Prometheus 6

A Demographic the Democrats Can't Forget
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, January 18, 2008; A19

This is a good time to put in a word for the white working class....

"Working class" seems an antique term, but the people it describes still exist, more now in the service industries than in manufacturing. Demographers often use education levels as a surrogate for class position, and the past three decades have not been kind to Americans who are not college graduates.

There's real (as in, they actually feel it, not that there's a substantial reality to it) concern among the white working class about how their personal interests will fare as compared to other in-groups. So let me talk to them for a minute.

First of all, you guys are right to worry about threats to your well-being. But so are we. Where you're wrong is thinking Black and Latino interests run counter to yours. Look at that definition Mr. Dionne used. You think it would include any Black folks?

Senior legislative aides said Monday that Democrats were not inclined to mount a major fight over the veto, preferring to move quickly to the economic, health care and energy issues likely to dominate the months before the November elections for president, 435 members of the House and 35 senators.

Officials said the most likely approach would be to vote to send the Pentagon measure back to the Armed Services Committee, where the disputed provision could be quickly corrected, allowing the bill to be brought back for a final vote by the end of the week.

“We hope to fix it,” an aide said.

And I repeat

He's decided not to fund the troops because the Iraqi government objects to some part of the bill.

I am withholding my approval of H.R. 1585, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008," because it would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts and because it would undermine the foreign policy and commercial interests of the United States.

Bush is taking greater care of Iraqi assets than he ever took of ours...including the lives of the troops. He hiomself said how failure to fund the troops would endanger their lives.

What has the Iraqi government done that their interests should override those of the troops?

Or is it the commercial interests of the United Statess that is more important than keeping the troops safe? 

People are wondering why he's doing it. I am not. I am saying that Congress should take the issue to the Supreme Court. Now.

With ’07 Vetoes to Confront, the House Returns to Work
By CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — Congress opens its 2008 session Tuesday by returning to a crucial bill lingering from 2007, a major Pentagon policy measure that was rejected in a surprise move by President Bush late last year.

House members are scheduled to resume work on the $696 billion measure, which authorizes military programs and had been approved with broad bipartisan backing.

On December 28th, President Bush announced his plan to veto the defense authorization bill over an obscure provision regarding the new Iraqi government and the rights of prisoners of war. The White House is worried that Americans victimized by Saddam's former regime might use the legislation to secure compensation in court, jeopardizng Iraq's assets held in U.S. banks.

The veto took a lot of people by surprise, because normally the president lets Congress know in advance if legislation they are passing is likely to be vetoed. And there's controversy about the veto itself -- President Bush claims this is a pocket-veto, which the president can use when Congress is out of session, and which Congress cannot override. But Congress is not out of session, so Congressional leaders are considering efforts to override the veto.

That's right. The partisan divide is so wide now that Congress and the president can't even agree on the meaning of the word "veto."

Don't even think of overriding that "veto." Take this to the Supreme Court. Press them for immediate consideration because the troops cannot be funded until it is settled.

The word "change" had great resonance in the Iowa campaign. In part, the yearning for change arose because George W. Bush has led the nation down so many dead-end paths. But from the conversations I had with Iowans, it seemed clear to me that change is also shorthand for the disconnect between the Washington state of mind and the widespread expectation, hardly unreasonable, that this city ought to actually get something done every once in a while.

dnA at Too Sense said there is a liberal anti-Obama dogpile recently. He specifically cites TPM

But sometimes even the greats fuck up:

There are a couple stories up today about how the Obama campaign is supposedly advertising on Drudge and speculation about how this might enrage Democratic partisans. Now, I don't know anything specifically about this case. We're planning to put in some calls. But at the moment our reporters are tied up working on another story.

Ah. So they don't know if Obama is advertising on Drudge, but it "might" be happening?

...You can't hold yourself and the MSM to such (appropriately) high standards then pull the old "is this happening?" MSM style games.

Bush had the whole Republican Party referring to him as "our Commander in Chief." Evangelicals still do. But Iraq got so screwed even his own party told him the next word could not come from him. So he could no longer wear the military dictator mask.

He's still determined to break the Constitution. He's decided he can "pocket veto" the defense authorization bill.

He's decided not to fund the troops because the Iraqi government objects to some part of the bill.

I am withholding my approval of H.R. 1585, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008," because it would imperil billions of dollars of Iraqi assets at a crucial juncture in that nation's reconstruction efforts and because it would undermine the foreign policy and commercial interests of the United States.

Bush is taking greater care of Iraqi assets than he ever took of ours...including the lives of the troops. He hiomself said how failure to fund the troops would endanger their lives.

