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I remember when some fucktard in the House Judiciary Panel sent an open email to every whistleblower and Dick Cheney as was reported here on slashdot and elsewhere.

This is not true. Voter suppression is a Republican tactic, and it has been used by them in elections since 2000. It has not been used to any meaningful amount by Democrats since the days of Jim Crow laws in the South. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

Here is one current Republican voter suppression tactic: voter caging, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_caging. From the Wikipedia article:

... he fact that the RNC is prohibited by Consent Decrees from involvement in ballot security measures such as caging, when the measures have racial bias.

Meanwhile the RNC has moved on to other vote suppression measures: Voter ID. You have to show a pictue ID to vote.

Here are some stats (from From http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/058739.php).

# 21.8% of black Indiana voters do not have access to a valid photo ID (compared to 15.8% of white Indiana voters - a 6 point gap).

# When non-registered eligible voter responses are included - the gap widens. 28.3% of eligible black voters in the State of Indiana to not have valid photo ID (compared to 16.8% of eligible voting age white Indiana residents - a gap of 11.5 percent).

# The study found what it termed "a curvilinear pattern (similar to an upside down U-curve)" in the relationship between age and access to valid ID - younger voters and older voters were both less likely to have valid ID compared to voters in the middle categories. 22% of voters 18-34 did not have ID, nor did 19.4% over the age of 70. (compared to 16.2% of Indiana voters age 35-54 without valid ID and 14.1% for 55-69 year olds).

# 21% of Indiana registered voters with only a high school diploma did not have valid ID (compared to 11.5% of Indiana voters who have completed college - a gap of 9.5%).

# Those with valid ID are much more likely to be Republicans than those who do not have valid ID. Among registered voters with proper ID, 41.6% are registered Republicans, 32.5% are Democrats.

Republicans are opposed to the fundamentals of Democratic government, including free and fair voting. When you claim that "this applies to BOTH sides equally" you are either factually incorrect or you are lying. At this point if you support this administration, or any of the Republican candidates, you are attacking our constitutional form of government. If you don't want to support a Democrat, fine. You can be an independent. But don't have any pretenses: Republicans hate voting, and they hate real democracy.

The OP stated "openly kleptocrats", which leaves open the possibility that they all are, everywhere.

Here in the US we seldom get to see objective evidence that we've elected one, so that when we do we can still pretend that he is just one bad apple and his 430 some odd peers are just as clean as their press releases lead us to believe.

You can almost hear the sound of the vacuum created by bloggers thinking that their words matter when the people with control don't even know how to read the tubes.

And yet Josh Marshall and his blog Talking Points Memo managed to break the U.S. attorney firing scandal -- a scandal that ultimately led to the removal of the Attorney General, the highest law enforcement officer in the U.S. This despite the fact that the AG's boss hardly knows how to read, much less to read the "tubes".

I'm not saying that all blogs can have this kind of impact. TPM succeeded because they did the hard work of unearthing the story and keeping it alive when nobody else cared about it; most bloggers do it for fun and don't have that level of commitment. But it's silly to make sweeping generalizations dismissing the impact blogs can have when the evidence to the contrary is all around us.

will collapse from massive military spending. This will hopefully offer the possibility of freedom and democracy in The United States of America.

So, what you are saying is that, it is perfectly fine to point a finger at another country's human rights violations (etc.) while one's own country's records are dubious at best?

Oh, and I wanted to address this piece of illogic, sense I'm seeing it crop up from other PRC apologists in different threads. The answer is: Yes, as long as you also point the finger at your own country when it fucks up along the same lines. Which I do. A lot. One of the nice things about living in the U.S. is that we don't imprison dissidents until they explicitly threaten or commit violence, no matter how popular they may or may not be.

TPM (linked in the grandparent of this comment) did a very good job of tracking this issue, but the summary is this: Bush canned basically all of his US attys near the beginning of his first term. That's pretty normal, and you may recall that nobody made much of a big deal about it.

