Saturday, June 10, 2006

Evening Thread

Sorry, blogging much while on the road is a royal pain.

Anyway, Yearly Kos really has been a lot of fun. Hopefully there's a sequel.

Afternoon Thread

Enjoy.

Hey Hey Ho Ho

If I were a potential presidential candidate looking for a way to jump start my campaign, get a bit of news, and get a bit of blogger support what I would do is be the first big name to endorse Ned Lamont.

If I wasn't quite courageous enough to do it now I'd make sure that if Joe leaves the party I'd be the first person to run to the microphone to do it then.

Wanker of the Day

Jonah Goldberg.

Dispatches From Yearly Kos

Adam Nagourney files a report.

Fresh Thread

Enjoy.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Grumpy Byron

Byron York has been looking pretty grumpy. He seemed kinda lonely and unhappy at the party yesterday evening, and for some reason he didn't even want to talk to Mike Stark. Even his hair seemed a little bit sad somehow.

Priceless

Watching Markos being interviewed by Maureen Dowd.

Eschaton Exclusive

I've had Ani DiFranco's forthcoming CD for a little while and it's really worth getting. I'd write more about it if I wasn't on the roadright now, but instead of reading what I have to say about it you can download a free track, Millenium Theater, here.


If you like it pre-order it here.

Summary of the Bush Era

Larry Johnson just now:

I wish we were making this crap up.

Plame Game

C-Span's covering this I believe, with Jane Hamsher, Christy, Wilson, Waas, Froomkin, Larry Johnson, Emptywheel.

Wanker of the Day

Lying freak Rick Santorum.

My Travel Diary

Sitting here watching Chris Mooney on the "defending science" panel. General Clark, who threw a nice party for us all last night, just spoke. PZ Myers is up soon.

Bloggity Blog

Apologies for light posting, but between blogger being bloggered and the general confusion caused by the presence of Byron York's hair blogging has been rather difficult.

Make sure you sign up for Air America's Yearly Kos stream. It's a great thing they're doing, and quite inexpensive.

Lies and the Lying Liars

I do wonder why the right loves Reverend Moon so much.


I guess it fits their general love of authoritarian cultists.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Bloggered

Blogger is so very bloggered, so talk amongst yourselves.

Bloggered

Blogger's pretty bloggered, so between that and being in Vegas blogging will remain rather light...

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

AJ Blogs so I Don't Have To

He wrote this sitting next to me and it'll save me the trouble of posting.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Estate Tax Repeal Killed

A rare moment of sanity.

Everybody Still Hates Him

Bush still at 33 in AP/Ipsos.

(via pony boy who doesn't get a pony for this)

Self-Refuting Statement of the Day

"Time and time again." Are these people even capable of logical thought?

Lies and the Lying Liars

Limbaugh's still making stuff up.

Chicks

Billboard claims they aren't selling enough tickets.

So buy some.

Zarqawi

Was never quite sure why we didn't go after him when we had the chance.

Anyway, I'm supposed to give the obligatory "YAY USA!" cheer here, but while it's good to get the bad guys I don't really think it's going to improve much. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Time Zones

Pacific Time is weird.

That's your late night deep thought.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Nedrenaline!

Oh my. More nasty nasty press for Joe:

Why doesn't Joe, instead of continuing to insist that we are winning in Iraq, come up with a plan either to win (yes, that would take more troops but his friend John McCain is for that option) or to get out?

Wouldn't that be more to the point?

And hasn't Lieberman sacrificed something precious?

The whole point of being Joe Lieberman used to be decency, dignity, and thoughtfulness. Lieberman's attack ads look like the appeals of just another sleazy, desperate pol, grasping madly to hold on to office.

As one citizen, a Republican, said: We have always held him to the high standard he set for himself. We expected more of Joe.

Uh, Hello?

Hey, we're like back and stuff. Already saw some bad Democratic operatives sinning at the poker table.

Open Thread

Threadbot is Bush-like and AWOL.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Mostly Pointless Victory

We all knew it wouldn't pass, but it's still interesting that barely got more votes for it than the last time even though they have more senators from the bigot party now.

