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POPSBush and Rove Seek to Rewrite Historyby
Wisco Yesterday 3:13 PM Kind of a follow up to my morning post . It may be that the only punishment these guys ever face for their crimes will be the judgment of history and the total loss of reputation. We can't let them weasel out of even that.
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POPSChambliss Wins Georgia Sen. Race There you go. The filibuster-proof Democratic senate majority is officially dead. Can we stop pretending that Joe Lieberman's anything other than a worthless, steaming pile now? That'd be great.
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POPSBush Meddling in Science to Continue Beyond His Term One example of this is Todd Harding, hired to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. His qualifications? He chaired the Kentucky Federation of College Republicans. The there's Jeffrey T. Salmon, hired by the Energy dept's Office of Science. His science background? He was a speechwriter for Dick Cheney. The piece goes on: "I believe it's unethical to do this. Clearly the people voted for change," Boxer said. She said she had discussed the issue with members of President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, adding: "They are on top of it." Here's hoping they can do something about it.
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POPSReport: 22 Kids Have Been Held at Gitmo The report tells us, " RAW STORY count, drawn from the Pentagon's own records, reveals that the total number of juveniles held at Guantanamo is at least 22 -- nearly double the official Pentagon figure." Jawad has had evidence against him thrown out twice because it was obtained under torture . Torturing children at Guantanamo Bay. We should all be so freakin' proud...
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POPSDem Sen. Promise 'Sea Change' in Climate Fight Say what you like about the makeup of Obama's cabinet and the new Democratic majority, but the results of the election are worth it for this alone. Read the following in your most serious and stentorian internal voice -- climate change is the challenge of our time. Want more evidence that Democrats are serious? Consider that House Democrats fired John Dingell from the Energy and Commerce Committee, giving the chairmanship to Henry Waxman. The House is a larger sample than the Senate. DC is an environmentalist town now. My money is on this being more than just PR. Environment is a top priority.
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POPSHouse GOP Lurches Right Yeah Mark, everyone voted for those commie Democrats because you guys weren't conservative enough. This explanation makes sense to you? Besides, it's quickly becoming clear that those "strong moral values" are what have you guys on the outs -- at least, all the moralizing about those values. People are sick of narrowminded phonies who wear Jesus on their sleeves. But tell you what Mark, you go ahead and operate from your theory. Do everyone a favor and stay screwed for a while, OK?
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POPSDaschle to Lead HHS There you go then. It was always almost a given that Daschle would have a place in Obama's White House, it was just a question of where. Given his connections in an overwhelmingly dem congress, this seems to be a pretty good place if Obama's serious about reforming health care.
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POPSGOP Sen. Ted Stevens Loses Now they won't have to kick him out. Bonus, Sarah Palin's hopes that she gets to appoint Steven's successor goes down a series of tubes. Still, what does this say about the average Alaskan? Stevens is a convicted felon. It shouldn't even have been close. Republicans are so freakin' crazy up there that they'd rather re-elected a prison-bound criminal than a Democrat. Now those are partisan blinders.
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POPSA 'Fire Sale' for the Oil And Gas Industry "We find it shocking and disturbing," said Cordell Roy, the chief Park Service administrator in Utah. "They added 51,000 acres of tracts near Arches, Dinosaur and Canyonlands without telling us about it. That's 40 tracts within four miles of these parks." It's like Bush actually hates the environment.
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POPSSenate Leadership Forgives Lieberman "It's a resolution of reconciliation and not retribution...I appreciate it," Joementum is reported as saying. For those of you keeping track of these sorts of things, the Democratic congressional leadership has established that nothing you do, no matter how shitty and disloyal, will get you kicked out of the party. From the same leadership who established the principle that there's no such thing as an impeachable offense, this shouldn't come as a surprise. Seems bass-ackward to me, though -- he loses the seat where he was doing good work and keeps the position where he can do the most harm. This stands a good chance of biting us all in the ass down the road.
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POPSObama and McCain Meet This strikes me as probably more than a "let bygones be bygones" photo op. McCain's loss was an expensive one for him in terms of political capital. He's on the outs with his party right now. If he's close to the Obama White House, he has some leverage to get some of his stuff done. It would also be helpful for Obama to have some pull with the senate GOP. Like they say, if you can't beat 'em...
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POPSCould Bill Cost Hillary Cabinet Position? At issue are questions about the Clinton Global Initiative and possible conflicts of interest. " t could prove problematic for Obama if the former president continues to seek donations from foreign countries – at the same time his wife is asking them for diplomatic concessions as Secretary of State," Politico reports. "The Clinton Global initiative, which has raised more than $30 billion since 2005, has solicited major donations from a handful of foreign governments, including a $1 billion pledge from Norway in 2007." "The ball is very much in her court," a source told the website.
