The best post on John Edwards' withdrawal that you will ever read

After plowing through page after page of tantrums on the Edwards blog and cultish bashing of heathens from true believers of all three of the until yesterday major Democratic candidates, I was going to write a post called "The Netroots: Why We Suck", citing such behavior as the reason our leaders don't give a flying fuck what we think.

I didn't, because the post I did last night came out instead.

But Jim Booth at Scholars and Rogues eviscerates with a very sharp knife the kind of bullshit identity politics at play in the Clinton/Obama race of a kind best evidenced by New York NOW's screeching that Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Barack Obama is somehow a betrayal of women:

What Edwards is really doing is paying the price for being a white guy at the time of historic (and mostly just) back lash against the “aristocracy of white guys” that has been the target of the concerted efforts of “liberals” who aren’t liberal at all. What these “liberals” (too often media pundits) are are ideologues who proclaim that someone would make a better (read “more media interest worthy”) Presidential candidate simply because that person is a) a woman or b) an African-American. Justice is one thing - ideology is another - this is ideology at its most reeking…. Yes, I hear your scornful retorts: “These are the times that try [white] men’s souls…” yadda, yadda….

I don’t say this to discredit Hillary or Obama, both of whom have real merit. I say this because the drive to push forward a woman or black candidate is (I fear) a media creation that allows the media then to control the narrative of the Democratic campaign - and the election. And the Democratic Party, which plays the sucker to every narrative the media creates for it, is playing the sucker again.

John Edwards has addressed overtly and directly real issues plaguing our country at this historical moment - the shift toward a class system that the “Repugnacans” have engineered - and their systematic removal of any realistic opportunity for those in the rapidly developing underclass to better themselves. Edwards, like me, Sam Smith, and many others across this country, has been able to work hard, gain success, and rise to a position of both (in a relative sense) wealth and power because of the past social and economic policies of the Democratic Party. I don’t begrudge him any of his success the way the entitled scions of the Right do - to do so would be to repudiate my own life. What I find most repellent in The Left’s rejection of JE is its own smug self-righteousness that it is doing so for the “correct” reasons.

Not so. The Left is rejecting Edwards because he reminds too many of us in the Left® of what WE came from - how we scrambled and worked and took advantage of opportunities made available by FDR, HST, JFK, and LBJ. It’s easier to glom onto the myth of Hillary as a deserving member of her gender or Obama as a deserving member of his race (despicably patronizing behavior masquerading as visionary open-mindedness) than to stand up and say “offering opportunities for people to better themselves has been and should always be a basic tenet of the Democratic Party.” That would mean supporting Edwards - who espouses these positions - and rejecting the more fashionable idea of supporting Hillary or Obama because they represent a “historic opportunity.”

[snip]

I’m reminded of the way Sam Smith and I have often laughingly scoffed that the only Marxists left are those wearing tweed in tony offices in universities. The closest they ever get to the “revolution” is the occasional Cuban cigar obtained from a Canadian friend. Those of us who’ve benefited from the Democratic Party’s social and economic policies that allowed us to get educations and move up the economic and social ladder are like tweedy Marxists. We’re interested in opportunity as an intellectual abstract.

Go read the whole thing here.

One of the funnier recurring characters on Morning Sedition was Tom Johnson's "Pendejo the Revolutionary" -- a hapless, rather sniveling guy who fancied himself to be some kind of neo-Che Guevara, coming up with organization names like Progressive Underground Destabilization League (PUDL) and Tactical Elite And Battle Action Group (TEABAG) and Battalion of Aggressive Liberal-Loving Seditionists (BALLS) and the People's Underground Threat Alliance (PUTA).

Jim is absolutely right: it may very well be that in trying so desperately to be "transformational", to be revolutionary like poor Pendejo, we may very well find ourselves under another four years of incompetent, crooked, wasteful, Republican rule while we sit petting our shih-tzu Stompers, who cannot be left alone, wondering what went wrong.

(h/t)

UPDATE: The aforementioned Sam Smith weighs in here.

This is what happens when you don't stand up to a bully

So what are Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi planning to do about this:

President Bush this week declared that he has the power to bypass four laws, including a prohibition against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq, that Congress passed as part of a new defense bill.

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Bush made the assertion in a signing statement that he issued late Monday after signing the National Defense Authorization Act for 2008. In the signing statement, Bush asserted that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them.

"Provisions of the act . . . purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the president's ability to carry out his constitutional obligations to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, to protect national security, to supervise the executive branch, and to execute his authority as commander in chief," Bush said. "The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President."

One section Bush targeted created a statute that forbids spending taxpayer money "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."

The Bush administration is negotiating a long-term agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The agreement is to include the basing of US troops in Iraq after 2008, as well as security guarantees and other economic and political ties between the United States and Iraq.

The negotiations have drawn fire in part because the administration has said it does not intend to designate the compact as a "treaty," and so will not submit it to Congress for approval. Critics are also concerned Bush might lock the United States into a deal that would make it difficult for the next president to withdraw US troops from Iraq.

"Every time a senior administration official is asked about permanent US military bases in Iraq, they contend that it is not their intention to construct such facilities," said Senator Robert P. Casey Jr., Democrat of Pennsylvania, in a Senate speech yesterday. "Yet this signing statement issued by the president yesterday is the clearest signal yet that the administration wants to hold this option in reserve."

Several other congressional Democrats also took issue with the signing statement.

So are they going to just talk, or are they going to do something to rein in this guy before he hogties the next president before s/he even takes office?

Congratulations to South Carolina on a job well done

...for the Republicans. By knocking John Edwards out of the race, you've very likely handed the presidency to John McCain:



(poll results via Real Clear Politics)

And good job by ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, CNN, and most of MSNBC, too. A very nice coordination of effort.

MSNBC is doing a great job of showing how nimble it can be at doing General Electric's bidding. Last night, Dan Abrams performed a neat trick by painting himself as outside of the "D.C. Media" and doing his part to try to reinforce the "Hillary is Inevitable" meme:

Impressive, Dan. You've done your part for GE. Give yourself a raise.

Meanwhile, within five minutes of tuning into Morning Joe this morning, Chuck Todd was on the phone with Scarborough trashing Barack Obama.

The media establishment and their corporate masters have always wanted a matchup between Hillary Clinton and John McCain. This is the matchup they want because while they want John McCain to be president, if the plan goes wrong, at least they can do business with Hillary Clinton. If you don't believe that the media have a strong role in the framing of candidates and the manipulation of voters' views of them, I have four words for you: "John Kerry Is Electable."

Inflammatory headline much?

I didn't know the New York Times had been bought by Rupert Murdoch. Actual headline from today's online edition:



The story is about a pharmaceutical company in China that exports to many countries, including the U.S., that is at the center of a scandal involving tainted drugs after 200 leukemia patients had serious adverse events from use of one of the company's cancer drugs:

Chinese drug regulators have accused the manufacturer of the tainted drugs of a cover-up and have closed the factory that produced them. In December, China’s Food and Drug Administration said that the Shanghai police had begun a criminal investigation and that two officials, including the head of the plant, had been detained.

The drug maker, Shanghai Hualian, is the sole supplier to the United States of the abortion pill, mifepristone, known as RU-486. It is made at a factory different from the one that produced the tainted cancer drugs, about an hour’s drive away.

The United States Food and Drug Administration declined to answer questions about Shanghai Hualian, because of security concerns stemming from the sometimes violent opposition to abortion. But in a statement, the agency said the RU-486 plant had passed an F.D.A. inspection in May. “F.D.A. is not aware of any evidence to suggest the issue that occurred at the leukemia drug facility is linked in any way with the facility that manufactures the mifepristone,” the statement said.

When told of Shanghai Hualian’s troubles, Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, a leading consumer advocate and frequent F.D.A. critic, said American regulators ought to be concerned because of accusations that serious health risks had been covered up there. “Every one of these plants should be immediately inspected,” he said.

The director of the Chinese F.D.A.’s drug safety control unit in Shanghai, Zhou Qun, said her agency had inspected the factory that produced mifepristone three times in recent months and found it in compliance. “It is natural to worry,” Ms. Zhou said, “but these two plants are in two different places and have different quality-assurance people.”

The investigation of the contaminated cancer drugs comes as China is trying to restore confidence in its tattered regulatory system. In the last two years, scores of people around the world have died after ingesting contaminated drugs and drug ingredients produced in China. Last year, China executed its top drug safety official for accepting bribes to approve drugs.

Shanghai Hualian is a division of one of China’s largest pharmaceutical companies, the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group, which owns dozens of factories. Neither Shanghai Hualian nor its parent company would comment on the tainted medicine.

