Political blog survey

Politics in the Zeros had this up about a Political blog survey:

" In the Inbox, from Tom Johnston

My colleague Barbara Kaye (University of Tennessee) and I (Texas Tech) need your help. We are asking you if you would please publicize our survey about blogging and the Iraq War. Results from an earlier version of the survey has been published in academic journals and books as well as presented at international conferences.

We are trying to reach blog users from a wide range of political perspectives and from a wide variety of types of blogs, so participation of your readers is important. Would you be so kind to announce our survey on your blogs?

Take the survey..."

I doubt it would hurt too much.

Neocon Wolfowitz Resigning

Well... One more neocon PNAC chickenhawk is negotiating his own plucking end:

Embattled World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is negotiating an agreement to resign, according to an official familiar with the talks.

His departure would include an acknowledgment from the bank that he doesn't bear sole responsibility for the controversy surrounding a generous pay package for his girlfriend, the official said.

The official said Wolfowitz wanted the bank to accept some responsibility for conflicts of interest cited against him by a special bank panel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate state of the negotiations.

It was not clear whether the bank's 24-member board would accept Wolfowitz's terms.

Don't take it on his terms. Just go ahead and fry his sorry ass.

Rahm Emanuel Needs a Kick in the Ass

David Sirota has been running a series of posts on the secret trade deal agreements being pushed by those that would likely fall into the MONEY PARTY category.

This is another in a series of ongoing posts following the announcement of a secret free trade deal on May 10, 2007 between a handful of senior Democrats and the Bush administration.

Six days after the press conference announcing a secret free trade deal between Democratic congressional leaders and the Bush White House, a full-scale revolt appears to be brewing on Capitol Hill. Rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers have demanded an immediate debate about the deal, and Democratic leaders have responded by rejecting such a request. A top Democratic senator says K Street is receiving a "wink and nod" from the White House that the final legislative language - which has not been made public - will allow the Bush administration to avoid enforcing any of the much-touted standards in the deal. GOP leaders, meanwhile, are signaling that the deal will not be incorporated into the core text of trade agreements at all. And, of course, almost every news outlet has refused to report that top K Street lobbyists have said they have received "assurances" that the deal's provisions on labor and the environment will be unenforceable. Here's today's full news report.

Continue reading SECRET TRADE DEAL - DAY 6: Senator Says K Street Getting "Wink & Nod" From Bush»

He has put up Emanuel's answer to the calls for transparency in this important debate:

Earlier this week the Politico reported that Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) responded to a reporter's inquiry about whether he supports lobbying reform by pulling his best Dick Cheney impression and telling the reporter to "Go f___ yourself." Coincidentally (or not) I received something of the same treatment from Emanuel in response to my ongoing coverage of the secret trade deal that Emanuel yesterday blocked a formal Democratic debate on. I received an email from Emanuel's spokesperson telling me that I "may disagree with Rahm's position on many issues and we don't necessarily care that that is the case."

What's funny/pathetic is that Emanuel (or at least his staff) seems to see the trade issue which affects the entire globe, which the American public is deeply concerned about and which was a central piece of the 2006 election as some sort of personal rivalry between lawmakers like him and writers like me. How hilarious/sad it is when Washington insiders get such a bad case of Potomac Fever that they lose all touch with reality. Again, it's reminiscent of Cheney, who in response to questions about the war said that the American public's opinion doesn't matter. Apparently, America's opposition to lobbyist written trade policy is something that leaders like Emanuel "don't necessarily care" about.

Last Monday Sirota was on Lou Dobbs Tonight to talk about this issue:

Rell and Republicans: Grandstanding for the sucker vote

Rell and her hamburger party suggest dropping the 25 cent tax on gas:

Rell endorsed the idea several hours after Republican legislators introduced the measure at a press conference at the state Capitol complex. They vowed to force the Democrat-controlled legislature to vote on the issue, possibly in the next three days when the House is in session.

snip

"This is an irresponsible, half-baked scheme by the Republicans to appease the public with pennies, while costing the state over $120 million," Amann said. "Their annual sideshow is about as helpful to Connecticut drivers as the governor's press release last week calling for a national investigation into gasoline prices. It's embarrassing."

