Two of Virginia’s Democratic Representatives, Bobby Scott and Jim Moran, are supporters of HR 676.

Bobby Scott sponsored the All Healthy Children Act. He also sponsored H.AMDT.568, an amendment to prohibit use of funds for the Random Student Drug Testing Program.

You can see a video here of his exchange with Monica Goodling.  Read more 

[Welcome, Avedon readers! — Lambert]

2 Ind. congressmen face tough challenges in Tuesday primary

U.S. Rep. Andre Carson has barely had time to settle into his new office in Washington, but he might not want to get too comfortable.  Read more 

Xavier and Judy report that Clinton will be in Detroit tomorrow. I don’t get it, I would think she would be living in Pennsylvania.

When is she going to do the roof top bbq at the big E?

On the Chanting Obama Protesters…

It looks as though at a recent campaign event for Senator Clinton some Obama supporters were chanting “Hillary go home” or some such.

First off, let me say that the Obama supporters were completely within their Constitutional rights as the right to express one’s ideas publicly (especially one’s political ideas) is one of the founding pillars of this democracy. I realize that each side wants to make sure the best candidate wins the nomination (and of course each side thinks that its candidate is the best candidate) and is fighting to make sure that happens.  Read more 

to allow me to repost a wonderful essay from DailyKos comments here at corrente.

(Hat tip to DKos poster BeninSC.)

Of COURSE we can lift the discourse!

We do it every NIGHT here in Top Comments. Every night.

(Spoiler alert: this is a LONG comment. ;x )

The idea that we are too ’small’ or too ’few’ to make a change is the greatest challenge to democracy that we face in this country (I am certain it is not a feeling exclusive to here). It is a thought which builds depression consequences. Democrats, particularly in red states, ask themselves the same question, come voting time, and all too often the answer is, my vote isn’t going to matter, my vote is too small, too insignificant, too inconsequential … those voting like me are too few …

If you regard conservatives as a terrible political adversary, that is nothing compared to the inner adversary of the idea that there isn’t much we can do.

Please take time to read it all in its original glory here:
BeninSC.

I have taken the liberty of reproducing it just  Read more 

YOUR FAITHFUL OREGON representative for the MTV Street Team ’08 (ahem, yours truly) is invisible on this day, because Oregon doesn’t exist when it comes to Super Tuesday. But my Street Team peeps are LIVE on the scene in each Super Tuesday state.  Read more 

Here, via Glenn’s Place:

There is no Democratic Party in Congress. There are, instead, a bare majority of Congressmen and Senators who have banded together in order to gather power, influence, and money. Which is fine, as far as it goes — except that they are not actually using any of the resources that they are gathering to benefit the groups and causes who worked to put them in power.

Discuss.

Just bloviating, but…

You know, it occurs to me that whatever we’re being told about why Democrats “have” to pass the next occupation/war crimes budget, it’s absurd. Honestly I haven’t even followed that so much; I have no doubt Nancy and Harry will lead the troops and march up that hill to the treasury, and hand over as much or more to Chimpy as He asks, if they haven’t already./bitter I guess someone is twisting a lot of arms on the Hill. Maybe hairpulling, too. I know when I got bullied, when I was a lil Dyke, I fought back. But sometimes the bullies were bigger and stronger and I had to give up my lunch money. That’s life, I suppose.

So I completely understand why the infants masquerading as “leaders” and “elected officials,” who are technically a majority, have no choice but to “support the troops”, to the tune of billions a week, by funding renagade contractors and mercenaries and also toss in a few bucks for some arms dealers and oh yeah a cookie or two for the troops. And some plastic turkey. Hairpulling hurts!  Read more 

Gallup:

A new Gallup Poll finds Congress’ approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.

There was a slight interruption in the downward trend in congressional approval ratings at the beginning of this year when party control changed hands from the Republicans to the Democrats following last fall’s midterm elections. In January 2007, 35% of Americans approved of Congress, a significant increase from the 21% who approved of Congress in December 2006.

But that “honeymoon” period for the new Democratically controlled Congress was brief, as its job ratings dropped below 30% in March 2007 and have now fallen below where they were just before the Democrats took over.

Harry, Nancy: Nice work. I knew you could do it. I’m proud of you.

Our famously free press will try to spin this as the product of a lack of teh Bipartisan and the need for unity and “they’re all the same” but I think there’s a much simpler and more basic explanation:  Read more 

Just sayin’.

Gutless, feckless Beltway Dems capitulate again to Bush, without even having the courage to hold the vote in daylight.

Fool me once on Iraq. Fool me twice on FISA.  Read more 

To be this dumb.

Ruth Marcus has at it regarding the on-going saga of our Attorney-General, and if I tell you that she carves out a idiosyncratic place for herself from the rocky heights of beltway profundity, (using a tooth pick because this is the only experience of tool-using folks like Marcus ever get), you could probably come pretty close to sketching out the column without ever reading it.