On a Jet Plane

Off to Vegas for the weekend debauchery, so light blogging today.

Organize, Organize, Organize

Get to work. Donate. Volunteer. Get involved with a local campaign - federal, state, local office, whatever.

Greenwald

Glenn Greenwald is interviewed in the PDN's podcast.


.mp3 file here.

Morning

Well, Busby lost. That sucks.

Angelides will try to take down Arnie. I didn't really follow that race at all.

Tester beats Morrison in Montana. Good chance we'll be saying goodbye to Burns.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Late Night

don't have the energy to obsessively follow election results, but early returns for Tester are promising.

Butts

Obsessed.

Oddly, the divorced Ronald Reagan never mentioned George Will getting thrown out of his house due to his adultery either.

Weird, that.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Busbymania!

Well, let's hope. It's such a Republican district, but... well, let's hope.

Stupidity08

What Yglesias says. These people are idiots.

Privatizing Social Security

Thank you Rep. McCrery for providing the ad campaign for many Democrats.

Congratulations Senator Inhofe

Today he said this in front of a giant photo of his large family:

As you see here, and I think this is maybe the most important prop [the photo] we'll have during the entire debate, my wife and I have been married 47 years. We have 20 kids and grandkids. I'm really proud to say that in the recorded history of our family, we've never had a divorce or any kind of homosexual relationship.


Damn, no recordings of the homosexual incest in the Inhofe family.

Repair the Bridges, Take Out the Trash

Yglesias is right that public works should certainly be part of a good progressive economic agenda. I know I've read numerous times that there's an incredible amount of costly deferred maintenance on bridges all over the country, and I doubt that's just because of the mighty PR apparatus of the Bridge Repair Lobby. Generally improving public services which have atrophied in lots of areas would make people happy.

Another Damn Pony

New low in Pew poll - 33%.


We Are Not Their Customers

It makes total sense from a certain perspective why the Associated Press is completely unconcerned with completely justified complaints about their product. Their customers are not actually their readers, but the outlets which purchase and publish their product. Once long ago I put up the AP's contact information to have people complain about some egregious reporting. Not long after I actually met the poor nice woman who happened to be manning the desk and on the other end of that phone line, and she explained that reader complaints were somewhat alien to them. We don't buy their product. We aren't their customers.

Stabbed in the Back

Stoller covers the latest rage of the authoritarian cultists whose leaders can do no wrong. Bizarre people, really. Everyone should read Kevin Baker's article in the latest Harper's. It's the well the conservatives always go to because nothing can ever be their fault.

But, following up from below, the truly weird thing is how the mainstream media won't aggressively defend themselves from this stuff, but instead give this viewpoint a seat at the table they control.

Discouraging

As Greg Sargent says, it's discouraging that the AP and other habitually tune out legitimate criticism while falling all over themselves to cater to the right wing juggernaut.

This is something we see over and over again. I don't know if it's just ingrained habit, a way of pleasing the bosses who run things, or what, but it's truly bizarre. The conservative critique of the week regularly frames literally every issue, usually helped along by their chief enabler Howie Kurtz.

Max Speak

Max joins the discussion.

Everyone would prefer the U.S. to engage world problems through international institutions and use military force unilaterally as the very last resort. That is not controversial. What is controversial is the actual experience, one which cautions that a very high bar ought to be placed on the use of force. To call attention to this record, not least to the spectacular debacles of Vietnam and now, Iraq, and maybe in the near future, Iran, is a patriotic public service. To disparage this body of criticism as irresponsible, ill-considered, or anti-American is a calumny.

In the next presidential election, both parties' candidates will have huge problems. On the Democratic side, the electorate will be bitterly divided over staying and leaving Iraq. If things there continue to stagnate, not least for reasons that Peter discusses, the dissenters' number will increase. Peter's apparent strategy entails attacking that faction of voters that is growing. I'm no political genius -- it seems that we only learn who they are after the fact -- but I can count. I do not think this book unravels the political knot facing the Democrats. (The Rs have their own problems.)