Last week, The New York Times asked the F.D.A. whether the Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group exported to the United States any drugs or pharmaceutical ingredients other than the abortion pill. But after repeated requests, the agency declined to provide that information; it did not cite a reason.

On at least two occasions in 2002, Shanghai Hualian had shipments of drugs stopped at the United States border, F.D.A. records show. One shipment was an unapproved antibiotic and the other a diuretic that had “false or misleading labeling.” Records also show that another unit of Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group has filed papers declaring its intention to sell at least five active pharmaceutical ingredients to manufacturers for sale in the United States.

One major pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, declined to buy drug ingredients from Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group because of quality-related issues, said Christopher Loder, a Pfizer spokesman. In 2006, Pfizer agreed to evaluate Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group’s “capabilities” as an ingredient supplier, but so far the company “has not met the standards required by Pfizer,” Mr. Loder said in a statement.

Because of opposition from the anti-abortion movement, the F.D.A. has never publicly identified the maker of the abortion pill for the American market. The pill was first manufactured in France, and since its approval by the F.D.A. in 2000 it has been distributed in the United States by Danco Laboratories. Danco, which does not list a street address on its Web site, did not return two telephone calls seeking comment.

The headline implies that the story is primarily about the inherent danger of "the abortion pill" (RU-486). But if you actually read the article, it's actually about lax import standards, lax FDA oversight, and how the fetophile movement's influence in government has created an environment in which importation of RU-486 was the only way to get it here.

By running a story with an inflaamatory and inaccurate headline, the Times has allowed the RU-486 aspect of the story to overshadow the larger picture, which is that as the pharmaceutical industry outsources more of its manufacturing overseas, and Republican-dominated government insists that any regulation of industry is a bad thing, what we end up with is tainted drugs. The factory that produces RU-486 isn't even the same one that manufactured the tainted cancer drugs, though the quality control at one plant certainly calls the trustworthiness of all of them into question. But since the Times earns a fair amount of advertising revenue from pharmaceutical companies, it's much easier to tar the story by identifying it solely with a controversial drug than to examine the dangers posed to a society that pops pills for everything by an industry that outsources its manufacturing process to questionable players.

Again. Again and again and again.

I heard this morning about John Edwards' withdrawal from the presidential nomination race while in the car on the way to work, which is why I haven't written on it yet. Well, that and the fact that every time I think about it I get all blubbery and want to wait until I don't sound like one of the overgrown babies posting over at the Edwards blog who are planning to throw a tantrum, scream a lot, then hold their breath till their faces turn blue.

It isn't that I didn't know it was coming; I just didn't want it to happen this soon; didn't want to have to face the choice of voting for the woman who is unrepentant about voting for the war in Iraq and equally unrepentant about giving George W. Bush a free pass to go to war with Iran via Kyl/Lieberman; and a man who's a great orator or speeches that may be written for him, but who phumphers when put on the spot, a certainly transformational candidate who just seems a bit too idealistic to be able to survive once the wingnut hate machine really gets ratcheted up.

Just once in my life, I'd like to be able to cast an enthusiastic vote in a general election. Time after time after time, I've seen the candidates I've supported in the primary races -- smart, capable candidates who see further than next week and think about things other than amassing power -- fall by the wayside because the party hacks will do whatever is necessary -- even lose -- to retain their control over the process. Whether it was Gary Hart in 1984, or Paul Tsongas in 1992, or Howard Dean in 2004, or John Edwards this year, these capable candidates are always shoved out of the way by those who toe the party line, who wait their turn, and dare I say it -- know their place.

When you look at some of the Democratic nominees over the last few decades -- Walter Mondale...Michael Dukakis....John Kerry...you wonder if the Democrats even want to win. It took a dirty skunk like Bill Clinton to finally beat the Republicans at their own game -- and even then he had to fight them (and much of his own party) for eight years just to stay in office. Then in 2000 we watched as Al Gore refused to demand a statewide recount in Florida, and in 2004 we watched as John Kerry joined up with Dick Gephardt to tag-team Howard Dean in Iowa, only to see Kerry take his $14 million in leftover campaign cash and go home before the Ohio vote count was even finalized.

After the tag-teaming of Howard Dean in 2004, I was so depressed and so disgusted and disillusioned with the system that it was all I could do to get out of bed and go to work the next day. I promised myself I would never, ever put myself through that again. It isn't as though I'm not used to disappointment; I am, after all, a Mets fan (though please don't get me started on this Santana trade; does the name "Bret Saberhagen" mean anything to these people?). And yes, there was this disconnect between John Edwards' voting record and the progressive populist agenda he ran on this year.

But while Hillary and Bill Clinton are embodying everything people hate about the baby boomers, with their "Me, me, me" campaign, and Barack Obama has seemed to either not get or refuse to acknowledge the ugliness that has permeated politics, while at the same time seeming to lack the toughness he'll need to get anything accomplished, I felt that a guy who'd made millions of dollars fighting big corporations on behalf of families like the Lakeys was worth supporting. Supporting Hillary Clinton was out of the question because of her hawkishness and her insistence at Yearly Kos last summer that corporate lobbyists are people too, and Obama's tendency to want to reach across the aisle seemed more like dipping his hand into a swamp full of crocodiles.

This isn't the first time the media have set the agenda and selected the candidates for us. It was the media who decided that a dry drunk like George W. Bush should be president because he was a guy you'd want to drink beer with (despite the fact that he's by all accounts a pretty mean drunk). It was the media who turned down the crowd noise at Howard Dean's post-Iowa rally in 2004 so that he sounded like a raving madman. Diane Sawyer later 'fessed up on Good Morning America, but who saw it? And the damage was done. Then it was the media who decided that the allegations of the Swift Boat Liars for Bullshit, allegations they pulled out of their asses, deserved equal time to, say, the truth. It was the media who decided that John Kerry "looked French". Kerry didn't do himself any favors by being the least telegenic candidate in recorded history, but the media aided and abetted in the smear campaign against him. And this year, the media painted John Edwards as a lightweight and a hypocrite, focusing on his haircuts and the size of his house, because he represented a threat to the power of their corporate masters, and because the Black Guy and the Woman made a far more interesting story than just another Southern white guy.

And now that he is gone from the race, after (according to Jonathan Alter on Countdown tonight) becoming frustrated with the fact that even winning EVERY SINGLE DEBATE wasn't enough to garner any attention. And of course in leaving, he finally gets the attention from the media. As if feeling contrition, the nightly news reports spoke of Edwards' departure in hushed tones of admiration, as if it were Mother Theresa herself who had just left the presidential race. Now that he is gone, they've decided maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

But if you're thinking that the talking heads of the media have learned anything, guess again. For Tweety is tweeting his "John McCain is a maverick" meme and insisting that some of John Edwards' voters may go over to McCain, despite the fact that John McCain has done nothing but suck up to George W. Bush for the last seven years. Assuming that McCain continues to prevail, the corporate media will get their candidate on the Republican side. And if the Republican race is over before the Democratic one, Barack Obama had better be prepared. Because these people who are the public face of Viacom and General Electric and Disney Corp. and News Corp. want Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain, and as John Edwards knows full well, they will tear down anyone who gets in the way of the candidates most likely to do their bidding.

And so the nation is a more dismal place tonight. James Lowe goes back to West Virginia, where no one who doesn't already know about him will know that he was unable to speak for 50 years because he had no health insurance until a doctor agreed to waive the fee to repair his cleft palate. The Sarkisyan family will go back to California to mourn their daughter, knowing that the most ardent advocate for universal health care is no longer running for president. The many people who worked tirelessly to fight back the tide that has run against John Edwards will also go home. The offices will be shuttered, the stickers removed from the windows.

And out here in the Super Tuesday states, the Edwards bumper stickers will go into the box with the Howard Dean buttons and the Gary Hart '84 buttons -- relics of days when we were able to delude ourselves for a little while that the game wasn't entirely rigged. And we will decide where we go from here. We'll choose, and we'll go through the drill of voting, knowing full well that it ultimately doesn't mean jack shit; that the corporations always win.

A few months ago, Marc Maron did an amazing rant while subbing for Randi Rhodes that I posted about a month ago about how America manufactures nothing but need and appetite; that instead of "Land of the Free", our motto should be "America: All You Can Eat." But I think he's mistaken. For America's motto is really "America: Show Me The Money."