Amann said the legislature cannot guarantee that prices will drop at the pumps, because lawmakers do not control gasoline prices. Proponents of the measure said, however, that regardless of the price of gas, motorists would be paying 25 cents less per gallon.

Not only is Amann correct, but the fact is I can think of a lot better ways to spend excesses in government money that would benefit everyone. You can be damned certain that the price of gas would just go right back up shortly after they dropped the tax with distributors and oil companies soaking up even more excessive profits than they are already getting.

You want to do something that will really make a difference? Raise the tax another dime and put it towards developing alternative energy sources like windmill farms and solar energy.

The GOP needs to keep their short sighted ideas designed to appease the sucker voter to themselves. There are many reasons why the hamburger party is in decline in Connecticut and across the nation... Their fiscal irresponsibility is just another one of them.

Joe Neocon Lieberman Raising Money For Collins

It isn't enough to simply endorse all of the republican candidates, now he is raising money for these dirtbags:

Not only has Lieberman endorsed Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine.) -- one of Democrats' biggest targets in the 2008 cycle -- but he's planning to co-host a fundraiser for her on June 21 in Washington, D.C.

The event, which will be held in a Capitol Hill location still to be determined, will feature Lieberman and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) -- a very rare bipartisan fundraiser. Attendees are being asked to raise $3,000; $2,000 would come in the form of a political action committee donation while the other $1,000 would be a personal contribution, according to an electronic invite for the fundraiser obtained today by The Fix.

Harry Reid needs to dump him and give someone like Chuck Hagel the job on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Dump Lieberman and give it to Hagel outright. No strings attached except the expectation for him to run it honorably and in a bipartisan manner.

Tim Griffin, the Caging Lists and GONEzales

Greg Palast joins Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

Greg Palast exposes true intent, cover up and criminal acts of Bush administration's US Attorney scandal. In summary, it's about wrongfully charging Democrats with made up crimes in order to influence the outcome of elections. In other words, it's about stealing elections or subverting our democracy. Just more evidence of the Bush administration's stated goal of turning America into a one-party state. Which comes pretty close to meeting the definition of treason.

Did he say treason? SNAP! I thought he said that...

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



It should get interesting as Palast will now turn over to Conyers the many RNC Emails that they accidentally sent to him.

As a side note: Who knew that Tom Cruise was playing David Iglesius in the movie A Few Good Men? News to me... I guess the bush administration can't handle the truth.

War Breaks Out in Orchestra

Bush briefly trades in his Iraq pom poms for a baton:



Rumour has it that after meddling in the music of this orchestra a war broke out between the strings and the woodwind sections...

He's King Midas in Reverse.

Bush Resigns?

For a few seconds watchers of CNN International were about to pop the cork on champagne:

Following up on this post, it did happen. Here's a screen grab from CNN International around midnight ET:



This appeared on screen for 12 seconds. (Two seconds before, President Bush had appeared on screen, but the chyron accurately said "Pressure over Iraq.")

I am sure they all slammed their fridge doors as they put their champagne away. Is CNN practicing for it just in case or do they know something we don't know? heh

White House and GOP Reps Chasing Their Tails

This is good one from The Hill:

Top Bush administration officials lashed out at a pair of House Republicans at the White House yesterday after details about a contentious meeting between President Bush and GOP legislators were leaked to the media earlier this week.

The confrontations are the latest indications of an intensifying rift between Bush and congressional Republicans.

Reps. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) attracted the ire of White House officials for allegedly speaking to reporters about a Tuesday meeting between Bush and centrist Republicans on the Iraq war. Details of the contentious meeting first emerged Wednesday evening and attracted Page 1 headlines yesterday.


Sources said that Dan Meyer, Bush’s liaison to the House, confronted LaHood while White House political strategist Karl Rove rebuked Kirk. It is unclear if LaHood or Kirk were the originial sources for the stories, but LaHood was quoted in one of the articles.