Here’s her opening:

I find myself in an unaccustomed and unexpected position: defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales fans, if there are Gonzales fans left, except for the only fan who counts: Don’t take any comfort from my assessment.

Unaccustomed and unexpected only because she doesn’t remember any of her previous columns; that’s part of the curriculum in that secret class, “How to Become A Consumate Media Asshole,” I am now convinced has to exist out there somewhere.

Her caution to Gonzales fans is given because Marcus is willing to concede the undeniable; that Gonzales is a fool and a knave, a deceiver and a dissembler in his sworn testimony before the Senate, and he deserved the brutal treatment he got from both sides of the aisle.

However, ah, yes, the inevitable “however,” the inescapable “but,”…you knew it was coming, but can you guess what “the but” is?  Read more 

Thank God for McClatchy. After a cool analysis of Congresses ability to resist Bush’s seizure of power by claiming executive privilege under the theory that We Get To Do Whatever The Fuck We Want, Whenever The Fuck We Want To Do It, we get this quote:

The prospect of a congressional sergeant-at-arms arresting former White House Counsel Miers, holding her in custody somewhere on Capitol Hill, and Congress trying her is unlikely.

“It’s unseemly to some people to do that,” said Stanley M. Brand, a former House Democratic counsel. “It’s also more cumbersome.”

“Unseeemly.”

Good God. The culture of Deference is still alive and well in Versailles on the Potomac, isn’t it?  Read more 

Why can’t more Democrats call this occupation what it really is instead of letting the other side frame the debate? Time. After. Time. What are Blue Dogs and other Bush enablers so afraid of? That they will give the other side a soundbite that could (possibly) be used against them in a future campaign? That they will be portrayed as unsympathetic to the troops?  Read more 

As usual, Glenn is right:

The right to be free of arbitrary executive imprisonment is — and, since the founding of America, always has been — a defining and distinguishing attribute of our country (notwithstanding shameful instances in our past where that right has been denied). All citizens — including, actually especially, those sent to represent the people in Congress — have an obligation to protect that right from government officials who seek to abolish it.

Having disgracefully abdicated that responsibility back in September because they wanted to win the midterm elections, Democrats — now that they have won — can cleanse their historic sin only by committing themselves, not symbolically but in actuality, to the restoration of habeas corpus. Whether they are willing to do so will speak volumes about their true character and about whether their November victory will result in anything other than some televised hearings. If Democrats are too afraid even to take a stand against the Bush administration in defense of this centuries-old core American liberty, it is impossible to imagine any even minimally risky stands they are willing to take.

Bingo. If the Dems don’t restore habeas, that would mean that they have no plans to restore Constitutional government.

I don’t want a kindler, gentler application of Fuhrerprinzip, or “better leadership,” I want the Constitution back.

The House Armed Services committee may consider this matter today and tomorrow. Here are the numbers to call:  Read more 

Authoritarians, called “today’s Republican party,” do one thing really well- they keep dissent among their ranks from public view, when it matters they all seem to be on the same page. Actually, I think this rule of thumb may not be so much the case as the Republican primaries come closer, but let’s forget that for now. The definition of authoritarian is that there can be only one way, one will, one leader, one viewpoint…and that’s one reason why we hate them. So in that spirit, I want to link to a post over at Talk Left, because I concur this is a discussion we need to have:

As folks who have been reading me have seen, I have been quite critical of House Dems AND Left blogs regarding their attitudes and prescriptions for Iraq. My views have almost universally been ignored by all, except for the occasional patronizing riposte that does not engage at all my arguments.

Why is this so? Are discussions of how to end the Debacle in Iraq that are not exclusively critical of the GOP and Bush not worth notice?  Read more 

Not a dime’s worth.

Tony Smith writes on WaPo’s editorial page:  Read more 

[I’ll give them the -ic back when they show me something.]

Why is that we hear this in the Washington State Senate, but not in Nancy Pelosi’s House or Harry Reid’s Senate?

From David Swanson’s testimony for the Washington State Senate Hearing:
“… we must impeach because if we do not, we will be rewriting the rules for all future administrations. The greatest concern of those who put impeachment in the Constitution was that an executive could needlessly take the nation into war. We now face a case in which the President and Vice President began a war in secret with misappropriated funds, intentionally misled the Congress and the public about the need for war, launched a war that is patently illegal under the U.N. charter and U.S. law, began the construction of permanent military bases in a foreign nation with no consultation with Congress and continued that construction after Congress forbade it. Through the course of this war, which US intelligence and international studies conclude has made the world far more dangerous and the United States far less popular, and which has put our great grandchildren into financial debt, the Bush Administration has sanctioned illegal spying, kidnapping, extraordinary rendition, detentions without charge, torture, murder, the use of illegal weapons, and the illegal targeting of civilians, hospitals, and journalists. Numerous attempts by Congress to temper these policies have been unconstitutionally reversed by presidential signing statements.”

Nancy? Harry?  Read more 

[I’m removing the “-ic.” Let these guys show me something, and I’ll put it back.]