Ajisen Ramen, Haymarket Chinatown

Spicy soft shell crab $6.90or included with Ajisen ramen setIt's amazing, sometimes, how fast Chinatown can change from one moment to the next. I had been meaning to visit Taklimakan Uyghur restaurant for some time, when just before Christmas it closed*, and then within weeks the site had been totally made over into a new Sydney outlet of the international ramen chain Ajisen.Founded in Kumamoto,

Stephen Colbert's Children

For the last 4,567 years, the radio program Woody's Children, hosted by Robert Sherman, has been a fixture on New York Radio, first on the classical station WQXR, and now on Fordham University's WFUV. In the spirit of the show's notion that those who are inspired by pioneers are their "children", I bring you (via the fabulous Kate) the first web site that can truly be featured as one of "Stephen Colbert's children". Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you The Health Institute of Nutrition. Go, read, and laugh. Then grab a snack.

Maureen Dowd: La Marquise de Merteuil

In Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the Marquise de Merteuil and Vicomte de Valmont amuse herself by using sex to humiliate the people around them. Sex is the weapon, but the amusement is in the pair's ability to manipulate people into participating in their own self-destruction.

While reading MoDo this morning, Glenn Close in full 18th century regalia was the image that crept into my head. MoDo may not be directly manipulating the Obama/Clinton race, but the viciousness with which she approaches both candidates seems to come from a similarly demented place.

Today it's Barack Obama's turn, as MoDo decides to perpetuate the meme of The Snub:

It’s already famous as The Snub, the moment before the State of the Union when Obama turned away to talk to Claire McCaskill instead of trying to join Teddy Kennedy in shaking hands with Hillary.

Nobody cared about W., whose presidency had crumpled into a belated concern about earmarks.

The only union that fascinated was Obama and Hillary, once more creeping around each other.

It would have been the natural thing for the Illinois senator, only hours after his emotional embrace by the Kennedys and an arena full of deliriously shrieking students, to follow the lead of Uncle Teddy and greet the rebuffed Hillary.

She was impossible to miss in the sea of dark suits and Supreme Court dark robes. Like Scarlett O’Hara after a public humiliation, Hillary showed up at the gathering wearing a defiant shade of red.

But the fact that he didn’t do so shows that Obama cannot hide how much the Clintons rattle him, and that he is still taking the race very personally.

On a flight to Kansas yesterday to collect another big endorsement, this one from Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama said he was “surprised” by reports of The Snub.

“I was turning away because Claire asked me a question as Senator Kennedy was reaching forward,” he said. “Senator Clinton and I have had very cordial relations off the floor and on the floor. I waved at her as I was coming into the Senate chamber before we walked over last night. I think there is just a lot more tea leaf reading going on here than I think people are suggesting.”

But that answer is disingenuous. Their relations have been frosty and fraught ever since the young Chicago prince challenged Queen Hillary’s royal proclamation that it was her turn to rule.

Last winter, after news broke that he was thinking of running, he winked at her and took her elbow on the Senate floor to say hi, in his customary languid, friendly way, and she coldly brushed him off.

It bothered him, and he called a friend to say: You would not believe what just happened with Hillary.

Again and again at debates, he looked eager to greet her or be friendly during the evening and she iced him. She might have frozen him out once more Monday night had he actually tried to reach out.

But now Obama is like that cat Mark Twain wrote about who wouldn’t jump on the stove again for fear of being burned.

It was only after the distortions of the Clintons in South Carolina that he changed his tone and took on Hillary in a tough way in the debate there. Afterward, one of his advisers said that it was as though a dam had broken and Obama finally began using all the sharp lines against Hillary that strategists had been suggesting for months.

Why had it taken so long for Obama to push back against Hillary? “He respected her as a senator,” the adviser replied. “He even defended her privately when she cried, saying that no one knows how hard these campaigns are.”

But Obama’s outrage makes him seem a little jejune. He is surely the only person in the country who was surprised when the Clintons teamed up to dissemble and smear when confronted with an impediment to their ambitions.

Knowing that it helped her when Obama seemed to be surly with her during the New Hampshire debate, telling her without looking up from his notes that she was “likable enough” — another instance of Obama not being able to hide his bruised feelings — Hillary went on ABC News last night to insinuate that he was rude Monday.

“Well, I reached my hand out in friendship and unity and my hand is still reaching out,” she said, lapsing back into the dissed-woman mode. “And I look forward to shaking his hand sometime soon.”

Something’s being stretched here, but it’s not her hand. She wasn’t reaching out to him at all.

The New York State chapter of NOW issued an absurd statement on Monday calling Teddy Kennedy’s endorsement of Obama “the ultimate betrayal”: “He’s picked the new guy over us.”

But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate, and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style, and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war.

As first lady, Alpha Hillary’s abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it. She voted to enable W. on Iraq so she could run as someone tough enough to command armies.

Given her brazen quote to ABC News, Obama is right to be scared of Hillary. He just needs to learn that Uncle Teddy can’t fight all his fights, and that a little chivalry goes a long way.

Dowd's depiction of Hillary Clinton as the frigid bitch is nothing new; she's been doing it for fifteen years now. But note her feminization of Barack Obama. That's the kind of thing that's the kiss of death to some of the centrist voters Obama's supposedly trying to engate.

A photograph is a millisecond frozen in time, and it's easy to read something that may or may not be there. Both Barack Obama and Claire McCaskill attest that McCaskill had asked Obama a question and that's why he turned around. But even if that weren't the case, is this really a big enough deal to beat it to death?

And now a word from our zen master

Drifty. Just Go Read.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Rudy

Well, it looks like Judi Nathan's dreams of being America's Queen have been dashed on the shoals of Dade County. No longer will we have her zombie, plasticene, Botoxed-to-within-an-inch-of-her-life rictus of an adoring smile to make shivers of revulsion run down our collective spine. "Little Louis", her affectionate name for her Louis Vuitton handbag, won't be residing in the White House after all. (/meow)

And Rudy Giuliani's dreams of huge armies goosestepping through the streets at his command as they head off to endless, expansive war in the Middle East, of long prison sentences for potsmokers and jaywalkers and murderers alike, similarly must be put away, perhaps to be resurrected later, but for now -- simply a dream deferred.

And the rest of us can heave a deep sigh of relief.

For now.

Because the Republican nominee who will treat us to either an entire summer and fall of strolling down Whitewater Vince Foster Rose Law Firm Monice Lewinsky Lane, or a summer of turning Barack Obama into either a cousin of Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden's mole here in the U.S. will be either the craven Bush whore John McCain or the even more craven panderer Willard Mitt Romney.

And one of them could still pick Rudy as a running mate.

So what went wrong? Is the age of fearmongering past? Was it his personal life? Last night on MSNBC, the horror that is Pat Buchanan was offset by the treat of a rare appearance by Bob Herbert and of course the insights of Rachel Maddow. Herbert is dead-on here, that Giuliani is at heart a cop -- and it actually says something redeeming about Republican voters that this ultimate punitive daddy figure was so soundly repudiated:

However, the redemption stops there. For as noted at ThinkProgress (with more video), John McCain's vision for America is "less jobs and more wars."

So what went wrong for Rudy? Why is it that his attempts to reframe himself as a conservative were such a spectacular failure whereas Mitt Romney's same game has him still in the race? Is it simply a matter of Romney being better-looking? Was it the Vanity Fair article about his sleazy business dealings that include representing Middle Eastern dictatorships that have harbored the very terrorists he decried at every turn? Or the article in the New York Times revealing the police memo that unequivocally urged the then-mayor to NOT locate his command center in the World Trade Center? Did the revelation of his use of city vehicles to chauffeur his then-goumah around turn off socially conservative voters, and was the "Eww!" factor triggered by Judi's gushing about her hot, manly husband a symptom of just too much information? Did Joe Biden distill that nagging something that people didn't like about Rudy but couldn't put their finger on when he famously and accurately said in a debate that every sentence out of his mouth is a noun, a verb, and 9/11? Or is it just that he's an openly authoritarian prick, and Republicans prefer their authoritarian pricks to have a stupid grin and a towel-snapping frat boy demeanor?

If there were no other reasons to wish Steve Gilliard was still here, the spectacular fall of Rudy Giuliani would be enough reason all by itself. But since he's not, let's let one of his torch-carriers, the great Lower Manhattanite, answer the question:

Take the worst elements of Captain Queeg, Nellie Oleson, Stinky from Abbott & Costello, and an STD'd scorpion, bundle it into a man and put said man in charge of a complex, challenging city and you'll get what Rudy Giuliani was really all about. Tourists and outsiders didn't get him. They didn't have to live with him. They got the cathode-ray Bing Crosby of the pipe, red alpaca sweater and the Christmas specials. We lived with the drunken Bing swinging the extension cord and windmilling signet-ringed fists as he prowled the house looking for someone to fuck up.

