Here’s the simplest thing Pelosi forgot in trying to shut the FISA barn door after she helped the unlimited snooping horses escape:
Bush can veto any new FISA bill he doesn’t like. We’ve already seen this kabuki play over Iraq timetables and deadlines, earlier this year, and we saw who finally caved.
I found this on TPM this morning. Allegedly it is going to being aired in South Carolina by it's producers "gaysforgiuliani." It has all the ear marks of a college prank, but Huffington is also touting it. It is just too funny not to share. What do you think the red necks in South Carolina are going to think?
Today's campaign video is from the John Edwards Campaign. Here he is on the trail proving that he is a Democrat who believes in Democratic values.
Fighting for One America - Rewarding Work
The nominated video is called Vote Democratic. It is an MSNBC Political Ad entry. It was produced by zobohobodog and posted to YouTube on August 11.
If you know of a really good campaign video you think should be seen, please email me at proctoring.congress@gmail.com subject Campaign Video of the Day.
Yesterday we learned that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker will not be writing the September report that will bear their names, instead it will be written by White House staffers. Today, the
On Wednesday, congressional aides revealed that the administration has floated the notion that Petraeus and Crocker might limit their appearances to private briefings, and instead, the progress report on the occupation of
The White hose did not deny that they proposed the idea, but seemed to back away from it once it was made known, claiming they would not “shield” Petraeus and Crocker from congressional testimony (which is required by the war funding legislation that Congress caved on in May and Bush signed). "The administration plans to follow the requirements of the legislation," responded National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe when questioned about the matter.
With the report due by Sept. 15, officials at the White House, in Congress and in Baghdad said that no decisions have been made on where, when or how Petraeus and Crocker will appear before Congress. Lawmakers from both parties are growing worried that the report -- far from clarifying the
White House officials suggested to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week that Petraeus and Crocker would brief lawmakers in a closed session before the release of the report, congressional aides said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates would provide the only public testimony.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) told the White House that Bush's presentation plan was unacceptable. An aide to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said that "we are in talks with the administration and . . . Senator Levin wants an open hearing" with Petraeus.
The anxiety level is ratcheting up all around as the war grows ever more unpopular at home, and the countdown to the make-or-break report by Petraeus on the Bush AEI war strategy is on. (The report is due on 15 September.) As the deadline looms, the calls for a drawdown grow louder and more sustained.
"Americans deserve an even-handed assessment of conditions in
"That's all the more reason why they would need to testify," a senior Foreign Relations Committee aide said of Petraeus and Crocker. "We would want them to say whether they stand by all the information in the report." He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not cleared to speak to reporters.
Although the legislation as written says that Crocker and Petraeus "will be made available to testify in open and closed sessions before the relevant committees of the Congress" before the report is delivered, it also plainly sets forth that the president "will prepare the report and submit the report to Congress" in consult with the secretaries of state and defense, and with the ambassador and commanding General.
That, however, is not how it has been peddled to the public. For weeks, Bush has pleaded that we have to “wait for the report by General Petraeus”You couldn’t watch the news in the last few weeks without witnessing an impassioned appeal that we please, wait for Godot Petraeus. Over and over again, the president has referred directly to the General as the one who will be making the report, and implored Congress (and the American people) to please, pretty please, withhold judgment until then.
Congressional Republicans, who strongly desire that their political careers continue beyond the Bush administration have implied that their support is contingent upon a credible assessment and presentation by Petraeus. They are basing continued support not only on military progress, but political and social progress as well, hinting that they need to see that the Maliki government is taking steps to end sectarian conflict and achieve some religious and ethnic reconciliation. Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), former chair and current ranking Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Senator Carl Levin, Current Chairman, left yesterday to go to
Petraues told reporters yesterday that he is preparing for the impending trip to
The Army is simply running out of soldiers, recruiting and retention are both lagging, and short of a draft, it simply can not be sustained.
Tuesday night's attack, blamed on al Qaeda in Iraq, on a Kurdish-speaking religious sect in the northwest part of the country was the vilest of acts. I can certainly identify with the righteous anger so many feel about this kind of homicidal insanity. But it is just one more event that underscores the futility of the U.S. position there.
It was one of the worst attacks on civilians in the war, with the death toll up to at least 250, and estimates ranging as high as 500. Whole neighborhoods were reportedly leveled. Make no mistake about my views here -- extremists who commit such atrocities are nothing short of diabolical. There can be no rationalization, religious or political, for the likes of this.
But the sad fact that most Americans now seem to realize, even if our current leaders do not, is that the world's "only superpower" nonetheless has its limitations. We're trying to police a country that our "leaders" so hideously misunderstood from the beginning that there is no realistic way to clean up the mess.
This is not merely a civil war -- this is multifaceted cultural chaos that, sadly, will have to expend itself over a lot of time. The U.S. military presence doesn't frighten people who are that crazy. And, rather than extinguishing any fire, it seems to fling gasoline upon it, over and over.
There's a difference between being an isolationist and being a realist. And there's a difference between being tenacious in a positive way, and being stubbornly stupid. It's the classic case of people not knowing how to pick their battles. Iraq was clearly the wrong one to begin with, and consequently the U.S. has plenty of blood on its own hands -- several hundred thousand people, from credible accounts. Even if one assents to the amoral, crackpot "pragmatism" of the neocon view, by now even these people ought to have sense enough to know that they did something irreparably foolish.
After such a disastrous detour, it's time to find the road back to a fight against the kind of people who were actually responsible for 9-11. It will mean a senseless loss of many more lives if we have to wait 17 months for a new administration to get that process going. Congressfolk, are you listening?
Tonight's funny is from Stevetatham. Enjoy.
