Sabotage

Yesterday, steves questioned whether I really thought the Republican party was actively trying to sabotage the President's plans, regardless of the wider implications—meaning "screw the country to stage a comeback."

Perhaps this will convince him...Andrew Sullivan:

THE GOP HAS DECLARED WAR ON OBAMA

This much is now clear. Their clear and open intent is to do all they can, however they can, to sabotage the new administration (and the economy to boot). They want failure. Even now. Even after the last eight years. Even in a recession as steeply dangerous as this one. There are legitimate debates to be had; and then there is the cynicism and surrealism of total political war. We now should have even less doubt about what kind of people they are. And the mountain of partisan vitriol Obama will have to climb every day of the next four or eight years.

Sullivan's referring to this:

It's hard not to think that Gregg's withdrawal, with the grumbling about the census and the stimulus, was not timed to cause the most damage possible to the Obama administration. Releasing the statement just as Obama took the stage in Peoria was clearly designed to undermine the President's event. The fact he scheduled a presser only seems to confirm it. The classy exit would have been to wait til tomorrow afternoon to quietly bow out. Basically Gregg decided not just to politely decline, but rather to blow shit up and burn the bridge behind him. Do not think this portends good things for the wider political climate.

Dick of the Week: Harry Reid

Big surprise, right? This feckless asshole has GOT TO go...

Senate GOP Kills Auto Bailout Compromise
A proposed $14 billion automaker bailout bill, agreed to by Congressional Dems and the White House, collapsed late Thursday evening in the face of the opposition by Senate Republicans. "It's over with," declared Harry Reid.

Is is Harry Reid's fault that a group of Southern Senators want to jumpstart a new Confederacy and push the whole country towards a Depression just to score a few union scalps? No. But it's Reid's fucking fault that the Republicans get to scuttle badly needed action by quasi-filibustering without actually having to get off their asses.

Again.

Reid is yet again letting the whole Senate appear to blow it, when it's really a handful of "right to work" assholes actually colluding with foreign companies against American workers just to bust unions.

There's much more on this topic, but I'm on deadline, so it might be days til I can spend time on it...Have at it.

UPDATE: Another reason Harry sucks. His kiss-ass reaction to this bullshit.

Quote of the Day

John Cole:

Who could have imagined that if you take an ethically challenged know-nothing religious nut from backwoods America, have Bill Kristol and the Rove 2000 team whisper in her ear for weeks, that she would turn into a vicious political opportunist with no regard for the country and an eye on her personal future?

Rudy Does His Digging at the Microphone

Last week, Rudy Giuliani earned D.O.W. honors for claiming to have been "one of them" referring to 9/11 rescue workers. It wouldn't be the first time either... In Septemper 2006:

“I spent as much time here as anyone… I was here five, six times a day for four months. I kind of thought of it as living here.”

"[...] On at least three occasions, in responding to accusations that the city failed to adequately protect the health of workers in the wreckage, he has boasted that he faced comparable risks himself. In one appearance he declared that he had been in the ruins “as often, if not more” than the cleanup workers who logged hundreds of hours in the smoldering pile.

Another time he brushed aside safety claims by asserting that his long hours at the site had left him susceptible to “every health consequence that people have suffered.”

The New York Times went back and checked.

A complete record of Mr. Giuliani’s exposure to the site is not available for the chaotic six days after the attack, when he was a frequent visitor. But an exhaustively detailed account from his mayoral archive, revised after the events to account for last-minute changes on scheduled stops, does exist for the period of Sept. 17 to Dec. 16, 2001. It shows he was there for a total of 29 hours in those three months, often for short periods or to visit locations adjacent to the rubble. In that same period, many rescue and recovery workers put in daily 12-hour shifts. […]

When these guys lie like this do they really think they will get away with it? I mean, it is easy to check this stuff.

What? You mean they do get away with it? Oh. Now I see...

Even in the Times piece which just lays waste to Giuliani, they wrap up with this:

Alan I. Abramowitz, a political science professor at Emory University who specializes in voter behavior, said the Giuliani campaign’s focus on his Sept. 11 record has raised the stakes for any mischaracterization of his actions during that period.

“Its sort of like John Kerry making his war heroism a central focus,” Mr. Abramowitz said, “which may have contributed to the attention that was given to the swift boat veterans’ attacks on him.”

