Wednesday’s Mini-Report

July 30, 2008

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* CNN: “Scandal-hit Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced Wednesday he will not be his party’s leader going into the next election. Citing ‘a wave of investigations and criticism’ at the hands of his political opponents, he said he will resign once his Kadima party elects a new chairman.”

* John Weaver, one of John McCain’s closest allies and confidants, is deeply unimpressed by the direction of the McCain campaign, and believes the latest campaign strategy “diminishes John McCain.” Weaver called today’s celebrity-driven ad “childish.” Saying he’s had “enough,” Weaver added, “For McCain’s sake, this tomfoolery needs to stop.”

* For what it’s worth, Barack Obama was also asked about the Britney-Paris ad: “You know, I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads, although I do notice he doesn’t seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me… You need to ask John McCain what he’s for and not just what he’s against.”

* Four members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) yesterday called on EPA administrator Stephen Johnson to resign. That would be a very good idea.

* As expected, Bush signed the housing bill into law today, with little fanfare.

* All of a sudden, Senate Republicans don’t want any of Ted Stevens’ money in their campaign coffers. Imagine that.

* Hilarious Quote of the Day: “What you’re going to see is a great debate. Which is what the American public deserves. None of this negative stuff, though. You won’t see it come out of our side at all.” – Cindy McCain, Today Show, May 8, 2008.

* Sounds good to me: “The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws. ”Today represents a milestone in our nation’s efforts to remedy the ills of our past,” said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.” The measure passed on a voice-vote; there is no final roll call.

* While serving as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Alberto Gonzales had no idea what was going on around him. Good lord.

* But that’s all right, because the White House still likes him.

* I know he’s not a blogosphere favorite, but when Joe Klein is good, he can be very good.

* You’ll be pleased to learn that the McCain campaign is backing away from one of its lies — the bogus assertion that Obama snubbed wounded troops because he wanted cameras around. Of course, the McCain campaign continues to falsely insist that Obama snubbed wounded troops anyway.

* Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) thinks it’s outrageous if the Chinese government tries to spy on people without warrants, oversight, or probable cause. But when the Bush administration does the exact same thing, Brownback thinks that’s fine.

* A genuinely fascinating story from Mother Jones: “Mary McFate was a prominent gun control activist. Mary Lou Sapone was a freelance spy with an NRA connection. They are the same person.”

* We’ve all heard comparisons between McCain and Grandpa Simpson. But it’s at least possible that the better comparison is to C. Montgomery Burns.

* Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) underestimates the value of a Toyota Prius. (thanks to D.H. for the tip)

* Krugman: “[T]here was a combination of power without oversight and a deeply creepy cult of personality (which was obvious long before we got the latest specifics.) I think we were lucky to get out of this with democracy more or less intact.”

* And finally, nothing says “pro-family” like a right-wing Republican congressman — in this case, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) — hosting a fundraiser at a Las Vegas strip club. Sessions, of course, took the lead in the bashing the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” a while back, blasting “liberal values.”

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

From NY Times

But as a professor, students say, Mr. Obama was in the business of complication, showing that even the best-reasoned rules have unintended consequences, that competing legal interests cannot always be resolved, that a rule that promotes justice in one case can be unfair in the next. So even some former students who are thrilled at Mr. Obama’s success wince when they hear him speaking like the politician he has so fully become. “When you hear him talking about issues, it’s at a level so much simpler than the one he’s capable of,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “He was a lot more fun to listen to back then.”

  • You’ll be pleased to learn that the McCain campaign is backing away from one of its lies — the bogus assertion that Obama snubbed wounded troops because he wanted cameras around. Of course, the McCain campaign continues to falsely insist that Obama snubbed wounded troops anyway.

    McCain’s whole campaign is exactly like those specious email letters that my relatives send around signed by phoney army officers. WHY DID OBAMA SNUB THE TROOPS. SOLDIERS TURN THEIR BACK S ON OBAMA. THINGS ABOUT OBAMA THE MEDIA WON’T TELL YOU!

    Low. low. low.

  • * Krugman: “I think we were lucky to get out of this with democracy more or less intact.”

    You’d think an economist would know not to count chickens until they’re hatched.

    We will be lucky if we get out of this with what’s left of our democracy.

  • While serving as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Alberto Gonzales had no idea what was going on around him. Good lord.

