Happy Hour Roundup: July 2011 The Beginning Of The End?
* People are describing Obama’s plan to begin transfering responsibility to Afghan security forces in July 2011 as “the beginning of the end.” Right now, that seems too charitable: It’s the starting point for evaluating when — or whether — conditions should permit it to end. Maybe he’ll be more forceful in his speech tonight. Tune in here: I’ll be blogging it.
* The GOP is jumping on the news that MoveOn will oppose Obama on Afghanistan — and continued Dem division on health care — to argue that Dems are the party embroiled in a civil war. The NRCC’s new memo proclaims: “Majority Imploding as Left Wing Jumps Ship; As Democrats Continue to Lose Independents, Their Base Opens Fire.”
* And here comes Russ Feingold, who blasted the escalation today, saying he’s he’s deeply concerned about this “huge troop buildup” and insisting many Senate colleagues agree. Whether they’ll say so publicly is another matter…
* John McCain gets out ahead of Obama’s speech with this: “I have deep concerns about setting a date certain for withdrawal.” Ain’t happenin’. Question is whether Obama’s general declaration that the commitment isn’t open ended is too much for McCain.
* On CNN just now, David Axelrod said Hamid Karzai made it clear in a private talk with Obama that he “understands” our commitment isn’t open-ended and he must deliver.
* Justin Elliott notes an underappreciated side-consequence: “Giant Shadow Army Of Contractors Set To Grow In Afghanistan.”
* More interesting pushback against Dick Cheney from an Obama official: Cheney shouldn’t have walked away from Afghanistan and Pakistan as George H.W. Bush’s Defense Secretary in the early 1990s.
* Shocker of the day: Centrist Dem Senators are still making trouble and maximizing leverage on health care. Here’s a quick rundown.
* Which brings me to today’s good read: Matthew Yglesias argues that the problem is the Senate, stupid.
* Check out our big profile of Karl Rove, which has these striking facts about his past that, while reported, perhaps aren’t that well known:
Karl Christian Rove was born on Christmas Day in 1950 in Denver, though his family soon left for Nevada and then Utah, where on Rove’s 19th birthday, his father, Louis Rove, left the family. Rove soon learned that Louis Rove was gay and not his biological father. Rove’s mother, Reba, committed suicide, in Reno, Nevada, in 1981.
* And here’s today’s very dispiriting installment in the Michele Bachmann chronicles.
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Kind of humorous: “The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush in Baghdad last year had a taste of his own medicine Tuesday when he nearly got beaned by a shoe thrower at a news conference in Paris.”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,578428,00.html
via HotAir
If it truly is the beginning of the end in Afghanistan I, along with an awful lot of the rest of the country will be grateful. I can support the Administration’s decision to send in more troop if it is in an effort to shore up whatever we can and then withdraw. I don’t see how we can hope to capture or kill OBL at this point without the help of Pakistan so maybe this is part of the strategy as well.
I’m anxiously looking forward to the speech tonight and hearing everyone’s comments. Regarding MoveOn, the right doesn’t get that there are progressive voices in the Democratic Party that help push our leaders away from the center. I personally don’t see a darn thing wrong with that. If we disagree with a policy we should be able to voice our opinion and still generally support the president, especially when we consider the alternatives. The NRCC is doing a lot of projecting when they say “Majority Imploding”, they simply do not understand the big tent party.
Another from Yglesias…
“There’s a popular, but wrong, theory out there that Barack Obama is having difficulty getting his legislative agenda enacted largely because of tactical errors made by Obama and his staff. This is wrong. But a lot of people seem absolutely wedded to the idea that it’s true; that just by definition it’s possible for a president to achieve whatever he wants so the fact that Obama hasn’t achieved certain things proves either that he secretly doesn’t want to achieve them or else that he’s blundering in his tactical approach. If that’s what you think, then I urge you to read John Heilemann’s article in New York since it’s by far the best contribution to this genre I’ve read yet…” (more at link) http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/12/obama-still-popular-legislating-is-just-hard.php
Umm, isn’t Karl Rove out of government now? Y’all still need conservatives to dump on even though you’re in the majority now.
It’s perhaps not so surprising that Rove’s father was gay. Some say that Rove’s own sexuality has long been a matter of question.
