Thursday’s Mini-Report

May 15, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* 50,000: “The death toll from China’s massive earthquake could reach more than 50,000, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday, quoting rescue headquarters. Already some 20,000 are confirmed dead as a result of Monday’s 7.9 magnitude quake, and at least 12,300 people remained buried and another 102,100 were injured in Sichuan province, where the quake was centered, the vice governor told reporters.”

* Rove can run but he can’t hide: “Just off the House floor today, the Crypt overheard House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers tell two other people: ‘We’re closing in on Rove. Someone’s got to kick his ass.’ Asked a few minutes later for a more official explanation, Conyers told us that Rove has a week to appear before his committee. If he doesn’t, said Conyers, ‘We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.'”

* House GOP uses “present” votes to block a war-spending bill: “Republicans just pulled off an ambush on Democrats on the House floor, helping to vote down a $160-billion plus measure for military operations in Afghanistan. The GOP has grown increasingly angry in recent weeks over the procedures the majority has used to bring the supplemental package to the floor. The measure has been split into three parts, and the first part — which consists solely of war funds — just lost 141-149, with 133 Republicans voting ‘present.'”

* Speaking of action on the Hill: “The Senate on Thursday joined the House in overwhelmingly supporting a farm bill, which was cleared to President Bush by an 81-15 vote despite his veto threat. The move followed a 318-106 favorable vote in the House, meaning both chambers provided the bill with veto-proof margins.”

* Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann resigned. It took him long enough.

* I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s kind of hilarious to me that the Republican National Committee is doing what Hillary Clinton was doing a couple of weeks ago: going after Obama on a “gas-tax holiday.”

* Breaking up is hard to do: the on-again, off-again relationship between Bush and Ahmad Chalabi appears to be kaput.

* Scandalous: “VoteVets.org and CREW released an e-mail today that reveals ‘a Veterans Affairs (VA) employee directing VA staff to refrain from diagnosing soldiers and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).’ The e-mail, dated May 1, 2008, complains about ‘compensation seeking veterans’ and urges VA staff to rule out PTSD and ‘consider a diagnosis of ‘Adjustment Disorder” instead.”

* South Dakota law limits exit polling outside voting locations, prompting a lawsuit against the state today from ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, and the Associated Press.

* Cheney loses an argument: “The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced on Wednesday.”

* Glenn Greenwald has a really valuable analysis of the gay marriage ruling from the California Supreme Court.

* Bushies are headed for the exits — Solicitor General Paul Clement resigned yesterday.

* Bill O’Reilly is whining about Kos again.

* Michael Medved seems to have gone completely around the bend.

* Chris Matthews, moving on from bowling and orange juice, tries to find political significance in Barack Obama’s decision to shoot pool.

* And if you haven’t seen it, Keith Olbermann’s latest “Special Comment” was especially blistering, taking on Bush’s argument that he gave up golf in honor of the war in Iraq. Take a look; you’ll be glad you did.

Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.

If he doesn’t, said Conyers, ‘We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.’”

Oh please let it be the arrest.

  • Conyers has cried wolf too many times. Wake me up when he actually does something.

  • The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act

    The funniest bit on the Daily Show last night was when McCain said that if polar bears, walruses and sea birds can adjust to a new strategy for global warming, then so can humanity. Stewart replied that the animals’ new strategy was pretty much just to die. Does anyone have any idea what strategy McCain might have been referring to?

  • Mark your calendar, Jeffry Goldberg just called the right wing morons on their lying about Obama and his views about Israel.

    …Goldberg, to his credit, embraced Andrew Sullivan’s description of Boehner’s statement as a “flat-out lie” and added that it was “mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable”)…

    Greenwald writes well about the situation with The Lobby:

    …no politician dares to express these majoritarian views. Right-wing neocons with clearly fringe views have succeeded in making the mainstream views — the ones held by most Americans — off-limits to mainstream political leaders, upon pain of being subjected to the sorts of toxic “anti-Israel” accusations of the kind now being baselessly directed at Obama…

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/13/obama/index.html

  • Todd said:
    If he doesn’t, said Conyers, ‘We’ll do what any self-respecting committee would do. We’d hold him in contempt. Either that or go and have him arrested.’”

    Oh please let it be the arrest.

