Franken Bashing O-Rama

The above link takes you to a Politico hit story by Alexander Burns. Here is a quote:

"Marty Seifert, the Republican leader in the Minnesota House of Representatives, said Franken’s long record of antagonizing conservatives would make it difficult for him to connect with voters who supported Coleman."

This is the same Marty Seifert that voted for voter ID cards (a nice touch from Karl Rove). He also voted against trading with Cuba and voted against stem cell research. He also voted against a long term study by the University of Minnesota on lung cancer among taconite miner on the Iron Range. By the way, the long range study by U of M passed however every single Republican in the Minnesota legislature voted against it save one (Larry Howes). Mining is such a dangerous job and it is key to our country's energy reserves, compared to what we've wasted in Iraq short changing miners is like short changing veterans.

The babble goes on and tells everyone how Rush Limbaugh disapproves of Franken and how the Republican party has already established Franken's low approval rating.

Fascinating. Read the article. I've read all of Al Franken's books. I've read almost all of his magazine articles and I had listened to his Air America show quite a few times. The guy is absolutely brilliant, has a cutting sense of humor and has a complete grasp of US and Foreign policy. He is also connected to almost every major political mover or shaker in the country. Please don't tell me that this guy isn't good for all Minnesotans. Did I mention he went to Blake School and Harvard? By the way, his Dad and Grandfather didn't get him in, he got in himself.

Is there no off switch to the Limbaugh/Palin/Coleman/weak ass Republican State Leader chatter box? I am begging the American people to wake up and remember, nothing good comes out of the folks that are stabbing at a guy like Al Franken. Al has worked for every dollar he's received and believe it or not, they've all come honestly and because quite a few Americans like what he has to say. Apparently some Minnesotans feel the same way.

Look, if the recount came out in Coleman's favor, Al would have already bowed out and said fine, I'm done. What Norm Coleman is doing right now is being a sore loser. He lost. Look, even if he somehow retained his seat much of his time is going to be spent dealing with some legal issues and possibly Senate censure. Oh ya, the Republicans forgot that part. See, they'd rather do what's right for the Republicans and not for Minnesotans or the United States.

Let's look at the non-cyclical wreckage we have left from the Republicans:

War without end.

War with endless costs.

Largest deficits in history.

Largest National Debt in history.

Most capital destroyed in shortest period of time.

A likely global depression or extended recession.

and quite possibly a whole bunch of really wealthy people with dollars that are worth nothing because we've outsourced all of the manufacturing and so called "shit jobs" to someone else.

UPDATE

Jump here to Joe Conason's brilliant article on the GOP Franken Bash-Fest. He essentially says that if scumbags like Rush and O'Reilly think Al stole the election, prove it. It's a great article by Joe and worth the read.

Minnesotans, wake up and send Al to the Senate. Really, the bottom line is he's a good guy and he can't fuck up any worse than Norm.

Marc

Palin is still here....

Why do we have to keep hearing from this person?

From AOL:
"Palin, who has long criticized media coverage of her campaign performance, also said she is interested to see if reporters are equally tough on Caroline Kennedy as she pursues the appointment to the likely-vacant Senate seat in New York."

Every morning I peruse the headlines in 5 or 6 news sources (yes Sarah, I can name them: Google, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Hartford Courant, The Huffington Post and periodically AOL (AOL really isn't news, it's like reading the front page of the National Inquirer)) and each day I see more blathering from the Governor of Alaska. Apparently now she's mad at Katie Couric and Tina Fey.

I'm still trying to figure out if/when/who is going to show this woman out of the national spotlight and back to the back water she crawled out of. I hope this Walmart Politician isn't what the Republican's are pinning their hopes to.

Marc

PS I agree with Krugman's assessment of the economy. Let's hope the smart people Obama is surrounding himself with haven't revealed everything the Republican's won't agree to yet.

Democrats and Bubbly....