The trick is that he then did it again during his second term. And the second time around, he didn't fire all of them - he only fired the ones who were a) looking too closely into possible investigations of Republican reps, or b) not looking closely enough at investigating Democrats. For example, fired attorney David Iglesias actually got a threatening phone call from Pete Domenici at his house, specifically because he didn't intend to file charges against a Democratic challenger before the November elections.

When Gonzales was asked what the rationale was for firing the second round of attorneys, his responses were nearly comically vague, and can be summed up as "I don't know, but I'm sure it was for good cause."

They were the ones who first latched onto the US Attorney firings. It was through their investigative reporting that congress got involved.

Talking Points Memo

And here is a nice video explaining the whole VECO scandal.

It doesn't look good for Ted.

Tim Griffin, Michael Elston, Paul McNulty, Monica Goodling
Sara Taylor, Bradley Schlozman, Steve Biskupic, Alberto Gonzalez, David Safavian, Lurita Doan, Ken Tomlinson
Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Conrad Burns, Ted Stevens, Kyle Foggo, Duke Cunningham, Brent Wilkes, Mitchell Wade, Curt Weldon, Donald Rumsfeld, Jim Tobin
Scooter Libby, Manuel Miranda, Darleen Dryun, Thomas Scully, Chuck Mcgee, Pete Domenici
Porter Goss, Brant Bassett, Virgil Goode, Katherine Harris, Jerry Lewis, Ed Buckham, Steven Griles, Mark Foley, Paul Wolfowitz, Ken Lay, Conrad Black, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Roger Stilwell, Tony Rudy, Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, William Heaton, Adam Kidan, Neil Volz,

Nope. The levy work was not done because of the infinite incompetence of the Army Corps of Engineers. Rove's office tried to put out the "environmental lawsuit" story, but it fell apart once it was investigated. (For those of you who think I'm being a bit of a tin-foil hat nutjob, Karl Rove really was put in charge of the reconstruction effort. I'd point through to the original _Times_ article, but it's gone behind the for-pay firewall.)

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/
http://tpmmuckraker.com/

Do let us remember that US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald told the White House back in 2004 not to delete email for the duration. And yes, he was on the list to be replaced with a "loyal Bushie". So, the deletions were deliberate, and so was the move to use the republican mail servers to dance around the order of the prosecutor.

Damn, this gets better and better...

Sorry to double reply, but I forgot to address this:
  Even if you hate Bush you shouldn't stand for the power grab the Congress is going for lately. There is a reason we have a separation of powers. If you keep heading down this road the president becomes a figurehead, and soon the people that write the laws will be enforcing them as well.

Are you seriously worried about the legislative branch running wild over the executive?!? Don't you have that completely and totally backwards? The current administration has evidenced a wildly outrageous interpretation of a supreme and nearly unchecked executive branch (energy policy secrecy, war, torture, rendition, signing statements, FEMA, FISA, domestic wiretapping, habeas corpus, scientific report "editing" us attorney purge, etc etc). Whether you like Bush or not, you are deluded to think the executive is in danger of becoming too powerless. The "power grab" you bemoan is the first inkling of actual checks and balances that we've seen in 6 years, and it is not only legal, but is also the way our government is intended to run. Congress has the responsibility for oversight, and the recent reversion to it is nothing but welcome.
-Ted

That's not the half of it; the mass firings in the middle of the term are only an indicator of the underlying scandal. The real scandal is the politicization of the US Attorneys offices: USAs are being leaned on to harass political opponents and fired if they investigate political allies. Josh Marshall sums it up here. Taking your enemies to court on totally trumped up charges is basically SOP under corrupt third-world regimes (see e.g. Robert Mugabe). Do we really want this happening here?

"Now Sen. Specter (R-PA) says his staff was responsible for inserting that US Attorney provision into the Patriot Act. He didn't know anything about it until Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) told him about it."

linky linky linky

Time, I think, to declare viktery in the war against godless literacy and go home.

actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States [...]

Please show me the results of a Congressional investigation that shows this. Just because you are repeating a Republican talking point does not make it true.

[...] who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda.

