Happy Hour Open Thread
* CNN’s Wolf Blitzer says that Obama is (yikes!) “bracing for a showdown” with Dick Cheney:
Of course, CNN is actively helping to create this “showdown” by carrying Cheney’s speech live, along with MSNBC and Fox, elevating Cheney and giving him a platform equivalent to that of the President.
* John Aravosis points out that Cheney has in effect been tapped to give the “Republican response” to Obama’s speech tomorrow.
* Brian Beutler reports that Congressional Dems are fuming over the White House’s failure to coordinate messaging on the Guantanamo mess.
* Dan Froomkin sounds off on the Dems’ handling of the politics of Guantanamo:
Here’s one thing that hasn’t changed in the Obama era: Republicans are still able to come up with scare tactics that turn Senate Democrats into a terrified and incoherent bunch of mewling babies.
The key word there is “incoherent.” There simply hasn’t been a coherent pushback from Dems on this stuff.
* Josh Marshall and Dianne Feinstein have an idea where we can put the Guantanamo detainees.
* Amy Klobuchar details to Sam Stein the challenges of being a lonely Senator.
* Time mag’s Jay Newton-Small says that Pelosi’s probably right.
* And I hear that new Pew polling data being released tomorrow morning contains some very interesting stuff about what’s happening to the size and party identification trends of the two major parties. So stay tuned for that.
The homepage of this blog is here. RSS feed here. Twitter feed here. Email me here.
“Very interesting” in what way? Good or bad?
can’t say, unfortunately…
how can the White House and the two legislative bodies coordinate their calendars? I thought this was one of Rahm’s main jobs.
Well, it wouldn’t be “very interesting” if it showed Dem ID growing with Repub ID shrinking – that’s what we’d all expect. The last data I saw showed both parties shrinking with Independents growing . . .
Maybe during Cheney’s speech, the Obama admin will let it leak actual names of who is on his SCOTUS short list, or let some other “newsworthy” story that will distract the news org like a shiny set of keys for a little baby. The Obama “campaign” were masters at it during the election. I know, I know, the election is over, but still media rules still apply. Give them a “juicier” story, and they will run with it. Even if the story doesn’t pan out.
I can see it now, Dick is just about the start his speech, or has just begun his speech when…”We interrupt this…” or “This just in…”, or “Breaking News…” But I bet that’s too much to hope for.
sbj – Over the last six years, RNC identification has dropped steadily from 30 to 23 while Dem identification has increased from 33 – 35. Which would you prefer? You’re right of course that independent has gained but as there is no party home for them, it’s not terribly relevant to electoral realities…
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1207/republican-party-identification-slips-nationwide-pennsylvania-specter-switch
Now Bernie you know you can’t be using no stinking facts when talking to sbj lol
The 1973 Roe versus Wade decision established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. Would you like to see the Supreme Court completely overturn its Roe versus Wade decision, or not?
30% Yes, overturn
68% No, not overturn
.
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/us_national_survey_cnn51415.php
sg – my facts are each carefully dabbed with Essence of Lilac before they are posted.
I’d prefer to see Libertarian ID growing. But let’s wait for tomorrow’s exciting lilac-scented Pew data. How about some wagers? I’m with Dem ID steady, Independent ID growing, and Repub ID shrinking . . .
I love the president. He always seems to fulfill my hopes.
“”We talked a lot about the framework in which he is operating, and he talked about his strong desire to reestablish a system under which the executive is not exercising unfettered authority,” said Elisa Massimino, CEO of Human Rights First and an attendee at the Wednesday affair. “One of the chief differences between him and his predecessor was that he didn’t think he ought to be making these decisions in an ad-hoc, unaccountable way. And so he said that, in thinking through this, he was focused on how his successor might operate.” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/20/obama-huddles-with-human_n_206104.html
I had hopes that one reason things were slower than some would like were his careful approach. I’ve argued for that on his behalf and here it is.
Thank you, President Obama.
