At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions.

How many of the extreme right-wing and criminal policies of Bush-Cheney has Obama adopted? How many of those extreme right-wing policies has he exceeded? Last month, knowledge that Obama has gone a step further than Bush, authorizing the executive branch to murder American citizens on the flimsiest of rationales. This sh__ has GOT to end.

I'm sure everyone's read by now that James O' Keefe, creator of the infamous fake "Pimp and Ho" ACORN videos, was arrested today for allegedly attempting to wiretap Mary Landrieu's office. And I certainly appreciate the irony here, having been repeatedly brushed off when I called up Landrieu's office and voiced my opposition to the telecom immunity bill.

But anyway. In yet another proof of the self-similarity of the wingnut function, I found this little gem about acting Lafayette US Attorney Bill Flanagan, a Bush appointee and father of one of the suspects:

President Barack Obama has nominated a federal prosecutor in Lafayette to be U.S. Attorney for Louisiana's western district that is headquartered in Shreveport.

Stephanie Finley's nomination on Wednesday must be confirmed by the Senate before she can take the post.

Finley would replace Donald Washington, who was appointed by President George W. Bush and resigned on Monday. The U.S. Attorney's office is currently run by Bill Flanagan of Shreveport, the first assistant U.S. Attorney.

So Flanagan's "replacement" (not really, but he will be superceded) is set to be nominated tomorrow by a Democratic president. Today, his son gets busted trying to tap the phones of one of the most odious -- and therefore most important -- Democratic Senators.

Interesting, no? Alright, now let me roll out some foil for you.

Somehow I suspect that this nomination wasn't going to go through quickly. Was this part of a plan to catch Landrieu making some kinda crooked deal on healthcare and then blackmail Obama into... promoting Flanagan? Seems risky and insane, but this is Louisiana, after all.

Or maybe they were just trying to make more "gotcha" tapes. Since they're facing 10 years, things might get entertaining when the prosecution offers each of the 4 suspects a deal... I just can't believe that these were the only 4 guys in on this.

Jon Walker over at Fire Dog Lake makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster.

The same lobbying and PR firms:

The similarities between the campaign against mitigating the consequences of climate change and the campaign against health insurance reform go far beyond the use of distortion and fiction. The parallels are everywhere.

For example, those with vested (monied) interests in the status quo are turning to the same lobbying and public relations outfits to carry out the campaigns.

Hrynshyn concludes:

Ladies and gentlemen, with the help of other blogs, I give you Missouri's Roy Blunt, in his own words.

Is there a bigger tool   Read more…

I'm sure you all recall the early days of the NSA Hoovering up all domestic data warrantless wiretapping scandal, when they referred to it as the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" and assured us that they were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Naturally, this turned out to be a lie enhanced duplicity technique, because it turns out they were spying on all of us everyday American citizens. Nobody was off the target list, and we were all potential Al-Qaeda operatives.

Now, there's a big hubbub about some sketchy CIA assassination ring, apparently answering to Cheney himself. Nobody's willing to talk about the nitty-gritty details, but it's enough to have even Nancy "off the table" Pelosi spooked or pissed off enough to start publicly discussing how fucked-up it was, whatever "it" was.

The public justification for this shadowy, super-classified, apparently reprehensible death squad?

They were only targeting Al-Qaeda operatives.

Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit. Does anyone seriously doubt that what we'll eventually learn is that they formed a group to assassinate American citizens in the National Interest? Consider this, via TPM:

Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, told TPMmuckraker that because we've been in a state of war against al Qaeda since just after September 11, there would have been no need for a secret CIA program that received special legal authorization...

As for what the program did involve, Cannistraro suggested that it involved Americans as targets, and that it went beyond surveillance, but declined to elaborate. He added that, though Cheney may have directly ordered the CIA to keep Congress in the dark, the veep wasn't acting alone. "The approval was from the president," said Cannistraro.

Hmm, I wonder...

Suzie asks some important questions concerning this report on young people's ethics. It doesn't surprise me at all that more boys than girls believe that lying and cheating are necessary for success in life. Now, I'm not one to bemoan Those Kids Today, as I've been doing some reading on 18thc politics and know we've got a long way to go before we hit rock bottom. But I do think that another point that should be raised re: this endemic of cheating and lying is that politics have far reaching consequences, and to me that is reflected in the survey. If the President and high elected officials lie like rugs and no one calls them on it, why shouldn't young people take that as a model and example?

Personally, I've come to understand that educators must take real care, and guard against cheating and lying, when it comes to teens today. There's a certain culture that crosses races and income levels, which lauds those teens who are able to 'get away with it,' whatever it may be. Again, I don't think this is too different than when I was a teen, or before that, but I think that teens who adopt this aesthetic will carry it on into adulthood, unless some authority in their lives teaches them that there are serious consequences.

It will be interesting, as the coming population wave assumes political and cultural power, in the many battles in which we find ourselves engaged today. People who don't believe that lying and cheating are great evils to be avoided will be more or less likely oppose gay marriage? More or less likely to believe that our nation should be engaged in wars of choice? More or less concerned with government spying? More or less tolerant of "the war on drugs?" I don't know the answer to any of that, but I suspect the political scene will be different, when this generation begins to exhibit its peak influence.