Purges

I think Danny Goldberg's thoughts on the wanker Beinart are pretty good. I wanted to hit on this specifically:

But the importance of diversifying the voices and minds who shape liberal politics is not merely tactical. The extraordinarily limited range of “acceptable” opinions among a large segment of the Washington elite effected “smart” opinion prior to the Iraq war just as destructive as the syndrome Halberstram described that led to Viet Nam. This limited range of debate did not lead to “ a tragic choice that freedom requires,” but to a wrong choice, morally and strategically that has undermined freedom. If the same people, using the same world-view reject more diverse voices from future conversations about foreign policy, they greatly increase more tragic mistakes.

The “siren song of purity” exists more in Beinart’s mind than in the diverse and cacophonous American left. The “central debate” among Democrats is whether fear of that phantom leaves national Democrats with nothing more a homogenized conventional wisdom or whether the well educated and mostly competent elite can develop the confidence to allow into their world the emotional energy and reflexive questioning of authority that people like Michael Moore bring to a healthy political conversation. Beinart writes eloquently about the perils of American exceptionalism. But if Democrats and liberals are going to relevant they need to question certain kinds of Washington exceptionalism as well.


The latest whine from the establishment center is that crazy liberals like myself are trying to purge them. It's a funny charge, and Supreme Wanker #1 Joe Klein, makes it again. It's funny coming from a basic political camp whose entire schtick has been, for years, desperately trying to prove they're "not like those other liberals," marginalizing most liberal voices, outdoing the Right at every step in vigorously condemning anyone to the left of Joe Lieberman.

The problem I and many others have had for years with TNR Caucus is not their political views per se (generally) but their active attempts to define themselves as the left flank of acceptable opinion in this country.

Reward Fraudulent Journalism

No blogger ethics panel will fix this.


The new age of American journalism.

Gore Mania

I'm not quite sure of what I think of online presidential draft movements, though they're certainly a way of gauging support among a certain constituency.

DraftGore08 is run by sensible trustworthy people. They're having a "$5 primary" go gauge support. And, also, they're seeing if their server can handle the load of getting linked to by a site like this. So, click through and see...

Wankers of the Day

NBC News, for having Ann Coulter on to spew her hate.

Vote

Go to the polls Californians, go to the polls...

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Sources

Earlier today on NPR Daniel Schorr provided some commentary on the Wen Ho Lee case which I found to be truly bizarre.


Basically, Schorr seems to accept that:

The Wen Ho Lee Case was bullshit from start to finish
Sources fed multiple news outlets horseshit about Lee and those outlets published it.


All that's fine...but that what does he conclude? That the resolution of the case was scary because it meant that conducting investigative journalism could now become an expensive undertaking due to legal concerns.

Look. Cut the fucking crap already. If your sources feed you horseshit, you are under no obligation to protect them. There is no journalistic principle which says that journalists should be information launderers for those who wish to libel people.

There's a real story about the Wen Ho Lee case. There's a real story about why the government jointly settled with various news organizations to make this story go away. There's a real story about why news organizations were willing to first pay their lawyers and then pay off Lee to allow sources who lied to them to remain anonymous.

There's a story there, and it has nothing to do with protecting sources.

Anyone want to look into it?

Monday, June 05, 2006

Falafel!

Olbermann discusses O'Reilly's bizarre echo of Joe McCarthy in his blaming of US soldiers for Nazi war crimes.

Yearly Kos At Home

Yearly Kos is shaping up to be quite the event, even though we all hate Markos 'cause he's worse than Hitler and all Kossacks need to be shot in the face. I'll be there. I'll try to lug my laptop around and provide all of the exciting details, but that kind of liveblogging is rarely exciting.

Luckily for all of you Air America is going to be streaming the whole thing - three streams gavel to gavel - and you can get full access for a mere $10.

From what I understand this isn't exactly expected to be a big money maker for them - possibly the opposite given costs associated with doing so - so if you're interested and can afford $10 it'd be a good thing to support with your dollars. Sign up here.

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

Nedrenaline!

More really awful press for Lieberman. Almost feel bad for him.

Consider giving if you haven't yet.