"Sort of like John Kerry?" You mean that as a candidate Kerry was a documented war hero, and the lies were told about him? By the Republicans? Yeah, same fucking thing, "Professor."

[h/t Carpetbagger]

Reid: It. Is. On.

Harry Reid's heard the word on the street. Make the Republicans get off their asses and filibuster.

Moments ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced that in response to conservative obstructionism, he plans to force war supporters to physically remain in the Senate and filibuster Iraq withdrawal legislation.

Reid accused conservatives of “protecting the President rather than protecting our troops” by “denying us an up or down vote on the most important issue our country faces.” He said that if a vote on the Reed/Levin Iraq legislation is not allowed today or tomorrow, he will keep the Senate in session “straight through the night on Tuesday” and force a filibuster.

“I would like to inform the Republican leadership and all my colleagues that we have no intention of backing down,” Reid said. “If Republicans do not allow a vote on Levin/Reed today or tomorrow, we will work straight through the night on Tuesday. The American people deserve an open and honest debate on this war, and they deserve an up or down vote on this amendment to end it.”

Can the GOP shop keep the talking points coming long enough for these empty suit jackasses to stand up there? We'll see.

Nelson Award: GOP Moralist First One Snared in D.C. Madam Net

The rank hypocrisy of the GOP is on display yet again. We had Newt leading the impeachment movement against Clinton while in the midst of his own extramarital affairs; the Republican leading the charge against online sexual predators sexually harassing his pages online, and now the "staunch, family values" Senator from Louisiana who ran as "the "Defender of Marriage", slammed his House and Senate predecessors, Bill Clinton, Hollywood, and "Massachusetts values" all while cheating on his own wife. With prostitutes.

[link] Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) apologized last night after his telephone number appeared in the phone records of the woman dubbed the “D.C. Madam,” making him the first member of Congress to become ensnared in the high-profile case.

The statement containing Vitter’s apology said his telephone number was included on phone records of Pamela Martin and Associates dating from before he ran for the Senate in 2004.

His defense? That he did this "several years ago" and has been "forgiven by God and his wife." All that means, asshole, is that you are not only a hypocrit now, but that you were lying when you ran for office.

People had been giving Vitter credit for getting out ahead of the story and making a statement on his own once the phone records were ordered turned over by the Court. ABC News had been poring through the lists and made no connections to Vitter.

Well, evidently the only thorough public guardian left is Larry Flynt. In one day, Hustler tied Vitter to the list and contacted him. Only then did he 'fess up and make his statement.

And the icing? It all comes just after Vitter was the first GOP Senator to publicly endorse Guiliani for President and was appointed to chair Rudy's campaign in the South. Let's review Rudy's staff, shall we? Coke dealer, racist bigot, child molester and now a prostitute-using adulturer. You just can't make this stuff up.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullicvan has the ultimate karmic Quote of the Day:

"I'm a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I'm walking away with one thing, and it's not alimony, trust me,"
[Vitter's wife] Wendy Vitter, 2000, talking about the Clinton scandal to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Male genital mutilation may be about to have a comeback.

"Hold" On a Second...

Last week (below) I vented on the ability of Republicans to control the agenda in the Senate through "filibustering without filibustering." Republicans are forcing legislation off the table before a vote because Reid knows he cannot guarantee cloture without 60 votes in his pocket. And he cannot overtun a Bush veto without the 2/3 majority of 67 votes.

Thus, things like the stem cell bill last week fade away without a vote because Bush promises to veto it, and Reid cut his losses early. I think this is bad politics and bad policy, but later in the week there was an even more egregious example...

Bill aims to solve racial killings

The House passed a bill Wednesday to establish a new division of federal prosecutors and FBI agents focused strictly on cracking unsolved murders from the civil rights era.

The bill, which is also moving swiftly through the Senate, would authorize $10 million a year over the next decade to create the unit in the Justice Department. It also would earmark $2 million per year in grants for state and local law enforcement agencies to investigate cases in which federal prosecution isn’t practical, and $1.5 million more to improve coordination among investigating agencies.

The bill, passed 422-2, is named in honor of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago who was beaten and murdered in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman. His killers were never convicted.