Before the Democrats uncork the bubbly and start breaking out the "we kicked McCain's ass" bumper stickers, I think a little reality needs to be injected into the converstation:

1) The main stream media and blogosphere is waxing on about the huge Obama lead in the polls. As we know, we can't and shouldn't always believe everything we read. And this is no exception. Lest we forget our recent history, the media missed the impending credit crisis in spite of the global equity meltdown last year.

I'm not sure how many of you out there use AOL email or check AOL headlines. I've watched their polls for the last year. Their last major poll before the debates had the entire country (every state) as a red state. Yet one month later AOL's headlines (0n multiple occassions) had Barack leading in the polls. I wouldn't be mentioning this but I've heard AOL polls regurgitated on CNN and on MSNBC. Clearly the message here is mixed and the polls are less than scientific.
My point is that we need to get our information from a variety of media sources, not just polls, blogs and the punditry.

Speaking of punditry:

I haven't seen the punditry call much of anything correctly and I'm not sure why journalists are getting tapped as experts on campaigns, war and the economy. Maybe it is because they can wrap a really complex problem up in an 8th grade reading level bow?

2) The biggest competitor the McCain Campaign has is themselves and their candidates track record. Barack Obama is a thoughtful, decent human being. However even as well organized as both he and his campaign seem to be, it isn't what's sinking McCain. It's American's pocket books and wallets that are pushing down McCain's numbers.

GW hasn't helped either. As a matter of fact, he's turned into a huge liability. He's waving on his way out of the office right now, riding into the sunset with a huge family fortune and most likely a substantial endowment from one of this corporate benefactors. Clearly the American people are not happy.

By the way, have you noticed on signs for politicians, you know, the one's that are on people's lawns; they've removed any reference to party? I know why the Republicans did it and I know it will confuse voters in the polling for sure. Is party affiliation important for full disclosure? I think so.

3) Democrats haven't seen all of the shock and awe Republicans have to play yet. My guess is that real slime will come out somewhere around the last week of the campaign. Too late for anyone to purchase additonal airtime on TV or radio.

Last but absolutely most important:

4) Did we forget one name? Katherine Harris? How many clones of Katherine Harris did the Republicans cast before she went down in flames? How many local votes will get chucked or swindled or stolen as the result of some kind of antics by the local Republicans? Or by Democrats acting in their own political self interests? It happens folks, both sides do things that skate on the thin ice of not quite legal but not completely illegal. Vaporizing votes in a democracy is wrong by any means and making one vote count more than another is still wrong.


So I think we have a few "action items". One item might be to have some oversight for the voting, especially in swing states. If it weren't for Katherine Harris and others like her, we might not be in Iraq or in a economic depression or in a few other messes. Her actions helped set a chain of events in place that made a whole lot of us Americans poorer and a very few Americans much wealthier. And quite a few Americans, Iraqis and others quite dead.


Another action item might be that Barack can't treat this race as a great debate in the high school gym. Take the gloves off Barack and put on some brass knuckles. Get in this to win. This is your moment in history, in time. You've done great things and nothing would be greater than having a first black president. And if that first black president came in and saved our collective asses that would even be better. Not many leaders really stand up to the test of time, quite a fwe are soiled by it. We are defined by our actions and not just our words.

You don't seem like the kind of person that is content with a B+ grade point average. And honestly Barack, I don't want to have another President in the Whitehouse that isn't shooting for an A+. I've seen enough F's from the government in the last 8 years to last me a lifetime.





Marc

Dump The Republicans - VOTE BLUE

America Blog reader "John" wrote this:

How many times do we have to hear:

We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Social Security.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Medicare.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to provide health care to ALL Americans.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help out Americans losing their homes.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help all our veterans returning from war.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to rescue "no child left behind".

BUT...

We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Bears Stearns.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out AIG.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to pay for an unnecessary TRILLION DOLLAR war.