I think of this as one of those "what comes around, goes around" sort of things. Republicans have enshrined lying and cheating as legitimate forms of public behavior, and Democrats have failed to oppose that in a significant way. Soon, we'll get to find out just what it's like when a large portion of the population shares those beliefs. Short form: if the rubes don't follow the rules set up for them, it's a lot harder to suck up obscene profits from their enslavement.

He is a advocate of homophobia, is stalling on closing Guantanamo and giving excuses in place of results.

Gates blames everyone but himself. Gates fires reality-oriented officers. Gates is a warmonger, that is how he got his present job.

Ted Stevens is telling newspaper editors in Alaska he's not a felon.

"I've not been convicted yet," Stevens said Thursday in a meeting with the editorial board of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. "There's not a black mark by my name yet, until the appeal is over and I am finally convicted, if that happens. If that happens, of course I'll do what's right for Alaska and for the Senate. ... I don't anticipate it happening, and until it happens I do not have a black mark."
Stevens reiterated that position during a televised debate late Thursday night, declaring early in the give-and-take with Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, "I have not been convicted of anything."

Joe Biden:

"Mark my words," the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. "It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don't remember anything else I said. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."

"I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate," Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. "And he's gonna need help. And the kind of help he's gonna need is, he's gonna need you - not financially to help him - we're gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it's not gonna be apparent initially, it's not gonna be apparent that we're right."

Don't question Obama. Focus your energy on the demonization of John McCain and Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton or Somerby or Lambert--heck, even me if you feel so inclined, but throw in some condescension about my age, ego or intellect compared to yours, that works nicely--anyone who is warning of red flags.

At some point, if Obama wins, he's going to have to govern and he won't have the Hillary/McCain/Palin/Dominionist bogeyman to fend of criticisms. It seems like Biden is hinting at their possible governing strategy: Even if you think we're wrong, we need you to use your influence to convince people we are right. It's working so brilliantly now, why change?

This post is largely an attempted response in the form of a summation to the long comment thread Lambert"s "Roubini" post of yesterday continues to produce. I have used so many tags because this crisis is the sum total of all the Bush/Republican/Rightwing shit we've lived through for the past eight years, and the similar shit stretching back to Nixon and Reagan.

Across the liberal blogisphere a consensus has been building that what Paulson is asking for is unacceptable. How to frame why it is unacceptable has been the on-going question, and how to best bring some kind of pressure on the congressional Democrats, but also on Obama to show leadership, presidential leadership, right now, when it'sneeded, to keep both the tax payers and liberal progressive ideas from becoming implicated in yet another disaster not of their making.

"Peter" seemed to feel, in that comment thread, that Lambert and others were failing to understand that there is a real problem in the economy.

No one doubts that. In fact, all kinds of progressives have been insisting that no one was paying attention to the fundamental instability which the housing bubble was creating, appeals to sanity which were ignored. In fact, even after the initial bailouts, this administration and Paulson had done nothing to stave off the freezing up of liquidity which happened last week. I believe it took them by surprise. But I also agree with Lambert that their instinctive reaction is precisely the one that Naomi Klein has been pointing out - to use the crisis to continue to advance the same policies that created the crisis.

Bob Somerby

PALIN DOES IT AGAIN: As a politician, Sarah Palin is profoundly talented, disturbingly so. But uh-oh–she clearly enjoys telling lies! Last night, in her speech, she did it again! Why is she able to do this:

PALIN (9/3/08): We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that Bridge to Nowhere.

(APPLAUSE)

If our state wanted to build a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves.

(APPLAUSE)

Doesn't it seem pretty obvious the McCain folks have been caught cheating?

Of course, you know they didn't just listen on the way to the Saddleback Forum.

It seems to me that someone (probably Warren himself) gave them the questions a few days early. That would explain why he kept talking about the "cone of silence" because all of that was a fraud -- and he knew it.

That's the only thing that explains how they got the rehearsed answers out of Mathusaleh the other night.

They weren't that good anyway, just talking points -- but they were far better than they would've been otherwise.

nyceve at California Nurses has a video of McSame's appearance at the Lance Armstrong Cancer Center:

"Allow cooperation among states in the purchase of insurance". This is code speak for the infamous and despicable Enzi Bill, which the Republicans deceptively named the Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization and Affordability Act of 2005 and had it become law (God forbid), would have thrown even the most modest state health insurance consumer protection laws out the window.

In 2006, Mr. Bush and the U.S. House tried to pass legislation to allow associations to offer health coverage to their small-business members.

So we'll never get the racists/sexists to vote for this year's Dem. But dood, I missed this one. Cliff:

McCain's most recent exams show a range of health issues common in aging: He frequently has precancerous skin lesions removed, and in February had an early stage squamous cell carcinoma, an easily cured skin cancer, removed. He had benign colon growths called polyps taken out during a routine colonoscopy in March.