[...] State and federal prosecutors have had a string of successes recently in reopening racially motivated slayings from the 1950s and 1960s, including the 1963 Birmingham, Ala., church bombing and the 1964 slayings of three civil rights volunteers in Mississippi.

Sounds like a goood idea to me, it sailed through the House, actually has Bush's endorsement ahead of time, and seemed poised to cruise through the Senate...so, what happened?

One single Senator ground the whole thing to a halt. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) put a "hold" on the bill and threatened to block it permanently.

Wait a sec...everybody (seemingly) wants this thing, and one guy in the minority can stop the whole thing?

The first thing I thought, even before considering the actual merits of the legislation, was "can one guy really stop legislation (good or bad) with a procedural hold? And if that's true, why the fuck weren't the Democrats doing that the last six years?"

And, get this, you don't even need to put your name on a hold! In May, bipartisan legislation expanding the Freedom of Information Act was cruising along in he Senate until "the vote was blocked by 'Senator Anonymous.' Some Republican senator called the Minority Leader’s office and objected to a vote on the bill, but asked for anonymity and did not publicly state the reason for the hold." [link

As I read these stories I was flabbergasted. I heard about "holds" and "unanimous consent" and other esoteric Senate procedural terms, but I didn't realize exactly how this could work. So I looked it up. From the Senate website's glossary [emphasis mine]:

hold - An informal practice by which a Senator informs his or her floor leader that he or she does not wish a particular bill or other measure to reach the floor for consideration. The Majority Leader need not follow the Senator’s wishes, but is on notice that the opposing Senator may filibuster any motion to proceed to consider the measure.

This again? Fucking outrageous bullshit! Make Coburn stand up there by himself and filibuster the goddamn thing. That he is holding the Senate and this legislation hostage with what amounts to a thinly-veiled bluff is pathetic. Now it's possible that the support from the GOP side of the aisle is posturing because Coburn has agreed to wear this one by himself, but I don't fucking care if he votes are there or not. MAKE THEM (OR HIM) STAND UP AND TAKE THE HEAT AND ACTUALLY FILIBUSTER!

The fact that this is worthy legislation, just like the stem cell funding and the OPEN Govenment Act (the FOIA bill defeated by a mystery Senator) is almost beside the point to me now. Why the hell is Reid running things this way? They should have brought that FOIA bill to the floor just to find out who put the hold on it.

The more I learn about how things work (or don’t work) in the Senate the less enamored I am with our caucus and its leadership.

UPDATE: They're at it again this week. The "Ethics and Lobbying Reform Bill" and the "9/11 Commission Recommendations." More at Kos here and here. Why the hell doesn't Harry Reid want to make the Republicans stand up and filibuster Ethics Reform and 9/11-related security measures?

"Votes and Vetoes and Filibusters, Oh My"

It was just yesterday when I read about the impending veto of another stem-cell bill that I wondered to myself "why aren't the Dems sending something "good" up to the White House for a veto on a weekly basis?" It would give the impression that they are trying to get shit done, and would make Bush veto something that, in all liklihood, is supported by the majority of the country... Everybody already hates the guy, I say continue kicking him while's down. Who cares if we don't have the votes to overturn a veto? Make Congressional Republicans go on record twice voting against it.

As John Judis in TNR points out; in the late 80s, the Dems sent Bush 41 plenty of popular items to veto:

...Mitchell and Foley sent Bush 36 pieces of legislation that he vetoed. These included the Family and Medical Leave Act, tax relief and urban aid (in the wake of the Los Angeles riots), extended jobless benefits (during a recession), a crime bill, the removal of a Bush administration ban on federal funding of fetal tissue research (which had been instrumental to discovering a polio vaccine), a bill removing the gag rule that forbade federally funded family planning counselors from discussing abortion, a bill regulating cable rates, and a campaign finance measure.

Sounds like a plan, right? Kevin Drum (the source of the above Judis quote) and Steve Benen point out the difference between the late 80s and now.

Unfortunately, all of these votes, as Judis acknowledges, required support from Republican moderates in order to pass. But that strategy pretty clearly won't work in today's Senate, which contains no more than half a dozen Republicans who could truly be called moderate. And even those half dozen are rarely willing to join Democrats in passing moderate legislation. The Gingrichization of the Republican Party has made moderate insubordination too costly to seriously consider.

