Weekend Open Thread
* White House press sec Robert Gibbs, on the President’s reaction to Michael Jackson’s passing:
I talked to him about it this morning. Look, he said to me that obviously, Michael Jackson was a spectacular performer, a music icon. I think everybody remembers hearing his songs, watching him moonwalk on television during Motown’s 25th anniversary. But the President also said, look, he had — aspects of his life were sad and tragic. And his condolences went out to the Jackson family and to fans that mourned his loss.
* This one is going to get ugly: Obama administration drafts an executive order to reassert Presidential authority to detain terror suspects indefinitely.
* Think Progress slams the DCCC for questioning the patriotism of GOP members of Congress.
* Lindsey Graham says Mark Sanford should stay in office. “Second chances in life are not guaranteed or required,” Graham says. “But if they are afforded, they can be a real blessing.”
* Senator Jay Rockefeller offers a warning against the perils of trading away a public option merely to secure bipartisan support for health care reform:
“But do you want to be non-partisan and get nothing? Or do you want to be partisan and end up with a good health — care plan? That is the choice.”
* Senator Jim DeMint fundraises by citing Constitution, gets date wrong by over a decade.
* Even though he’s a right-wing talk show host, Michael Savage really does have an extraordinary amount of confidence in the Obama administration’s ability to control external events.
* With the debate on the climate change bill wrapping up, House Dem leaders seem a bit more confident of victory.
* Rush Limbaugh’s listeners scare a GOP Congressman into affirming his opposition to the climate change bill on Rush’s show.
* Marcy Wheeler keeps the questions coming about Obama and torture.
* Joe Sudbay keeps the questions coming about Obama and gay rights.
* Here’s today’s installment in the Michele Bachmann chronicles.
* And I won’t be posting this weekend, so please consider this an open thread. Back first thing Monday morning.
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I’ll second Jay Rockefeller. The only way to get bipartisan support for health-care legislation is to castrate the bill.
That said, the optics of letting the bipartisan string play itself out should be helpful to the advocates of effective reform. There’s still the budget-resolution cannon is the back ranks.
jzap, I have a question about this. Aren’t the Dem Senators who are flirting publicly with dropping a public option letting Obama down, in the sense that they’re squandering a key piece of negotiating leverage? In other words, if Dems were holding fast to the public plan, Obama could go to GOPers and say, My party just won’t give on this point. Now it’s tougher to do that.
Hmmm… good point. Yes, spineless Dems certainly are part of the problem. And I’m not sure (duh!) about this working out via budget resolution.
OTOH, if this thing fails to pass the Senate under regular order, the reaction might scare enough of them into bucking the lobbies. Or, can easily imagine an ineffective bill coming out of conference and failing in the House due to opposition from progressives as well as GOOPers.
I guess what I’m imagining is that as effective bill (public option) is not likely to pass cloture, and an ineffective one is not likely to pass the House.
God I love Michele Bachmann; she is the walking, talking embodiment of the batshit insanity that rules the 21st Century GOP. She’s more fun than a barrel of “We don’t come from no monkeys” Creationists.
I just wanted to point out Victor David Hanson’s post at NRO today on ‘climate change’. It’s been, here and there, now and again, chilly and wet. He’s actually witnessed this with his own eyes, so it’s like empirical. Talk about incontrovertible evidence for climate hoaxitude!
But I really love his intro sentence most…”It was somewhere around 3-4 years ago that “global warming” suddenly morphed into “climate change” in vernacular speech.”
As this lying dickhead knows, that change in the ‘vernacular’ came about in 2003 after Frank Luntz wrote a memo for the Republicans advising them to drop “global warming” and substitute “global warming”.
Not a lot of integrity in this crowd.
substitute “climate change” that ought to have read
Gee, Bernie, I dunno why you waste your time reading anything on NRO. It seems pretty masochistic! A high threshold of pain, perhaps?
jzap-I enjoy a good spanking as much as the next guy.
Lindsey Graham who managed the Clinton impeachment for lying about a *******? I guess Clinton should have spent public money to get it and then he would have been OK.
Paul Camp – Indeed. I’m hoping someone will gather up quotes from Graham and others re Clinton and Spitzer and show the contrast with their present statements. Is there, does anyone know, an online resource analogous to library microfiche files where we could find and read newspapers by date – eg Wash Post on April 12, 1973?