Time won out, though, and it managed to utterly expose him. Quite honestly, Rudy was nearly as lazy and disinterested a candidate as Fred Thompson was—both of them lazy honoraria-grabbers swearing somebody owed 'em something because they thought they were somebody . And in the end, they can now go meet at Tree's Loser Lounge and swap notes on star-fucking and prosecutorial malfeasance.

Me? I'm gonna sit here with the icy blonde tonight, and get around town a bit later in the week. I'm sure I'll see a bunch of her doppelgangers out and about with my fellow revelers in town. But for now, the mind wanders.

What's Ol' Judith gonna do now? Cialis and dough is fine, but mama wanted more. Access to power was the drug. What new doll will she start crawling after in the “Valley of Delusions”?

The Aqua Velva's gone—along with the leathery, old-man skin. And now, so too is the “tough cop”—his precious Sipowicz. It's down to McCain for Tweety to toss the lettuce, tomatoes and ranch dressing for. Ick. I just threw up in my mouth. Not a little. A lot.

And the irony isn't lost on me that Rudy's final come-down is tomorrow in California—of all places, Simi Valley. Home of the Reagan Library, and home of the springboard for the police-brutality-fueled L.A. riots. Rudy should be right at fucking home.

Full circle. Bullshit's end. And please let the door hitcha' on the way out—and may there be a patch of ice right in front of the Goddamned door.

(And while you're at it, don't miss installment one of his series The NY/DC Power Play on the Giuliani/Kerik/Judith Regan Axis of Evil.)

Whatever the reason, today we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief that Republican voters in Florida -- especially the transplanted snowbirds -- saw how cynical the relentless repetition of 9/11 was, and how terrifying the Foreign Policy of Norman Podhoretz was and said "No!". We can be thankful that Jewish voters in Florida are not the blind, crazy Zionists that Rudy thought they were and didn't think turning the entire Middle East into a sheet of glass was a swell idea. Today we owe a debt of gratitiude to the state of Florida.

But don't get too cocky, there, guys. Don't forget, your state is still, and forever will be, the scene of the original crime of November 2000.

Bush Says Faith Helped Him Beat Drinking, Iraq

Baltimore --- President George W. Bush is never one much for introspection. Yet, as his second term winds down, the President has been unusually open about his personal experiences and impressions in the last two days. Today, at the Jericho Program, the president admitted that faith played a significant role that enabled him to beat drinking and Saddam Hussein.

"My Christian Methodist faith enabled me to stop seeking answers at the bottom of a bottle. So instead of being addicted to alcohol, the Lord addicted me to changing the world and the Middle East, starting with Iraq."

The President, speaking only to one reporter and two pre-screened participants in the Jericho outreach program, elaborated with a wicked grin.

"There was this one time in New Orleans, heh heh, I may have mentioned this at the airport right after Hurricane Katrina..." the chief executive started before White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten dragged his index finger across his neck.

"Oh, right. Anyways, first is to recognize that there is a higher power," Bush said. "It helped me in my life. It helped me quit drinking."

"That's right, there is a higher power," one of the outreach men said.

"Step One, right?" Bush said, referring to the Alcoholics Anonymous twelve-steps program.

"Actually, it's Step Two, Mr. President", said the man just before he was hustled out of the building by seven Secret Service agents.

"Well, it's the first step, now, 'cuz it's the most important one. There's a step where you gotta apologize to everyone for making a dick of yourself but I was never too good at that, heh heh..."

A taste of what politics used to be....

...before Lee Atwater came on the scene and turned presidential races into a contest as to just how dead the corpse of the opposition would be after you finished with him; and his spawn Karl Rove turned a brain-damaged idiot into a president.

There used to be Republicans and Democrats who may have disagreed about the best way to get there, but whose goals weren't really all that dissimilar. Yes, there were always the kind of right-wing elitists who seemed to think the Gilded Age was the optimal American society and that the existence of a middle class had caused the Haves nothing but trouble. But at one time, legislation could be hammered out in a way other than one side capitulating to the other.

As Bob Herbert reports today, Sens. Chuck Hagel and Chris Dodd are working on legislation that would form a kind of WPA for rebuilding this country's crumbling infrastructure:

The country could do itself a favor by paying more attention to the efforts of Senator Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat who is chairman of the Banking Committee, and Senator Hagel, a Nebraska Republican. They have co-sponsored legislation that would create a national infrastructure bank to promote and help finance large-scale projects across the nation.

Part of their mission is to generate a sense of urgency. In an interview yesterday, Senator Dodd told me: “At a time when we’re worried about rising unemployment rates and declining confidence in this country, infrastructure projects have the dual effect of putting people to work — and usually at pretty good salaries and wages — while also creating a sense of optimism, of investing in the future.”

The country has been hit hard by lost jobs in manufacturing and construction. As government and political leaders are scrambling for ways to stimulate the economy in the current downturn, infrastructure improvements would seem to be a natural component of any effective recovery plan.

“In terms of stimulating the economy, there is nothing better than a job,” said Senator Dodd.

The need for investment on a large scale — and for the long term — is undeniable. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, in a study that should have gotten much more attention when it was released in 2005, it would take more than a trillion and a half dollars over a five-year period to bring the U.S. infrastructure into reasonably decent shape.

Will we wait until another New Orleans-style disaster occurs, or another heavily traveled bridge plunges into a river?

As things stand now, the American infrastructure is incapable of meeting the competitive demands of the globalized 21st-century economy. Senator Hagel noted that ports are overwhelmed by the ever-expanding volume of international trade. Rail lines are overloaded. Highways are clogged.

“The basic infrastructure of a country will determine that country’s future,” he said, “and we are far behind.”

We appear to have forgotten the lessons of history. Time and again an economic boom has followed periods of sustained infrastructure improvement. It’s impossible to calculate all of the benefits from (to mention just a few) the Erie Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and helped make New York America’s premier city; the rural electrification program and other capital improvements of the New Deal; the interstate highway program of the Eisenhower administration.

The tremendous costs and vast reach of today’s infrastructure requirements means that the federal government has to take a leadership role. It’s inevitable. The only question is when.

The financier Felix Rohatyn, who served as ambassador to France during the Clinton administration, and former Senator Warren Rudman, a Republican, have been sounding the alarm for a number of years now, urging the government to get over its unwillingness to invest adequately in public transportation systems, water projects, schools, dams, the electric grid, and so on.

I remember Mr. Rohatyn telling me, “A modern economy needs a modern platform, and that’s the infrastructure.”

The current concern over the economy should be taken by the government as a signal to finally move ahead on this critically important issue.

Last night in his State of the Union address, George Bush mentioned his record on job creation, never once acknowledging that the number of jobs created during his years in office has never been sufficient to offset new entrants into the workforce, let alone those who have been put out of work by offshoring and corporate mismanagement. What Dodd and Hagel offer is a real opportunity to create jobs for the displaced and at least stop our crumbling infrastructure from turning us into the next superpower to crumble into irrelevance.

French Riviera, Sydney

Okay, so let's pretend. Let's pretend that we haven't just eaten dinner, and we did in fact walk further than half-a-dozen steps to dessert. Let's pretend that there are more than five of us about to attack a sundae containing more than 24 scoops of ice cream. Let's pretend this concoction isn't covered in chocolate sauce, nuts and generous splodges of cream in a can. Let's... ok, ok, I give up.

A temporary stay of execution for the Fourth Amendment

You have to go a long way to piss off Harry Reid, if you're a Republican. Reid is hardly a guy to go to the mat on anything for principle, as progressives know, since we've watched him and his counterparts in the House cave to the Bush Administration time and time again. But yesterday Reid finally did the right thing, pulling a squeaker of a majority against a member of his own party's attempt to do the contributors' bidding. Yesterday, prevailing against the Republicans' attempt to vote immediately on revising FISA to permit warrantless wiretapping by the government, using the telecommunications companies:

The 48 to 45 vote put Democrats in the odd position of opposing a vote on a bill supported by Democratic leaders and authored by fellow Democrat-Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Va., chairman of the intelligence panel.

Rockefeller and most Democrats said they opposed the Republican motion because it would have prevented a full airing of Democratic amendments to the controversial bill.

“The FISA legislation before the Senate has been taken hostage,” said Rockefeller in a floor speech urging Democrats to vote against ending debate and bringing his bill up for a vote. “In a transparent attempt to score political points off of national security issues, the White House has decided once again that scaring the American people with unfounded and manipulative claims is in order.”

A temporary measure providing expanded wiretapping authority approved last August is scheduled to expire on Friday. The Senate voted 48 to 45 to reject an effort to extend that measure.