Bernie,
To me; Rove has always looked like a giant fetus.
Bernie,
Since the man was not really Rove’s biological father, there would be no genetic connection, with regard to either being gay.
“It’s perhaps not so surprising that Rove’s father was gay.”
What did you mean by that, Bernie?
“… even though you’re in the majority now.”
And, I never get tired or hearing it! Thanks for the reminder!
“Y’all still need conservatives to dump on even though you’re in the majority now.”
And yet Republicans demand that the Republican minority rule the Senate.
And what is it with right wingers who fail to understand the three branches of government?
Right wingers control the Supreme Court. How is it that right wingers always conveniently forget to mention that?
And right wingers are assiduously trying to undermine the democratic election where an indisputably overwhelming number of American citizens voted for President Obama.
Tell you what, when right wingers stop obstructing progress and start operating inside a factually oriented reality, I’ll consider stopping ‘dumping’ on right wingers.
@Liam – I think you’d find that Tony Perkins finds no basis for the claim/hypothesis that homosexuality has any genetic causality. Demonic possession, idle hands and liberal teachers cause gayness.
sbj asked: “What did you mean by that, Bernie?”
You gay people just lurk about in the shadows waiting to pounce, don’t you? Just thought I’d have fun pulling a Rove on Rove. I’ve recently begun taking more care with my diet and the prime motivation is to live long enough to see this guy (and some others) in jail – irrelevant which country.
Sullivan gets caught in a doozy: “Sullivan’s post merits reading as the quintessential Sullivan, leaping from nonexistent fact to blanket ad hominem without even a pause for a reality check.”
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/11/a-correction-and-an-apology.html
Right wing deceiver “sbj”, who bizarrely claimed that 2,130,000 is the same as 1,920,000, thinks he’s got some credibility.
Sorry, Greg. Ought to have read your post more carefully before I jumped in with Matt’s piece. As penance, I’ll have my wife put on a Fred Barnes mask the next time we make love.
Bernie, why are you punishing your wife?
Bernie,
You just seize on any excuse to make your wife indulge your fantasy.
sbj | December 1st, 2009 at 06:15 pm
Kind of humorous: “The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush in Baghdad last year had a taste of his own medicine Tuesday when he nearly got beaned by a shoe thrower at a news conference in Paris.”
Does that make them sole mates?
Bernie Latham | December 1st, 2009 at 07:25 pm
@Liam – I think you’d find that Tony Perkins finds no basis for the claim/hypothesis that homosexuality has any genetic causality. Demonic possession, idle hands and liberal teachers cause gayness.
……………………
Tony Perkins needs to stop hanging around with those gay devils.
I fear I have divulged too much.
Full transcript of the speech:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/uncategorized/obamas-afghanistan-speech/
Help me out. Tell me what’s interesting.
LGF precedes sbj into the the pages of Where the Sane Things Are
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right
@bernie: I would not think you’d want Charles Johnson on your side?
Karl Christian Rove was born on Christmas Day in 1950 in Denver, though his family soon left for Nevada and then Utah, where on Rove’s 19th birthday, his father, Louis Rove, left the family. Rove soon learned that Louis Rove was gay and not his biological father. Rove’s mother, Reba, committed suicide, in Reno, Nevada, in 1981.
–
SOOOO
why not put some important news out here?
global warming scam revealed in the ponzi masters emails,you know the elitie’s **** in **** out science
ohio democrat that was just indicted for voter fraud and paying the college democrats for their votes
acorn rico scandal way to much corruption to list
oh that’s right the truth is not what this place is about, denying the truth and talking about rove’s birthday and gay father who turned out not to be his father is all you superior elites can handle.
bwahahaha sad bunch of puppies out here!!
“I’ve recently begun taking more care with my diet and the prime motivation is to live long enough to see this guy (and some others) in jail – irrelevant which country.”
May you reap what you sow.
oh they will reap what they sow and make their 8 years of bush whinnng look mild.
Acorn and Al Gore will be the first hit they take criminally. The dumbos and a few repugs will be tied to the acorn and global warming ponzi schemes. The house of dumbos will crumble into a jail house. Acorn corruption will lead straight to our dear leader their former trainer, lawyer and the master of community orgainzing.