    And please let him resist arrest and pull a weapon . . . .

  • Regarding the Republicans voting “present” on war funding for Afghanistan due to procedural issues: “It was a process the likes of which we’ve never seen,” complained Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the top Republican on the Rules Committee, calling the procedure “outrageous, atrocious and unprecedented.”

    Except of course when THEY held the majority and wouldn’t even allow the Democrats to add amendments to bills most of the time.

  • Speaking of Chris Mathews.

    Kevin James the LA radio doofus got pwned by Tweetie. Badly. Horribly. Hilariously.

    Why? Because Kevin didn’t know what Neville Chamberlain did at Munich in 1938. He kept shrieking appeasement over and over again like the parrot he is. Tweetie calls him on it and he spends five minutes shouting till he finally admits he didn’t know. I laughed my guts out.

    I somehow doubt that Kevin understands what appeasement meant either.

  • Does anyone have any idea what strategy McCain might have been referring to?

    Maybe he is suggestion that they could marry alcoholic/drug addict wealthy heirs to beer barons and be able to live on “easy street” – in fact, maybe he believes the could also find their way on the public dole and get tons of government benefits while telling everyone how “bad” government is.

    This adaptive strategies not only allows you to purchase whatever might satisfy your needs or whims – it also guarantees plenty of cash for prostitutes so you don’t actually have to have sex with your spouse while you promote “family values.”

  • “Cheney loses an argument: “The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced on Wednesday.”

    That’s terrific, but it doesn’t go far enough. What we need is a sign in every zoo:

    PLEASE FEED CHENEY TO THE POLAR BEARS

  • hark – wild animals like polar bears won’t eat rotting, clearly rancid meat.

    Nice try…

  • I sure hope as hell hope they do, and hopefully Obama can teach everyone the true meaning of “pandering”.

  • I probably shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s kind of hilarious to me that the Republican National Committee is doing what Hillary Clinton was doing a couple of weeks ago: going after Obama on a “gas-tax holiday.”

    I sure hope as hell hope they do, and hopefully Obama can teach everyone the true meaning of “pandering”.

    Sorry for the double post….

  • Here begins the first of my “I told you so’s”. That is exactly what I predicted the Republicans would do to Obama, and it is the reason why Clinton “pandered” — your name for her attempt to take the wind out of the sails of a conservative attack on this issue. You may think it is hilarious until we see what impact it has on voters and polls.

  • “VoteVets.org and CREW released an e-mail today that reveals ‘a Veterans Affairs (VA) employee directing VA staff to refrain from diagnosing soldiers and veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).’ The e-mail, dated May 1, 2008, complains about ‘compensation seeking veterans’ and urges VA staff to rule out PTSD and ‘consider a diagnosis of ‘Adjustment Disorder” instead.”

    From the TP read, the memo refers to C&P. Does anyone know what C&P is?

  • #15 – concern troll

    I am just grateful we don’t have to listen to the repugs talk about the clenis, whitewater, vince foster…

  • “little bear” had this to say:

    Maybe he is suggestion that they could marry alcoholic/drug addict wealthy heirs to beer barons and be able to live on “easy street” – in fact, maybe he believes the could also find their way on the public dole and get tons of government benefits while telling everyone how “bad” government is.

    This adaptive strategies not only allows you to purchase whatever might satisfy your needs or whims – it also guarantees plenty of cash for prostitutes so you don’t actually have to have sex with your spouse while you promote “family values.”

    Where does this leave the Lower Classes as are expected to “embrace a renewed healthy respect for industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift and a wholesome and simple home life” without State welfare?

  • yeah, mary. keep telling us you told us so. like you’ve ever been right so far.

  • just bill, to the likes of mclame, chimpy, and the criminal cabal they work for (yes, chimpy is not actually the one calling the shots), there are not any social CLASSES.

    There are just those that are part of the “club” and those that are dispensable.

    To the degree that they need to legitimize their crimes, they need some of the masses at election time, but other than that, if you were not born into that “class” your life really doesn’t matter.

