DeLay: ‘It’s Unfortunate That
We’re Not Going To Be Able To Have The Convention That They Planned’

post from Think Progress on 01 September 2008 03:15:00 PM. © Think Progress

This morning on Fox News, former House Speaker Tom DeLay tried telling host Megyn Kelly how Republicans are focused on Hurricane Gustav, rather than their convention. He said that for President Bush, “politics is the least part of what he’s thinking about right now.” Regarding Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), DeLay said that he has “shifted his mindset away from the politics.”

Yet just a few seconds later, when Kelly again asked him about the convention, DeLay couldn’t help but let his true feelings show:

KELLY: As somebody who’s a party faithful, who’s a deep conservative, do you worry about how this will affect . . . the RNC this week, how it will affect people perceptions of the Republicans if it doesn’t go well. Help give us an idea of how you’re looking at it.
DELAY: Well, what we’re looking at is, it’s unfortunate that we’re not going to be able to have the convention that they planned, but that’s not what’s important right now.

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Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,600 people along the Gulf Coast. Gustav has now made landfall southwest of New Orleans as a category 2 storm, but approximately 10,000 people remain in the city.

Transcript:

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The Non-Inevitability of Evil

post from TPMCafe on 01 September 2008 03:13:00 PM. © TPMCafe

One key strategy for excusing evil and evil in American's history specifically is to treat it as an "unfortunate" inevitability, something to have sorrow over but nothing that could have reasonably been avoided-- so there is no point in making a moral judgment or seeing parallels with moral choices made in the present. In comments, offensivetoyou makes this argument in regard to genocide against Native Americans:

no government could stand against the land hunger of the people. ALL the people...Nor do you deal with the issue of disease, or of the impossibility of coexistance of two very different cultures, a problem which has existed all the time and everywhere.

Yet, of course, many contemporaries at the time DID stand against the supposed land hunger of the people.

Daniel Walker Howe's What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (which I happen to be in the middle of reading) deals with this fight indepth. And even with the enthusiastic, not reluctant, support of President Andrew Jackson, the Indian Removal Bill just barely passed the House in 1830, 102 votes to 97. Many opposed it on principle-- see Davy Crockett, then a Tennessee Congressman, who called the bill "oppression with a vengeance." Others more pragmatically opposed the cost of what would end up being a series of wars costing the equivalent of billions of dollars.

But the vote was close and was no more inevitable than an Iraq War based on "oil hunger" that many opposed on principle. But the idea of historic inevitability and manifest destiny in the past is still invoked to try to silence critics of US imperialism today, who argue that the "national greatness" of the past, base on those non-inevitable evil decisions, is threatened by dissent today.

So arguing that past genocide or US slavery was "inevitable" is merely an updated way to forget the wrong moral choices of the past, as if there were no choices, just inevtiable acts that are to be regretted but really can't be condemned since how can you condemn inevitability?

Forgetting the past does come in many forms.

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Kerry "McCain is Prisoner of the RightWing, Not a
Maverick"

post from The Osterley Times on 01 September 2008 03:13:00 PM. © The Osterley Times

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John Kerry is right, McCain has picked "someone from the flat Earth caucus" who doesn't even believe the theory of evolution. Limbaugh and the right wing vetoed McCain's choice and that is why he is left with the VP he is left with. He's no "Maverick" as he picked Palin to please the exact same people that Bush spent the last eight years appeasing.

Tags: John Kerry, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Obama, Biden, US election 2008

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ing.html

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Link Roundup: Labor Day Edition

post from Moue Magazine on 01 September 2008 03:07:17 PM. © Moue Magazine

I’m at my father’s house for the holiday and my internet connection is spotty (and apparently some people consider it rude if you blatantly ignore them in favor of your laptop) so I’m tossing up this roundup. There isn’t a theme[...]

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http://mouemagazine.wordpress.com/2008/09/01/link-roundup-labor-day-edition/

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Unions Matter

post from Daily Kos on 01 September 2008 03:06:40 PM. © Daily Kos

Just a friendly Labor Day reminder.

(Tables from Change to Win.)

The Boston Globe:

And Pew found that in comparing American men ages 30-39 in 1974 with those of the same age in 2004, personal income adjusted for inflation dropped from $40,210 to $35,000. "This suggests the up-escalator that has historically ensured that each generation would do better than the last may not be working very well," the report noted.

The next president has to display the courage to say the greatest nation on earth now has a down-escalator - and to find ways to reverse direction.

Unions must be part of that equation.

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http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/380658783/1798

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Special needs mom weighs in on Sarah Palin

post from AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth on 01 September 2008 03:05:00 PM. © AMERICAblog News| A great nation deserves the truth

A mom with a special needs kid writes us:

I'm the mother of a special needs child, and hopefully my mommy brain can help shed some light on Sarah Palin's strange habits.

Her behavior immediately before (and since) birth does bear some examination. When I was pregnant and supposedly healthy, I canceled a long planned trip to Europe in my third trimester as a precaution. To be fair, Palin had had four healthy pregnancies and wasn't a nervous first timer like me. Plus a Down's baby is usually in normal good health. I'll also stipulate that in Alaska, unlike Arizona, you really do sometimes need a bush plane to get around. Still, once a woman's water breaks, I would personally consider her grounded. If she has any sense at all, she'll arrange to be grounded close to the best medical facilities available.

I'm also a little disturbed by how her decision to give birth to a special needs child is praised, but her decision to spend her time away from that child is completely unexamined. (This is classic behavior from the party that only cares about "life" before birth.) Any five month old baby needs serious time with its mommy. I also doubt that Palin is dragging a breast pump with her on the campaign trail, since it's a bunch of doctors and scientist over at the American Academy of Pediatricians recommending breast feeding for the first year.

My real question about the Palin household is this: Her 17 year old daughter is five months pregnant and getting ready to marry the daddy. When's the daughter's birthday? Has she been 17 for at least five months? How old is the daddy? What are the laws governing such relationships in Alaska? I agree that the girl should be left out of the spotlight as much as possible, but her parents' judgment needs to be thoroughly examined.

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in-on-sara.html

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Mid Day Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 01 September 2008 03:00:05 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Best McCain Analogy Evah… From the comments on the Just Because McCain Says He?s a ?Maverick? Doesn?t Make It So post: fiver Says : [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/09/01/mid-day-open-thread-52/

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Manufacturing Monday: Gustave's effect on energy
& manufacturers

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 01 September 2008 02:59:26 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

By now, Hurricane Gustav is ravaging the great city of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast. Our hopes and prayers goes out to the good folks of the area. Well you probably have guessed, that Johnny Venom would've found the economic[...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/381345865/showDiary.do

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Sarah Polin Says No Truth to Teen Daughter Being
Pregnant Out of Wedlock Last Year Because She's Pregnant and Unmarried Now

post from BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash on 01 September 2008 02:57:34 PM. © BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash

The BuzzFlash Editor's Blog

September 1, 2008

Talk about skeleton in the Polin family closet!

They are just starting to tumble out.

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