Pay up, Jonah.

post from Crooks and Liars on 08 February 2007 07:04:41 PM. © Crooks and Liars

AlterNet:There are many shades of right-wing punditry in our country. Among the shadiest is Jonah Goldberg. With arrogance seemingly matched only by his ignorance, Goldberg was just being Goldberg when he offered this wager two years ago:Let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable [...]

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Escalation update.

post from Think Progress on 08 February 2007 07:01:00 PM. © Think Progress

A senior military official commenting on the recent spate of helicopter downings in Iraq: “There is certainly the expectation here that insurgents are trying to inflict some losses as we’re building up forces.”

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Evening Thread

post from Eschaton on 08 February 2007 06:59:00 PM. © Eschaton

Enjoy.

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Paul Krugman: Edwards Gets It Right

post from Rozius Unbound on 08 February 2007 06:54:00 PM. © Rozius Unbound

Dr. Krugman suggests that anyone who expects to be elected President must be able to come up with a plan to provide universal health care for all Americans. And, it looks like John Edwards has come up with just such a plan.--The New York Times, February[...]

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CNN shows 3 Republican congressmen criticizing
Nancy Pelosi and ZERO Democrats defending her

post from AMERICAblog on 08 February 2007 06:54:00 PM. © AMERICAblog

CNN let its resident xenophobe Lou Dobbs repeat, yet again, the lie that Nancy Pelosi had asked for a 757 - not true - and just for the heck of it. Nancy Pelosi is "in denial," CNN's correspondent reported. Yeah, no bias there. There was also no bias when the correspondent showed video of 3 republicans attacking Pelosi, but no Democrats defending her.

Yes, we're a partisan Web site. But for CNN to simply let its correspondents, and hosts, go on TV and lie is unprofessional. And it doesn't matter if the host in question is popular and CNN is afraid to take him on. The man has been lying about this story for almost a week now, and at some point it would be nice for CNN to report the truth. And if we're so partisan about our thoughts on the story, then why did ABC's Jake Tapper manage to the get the facts straight?

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Donohues insane rants: Wake up Media!

post from Crooks and Liars on 08 February 2007 06:45:08 PM. © Crooks and Liars

He's one to talk about language. I'm a Catholic and am embarrased by this man. Will the media continue to give him a platform? Digby:The question is, will they work with a man who went on the radio and said:"Just imagine if a white guy is performing oral sex on a statue of Martin Luther [...]

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More High Comedy on the House Floor

post from Ezra Klein on 08 February 2007 06:41:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

by Nicholas Beaudrot of Electoral Math Via TPM, Science Committee Chariman Bart Gordon (D-TN) gives GOP Spearcarrier and Young Turk Taylor Hicks Patrick Does this bill cover American Samoa McHenry (R-NC) the smackdown. Hopefully the Youtube link works...[...]

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DEMOCRACY IS IN THE STREETS. STILL.

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 08 February 2007 06:39:12 PM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

Why? Well because our political system is deeply flawed, failing miserably at respecting the consent of the governed. Count me among those irritated by E.J. Graff's anti-nostalgia for the 60s. For one thing, I took it as a response to my post, so if you like count me among the self-absorbed too.

Of course, it's not about anybody's neuroses, and least of all is it a fantasy of "that brief, odd, utopian-dreamy moment."

The 60s did not witness the birth of some utterly new, ultimately bankrupt phenomenon. Rather, it was a flare-up of the centuries-old class struggle. Imperialism, racism, and poverty were not new in 1960, nor were they discovered at that late date. Today, as Chalmers Johnson teaches us, Empire is raising its ugly head as never before, while inequality grows at home.

From some of the best of the Democrats, in the face of this we get flaccid temporizing. In our name, brown people abroad are murdered by the hundreds of thousands. At home, we are told the solution to gross and corrupt disparities of power and privilege is getting yourself a good education.

There was a "new Left," but as old-old leftie William Phillips observed at the time, "I would respond to their arguments, but I've forgotten the answers." The New Left had some new verbiage, as well as some genuine intellectual achievement, but it had roots too.

Even the "counter-culture" had obvious antecedents in the Beats of the 50s, and before them the modernism of the 1930s Partisan Review crowd (William Phillips in his youth). Today there are people like Markos Moulitsas who think they've invented participatory democracy, since evidently they've never read the Port Huron Statement or Kirk Sale's SDS.

Nobody thinks street demonstrations are the only viable tactic. But in light of tumultuous events in Eastern Europe, Lebanon, and the Peoples Republic of China (sic), who in their right mind would discount their importance? People forget that before 9-11, the global justice movement raised some splendid hell in Seattle and was developing very nicely.

Graff thinks demos are fine as long as they are not straight white people. I beg to differ. A massive public show of opposition by "normal" people to the Iraq war reminds people of the fundamental disconnect between the so-called electorate and our representatives.

The Left is about much more than demonstrations, always has been. As an exercise, you could scan a listing of the supporters of United for Peace and Justice, organizer of the most recent mass march on Washington. One thing you notice is there are a lot of actual names, not comic-book pseudonyms like 'Hunter' or 'DarkSyde.' Second, these folks are doing an assortment of open, public organizing -- we're not in Nazi-occupied France, after all -- that goes beyond tapping on keyboards. It's called the Left, though you generalize about it at your peril.

Ms. Graff aside, I perceive a general impulse to perform outrider duties for the Democratic Party, to guard its tender flanks from the probes of progressive critique.

Such criticism is not limited to utopianism, though utopian visions can be illuminating. I think we are also interested in what my pappy used to tell me, politics is the art of the possible. What I want to know is, where are the limits of the possible? For instance, I don't expect a Nebraska Democrat to take up the platform of Americans for Democratic Action. But he or she should be interested in how far they can go, and how they can take more hearts and minds along with them. Conversely, we don't need Democrats in safe seats hugging the center, or even worse, Republicans, for dear life.

So beware dime-store, TIME Magazine psychologization of fundamental political issues. It's about the age-old struggle to push an amoral market system and corrupt political hierarchy towards a vision of social justice and human development.

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America being lied to again: Pentagon says
pre-war intelligence was 'legit'

Hey America, this should give you a little insight as to just how stupid some leaders in Washington, DC think you are! They're still trying to convince us that pre-war intelligence was legit! Forgive me but BWAHHAHAHA!!!

Full story below the fold.

In a report to be presented to Congress on Friday, the department's inspector general said former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith had not engaged in illegal activities through the creation of special offices to review intelligence. Some Democrats also have contended that Feith misled Congress about the basis of the administration's assertions on the threat posed by Iraq, but the Pentagon investigation did not support that.
The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled a hearing Friday to receive the findings by Thomas F. Gimble, the Pentagon's acting inspector general. The committee's chairman, Carl Levin, D-Mich., has been a leading critic of Feith's role in prewar intelligence activities and has accused him of deceiving Congress.

Sorry, but I'm disinclined to believe that lying our country into war was not illegal.

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Ex-Rice Aide: Memory Lapse on Iran "Really Quite
Curious"

I just got off the phone with Flynt Leverett, a former CIA Mideast analyst and National Security Council staffer during President Bush's first term. Leverett says he finds it "really quite curious" that Secretary Rice is pleading a memory lapse...