The bill, co-authored by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., cleared the Senate panel last fall by a wide, 13-2 vote. It would update the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which forces law enforcement agencies to obtain a court warrant before eavesdropping on suspected terrorists and spies.

The next step is uncertain. Civil liberties groups, which lobbied hard to prevent the bill come to the floor, said one option is to do nothing and force the administration to revert back to the original 1978 law.

The proposed law is controversial because it essentially makes permanent President Bush’s program that secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and e-mails of suspected terrorists without a court warrant as required under the law.

The bill also contains a provision, sought by the White House, that would give telephone companies legal protection from dozens of lawsuits now pending against the telcom industry for participating in the president’s terrorist surveillance program without a court warrant.

Republicans, just hours before President Bush was to address the nation in his annual State of the Union speech, portrayed Democrats as being weak on terrorists for failing to end debate and vote on the Rockefeller-Bond measure.

Prior to congressional action in August, the nation’s intelligence agencies were unable to collect vital foreign intelligence without the prior approval of a court, said Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, speaking on the floor.

“This will be the case again if we do not make permanent these changes,” Chambliss said. “Our intelligence community told us that without updating FISA, they were not just handicapped, but that they were hamstrung.”

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, urged Democrats to vote with Republicans to end debate and vote on the intelligence committee bill. It is time to support a bipartisan bill, Cornyn said, and give the intelligence community the tools they need to thwart future terrorist attacks.

The Republicans' claims are, of course, crap. The existing FISA legislation does allow a "tap first, get a warrant later" approach. It in no way hogties intelligence agencies from conducting wiretaps where there is a reason to do so. What it does do is prevent telecommunications companies from conducting the kind of mass data mining of all communications of all Americans that flagrantly violate the Constitution. And despite what Republicans claim, all this vote yesterday does is allow time for a thorough vetting of the proposed updates.

Glenn Greenwald has been all over this from the beginning, and wrote yesterday:

It now seems highly likely (though not certain) that the Democratic filibuster to prevent a vote on the Senate Intelligence Committee bill will succeed. This afternoon on the Senate floor, GOP Sen. Arlen Specter even indicated that he would support the filibuster, making it extremely unlikely that Senate Republicans will be able to get 60 votes to cut off further debate and proceed to a vote.

That means that the Senate will then proceed to debate and vote on all of the pending proposed amendments to the Senate Intelligence Committee bill (including one from Dodd and Feingold to strip telecom immunity out of it, one from Feinstein to transfer the telecom cases to the FISA court and let that court decide whether there should be immunity, one from Feinstein re-iterating that FISA is the "exclusive means" for legal eavesdropping, and one from Specter/Whitehouse to allow the telecom lawsuits to continue but to substitute the Government for the telecoms as defendants).

But the most interesting question at the moment is whether the Senate, once it blocks a final vote on the bill, will be able to pass a 30-day extension of the Protect America Act. The House is scheduled tomorrow to vote on the extension, but either way, the President has vowed to veto it.

If there is no 30-day extension, then it is difficult to see how this is going to play out. The deadline for expiration of the PAA is this Friday. If the House and Senate do not pass identical bills by that date -- and, provided the Senate sustains its filibuster this afternoon, it seems impossible that they will -- then that means (in light of Bush's refusal to accept a 30-day extension) that the PAA is almost certain to expire on Friday without any new bill being in place. Given Bush's endless insistence that the PAA is necessary to save us all from The Terrorists, it is -- as I explained this morning -- one of his most brazen acts ever that he will simply allow the PAA to expire. How can expiration of this "Critical Intelligence Tool" possibly be preferable to a 30-day extension?

The only conceivable way that this could all work out for the White House is for there to be a repeat of what occurred back in August, when the pro-warrantless-eavesdropping Protect America Act was foisted on our country: namely, the Senate hastily passes at the last minute a terrible bill demanded by the White House right before the deadline, and then forces the House to choose between (a) passing the terrible Senate bill or (b) allowing the deadline to pass with no bill at all. But given the rather strong opposition in the House to telecom immunity and vesting vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President, it's hard to imagine the House capitulating to the Senate again in that way.

This afternoon, I asked a well-placed and knowledgeable source in the House about what would likely happen if the Senate passed a bad bill tomorrow or Wednesday and left the House with very little time either to do the same or let the PAA expire. This is the reply:

As to how it plays out, I'm sure that you saw the editorial in the New York Times yesterday that suggested we pass a 30-day extension and leave town, much like Senate did to us in August with S. 1927 (the PAA).

We're not in session this week after tomorrow afternoon. House vote on HR 5104 [to extend the PAA by 30 days] is contemplated tomorrow.

If the bill fails over here [because] of Republican opposition, or in the Senate, or in the President's veto pen, then any "going dark" would be on their hands.

That's the right way to think about it and one hopes the House will do that. Moreover, since the House isn't in session until after tomorrow, it seems impossible that there will be a bill ready for the President's signature before Friday -- which means Bush will have to choose between retreating from his veto vow on the 30-day extension or leaving us all vulnerable to being Slaughtered by the Terrorists and unable to listen in when Osama Calls.

I've long suspected that the purpose of the wiretap program was as much to gather dirt on the Adminstration's supposed opponents as to prevent terrorism, and among those opponents are people like Harry Reid and other Democrats who would attempt to put the brakes on the Bushista march towards totalitarianism. But at least for one day, enough Democrats were able to break free of their fear of, or thrall to, the sniveling little man behind the curtain of Bush the Great and Powerful, and do the right thing for the country.

SOTU Chat

State of the Union chat is being hosted this year by P.J. Sauter over at Morning Seditionists. So clicky-clicky and join us over there! The chat is going on now (7 PM) and will go till whenever.

THIS is why John Edwards needs to stay in the campaign

Jane Hamsher reports that the Clinton and Obama campaigns has said that both candidates will return to Washington to vote "no" on cloture on the Intel version of the FISA bill.

Does anyone honestly believe that without the netroots, and without John Edwards tugging on the leftmost end of that ideological cord, either of them would have been willing to take a stand on this, and leave themselves open to Republican attacks on their "seriousness about fighting terrorists"?

I don't. And get used to it, folks. Because regardless of which of the two of them gets this nomination, we will have to keep the pressure on at all times, because we are dealing with two candiates who don't exactly have stellar histories of being willing to take a strong stand against the worst excesses of Republicans and their enablers.

This is how clueless America's corporate chiefs are

Countrywide Financial outgoing CEO Angelo Mozilio thinks that by stuffing his pockets with only $24 million, he can make the perception of him as a corporate scumbag go away:

Angelo Mozilo, head of Countrywide Financial, has bowed to pressure and will give up his controversial $37.5m (£18.9m) severance package from the ailing US sub-prime mortgage lender.

Mozilo, one of America's most highly paid executives, had been due to collect the pay-off following Countrywide's $4bn takeover by Bank of America.

The takeover has not yet been completed, however, and there have been reports that the continuing turmoil in the US housing market could derail the deal.

"I believe this decision is the right thing to do as Countrywide works toward the successful completion of the merger with Bank of America," Mozilo said in a statement.

He is also giving up the $400,000 a year he was due to be paid as a consultant to the company after his retirement, together with benefits including the use of a private jet.

The Countrywide chairman and chief executive has come under fire from politicians, with presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently describing the payoff as "outrageous" and accusing 69-year-old Mozillo of being "one of the principal architects of this whole house of cards".

When the pay-off was first revealed earlier this month, Bank of America chief executive Ken Lewis said the package would enable Mozilo to go away and "have some fun".

He should still be able to do that, however - Mozilo retains a pension and retirement package worth around $24m and still has a sizeable shareholding in the company he co-founded in 1969.

My retirement fund has lost every penny that I've put into it this year, with no end in sight, since overseas markets are tumbling again this morning before the U.S. stock market even opens.

Tonight George W. Bush gives his final (thank God) State of the Union address. Word is that the speech will focus on the economy. My prediction is that he'll talk about the economy being "structurally sound", as he said last week when signing quickie legislation to get cash-for-votes checks in the mail for Americans, passed by Congress and signed by the Idiot-in-Chief. He'll probably talk about "optimism". Chances are he'll have some white guy from a red state who started a business in 2007 and hired two black guys sitting next to Laura Bush, right there in the seat Ahmad Chalabi used to occupy. He'll point to that guy, who created two whole jobs, as emblematic of the success of endless tax cuts for giant corporations like Countrywide. Maybe he'll even bring back that "uniquely American" woman with the disabled son who works three jobs -- assuming she can get the time off.

