Skip to content

Joe the Traitor to lose his gavel

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Looks like the Democrats are going to strip Lieberman of his committee chairmanship.

Lieberman, a former Democrat who supports Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for president, is likely to lose his gavel on the Homeland Security Committee he has chaired since January 2007, say the sources who see him being replaced by Sen. Daniel Akaka (Hawaii), the committee’s third-ranking Democrat.

…

One Democratic source said Lieberman is not likely to lose his position in the Democratic caucus, even if the party picks up several seats in next week’s election. While Democrats could approach or exceed the filibuster-proof threshold of 60 votes, they may still need Lieberman’s vote often.

My prediction is that he’ll leave the caucus, if he stays in the Senate. Good riddance, in any event. As I said a couple of days ago, the Democrats should make clear to him that, if he wants to recover any power in the Senate, he is going to have to complete a period of probation.

Filed in Lieberman | | Comments (2)

What it’s all about

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Via digby. Okay, I admit it, I’m a softie. But this video illustrates a larger point as well. On the one side, it really is about hope and optimism. On the other side, division and fear.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW-6DpC-mj8[/youtube]

Filed in Presidential Politics, Video | | Comments (0)

Students for Courtney, Take 2

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Yesterday I wrote that I was unable to post a video of a new Courtney commercial, because it played automatically when anyone came to this site. Thanks to Lon Seidman it’s now on youtube, and here it is:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bINN_aIGyE[/youtube]

Doesn’t it feel good to have a great Democratic Congressman again. Those six years of Simmons seem like a bad dream.

Filed in Joe Courtney, Video | | Comments (0)

Put Joe on Probation

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

It is becoming increasingly likely that the difference between a filibuster proof Senate and a filibuster susceptible Senate will be Joe Lieberman. This is a consummation devoutly to be wished against.

We have to start thinking about this. I submit the following. First, I think Lieberman will resign and join right wing think tank, but if he doesn’t, and he tries to trade his vote for a continuance of his seniority, a few things should be considered.

First, his position will be weaker that 2 years ago. Then he made the difference between a Democratically organized Senate and one organized and controlled by the Republicans. Second, it is unlikely that the Republicans will stand together in the next Senate like they have in this. The party is fractured, and the few remaining moderates, such as Olympia Snowe, may not want to take a hit for the folks who brought the party to destruction. Finally, there is no reason to trust Lieberman. Once he’s given his chairmanship, it can’t be taken away.

So, I propose that if the worst of the best happens, that Joe be placed on probation. He should be told that he will be given his chairmanship in 2010, so long as he’s a good boy for the next two years. Meantime, he’s a backbencher. He’ll stab them in the back if they trust him; he’s proven that. This way he has an incentive to do the right thing, and if he doesn’t, then he becomes irrelevant for the remainder of his political life. If he decides to become a Republican, let him. He’d be the first rat in history to board a sinking ship.

Filed in Lieberman | | Comments (0)

Stealing signs

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I have been more or less involved in nuts and bolts politics since 1980, when I was a last minute volunteer for Jimmy Carter. My job was to put up signs on election day. Apparently I had a Republican counterpart whose job was to take them down, because, wherever we put them, they were gone within minutes.

In the years since I’ve found the pattern has held. Democratic signs, yard and otherwise, get stolen. This appears to be a pattern nationwide. Today Jesus General reports, via the Kansas City Star, on a Republican candidate who got caught on youtube stealing his opponent’s signs. Most likely there are some Democrats and left wingers stealing signs somewhere, but if this search page at youtube is any indication, they are few and far between.

We are asking for donations for Obama signs here at Groton Democratic Headquarters (yes, I’m live-blogging) because we have to pay for them ourselves. I gave one to a friend in my office, and his was stolen within days. Today we got 30 more, which we got be donating to the New Haven Democrats, who had some extras. I’ll be giving my friend another sign, which will, no doubt, be stolen again. Meanwhile, the McCain signs are left alone.

I am convinced that this lopsided state of affairs is emblematic of a fundamental difference between the parties, and yes, there are differences between them. Republicans know no boundaries, as John McCain is proving yet again. To them, politics is war by other means, and all’s fair in war. Slander, theft, dishonesty, voter suppression, it’s all okay. It makes it harder for us, since if we don’t beat them, we join them at the risk of becoming like them. All the more reason to remain on our guard.

