Steele adviser issues bizarre explanation for
"scurrying mice" comment

In a rather bizarre update, an adviser to embattled GOP chairman Michael Steele issued a clarification to an incendiary statement Steele made to columnist Cal Thomas, in which he appeared to suggest that Republican members of Congress were "scurrying mice." The adviser now says that when Steele referred to people on "the Hill" as "scurrying mice" he really meant people working everywhere else BUT the Hill. Ben Smith has more:

Anderson emails that, the reference to "the Hill" aside, Steele was referring to "political operatives," not Congress.

"It?s ridiculous, unfair, and inaccurate" to suggest otherwise, he emails. "The hill is obviously used as a metaphor for just about everything that happens in Washington?lobbyists, political operatives, reporters, etc."

The explanation is simply bizarre. When one says "the Hill" in Washington, DC, it means "the Congress." It doesn't mean reporters, political operatives and lobbyists - and it most certainly doesn't refer to anyone other than Hill staff and members of Congress. Lobbyists work on "K street." Reporters work at their own newspapers (for example, reporters who cover the White House don't respond, when asked what they do for a living, "I work at the White House.") Or is Steeel's adviser now claiming that Steele in the future will refer to all lobbyists, journalists and political operatives who ever visit the White House as "the White House"?

And another thing: So Steele was dissing Republican political operatives and lobbyists? Yeah that's it - clearly Steele was saying that people were ticked at him because now that he's the chairman, they no longer have access. Those people clearly aren't Democrats, as they didn't have access to the GOP chairman before Steele arrived on the scene. He means Republicans. Republicans who are ticked at him because he shook things up, got rid of the old boy's network, and now they don't have access.

So which Republican operatives and lobbyists was Steele referring to when he called them "scurrying mice"?

Oh wait, Cal Thomas is now issuing a correction as well. He didn't mean to say that Steele referred to "scurrying mice" on "the Hill." He thinks Steele really meant "scurrying mice" on "the hill" (small "h"). Clearly Steele was using the well-known metaphor, "scurrying mice on the hill." Come on, you'll all familiar with that famous saying right? Uh huh. Keep digging boys.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/cjIwyCa10bA/steele-adviser-issues-b
izarre.html

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OK-Sen, OK-Gov: What's Coburn Gonna Do

Short answer: "Who the hell knows? It's Tom Coburn, people".

Will Oklahoma's junior Senator, in terms of tenure if not outright nuttiness (he gets stiff competition on that score from senior pal James Inhofe), hang up his spikes at the end of his term, in 2010?

Will "Dr. No", as Tommy is not-so-affectionately nicknamed by his colleagues, disappoint both parties by running for reelection?

Will he take on the anointed party standard-bearer, Rep. Mary Fallin, in the primary for Governor of Oklahoma?

Will he relocate to Africa in the hopes of teaching a group of eleven rhinoceroses to play soccer?

Your guess is as good as anyone's. You never know with Coburn, who has made a political career out of doing the unforeseen and unpredictable.

When he first ran for the seat, he shocked everyone by getting in late and wound up upsetting the party favorite, Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys. Before that, in 1994, he surprised many by running for longtime Rep. Mike Synar’s (D-Okla.) seat, and then surprised them again by keeping a term-limit pledge in 2000.

And that’s to say nothing of his conduct while in the Senate, during which time he has waged an anti-earmark war that has rubbed members of both parties the wrong way.

"Everybody knows that Dr. Coburn is unpredictable," said a former Coburn staffer. "Nobody will know what he’s going to do until he announces it."

Let's walk through the possible scenarios, knowing that all speculation depends only on what Dr. No himself chooses to do.

1. Coburn retires, and doesn't run for Governor. Frankly, both parties would probably welcome such an outcome, and Coburn (who doesn't appear to like Washington much) probably would as well.

Coburn won't lose if he runs for reelection, at least not to a Democrat; there's nobody in the Democratic pool who could take out Coburn, except maybe term-limited Gov. Brad Henry, who has expressed no interest in the Senate. Coburn's lone-wolf crusade against earmarks in Washington appears to have endeared the Good Doctor to the people, if not to Washington. Though Democrats don't have a great shot at winning a Senate seat in Oklahoma, they have a far better shot with an open seat than against Coburn. Possible candidates (besides Henry) include Rep. Dan Boren and former Rep. Brad Carson, both of the Second District.