Tonight, George W. Bush will try to make a shit sandwich out of the steaming pile of rotting trash into which he's turned a once great nation. It's probably the last time Americans will pay attention to anything he says. Of course, listening to what he says has always been a fool's errand. As Jacob Weisberg notes today,

Mr. Bush began his February 2001 address by hailing the new spirit of cooperation he hoped would characterize his relations with Congress. “Together we are changing the tone in the nation’s capital,” he declared. The new president’s top priority would be education. He intended to marry the liberal desire for more federal money to the conservative demand for higher standards.

The rest of the speech was similarly moderate in tone and substance. Mr. Bush planned to use part of the enormous fiscal surplus he inherited for a broad-based tax cut. But he also wanted to expand Medicare benefits, preserve Social Security, extend access to health care and protect the environment. He concluded with an exhortation to bipartisanship — in Spanish. “Juntos podemos,” he said. “Together we can.”

I'm not as charitable towards Bush as Weisberg is, in that I never "kind of liked" that or any George W. Bush. It's hard to "like" a president that you know full well stole the office. But there's no denying that over the course of his presidency, any small spirit of cooperation devolved into the tantrums of a small man with messianic delusions and no conscience whatsoever.

As he surveys the wreckage that is America under his leadership, a better man would use it as a moment of introspection. Perhaps he might try the "I meant well" approach. But George W. Bush is incapable of admitting a mistake of any kind. And in defending his catastrophic record, he's going to prove himself as tone-deaf and clueless as the guy who thinks that taking only $24 million for running a company into the ground and putting thousands of people out of work is somehow an act of redemption.

WAQU, Crows Nest

WAQU means quiet space, and this tiny eatery in Crows Nest offers just that - an oasis of calm and tranquility broken only by the shuffle of demure waitstaff who bring a seemingly endless procession of exquisitely plated morsels.The dining room seats just 35, and over half of the diners tonight are reassuringly Japanese. The WAQU website offers both English and Japanese versions. We know we're in

Kissy Noises From Washington

Emily Stover DeRocco has been cozying up to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) and other business interests for the last several years. So it should come as no surprise to anyone that she recently left her post as Assistant Secretary of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (ETA) to become president of NAM's Manufacturing Institute's National Center for the American Workforce.

As Patrick Buchanan wrote on page 230 in his book, Day of Reckoning,

The National Association of Manufacturers converted to free trade - to be free of its American workers, free to move its factories abroad, free to export back to the United States, free of charge.

Could things change with the addition of DeRocco to the staff?

The AFL-CIO weblog has a nice tidy little article about how DeRocco helped deliver the entire Department of Labor to the hands of business interests. Indeed, look at this damning little tidbit from NAM's 2002 CWS Workforce Development Conference, where it was reported "Assistant Labor Secretary Emily Stover De Rocco informed conference attendees of the Bush Administration’s desire to refocus the Department of Labor toward valuing the voice of business." It's too bad that the link purportedly giving us the text of her speech is now defunct.

John Engler, the President of NAM, gushed in the press release,

"Emily provided exemplary leadership as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training and is widely regarded as a leading authority on workforce development,” Engler said. “Finding qualified employees is a daunting challenge for the great majority of manufacturers and the skills gap will become an ever greater problem as older manufacturing workers retire. Emily comes to us at a pivotal moment when her leadership is greatly needed.”

Based on past performance, I don't think we should get ready to usher in a new era of prosperity for the American manufacturing industry workforce. By looking at one of the quarterly DOL/ETA's 2004 Workforce System Results, you'll see how she helped throw an awful lot of money towards programs that only affected a few hundred people here and a few thousand people there. (Honestly, does anyone know anyone who's ever participated in or benefited from any of these workforce training programs?)

On page 8 of the .PDF file, notice how the results to goal ratio for Foreign Labor Certification functions were about the best of any category. The report proudly displays how the Department of Labor reached their highest grade by processing 99% of employer labor condition applications for the foreign H-1B professional/specialty temporary worker program within 7 days of receipt!

Pages 12 and 13 of the file describes the old H-1B Technical Skills Training Program, first authorized in 1998, which had the ".....long term goal of raising the skill levels of domestic workers in order to fill specialty occupations presently being filled by temporary workers admitted to the United States under the provisions of the H-1B visa." Notice how quickly this program was dropped, as it seemed to have completely disappeared from the Quarterly Workforce System Results by the end of 2005. The IEEE-USA reported in February 2005 that many people were disappointed with the performance outcomes of the program. However, the program was doomed much earlier than that, as witnessed by this statement issued by Emily Stover DeRocco on February 27, 2002:

We will propose to redirect fees previously used to fund the H-1B training grants to reduce the growing backlog of permanent foreign labor certification applications. Over 300,000 employer applications are pending processing, 78% of which were received between January and April 30,2001, when Congress extended section 245(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. An estimated $137.5 million will be available for this purpose. The H-1B grants were authorized to increase training for American workers for jobs in which labor shortages have caused employers to hire high skilled foreign workers. We have no evidence that spending $100 million to $200 million annually will have any measurable impact on reducing the reliance of American employers on workers with H-1B visas.

Does anyone think the program failed to reduce "..the reliance of American employers on workers with H-1B visas" because it's cheaper to pay H-1B visa holders than to pay American workers?

A direct outgrowth of the redirected fees "previously used to fund the H-1B training grants" was the establishment of backlog elimination centers for the processing of applications under the DOL's Permanent Foreign Labor Certification (PERM) program. See my "Pearl Street Scam" post for additional information.

The Department of Labor couldn't seem to make a go of the H-1B Technical Skills Training Program in order to train American workers for American jobs. However, they seemed to do a stellar job of reducing the PERM applications backlogs and bringing in as many foreign workers as they could, as quickly as possible. The Department issued a proud announcement on October 1, 2007 that:

.......the permanent foreign labor certification program’s backlog has been eliminated, with nearly 99 percent of cases completed and the remainder awaiting responses from employers. For almost three years, more than 300 workers in two processing centers reviewed approximately 363,000 pending labor applications, a backlog created as a result of legislative changes in 1997 and 2000.

Even more proudly:

"We applaud the accomplishments of the dedicated individuals whose critical role allowed the ongoing operation of employment-based immigration programs,” said Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training Emily Stover DeRocco. “Their resolve to the mission of seeing the task through to its successful completion is an inspiration to all who serve and do the public’s business.”

Based on what we know about Ms. DeRocco, forgive me if I have my doubts as to whether the numbers of Americans employed in the manufacturing sector will rise at any time in the near future.

(Cross-posted to Carrie's Nation.)

Broken Government? More like Broken Health Insurance Industry...The Billary Campaign Trail..One Kennedy Endorses Obama...Heed Frank Rich's Warning!

Sam Seder will be covering for Randi Rhodes on Air America Radio on Monday, January 28th...The Maron V. Seder Vodcast will be broadcast on live Tuesday, January 29th, and there is a possibility of a live Sammy Cam session to chat our way through the State of the Union Speech...or a possible Young Turk-a-thon (not my favorite thing, but desperate times call for desperate measures!) All this and more at Sam's Blog. Check back often for updates on all the stuff that's going on! He's busy!

So, CNN is advertising a special report, after the debate on Thursday, that is being billed as SANJAY GUPTA Reportsssss...Health Care in America: Broken Government!
Anyone with Medicare or Medicaid knows that the government healthcare programs work very well. They are probably the least broken parts of this screwed up country...Though one big problem with them is that when people like Rudy Giulliani are cutting the budgets of their fiefdoms, a good way of cutting bottom line services that should be immovable is by making social programs more difficult to find, fill out forms for, provide proper documentation for, and re-cert over and over, until people just leave the fief for a kinder and gentler state where one can sleep outside more comfortably, or a place that is more friendly to the poor. If you can get on them, the government programs are the most accepted, by law (and Medicaid needs some work in that area,) and pay providers pretty fairly. They operate with tiny overheads, compared to private insurance companies, and run rather smoothly, considering that they are part of the government bureaucracy.

I'm trying to find the commercial on CNN's website about Sanjay and his Gupta reportage, but since its not up yet, I'd like to suggest a rephrasing of that tag line. How about Broken Insurance Industry, (or how about,

This is what you get from outsourcing, you idiots!!

) Because I know from the commercial, its all about horrible medical crisis' that could have been prevented if only the Government wasn't Broken!Whats broken here is that we cant all get on Medicare and pay what we can. Its just that simple and will provide jobs, even as the insurance industry loses jobs.
This is not the first time that Gupta has used an inflammatory tag line and made sweeping generalizations about medical issues that he is not really qualified to speak to. He is an MD, not a political scholar. And its questionable how smart of an MD he is too. But, I'm all ears, Sanjay...have at it!