If this part of your Republican talking point were remotely true, why isn't George Bush getting a warrant? The very fact George Bush is not getting a warrant (and under FISA, he can get a warrant up to 72 hours after the surveillance) shows your Republican talking point is bogus.

Bush needs to follow the law. He is not. It is that simple.

By the way, do you think this Senator [page 1, page 2] viewed a program that fits your description?

Somehow I doubt it.

actually the tapping of phone calls to and from people inside the United States to and from someone outside the United States [...]

Please show me the results of a Congressional investigation that shows this. Just because you are repeating a Republican talking point does not make it true.

[...] who is a known terrorist or member of Al Queda.

If this part of your Republican talking point were remotely true, why isn't George Bush getting a warrant? The very fact George Bush is not getting a warrant (and under FISA, he can get a warrant up to 72 hours after the surveillance) shows your Republican talking point is bogus.

Bush needs to follow the law. He is not. It is that simple.

By the way, do you think this Senator [page 1, page 2] viewed a program that fits your description?

Somehow I doubt it.

Speaking of statistics, I found an interesting link:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011008.p hp

For House seats in midterm elections in a presidents sixth year:

1958: Eisenhower--Republicans lost 48 seats
1974: Ford--Republicans lost 48 seats (after Nixon resigned due to Watergate)
1986: Reagan--Republicans lost 5 seats
1998: Clinton--Democrats gained 5 seats

So really, it seems as if a lot of these statistics based on elections going back to when people still rode horses, had never seen or heard their candidate speak, couldn't read about their voting record, and owned slaves just might not be as relevant any more.

I would also like to see the same analysis done for Senate seats. Not that it will mean that much, either.

Josh Marshall, at Talkingpointsmemo http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ has a pointer http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/001944.php to the google cache version http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:chTn88IH384J: www.conquestgroup.com/ContactUs/Contact.cfm+%22con quest+communications%22+and+contact&hl=en&gl=us&ct =clnk&cd=1&client=firefox-a of Conquest Communications' contact page. When I called 804-358-0560, I got an electronic voice giving a list of two digit extensions counting up from around 24. I picked a random one, politely gave my (real) name and (real) phone number, said I had heard about the robocalling and wondered if they guy had any comment. I hope he calls me back!

At last count 15 Republicans and 2 Democrats from the 109th Congress under investigation, indicted or convicted. Roll call forgot about Katherine Harris.

Markey has a point though, there is no need for the fake boarding pass generator to generate a fully functional boarding pass. Print 'fake' across it in a big stripe. The point is made but not in a form that can be used immediately.

North Korea's nuclear program has been a problem for US presidents going back to Reagan, and the conflict between North and South has been a key issue for US presidents going back to Truman. As recently as 1994, the US came far closer to war with North Korea than most Americans realize.

President Clinton eventually concluded a complicated and multipart agreement in which the North Koreans would suspend their production of plutonium in exchange for fuel oil, help building light water nuclear reactors (the kind that don't help making bombs) and a vague promise of diplomatic normalization.

President Bush came to office believing that Clinton's policy amounted to appeasement. Force and strength were the way to deal with North Korea, not a mix of force, diplomacy and aide. And with that premise, President Bush went about scuttling the 1994 agreement, using evidence that the North Koreans were pursuing uranium enrichment (another path to the bomb) as the final straw.

All diplomatic niceties aside, President Bush's idea was that the North Koreans would respond better to threats than Clinton's mix of carrots and sticks.

Then in the winter of 2002-3, as the US was preparing to invade Iraq, the North called Bush's bluff. And the president folded. Abjectly, utterly, even hilariously if the consequences weren't so grave and vast.

Threats are a potent force if you're willing to follow through on them. But he wasn't. The plutonium production plant, which had been shuttered since 1994, got unshuttered.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010275.p hp
I didn't write it, but it states pretty much what I believe. Did either of the presidents solve the problem?? No, but I think Clinton's approach was better.

You even said as much yourself - "I firmly believe that if NK could have exploded a bomb while Clinton was in office, they would have." They simply didn't have the ability then, but they do now. Why do you think it became so important to them again, after shutting down (well, scaling back - I am not that naive)their previous nuclear programs? If they had been so hard at work on them when Clinton was in charge, why did it take them so long to test one?

