MSNBC: HILLARY WINS TEXAS
Tue Mar 04, 2008 at 10:03:08 PM PDT
All I have to say is "democrats always snatching defeat from the jaws of victory"
Well fear still wins so I guess we are in for more negative ads.
Wonderful...I kind of figured there was NO WAY that we could lose to McCain, but negative (red-phone ads) help no one in our party.
[Update]: To be clear, I don't dislike Hillary or think she would be a bad president, but tearing apart fellow democrats with negative advertising is destructive and hurts our prospects for the White House and Congress. After being called un-American or the hate America first crowd for essentially being a democrat, it is disappointing to see one of my own trot out that tired (apparently not) rhetoric at the first sign of adversity. And it is even more disappointing to see it work.
What I want to know is why Democrats keep caving to this president
Sat Nov 03, 2007 at 04:31:37 AM PDT
What I want to know is why Democrats can't stand up against torture?
What I want to know is why Democrats don't stand up to this president?
What I want to know is when will I be proud of my party again?
You only have to turn on the news lately to be disappointed by the Democratic leadership in Congress. Yesterday, we had Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer voting for Bush's pro-torture nominee for Attorney-General. This highlights a fundamental problem with the leadership of this party and with Democrats who have what I will term a pre-Iraq war mentality. These pre-Iraq war Democrats act like they are faced with a president with sky high approval ratings and can only hope for the best. There will be a myriad of excuses and defenses of this vote, but it is deeply troubling. If they can't stand up to this president on the Attorney-General, how are they going to stand against his war with Iran?
AP Distorts Webb-Graham Debate on MTP
Sun Jul 15, 2007 at 05:06:13 PM PDT
If you watched the MTP debate between Lindsay Graham and Jim Webb, it was clear that Graham lost his temper. He repeatedly talked over Webb and clearly lost his temper. Webb was clearly holding back, but he did NOT lose his cool, but you wouldn't know that if you read the AP piece on the encounter. The AP account of the debate begins:
"Just wash your hands of Iraq," an animated Graham said to the war critics, including the Democrat seated to his immediate right. [...]
Most people would describe Graham as at least VERY "animated." At Crooks and Liars, John Amato noted he, " [...] sounded like he was on a pot of coffee, seven Red Bulls and a couple of packs of cigarettes.." The adjective does seem a little tame, but it wouldn't be objectionable if the AP didn't make both sides seem equally at angry. Now read their coverage of Webb below the fold
Dear Monica [Goodling],
Sun May 13, 2007 at 10:11:00 AM PDT
Monica Goodling will be testifying before Congress soon. Monica will have immunity and she will probably not face punishment for her actions. She spent her days removing Democrats from DOJ. There have already been diaries on this subject, but I know Republicans will say this is an unimportant scandal or she was entitled to remove people for their politics. I wanted to write a letter expressing my anger to Monica and telling her why I thought her actions were wrong as an American and a Christian. So here goes.
Dear Monica,
You don't know me, but I am writing this letter to express my deep anger and sadness over your actions. I am angry Monica because you have deprived young, eager law students of jobs because they were democrats. I am angry that you have sullied the reputation of an institution dedicated to upholding the rule of law. I am angry that you refused to promote qualified civil servants because they were democrats. I am angry that you refused to hire the best people because they were democrats. Although you don't know me, I know you would done the same thing to me because I am a democrat.
(continued below)
Help Donating Money
Sat Oct 21, 2006 at 06:40:54 PM PDT
So a friend of mine asked me for some names of good house candidates to donate to (because I follow politics) and they wanted to help out in the democratic House races. They also asked if I knew if any of the candidates and genuinely good people because they have had too many local politicians in their area who are sleaze. The truth is I really don't know any of the candidates all that well. So does anyone have suggestions? Or a candidate they can vouch for?
Finally CNN gets it: Student Loans are a Life Sentence!
Mon May 01, 2006 at 10:17:49 PM PDT
CNN has a piece on its front page (near the the bottom in the business category--but it is there)on how student loans really are preventing young people from pusuing their dreams.
Mayrose Wegmann, 25, should have been starting on her dream career as a political consultant by now. And saving toward her first home
Instead, Wegmann, who graduated with a degree in political science and journalism from the University of Iowa in 2004 and moved to Washington, D.C., is working at a non-profit because it pays significantly more than entry-level politics work. And she won't even consider buying a home for several more years.
In fact, she won't consider much except how to meet the $300 a month she owes on her $34,000 student loan balance.
"The school debt makes you decide [about your career] based on the money factor. Not based on what you want to do," said Wegmann.
This is simply terrible that people who went to college to pay for their dreams can't afford them because of student loans. And this woman went to a state school!