What Glenn said:

The choice is not whether to provoke a constitutional crisis. The real choice is whether to recognize that we have one and to act to end it, or continue to pretend that it does not exist by acquiescing to the President’s ongoing abuses and fundamental encroachments into every area. If — as has happened — Congress sits by and allows the President to seize limitless power and to ignore Congressional authority, then the subversion of our constitutional system becomes as much the fault of the Congress as the President.

Thus far — and, granted, it has only between two months since Democrats took over — the efforts to force these issues to the fore have been rather lame and anemic. Having said that, one should acknowledge that approaching these matters incrementally is necessary. For instance, demanding information that you know is not forthcoming might be strategically smart before issuing subpoenas, so that one can depict the subpoenas as necessary. But we don’t really have the luxury of having months go by while we indulge all of that incremental strategizing.

Democrats have to internalize that this administration does not operate like previous ones. No rational person can doubt that they are limitless in their contempt for legal restrictions or notions of checks and balances. The last election, by itself, has not changed their approach and will do not so. They are not going to voluntarily comply with anything or disclose anything. They are going to have to be forced to do so.

And televised, highly publicized confrontations over the administration’s hubris and arrogance and utter contempt for our legal institutions and political traditions is not something to be avoided. It is something we desperately need as a country. Issue subpoenas for all of this information, make them defy the subpoenas, and then demand that courts compel compliance. Create media dramas in which the administration fights to maintain full-scale secrecy around all of its legally dubious and extreme behavior. Americans hate hubris of that sort and do not trust this administration. Those are fights they cannot win.

Does the Do-Nothing Democrat Congress have a plan to restore Constitutional government?  Read more 

100 times?

50?

25?

10?

5?

No.  Read more 

Confession time…

In 2006, I ran for the US House against an unholy a far-right DINO and lost in the Primary. I drop the phrase, "I placed second in a three-way race", to either joke-it or to save face—it could be either. In reality, the incumbent got 86.2%, I got 10.0% and Mr.Last Place got 3.8%.  Read more 

UPDATE: NPR reported on Thursday’s “All Things Considered” that Tim Johnson is responding to touch and to spoken language, appropriately. That doesn’t tell us a whole lot, but I close friend of mine suffered a huge intracranial bleed when she was only 41, and she was in a comma for several weeks before she even woke up.

In comments, Tinfoil Hat Boy reminds me that as long as Senator Johnson is still alive, his absence in January will not in any way jeopardize the Democrats being in control of the Senate, since even without him they have 50 votes to the Republicans 49.

******
There appears to be fairly firm information that Senator Johnson was diagnosed with congenitally malformed blood vessels inside his brain. Yesterday, they had begun to bleed, causing symptoms which mimic a stroke.

AP is reporting that the damage has been corrected by surgery, without complications thus far, and that he is critical but stable. It’s too early for Doctors to say much else. The bleeding has been stopped, but what the prognosis might be they won’t be able to tell until they can see what disabilities Senator Johnson is left with, and how permanent they might be.

His family members are encouraged and optimistic about his condition.  Read more 

Update: Edited for clarity, and misatkes, and please note, it was Juan Williams, not Juan Cole, who “represented” liberalism on yesterdays All-Star panel.

Let me begin by clarifying the title of this post; it is not aimed at John Kerry, who, according to the SCLM was a has-been before he was a wanna-be and ultimately successful contender for the Democratic 2004 Presidential candidacy.

Still, it was hard to dispel thoughts of had-beens when confronted by the pairing of John Kerry and Newt Gingrich as Chris Wallace’s only guests, outside of the Fox All-Stars, of course, and it seemed that Chris was meant to be taking the pulse of two politcal dead-man walking to illustrate Gingrich has escaped the hangman, while Kerry clearly won’t be able to.

Speaking for those of us who are not fans of Fox News, I can report the hour didn’t work as planned; oh, that depressing musty odor of hasbeenery was present through-out the hour, but it attached itself to Chris Wallace, himself, the Fox all-stars, and Newt, too, and even the very idea of the Fox News Channel as we come to know and loathe it.  Read more 

Courtesy of ABC News

Today’s edition of This Week took place against the background of it’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration of itself, while in Iraq a pair of suicide bombers managed to kill 35 and wound 58 Iraqis who were waiting outside of a police recruiting center in Baghdad, and in addition, authorities discovered 75 bodies “in the capital and Baqouba, an unusually high number even by Iraq’s grim standards.”

Prime Minister Maliki’s response was to warn of a cabinet reshuffle.

Lil’ George mentioned none of this, although his introduction to this anniversary hour did put Iraq at the center of Tuesday’s election, as he greeted his first two guests, a tag-team of Democratic Senators, Joe Biden, about-to-be-Chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, and Carl Levin, the putative head of the Military Affairs Committee.

Will anything really change, asked George; what, if any, leverage will the newly elected Democratic majority have over President Bush?

I’m pleased to report that Levin and Biden made it clear that there damned well better be some changes ahead, and damn soon, too.  Read more