As for the GOP, they have frequently been just as exasperated by Coburn's crusaderism as Democrats have, and many Republicans would probably privately welcome the chance to put a more dependable Republican in the seat. If Henry doesn't run, even an open-seat race would favor the Republicans, and Henry isn't expected to run. It would be a nice chance for failed NRCC chairman Tom Cole to get out of the House, where he's currently in disfavor after spearheading Team Elephant during a disastrous 2008 electoral cycle.

2. Coburn retires and runs for Governor. Roughly the same situation for the Senate seat, but Coburn's situation instantly complicates the picture for the gubernatorial race.

Coburn is not the party favorite in the primary; that's Fallin, a former Lieutenant Governor and current Congresswoman. Still, lack of institutional party support has never stopped Coburn before.

There would likely be a rough primary between Coburn and Fallin, as there is expected to be on the Democratic side (between Lt. Gov. Jari Askins and Attorney General Drew Edmondson). Without knowing who would emerge from the primary - either primary - it's very difficult to handicap that one.

This is probably the riskiest option for both parties. On the one hand, the Republicans would have a potentially ugly primary which could damage their nominee for the general. On the other hand, Democrats would run the risk of Coburn, who enjoys the highest profile of all the candidates, walking away with the primary and the general.

One note of interest in the gubernatorial race is Mary Fallin's open seat, the historically Republican OK-05. Oklahoma City trended strongly Democratic in 2008 (though Dem performance is still weak there by national standards), which could conceivably open the door for a strong Democratic contender for the House seat. One such possibility is State Sen. Andrew Rice, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2008. He now enjoys statewide name recognition on top of his base in his Senate district, as well as access to a national base of fundraising donors.

3. Coburn sticks around in the Senate. Republicans aren't likely to primary him - he's no Jim Bunning - and Democrats aren't likely to run hard against him. You might see a "kamikaze campaign" against the Republican from some enterprising Democrat hoping to establish name recognition for a future run, but that's about it.

Coburn's fundraising has been weak this cycle, so he may well be looking to bail; on the other hand, he claims he can raise the money whenever he likes, noting that he brought in $5 million in seven months in 2004.

This is probably the second-best option for Democrats, as they have a good shot at winning the Gov race with Askins or Edmondson as long as Coburn stays out. It would be a decent outcome for Republicans as well, as they'd be virtually guaranteed the Senate seat and they would also still have a good shot in the Gov race.

Coburn will eventually make his plans clear, but until then, everyone's in the dark. Let's hope he decided he's had quite enough of politics altogether.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/rxy9xGN5iZ8/706816

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Citigroup CEO Pandit Gets a Silverstein Moment

Yesterday's Dow rose 5.8 percent, which the NYT breathlessly attributed to Citigroup's claim to have been profitable for two months running, pushing it's stock up from $1 to a dizzying $1.49. Meanwhile Geithner's Guys are letting the world know they[...]

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http://firedoglake.com/2009/03/11/citigroup-ceo-pandit-gets-a-silverstein-moment/

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Mike's Blog Roundup

The Daily Beast: Chas Freeman, Obama's pick to head the National Intelligence Council, has withdrawn from contention for the job. The leader of the campaign against Freeman was Steven Rosen, a former director of AIPAC awaiting trial on espionage charges, who has a long history of attacking and undermining anybody he deems hostile to Israel. 

Connecting.the.Dots: Obama's Bay of Pigs?

Taylor Marsh: Anti- middle class market games by Citigroup

AfterDowningStreet: LaHood hits back hard against charges of "Socialism," and the "Obama Recession"

BAGnewsNotes: The last gig with openings available

Shakesville: Number of the Day

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/mike-finnigan/mikes-blog-roundup-142

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Is Human Rights a supra religion

By Saybhan SamtToday the buzz words are Human Rights, which has got its authority in the Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948. Its founders claim that the history of human rights covers thousands of years and draws upon religious,[...]

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http://www.ashinmettacara.org/2009/03/is-human-rights-supra-religion.html

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Cuba Libre-- Congress Opens It Up... A Bit

I bet you didn't know that Congress drastically changed U.S. policy towards Cuba in the last couple weeks. I read every bill that Congress votes on and I didn't know until I read about it this morning in the BBC's World News America: U.S. Congress Eases Curbs On Cuba. Turns out it was slipped into that Omnibus Appropriations Act that passed the House on February 25 and the Senate last night (by voice vote/no fingerprints).

Cuban-Americans will be allowed to travel to the island once a year and send more money to relatives there.