The result is that Senate Republicans can filibuster anything they want to keep off Bush's desk, allowing through only those bills that he's willing to sign — or those in which a veto is actually helpful to the cause. Democrats simply don't have the ability to force moderate legislation to the Oval Office as veto bait.

Benen adds:

Consider what we’ve seen the last few months when it comes to GOP obstructionism. Senate Republicans have filibustered a non-binding resolution criticizing Gonzales, a minimum-wage increase, a debate over a non-binding resolution on the war (twice), and a bill that would have led to lower prices on prescription medication. And that doesn’t even include procedural hurdles in committees. (All from the party that whined about non-existent obstructionism for six years.)

Why has Reid failed to garner moderate GOP support the way Mitchell did? Because the numbers just aren’t there. Reid has 51 members in his caucus. One of them is Joe Lieberman. Another is Tim Johnson, who has been physically unable to work. So, to break a filibuster, Reid starts with 49 votes and looks around for Republican moderates.

If we want more progress, we’ll need to give Reid more Democrats.

Let me first say that these are two bloggers I like alot especially Benen—The Carpetbagger Report is indispensible reading to me—but this is crap.

"Give Reid more Democrats?" Well, that ain't happening the rest of the time Bush is President, so that's not really a plan. And besides, it's a cop-out. The whole fucking thing is a cop-out. Drum says the Republicans "filibuster anything they want to keep off Bush's desk"? Really? I don't remember reading about any "filibusters" do you? We heard plenty about it—and how bad it was for the country—when the Democrats were in the minority, but I don't really hear much about it now. Why is that?

Because Reid isn't making the Republicans "filibuster" anything. He counts heads and has a cloture vote, which brings debate to an end artificially, and they move on to the next item. Bullshit. MAKE. THEM. ACTUALLY. FILIBUSTER. Make these assholes actually go to the podium and speak. I don't care if they argue their positions or read the phone book, make them earn it. Reid is letting them off easy with an "implied" filibuster. Fuck that.

The Republicans invested heavily in painting the filibuster as the last resort of desperate obstructionists. Make them fucking wear it. It highlights their hypocrisy, it won't win them any fans (or at least will confound and confuse) their moronic base, and puts them—and here's the important part—visibly on the wrong side of issues popular with everybody else.

The Democrats swept back into power by promising a bold new direction. Reid (and Pelosi) are ceding too much to the Republicans in Congress and Bush if they continue to let them stall and run out the clock until 2008. They may not actually be able pass any bold new initiatives with their slim majorities, but they sure as hell should look like they're trying.

"More Democrats?" Great. But first lets outfit the ones we have with some testicles.

No Apex Tech Lawyers for Bush

Spinning off of the previous post, the lawyers that actually do work for the President got reinforced last week...

Besieged White House Reinforces Counsel's Office
[WaPo] President Bush has authorized another surge -- this time in the White House counsel's office. Facing a blizzard of congressional investigations, hearings and subpoenas, the White House has hired a new crop of lawyers to do battle with the Democratic Congress.

[...] "Obviously, there's been an increase in requests from the Hill, and we want to make sure we have the appropriate level of staff in place," said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore.

Yeah, ya don't say? "Congressional investigators are looking into the dismissal of U.S. attorneys, the disappearance of White House e-mail, internal disputes over warrantless surveillance, partisan activities in federal agencies, various aspects of the Iraq war and other issues."

Do you think George is tapping a fresh crop of Pat Robertson's finest to defend him and his Administration? Not likely. All seven of the added lawyers are from Ivy League law schools. Tom Schaller at TAPPED put it best...

So, when it comes to policy-making over at the so-called Justice Department, a Regent University law degree, like the one held by Monica Goodling and a battalion of other fundies, suffices. But when it comes to protecting the president's backside, apparently a divine legal degree is no substitute for an East Coast elite Ivy School pedigree.

When hiring lawyers to defend the Constitution, the People, the Laws and our system of Justice, Lionel Hutz with a degree from the 700 Club is first in line, but for his own ass? Bush only hires the best.

Law and Orders

A great column at Slate.com that discusses how DOJ lawyers should advise an Administration...