Your Liberal Media: CNN changes headline to republican talking point
Wed Jan 18, 2006 at 07:08:53 PM PDT
I looked at the CNN website earlier today and to my great surprise, there was a headline championing the fact that
"Democrats unveil their own lobbying measure." I couldn't believe that CNN would put a positive story about the Democrats on its front page. Alas, I didn't have time to look at the story and when I came back, it was no where to be found.
Why couldn't I find the story Rep. Slaughter diaried about and I saw earlier on CNN? Because CNN had changed the headline to the republican friendly "Lobby Scandal sparks scramble to polish ethics image." Just like that, CNN had managed to replace a fair depiction of the Democrat's introduction of a new measure on lobbying with a headline that encapulates the republican talking point that the Democrats are as involved in the lobbying scandal as the republicans.
Time: How the Congress let corporations take away pensions and healthcare benefits
Sat Oct 22, 2005 at 11:55:02 PM PDT
Time Magazine has a long article about how Congress allowed Corporate America to break its promises to American
workers.
After her husband's death, Whitehouse knew the future would be tough, but she was confident in her economic survival. After all, the company had promised her a death benefit of $598 every two weeks for the rest of her life--a commitment she had in writing, one that was a matter of law.
She received the benefit payments until October 1990, when the check bounced. A corporate-takeover artist, later sent to prison for ripping off a pension fund and other financial improprieties, had stripped down the business and forced it into the U.S. bankruptcy court. There the obligation was erased, thanks to congressional legislation that gives employers the right to walk away from agreements with their employees.
At the same time bankruptcy is made harder for regular Americans, the republicans give big business a break. Another day in George Bush's America.
George Bush hates poor, sick Floridians but loves HMOs
Thu Oct 20, 2005 at 10:30:05 PM PDT
Approving a proposal sent by his brother, Bush approved a plan that privatizes medicaid in Florida. The NY Times
reports :
The Bush administration approved a sweeping Medicaid plan for Florida on Wednesday
that limits spending for many of the 2.2 million beneficiaries there and gives private health plans new freedom to limit benefits.
The Florida program, likely to be a model for many other states, shifts from the traditional Medicaid "defined benefit" plan to a "defined contribution" plan, under which the state sets a ceiling on spending for each recipient[...]
The Florida plan says, "The state will set aside a specific amount of money for each person enrolled in Medicaid," based on the person's medical condition and historic use of health care.
Plamegate News: Robert Novak is a Dick and Rove fingered Libby
Thu Oct 20, 2005 at 12:52:16 PM PDT
In a new article from the Washington Post describing the latest relevations has a few about our favorite
douchebag...
Former CIA director George J. Tenet and ex-deputy director John E. McLaughlin, were both interviewed by prosecutors. Bill Harlow, CIA public affairs director, went before the grand jury and was questioned about a conversation he had with Novak before Novak's column appeared. Sources said he was contacted by Novak about the Plame information and told him not to publish her name or information about her.
Not really surprising to anyone that Novak would ignore warning the CIA not to publish kinda undermines his claims that he had no idea about Plame's covert status or at least any claim that he is anything more than a political hack. An unpatriotic political hack...
Meanwhile as the administration officials continue to flip...
Crushing the Middle Class: Higher Education Privitization Under Bush
Sat Oct 15, 2005 at 11:25:45 PM PDT
The NY Times has a great article today called,
At Public Universities, Warnings of Privatization on the falling funding at public universities and the corresponding rise in tuition.
[...]Graham Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University, said
this year that skyrocketing tuition was a result of what he called "public higher education's slow slide toward privatization."
Other educators have made similar assertions, some avoiding the term "privatization" but nonetheless describing a crisis that they say is transforming public universities. At an academic forum last month, John D. Wiley, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that during the years after World War II, America built the world's greatest system of public higher education.
"We're now in the process of dismantling all that," Dr. Wiley said.
More Below the Fold
Thank you TimeSelect: More Columns I might never have read
Sun Oct 02, 2005 at 09:32:14 PM PDT
Because I am boycotting the NY Times I have time to read elsewhere. Today I wanted to highlight two great columns. One column from Gary Young in the Guardian and one from Sister Joan Chittister (who is a great voice from the religious left).
To start Sister Joan's recent column, Now They See Us As We Are :
Karen Hughes went to Turkey and Saudi Arabia this week to talk to women about the blessings of having a U.S. presence in their lives. To the Turkish women, she extolled American democracy in the Middle East. To the Saudi women she promised that they would soon enjoy more participation in the social system.
The implication was obvious: Thanks to the United States of America, happiness was on the way. The effect of the speeches was shattering. Silence. No applause. No celebrations.