The SCLM buried that one, I'm sure. You can still do your part, tho. Seriously, being "weak" is a great sin to the minds of the rethug Base. McStain is tired, sick, and weak. Again. Remind your neighbors and friends today: he's not Fit to Lead, and it's time for some new, fresh blood to be in charge.

Update: pass these around today. heh.

Bush opened his mouth today before the Israeli Knesset, and said this little gem:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

The last post I wrote on this site took us through the backdoor sliders that Rove and Atwater plunked on Democrats in the Republicans’ last successful bids. At first, I was going to examine how some of the previous backdoor sliders were being used today(The Dean Scream morphing into The Hillary Cackle, for example), but recent events have pushed that one to the far burner.

While it looks like the Rezko situation, which I first believed was going to be the Backdoor Slider that makes Obama freeze at the plate for Strike Three, and would give McCain the White House at that point, I’ve come to realize that Rezko will be the frontal assault – or the High-Inside Fastball that Rove and company will throw at him. McCain, thanks to the   Read more…

Wow. Goeglein was fired from his job at the White House too. Oh, excuse me, he "resigned" but we all know what really happened, don't we?

I think it's been a rather bad day for him. As you'd expect, I wholeheartedly agree that plagiarism should have serious consequences. I just didn't realize that the Bush White House would actually levy them against someone serving in Bush's office.

Heck, Goeglein's already suffered as much in consequences at the White House as Scooter did -- for committing treason in the Plame case I might add.

That title is probably too clever by half, and I'm sure LB will yell at me for it, but he's busy elsewhere today so don't tell him, k? I submit this in full for those who've been too busy bashing Dems to notice the Republican frontrunner exploding in the room. It's been suggested to me that McCain running out of matching funds money practically guarantees Mittster as Veep, I'm not sure if I'm convinced but we'll see. Meanwhile, does the above play into the McCain/Iseman fun and games? Gotta love the Brit snark, "another pencil-thin blonde." Heh. Anyway, pass this one on to your Republican friends bitching about the "lying, librul JooYork Times." This is what blogs do best, and GOS is still a nice place to go for that. Remember, it's "what he did for her afterwards, not what he did to/under/with her in their as-yet undefined private time before."

Via Digby:

Delahunt: You said if an opinion was rendered, that would insulate him from any consequences.

[Mike Mukasey, Attorney General of the United States, before the House Judiciary Committee today]: We could not investigate or prosecute somebody for acting in reliance on a justice department opinion.

...

Delahunt: If that opinion was inaccurate and in fact violated a section of US Criminal Code, that reliance is in effect an immunity from any criminal culpability.

MM: Immunity connoted culpability. [Well, is anyone culpable? -scar]

...

Delahunt: I find that a new legal doctrine. The law is the law.

Illegal immigration is a problem for this country.

There, I've said it. But it's not quite the problem some make it out to be:

According to a New York Times article on April 5, 2005, "...the estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the system with a subsidy of as much as $7 billion a year....Moreover, the money paid by illegal immigrants and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections."

However, since illegal immigrant workers are here illegally, and ostensibly presented fake ID to the US employer, they will never collect Social Security benefits. "For illegal immigrants, Social Security numbers are simply a tool needed to work on this side of the border. Retirement does not enter the picture," reports the New York Times.

The Social Security Administration remains solvent in large part due to deductions taken from the paychecks of illegal immigrant workers, yet Social Security will never pay benefits to those workers. The workers pay in, but they never receive back.

Wouldn't the federal government detect fake Social Security numbers? According to that April 6, 2005 New York Times article, "Starting in the late 1980s, the social Security Administration received a flood of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect---sometimes simply fictitious---Social Security numbers. It stashed them in what it calls the 'earnings suspense file' in the hope that someday it would figure out whom they belonged to.

The file has been mushrooming ever since: $189 billion worth of wages ended up recorded in the suspense file over the 1990s, two and a half times the amount of the 1980s.

But that's not important right now. Look, a government run solely by business interests will never, ever, do anything to control immigration. Want proof of this, as well as proof of Republican hypocrisy? Here it is:

There was just the Bhutto verbal slip, that many thought was simply a misattribution, that may have precipitated the violence.

It's all we have to go on, but there are at least a couple of more kinks in the story, reported by no less than The New York Times and FOX itself in 2002.

President Bush pulled an odd executive maneuver when he claimed a "pocket veto" of H.R. 1585, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008."

He claimed a pocket veto, while technically Bush vetoed the bill under the Constitution. In the president's Memorandum of Disapproval, he gave one main reason: his objection to Section 1083 of the legislation.

Call me crazy (or just plain realistic), but I'm reluctant to take our dear president's word as to his actual motive(s) for such a strange method of vetoing the bill.

There just might be more to it.   Read more…

I'm not sure what Mormons drink (Joseph Juice?), but it's potent stuff.

Mitt watched his father, George, throw the winning pass to Martin Luther King, Jr., leading the New England Patriot Sox to a World Series win. Or something like that.

Facts are stupid things.