If somebody were to gather up all the quotes from Lindsey Graham on anything it would be material for a new category for the DSM-IV. There may be a connection between his brain and his mouth, but I seriously doubt it. What a lot of wild flying jabber.
jzap – more seriously (if one can speak on any subject more serious than spankings) the reason I attend to rightwing publications and organizations is 1) to better understand the enemy and 2) to better understand the devices and methods of modern propaganda. I’ll give an example. Two decades ago in Canada we began to see fundamentalist christian moves to get elected to (and gain dominance within) school and hospital boards. They were, for about a decade, surprisingly successful in these endeavors. Much of this was purposefully quiet and below the radar in its early stages. But those of us who attended to the how the christian right was organizing/operating in the US understood that the processes and goals were the same and that the christian right communities in Canada and in the US were coordinating in efforts to deny abortions and to influence school curricula. Such knowledge and understanding helped activists in Canada predict and counter what these folks were up to. This morning, reading a column at the Weekly Standard alerted me to an important Canadian neoconservative whom I had previously not noticed… http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/667smbfm.asp … Helpfully, there’s a really good piece on this fellow at Wikipedia which lays out his ties to American neoconservatives and to Canada’s version of the business funded think tank (The Fraser Institute, a front group for disseminating corporate ideology and propaganda). Then, there is his connections to the Canadian newspaper/media industry (eg, Conrad Black, who previously owned some 70% of Canada’s newspapers including the two Vancouver dailies and one of two national papers). So, that why I read the stuff I read, including, of course, Pink Bums International.
Koppelman has a good post up at Salon on the Swaggart precedent (indeed, the long tradition) of Sanford’s ‘forgive my sinning and no, I’m not resigning’ moral position. Swaggart used the King David ‘get out of jail free’ precedent too. Koppelman notes that David also had the husband of his lover murdered which surely Sanford would also find a biblically agreeable turn of events and we’ll note that David didn’t resign on that one either. And…we could note that Bathsheba’s child got ill and died, understood as god’s punishment for David’s naughtiness (even if that baby was, of course, quite innoncent…sort of like a divinely-directed abortion in the fourth trimester). Then there’s Absalom, one of David’s sons who had *** with ten of David’s concubines – in public – as a ten-fold retribution for David’s zipper thing. Does Sanford, one wonders, have any sons?
I just don’t understand how anyone with an ounce of economic sense, or understanding of the issues about “climate change” for which the science is clearly not settled, could support the bill passed by the House yesterday. This country has a huge deficit which sets us up for inflation and they pass a bill that will add to inflationary pressure and make it worse. Bush’s bail out has been compounded by Obama. Add the coming healthcare changes and the inflationary pressure just gets greater. Who’s going to pay for all this? The consumer will pay for Cap & Trade with the increased energy costs that Obama promised to deliver. Who will pay the greatest share of their income? The poor who are supposed to be getting $ redistributed from the wealthy, but it won’t be enough to keep up with inflation. Meanwhile the ranks of the wealthy are declining, so there won’t be as much to redistribute. For all you supporters of this insanely costly ****, how long do you think it will be before it comes home to roost on the president and his party? The idiot Republicans thought they had slain the Liberal beast when they took control of Congress. The Democrats now think they’ve done the same to conservatives in the latest election. When the costs for all of this are allocated and the sticker shock sets in, the pendulum will swing the other way again. You aren’t going to be able to blame Bush for everything forever. Get ready. The Piper must be paid.
“This one is going to get ugly: Obama administration drafts an executive order to reassert Presidential authority to detain terror suspects indefinitely.”
No, Greg, what’s ugly is how very quick some people are with these unverified stories and claims. The White House has denied utterly any such plan.
What is it with y’all? You can’t stand it because he’s popular, or what? Every time I turn around there is another progressive posting an Obama is Bush story and they turn out to be either totally untrue or only partially true.
SMH
actuator
The CBO has already scored the climate change bill and its not a big energy tax and the world is not going to come to an end because of it. Actually climate change IS a settled issue except for the people who have their heads in the sand. Its amazing how much republicans talk out of both sides of their mouths about climate change. They will site it to justify paying a gazillion dollars for nuclear plants whose waste we have no good way of disposing of or opening up our coasts and natural habitats for extra oil drilling. But if the bill doesn’t do those two things then all of a sudden climate change doesn’t really exist. I just don’t understand how voters like you actuator don’t end up with whip lash.
sgw it is well established in science that the climate has always changed. It gets warmer and it gets colder. The last time it got warmer than it is today the Vikings settled Greenland and guess what? The glaciers there didn’t precipitously melt nor did London go under. Then the climate got colder, the Vikings refused to adapt and died out or left. The science is not settled if you go to the trouble to look at some evidence presented by some scientists who have the gall to challenge Hansen, Gore et al.
http://www.co2science.org
http://www.wattsupwiththat.com
http://www.surfacestations.org
CO2 is a trace element in the atmosphere that allows plant life to thrive. Human and other life have flourished when the planet is warmer. No one knows the “ideal” temperature for the planet. It is quite obvious than we humans should stop fouling our nest with real pollutants and toxins. We should also find alternative means of powering the things that make life better for us. But that bill is a piece of **** that WILL as you’ll eventually discover, if the Senate is dumb enough to go along with the House, be of greater cost than you imagine.