The difference between me and Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is one of having faith in human nature and hope that the American system and/or the American people are strong enough, at this point in history, to fall behind an idealistic young candidate and go through with what will be necessary to turn this ship around before it hits ground. I keep imagining the moment that, in the midst of a terra alert, we put McCain or Romney into office just to be "safe." Hey, Its happened before! Don't rule it out!

I don't know what rosy colored glasses the Kennedy's look through to maintain their hope in the face of tragedy, and as political insiders who have seen their share of the gruesome details, but its sort of heartening and lovely in a way...and a little unreal. I also think that it has something to do with being raised in an extended family of public servants who are steeped in being able to promote change. They are told this from the moment they hit the ground running, and they have the support, even in trauma and dysfunction, of their extended family and religion to keep going. They also are from money; not that they all have riches beyond compare, because there are so many of them, but operating from a platform of upper classiness, they are educated and prepped for a life of great privilege, and a life of service to balance it. Religion has something to do with it too. They are Catholics, and it seems that having a higher reason behind what the aim is, helps with all those questions of why.
A coy Obama as much as admitted that Teddy Kennedy is on board as well. Breaking News: Tomorrow comes the endorsement.
Do they know the real think when they see it just because they are Kennedy's? Because everything about Obama seems to rely more on the feeling that he gives people than actual substance. I'd like to see more substance and less positioning.

Granted, I would be the virtual Woody Allen neurotic New Yorker to any Kennedy hope filled spiel about this young candidate being of the flesh and the body of the father. It must be nice to feel like you've found the reincarnation of hope, but I'm not quite there yet, to be honest, I'm doubtful about the whole thing. America does not have a very good track record at successfully letting hopeful leaders make their way into office. Surely, if Barak Obama is going to be brave enough to throw himself out there, I'm willing to listen, but it took me four years and an in person meeting to make me start to think that John Edwards really means what he says, and I have some very concrete reasons why I like him.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg's reasoning about Obama had less to do with the specifics of what Obama might do, than with things that people have told her about how he reminds them of her father. See, she doesn't really remember her father, but I'm sure that she knows everything he ever did, and the concrete reasoning behind it all, so why this wishy-washy endorsement? It sounds to me like " He moves the American people and makes them feel good.." and people say that he reminds them of my father, so lets trust him to try to dig us out of the worst hole we've been in, maybe ever?

Whoever gets the job is bound to look bad pretty quickly if not right away. There is just too much to clean up, and even the most experienced politician is gonna have to get their hands really dirty, offending alot of people along the way, meanwhile trying to fix the diplomatic mess that they are going to be left with. I think that whoever is the winner of this contest is going to end up with the short end of the stick, and the war is going to be his/her's, thanks to the democratic majority's inability to get itself to act, even in the interest of getting some information on the record to protect the next president.

I've been a little shocked at the reaction of a few people in the blogosphere to Edwards not dropping out of the race when he didn't win South Carolina.
I see no reason for him to drop out, and in fact, I urge him to stay in...I sent him money, and will send more after the 1st of the month. I guess that the best thing about this race has been the discourse. Some of it has been insane and some of it has been upsetting, but mostly, it's been good to see everyone allowed to talk out loud about whats been going on for these years in what seemed like a virtual gulag, as the terra alerts went from yellow to red, and we were told the best way to duct tape ourselves into a room in case of attack. Remember all that? Some woman around here actually killed herself and her kid because she sealed them into a room too tightly at a time when they had to use a generator or heater or something.

Remember not being able to buy duct tape because that asshole director of homeland security, Tom Ridge, said that all Americans should have these things...and survival food...doesn't it seem like a fucking dream? How did they successfully carry out all of the lies? How is it that they wont have to pay somehow? And isn't it crazy that any of these fools wants the job at all?

Yeah, you have to be pretty sure of yourself to think that you might be able to fix this mess up...even with a full staff of advisers, I cant imagine that anyone wouldn't have some trepidation. And I guess that I don't feel like Obama has the experience to run the entire country ...but I'd prefer to take a chance with him than to go with what I know will be business as usual with Billary. One way or another, we're bound to take a bit of a dip before we start to rebound. The dip might last what seems like a long time in our short sightedness, but historically it will be a blip. It's what we deserve for getting too lazy to pay attention and vote, and the turnout speaks loudly to the fact that its going to be a long time before people become that complacent again.

Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times today about the dangers of a Hillary Clinton general election. He pretty much warned that while Hillary may consider herself vetted, Bill has not been vetted on whats happened since he left the White House. Apparently there is much there to make hay of, and if Hillary is running against McCain, a swift boating or even an attack grounded in fact could land us with a President McCain. The sudden heavy use of Bill Clinton to pull Hillary's numbers up could have a devastating effect on this country if he has not been squeaky clean over the last 8 years. Surely there is a danger in just the perception of going back to the same old water carrying that was a huge part of how we got here.

For the Republicans, that means not just a double dose of the one steroid, Clinton hatred, that might yet restore their party’s unity but also two fat targets. Mrs. Clinton repeatedly talks of how she’s been “vetted” and that “there are no surprises” left to be mined by her opponents. On the “Today” show Friday, she joked that the Republican attacks “are just so old.” So far. Now that Mr. Clinton is ubiquitous, not only is his past back on the table but his post-presidency must be vetted as well. To get a taste of what surprises may be in store, you need merely revisit the Bill Clinton questions that Hillary Clinton has avoided to date.

Rich seems to think that Obama is a contender...more than Hillary is anyway. When he writes like this it is usually because he knows something, and the only way to figure it out is to try to catch him on the TV machine, as he no doubt will be appearing here and there this week, (or so I hope.) What seems clear is that polls at Real Clear Politics already show Hillary running neck and neck with McCain in the general. They also project the rest of the democratic field the same with McCain. I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna make it through another tight race in which we have questionable vote counting. Make no mistake, the aim of this thing as to be to win, and we can only hope that the Republican nominee isn't old John McCain, because he seems to have some legs in this thing. Where are the fundies when you need 'em?

Put down that cup of coffee and then click over

Jeff Fecke has found the bitchin'est way to acknowledge Jesus as the light that you will ever see. And if you're really, really demented, go check out the comments at the source post.

NOW can we please stop pretending that these people have anything to do with virtue and morality?

Another moralizing creep bites the dust:

A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs - Hollywood films with the "dirty parts" cut out of them - has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls.

Orem police say Flix Club owner Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, and Issac Lifferth, 24, were booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old.

CBS Station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that the shocking discovery came when a mother found a $20 bill in her daughter’s room last week and questioned her about where the money came from.

The girl confessed that she and a friend had been paid for sexual favors by an older male.

Lifferth was additionally charged with patronizing a prostitute and was also in possession of a prescription drug medication without a prescription.

Thompson's Flix Club was one of several Utah-based video outlets that traded in edited versions of R- and PG-13-rated films, catering to clientele who wanted to watch hit movies without nudity, sex, language or graphic violence.

Such video editing operations came under the gun of Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America.

In a case brought by the DGA, a federal judge ruled in 2006 that editing out material (such as Kate Winslet's bare breasts in "Titanic") violated copyright laws. The decision was against a Utah company called Clean Flicks.

Thompson, who was a franchise operator for Clean Flicks, opened Flix Club last year, similarly trading in edited videos but claiming that such editing was for "educational use."

"Your voice will be heard": John Edwards as the Democratic Party's conscience

I don't think even John Edwards believes anymore that he can get this nomination, not after his paltry, if still better-than-expected showing in South Carolina lately. But unlike Hillary Clinton, who along with spouse Bill, is showing that there are no depths below which she'll sink to obtain the nomination for the presidency, Edwards seems to see his role now as the anchor on the other side of the Democratic tug-of-war between the Liebercrat wing of the party, for which no capitulation to the most extreme right-wing position is too great a price to pay for "bipartisanship", and the progressive, Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

With forces from the DLC to the talking heads of the media persisting in the erroneous notion that this is basically a conservative country pulling both Hillary Cinton and Barack Obama towards the right, John Edwards is right there, tugging them back, reminding them that there are still American individuals who need to be represented, not just corporations and their lobbyists. He's necessary to keep the other two candidates at least slightly in touch with ordinary Americans. And he's still necessary in the unlikely event that the escalating ugliness being perpetrated by the Clintonistas succeeds in destroying both Clinton's and Obama's candidacies in the days before SupercalifragilisticexpialiTuesday.

If New Hampshire's result was a smackdown of the mainstream media, especially Chris Matthews, by New Hampshire women, South Carolina's result was a smackdown of Clintonista race-baiting by African-American voters in that state. Obama's solid trouncing of Hillary Clinton in yesterday's primary should send a message to the Clintons: Sorry, Bill, you're not the first black president anymore.