Speaking of Values

These are precisely the kinds of questions reporters should be asking senators. I've seen Russert badger people endlessly on abortion, but what about divorce? The Bible says quite a bit about the latter and there are quite a few God-fearing Christian divorced members of Congress.

Words Mean Things

I understand Ezra's point, and I agree that trying to shove other things under the umbrella of "values" is likely to be rather counterproductive, but the fact that the word "values" has become shorthand for "hate the gay, hate other people having sex" in certain contexts doesn't give Tim Russert license to assert that Democrats are "out of sync on cultural -- and values."

Bushed

Well that wasn't a very good day for my 401K.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Outdoing the Daily Show

Uh, Jim? That's why God invented the press release.

You're redundant.


...adding, it's actually worse than that of course. Lehrer implicitly endorses the veracity of what important people say, providing additional credibility, while he has the easy task of not having to understand any of it.

Nice work.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Values

Tim Russert keeps telling me values are all about teh gay and what goes on in uteruses. Apparently Tim Russert is out of touch with America. Maybe he needs to spend more time with Big Russ.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Six to Eight Weeks

Well, this is an improvement over the usual "six monther" rhetoric.

Calling it “the biggest political and military blunder of my lifetime,” Sturgeon said to Bayh, “I’d like you to explain your vote on the war and why you gave the president a blank check to get us into this disaster.”

Bayh calmly answered that “I wouldn’t cast the same vote today as I did then.” He noted that “the French believed that (there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), the Germans believed that, the Russians believed that, everybody believed he [Saddam Hussein] had weapons of mass destruction.”

Bayh said if the Iraqi factions “get their political act together — and we will know this in the next six to eight weeks… if they can form a government… then there’s something to work with there.” If not, then “we’re out.”



Six to eight weeks brings us to, say, July 31. What's Evan Bayh going to be saying then?

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Facts are Irrelevant

Just another day in conservative land.

Can't Win With Cavuto

This kind of flipflopping on media coverage in Iraq is pretty standard stuff for conservative authoritarian cultists. If you show the carnage in Iraq you're not showing all the GOOD NEWS, if you don't show the carnage in Iraq you're failing to show how bad those bad guys are.

Heads they win, tails you lose, and it's always just another liberal media conspiracy to sap your precious bodily fluids and make you gay.

Happy Sodomy Day

Since the private lives of public figures who want control what you can do with your bodies are a genuine political story that the Tabloid New York Times finds uninteresting, in part I imagine because of the interesting marital history of Bill Keller, it's time to go open source.

Call your member of Congress and get the answers America needs to have.

Let's Hope

Philadelphia area mass transit needs to be a lot better than it is and there is sufficient demand for it. This would be an improvement:

NJ Transit chief George Warrington is pitching a new rail service between Philadelphia and Newark, with the goal of giving central New Jerseyans a quick, cheap ride into Center City.

But the trains, which could be running within a couple of years, also would give another travel option to Philadelphians always on the lookout for a good deal into New York.

In an interview, Warrington outlined his plan for extending the line that links Atlantic City with Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. Eleven of the 14 daily trains would continue north, stopping in Trenton, Princeton Junction and Hamilton on their way to Newark Penn Station or possibly Hoboken.


There are many things which confuse me about SEPTA, but a simple one is their apparent inability (or indifference or unwillingness) to make a deal to allow SEPTA pass holders to ride the PATCO subway within the city.


And, while I'm bitching, stop digging up the damn trolley tracks.

Wen Ho Lee

While much attention was paid to the issue of journalists and the courts in the Plame Affair, the real issue lurking below the surface was the case of Wen Ho Lee. As the source-who-they-won't-name has been known for some time (though there may be others of course), and it's unclear exactly what journalistic principle is being upheld by covering up for sources which lead you astray, it's long been clear that from the perspective of the media outlets this was always about protecting their pocketbooks and reputations. So much for principle.

Boehlert reminds us.