You have a great website here, thanks for sharing
A bit of background on actuator’s source… http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Center_for_the_Study_of_Carbon_Dioxide_and_Global_Change
The problem I have with the cap & trade bill is the last minute 300 pages of changes that was not available for anyone to read – especially those that voted for it.
Not one of them voted for it read it, in fact, the 300pages of changes were not available at all. I really am tired of these blind votes – it’s not the way things should be done.
If the other party did this – you would be howling mad. Why do you give your own party a pass? I want responsible representatives – and the 200+ that voted for that on Friday are not that.
Greg gets a shout-out/dragged into the Nico Pitney v. Dana Milbank “planted question” debate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c7kr43HG4Q
Bernie: Wow. You certainly have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for staying informed. My hat’s off to ya! I do appreciate the efforts of people like you who, for example, endure the banality of the Sunday-morning politishows and report the few nuggest they’ve found. It means I don’t have to!
Greg observed a while back that I’m pretty jaded. I guess that’s often true, though I still hold onto a fundamentally optimistic orientation. Still, I fast-forward when Dubya is speaking, and others like Rove, Cheney, Rummy, etc. I already know what they’re gonna say, and I’d rather save myself the irritation.
Hmmm… cuffs, too?
”
Posted at 06/26/2009, 05:28 PM EST
Weekend Open Thread
* White House press sec Robert Gibbs, on the President’s reaction to Michael Jackson’s passing:
I talked to him about it this morning. Look, he said to me that obviously, Michael Jackson was a spectacular performer, a music icon. I think everybody remembers hearing his songs, watching him moonwalk on television during Motown’s 25th anniversary. But the President also said, look, he had — aspects of his life were sad and tragic. And his condolences went out to the Jackson family and to fans that mourned his loss.
* This one is going to get ugly: Obama administration drafts an executive order to reassert Presidential authority to detain terror suspects indefinitely.
* Think Progress slams the DCCC for questioning the patriotism of GOP members of Congress.
* Lindsey Graham says Mark Sanford should stay in office. “Second chances in life are not guaranteed or required,” Graham says.”
Hmm, so when is Lindsey gonna come out and say he was wrong about Spitzer, et al? Too bad engaging in hypocrisy by a Senator isn’t a crime.
The above was supposed to start at “Lindsey Graham says…”. Dunno how the bulk of the quote snuck in there. My bad.
Good for Think Progress. I disagree sometimes with TP but this is one time they are calling it right.
Right on time for actuator.
.
Average world temperature.
.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/temperature-trends/
.
But hey don’t let facts get it he way of your bullsh*t argument. Honestly there is no way to debate the merits of a bill designed to address a problem that the other party claims does not exist.
jzap – cuffs?! You deviant. But nah, I’m really very lazy and presently too busy to do the sort of research and writing I think I ought to be doing. Have you read Perlstein’s “Nixonland”? I’ve just begun it’s an impressive example of somebody who ain’t lazy.
sg – did anyone here cite this Times piece from April? It is precisely to the point and details the reprise by fossil-fuel front groups of the successful tobacco industry strategy to inhibit/delay regulation even while knowing the science on tobacco (explicitly stated in an exec’s memo, “Our product is doubt”) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?_r=1&hp
You’d think, as a matter of basic journalistic competence, the crowd over at Face The Nation might consider letting go of someone on makeup staff or perhaps a set designer and replace him or her with a researcher. I mean, for ***** sakes… http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001877/
Sg, try this one that is from http://www.wattsupwiththat.com . It is a survey of the temperature reporting stations in the U. S. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/21/surfacestations-update-help-needed-for-the-final-stretch/#more-8767.
This survey of (so far) 80 percent of the temperature reporting stations show that most are significantly overstating temperatures.
16 stations 2% error less than one degree centigrade
76 stations 8% error less than one degree centigrade.
205 stations 21% error greater than or = to one degree centigrade
598 stations 61% error greater than or = to two degrees centigrade
78 stations 8% error greater than or = to five degrees centigrade
What this means is that 90 percent of the reporting stations are overstating temps. Why? Because of encroaching human development. There are temperature sensors located next to asphalt parking lots, sidewalks, air conditioning vents, on roof tops with A/C units near by and so on. Although the site needs updating http://www.surfacestations.org allows you to look at actual photos of the temp stations. What this means is that the data that Krugman used is probably unreliable. Besides why are you using a political pundit to challenge a scientific issue?
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