Just arrived in Vegas for YearlyKos

About to run out to dinner with Atrios and some friends.

This is a crappy cell phone pic from my hotel room.

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DeLay gives his farewell address -- finally

This is a good one. Tom DeLay, the leading force behind the GOP's culture of corruption, urged his Republican colleagues to "stand on principle." Many of them, like Bob Ney, Jerry Lewis, Richard Pombo, John Doolittle, to name a few, are already standing on DeLay's principles. And, hopefully, like Duke Cunningham, they'll all be in jail.

Nancy Pelosi put her good-bye message to "the Hammer" this way:

Tomorrow, Tom DeLay officially resigns from the House of Representatives. His resignation brings to an end what the press has referred to as a “criminal enterprise” run out of the former majority leader’s office.

Yet the widespread Republican culture of corruption goes deeper than one man and extends further than one office. Mr. DeLay’s departure under an ethical and legal cloud fails to extinguish that broader corruption.

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Hillary blasts Coulter for "vicious, mean-spirited attack"

Coulter, who has no sense of decency anyway, went way over the line when she attacked the widows of 9/11 victims. She's so not worthy of our attention, but she deserves our contempt. And, Hillary Clinton pointed out just how contemptible Coulter is:

"Perhaps her book should have been called 'Heartless,'" the senator said. "I know a lot of the widows and family members who lost loved ones on 9/11. They never wanted to be a member of a group that is defined by the tragedy of what happened."

The New York Democrat and former first lady said she found it "unimaginable that anyone in the public eye could launch a vicious, mean-spirited attack on people whom I've known over the last four and a half years to be concerned deeply about the safety and security of our country."

Ann Coulter speaks for the GOP. She's one of them. They own Coulter and her rhetoric of hate. Read the rest of this post...

Orrin Hatch - Shocked by the truth

Yes Orrin, you're a bigot. From AP:

"The Republican leadership is asking us to spend time writing bigotry into the Constitution," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (news, bio, voting record) of Massachusetts, which legalized gay marriage in 2003. "A vote for it is a vote against civil unions, against domestic partnership, against all other efforts for states to treat gays and lesbians fairly under the law."

In response, Hatch fumed: "Does he really want to suggest that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots?"

If Senator Kennedy doesn't want to I will. Yes Senator Hatch, anyone who voted for this amedment is a bigot who fundamentally doesn't understand what our founding fathers were attempting to accomplish with the Republic. Read the rest of this post...

Senator Hutchison's office couldn't say if Senator engaged in adultery

Had to share one more great exchange:

I called Kay Bailey Hutchinson's office in Austin [transcript below]:

Me: Hello, can you tell me if Senator Hutchinson supports traditional marriage.

Office: YES! She sure does!

Me: Can you tell whether or not she engaged in adultery prior to her divorce?

Her: Hold one second please....

[long wait]

Jennifer: Hi! This is Jennifer! How can I help you?

Me: Hi Jennifer. I understand that Senator Hutchinson supports traditional marriage...

Jennifer: Yes she does.

Me: Can you tell me if the senator engaged in any sort of adultery prior to her divorce?

Jennifer: No, I'm sorry. I can't.

Me: Can you tell me if the Senator has been either on the giving or receiving end of oral sex or anything that might be construed as "sodomy."

Jennifer: I'm not sure I understand these questions.

Me: Well, the senator supports FMA which basically invites the government into the bedrooms and private lives of Americans. She clearly has a stand on traditional marriage. I was hoping she could reconcile "support of traditional marriage" and her divorce...

Jennifer: I can pass your message along.

Me: I'd appreciate that I was also hoping for the senator to tell me if she will introduce language to the amendment making divorce illegal, since this bill's language portrays traditional marriage as the foundation of our culture.

Jennifer: I will pass your message on. Where are you calling from?