I wonder what Notra Trulock makes of last week's news? A discredited former Energy Department intelligence officer who often came across as a Clinton-hating dittohead, Trulock served as a key government source throughout the Lee witch hunt. (The charges against Lee crumbled in court after Lee had already spent 278 days in solitary confinement.) Trulock was the source some news organizations didn't want to reveal in court and the man who led key reporters around by their noses, spinning fantastic tales about Lee's diabolical deeds; half-baked tales that were often faithfully retold in the pages of the most important newspapers in America. Read: The New York Times. Last week's settlement might have included five news organizations--ABC News, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, and the Washington Post--but the Wen Ho Lee saga has always been about the woeful conduct of the Times and its embarrassing reliance on someone like Trulock who wielded such an obvious partisan ax as he chased after Lee, and by extension the Clinton administration, which Trulock argued was somehow protecting Lee's espionage. (Don't ask.)

Of course, the Wen Ho Lee tale and the Times' wildly over-heated reporting (eagerly hyped by the paper's editorial page, run at the times by Howell Raines) did not spring from a vacuum. Instead, it occurred at the pinnacle of the press corps' Get-Clinton years and fit into a distinct and troubling pattern at the newspaper of record. Recall that the Times embarrassed itself in the 1990s with its now-discredited Whitewater coverage; a story often fed to the Times by anonymous partisan Republican sources. The Times embarrassed itself with an innuendo-heavy Loral investigation that suggested the Clinton White House gave away weapons secrets to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. The Times embarrassed itself with its one-sided Wen Ho Lee coverage; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources. And more recently, the Times embarrassed itself with its pre-war WMD coverage; a story often fed by anonymous partisan Republican sources.

Wanker of the Day

So sad to be confronted with the day's wanker so early in the morning.

Once again, Mike McCurry.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Your GOP

Texas:



SAN ANTONIO – Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell offered a greeting to delegates to the Republican convention. "It's great to be back in the holy land," the Fort Worth native said to the cheers of the party faithful.For the 4,500 delegates at last week's biennial gathering, it was both an expression of conservative philosophy and religious faith, a melding of church and state.

At Saturday morning's prayer meeting, party leader Tina Benkiser assured them that God was watching over the two-day confab.

"He is the chairman of this party," she said against a backdrop of flags and a GOP seal with its red, white and blue logo.

The party platform, adopted Saturday, declares "America is a Christian nation" and affirms that "God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom."


Looking forward to the day when the Judean People's Front finally turns on the People's Front of Judea.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Evening Thread

Enjoy.

Gore Mania

An Inconvenient Truth hits #9 for the weekend box office despite being played at only 77 theaters. Brings in a total of $1.7 million.

Primaries

Bowers is right, the establishment indifference to the Akaka and Chafee primaries says a lot about their freaking out about the Lieberman one. It was the same in '04 with Specter, when Toomey almost beat him. There was no freaking out about the process by pundits.

Nedrenaline!

Jeebus, this guy is meaner to Lieberman than I've ever been. Of course it's just Joe hanging himself, but still.

Failing Upwards

Yes this is truly perverse if true. It's Emanuel's job to win the House, and if the Democrats fail to do so it's his responsibility. Maybe he's a wonderful guy and maybe he's doing the smartest things possible to obtain that goal, but it doesn't change the fact that it's currently his job. Rewarding failure is really stupid.

Gore Mania

ABCNews has the video up from this morning.

Much Ado About Nothing

Kudos to Jay Tea for recognizing that the manufactured Busby flap is in fact manufactured. Yes, it's the kind of thing her political opponents will try to make something of. That's politics. But those who wish to operate in the factual world instead of the fact-free world of the racist Michelle Malkin should acknowledge that it's clear to any honest sentient being what was meant.

No Long Operative

Rice contradicts Pony Blow.


I think Pony Blow is the next obvious step in the evolution of the press secretary. While Ari dazzled them with irrelevancies, Scottie just said nothing, and now Pony Blow just makes stuff up.

Wanker of the Day

Byron Calame.

Anchor Babies

Is racist hypocrite Michelle Malkin really an anchor baby?

Hilarious.

I saw this awhile back and let it pass, but what the hell.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Open Thread

Yeah, yeah, another stupid open thread.

Late Night

Don't eat the paste.