The New York Times appears to have bestowed a new name on Norman Hsu. He is now Clinton Donor Norman Hsu. It matters not, of course, that there is not a whisper of a hint that Clinton has anything to do with whatever crimes Hsu may have committed.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Times would rechristen every corrupt person with such a prefix? How many new “Bush Donor”‘s would there be?
I don’t pretend to be the world’s greatest lawyer, but I have learned a thing or two about negotiating in the years since I was sworn to the bar. One thing I learned, in fact, one thing I always sort of knew, is that you don’t do this:
With a mixed picture emerging about progress in Iraq, Senate Democratic leaders are showing a new openness to compromise as they try to attract Republican support for forcing at least modest troop withdrawals in the coming months.
After short-circuiting consideration of votes on some bipartisan proposals on Iraq before the August break, senior Democrats now say they are willing to rethink their push to establish a withdrawal deadline of next spring if doing so will attract the 60 Senate votes needed to prevail.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said, “If we have to make the spring part a goal, rather than something that is binding, and if that is able to produce some additional votes to get us over the filibuster, my own inclination would be to consider that.”
That’s a little like telling the other attorney: “I would like you to pay my client $50,000.00, but if you say “No” I’ll probably take $20.” At first blush you might think that, though stupid, this approach is not so terrible. After all, you end up with $20K, don’t you? Well, no, you probably end up with 10. It is never smart to walk into negotiations with an opening declaration of weakness.
At least one Senator, our own Chris Dodd, who almosts redeems Connecticut from the shame that is Joe Lieberman, is having none of it:
“Rather than picking up votes, by removing the deadline to get our troops out of Iraq you have lost this Democrat’s vote.
“Despite the fact that this has been the bloodiest summer of the war and report after report says that there has been little to no political progress, the White House continues to argue that their strategy is working.
“It is clear that half measures are not going to stop this President or end this war.
“I cannot and will not support any measure that does not have a firm and enforceable deadline to complete the redeployment of combat troops from Iraq. Only then will Congress be able to send a clear message to the President that we are changing course in Iraq, and a message to the Iraqis that they need to get their political house in order.
“I urge my colleagues to join me and declare their opposition to this measure.”
Have the Democrats no collective memory? They were recently in the Senate minority. On what important issue did the merely declare an intent to filibuster and immediately win their point? I can’t remember a single instance. Yet they proactively surrender (is that an oxymoron?…quasi maybe) to an unannounced Republican filibuster on the most important issue before them. It is totally beyond them to consider that if they make the Republicans actually filibuster, and if they frame that filibuster as the obstruction of the American will that it is, that they just might succeed, or at the very least get a compromise that moves in their direction, rather than moves at warp speed away from it.
Where are the other present Senators, would be Presidents on this issue? Their running on leadership, it would be nice to see some. John Edwards has been great on this, but he’s not in the Senate.
I must pass on this Bill Maher rant, that I picked up on Daily Kos:
New Rule: If you were surprised that the Chinese don’t care about toy safety, then the child who needs protecting is you. Over the last couple of months, American consumers have been learning a shocking lesson about supply and demand: if you demand products that don’t cost anything, people will make them out of poison, mud and shit. Now, since April, approximately 17 million toys in the United States, all of them made in China, have been recalled. Which is amazing considering that no one in the Department of Justice can recall a thing. Okay.
Now, believe me, I was devastated when Mattel recalled almost everything in my Barbie Dream Closet. Although I had suspected something when Ken discovered a lump on his testicle.
Until recently, I never even worried about being harmed by the Chinese. Unless they were in the left-hand turn lane. I kid. I love the…
But then we found out … that their dog food was deadly and that they were making toothpaste out of antifreeze, and that the Number 62A at the Szechuan Palace is Beef with Bronchitis. They’re the Chinese. They don’t care if your precious little Britney sucks a little lead. Because in China, their kids aren’t playing with the toys. They’re the ones in the factory all day making them.
Now, I know you’re saying, “But, Bill, I don’t have time to ponder whether these $12 jeans are the product of child labor. I just know I’m an American on a budget and our lifestyle is a blessed one. And I want to look nice while I’m standing in line for my iPhone.”
But, there is something to be said for thinking about why these bargains are such bargains. Wal-Mart is the most American thing in the universe, but all it sells is crap from China. Wal-Mart wouldn’t exist without the American consumers’ endless thirst for the cheapest stuff China has to offer. Like $30 DVD players and Jackie Chan.Yeah, you’re right, it was a great movie.
Anyway…in America, there is nothing more sacred than a bargain… And Jackie Chan. And that even includes the war. Yeah, there’s too much lead in the kids’ toys, but not nearly enough on the Humvees in Iraq. “Let’s have a war and cut taxes; what could go wrong?” “Let’s give mortgages to the homeless. Sounds like a plan.” “Let’s buy toys from a Communist police state. You just know they’ll put in a little extra love.”
Speaking of which, you know why today’s modern Chinese capitalist puts lead in the paint that goes on toys? Because it makes colors brighter. You’ve got to love America, a country that’s literally being killed by the stuff that makes objects shiny.