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POPSGOP Sen.: Electoral Rout McCain's Fault Am I the only one who sees that freedom and "religious-based values" are often contradictory? After all, the Taliban has "religious-based values." DeMint in his own words: McCain, who is proponent of campaign finance reform that weakened party organizations and basically put George Soros in the driver's seat. His proposal for amnesty for illegals. His support of global warming, cap-and-trade programs that will put another burden on our economy. And of course, his embrace of the bailout right before the election was probably the nail in our coffin this last election. And he has been an opponent of drilling in ANWR, at a time when energy is so important. It really didn't fit the label, but he was our package. I totally called this . DeMint -- and a lot of GOPers -- believe they lost because they weren't crazy enough. Good news for Democrats in future elections.
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POPSObama Issues First Video Address Big surprise; it's about the economy, stupid. Lots to like here -- extending unemployment benefits, boosting the economy by investing in infrastructure and green energy, and affordable health care. Nice to hear the green energy part, since it falls in line with my Friday post . Dealing with the climate and fixing the economy can be the same damned thing. A transcript of the address is also available at the link .
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POPSObama to YouTube Weekly Addresses Think about it; when was the last time you heard the President's Weekly Radio Address on the radio? He does it every week, but almost no one carries it anymore. WhiteHouse.gov v2.0 wants to make sure it gets out there and, since YouTube videos can be embedded in any blog or news site, it will. Look for the GOP, with their own version of tech savvy, to make the Republican response available by telegraph.
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POPSClinton to Head State Dept.? Politico describes this as a "secret meeting," but it's got to be one of the worst-kept secrets ever. The tone of the piece is rumor, but the fact that there's a specific cabinet post being talked about suggests there's probably something more. Previous reports had Sec. of State as a contest between John Kerry and Bill Richardson. I liked Richardson for the post, but I would've been happy with either. To tell the truth, at this point in time, I've got nothing against HRC taking it either.
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POPSCA Air Pollution Deadlier Than Traffic Accidents The study found that the California Highway Patrol recorded 2,521 vehicular deaths in the San Joaquin Valley and South Coast Air Basin in 2006, compared to 3,812 deaths attributed to respiratory illness caused by particulate pollution. "It may be tempting to think California can't afford to clean up, but in fact dirty air is like a $28 billion lead balloon on our economy," Hall said.
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POPSMarriage Equality Begins in Connecticut Behold, America, as society fails to collapse in Connecticut, just as it didn't in Massachusetts. Families are strengthened, not destroyed, churches aren't closing, the devil doesn't rule, and children don't "go gay" in droves. In other words, it's just people getting married. Time to grow the hell up, America.
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POPSObama Transition Team Limits Lobbyists The specifics, from Change.gov : Federal Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition. Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition. If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied. If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the Transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the Administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked. A gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.
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POPSDean to Step Down as DNC Chair The piece goes on: "My sense is that the Obama folks are pretty insular and don't want somebody else building the party and haven't even decided what building the party means for them," explained one aide. "I bet they go with a split chair again ... McCaskill at Chair, and somebody like Steve Hildebrand at Operational Chair." Whatever happens, Dean should always be remembered as the guy who brought the 50-state strategy. Granted, it was exactly the perfect time for it, but a party that doesn't act like a national party will never be one.
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POPSPalin Blamed for Obama Death Threats Let's hope they do, anyway. The piece tells us: The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin's attacks. Michelle Obama, the future First Lady, was so upset that she turned to her friend and campaign adviser Valerie Jarrett and said: "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Because that's the politics of division and destruction, which is what the right wing does. "Country first" my ass.
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POPSObama Will Reverse Bush Executive Orders Mr. Podesta is John Podesta of the Center for American Progress. Another order being reviewed is the EPA's ruling on stricter emissions standards for California. Pretty much every president does this, but expect special interests on the right to howl anyway.
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POPSAl Gore: Climate, Economic Crises Have Same Solution From an op-ed in the NYT . Writes Gore, "Looking ahead, I have great hope that we will have the courage to embrace the changes necessary to save our economy, our planet and ultimately ourselves." It makes sense. Rebuilding our infrastructure to deal with global warming would also be a huge jobs program and a boost to help create new industries. All of this Bush stuff about dealing with emissions being bad for the economy is BS. It's always been BS. I keep saying it's the buggywhip industry complaining about those newfangled horseless carriages. There's no reason to listen to these people. They're just backwards looking defenders of dying industries.
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POPSPoll: Americans Proud to Elect Obama This is interesting, since Obama only won 52% of the popular vote. A significant percentage of McCain voters are proud, optimistic, and excited. I suppose the 30% pessimistic isn't much of a surprise, but 27% afraid? Geez, people, get a grip. Bush couldn't manage to actually bring about the end of the world -- and he has a talent for that kind of work. I doubt Obama will manage to do it.
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POPSObama Apologizes for Nancy Reagan Joke See? I told you so ... The joke in question: I have spoken to all of them who are living -- I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan moment, doing any seances... Not a big deal, if you ask me. But I called it, so I thought I'd follow up.
