Every day a new stupid from the Dem [cough] leadership. TPM:

The House Democrats were set to hold a vote this Friday on whether to find White House officials in contempt of Congress for ignoring subpoenas related to the U.S. attorney firings investigation, The Politico reports. But no more. The vote, already delayed since July, has been pushed to December, at the earliest. The reason? The Politico quotes a “top House Democratic leadership aide”: “[Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-NY)] has been saying that this week is not the time to do this, that it will step on our message on Iraq and FISA.”

What a wuss. The common factor in all three stories—FISA, Iraq, and Bush blowing off the subpoenas—is overweening, arrogant, unaccountable power. That’s the message, unless you’re a preening, credit-grabbing, camera-hogging, weinie-scarfing machine politico Master of the Teabags like Rahm. Surely that—the power grab part, that is—is not a hard message to send, by now? And the American people already understand it.

But wait! I’ve got an idea:  Read more 

Rahm “I hate Progressives” Emanuel.

How Emanuel came to his decisions about which candidates to support against Democratic opponents is known only to Emanuel and his staff. Emanuel declined direct comment on this story. But an examination of individual races reveals a pattern of financial and political support for wealthy conservative candidates and an assault on their grassroots-supported opponents who were running on platforms that included a full withdrawal of US forces from Iraq.

Go read the whole disgusting thing.  Read more 

Sirota Speaks for me:

Let’s see - polls show more than two thirds of Americans oppose President Bush’s escalation plan, less than a quarter support his handling of the Iraq War, and the vast majority of the country thinks the war was a mistake and wants an exit strategy. Meanwhile, state legislatures are aggressively moving forward with resolutions demanding Congress use its power to stop Bush’s escalation. What’s the response from some top Democrats on Capitol Hill? Undermining their own leadership, of course. Here’s this from the Washington Post:  Read more 

Hahahahahahahaha! Poor widdle Rahm, it couldn’t have happened to a nicer DCL shitbag. Go watch the video. It’s funny.

Yadda yadda, I can hear it already, “This just makes us look divided, we can’t be mean to our leaders in the party, dirty hippies will alienate the center, blah blah.” Well, I’m so sorry but I just can’t seem to care. The Little People standing up and demanding an end to the war? During an announcement of “ethics reform” that’s about as meaningful as one of Bush’s Shakespeare essays? To a guy who’s stabbed progressives activists at every turn he gets? At a time when even Democratic senators are calling for a “surge?” Wow. Look at this tiny little violin I’m playing, and hear the sad, sad tune it’s making.

Kudos to Fox News for playing their role in the tsk-tsking of progressives. Nice pic of Cindy, you asshats. And could you smirk a little less, BobbleBlondie? Really, your concern is touching. Still- this motivates me to get going with my day and wander around the Capitol a bit today. I can’t wait to see what else the “troublemakers” and “disruptors” get up to.

Refresher Course #1
Refresher Course #2
Refresher Course #3 with quote:

After the Republicans have admitted to a thumping, why is it that the only one complaining on the Democratic side is James Carville, who today in addition to trashing Howard Dean, praised the RNC, the outfit that brought us the racist ad that defeated Harold Ford, James’ supposed candidate for Chair? Perhaps he’s not aware that under Dean in this midterm election the DNC has raised record cash —- all hard dollars — including three times as much from major donors, eight times as much online and made a $30 million investment in the ‘06 cycle, three times as much as the DNC put into the last midterm. Not to mention we made an $8m overhaul of our voter file which was successfully used in 47 states and through the 50 state strategy invested in states like Pennsylvania, Kansas, Indiana and Montana where we had critical victories on Tuesday.

Time to shut your stupid, jealous, whining, insignificant hole. But of course, he won’t:

Democratic strategist James Carville says his party should dump Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic Party because of incompetence.  Read more 

This is one of the best and most complete recitations of why Rahm sucks goats that I’ve read since the elections. Save it, and throw it in the face of everyone who parrots the “victory for centrists” and “moderate mandate” crap. Here are some highlights:

The failure of Emanuel’s strategy can be demonstrated by the numbers. Of the 21 “first wave” picks announced on April 27th, only nine have been declared winners, with one (Joe Courtney in CT-02) holding a 170 vote lead over the incumbent, and three others losing by 1400 (Madrid, NM-01), 2700 (Kilroy, OH-05) and 3600 (Burner WA-08) votes in races that are still considered “too close to call.” Four of Emanuel’s “first wave” picks lost by over 10,000 votes (Busansky, FL-09; Lucas KY-04; Derby NV-02; and Cranley, OH-01).

Only three of Emanuel’s picks received support by the two largest ActBlue organizations (Murphy, PA-06; and Gillibrand, NY-20 both supported by Blue America, with Burner supported by NetRoots.) At least three of the DCCC’s “first wave” picks were against incumbents who were directly implicated in the Abramoff scandal (Hayworth, Taylor, Sweeney), and a fourth (Nick Lampson) was running against a write in candidate for Tom Delay’s old seat. (Lampson did not run for Delay’s unexpired term, but his Write-In opponent received more votes in that contest than Lampson received in the general election.)  Read more 

Nancy weighs in.

I’ve got to run, so short version: is this a good thing? Bloggers love Murtha, but in truth, he’s a rather conservative, pro-big budgets for the DoD kind of guy. What makes him a better choice over the folks Rahm likes? I honestly don’t know, and would love to hear from you.