When the LITTLE GUY needs help, they scornfully say, "GET A JOB!"But when one of their BIG GUY CRONIES need a bailout, what do they say? SURE, NO PROBLEM. Where's the checkbook?"But what about the debt we're leaving on the backs of our childen and their future?""Children? WHOSE Children? OUR children won't have to pay for this. YOUR children will."The Republicans have had their hands in our pockets for well over 8 years.Now they are robbing us blind IN BROAD DAYLIGHT and smiling about it!!!!The Republicans have shown their true colors and now they expect us to vote them back into office?What's next? Should we bend over and spread 'em? Oh, I'm sorry, but we've ALREADY DONE THAT!!SEVERAL TIMES!!!Vote for REAL change this November.VOTE BLUE

Repubs in 1 Minutes

Hey, here's the whole Republican Convention in one whole minute! You get the idea...

Neocon Accomplishments

I am reprinting this from a post I just saw on Crooks and Liars. it's brilliant. Essentially, it says that the Neocons are highly competent politicians. Here's a wonderful list of their accomplishments:

Iraq War 2 (and probably Gulf War 1)
The deaths of almost 1 million Iraqis and displacement of 4 million refugees
$130/bbl oil bringing obscene record profits to oil industry
Taken Iraqi oil off the market


Kept Iraq from opening non-US dollar bourse


Stacked the Supreme Court with Neocons with a cake-walk confirmation


Escaping justice for numerous domestic and International War crimes


Escaping impeachment with collusion of key Democrats (fellow CFR members)


Enriched the war machine & Military Industrial Complex


Installed 2 Attorney Generals who would block investigations and supeaonas and ignore whistle-blowers


Gutted Habeas Corpus


Rationalized torture


Conveniently misplaced trillions (Sept 10th, 2001) and later billions of dollars


Reestablished record breaking opium production in Afghanistan


Implemented extraordinary rendition and secret torture camps


Manipulated - Stole 2000 and 2004 elections


Used hoaxed Niger Yellow-cake “evidence” with no political repercussions.


Lied about Iraqi WMD’s - with cartoons and drawings.


Lied about Jessica Lynch-Pat Tillman


Working on reigniting Russian-American Cold War (Russian bomber flights, etc)


Gutted independent officer corps


Christianization of the military


Moving towards Full Spectrum Dominance paradigm and capability for military


Massive expenditures for Chem-Bio, Space Weapons, Internet cybercorps


Intimidation (or willful cooperation) of Media & Business


Permanent military bases in Iraq and gigantic US embassy


Passed Patriot Act after convenient Anthrax and Manchurian-style Sniper attacks


Passed Military Commissions Act


Unprecedented use of signing statements to usurp Congress


Hide Continuity of Government plans from Congress


Massive debt to break government (and public)


Electronic surveillance and massive databases


Illegal warrantless wiretaps


First-rate mercenary forces enriched and empowered - and trained


Broke Posse Comitatus precedent with Blackwater and US military domestic deployment


Blinding of America to Iranian nuclear program by collapsing US intelligence efforts


Decimated New Orleans post-Katrina (dry-run for martial law)


Coopted Justice Department


Turned over key regulatory agencies to the foxes of industry (ex. Mining, Forestry)


Freed Scooter Libby with no political cost


Bankruptcy “reform” that made it harder to restart in the event of disaster


Two-Hundred billion dollar bailouts of financial industry


No Child Left Behind and other Orwellian named govt initiatives


Garnered cooperation of fellow CFR and Trilateral Democrats to enable agenda


Unending blank checks from Congress


Bailed out the Crooked mortgage industry from subprime housing collapse


Convenient benefiting from a “New Pearl Harbor”


Pulled a sham Investigation on 9-11 over on the public for a paltry $15 million
But the piece de resistance - Conning the American public that they are incompetent.



And you honestly believe that sacrificing 3000 civilians on 9/11 and an ongoing body count currently at 4010+ troops to achieve their goals is beyond them both ethically and logistically?

Wake up.

What more do you want to qualify them as a success? Most people think they are incompetent because they are operating according to a different game-plan, or paradigm, than the normal person. Normal people wouldn’t operate at this level of corruption and genuine evil. These people are expert Machiavellian psychopaths (with a strong dose of Straussian Noble Lie telling) and to attempt to associate normal behaviors to them is an exercise in futility. You absolutely CANNOT continue to believe that the administration is incompetent - they are completely competent and shocking us into accepting a fascist version of America (just like Prescott Bush and his cohorts in the financial elite and industrialists tried in the 1930s).