Actually it did work really well when the Clinton administration did it. North Korea didn't resume their nuclear program until 2002 - when GWB was well in the white housse. Read more here.

I dislike posting twice to the same article and posting URLs, but if you want to read what someone bright has to say about Kim's Nuke, read this very short article before the "Clinton's Fault" crowd gets going full force:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/010275.php

Oh yeah? I read it was 99.99% in another post. Now I'm all confused. ;-) Exactly what kind of evidence do you think is going to get you a FISA warrant??? Evidence that the person on the phone belongs to Al Qaeda? There's no law against belonging to Al Qaeda. Seriously, what sort of evidence are you suggesting that there should be before the court allows a military spy mission to proceed??? And what does that have to do with a warrant???

OK, you're closer than I was on the acceptance rate... 4 denied out of 19000 issued (assume 1000/year for '01-'06) equals 99.979% acceptance.

Onto more important matters, perhaps evidence that the person in question is a terrorist (Paragraph 6)? Under USC Title 50 Chapter 36-I 1805a, the requirement in question is "probable cause" which 1805-b clarifies to include "past activities of the target, as well as facts and circumstances relating to current or future activities of the target."

It does nothing of the sort. It protects the security of people in the persons, their houses, their papers, and their effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and it requires probable cause for a judge to issue a warrant. I don't think it has ever been interpreted by any court in the history of the U.S. to require the affirmation of a judge for any search.

A judge doesn't need to affirm a search warrant before a search? That'd be news to the guys who make Law & Order. The 4th Amendment says that the government and it's agents are not allowed to unreasonably search anyone. A judge must issue a warrant based on probable cause for such a search. Therefore, a judge must issue a warrant with probable cause (indicating that the search is reasonable) before the government is allowed to search. If the government is searching without such a warrant, it is violating the Fourth Amendment.

If a person feels that their possessions have been searched or seized unreasonably, then they have recourse to the courts to bring suit against the Administration for their damages. At that point it becomes incumbent upon the Administration to provide evidence of the reasonability of the searches. It's an absurdity to suggest that they need to broadcast that evidence for every search they conduct, and I can't imagine why anyone would even suggest it, unless they were intentionally hoping to undermine the ability of the country to protect itself.

Under the so-called "patriot" act, the government can forbid you from telling anyone about it's secret searches, thereby denying judicial recourse. And if by chance you do manage to try and force the Administration to provide reasonable evidence, they will say "national security" and make the case disappear as they did in the AT&T data-sharing case.

And I'm not suggesting that the government be required to broadcast it's evidence for every warrant on CNN. Perhaps if there were a secret court created by something called "FISA" which could review such things in secret. But taking the executive (any executive)'s word for it that they aren't abusing such a thing is also an absurdity. (I am not a crook!)

So we agree. The FISA law is illegal and void insofar as it appropriates to the courts powers given in the Constitution to the President.

Eh... I'm a little dubious about FISA, but after reading it I fail to see where exactly it gives the power of the courts to the president. Could you point them out?

Well, I hope it wil

The Hill March 29, 2006 Wednesday HEADLINE: Foreign-agent lobbyists amid uproars, duck for cover The brutal ruling junta of Burma dropped its last foreign-agent lobbyists, the Republican PR firm DCI Group, in 2003.

Could you please provide for me a link showing when the Iraqi army surrendered to US forces?

Yeah, that's what I thought. They didn't. So claiming the war was over when Bush unfurled his Mission Accomplished banner upon the aircraft carrier is kind of dishonest? I mean it doesn't look like whoever is fighting us in Iraq has surrendered.

Hey, why don't you go look up "Werewolf" and tell us just how successful those Nazis were. Heck, go look up on how the Hitler Youth took to arms and fought back American soldiers. Oh yeah, that's right. There was hardly any opposition in Germany.

Just curious, but do you have any other Republican talking points you want to spout?

Maybe you'd like to declare that Detroit murder rate is worse than Baghdad?