Who would have believed, after black Ohio voters stood in the rain for ten hours in 2004 and still were not able to vote, that it would be a Democratic former president and his candidate spouse who would be the ones to rip open the scabs of race relations in America, all for nothing but pure, blind ambition. If Obama is the nominee, I will support him despite my reservations about his toughness against an attack machine the likes of which the Clintonistas are just a pale imitation. But last night, in a spectacular victory speech, he was simultaneously gracious, grateful, and defiant:

I'd like to see more of this from him, particularly if Bill 'n' Hill's polling in the February 5th states starts to show their restoration slipping away. At a time when the economy is in tatters, were embroiled in a war without end, and in debt up to our eyeballs, watching the Clintons' "Me, me, me, it's all about me" campaign is almost enough to make me understand just what it was about them that the wingnuts hated all those years.

The contrast between John Edwards' carefully worded promise, no longer to win, but to make sure the voices of ordinary Americans are heard, and Clinton's "Let's pretend this never happened and go on to our certain victory on Super Tuesday" stump speech made it clear where all this is going. Edwards is aware that his role in this campaign has changed, and seems to accept it. Clinton will accept nothing less than victory, even if she has to destroy her own or Obama's eventual candidacy and cede the presidency to the Republicans to do it.

On Friday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked about the pledged "superdelegates", who could very well throw the nomination to Clinton even if Obama is ahead in state delegates at the time. With the Clintons seemingly doing everything they can to alienate both black voters and the progressive party base, it would be appalling to witness a bunch of party hacks, all of them in thrall to wads of corporate cash, override the will of the people in an effort to retain their own power. That spectacle could do more to convince Americans that democracy is dead in this country than anything the Republicans could do.

John Edwards-Grown Up

Congratulations to Barak Obama on his South Carolina Win...Still waiting to see who comes in second. I don't know when or if American voters might choke at uncertainty mixed with racism, but if they're gonna start to have second thoughts, I hope that its before the general election.
I guess that Bill Clinton didn't win much of anything until later in the primary season, so its impossible to guess what will happen as this thing goes on. As far as I'm concerned, with Edwards, its all about the message, and hopefully he will have a good long time to talk about these very important issues. Its early to pick a winner in this, but as much as I hear that people hate Hillary, I'm also hearing some trepidation that Obama might not have the experience that is is necessary for this time of war. If we get any kind of terra surprise, we might see a result that we didn't bargain for. I hope to god that any of our candidates who moves towards the front of the pack is ready to react and act like they know what they're doing and they're gonna kick some terra-ist ass !

c/p RIPCoco

Saturday Primary Blogging

Being a John Edwards supporter is starting to feel an awful lot like being a Mets fan. Other polls are less encouraging, but the latest Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll shows Edwards gaining four percentage points since Wednesday to a level of 19% -- five points behind Hillary Clinton and within the poll's margin of error. Fortunately, this is a primary and not a caucus, so we won't be hearing about Clinton caucusers closing the doors at 11:30 for a noon caucus.

No one's expecting Edwards to win in South Carolina today, but a second place finish, or even a very close third would be enough to keep him very much in this thing, if not as the nominee than as potential kingmaker. Of course as Keith Olbermann pointed out last night, the so-called "superdelegates" (or as I call them, party hacks) could make the entire primary race moot if they decide to fall in line behind Hillary Clinton at the convention. But Edwards' role in this primary race is important, and it transcends his own potential for nomination. His role is about holding the feet of two centrist candidates to the progressive fire. We have one candidate who's a complete and unabashed corporatist, and another one whose inclination is to avoid fighting Republicans wherever possible in the name of "bipartisanship."

We're seeing this in the refusal of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to stand up for the U.S. Constitution by going back to Washington and standing with Chris Dodd (who deserves our thanks for his courage) in refusing to grant immunity to telecommunications companies who have been conducting mass surveillance of American citizens for the past seven years -- even before the 9/11 attacks. Oh, they've given lip service to opposing immunity, but they are sitting Senators, their votes are needed, but they're weaseling out of taking a stand. Yesterday John Edwards issued a plea to his opponents to do the right thing:

When it comes to protecting the rule of law, words are not enough. We need action.

It's wrong for your government to spy on you. That's why I'm asking you to join me today in calling on Senate Democrats to filibuster revisions to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that would give "retroactive immunity" to the giant telecom companies for their role in aiding George W. Bush's illegal eavesdropping on American citizens.

The Senate is debating this issue right now -- which is why we must act right now. You can find your Senators' phone numbers here or call the Senate Switchboard at 1-(202)-224-3121.

Granting retroactive immunity is wrong. It will let corporate law-breakers off the hook. It will hamstring efforts to learn the truth about Bush's illegal spying program. And it will flip on its head a core principle that has guided our nation since our founding: the belief that no one, no matter how well connected or what office they hold, is above the law.

But in Washington today, the telecom lobbyists have launched a full-court press for retroactive immunity. George Bush and Dick Cheney are doing everything in their power to ensure it passes. And too many Senate Democrats are ready to give the lobbyists and the Bush administration exactly what they want.

Please join me in calling on every Senate Democrat to do everything in their power -- including joining Senator Dodd's efforts to filibuster this legislation -- to stop retroactive immunity and stand up for the rule of law. The Constitution should not be for sale at any price.

Thank you for taking action.

John Edwards
January 24, 2008

(For the record, both of my Senators, Lautenberg and Menendez, are opposed to immunity.)

This is no time to "go all wobbly", as Margaret Thatcher might say, on the Constitution. Edwards isn't a current Senator, but as I mentioned above, his role is to get his opponents to do the right thing when it would (and apparently will) be far easier for them not to.

Meanwhile, in the Batshit Crazy Stakes, what should be the final nail in Rudy Giuliani's campaign coffin appears in today's New York Times: the revelation that the New York Police Department issued an analysis in 1998 opposing in no uncertain terms Rudy Giuliani's plans to locate the city's command center in the World Trade Center:

“Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York,” a panel of police experts, which was aided by the Secret Service, concluded in a confidential Police Department memorandum.

The memorandum, which has not been previously disclosed, cited a number of “significant points of vulnerability.” Those included: the building’s public access, the center’s location on the 23rd floor, a 1,200-gallon diesel fuel supply for its generator, a large garage and delivery bays, the building’s history as a terrorist target, and its placement above and adjacent to a Consolidated Edison substation that provided much of the power for Lower Manhattan.

Rudolph W. Giuliani, the mayor then, has acknowledged some police skepticism about the site, but he has described it as resulting from a jurisdictional dispute between police officials and his emergency management director, who had played a role in selecting the site.

[snip]

“This group’s finding is that the security of the proposed O.E.M. Command Center cannot be reasonably guaranteed,” the commander of the intelligence division, Daniel J. Oates, wrote in the July 15, 1998, memo to the police commissioner.

The memo said the conclusions were based on analysis by police officials with expertise in infrastructure, building security, explosives, traffic and ventilation systems, who also consulted the Secret Service, including the agency’s New York special agent in charge, Chip Smith.

“Mr. Smith agrees with this assessment,” the memo says in its concluding paragraph, “even though his own office is in Seven World Trade Center. He acknowledges that the security of his office is a continuing concern because of the public nature of the building and the other reasons specified in this report.”

The memorandum was provided to The New York Times by a law enforcement official not affiliated with a rival political campaign.

Mr. Giuliani received a briefing on the Police Department’s recommendations, but it is unclear whether he received a copy of the memorandum.

Mr. Giuliani has said in the past that one of the reasons for choosing the location was that several federal agencies with which city officials needed to be in contact during emergencies, including the Secret Service, had their offices there. Other federal agencies in the building included the Defense Department and the C.I.A.

But the Police Department took the opposite position in the memo, saying the presence of those agencies made the building a more likely target.

The mythology that Rudy Giuliani was able to build up around his role as "terrorism expert" and "tough leader" grows simply out of two facts: 1) that the President of the United States was crapping his pants with fear on 9/11 as he jetted around the country after sitting in a third grade classroom for seven minutes using schoolchildren as human shields and Giuliani was the public face of so-called "leadership" that day; and 2) that he was able to do so because since his own command center had been destroyed, he had no place else to go but photo-ops on the streets of New York. As the news comes out of his ineptitude in getting radios that worked to the firemen of New York and his refusal to listen to just plain common sense about where the city's command center should be located, his claims of being the only candidate who can keep America safe ring ever more hollow. With current polls in Florida showing him in Huckabee territory at around 15%, Tuesday should deflate Giuliani's biggest dickus balloon once and for all.