The Media Circus

Atrios:

One of the things which constantly amazes me is the willingness of the mainstream media to give platform to people who hate them.

...

I suppose the reasons for this are very simple - by bringing on these idiot critics they placate the right wing frothers while simultaneously confronting cartoon criticism, letting themselves avoid confronting actual criticism.

Sunday Talk

I was watching This Week, and one of the guests was John Kasich, a former Republican congressman. They were not really arguing with each other, but it was interesting to see the disconnect between Kasich and Stephanopolous, a former Clintonite, in that Stephanopolous posed arguments and questions framed in "liberal" terminology, but Kasich always responded in Lakoffian terms, coming back to values based arguments and the government as head of family metaphor in his iteration of "if this is what we would teach our children, what kind of message does it send when government acts differently?"

I think it is very telling that so many politicians and other prominent members on the left still do not understand the kind of discourse they need to engage in to properly argue with the right, and to motivate and inspire people. Take a hint: read Don't Think of an Elephant, and if you have the time, Moral Politics.

Memo to the NYT

Stop being so stupid. When your headline reads "Bear Hunting Caught in Global Warming Debate," you are giving credence to the idea that there is a debate. This is not true. There is no debate over whether it is happening, just on how to mitigate it. Stop giving life to untruthful right-wing narratives and do your job as journalists.

High Profile Republican Donors

They've always been crooks. Now they're guilty crooks.

A U.S. jury convicted Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling of orchestrating the fraud that destroyed Enron Corp., giving prosecutors a victory a case that came to symbolize corporate crime sparked by the stock market bust in 2000.

Lay, 64, and Skilling, 52, face at least 25 years each in prison after being convicted of using off-the-books partnerships to manipulate Enron's finances. Skilling faces additional jail time over his conviction for using inside information to sell Enron stock. Lay was also convicted on bank fraud charges after a trial that U.S. District Judge Sim Lake held without a jury while the panel in the main case deliberated.

Enron, once the world's largest energy trading firm, had more than $68 billion in market value before its December 2001 bankruptcy filing wiped out thousands of jobs and at least $1 billion in retirement funds virtually overnight. Investors suing over the company's collapse claim accounting fraud at the Houston-based firm caused at least $25 billion in losses.

This situation is sort of similar to what the Bush administration is doing to the country. Anyone care to bring a lawsuit against them?

Loving the Hypocrisy

I have not seen anyone blog this NYT article yet, but it caught my eye:

As the United States runs short of nurses, senators are looking abroad. A little-noticed provision in their immigration bill would throw open the gate to nurses and, some fear, drain them from the world's developing countries.

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Senator Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas, who sponsored the proposal, said it was needed to help the United States cope with a growing nursing shortage.

He said he doubted the measure would greatly increase the small number of African nurses coming to the United States, but acknowledged that it could have an impact on the Philippines and India, which are already sending thousands of nurses to the United States a year.

I find it interesting that conservative Republicans are railing against "illegal immigration" but are totally fine with making certain "illegal immigration" perfectly legal.

If Republicans are angry about the economics of immigration they are hypocrites. If you are worried about globalization, which puts Americans out of jobs because there are more people willing to work the same job for a lower price, then why implement a measure that makes it easier for just that to happen? It is not like there are not enough people in this country who are qualified to be nurses or are not willing to take the job. This is a move to secure lower-wage labor.

If Republicans are angry about the legality of immigration they are hypocrites. This brings me back to the point that I made in brief above, which is the notion that "illegal" immigrants need to be sent back or punished simple because they entered the country "illegally" is baseless - the definition of an immigrant as legal/illegal is one that is designated by the law, but has no real meaning past a nominal one. Since this is the case, all that needs to happen is for the law to change, and all of a sudden "illegal" immigrants become perfectly "legal." This is what Republicans are doing. Changing the law to suit their own needs, and all of a sudden the immigrants are untouchable because they are "legal."

What Republicans are really angry about - I should first note that not all Republicans see eye to eye on this; the corporatists would rather have cheap, immigrant labor, so when I refer to Republicans above I am referring to the loud, anti-immigrant base and members of Congress - is that non-white skinned people are coming into the country and the demographics and cultural makeup of their communities is changing. Just see John Gibson's comments for reference. This immigration controversy is nothing more than the latest form in which racism is raising its ugly head. They can dress it up any way they like, but publicly advocating shooting people who come into the country illegally and having white supremacist groups at the forefront of these minutemen gives them away.

Republicans who publicly bash illegal immigration but at the same time support measures like the one quoted above are nothing more than depraved hypocrites. If their base wants meat, they should offer up themselves.

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nngh?

History has shown that the Senate is not the best launching pad for a presidential run, but no fewer than 11 members of the world's greatest deliberative body are weighing 2008 bids. The latest is Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who told the Hartford Courant on Monday that he had "decided to do all the things that are necessary to prepare to seek the presidency in 2008."

mmfrrnkkk... zzzZZzzzZZZZZZZzzzz....

Looking Out... for Whom?

Themselves, of course.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), on what Speaker Hastert might do to "protect the interests" of the legislative branch.

Well, I have got to believe at the end of the day it is going to end up across the street at the Supreme Court. I don't see anything short of that.

He continued, later, speaking of the executive branch:

"They take the same oath, so somebody better start reading the Constitution down there."

If Boehner cared about the Constitution and not only his own ass, he'd have delivered that line the second Bush was handed his presidency by the SC. He and Hastert are making noises now because they know if a member of Congress is fair game, so are they, and chances are they have just a few more skeletons in their closets than Jefferson does.

GOP Plug Piece

WaPo.

Entire piece on GOP strategy and outlook, not one Democrat quoted, paraphrased, or referred to otherwise.

Woohoo liberal media!

State of Fear

The U.S.

Asked whether he was open to the possibility that The New York Times should be prosecuted for its disclosures in December concerning a National Security Agency surveillance program, Mr. Gonzales said his department was trying to determine "the appropriate course of action in that particular case."

"I'm not going to talk about it specifically," he said. "We have an obligation to enforce the law and to prosecute those who engage in criminal activity."

We have officially become a banana republic where people can be prosecuted and thrown in jail for publishing information potentially 'damaging' to the government's image. These are the kinds of abuses many people came to the U.S. to avoid, and now they are happening in our very lives. We need to win big in November and put and end to this.

Update: Glenn Greenwald is much more eloquent than I am. I will read and review his book soon.

Joe is Going

Feel the Nedrenaline!

1509 votes count
Ned Lamont - 505 (33.4%)
Joe Lieberman - 1004 (66.5%)

Ned only needed 15% of the votes to officially enter the primary without needing any signatures. He actually came in line with Lieberman's expectations, which were set artificially high to play the expectations game.

Let's elect a senator who will make us proud to be progressives and Democrats.