Maybe you'd like to take some pictures of Instanbul and claim it's Baghdad?

You guys are pathetic. You're not just incompetent, your dishonest too. It's no wonder nobody can trust today's Republicans with national security.

I might have this wrong but this is how it goes.

First, the House net neutrality vote was for a net neutrality amendment to a larger bill(COPE). They didn't include it obviously.

Now, the Senate is considering their version of the bill. Their version may or may not include the net neutrality provision. Talking Points Memo is keeping a tally of where Senators currently stand.

Ideally, the Senate includes it in their version of the bill. Then, the bill will go to conference to iron out the differences between the Senate and House versions. Hopefully, someone will champion it there and ensure it stays in the final version.

Then the larger bill goes to the House and Senate for a final vote. Congressmen who voted against net neutrality will probably not vote against the final bill.

Then it goes to the President for signing, and since Bush has yet to veto a bill, the bill likely becomes law and so does the Net Neutrality provision.

So the House vote was a setback but by no means the final blow.

More importantly, if you don't like where your senators stand, give them a call.

And CNN is publishing industry press releases as news, but hey, what's new?

Notice no disclosure that he's completely freaking paid for by the telecom industry, who do you think Public Strategies' clients are? And "Hands off the Internet"? That's an astro-turf campaign, noticed the crappy wanna-be underground looking propaganda that's been popping up on blog-ads, that's them. More info at DailyKos.

Editor's note: Mike McCurry is a partner at Public Strategies Washington Inc. where he provides strategic communications counsel. He is a co-chairman of Hands off the Internet, a coalition of telecommunication-related businesses. McCurry served as press secretary to President Bill Clinton from 1995 until 1998.

More coverage by kos, john marshall, la times, matt stoller.

This is just like the telcos claims over open access. Every regional telco has been granted monopoly status for years, we the users paid for that infrastructure, and we'll use the same model in the future if need be. These claims of eminent domain are horseshit distractions. They were when they strangled and drowned the CLECs and they are now as they try to do to the Internet what the cell companies have done to wireless. I don't use my phone other than to talk, data services currently lack value over the cell networks in the existing price structure. They want to impose the same pricing structure possibilities on their segments of the Internet. Just like access to the copper, they want you to pay for what you've already paid for. Mike McCurry is getting paid to help these people steal from you; for this payment, he's trying to convince you that being stolen from is in your best interest.

These assholes will kill the goose that laid the golden egg if allowed. Support Save the Internet, don't let them do it.

Stop them cause Mike McCurry is a Jeff Gannon-wannabe manwhore.

Considering how much "professional" reporters rip off bloggers without even citing sources, I won't be losing much sleep over this. e.g.: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_04_02.php#008130

The GOP is dedicated to grabbing every non-member of the 1% by the ankles and seeing what falls out of their pockets.

The upside? At least this isn't as bad as the shit they did on behalf of Jack Abramoff.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 5_08_07.php#006266/

Wait a second! Yes it is!

The recording industry is largely run by the mafia anyhow. So... It's just the same as the Indian gaming scandal.

I'm no big fan of either political party, but the Republicans are bad news.

Corruption-wise, this is the ugliest America has been since the end of the 19th Century.

We stand a notch above the rest and as such have a responsibility to set the example and pave the way for the other armed services.

Right. That is why Marines were pimp'n for Musgrave.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007802.p hp

And more to show the parent poster is a boast'n loser.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_02_26.php#007802
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_02_05.php#007661

From internet to operations we are the best as what we do and that can not be argued.

In your head, sure. In the real world, not so much.

We are the elite fighting force of America.

I'd be willing to put some money down that Navy SEALS and Army RANGERS would be willing to call you a boasting little shit.

We take an honorable and moral high ground to be stay that way

Yea, that's why they show up in uniform at GOP dinners. Leading the way!

We stand a notch above the rest and as such have a responsibility to set the example and pave the way for the other armed services.

Right. That is why Marines were pimp'n for Musgrave.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007802.p hp

And more to show the parent poster is a boast'n loser.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_02_26.php#007802
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_02_05.php#007661

From internet to operations we are the best as what we do and that can not be argued.

