Why I Shouldn't Write About Urban Policy at 2am

post from Ezra Klein on 25 September 2007 01:19:00 PM. © Ezra Klein

It's the way of blogging that you sort of wish some posts would be forgotten rather than linked a lot, but since my late night musings on Portland, Seattle, and DC seem to be taking the latter route, best to...[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://ezraklein.typepad.com/blog/2007/09/why-i-shouldnt-.html

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!

Democracy Now! Naomi Klein asks Alan Greenspan
about those missing billions in Iraq

post from Crooks and Liars on 25 September 2007 01:15:51 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Once again, the best place to go for discussion of current events isn’t the mainstream media. Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman allows Naomi Klein to ask former Federal Reserve Chairman about his statement that the occupation in Iraq is all about the oil and those missing billions from Iraq. Download (3) | Play (1) Download (1) | Play (3) (h/t Heather)The [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/25/democracy-now-naomi-klein-asks-alan-gree
nspan-about-those-missing-billions-in-iraq/

Digg this

Prosecutors Try to Preempt "Duke Made Me Do It"
Defense

post from TPMmuckraker on 25 September 2007 01:07:44 PM. © TPMmuckraker

In his first big interview after coming under suspicion for bribing Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes told The New York Times last year that he'd been a victim of the system. "I played by their rules,"...

Read The Full Article:
http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/004286.php

Digg this

Bush Dogs As Retro

post from Open Left - Front Page on 25 September 2007 01:07:15 PM. © Open Left - Front Page

It seems really funny to me that many Democrats, often led my Joe Lieberman and more recently[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/161150891/showDiary.do

Digg this

Fantasies at the WSJ

post from Daily Kos on 25 September 2007 01:05:13 PM. © Daily Kos

No one has ever accused the Wall Street Journal editorial board of being "reality based".

In a staff editorial, the paper's editorial board writes:

DailyKos holds forth regularly that "our democracy is in danger" from money in politics and loudly supports McCain-Feingold and other campaign and media restrictions. The New York Times position on campaign finance reform is that it "has not gone far enough," and that more should be done to control donors and prevent changes that would "open the spigots to corporate and special-interest money."

Huh? There probably hasn't been a harsher critic of the campaign finance "reformer" groups on the Left than me. In fact, when you run pieces titled "Time to revisit CFR" and "Stop tinkering with a broken CFR system. Scratch it and start over", you kind of get the hint that I might be a bit hostile to the current campaign finance regime.

To quote from those pieces:

The current system holds all money to be evil, and firewalls are enacted to keep said money from entering the political system. The problem is that speech costs money (how much did protest attendees pay this past weekend to get to DC? Airfare and gas aren't free), and in a world in which more and more people demand a voice in their politics, money will always find a way into the system. So more firewalls are added, and more loopholes are discovered, and it becomes a running battle between those trying to eliminate money in politics, and the demands of those who want their First Amendment rights to be heard.

Or, pointing out the absurdities of the current system:

While testifying at the FEC fighting for a blogger media exemption (which we won), I sat next to Larry Noble, then-head of the Center for Responsive Politics, who was doing his best to destroy internet free speech (along with the likes of Carol Darr).

During his testimony, he was sidetracked to make the most ridiculous argument I'd ever heard -- that state parties that featured images of federal candidates on their websites would have to calculate and account for those pictures. The example he used was the Arizona Republican Party. If their website featured a picture of John McCain, the party would have to calculate the percentage of the screen real estate taken by John McCain and account that as a federal expenditure.

Not only was the demand technically impossible (just think of how screen resolutions and font sizes affect how a screen looks), but it was ridiculous on common-sense grounds. Why shouldn't the Arizona Republican Party (or any other) be able to put up a picture of their entire slate, top to bottom, without the government trying to make it difficult to do so. [Update: Adam B found the transcript of the exchange.]

Not that any of this matters. The wingnuts at the Wall Street Journal editorial decided to take a cheap shot without bothering to check if, indeed, it aligned with reality. What's worse, the WSJ directly quoted the site as saying something none of those speaking for it has said. I'd charge journalistic malfeasance, but those propagandists have nothing to do with "journalism" .

Not that we'd expect any different from that bunch.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/161136891/806

Digg this

Webb: Lieberman And Kyl’s Hawkish Iran
Amendment Is ‘Cheney’s Fondest Pipe Dream’

post from Think Progress on 25 September 2007 01:05:00 PM. © Think Progress

On the Senate floor today, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) made an impassioned appeal to his fellow senators, declaring that the Lieberman-Kyl amendment on Iran should be “withdrawn” because the “proposal is Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream.” Webb cautioned that the “cleverly-worded sense of the Congress” could be “interpreted” to “declare war” on Iran. He continued:

Those who regret their vote five years ago to authorize military action in Iraq should think hard before supporting this approach. Because, in my view, it has the same potential to do harm where many are seeking to do good.

“At best, it’s a deliberate attempt to divert attention from a failed diplomatic policy,” said Webb. “At worst, it could be read as a backdoor method of gaining Congressional validation for military action, without one hearing and without serious debate.” Watch it:

Webb said that amendment’s attempt to categorize the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp as “a foreign terrorist organization” would, for all practical purposes, “mandate” the military option against Iran. “It could be read as tantamount to a declaration of war. What do we do with terrorist organizations? If they are involved against us, we attack them.”

He also slammed the lack of debate and examination that was accompanying the amendment, saying “this is not the way to make foreign policy”:

We haven’t had one hearing on this. I’m on the Foreign Relations Committee, I’m on the Armed Services Committee. We are about to vote on something that may fundamentally change the way the United States views the Iranian military and we haven’t had one hearing. This is not the way to make foreign policy. It’s not the way to declare war.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/25/webb-kyl-lieb-iran/

Digg this

A Shill Speaks + Electable Edwards

post from MyDD on 25 September 2007 12:59:40 PM. © MyDD

I'm going to take a brief break from the regularly scheduled Edwards-promotion to briefly explain why I'm supporting a candidate: not a particular one but any one. I was prompted to write this post by Chris Bowers, who criticized me yesterday for[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mydd/~3/161131346/023

Digg this

The Ugly Side Of American Politics

In today’s NYT Op-Ed, Bob Herbert blasts the GOP for their racist ideals and actions; most recently, their blocking of the appointment of a Congressional seat to the District of Columbia in the U.S. Senate. Right wingers are sure to point to Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell as shining examples of how the GOP [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://guntotingliberal.com/?p=1936

Digg this

George Bush: I Get My Way Or No Children’s
Health Care

In the end, historians and a fair share of Republican's will likely note that George Bush was far more petulant than compassionate. This anticipated veto of the SCHIP legislation may simply be the icing on George Bush's less than edible legacy cake.

Read The Full Article:
http://allspinzone.com/wp/2007/09/25/george-bush-i-get-my-way-or-no-childrens-hea
lth-care/

Digg this