More below the fold
Thank you TimeSelect: Great Editorials I might never have read...
Sun Sep 25, 2005 at 10:59:40 PM PDT
TimeSelect has made me venture slightly beyond the NY Times in search of editorials. While I wish I could read Krugman, if I could I might never have read some of these great editorials and letters from various newspapers across the country (some not even discussed in the MSM).
To start, the Memphis Commercial Appeal smacks down Frist :
According to Bob Stevenson, communications director for the Tennessee Republican, Frist wasn't acting on any inside information when he decided to sell. "His only objective in selling the stock was to eliminate the appearance of a conflict of interest,'' Stevenson explained.
Oh, really? Seems like the best time to eliminate that conflict would have been 11 years ago, when he took office.
Howell Raines rips apart Bush in the Guardian
Wed Aug 31, 2005 at 09:03:00 PM PDT
For me, this article is an even more devastating critique than the one in the New York Times. It starts with Raines describing New Orleans, but I have only exerpted his critique of Bush.
www.guardian.co.uk :
...The sacrifices of New Orleans need a kind of national reckoning that would enable our people to see the president who forgot to care for what he is...Almost as unbelievable as Katrina itself is the fact that the leader of the free world has been outshone by the elected leaders of a region renowned for governmental ineptitude. Louisiana's anguished governor, Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, climbed into a helicopter at the first possible moment to survey what may become the worst weather-related disaster in American history. She might even have been able to stop the looting in New Orleans if the 141st Field Artillery of the Louisiana Army National Guard had not been in Iraq for the past 11 months.
Please read this rest below the fold...
25 countries are on the list for Iraq-style reconstruction & even conservatives are worried
Sat Jul 02, 2005 at 03:41:19 PM PDT
A new article from the American Conservative discusses the work many of our government agencies are doing in preparation for the next
destruction and reconstruction project. While it is not unusual for the military-industrial complex to be funnelling millions into useless projects, in light of this Administration's radical policies and disconnect from reality, it is a little bit scary.
A new Bureau of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department is charged with organizing the reconstruction of countries where the United States has deemed it necessary to intervene in order to make them into market democracies. The bureau has 25 countries under surveillance as possible candidates for Defense Department deconstruction and State Department reconstruction. The bureau's director is recruiting "rapid-reaction forces" of official, nongovernmental, and corporate business specialists. He hopes to develop the capacity for three full-scale, simultaneous reconstruction operations in different countries.
More Below the fold
Soft Journalism from NYT: King of the Hill Democrats??
Sun Jun 26, 2005 at 11:59:23 AM PDT
Everytime I turn on the television or read the newspaper, there is some pundit/journalist talking about how the democratic party can get back into the game by understanding some invented class of Americans: South Park Conservatives, Nascar Dads, or some other invented category of (primarily red-state) Americans. David Brooks has basically made a career of making caricatures of the South and mid-west-not to mention the effete liberals that apparently populate the whole of the north-east and west coasts. The lastest article in this vein is Matt Bai's
King of the Hill Democrats where he explains how according to Mike Easley (my own governor) Democrats need to understand King of Hill viewers.
More Ranting Below
When Democrats Attack other Democrats
Fri May 20, 2005 at 10:30:33 PM PDT
Seems like the press has chosen today to attack Howard Dean for some reason. There was an
AP
story that was critical of Dean earlier and now one there is another in USA Today. Fortunately, they have been buried in Friday and Saturday editions. The real problem is that the USA Today story is complete with quotes from Democrats and not just the DLC types- Steve Rosenthal of America Coming Together was quoted. The quotes are below the fold, but honestly when will democrats work together instead of criticizing each other through the Press?
CNN misses the point again: Bush's taxes
Fri Apr 15, 2005 at 03:23:27 PM PDT
CNN posted a story about Bush's tax returns and they entirely miss the important point that Bush didn't pay that much in taxes.
www.cnn.com :
President Bush reported taxable income of $672,788 for last year, on which he paid $207,307 in federal income taxes, according to presidential returns released Friday by the White House.
The tax bill for the president and first lady Laura Bush was lower than the previous year when the first couple reported $822,126 in adjusted gross income and paid $227,490 in federal income taxes.[...]
The couple contributed $77,785 to churches and charitable organizations, including Evergreen Chapel at Camp David, Maryland, St. John's Church in Washington, the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army World Service Office, AmeriCares, the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and the Federal Government's Combined Federal Campaign.
Based on this quote the average person reading this might think gee Bush is paying a lot in taxes. In reality, he is paying at a lower bracket than some people in the middle class and he gets those write-offs for charities which the poor and middle class don't get.