Me: Houston. Is there anyway for me to follow-up with the senator and get answers to these questions? There are some areas where I support the senator's views and others where I disagree. But in this case, I believe she is being a total hypocrite. Anyway, I want to get answers to my questions. I am quite serious about my inquiry. I', going to follow-up with a letter. What's you name?

Jennifer: Jennifer.

Me: What is your position or title?

Jennifer: I work in constituent services.

Me. Thank you so much Jennifer. I will be following up in the near future.
Warm regards-

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Oh Fred, lying again...

Fred Hiatt at the Washington Post just can't seem to get the concept of "facts." In today's anti-Harry Reid Post editorial, the Post, yet again, bases its argument on assertions that are simply untrue. All we need look at is the first sentence of the Post editorial:

THE MOST disturbing thing isn't that Sen. Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) accepted free ringside tickets to Las Vegas boxing matches, worth between several hundred and several thousand dollars each.

No, the most disturbing thing is that Reid never got any tickets at all, what he got was an access pass from the state of Nevada, which they give out all the time, and which have ZERO value. Not "several thousands dollars" of value, but zero value.

The Post then goes on to quote more of the lies from the AP story (John McCain paid for his tickets - no he didn't, he didn't receive tickets, and it was illegal for him to pay for them). Oh, and very cute how the Post left out the fact that the Republican Senator accepted free access to the fights as well, and then HE recused himself from voting on the legislation that the fight organizers wanted killed (same legislation Reid voted FOR). Get that? The GOP Senator helped kill the legislation by not voting after he accepted the free 'gift.' Funny, the Washington Post didn't find that fact relevant to report in this article. Then again, I have a funny feeling the Post simply read one AP story and then wrote their editorial, without realizing the AP story was wrong.

I mean, we can't except the Post to actually do their research before writing editorials - hell, they don't even read their own front page.

Blogger is back....phew.

Fred, we missed you. The editorials were so, well, reasonable the past month or two. Glad to see you're back. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

Blogger is torturing us today....trying to post by email. We'll see how that works.

 

What's the post-vote buzz?  

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Macy's erases gay people from store window display after hate group complains

Atta boy, Macy's. There's nothing like literally erasing people, from a Gay Pride display no less, to really appeal to the inner-Nazi in all of us.

What a bunch of pigs. Read the rest of this post...

9/11 widows respond to conservative slander that they enjoyed their husbands' deaths

Good. Read the rest of this post...

Off to the airport

Vegas bound for the YearlyKos conference. Perhaps I'll see Atrios at Midway... Read the rest of this post...

New Orleans GOP Senator David Vitter says of gay marriage: "I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one"

Tell that to them. Then call Senator Vitter and remind him that there are more important issues: 1-888-355-3588 (ask for Senator Vitter's office). THEN, find the links for the local papers in Louisiana and email letters to the editor about this quote - they'll eat it up.









From CNN, via Salon's War Room. Read the rest of this post...

GOP Gay-bashing Marriage Amendment Fails

The Senate just voted 49 - 48 on the motion to invoke cloture. 60 votes were needed to continue debate. So, the right wing and the GOP lost....again. In 2004, the vote was 48 - 50.

UPDATE: This vote was better than expected. The gay bashers were claiming that they would have a majority. Our side picked up two GOP votes, Specter and Judd Gregg. Chris Dodd and Jay Rockefeller, who would have voted with us, were absent. Chuck Hagel, who would have voted against us, is in Omaha with the President. If everyone was present, the vote would have been 50-50. That means the Vice President would have had to break the tie. Now, that would have been interesting. (of course, with a cloture vote, the 50-50 tie doesn't matter, but it's still fun to think about) Read the rest of this post...

With New Orleans practically dead, GOP Louisiana Senator David Vitter is more worried about gay marriage

I'd have thought Senator Vitter (R-LA) would be interested in finding allies to defend his dying city, not dividing Americans and alienating people (this blog included) who love New Orleans, have stood by New Orleans over the years, and have been constant critics of George Bush's abandonment of the city.