Filed in Republican Corruption | | Comments (3)

A word of warning

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

via Americablog, from the Obama campaign:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Xnk9aqih8o[/youtube]

Filed in Presidential Politics | | Comments (0)

More false equivalency

Monday, October 27, 2008

From the Times:

With heavy voter turnout expected on Election Day, both parties are amassing thousands and thousands of lawyers to keep an eye on the polls.

Senator Barack Obama’s campaign is expected to send at least 5,000 lawyers to Florida alone. The first recruitment e-mail message the campaign sent out nationally received 6,000 responses from lawyers willing to volunteer. Meanwhile, Senator John McCain’s campaign has lined up “Lawyers for McCain” to spread out at polling places in closely contested states as advocates for the ticket.

Both campaigns plan to use the lawyers to protect their supporters at the polls, help untangle ballot problems and run to court should litigation be necessary (Emphasis added)

Both campaigns are looking to “protect their supporters at the polls”. Right. If you read closely you’ll see there’s a slightly different emphasis. The Obama lawyers will be out there making sure people get to vote. The McCain people? Not so much:

Mr. Cairncross said Republican lawyers would be on the lookout for voter fraud, and would work to halt such previous stunts as having busloads of voters show up to keep polls open beyond their statutory closing time.

Mr. Cairncross said that “lots of times,” Republicans had been “cast as leading a massive voter-suppression effort and trying to keep people from voting.”

The reality, he said, is that “we are civic-minded citizens who are taking the better part of the day and who have been through an Election Day training course.”

Hmmm. Right. It’s not voter suppression if they teach you how to do it first.

People need to go to jail for this sort of stuff. It should be the first order of business for the next attorney general.

Filed in Media, Presidential Politics | | Comments (0)

Meanwhile, under the radar

Monday, October 27, 2008

The Bush Administration has entered full destructo mode. They have only two months left to complete destruction of everything. Most of us think they’ve already succeeded admirably, but there’s more to be done. For instance:

At the Bush administration’s direction, the Environmental Protection Agency is working on a new rule that would weaken pollution regulations for power plants, allowing them to increase emissions without adding controls.

EPA officials have been working on a fast track to meet a Saturday deadline, but many of them are arguing against changing the rule, said former EPA attorney John Walke and an EPA career official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to make statements.

They said that the EPA was expected to decide in November on another eleventh-hour rule that would allow more power plants to be built near national parks and wilderness areas.

This kind of stuff will be happening from now until January. Regulatory change rarely attracts attention, but it is precisely the place an administration can do the most good, and, in the case of the Bush folks, precisely where it can wreak the most destruction.

Meantime, on another front, the Bush folks are teaching our Iraqi puppets a little lesson about sovereignty:

Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, informed Iraqi officials last week that if their country doesn’t agree to a new agreement governing American forces in Iraq, it would lose $6.3 billion in aid for construction, security forces and economic activity and another $10 billion a year in foreign military sales.

The warning was spelled out in a three-page list that was shown to McClatchy on Monday. Iraqi officials consider the threat serious and worry that the impasse over the so-called status of forces agreement could lead to a crisis in Iraq. Without a new agreement or a renewed United Nations mandate, the U.S. military presence would become an illegal occupation under international law.

So Bush is playing a game of chicken in Iraq. If the Iraqis don’t back down, his little war will become a clear and undoubted violation of international law, bereft of the fig leaf of legitimacy it has enjoyed hitherto. Unfortunately, it would also leave Obama with another major headache as he enters the White House, which is probably one of the reasons they’ve decided to blackmail the Iraqis. Like retreating armies throughout history, the Bushies have adopted a scorch earth policy. What they can’t take with them, they’ll destroy.

Filed in Bush | | Comments (0)

Students for Courtney

Monday, October 27, 2008

Brian Farber of the Courtney campaign asked, along (probably) with every other blogger in Connecticut, to post a video of a new Courtney commercial featuring 2nd District students. Unfortunately, the embedded video plays automatically, whether you like it or not, as soon as you come to this august location. So I deleted it right after posting it. For those interested in viewing it, you can see it here.

Filed in Joe Courtney | | Comments (0)

I must be dreaming

Monday, October 27, 2008

Despite what seemed like the Justice Department’s best effort to screw up the case against him, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens went down today, convicted by a jury of his peers on seven counts of violating ethics laws.

This is too much good news, and makes me suspect anew that I am being set up.

Filed in Republican Corruption | | Comments (0)