I would link Black Star News but they have a video section on the front page that automatically plays a damn car commercial with no way to silence the thing.

Racial Undercurrent Is Seen in Clinton Campaign
By Chris Cillizza And Shailagh Murray
PLAYERS and PLAYERS
Sunday, December 23, 2007; A02

It has unfolded mostly under the radar. But an important development in the 2008 Democratic battle may be the building backlash among African Americans over comments from associates of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton that could be construed as jabs at Sen. Barack Obama's race.

These officials, including Clinton aides and prominent surrogates, have raised questions or dropped references about Obama's position on sentencing guidelines for crack vs. powder cocaine offenses; on his handgun control record; and on his admitted use of drugs as a youth. The context was always Obama's "electability." But the Illinois senator's campaign advisers said some African American leaders detect a pattern, and they believe it could erode Clinton's strong base of black support.

Here's a sample of how the issue is playing out:

Too Timid for Tax Increases

Someday, Americans who earn millions upon millions of dollars each year will no longer pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class and the merely affluent. Someday. But not this year, and with 2008 being an election year, probably not then either.

"There's been a lot of clamor lately about delays in care in some other countries. But if you want to see some really unsightly waiting times, look at U.S. medical facilities," said Deborah Burger, RN, president of the 75,000-member CNA/NNOC....

In his talk, Troy Brennan conceded that "the (U.S.) healthcare system is not timely." He cited "recent statistics from the Institution of Healthcare Improvement… that people are waiting an average of about 70 days to try to see a provider. And in many circumstances people initially diagnosed with cancer are waiting over a month, which is intolerable," Brennan said. ...

While Brennan's comments went unreported by the media, his data matches several studies and a report in a June 22 Business Week article which opened by citing the case of a New York woman who had to fight for a timely second exam following suspicious results from a first mammogram and then still had to wait a full month.

The article also noted a University of California San Francisco research report last year that documented average waits of 38.2 days to get an appointment with a dermatologist to examine a possibly cancerous mole.

Furthermore, U.S. statistics fail to account for the even longer waits for the nation's 44 million uninsured and tens of millions of insured Americans who put off needed medical care due to their high co-pays or deductibles, CNA/NNOC and PNHP noted. 

Waiting Times For Care? Try Looking At The U.S. - Nurses, Doctors Say It's Time To Debunk The Myths
10 Jul 2007

Waiting times in U.S. hospitals and clinics are becoming so lengthy that even one of the nation's biggest insurers, Aetna, has admitted to its investors that the U.S. healthcare system is "not timely" and patients diagnosed with cancer wait "over a month" for needed medical care, said two leading organizations of doctors and nurses recently.

Lost in the recent flurry of attacks on Canada and other nations with publicly funded healthcare systems, spurred by the popularity of Michael Moore's "SiCKO," is the reality of the huge hurdles faced by many American patients, said the Physicians for a National Health Program and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

It was the White House and the Iraqi government, not Congress, that first proposed the benchmarks for Iraq that are now producing failing grades, a provenance that raises questions about why the administration is declaring now that the government’s performance is not the best measure of change.

The New York Times says "President Bush is proposing a new gauge, by focusing on new American alliances with the tribes and local groups that Washington once feared would tear the country apart. That shift in emphasis was implicit in Mr. Bush’s decision to bypass Baghdad on his eight-hour trip to Iraq, stopping instead in Anbar Province, once the heart of an anti-American Sunni insurgency."

I suggest Democrats simply not respond to this implied change. Make the White House explicitly repudiate its own suggestion and make it be clear about why this change is necessary.

I like The McLaughlin Group. The show, I mean.

I believe today's prediction by John McLaughlin, given at the end of the show, was absolutely correct. He said crime would be a big issue this election. Then he added "and next election."

I believe Republicans will go back to the code words they've become so comfortable with, to wit, "crime" means "Black"...just what you need when facing a Black candidate. That's been diluted with Mexican a bit recently but I'm sure they can adapt.

Posted on Fri, May. 25, 2007
Roundup of violence in Iraq
By Laith Hammoudi
McClatchy Newspapers

The daily Iraq violence report is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported. All times are Iraq local times.