As My Left Nutmeg reports, our state representative Elissa Wright has a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters. Elissa has done a great job since she became a member of the House. What’s with the Republicans outscoring the Democrats in the Senate?
Some folks just can’t catch a break. First, Larry Craig taps his foot in a restroom stall, and the next thing you know he’s announcing his intent to resign from the Senate. Almost no one noticed that he didn’t actually resign. After all, he wouldn’t be misleading us, would he?
Well, yes he would. The very next day Arlen Specter pointed out that, since Craig hadn’t actually resigned, he, Specter, felt he should fight the charges to which he’s already pleaded guilty. After all, Specter pointed out, he had only said he intended to resign. He had not, in fact, resigned.
Sure enough, Larry soon seemed to be considering changing his mind. It would be cynical of us to believe that while he had an “intent” to resign, he also had an “intent” to deceive, wouldn’t i?. Well, no, it wouldn’t, because Craig is a Republican, and almost by definition a liar and hypocrite.
Turns out that he used the word “intent” intentionally with the intent to deceive as to his intent, and at the urging of Arlen Specter no less.
How do we know this? Here’s where old Wide Stance’s inability to catch a break comes in. He spilled the beans in a telephone message to his lawyer. How is it that you can hear the whole thing here? Because Wide Stance was stupid enough to leave a substantive message on an answering machine that didn’t identify its owner. Guess what, it was a wrong number, and the unidentified patriot who found it on his/her tape duly handed it over to Roll Call.
If they had a Stupidity Code in the Senate Craig would have violated it by leaving that message. Rule one when you can’t tell if you’ve reached the right number; leave your name, number and the name of the person you’re trying to reach and then hang up.
How do people this stupid get into the Senate? Or is he subconsciously looking to get caught. At least he didn’t proposition his lawyer on the tape.
EDITED to meet my wife’s objection that not all Republicans are liars or hypocrites. (see italicized “almost”)
Sometimes, methinks, folks in the leftmost portion of the blogosphere take things just a little too seriously.
Yesterday, in the grand tradition of John Kerry, Bill Richardson tried to make a joke. In the grand tradition of present day politicans of all stripes, he failed miserably. Richardson was in Iowa, and, seeking to curry favor with his audience, tried to justify Iowa’s undeserved place in the presidential nominating process. Since neither logic nor reason justifies Iowa’s privileged place, only two entities are left to to blame, neither one of which can defend themselves these days. Per Richardson:
“Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary,”
Now there are two possibilities here. Richardson either really believes that Iowa comes first by constitutional mandate and the will of God, or he does not. If the first, then he is almost as deranged as George Bush, who believes even more bizarre things about both God and the Constitution, and thinks God talks to him to boot. If, on the other hand, Richardson does not believe these assertions, then he was attempting, as his campaign now claims, to do something that all Democrats should attempt with extreme trepidation: tell a joke.
I incline, indeed I positively avalanche, toward the latter conclusion. On a scale of 1 to 10, the joke is minus 10 funny, about par for the course for politicians these days, but that doesn’t diminish his mens rea (the word is apt, it was a crime against humour) one bit. Nonetheless it appear that even the mighty Kos feels that it is an example of pandering and some appear to think that Richardson was serious.
If it was a pander it was of the harmless sort, so over the top that it is practically a parody of pandering. In fact, that might very well be what he was intending to do, he just couldn’t pull it off. In any event, this isn’t the sort of thing we should pile on one of our candidates about. It’s bad enough that the media often run with these things, as they did when they crucified Kerry for telling a Bush is stupid joke. There’s no need for us to inflate a story that’s essentially meaningless. Stupid statements, when uttered by Republicans, are usually ignored (e.g., Mitt Romney’s assertion that his five sons were doing the equivalent of Iraq service by working on his campaign), while those from Democrats often have a long shelf life. There’s no need for us to add fuel to the fire.
If this is September, it must be time for the Bush Administration to roll out a new product. This year, as back in 2002, the nature of the product is not in doubt. Then it was the war itself, this year it is stay the course, repackaged with a new salesman but with the old sales techniques intact. Here’s Paul Krugman from this morning’s Times:
In February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell, addressing the United Nations Security Council, claimed to have proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He did not, in fact, present any actual evidence, just pictures of buildings with big arrows pointing at them saying things like “Chemical Munitions Bunker.” But many people in the political and media establishments swooned: they admired Mr. Powell, and because he said it, they believed it.
Mr. Powell’s masters got the war they wanted, and it soon became apparent that none of his assertions had been true.
Until recently I assumed that the failure to find W.M.D., followed by years of false claims of progress in Iraq, would make a repeat of the snow job that sold the war impossible. But I was wrong. The administration, this time relying on Gen. David Petraeus to play the Colin Powell role, has had remarkable success creating the perception that the “surge” is succeeding, even though there’s not a shred of verifiable evidence to suggest that it is.
…
So here we go again. It appears that many influential people in this country have learned nothing from the last five years. And those who cannot learn from history are, indeed, doomed to repeat it.
