we need to express our seriousness by sending a signal that we feel the need to end this occupation of a foreign land is so pressing that we are prepared to speak even of impeaching the men who promise to maintain their military misadventure for so long as they occupy the white house.

there are millions of americans who would like to impeach george bush and dick cheney for the long list of high crimes and misdemeanors that have been associated with the names of these errant executives over the past six years. for instance, polls suggest that a majority of americans favor impeachment if it is proved that the president lied to the america people about the reasons for going to war in iraq…

we are not talking about stained blue dresses anymore. we are talking about a war that has cost more than 3,000 lives and ruined tens of thousands more (need we mention walter reed?), a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of iraqi lives, a war that is emptying our federal treasury at a rate of $200 million a day.

impeachment, as intended by the founders who created a system of checks and balances in order to "chain the dogs of war," is a political act initiated, at its best, with the purpose of preventing a president from maintaining a course of action that affronts the constitution, endangers the republic or damages democracy.

the war in iraq does all of these things. and yet, as the bush-cheney administration proposes to surge 21,500 more young americans into the quagmire in iraq, and as the congress debates nonbinding resolutions that, by virtue of their very names, are guaranteed to be inconsequential, there are those who would dare suggest that impeachment initiatives might distract the house and senate.

there is no more serious work than ending the war.
amen.

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posted by skippy at 4:47 PM | 1 comments