Regardless, LaHood and Meyer got into a shouting match as emotions ran high and voices were raised yesterday morning in the White House while lawmakers were waiting to meet with first lady Laura Bush, according to two legislators who witnessed the exchange.

No word yet on when someone is going to get chewed out for leaking that Rove chewed them out for leaking that bush got chewed out.

"“The White House is not happy,” said a Republican lawmaker"

No kidding? They are not very grown up either... Then again, neither are LaHood and Kirk... They voted for unending war after all of their "dog'n'pony bush visit" waste of the public's time.

The GOP candidates play CYA for the next elections, and soldiers are still dying. Frickin' children... The lot of'em.

General Petraeus Denounces Torture

Via the Washington Post:

The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

"This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground," Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote in an open letter dated May 10 and posted on a military Web site.

He rejected the argument that torture is sometimes needed to quickly obtain crucial information. "Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary," he stated.

Why doesn't the GOP support the troops?

The White House and GOP members of Congress say they've reached some level of compromise to break the deadlock over detainee treatment legislation. The deal, however, does not appear to solve a key disagreement over the use of classified information in terror prosecutions.

White House adviser Steven Hadley called the deal struck between the White House and three conservative GOP senators a "framework of agreement," while Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) called it a “conceptual agreement.” Nothing has been signed, however, and no specifics have been confirmed.

What a concept! The USA abusing prisoners with torture is wrong, and it hurts our soldiers if they are captured. Blame the Republican controlled White House, House, Senate, the DoJ idiots like Gonzales that advocated skirting the Geneva Conventions, and all of the far right wingnut children in the blogosphere that cheered on the GOP's failed policy of torture.

Impeach the traitors.

FIC Blog Suffering From Stick Envy

Via tessa at MLN:

This just in from the Family Institute:

Tell Your State Senator and State Representative: Vote No on Same-Sex "Marriage"

We hope to see as many of you as possible at our May 23rd Rally and Lobby Day for Marriage, which begins at 10:00 a.m. on the steps of the state capitol in Hartford. Your willingness to fight for the protection of marriage will make the difference between victory and defeat--and pro same-sex "marriage" activists know it.

Then they quote from Love Makes a Family's Anne Stanback (email from Monday, May 7) ---

Here's an excerpt from one of their messages:

Opponents of marriage equality, who are well organized and well funded, have been generating huge numbers of calls and emails and supporters must show our support too.
Pro-family voters are doing such a good job making their voices heard that our opponents are forced into claiming it's because FIC is "well-funded." In fact, we are vastly outfunded by our opposition.

Then it gets funny:

Consider this excerpt from a Courant column on a pro same-sex "marriage" fundraiser held last month:

While those at the Bushnell were getting their groove thing going, Love Makes a Family's "Eat, Drink & Be Married" event had a whole lot of dinner parties going on around town, aimed at raising money to continue efforts toward marriage equality for same-sex couples.

At the West End home of Michael Wilson (Hartford Stage's artistic director) and his partner, Jeff Cowie, the theme was "Let's Stick Together" and dinner did that - literally. From asparagus-studded choux pastry puffs to Korean beef, all of the food was served - you've got it - on a stick.

"The seven cooks in the kitchen has been a challenge," said Wilson, who was more than willing to show off the 105-year-old house that was once the residence of Life magazine photographer Arthur Rickerby and his author wife, Wanda Rickerby.

Unlike our opponents, FIC does not owe its success to an ability to put seven cooks in one kitchen. Whatever we have accomplished we owe to you: your willingness to pray for us, to contact your legislators, to attend our rallies and to donate to our matching grant campaigns.

In fact, the difficulty in meeting our matching grant campaign goal of $50,000 by the end of this month is making it harder for us to stop same-sex "marriage" and other threats to the family. That's why we need your help.

Read More...

Yep!

Some of us are so well funded that we don't get a penny for any of the Blogging and activism we do. Unlike the bigoted and overpaid "asparagus-studded choux pastry puffs" at the FIC Blog that are obviously suffering from stick envy.

BIG TELCOs Illegally Spy on You For bush?