There’s an old saying, with two variants. The first, and most widely known, goes something like this: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. The other, no less monitory, if far less grammatical, might be called the Bush variant:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qDuG0ZYD5I[/youtube]
Unfortunately, only Charlie Brown is more willing to cast doubt aside than our beltway media, and to their eternal shame, some Congressional Democrats, who have not yet learned that the irrefutable presumption about anything Bush and his minions have to say is that it is a lie.
As to Petraeus, is there anyone outside of the Beltway who thinks that this pre-UN-Colin Powell-wannabe is anything other than just another administration lying con man? There are people in Washington, in the media and in Congress, that are ready to believe anything the man says. My sense is that the truth has sunk in to the American people, and they’re not going to be convinced by anyone’s flimflam, no matter how many stars on his shoulder. September may be the best month to roll out a new product, but not every roll out succeeds. Just remember the Edsel, which, coincidentally and to my surprise, rolled out 50 years ago today.
Unfortunately, the people that matter, the folks in Washington with gravitas and the Democrats despereatly seeking their approval will buy what Petreaus is selling, and more and more this war, Bush’s war, will become a war partially owned, though by no means controlled, by the Democratic Party.
By the way, you can read Krugman’s entire column for free at Truthout. As always, must reading.
We are a union family. In my former life, prior to private practice, I helped organize the legal services union, and had the honor to be chosen to represent my fellow workers before the NLRB. My wife is still a member, and my son has spent two years in various union organizing activities. Labor Day should belong to workers, and workers should belong to unions. If we bring back unions, we can bring back the middle class, which is slowly dying.
From the old days, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie singing Union Maid:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCPUCzjlMlU[/youtube]
And, just because, here’s the same duo singing This Land is Your Land, with the subversive lyrics included.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK10l8VNvmE[/youtube]
Back to politics tomorrow.
On September 6, 1781 Benedict Arnold burned New London to the ground, and then turned his attention to Groton, where he stormed Fort Griswold, on Groton Bank, and the troops under his command massacred the Fort’s defenders. Today we attended a memorial wreath laying for the men and women who fought that day. (The women may not have borne arms, but at least some were at the battle site, tending to the wounded).
Today, as it does every year, Groton commemorated the sacrifice of those men and women. We attended the ceremony, at which various luminaries spoke. This was a landmark year, inasmuch as most of the speakers were Democrats, including newly elected State Senator Andy Maynard, and newly elected Congressman Joe Courtney.
One must wonder if the empire that exists today would meet with the approval of the hardy Yankees that defended Fort Griswold. They were, after all, insurgents fighting to detach themselves from an Empire that was just beginning the slow unraveling that overreaching always brings about.
But enough preaching. It’s a holiday, and I’m staying away from politics (sort of). Here’s some pictures, which will mostly be in the form of small thumbnails, which you can enlarge by clicking.
First, the monument from a different angle than I’ve shown before. Our monument, by the way, was constructed 20 years before the copycat ripoff at Bunker Hill.
By the way, to paraphrase Freud, sometimes an obelisk is just an obelisk.
No Revolutionary War commemoration would be complete without some re-enactors, who I unfortunately can’t identify, having forgotten the name of their group:
Next, Andy Maynard and City Deputy Mayor Paul Duarte:
Joe Courtney gave a good and appropriately short speech:
I took some video, but am having a hard time figuring out how to post it-the one place WordPress falls behind my old blogging software.
After the ceremony a lone bagpiper stood on the fort ramparts and played. Unfortunately, he had not been included on the written program and a lot of people, I think, were unaware he was there. A real shame because he played well. 99% of the time a bagpipe is a wretched thing to hear, but somehow they work well certain contexts, and this was one.
A number of the people present were descendants of men who fought in the battle, some of whom still live in the shadow of the monument. But the locals were not the only descendants there. Some folks from Alabama make the trek every year. Their last name is Ledyard, so I assume (this wasn’t made clear) they are descendants of Colonel William Ledyard, who led the defenders, and according to the local version of events, was killed with his own sword after surrendering it to a British officer.
This being a holiday and all, I’m taking the day off. I spent some time last night getting links to youtube videos of female singers. I’m not sure why I decided to go in that direction, but there you are.
You tube is quite definitely uneven in terms of what’s available. I couldn’t find much of anything decent for Joni Mitchell, for example. I generally look for videos with good quality sound and real singing-no lip syncing. I think I’m breaking the latter rule today, but for a good reason, as I’ll relate later.
First, a couple of Janis Joplin videos. I agree with some of the Youtube commenters that the Germans from the audience can’t dance, but I’m in no position to criticize. This version of Piece of My Heart is top rate.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjxFu_NXET4[/youtube]
And Ball and Chain:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PG2TDaJDhQ[/youtube]
And finally, Gracie Slick with the Jefferson Airplane. Probably lip-synched, but the Smothers Brother’s introductions are worth making the compromise.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1cfTMdjkYM[/youtube]
As I write this, by the way, I see from the TV running in my Mac that a Red Sox pitcher named Buchholz, just up from the minors, is throwing a no-hitter in the eighth.
UPDATE: Good Lord, he did it!