---
BAGHDAD

-Armed men destroyed between three to five meters of the bridge linking the neighborhoods of Adil and Khadraa in west Baghdad. Police said that the gunmen used improvised explosive devices (IEDs), the latest in a series of attacks on bridges in Baghdad. The incident took place early Friday morning. No casualties were reported.
-A civilian was killed in an IED explosion in the Doura neighborhood of southwest Baghdad around 1:10 p.m. Friday.
-A civilian was killed and another was injured when a mortar shell hit the Jamiaa neighborhood of west Baghdad around 1:20 p.m. Friday.
-Around 1:10 p.m. Friday, a U.S. convoy was targeted by an IED in the Amil neighborhood of southwest Baghdad. U.S. forces blocked the area. No casualties were reported.
-Two civilians were killed and seven others were injured when a mortar shell hit the Amil neighborhood of southwest Baghdad at 8 p.m Friday.
-A civilian was killed and eight others wounded when a mortar shell hit Abu Disheer area in the Doura neighborhood of south Baghdad at 8 p.m. Friday.
-Twenty anonymous bodies were found in Baghdad Friday.

Thirteen bodies were found in Karkh, the western part of Baghdad: four in Amil; three in Bayaa; two in Shula; one in Hurriyah; one in Rahmaniyah; one in Jiaifar and one in Jamiaa.

Seven bodies were found in Rusafa, the eastern part of Baghdad: four in Sadr City; one in Ur; one in Adhemiyah and one in Fadhil.

Robert Borosage asks Are Dems Too Scared To Take on the President?

They, in turn, are misled by the political consultants and the national security "experts" on the Democratic side who have been wrong from the start. They advised Democrats to vote for the war to look strong. They advised Democrats to support the president to look tough. When the folly became apparent, they advised Democrats to avoid being blamed for ending the war. At the beginning of the 2006 election, they advised that Democrats focus on the lack of body armor and the mistreatment of veterans, and stay away from the debate about the war. Now they warn Democrats to keep this "Bush's war" and not get blamed for ending it. Their expert credentials have somehow survived their consistent inanity.

The Congress will now vote on a funding bill for Iraq that offers no change of course. Every legislator open to reason, concerned for the troops, worried about this nation's real security, or accountable to the voters will vote against this bill.

Just a reminder.

Roundup of violence in Iraq
By Laith Hammoudi
McClatchy Newspapers

The daily Iraq violence report is compiled by McClatchy Newspapers in Baghdad from police, military and medical reports. This is not a comprehensive list of all violence in Iraq, much of which goes unreported. All times are Iraq local times.

---

BAGHDAD

-At 9 a.m., one civilian was killed and three others wounded when an IED (improvised explosive device) explosion targeted civilians near Al Muthanna police station in the Zayuna neighborhood of east Baghdad.

-At 9:30 a.m, five civilians were injured in an IED explosion in the Mansour neighborhood of downtown Baghdad.

-At 10 a.m., four students were killed and 25 injured when mortar shell hit the education college (Ibn Al Haitham college) in Adhemiyah neighborhood of northeast Baghdad.

I read this headline

White House Counselor Challenges Democrats on Immigration Bill

...and said, "Of course."

The one issue where they are...were...bulletproof. The one issue where the national will is clear.

And they fold.

If you asked him, in A Law Terrorism Outran, Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence is making the case for changing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Personally, I think it's a backdoor defense of the Bush administration. He is repeating all the arguments to support a program which was so unconstitutional as to provoke mass resignation by top security officials appointed by Bush himself.

FISA was created to guard against domestic government abuse and to protect privacy while allowing for appropriate foreign intelligence collection. Technology and threats have changed, but the law remains essentially the same.

As well it should. Because the threat FISA was enacted to address wasn't technological. It was human.

All they had to do was call HR 1592 the Local Law Enforcement Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 to shut his yap.

A Bustling Hate-Crime Industry
By George F. Will
Sunday, May 13, 2007; Page B07

Political entrepreneurship involves devising benefits to excite or mollify niche constituencies. Hence HR 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which has passed the House, trailing clouds of sanctimony -- lots of members announced their hatred of hate.

Hate-crime laws -- 45 states already have them; Congress does not mind being duplicative -- mandate enhanced punishments for crimes committed because of thoughts that government especially disapproves of. That is, crimes committed because of, not merely accompanied by, those thoughts. Mind-reading juries are required to distinguish causation from correlation.

Terrorism is a term used to describe violence or other harmful acts committed (or threatened) against civilians. Most definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear or "terror", are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a "madman" attack), and deliberately target "non-combatants".

As a form of unconventional warfare, terrorism is sometimes used when attempting to force political change by: convincing a government or population to agree to demands to avoid future harm or fear of harm, destabilization of an existing government, motivating a disgruntled population to join an uprising, escalating a conflict in the hopes of disrupting the status quo, expressing the severity of a grievance, or drawing attention to a neglected cause.