And I'll add one I didn't see in the post: it's all of the stuff you DON'T see the government doing, like investing in our infrastructure, schools, school lunches, those that can't help themselves.....

PS The shot above is from Venice, Italy. It was great to go there and it does remind me that things always do change, time has a way of wearing away everything, including the Neocons.

PSS I forgot to add one more thing: the Neocons have also done a top notch job of derailing equal rights for all and recognizing unions such as gay marriage. They've also done a wonderful job sucking up to big healthcare and pharma and taken a dump on things like healthcare for kids.

I can't completely blame the Neocons and their enablers though, the Democrats also helped....

A Socialized Bailout For The Rich

Knee-jerk conservatives and their Republican heros are dead set against just about any form of universal health care for all Americans. They consider "single-payer" systems along the lines of the models in Canada and Europe to be "socialized medicine." However, they have no problem with socialized bailout of the bad boy big financial firms on Wall Street. When one of the big private investment banks gets sick, the Republicans rush in with taxpayer money to help make it well. Socialized financial medicine for the wealthy is fine, but socialized health care for Americans is not.

Bush and company won't even more closely regulate these private banks. The Times Paul Krugman notes today in is column:

"...in a draft of a speech to be delivered on Monday, Henry Paulson, the
Treasury secretary, declares, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame
our regulatory structure for the current turmoil.”
And sure enough,
according to the executive summary of the new administration plan, regulation
will be limited to institutions that receive explicit federal guarantees — that
is, institutions that are already regulated, and have not been the source of
today’s problems. As for the rest, it blithely declares that “market discipline
is the most effective tool to limit systemic risk.”
The administration,
then, has learned nothing from the current crisis. Yet it needs, as a political
matter, to pretend to be doing something."

When will American wise up to this stuff, if ever?

Jim

The Christian States Of America

Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Rudolph Giuliani...will one of these Christian or Mormon religious bigots be our next president? If so that will mean that our country will become a Christian religious state. This is not what the Founders wanted.

Here's what Andrew Sullivan believes we are becoming:

"Theodemocracy: the blending of government with a universally Christian
populace in which faith is the prerequisite of public office. This is the vision of America that Romney is proposing. He has behind him the power brokers of the Protestant right, the theocons of the Catholic right, the Mormon church and the vested interests of a Republican party elite that, in the wake of George W Bush, wants to extend the theodemocratic principles of an antisecular movement.

Now, add to that the detestable Huckabee, who stands by his determination to quarantine people with AIDS, and Rudolph Giuliani, who said yesterday that gays are not sinful but their actions are.

What has happened to America?

PHOTO: At Liberty Place in downtown Philadelphia, daily holiday concerts.

Jim

Saint Ronald Reagan: Not!

I lived through the two terms that Mr. Reagan served in the White House. He was horrible. His tax cuts favoring the rich were obscene, especially when combined with his equally obscene military spending increases. He refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic while thousands contracted the disease and died. He is given credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union, but he did nothing tangible to bring that about. It would have happened without him. He was good at Republican bullshit - thus his moniker as "the great communicator." That's about the best thing I can say about him. Republicans revere him today. I'm glad he's gone.

In today's New York Times, Paul Krugman points out how Reagan used the so-called "Southern Strategy" to effectively polarize the country along racial lines and to help get himself elected. This is the same strategy that is still in place today. That's why none of the front runners for the Republican nomination showed up at the debate in front of an African American audience. The Republicans are despicable.

From Krugman:

Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial
polarization. True, he never used explicit racial rhetoric. Neither did
Richard Nixon. As Thomas and Mary Edsall put it in their classic 1991 book, “Chain
Reaction: The impact of race, rights and taxes on American politics,” “Reagan
paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of
governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities
without reference to race — a conservative politics that had the effect of
polarizing the electorate along racial lines.”