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POPSThe Problem with Rahm Emanuel The CapTimes editorial board (i.e., John Nichols of The Nation ) explains the problem that I and a lot of other lefties have with Rahm Emanuel.
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POPSObama Conducts First Presser as President-Elect This is from Obama's temporary site, Change.gov . It's a site to release news about the transition and progress toward building a cabinet. It'll probably give you an idea of how WhiteHouse.gov will look under President Obama. The use of Youtube is interesting, since you can obviously go ahead and post these videos anywhere, making them a lot more user-friendly than videos on Bush's site. He may regret it though, since he makes a joke at Nancy Reagan's expense; "I have spoken to all of them who are living -- I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan moment, doing any seances..." That one may turn up on a website or two with some forced outrage. Still, I suppose anyone with TiVo could upload a cable news version, but this just makes it that much easier. I guess we can consider this one a test run.
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POPSObama Chooses Press Secretary Another one that's not a big surprise. Gibbs served him very well during the campaign and is someone who can really think on his feet. This is also another "must fill right away" position. If you're wondering whether Gibbs can handle tough questioning, watch him eat Sean Hannity alive , then see what you think.
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POPSIt's Official: Emanuel is Obama Chief of Staff No surprise. This has been in the works for a few days, but now it's official. I suppose this should be the first position filled, since this is basically the guy who runs the cabinet. Emanuel wasn't on my wishlist, but you take what you can get. For Secretary of State, say it with me, "Bill Richardson, Bill Richardson, Bill Richardson..." There's been some talk of Robert Kennedy Jr. joining the team as head of the EPA. A good choice, but make him Attorney General and watch Dick Cheney shit his pants and run. See also; Obama Considers Stars for Cabinet .
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POPSReferenda: Good News for Women, Bad for Gays Good on them. However, several states cast votes that they'll eventually regret. In California, Prop. 8 wins . Marriage equality is dead in California -- the same is true of measures in Arizona and Florida. In Arkansas, gays are banned from adopting or becoming foster parents . That's a shame -- literally. These are attitudes we'll all look back at with shame.
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POPSAll Over But the Concession Speech If McCain needed a miracle after Ohio, he needs two now. This is it, it's over. Virginia and Ohio make it impossible for McCain, unless literally hundreds of polls are wrong. This is Obama's night. He is President-Elect. McCain probably won't concede for a while yet, so as not to hurt the down ticket races in the yet to close polls. But he will concede. Make sure to save some champagne for the victory speech. Congrats America, you earned this one.
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POPSObama Takes Ohio I thought Virginia would be the clincher, but that still remains too close to call. If Obama winds up taking that as well, then the extremely improbable takes a big jump toward the largely impossible. Breathe easy, Obama backers. This thing looks like it's in the bag.
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POPSProblems Prompt Call for VA Voting Hours Extension This is almost certain to be only one of many election day problems that'll be reported throughout the day. This one is significant, because it's pretty much impossible for McCain to win without taking Virginia. One of the first things we ought to do after all the smoke clears is get rid of these goddam computerized voting machines. If you can't convince people that the fact that they're easily rigged is anything other than a conspiracy theory, there's plenty of evidence that they're junk and don't work. It's not a conspiracy that these lemons are a ripoff. Like the story says, if you have any problems, call 1-866-OUR-VOTE or 1-866-MY-VOTE1 . Don't let anyone turn you away, don't let anyone keep you from voting.
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POPSFreepers See Conspiracy in Obama Gramdmother's Death A few comments from the right wing social news site Free Republic. These people believe Bill Clinton was everything from a serial killer to a coke smuggler, so this shouldn't come as any surprise. Consider this a preview. These are the fevered, psychotic, paranoid, and -- frankly -- cruel conspiracy theories we'll be hearing about for the next four years at least. That's right, these psychopaths actually believe Barack Obama would kill his own grandmother to win an election. These are seriously fucked in the head individuals.
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POPSObama's Grandmother Passes Away How incredibly sad. The day before what is very likely to be one of the greatest days of his life comes one of the worst. Madelyn Dunham was 86.
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POPSTeam McCain: Palin Gone 'Rogue' It gives you an idea of how chaotic the McCain campaign has become that this is happening and that, worse, advisers are talking to the media about it. It looks to me like it may be fingerpointing to save a reputation or two -- Palin's included. After all, these people still need to work after November and having "McCain campaign adviser" on your resume might not be the best reference unless it's clear that the train wreck wasn't your fault.
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POPSObama Spells Out Plan in New Ad The note to the video says "on the air," but at 2 minutes, I can't imagine it's on the air often. Contrast this with your typical McCain ad. McCain ads are all about Obama and this ad's all about Obama. When is McCain going to get around to talking about McCain? Time's a-wastin', Sen. McCain.
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