Curbs on sending medicines and food have also been eased.

...The legislation overturns rules imposed by the Bush administration which limited travel to just two weeks every three years, and confined visits to immediate family members.

President Obama - who needs to sign the bill-- has said he supports it.

He has also indicated that he would be open to dialogue with Cuba's leaders.

A couple of Democratic senators-- Menendez (NJ) and Nelson (FL)-- were opposed until Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner assured "them that the measure does not change rules that required payment in advance of imports of U.S. food and medicine. He also assured them that another provision regarding business travel to market such exports will not open a loophole easing travel to Cuba."

Cuba is happy. The rest of Latin America is happy. American world travelers and vacationers are happy. But what about the GOP cold warriors? Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a lunatic fringe Florida congressman who fancies himself the next president of Cuba, along with his slower bother Mario and their two hackish gal-pals, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, made some ritualistic anti-Cuban noises for the benefit of what's left of their South Florida reactionary hardliner base, but no one paid any attention to these 4 clowns. And that was that. About time!


video details and more



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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/03/cuba-libre-congress-opens-it-up-bit.h
tml

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Ruth Marcus Defends Obama

An interesting defense actually:

The notion that President Obama has lurched to the left since his inauguration and is governing as an unreconstructed liberal is bunk. . . . [T]he Obama Justice Department backstopped the Bush Justice Department's assertion of the state secrets privilege to block lawsuits challenging wiretapping and extraordinary rendition. The administration argued that prisoners in Afghanistan cannot challenge their detention in court. It leaned on the British government to keep evidence of alleged torture secret. "Hope is flickering," lamented Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

She does sort of call him a socialist on economic matters but salves the charge by saying it is what he promised during the campaign.

Speaking for me only

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The Life and Times of EFCA, Part I

Yesterday was an eventful day in the life of the Employee Free Choice Act.

Nebraska's Ben Nelson came out against the bill, one of a half-dozen Democrats rumored to have done so. Harry Reid, undaunted, insisted that he had 60 votes for cloture -- at which point he'd only need 51 votes for the bill itself. And amidst all the madness, a Citibank analyst named Debroa Weinswig, who just last month had scored Wal-Mart stock as a "9.5" on a scale of 1 to 10, downgraded her assessment for the retail giant over fears that EFCA would pass, in spite of the political hurdles that any keen and honest observer of the bill might have perceived.

To witness: last year at this time, EFCA had 47 Democratic co-sponsors out of 51 members in the Senate: the holdouts were Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Ken Salazar of Alaska. This year, however, EFCA currently has only 40 co-sponsors, in spite of the fact that there are now 58 Democrats in the Senate.

Failing to renew their sponsorship are Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana, Evan Bayh of Indiana, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, Dianne Feinstein of California, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Jim Webb of Virginia. Freshmen Senators Michael Bennet, Kay Hagan and Mark Udall and Mark Warner have also declined to sponsor the bill. Why does EFCA suddenly seem to have such a tough row to hoe?

One point of view is that its apparent support last year was ephemeral: Democrats knew that the bill was unlikely to get cloture, and that if it did somehow pass, it would become the subject of a Presidential veto. Therefore, they weren't really committing themselves to much of anything. Common sense would dictate that when the stakes are low, it isn't wise for a Democrat to thumb one's at labor, which continues to play an instrumental and perhaps somewhat underrated role in getting Democrats elected. But now the stakes are high: EFCA really could pass, the business lobby that knows it, and certain Senate Democrats are finding their support for labor to be something other than unequivocal.

The bill also suffers from poor timing: public support for unions tends to drop during recessions (although public support for corporations does too). Meanwhile, the White House is distracted, and will most likely be disinclined to spend significant time on the bill, much less its political capital. Labor, moreover, has had trouble beating back the "secret ballot" talking point, whereas conservatives came armed for the fight, and were making an active effort to undermine support for the bill since at least the failed auto bailout vote in December. Labor knows this (indeed, it never expected the battle over EFCA to be easy), and has been pushing back hard since roughly the time of the inauguration, but it let the secret ballot narrative get off to a running start and may now find it hard to catch up.

In spite of these obstacles, EFCA may still have some life in it. Firstly, the scenario that Reid envisions -- a number of Senators vote for cloture on EFCA while voting against the underlying bill -- is not entirely outside the realm of possibility. This is a vice of lobbying pressure between labor interests and business interests that a lot of conservative and moderate Democrats (and one or two moderate Republicans) don't see a way out of: voting yes on cloture and no on the bill itself would be one way to split the baby. The other option, of course, is an amended bill that preserves the secret ballot while leaving the other protections for labor in place. Labor isn't ready to go there yet -- it's not ready to give up on card check. But the Republicans have made so much of the secret ballot that if that provision were removed, they might find themselves somewhat disarmed.