Nothing has changed. Giuliani and company are still doing the same thing today!

PHOTO: The roof grid of the indoor mall at Liberty Place in Philadelphia. I often go to this delightful indoor space to window shop or have lunch.

Jim

It's not that simple....

I keep hearing this offensive dribble about pulling out of Iraq. The favorite line of the current administration as well as our future executives (Hilary, Barack, etc.) is "It's not that simple. We can't just pull out. We have to honor our committments." "We'll have to be there until at least 2013."

Such as? I missed that press conference when we made a solemn oath to the Iraqi people.

Fact is, we didn't. We don't belong there. We should be out tomorrow morning. Not 2 years from now, not 10 years from now. Now. For humanitarian reasons, for fiscal reasons and for common sense. I don't give a shit about a general's opinion; they are in the business of winning wars. They are not policy makers.

We need to shut this off, asap. I don't care about advertisements by political PACs, I care alot about why my tax dollars continue to fund mercenary armies against the will of the very people they are trying to subdue.

What really bothers me is that we have become a "gray America". There's no more right and wrong, black and white, just shades of gray. Gray isn't a bad thing when it means old age and maturity, unfortunately in the case of the United States it means a color between black and white.

Killing people is wrong, it is one of the few things clearly black and white and has been heavily documented by all faiths and societies as such. But in the new Gray America, it's ok to wage war based on a highly tenuous premise to actually protect the cash flow of another country (Saudi Arabia perhaps). We are in Iraq for oil. Sorry, hurting and killing other human beings is still wrong. Always has been and always will be.

Is it wrong to bring order to an area in chaos? Isn't that clearly a good thing? Well, no. First of all because the United States seems to be cherry picking the order and who it delivers from chaos based on strategic importance. If you saw 60 Minutes on 9/23/07 you saw a wonderful new base set up right near Iran. How is that going to deliver order from chaos?

So the Democrats have jumped on the gray bandwagon. Hilary and Barack and John are calling for the gray stuff to be poured all over their first term in office. They may need it to clean up the mess left by 8 years of Republican rule. However I think the gray thinking, the middle of the road thinking, the no right or wrong thinking creates a mess of it's own.

And the neat thing about gray is that it is a mix of black and white which is never "that simple". But voting is and the person that gets us out of Iraq and starts focusing on problems in our country with no alternate corporate agenda will most likely get my vote. Don't vote gray.

Marc

Republican Top Guns Snub Black Debate!

What are these Republicans thinking? Romney, Giuliani, McCain and now Thompson are not planning to participate in the GOP presidential debate focusing on issues important to people of color. They are truly delusional, and they are wrong, and they will lose not only the black and Hispanic vote, but they will lose the election big time. As brother Cornel West puts it over at the Huffington Post:

At this moment in American history, it is clear that either the Republican Party
wisely embraces people of color, or it chooses to be a losing political party in
the future.

Well, the Bush-era Republicans have been real losers character-wise for a long time!

Jim

Fred (that's the title of my post)

In case you are wondering what the picture is, I'll tell you (so you don't have to guess). It's a subway mosaic. I love them. They are art for art's sake. They look great in the subway and just about anywhere anyone sees them.

Let me tell you what doesn't look so good.

I pulled up with my son tonight and got out of my car. My neighbor is now proudly displaying his "Fred 08" bumper sticker on the back of his car. Not coincidentally in the same place is "W in 04" bumper sticker was in, well, 04.

This is a bit of a bellwether. Wikipedia has a nice description of a bellwether "A bellwether is any entity in a given arena that serves to create or influence trends or to presage future happenings". I like that description. It's almost poetic.

Fred Thompson is a future happening? Well, he hasn't participated in one debate. He really hasn't done much to articulate a plan (a plan for anything I mean; Iraq, Iran, Bin Laden, Education, Social Security, the enviroment, the infrastructure, pick one). He also hasn't asked any hard questions.

He's an actor that does a good job of imitating important people. He must be the right guy for a future Republican candidate, no?