    This is actually typical of modern American business practices. Ken Lay’s defense, “I didn’t know”. That’s the norm these days. Managers, CEOs and the top people ‘do not know’ anything about the day-to-day operation of the company. That’s not their job. Their job is to ‘represent’ the company and collect massive paychecks. All the reward, none of the responsibility.

    I remember very distinctly sitting in a meeting with the GM of my company, the #2 guy, literally said, out loud, “It’s not my job to make decisions.” He’s the 2nd highest paid guy there and for the life of me I don’t know what he does all day long.

    And people wonder why our economy keeps slipping further and further behind.

  • …hosting a fundraiser at a Las Vegas strip club.

    To be fair, Forty Deuce is a non-nude burlesque club, not a strip club. It’s a fine line, but a distinction nonetheless.

    And yes, I know this from watching VH1’s Rock of Love II with Bret Michaels.

    I’m sorry.

  • Seems as though the Texas Governor has found out where Molly Ivins was reincarnated. Yipee!

  • A message to Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly about their likely influencing a certain Jim Adkisson in his orgy of depravity and ultraviolence. (And I hope it tortures them to madness, come to think of it.)

    And has anybody considered the likelihood of the I-35W bridge reconstruction in Minneapolis progressing faster than expected because of the construction crews being secretly given drugs to maximise their work performance under Herculean circumstances, let alone the contractor standing to collect an early-completion bonus?

  • MOBILE, Ala. – Police believe a body found in a small-time evangelist’s home freezer is his wife and a mother of eight, and arrested him on a murder charge as he preached at a south Alabama church.

  • * As expected, Bush signed the housing bill into law today, with little fanfare.

    The fanfare is being saved for the “signing statement….”

  • I’m biased because I work here, but that Mother Jones story is astounding – and freaky. I never met her, but a lot of people in the gun control movement knew and dealt with Mary McFate/Sapone on a regular basis, were shocked to read that piece, and kind of sickened to think how she and the NRA used gun violence victims so thoroughly.

    Paul Helmke let her and the NRA have it this evening on our blog.

    Doug Pennington, Bradycampaign.org

  • If that was an example of Joe Klein being Very Good then I fear he is doomed to mediocrity.
    That small group of American neocon Jews has gotten congress tied around their finger and it ain’t the little finger either. I hope Klein is just as proud of his American heritage as well.

    Now that we know that there is no Justice at Justice they can get back to their main tactic of dealing with the firings of the US attorneys and the politicization of the department…”gumming it to death”. Coyners…”We just have to look good we don’t have to be real”. Hint…executive privilege can only be removed by impeachment hearings…Hearings to find evidence…start with Mukasey if you have to warm up.

    I didn’t know Paris Hilton was demanding more foreign oil. Why did McCain admit that Obama is the biggest celebrity in the world. Man, that is so cool. Loving our leader is a good start to loving America again.

    Sessions is just another of the many examples of why the GOP is known as the Party of Hypocrisy.

    I loved what Obama said about the petty McCain attack ads. People need to hear what McCain is for rather than just what he is against. McCain deserves to be laughed at and mocked.

  • Who is Tom and who is Tom Fooling? Just wonderin’.

    Dare I be redundant by saying that there is no shortage of Republican stupidity. (BTW, did you know that if you look up redundant in the dictionary it says See Redundant?)

  • Bernie Sanders of Vermont made a good case for speculation and market manipulation as primary reasons for the spike in oil prices on C-Span today. He quoted oil executives who testified that market fundamentals hadn’t changed, and that they couldn’t account for the price jumps. Interestingly, he also quoted Goldman Sachs in a report to investors that the very talk of regulatory action against excessive speculation in Congress could have a chilling effect on oil prices in the short term, even if they don’t enact any legislation. And then oil prices did drop, substantially. If Goldman Sachs is right, they’ll go back up, once traders are assured that Congress is, as usual, all talk and no action. So much for Bush’s claim that talk of drilling offshore sent prices plummeting. Wall Street doesn’t buy that. They know what a fraud that is.