The proper role for presidential lawyers is actually quite clear... The Constitution explicitly commands the president to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," and it is up to the attorney general and, under his direction, DoJ's Office of Legal Counsel to provide the analytical expertise the president needs to ensure the legality of his administration's actions. Presidential lawyers should operate first and foremost as stewards of the rule of law and our constitutional democracy. Their legal advice must reflect an accurate and principled view of the law, not just plausible, ends-driven rationalizations. And in order to do that with any effectiveness, they must be allowed to tell the president "no."

The Constitution? Isn't that one of those "quaint" documents we now ignore? The Bush Administration has so clearly used the DOJ as a resource to seek out and rationalize any justification possible for what it wants to do rather than as a source of objective legal analysis. They have replaced or driven out anyone (even Ashcroft) who ever dared to raise a question, never mind an objection.

The Department of Justice is supposed to work for the People and even moreso, The Constitution. Congress should NEVER have alllowed the President to appoint his personal lawyer to head that Agency. This was all so predictible. Time for Congress to undo it's own mistake and reassert the Rule of Law.

Time to impeach Gonzalez. It might be a little while, I can wait to see how the Miers and Taylor subpoenas play out, and whether they get Rove under oath or not, but the endgame has to be the same. Gonzalez has to go, and it is increasingly clear that impeachment is the only way that will happen.

The Republicans in a Nutshell

"When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
-Sinclair Lewis

Wow. That quote appears at the beginning of a video on the brush-up between candidates Ron Paul and Rudy Guiliani at the debates. I've never seen that quote before, and I may have to re-design the blog in order to prominantly feature those words.

Here's the video...

There's No Debate: These Guys are Fucking Nuts

Two interesting annd revealing clips from the Republican debate the other night. [via Crooks and Liars]:

Ron Paul vs. Giuliani on the Root Causes of Terrorism

and

Brit Hume's Torture Porn Hypothetical

Thank God for Ron Paul. That guy is a breath of fresh air. It's too bad his only real purpose is going to end being for the other candidates use him as a BP machine to launch their empty soundbites, and that the Republican voters are too fucking stupid to realize that he is the only guy on the stage that even remotely represents what it means to be "conservative." The rest of these torture-loving authoritarians are like a bunch of preening tyrants auditioning for the role of facist dictator of some banana republic—not President of the United States.

Deputy A.G. Resigns…Alberto Pounces

Yesterday Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty became the third (and highest) high-ranking DOJ official to resign over the US Attorney firings. Meanwhile, his boss Alberto Gonzales, the guy who should resign over this, threw McNulty under the bus with such vigor, it practically sucked my car under the bus as I listened to the A.G.'s comments on NPR...

"You have to remember, at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names... And he would know better than anyone else, anyone in this room, anyone -- again, the deputy attorney general would know best about the qualifications and the experiences of the United States attorneys community, and he signed off on the names."

Of course he neglects to mention that he ALSO signed off on the names. And that McNulty had nothing to do with the list and was completely, and deliberately left out of the loop on the firings. Anyway, that is some Olympic-class buck-passing on display right there. Perhaps the most shameless display of scapegoating I've seen from a Bush Administration official, and that's saying something. What a piece of shit he is.

Alberto's widely publicized and praised immigrant mother must be very proud.

Al, The President's Man

The always enjoyable Dahlia Lithwick ties everything up in a neat bundle. Don't miss the graphic from the hearing that Sen. Whitehouse, a Republican busted out to contrast the Bush and Clinton White Houses. Hilarious.

Other notable Republican quotes?

Tom Coburn: It's "generous to say that there were misstatements" by Gonzales and others, Coburn said. "I believe that you ought to suffer the consequences," he said, adding that Gonzales ought to be judged by the same standards with which he judged the U.S. attorneys.

"The best way to put this behind us is your resignation."

Lindsay Graham: "...[You] made up reasons to fire them, because you wanted to get rid of them." "Mr. Attorney General, most of this is a stretch..."

Republicans on the Committee are now callling for his head, but through it all, we should remember that Gonzales serves at the "pleasure of the President." Well sounds like his job is safe...

White House: "President Bush was pleased with the Attorney General's testimony today. [...] The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President, and he appreciates the work he is doing at the Department of Justice to help keep our citizens safe from terrorists..."

Pathetic.