Can you think of a single hate crime that doesn't fit this definition? Why didn't you present the bill as an anti-terrorism bill?

Recently you've been telling the Iraqis the "American people patience is not unlimited."

1. How can you tell when the American people's patience has run out?
2. What will you do if you ever see that happen?

Yeah, yeah, number 2 is a "hypothetical". But number one isn't...it's a question about your actual, present standards.

She's pretty damn good.

When she first replaced Tony Snow, she seemed a bet flustered but she seriously adjusted when she had to do it long term. She's treated differently because she's a giiiirl, and using the press' sympathy over being thrown into the deep end of the pool she's changed the whole tone of the press meetings. Much less confrontational now.

Those meetings don't seem like they should be called "the Gaggle" anymore. 

They are discussing the funding of research using embryonic stem cell in the Senate today.  Two bills are under consideration, S5 and S30.

The proponents of S30, led by Sen. Brownback (R-KS), are framing it the standard way...human life starts at conception, respect for life, blah blah blah. They like S30's restriction of research to the currently appoved lines and those embryos that are 'naturally dead.' This is a shame because we have plenty of unnaturally dead ones to work with.

Seriously...do you know how they freeze embryos?

Because it was a Republican Congress, and the vast majority will have Republican names on them. Which will gather an fired Attorney General-like reaction from those Congressmen that inserted the earmarks at the insistence of the Office of the Executive.

Congress ought to take the same data, add the appropriators' names, and post that publicly.

White House posts earmarks on website
Pet spending projects that lawmakers put in the 2005 budget are listed. The administration's requests aren't.
By Nicole Gaouette and Tom Hamburger
Times Staff Writers
April 5, 2007

WASHINGTON — In a direct challenge to Congress and the way it does business, the White House on Wednesday unveiled an online list of all the pet spending projects lawmakers tucked in the federal budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year.

The Internet database details spending known as earmarks, funds that lawmakers funnel to projects, programs and sometimes even specific recipients without going through the normal budget review — such as the $25 million provided to California spinach farmers in the recent Iraq spending bill.

Why did you misuse the provisions of the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, which allowed the Attorney General to make emergency replacements without submitting them for Senate confirmation? Given the length of time spent planning the dismissals, what was the obstacle to submitting them for Senate confirmation?

And a question for Patrick Leahy: why are you questioning anything else? Every side issue you discuss dilutes the central issue of abuse of power. 

Investigations of why no one was told about it ahead of time, if it was political, etc...Sen. Leahy says he wants public, sworn testimony on who order the lies ro be told to Congress.

And no one is asking why it's necessary to use the emergency power granted by the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act to do so.

What's up with that?

Please have one of your aides go to Hullabaloo...I believe your marketing consultants would call it a "national weblog"...and read this entry.

Read the transcripts of the commentary Fox provided on the debate they hosted in 2003. Don't trust Digby, get a fresh copy. And remember, that's white guys they're talking about.

So this is what the average 63 year old white, male conservative Republican Fox viewer that the Democrats think they will reach can expect to see. They will watch the Fox news All Stars insult and trivialize the candidates. They can see them imply that convicted felon Lyndon laRouche is an anti-semitic Democrat. They can watch them barely restrain their (very clever) sarcastic and patronizing racism by continuously pointing out that Al Sharpton "won" the debate. Throughout these exchanges the Fox all-stars are smirking and giggling like a bunch of schoolboys at the fat kid they stuck the "kick me" sign on.

Let's be clear here. Fox news likes to host Democratic debates in order to maintain the fiction they are an unbiased network. But they also format them in such a way as to send plenty of coded, rightwing messages to their viewers, the most hardcore Republicans in the nation.

Fox News particularly likes to host the Congressional Black Caucus debates for the express purpose of riling and entertaining the racist Republican pigs who watch their network, on behalf of the Republican Party. I know how they're received --- I watched that one in the company of a racist Republican and he got the message loud and clear.

After the Nevada debate the CBC plan another Fox debate for this cycle. It's a big mistake. The CBC and the Democratic party gain absolutely nothing by doing this.

John Edwards has done the right thing by refusing to appear at the Nevada debate. I hope the other Democrats follow. I also fervently hope that the CBC does not allow itself to be used again by FOX News to subtly convey a derisive, racist message to its viewers. It is wrong to subject good Democrats to this kind of coverage in order to see their candidates and their issues debated and discussed. There are plenty of other venues that don't feature "analysis" that isn't exclusively hostile to Democrats.