In your head, sure. In the real world, not so much.

We are the elite fighting force of America.

I'd be willing to put some money down that Navy SEALS and Army RANGERS would be willing to call you a boasting little shit.

We take an honorable and moral high ground to be stay that way

Yea, that's why they show up in uniform at GOP dinners. Leading the way!

We stand a notch above the rest and as such have a responsibility to set the example and pave the way for the other armed services.

Right. That is why Marines were pimp'n for Musgrave.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/007802.p hp

And more to show the parent poster is a boast'n loser.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_02_26.php#007802
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_200 6_02_05.php#007661

From internet to operations we are the best as what we do and that can not be argued.

In your head, sure. In the real world, not so much.

We are the elite fighting force of America.

I'd be willing to put some money down that Navy SEALS and Army RANGERS would be willing to call you a boasting little shit.

We take an honorable and moral high ground to be stay that way

Yea, that's why they show up in uniform at GOP dinners. Leading the way!

Anyone out there with military experience know how out-of-bounds this kind of thing is?

As you say later, in addition to the above:
> They're setting up considerable precedent in the future that the President doesn't have to abide by Congressional edicts, high court rulings, or indeed, international human rights treaties.

This is not surprising though, since ratified treaties carry the same/similar weight as the words of the Constitution itself (provided no part of the treaty is contrary to our Federal laws or Constitution (Article 6 and 1836's New Orleans v. U.S.? I'm sure someone will correct me)). If Bush can't be bothered to abide the Constitution he surely isn't going to be hung up over treaty obligations.

However, the President is not above the law. Ever. As Jefferson argued[1], if a President feels obliged (morally) to break the law in order to uphold his oath of office he must submit to the penalty of law (it is noble to fall on one's own sword in defense of the republic). If Bush has to (apparently) violate FISA and Amendment 4 to save the republic (from the terrorists!) then he must be willing to submit to us, under our laws. I might even go as far as claiming that if George Bush is not impeached, he must be arrested and tried in January of 2009. Don't worry though, innocent men are arrested all the time, even jailed pending trial (arguably in every case as they have not yet been proven guilty).

[1]http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/00304 6.php and http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cache:www.iwm. at/publ-jvc/jc-11-04.pdf+author:%22Bailey%22

I wonder when CATO will run one of these on Bush.

So now you get one side pissed off because of a percieved inaccuracy (and literally, they are right), and the other side feeling like they have to defend themselves (which they should), and then it's a flame war and OMG! LIKE THE END of the WORLD or something!

Huh? The ad says "Anti-Bush Gifts and Gear". That doesn't strike me as a very credible news site.

Yes, because if someone doesn't like Bush (like 2/3 of us now), then up is down, black is white, and the sky is every color except the one they say it is.

Raw Story is well known to be a source of very early, unripe, possibly wrong information. It's raw, like the Drudge Report. But I check it all the time (rather than give hits to Drudge) because whenever a big story erupts I see it there first. It's a good site for the latest scuttlebutt. In this particular case there have been plenty of confirming sources during the past few days.

You saw "anti-Bush gifts and gear" and assumed the site is not credible because of a bias. Credible opinions are not necessarily "balanced". It's gotten to the point where editors at major newspapers are deliberately skewing stories to make them more "balanced" to please people like you. If I see "balance" in a story anymore I have to assume I'm being lied to.

Yes, but there are also some serious blogs that cover material that the MSM won't. Several obvious examples on the democratic side are Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo. These are sites that have covered real stories in depth long before the MSM picked them up... often then quoting them liberally without attribution.

actually its +3 informative so far. heh,

sorry I dont have any lefty blog posts to link to off hand, but you could probably find something at TPM, Matt Yglesias, or Kevin Drum if you look. I dont read a lot of lefty blogs myself, but I've heard mostly pretty good things on those guys. I've seen a lot of different points of view over the past few days in the blogosphere. I tend to take the view somewhat similar to wretchard at belmont, that this is not intifadam its economic and social, but looking to the future, the radical islamists would be fools not to try to capitalize off of a large muslim and north african population rioting in a western nation.