If you are unsure just how much you are ILLEGALLY being spied upon by the bush administration than you need to see this:

Former AT&T technician Mark Klein and Internet expert Brian Reid describe an NSA listening room that Klein discovered while working at the company's operations center. In "Spying on the Home Front" FRONTLINE talks to intelligence insiders and asks: Is the Bush administration's domestic war on terrorism jeopardizing our civil liberties? Coming May 15 to PBS and here online.

In "Spying on the Home Front," coming May. 15, 2007 at 9pm (check local listings) Reporter Hedrick Smith presents new material on how the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program works and examines clashing viewpoints on whether the President has violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and infringed on constitutional protections.

In another dramatic story, the program shows how the FBI vacuumed up records on 250,000 ordinary Americans who chose Las Vegas as the destination for their Christmas-New Year's holiday, and the subsequent revelation that the FBI has misused National Security Letters to gather information. Probing such projects as Total Information Awareness, and its little known successors, Smith discloses that even former government intelligence officials now worry that the combination of new security threats, advances in communications technologies, and radical interpretations of presidential authority may be threatening the privacy of Americans.

You have to remember that the phone companies have been sued for illegally providing information to the corrupt bush administration even BEFORE 911. The lying bush administration and the BIG TELCOs have absolutely no regard for the rule of law, nor your civil rights.

The rundown on lawsuits against BIG TELCOs via ThinkProgress:

This morning, USA Today reported that three telecommunications companies – AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth – provided “phone call records of tens of millions of Americans” to the National Security Agency. Such conduct appears to be illegal and could make the telco firms liable for tens of billions of dollars. Here’s why:

1. It violates the Stored Communications Act. The Stored Communications Act, Section 2703(c), provides exactly five exceptions that would permit a phone company to disclose to the government the list of calls to or from a subscriber: (i) a warrant; (ii) a court order; (iii) the customer’s consent; (iv) for telemarketing enforcement; or (v) by “administrative subpoena.” The first four clearly don’t apply. As for administrative subpoenas, where a government agency asks for records without court approval, there is a simple answer – the NSA has no administrative subpoena authority, and it is the NSA that reportedly got the phone records.

2. The penalty for violating the Stored Communications Act is $1000 per individual violation. Section 2707 of the Stored Communications Act gives a private right of action to any telephone customer “aggrieved by any violation.” If the phone company acted with a “knowing or intentional state of mind,” then the customer wins actual harm, attorney’s fees, and “in no case shall a person entitled to recover receive less than the sum of $1,000.”

(The phone companies might say they didn’t “know” they were violating the law. But USA Today reports that Qwest’s lawyers knew about the legal risks, which are bright and clear in the statute book.)

3. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act doesn’t get the telcos off the hook. According to USA Today, the NSA did not go to the FISA court to get a court order. And Qwest is quoted as saying that the Attorney General would not certify that the request was lawful under FISA. So FISA provides no defense for the phone companies, either.

In other words, for every 1 million Americans whose records were turned over to NSA, the telcos could be liable for $1 billion in penalties, plus attorneys fees. You do the math.

– Peter Swire and Judd Legum

UPDATE: Many of you had questions about this legal analysis. Peter provides the answers here. We’ll continue to address your questions as this story develops.

UPDATE II: Orrin Kerr agrees with our analysis in the New York Times:

Orin Kerr, a former federal prosecutor and assistant professor at George Washington University, said his reading of the relevant statutes put the phone companies at risk for at least $1,000 per person whose records they disclosed without a court order.

“This is not a happy day for the general counsels” of the phone companies, he said. “If you have a class action involving 10 million Americans, that’s 10 million times $1,000 — that’s 10 billion.”

Too many Americans don't even realize just how much their rights to privacy are being ignored and the means they have to remedy this gross injustice.

New Richardson Ad HILARIOUS!

I opened up Crooks & Liars (After starting my day at MLN) as per usual and saw this...

Governor Bill Richardson's new ad just hit the airwaves, and it's freaking great. Informative, original and hysterical.

It is a great ad and WAY TOO FUNNY!