  • * For what it’s worth, Barack Obama was also asked about the Britney-Paris ad: “You know, I don’t pay attention to John McCain’s ads, although I do notice he doesn’t seem to have anything to say very positive about himself. He seems to only be talking about me… You need to ask John McCain what he’s for and not just what he’s against.” — CB

    We got ourselves a plant from Obama’s campaign on CB; someone must have been reading Steve’s postings *and* the comments (which suggested *precisely that* attitude) 🙂

    Hark, @17,

    One of the theories I’ve heard — and found believable — about the recent drop of oil prices: China, a huge consumer and a serious subsidizer, has just put a cap on its subsidies. The expectation was that, with higher prices, less would be used. But the cap wasn’t all that stringent (last thing they want is people out in the streets, protesting, during the Olympics. And you can no longer trust people *not to* protest — vide recent tumults post-earthquake and Tibet before that), so it’s having little effect. We can expect the prices to go back up, once it becomes evident that that particular guess didn’t pan out.

  • Sam Brownback has always been just wonderful, if you close one eye. In announcing his short-lived Presidential campaign (it opened and closed in Iowa, proving he was no Mike Huckabee), Brownback told Iowans he had arrived to snap them out of their political disillusionment and “lethargy.” This was just weeks after Iowans had elected Democrats to a majority of both houses of the State Legislature, a Democratic Governor and two new Democratic Congressional Representatives, giving them both houses of state government and a Congressional majority for the first time in years, in an election that saw a record turnout. Iowans may be a lot of things Sam, but they ain’t lethargic. Only, it turned out, to you.

  • I guess this wouldn’t be off topic since this is an open thread.

    Today I saw an anti-union ad, set in a middle school classroom, in which an Italian American young man was portrayed as a union boss, strong-arming the teacher, as well as classmates, to vote for him in a school election. He of course demonstrated all the stereotypical cliche`s of a thug mobster, with a gang of enforcers to boot.

    What struck me about this ad was the blatant attack against unions in general, using children to perpetuate the myth that unions are lazy gangsters that put hard working, honest people out of work.

    Class warfare at it’s best.

    Immediately after that add was a Mitch McConnell add accusing his oppenet, Bruce Lunsford, of raising the gasoline tax, which of course is a blatant lie.

    Looks like the repugs are scared about losing Mitch in the senate…

  • Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., have agreed to give their Stevens-based donations to charity and GOP senators running for re-election in Maine and Minnesota are likewise being urged by their Democratic rivals to return Stevens-based money.

    In other words, SUSAN COLLINS and NORM COLEMAN are still hanging on to the proceeds from Ted Stevens’s alleged bribe taking.

  • McGarbled

    I know it is a cultural taboo to suggest McCain is too old to be President.
    I know we are all supposed to clap and shout when an old timer runs a marathon.
    And I know we are all supposed to shout attaboy when a senior like Glenn gets blasted into space…

    But at some point in time we have to just get real and acknowledge that an old fart is an old fart is an old fart.

    Scientific America article on why the 70 year old brain ain’t what it used to be:

    A new study may help explain why people of a more advanced age forget where they put their keys, hid important documents—or even who was on hand during a recent outing.
    University of Arizona in Tucson researchers report in The Journal of Neuroscience that forgetfulness may, at least in part, stem from a breakdown in the brain’s ability to store or consolidate memories, a process that involves “replaying” and filing away events while we snooze.

    Here is the bottom line:

    Barnes and her team compared memory consolidation and performance in 11 young male rats (aged 11 to 12 months) and 11 older males (25 to 31 months old). (She says this would be similar to comparing 35-year-old men to those in their seventies). The team implanted electrodes in each rat’s hippocampus—a midbrain region responsible for short-term and episodic memory of places and people as well as emotions linked to specific events.
    Researchers in this case recorded the activity in the hippocampuses of all 22 rats while they repeatedly navigated tracks and mazes in search of food. The exact patterns seen in the young animals as they completed the exercises played back as they slept; the sequences were garbled, however, in the older animals.

    Garbled.
    Got that? Garbled.
    Or should I say: McGarbled?

    He is too old to be President.
    He doesn’t have the energy.
    He doesn’t have a healthy functioning brain.

  • John McCain’s idea of tasteful good humor, uttered at a Republican Senate fund-raiser.

    “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?
    Because her father is Janet Reno.”

    Of course he denied he’s said it, and almost got away with it thanks to the complicity of the MSM. Ultimately, he was forced to apologize to President Clinton.

    What an asshole.