Some of my favorite blogs lack comments -- Talking Points Memo, for example. Fact is, if somebody has something to say, he or she will be heard. If not, all the comments in the world won't help.

And that makes, say Josh Marshall different from, say this or this how? I don't think I buy the 'but more people read us' argument.

-Ted

On August 26, the Friday before the hurricane, Louisiana and Mississippi both declared states of emergency. On August 28, the day before the hurricane hit, the governor of New Mexico offered troops from his National Guard to the governor of Louisiana. The necessary paperwork didn't come back from Washington for 5 days.

Early Monday, the levee broke. Late Tuesday: DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff declares Katrina an 'Incident of National Significance', "triggering for the first time a coordinated federal response to states and localities overwhelmed by disaster." Declaration is first use of DHS National Response Plan.

On Thursday, on NPR's All Things Considered, Chertoff claims, "I have not heard a report of thousands of people in the convention center who don't have food and water." The same day on Nightline, Michael Brown tells Ted Koppel "We just learned of the convention center -- we being the federal government -- today." This after people went in there on Tuesday.

How Democrats in the state and local government can fill in for the deadly, disorganized incompetence of the one-party Republican federal government is beyond me. When the head of FEMA's emergency management experience is inspecting Arabian horses, accountability does not stop with him! Maybe it should stop with the person who appointed him.

Remember, Bush has already accepted responsibility "to the extent that the federal government didn't do its job right." You need to wake up and smell the spin if you think that this job was done right. Then we can ask how many people Bush's vacation killed.

WRONG!!
Get your facts straight... Rightwing Timeline
Leftwing Timeline

No, its not "just political." Outing an agent is outing an agent. Period. Thanks for the RNC talking points though.

Somewhat related, I saw earlier today that http://talkingpointsmemo.com/ (a progressive political blog) is going to have a special guest blogger next week in the form of Senator John Edwards (John Kerry's right-hand man last fall); ought to make an interesting read.

I think this whole blog thing is getting way out of hand. Who cares that much about someone else life? Most people can't even care for themselves...why should you be worrying about checking out the latest cell phone picture with a story about how the line at McDonalds is too long. Gimme a break.

You're reading the wrong blogs. Here's a few:

http://defensetech.org/
http://www.back-to-iraq.com/
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/
http://www.juancole.com/
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

Post your link to the source of this "news". I can't find it on Google. Link not to a rightist blogger or Freerepublic, but a to a transcript of the comment, WITH CONTEXT, or at least an article from a credible news source referring to this. No, Rush is not acceptable. And he does not provide transcripts, anyway.

And as for Dobbs, he has indeed jumped onto the rightist train and is riding for the sunset, so his attitude as a "journalist" is indeed up for comment. He's dropped the mask of a reporter and has become a right-wing agitator. So it goes.

At Daily Kos or Talking Points Memo or even Buzzflash, the answer to the Drudge, they exhaustively document and link each reference to an actual news article from a credible source. "Everybody knows" is not credible as a source.

This "Franken is calling names" stinks of the old Orwellian trick of smearing the enemy with that which your side is most certainly guilty. If you know you can be called on your actions, make a lot of noise establishing "controversey" about those who will call you out, to diminish their stature. Slash, smear, distort, MAKE NOISE, and the enemy's best efforts to expose your actions can be at best summed up as calling the kettle black by those whose knowledge of the discussion is not exactly exhaustive.

Air America Radio,, with Franken as midday host, has done more to clean the rightist clocks in one year than the entire Democratic party has done in twenty.

Here's the thing - not only can the Right stop people from talking about Social Security "privatization", they can orchestrate a lockstep switch in the media from "private accounts" to "personal accounts", and claim that it's pure liberal bias not to use only the current Republican talking points. If you are having a discussion about completely eliminating taxation, no one will take you seriously. The Right is trying to minimize taxation on them, but I kind of doubt they're going to be giving up cops, troops, or corporate (and pundit!) welfare anytime soon. I think you may be confusing political correctness with adolescence.