Harvey Weinstein to the Rescue

I've tangled with some bullies in my life, but Harvey Weinstein is surely at the top of my list. When I sold the film Shine to one of his rivals, he hunted me down at dinner in Sundance and put me up against the wall. He doesn't like to be on the losing team and his long time relationship with the Clintons has him staring defeat in the face. So what does he do? He threatens Nancy Pelosi to cut off the money to the DCCC unless she personally embraces his plan to privately finance a new primary for Florida and Michigan.

Since Harvey and Bill Clinton's other patron (who are they, Bill?) are going to finance this little oligopolistic fiasco, I assume they will also be in charge of counting the votes. General Pinochet would be proud.

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/286870171/

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Judicial Appointments or Elections

A truly interesting and extensive piece appeared over at the MAINstream Coalition's blog today that[...]

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http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2008/05/judicial_appointments_or_elect.html

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McCAIN STILL ISN'T TAKING A LIE DETECTOR TEST

A few days ago, Arianna Huffington mentioned on her blog that John McCain had told her at a dinner party in 2000 that he hadn't voted for Bush. I'm sure it seemed unremarkable and perfectly sensible at the time and no one who heard him, thought much about it. However, now McCain has transmogrified himself into McBush and he very much needs the remaining 25-30% of Americans who still admire George Bush to vote for him in November. So he immediately had some of the lobbyists who drive the Double Talk Express try doing a hatchet job on Arianna.

Unfortunately for McBush-- who is now denying this in person, not just through the sleazy cadre of lobbyists-- there were other witnesses.

But actors Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff, who played White House deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman and communications director Toby Ziegler on the show, told the New York Times-- at Huffington?s prompting-- that they too heard McCain?s confession at the dinner party at actress Candice Bergen?s Beverly Hills home.

So will McCain agree to a lie detector test-- even if everyone promises to just ask him about this and not about any shady real estate dealings or about any other unethical or illegal activities he's been involved with?

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/05/mccain-still-isnt-taking-lie-detector
.html

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Republicans vote against Mother’s Day.

On Wednesday, the House took up the seemingly uncontroversial H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day.” The resolution initially passed 412 to 0, until Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) rose in protest:

Mr. Speaker, I ask for a recorded vote because I’m sure every member wants their mother to know that they have supported the goals of Mother’s Day.

Tiahrt’s mother, however, may be disappointed to know that her son did not support Mother’s Day. He and 177 other Republicans decided to cast their vote against mothers. Watch it:

When asked why the GOP switched their votes, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said, “Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother’s Day.” (Even though he also was actually on record against Mother’s Day.) The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank reports that this move was a procedural tactic to “bring the House to a standstill.”

Digg It!

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/09/republicans-vote-against-mothers-day/

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Opening the Day: Clinton's Campaign Corpse
Kicking

By overwhelming margins and in both parties, Vito Fossella's constituents want him to stay in[...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/286872430/showDiary.do

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Lessons from Survivor: How Hillary can Win

I haven't watched Survivor since the original "Richard Hatch" version but I read about something[...]

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/286872433/showDiary.do

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THE BEAR STEARNS THEORY OF CAMPAIGN FINANCING.

I understand why the Obama campaign wants "to help Hillary Clinton discharge her debts and pay back the $11.43 million she has loaned her organization," but, for reasons of fairness and precedent, it doesn't really seem like they should. Clinton, after[...]

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http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=05&year=2008&base_name
=the_bear_stearns_theory_of_pub

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More spin on Iraq

A while ago I wrote about Matt Duss being one of the most insightful and important emerging progressive voices on Iraq and national security, and much to the benefit of progressive infrastructure and wonkery, he's ended up with a job at the Center for American Progress, working for a special election-based offshoot of ThinkProgress and adding his substantial brain power to a place that already has some of the best thinkers on Iraq (Brian Katulis) and the military (Larry Korb).

Matt continues to do a tremendous job breaking through the spin on Iraq issues especially, and his recent post on Sadr gets to the heart of US strategic failures when it comes to the politics of Iraq and its neighbors. As he explains in a recent Wonk Room post:

The Bush administration has consistently tried to blame outside actors for violence in Iraq in order to avoid facing the unpleasant truth that the U.S. occupation is opposed by a substantial majority of the population who the U.S. is ostensibly there to support. In seeking to defend a continued U.S. presence in Iraq, the administration and its supporters have drawn a deeply distorted picture of the political struggles currently taking place within various Iraqi communities.

To put it simply, the U.S. is opposing Sadr because he opposes the U.S. occupation, and the U.S. is supporting ISCI because ISCI supports the occupation. As Brian Katulis and I noted in an op-ed several weeks ago, the irony of this strategy is that it has allied the United States with Iran?s primary proxy in the Iraqi government, against what is arguably the most potent nationalist political force in the country.

As a result of this myopic strategy, the US continues to contort itself when it comes to an actual political effort in Iraq. And of course this isn't some intellectual exercise; the results of such continued failures are borne by the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the suffering of millions more.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/286161293/more-spin-on-iraq.html

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Breaking: John Edwards Voted For Obama

He was just on MSNBC and apparently it slipped out. I will follow up on this and find video. But in light of Edwards' campaign manager--former Rep. David Bonior--coming out for Obama yesterday and many of his top funders and supporters have now embraced[...]

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http://cliffschecter.firedoglake.com/2008/05/09/breaking-john-edwards-voted-for-o
bama/

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HASH BROWNS.

Generally, I confine the recipes I find in my internet travels to the link blog on the sidebar. But this is definitely one way of making hash browns I've never thought of.[...]

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http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=05&year=2008&base_name
=hash_browns

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