  • In other words, SUSAN COLLINS and NORM COLEMAN are still hanging on to the proceeds from Ted Stevens’s alleged bribe taking.

    On NPR Norm Coleman was asked about the money… His response: In this country you are innocent until proven guilty. We don’t know whether Senator Stevens did anything inappropriate yet. I’m holding on to the money and will address the issue when Ted Stevens has had his day in court.

    …Something along those lines… paraphrasing here..

    Go figure… It’s all good,in the Republican party, as long as you are not convicted.

  • * And finally, nothing says “pro-family” like a right-wing Republican congressman — in this case, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) — hosting a fundraiser at a Las Vegas strip club. Sessions, of course, took the lead in the bashing the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” a while back, blasting “liberal values.” — CB

    Never mind Titty Jackson and Sessions sputtering on that subject. From the article:

    “Sessions: That’s right, we do a Las Vegas fundraiser every year and not only raise money, but see Las Vegas. It’s a beautiful town.

    [Reporter Steve] Henn: Forty Deuce is a strip club.

    Sessions: You know, I’ve never seen that. It is what I would call a burlesque show where there’s a woman who comes out and has a dress on… Uh, she never get’s naked. There’s no nudity, there’s no nudity in there.”

    Please note the last two sentences. They’re, almost verbatim, what one of the Bush’s legal eagles (can’t remember who; my almost 59yr old memory refuses to cooperate. Fine? Something like that) said in a recent exchange with some Congressional committee or other. He was talking about — and denying — the forced nudity used in in interrogations at Gitmo…

    I’ve always felt that there was something “funny” about those Gitmo interrogations, but could never *quite* pinpoint why. Now I know; Gitmo is one big *burlesque*…

  • Dennis K, @24 and Bruno, @27,

    That McClatchy article that Steve has quoted is *stale*. By late last night, Susan Collins and Gordon Smith had announced their “divestments” (in addition to Elizabeth Dole and John Sununu; I haven’t heard about Roberts). Today, there were some more “dumpings”, including Coleman, who seems to have changed his mind:
    http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/more_gopers_shedding_the_taint.php

    Like I said last night: it’s Christmas in July for charities…

  • The exact patterns seen in the young animals as they completed the exercises played back as they slept; the sequences were garbled, however, in the older animals.
    Look here; I’m sixty and my thought processes are not gobbled. Yes, I do have to sleep with my shoes on to keep from having to look for them in the morning but that keeps my feet warm.
    Furthermore…um…it’s right on the tip of my tongue…Never mind. I have to go find an orange so I can write down what color it is in that little box thing.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO (#25):

    The exact patterns seen in the young animals as they completed the exercises played back as they slept; the sequences were garbled, however, in the older animals.

    Interesting study, but take it with a grain of salt. The only thing we can currently measure are brain patterns (i.e. electro-/chemical activity), not actual thought and/or dream processes. That lies in the future, and is only found in Star Trek or other sci-fi right now.

  • “The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

    It’s kind of sad that were it not for a guy in VT, at least one dude in DC would have had no idea about this.

    Will I get a card? Flowers?

  • I don’t know what Krugman is smoking, but it’s addling his brain. “I think we were luck to get out of this with democracy more or less intact.

    By “this” presumably he means the Bush thugocracy. We aren’t out of it yet, and assuming he does leave office the way previous two-term presidents have, he leaves with democracy on life-support, bleeding from open arteries, tied to a table and being water boarded.

    Habeous corpus is gone. Any right to privacy is gone. The Vice-President and his Mafia don’t believe in the Constitution. The political elite, and those connected to it, are effectively immunized against prosecution for their crimes in office. Corporate America owns Congress, and daytime radio fills the airwaves with endless hate, divisivness and blatant propaganda. Most news organizations are to some extent now merely an extension of the great right-wing noise machine, and Congress has an approval rating in the single digets.

    We sure have gotten out of “this” with democracy less intact. And that appears to have been the plan all along.

  • The House of Representatives has issued an apology to blacks for slavery and Jim Crow laws. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus and possessor of the best maiden name in history, said, “Today represents a milestone in our nation’s efforts to remedy the ills of our past.”
    But beyond merely passing a symbolic resolution, the House has actually issued some official apology cards for their past sins:
    http://www.236.com/news/2008/07/30/the_house_apologizes_for_slave_1_8022.php

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