Heck a new jail will have to be built there will be so many criminals to house once this all hits the fan. Holder will get to share a cell with the 9/11 terrorists.
without acorn the dems won’t win another major election for decades until they figure out their next ponzi scheme.
yes they will reap what they sow and I will be laughing my fannie off because reality is so much sweeter than the fiction the dumbos tried to force down our throats.
Right winger “yippie lovechild” sure manages to pack a whole lotta crazy & dumb into a short paragraph.
Dear God: Better Opposition Party Please!
“If House Republicans had their way up to 1.6 million more Americans would be out of work today. The only thing Republicans are offering is a return to the failed Bush policies that left our economy in shambles in the first place.”
It is absolutely hilarious that the Democrats skip immediately to the highest number arrived at by a predictive mathematical model that didn’t actually count one single job saved or created and then claim the stimulus has been a success all while real unemployment is the highest it has been since they started recording such a stat.
Any time those morons mention 1.6 million jobs all the Republicans have to do is reply with 17.5% and the Democrats lose. Claiming the stimulus has been a success when real unemployment is at 17.5% is like Bush claiming his Katrina response was a success because he saved X number of houses from being destroyed. Resorting to such nonsense doesn’t just have just a whiff of desperation, it stinks to high heaven. Good luck pointing to jobs “saved”, a stat that has become a political joke, during the midterms when unemployment is still over 10%. You will be able to count on one hand how many Dem House seats such a srategy “saved”.
“Right winger “yippie lovechild” sure manages to pack a whole lotta crazy & dumb into a short paragraph.”
But not nearly as much as you can pack into one sentence, idiot, particularly the “dumb” part. Amazing how you can’t even craft a proper response and you reply with the same exact sentence you always write. And naturally you use bold-face, because evidently the cr*p you right is evidently so dam* important. It just makes it easier to point out your mistakes and lies. Again, you are an idiot, and it has become tedious rebutting the stupid stuff you write on a daily basis. Don’t you have terrorist enablers to apologize for somewhere?
PS It will be a freakin riot when the opposition party you so often malign makes the huge gains in 2010 that pretty much everyone knows they will. Will you be eating crow to go along with the egg you scrape from your face?
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“And yet Republicans demand that the Republican minority rule the Senate.
And what is it with right wingers who fail to understand the three branches of government’
I will give everything I own if you can point to one post you made, on any blog, during the Bush adminstration bemoaning the Democrats repeated use of the filibuster. Furthermore, I challenge you to name the first party to use the filibuster to stymie multiple judicial nominations.
“And yet Republicans demand that the Republican minority rule the Senate.”
Name one Republican who has said such a thing.
“Tell you what, when right wingers stop obstructing progress and start operating inside a factually oriented reality, I’ll consider stopping ‘dumping’ on right wingers.”
They are operating within a factually oriented reality, idiot. That would be the rules and procedures of the Senate, including those that can be taken advantage of by the minority party, kind of like the Dems did when they filibustered during the Bush era, you dolt. Honestly, you are quite possibly, and most probably, the stupidest person I have encountered on any blog anywhere, ever. You either have to be a partisan hack or a complete amnesiac to not remember the Dems liberal use of the filibuster when the Republicans were in power. The Republicans are merely returning the favor, as is their right under Senate rules. How is that for reality you ” I am so stupid I have to wear a helmet to the dinner table” jackass?
The Obama Record: Record unemployment, record deficits, no legislative accomplishments.
“Filibusters skyrocket under Republican minority in 110th Congress.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/31/republican-filibusters-skyrocket/
Through Republican’s unprecedented misuse of the “filibuster” the Republican MINORITY of 40 members effectively dictates what is possible in the Senate.
The Democratic Party, with only 58 members, does NOT have the 60 votes required to stop the MINORITY obstructions of the Republicans.
Even then, a handful of Dems are effectively moderate and conservative Republicans and so often work with the Republican MINORITY to block the aims of the Democratic majority.
So with that in mind, the correct response to the exchange:
“And yet Republicans demand that the Republican minority rule the Senate.”
“Name one Republican who has said such a thing.”
is: I’ll name you 40 Republicans, one Independent, and anywhere between three and four Dems, which still adds up to a MINORITY ruling what is possible in the Senate.
The Republican Record: The 2007 Republican Great Recession, record debt, and an evisceration of core Constitutional protections.