  • mary must be a ditto-head – check out this one:

    Rush Limbaugh : If Barack Obama were Caucasian, they would have taken this guy out on the basis of pure ignorance long ago

    concern troll = pretend dem, aligning with rush, lying about Obama, proclaiming that we have to go against the majority of dems and trash democratic ideals by pandering to the least educated white vote because if we don’t become racist copies of the repugs, well, then we are not dems…

  • Three weeks ago, Cindy McCain announced that she was writing her memoirs with hell from a ghvst writer. The book was to be published in September. This week, Cindy said she was too busy to write it.

    I bet a Republican operative got hold of Johm McCain and told hin he was out of his mind to let Cidny write that book. I doubt Cindy intended to write about being a drug addict when she impulsively brought two very ill babies home from Bangladesh. I was looking forward to reading about how she convinced McCain’s then senate admin assistant, Wes Gullett to adopt baby #2.

    Cindy certainly was not a stay-at-home mom. Her vanity charity operated from 1988 to 1995 and during that tme, Cindy went on 55 trips with durations of at least two weeks and sometimes longer. In other words, Cindy was away from her very small children for four months a year on the average. She may have fallen in love with Bridget, her Bangladesh bab, but that didn’t keep drug-addled Cindy from hitting the road weeks after she brought her home.

    Cindy is planning on visiting Vietnam this summer on behalf of her work with Operation Smile. What exactly Cindy will be doing in Vietnam is beyond me.

  • mrs panstreppon – probably swappin’ notes with all the prostitutes that serviced john when he was finking on his fellow prisoners of wars.

  • Mary

    I just did a site search on your name and the search does not show that you have made comments about anything except your anti-Obama rants. You haven’t discussed Bush’s horrible actions, nothing about McCain’s campaigning, no non-political news discussed that doesn’t involve Hillary or Obama.

    You seem like a very angry person, fond of scolding and admonishing, chiding, rebuking, and upbraiding people who don’t agree with you. Are there any other facets to your character?

  • TR, that was the best take down of an empty headed talking pointer I have ever seen. I was surprised that Chris Matthews had it in him.

    But man, I laughed my ass off as I was watching him. The “when you’re in a hole, stop digging” was the best line. What a nice way to tell a right wing talking head that they are about as stupid as it comes.

    Priceless!

    Everyone needs to watch that. It rocks!

  • Every once in a while Tweety wakes up, shakes himself off and does the right thing.

  • aristedes – concern troll, has an entirely different agenda – is not progressive, liberal, or even a dem, but believe she could distract and disrupt by posting as a shillary supporter.

  • But it wasn’t just mary, greg, and the rest of the concern trolls – even though shillary had several years to position herself, had the backing of the most powerful democratic leaders, was the front-runner, and all-but anointed the nomination before a single-vote was cast – she ran a terrible, negative campaign that made all the trollin’ possible.

    The clinton campaign has some culpability for the likes of our mary…

  • yes – tweety slapped down a moron, kudos…

    But tweety has given his share of “free passes” to the wingnuts, neocons, and repugs – seems its really the blatant ignorance he was upset about and decided to make an example of him.

    Had this moron had a few facts to twist and misrepresent, would he have gotten a free pass too?

    I don’t think we should cheer to loudly until we see tweety give the same treatment to mclame – if anyone deserves to have their ignorance exposed via this type of public humiliation, it’s mclame.

    But tweety just gives him huggies and kissies.

  • “The polar bear, whose summertime Arctic hunting grounds have been greatly reduced by a warming climate, will be placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced on Wednesday.”

    Sorry, Cheney didn’t lose a damn thing. They made the absolute fucking minimum decision they could (lie!)- “Threatened” – and said it was due to Arctic ice melting (lie!), but they can’t do anything about any sort of problem of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere(lie!), and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with their sale of the bear’s habitat for an oil field (lie!)

    They didn’t make the decision on the science of the case, they made it on the politics, as evidenced by all the explanatory lies. They have the power under Massachusetts v. EPA to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act (according to this Supreme Court last year!) but are sitting on it. Their own goddamned scientific review of the oil lease sales says there is a 40% chance of a major oil spill in the Arctic – which will screw up the entire environment permanently.

    It’s the same old bullshit they have pulled with the other 58 species that have gotten onto the Endangered Species List since 2001. This is the only administration since Richard Nixon signed the act into law in 1973 to not voluntarily place any species on the Endangered Species List , all that are there are the results of lawsuits – Bush 41 by contrast put 231 species in the list in 4 years and novody sued anybody. They see “delay, eny, defend” and using the resources of the government to do a minimal move, let the environmentalists sue, do another minimal move, let them sue, etc., etc., as a way of fighting a war against the environmental movement.