Vitter had the following to say yesterday about the gay-bashing constitutional amendment:

"We're building votes," said Sen. David Vitter, R-La., another new supporter. "That's often what's required over several years to get there, particularly to a two-thirds vote."

Maybe Vitter should spend a little less time building votes for gay-bashing, and more time building levees and searching for dead bodies in New Orleans now that the hurricane season is again upon us and New Orleans remains a disaster.

And people wonder why New Orleans is dying. Even their own US Senator thinks gay marriage is a bigger priority than helping revive New Orleans. Read the rest of this post...

DeLay on GOP: "Panic, depression and woe-is-me-ism"

The Hammer is turning on his fellow Republicans:

The former No. 2 House leader criticized his Republican colleagues for "panic, depression and woe-is-me-ism," and predicted they will lose control in November "if they continue the attitude they have right now."

Of course, none of the GOP's problems have anything to do with the culture of corruption that DeLay spearheaded. He's an innocent man.

But while we're on the culture of corruption, today, in the Washington Post, we learn that DeLay's wife had a nice little retirement package set up by a lobbyist pal:

A registered lobbyist opened a retirement account in the late 1990s for the wife of then-House Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and contributed thousands of dollars to it while also paying her a salary to work for him from her home in Texas, according to sources, documents and DeLay's attorney, Richard Cullen.

The account represents a small portion of the income that DeLay's family received from entities at least partly controlled by lobbyist Edwin A. Buckham. But the disclosure of its origin adds to what was previously known about the benefits DeLay's family received from its association with Buckham, and it brings the total over the past seven years to about half a million dollars.

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

The Senate is voting today on the anti-gay constitutional amendment which will lose.

Have a good start to your day by watching Jon Stewart eviscerate right wing commentator Bill Bennett. Crooks and Liars has the video. Definitely worth watching.

NOT worth watching all week has been CNN's Dana Bash who covers Capitol Hill. She's been spewing the right wing's talking points all week. Very annoying. Read the rest of this post...

Alabama rejects right wing extremist

What's a wingnut to do when the Ten Commandments judge can't roll to victory in Alabama GOP primary? Read the rest of this post...

Blair continues to drag down Labour

Labour has been on a slide for months, with the British public becoming tired of his spin, the war, scandal within his team, and general incompetence. Meanwhile, the Conservative leader David Cameron has been moving the Tories closer to the center (at least trying to give that image) which has muddied the outlook for Labour.

David Cameron's rejuvenated Conservative Party has opened a seven-point lead over Labour, according to The Independent's latest "poll of polls".

As the Tory leader completed six months in his post, the analysis of the opinion surveys taken in May put his party on 39 per cent (up four points on April), Labour 32 per cent (down one point) and the Liberal Democrats on 19 (down two points).

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Council of Europe report: European countries colluded with US

It seems pretty obvious to me that there was no shortage of help from Europe following 9/11 and quite a few countries went along with what the US said it needed to fight the war on terror. So despite all of the Euro-bashing from the administration, they were receiving what they wanted. The problem was (and is) that Bush doesn't know when to stop.

I will be curious to see when this stopped and can't help but believe that the Bush administration just didn't know when to stop pushing the limit of acceptability and legality. Just because the US Congress is a bunch of patsies doesn't mean the rest of the world is made up of lapdogs, besides Blair, of course. So now in the future when the US needs assistance from foreign countries, who's going to want to help after this debacle? Once again, Bush has done so much damage to US foreign policy, it will take years to recover from his incompetence.

The report, due out later Wednesday, is said to implicate 14 European governments in the practice, which involves the transfer of security suspects to a third country for questioning.

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80% of the US military affected by recent theft of VA data

And it's apparently now posing a danger to the security of our troops.

But George Bush and the Republicans REALLY care about the military. That's why his administration was warned about the risk for years, did nothing, and then sat on this thing for weeks after the crime happened. Read the rest of this post...