I actually like Fred Thompson's acting. He's good at playing confused important people. When he played the head of Dulles Airport in Die Hard I wanted to go out and have a beer with him. When he played the captain of the aircraft carrier in Red October he looked very upset and confounded. He ranted a little with the story progressing anyway.

I respect that in a faux-leader.

However it looks as though my neighbor's Tivo has been set to Law and Order once too often. As George W has shown us, we don't need anymore medicore or weak leaders in the oval office. It could potentially be another 8 years of us guarding OPEC's honey pot in the Middle East (and getting our troops and Iraqis killed in the process) and it could also lead to mass extinctions as well as the collapse of some silly institutions like public schools and social security. Poor leadership tends to cause death and havoc in too many places both here and abroad.

Actually of all the truly mediocre candidates the Republicans have to pick from, my Republican neighbor has picked the top mediocre candidate. Let us not forget he really is an attorney from Tennesee and was involved in the Watergate hearings, was in the Senate and he does think Scooter Libby is a heck of a guy.

I don't actually engage my neighbor in any discussion about politics. He's pleasant enough fellow although I do know he is quite active in the Republican party. It's a free country and he actually did me a huge service by letting me know who the next Republican actor will be to grab for the big role. Unfortunately the debate I would have with him would likely yield anxiety on both sides and fail to change either political thought direction or ideology. Somehow I do feel tied to my neighbor, probably because he let's his kids run down the same street we live on and our goals aren't too different. Just the choices we make on how we get to them. But our decisions really do define us, don't they?

I have to agree with one opinion from Bill Maher (not my neighbor) on our next leader/set of leaders: we need someone exceptional. Not ok, not pretty good but exceptional. Someone that has a higher level of intelligence, experience and skills than the rest of us. Someone that doesn't hang on a single event such as 9/11 as a driving factor in their political career. Maybe we don't need a career politician at all, maybe we need someone that's a private citizen that has good common sense and not much of an axe to grind.

You know, kind of like our founding fathers wanted; people from all walks of life that can give our governing body diversity and vision. Not all of our legislators need to be attorneys or members of the Skull and Bones society. Can we really keep using the naming convention of "leader" as applied to career politicians?

Now let's hope the Democrats can grow a pair of cajones before the elections and come up with some intelligent debate and discussion prior to Rove feeding Fred his lines. If we end up with another Republican in the Whitehouse the subway may be the only place we see art at all.

M

On Larry Craig And His Ilk

LAURA M. Mac DONALD writing in the New York Times:

"...let’s stop being so surprised when we discover that our public figures
have their own complex sex lives, and start being more suspicious when they
self-righteously denounce the sex lives of others."

But that would mean that we'd have to be suspicious of the entire Republican Party!

Jim

Time For A Viable Third Party Alternative

I'm supporting the Unity08 drive to put a third party ticket on the ballot in all 50 states in 2008. I agree with their basic assumptions as stated on their website:

Unity08 believes that neither of today’s major parties reflects the
aspirations, fears or will of the majority of Americans. Both have polarized and
alienated the people. Both are unduly influenced by single-issue groups. Both
are excessively dominated by money.
For most of the 20th Century, the contest for the U.S. presidency was waged over those “in the middle.” Recent Presidential elections, however, have not been focused on the middle but on the turnout of each party’s special interest groups — with each party’s “base” representing barely ten percent of the American people.
We believe that, while the leaders of both major parties are well intentioned people, they are trapped in a flawed system — and that the two major parties are today simply neither relevant to the issues and challenges of the 21st Century nor effective in addressing them.
As a result, most Americans have not been enthusiastic about the choices for President in recent elections, the key issues they ran on, or the manner in which the campaigns were conducted.
Therefore Unity08 will act to assure that an alternative ticket is presented to the American voters in 2008.

Now, this does not mean that I will necessarily support the ticket that they come up with, or vote for their slate for president and vice president. I may, or may not. However, I do agree with their assessment that the current two party system is hopelessly corrupt and does not present real choices to the American voter. I also agree with their goal of forcing reform of the two major parties by presenting a viable third party alternative.

Jim