    When you get an appeal to contribute to support these lawsuits and the ones that will come from this fuckwitted “decision,” – be generous. The life you save may be your own, because if the bear ends up listed as Endangered for climate change, it means the pissants have to do something about climate change, and the bear will be saving your ass.

  • KarmiCommunist – he’s far too busy puffin’ out his chest and dictating nasty letters to chimpy & company, no time left for any action.

  • Aristedes said:

    “I just did a site search on your name and the search does not show that you have made comments about anything except your anti-Obama rants. You haven’t discussed Bush’s horrible actions, nothing about McCain’s campaigning, no non-political news discussed that doesn’t involve Hillary or Obama.”

    If you read the posts you dug up, you must have seen the one where I stated that I have no interest in pointing out how stupid Bush is or talking about McCain. These are conservatives whose statements and policies are so obviously wrong-headed that there is no reason for progressives to discuss them. I referred to those posts by CB as boring.

    My posts are about the Clinton/Obama primary because that is what I am interested in. At one point I posted a long list of the issues I think are important to this election. Those are the things I care about. What is the point of a bunch of Democrats all nodding their heads and saying “Yeah, terrible thing that’s happening to the polar bears” or “Cheney said a dumb thing again”? It is a waste of time and blog space.

    Yes, I am angry about what has happened during this primary. I dislike the many unfair and outrageous remarks made about Clinton — by people who are supposedly progressives. I dislike the bias of the majority of the blogs and the way they have joined conservatives in attacking her. I believe that trying to drive someone away from this group, a group I have read for years, because they don’t support Obama is wrong — which is why I refuse to go away. I see the micro level mirroring the macro. The message to those of us who support Clinton here is no different than the one being bleated at Clinton in this race — go away and let the boys have the football.

    I realize that opposing views here make you nervous because they imply that Obama may not win in the Fall, and that would be unthinkable. However, that is the point of this primary controversy. I agree with many other campaign-watchers that Obama is unelectable and that the Democratic party is making a huge mistake by nominating him. I will probably post some “I told you so’s” as that eventuality materializes. You certainly have the right to your enthusiasm for him, but you are taking the rest of us down with you. I don’t believe the Democratic party should be throwing away its strongest chance to change the country, at a crucial time in our history. Obama’s arrogance will be responsible for whatever comes next, in my opinion. Don’t you believe that our country’s future direction is worth fighting for? I think it is the main thing and perhaps the only thing that matters right now.

  • Don’t you believe that our country’s future direction is worth fighting for? I think it is the main thing and perhaps the only thing that matters right now.

    …and that’s why you’re not voting for the Democratic nominee in November. Because “our country’s future direction” can best be set by childishly, resentfully working against Democrats to make some sort of petulant point about the president not having breasts.

    What a craven, lying little twit you are.

  • Don’t you believe that our country’s future direction is worth fighting for? I think it is the main thing and perhaps the only thing that matters right now.

    I regret I don’t have as much time to comment here or elsewhere as I would like.

    I supported John Edwards throughout the primaries, even when he dropped out right before Ohio. “Wasted vote!” I was told when I admitted to voting for him anyway.

    But even then, and throughout, and for all time, I will wholeheartedly support the Democratic nominee, whether it is Senator Clinton, Sentaor Obama, or Skippy the Frakking Hedgehog. Why? Because to *not* support the Democratic nominee is tantamount to putting a bullet in my own head.

    So come down off your high horse. Support your candidate for the sake of supporting your candidate, not to grind some axe. If you don’t like the tone of the comments, there are thousands of other boards to comment on. I’m torqued as anyone that Edwards got pushed aside, that only makes me want to work harder for the future.

    Clinton’s sole mistake was to hire Mark Penn and the rest of the crew of idiots that drove her campaign off the cliff. You want to hurl invective at “the boys,” that’s the place to go. She has been, and hopefully will continue to be, a forceful Democratic voice in the Senate. The people of NY are lucky to have her.

    If you really care about “the country’s future direction,” you’ll do what I do – vote Democratic.

    • Comments are closed.