Read The Full Article:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/03/life-and-times-of-efca-part-i.html

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Katon Dawson, Former Member Of Whites-Only Club,
Is Leading Charge For No-Confidence Vote In Steele (Updated)

After taking over as chairman of the RNC in late January, it appears Michael Steele hasn’t quite lived up to the Republican Party’s expectations — from saying no one should trust the GOP and threatening to pull campaign funds from GOP members of Congress to making absurd and contradictory claims while bowing down to Rush Limbaugh.

Last week, in a memo to her fellow RNC members yesterday, Dr. Ada Fisher said Steele is “‘eroding confidence’ in the GOP and that members of his transition team should encourage him to step aside.” Now, it appears Steele will face a no-confidence vote and South Carolina GOP leader Katon Dawson — Steele’s former rival for RNC chair — may be leading the charge:

Republican insiders tell Political Wire that a no confidence vote on RNC Chairman Michael Steele is likely to be called after the NY-20 special election on March 31 — regardless of whether Republicans win the seat or not.

Katon Dawson, who came in second in the January RNC vote, is said to be quietly organizing a vote and is getting the support of several state party chairmen who want to dump Steele.

The RNC won praise following Steele’s victory for electing its first African-American chairman. Former Bush aide and RNC chair Ed Gillespie said his election “injected a shot of adrenaline into the party” and that Steele can open the GOP “to minorities and white moderates.” But now, in going with Dawson, the GOP appears to be heading back to what it knows and ditching its first African-American chairman for someone who, until recently, was a member of a whites-only country club, as TPM noted:

Back in September, when Dawson was first quietly laying the groundwork for his RNC run, The State newspaper reported that he resigned his membership in the nearly 80-year-old Forest Lake Club. Members told the newspaper at the time that the club’s deed has a whites-only restriction and has no black members.

Dawson claimed to the paper that he’d actually been working since August to change the club’s admission practices after reading about them in the press.

While Dawson did send a letter to the club calling for it to open its doors to minorities, he did so only after reports of the club’s racist membership rules appeared in the The State newspaper.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/11/dawson-steele-no-confidence/

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Katon Dawson, Former Member Of Whites-Only Club,
Is Leading Charge For No-Confidence Vote In Steele

After taking over as chairman of the RNC in late January, it appears Michael Steele hasn’t quite lived up to the Republican Party’s expectations — from saying no one should trust the GOP and threatening to pull campaign funds from GOP members of Congress to making absurd and contradictory claims while bowing down to Rush Limbaugh.

Last week, in a memo to her fellow RNC members yesterday, Dr. Ada Fisher said Steele is “‘eroding confidence’ in the GOP and that members of his transition team should encourage him to step aside.” Now, it appears Steele will face a no-confidence vote and South Carolina GOP leader Katon Dawson — Steele’s former rival for RNC chair — may be leading the charge:

Republican insiders tell Political Wire that a no confidence vote on RNC Chairman Michael Steele is likely to be called after the NY-20 special election on March 31 — regardless of whether Republicans win the seat or not.

Katon Dawson, who came in second in the January RNC vote, is said to be quietly organizing a vote and is getting the support of several state party chairmen who want to dump Steele.

The RNC won praise following Steele’s victory for electing its first African-American chairman. Former Bush aide and RNC chair Ed Gillespie said his election “injected a shot of adrenaline into the party” and that Steele can open the GOP “to minorities and white moderates.” But now, in going with Dawson, the GOP appears to be heading back to what it knows and ditching its first African-American chairman for someone who, until recently, was a member of a whites-only country club, as TPM noted:

Back in September, when Dawson was first quietly laying the groundwork for his RNC run, The State newspaper reported that he resigned his membership in the nearly 80-year-old Forest Lake Club. Members told the newspaper at the time that the club’s deed has a whites-only restriction and has no black members.

Dawson claimed to the paper that he’d actually been working since August to change the club’s admission practices after reading about them in the press.

While Dawson did send a letter to the club calling for it to open its doors to minorities, he did so only after reports of the club’s racist membership rules appeared in the The State newspaper.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/11/dawson-steele-no-confidence/

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