Here’s the argument I’d like to see Obama make.
.
The goal of terrorists is to terrorize people and disrupt their daily lives by creating a hysteria. If we allow ourselves as Americans to be frightened by incarcerating these terrorists in our prisons, they’ve already won the fight. We need to unite as a country and treat these people as the criminals they are rather than elevate their status by insinuating we’ve become intimidated by them because of their dangerous nature. Our justice and prison system is more than capable of dealing with these detainees. It’s time to move forward.
“it’s not terribly relevant to electoral realities…”
You know why? It’s prohibitively expensive to run for office. There’s no way a new party can get established and hope to compete with the two established parties and their established fund raising machines.
It’s impossible, IMO.
Cheny and Bush created this hideous mess we find ourselves in with Guantanamo. Close it down and send the remaining detainees to WYOMING…or TEXAS…period.
Ari Shapiro reports on NPR that months before the Aug. 1, 2002 OLC memo, Alberto Gonzales may have given permission for some coercive interrogation used against Zubaydah:
.
“The use of “borderline torture” against Zubaydah months before the first Justice Department memo authorizing harsh interrogations raises the question of whether [CIA contractor James] Mitchell had legal permission to use abusive techniques.
.
“The CIA suggests that he did.
.
“The Aug. 1, 2002, memo from the Department of Justice was not the first piece of legal guidance for the interrogation program,” according to agency spokesman Paul Gimigliano.
.
“But the CIA will not describe what the first legal guidance was.
.
“Top-Secret Cables
.
“One source with knowledge of Zubaydah’s interrogations agreed to describe the legal guidance process, on the condition of anonymity.
.
“The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top-secret cable to the CIA’s counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the administration’s legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation. ”
.
See http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104350361
Meanwhile, Michael Isikoff reported on Rachel Maddow’s show that at a tense White House meeting Wednesday with human rights groups, Eric Holder sat silent while Obama “sort of curtly dismissed the idea” of prosecuting any Bush officials for anything related to torture.
.
See http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#30856294
JaO
.
Not to try to put a fine line on it but Obama “curtly dismissed the idea” of prosecuting ONE Bush administration official just to throw civil libertarians a bone. I wasn’t happy with how the meeting went down according to Isikoff but on that particular issue President Obama was right. You can’t just put up a sacrificial lamb so this will go away. I don’t want that and honestly I am amazed that any civil libertarian would even say such a thing. If you are going to go after these people then you go after all of them, not just one to appease some group of constituents. But I think right now President Obama might be having a moment like he had during the Daschle debacle where he could be starting to see that you can’t hold up the rule of law as a standard and then run away from it because you are worried about the politics. I think in the bubble he is in he might not be seeing that. Like I said before there isn’t one single person you can point to in his inner circle who would probably be predisposed to advocating a truth commission or investigations. Remember most of them are Clinton folks who are probably still stinging over how DADT and his failed universal health care campaign screwed up some of his initiatives during his first term. So they are probably all pushing him away from that. So I think its time for him to hear the other side.
The Pew report is now out.
Republicans 22 (-2)
Democrats 33 (-1)
Indendents 39 (+4)
Ha!
sgwhiteinfla,
.
I agree that an arbitrary prosecution — “trophy” was the unseemly word that reportedly was used in the White House meeting — would not be justice. But I do think situations should be considered from the ground up, on a case-by-case basis, and there is legitimate room for prosecutorial discretion. The more egregious and clear-cut cases obviously would be better candidates than iffy ones.
.
(For example, I am not persuaded that there is evidence now for prosecuting the OLC lawyers criminally, but I am keeping an open mind about whether there is probable cause to start a grand jury investigation. There likely is enough to initiate ethics proceedings, depending on what the OPR has found.)
.
I was most offended by the general news Isikoff reported about the process: This decision is still being handled as a political matter by Obama and the White House, rather than as a legal matter in the Justice Department.
.
I am not a Democrat; I am an independent who opposed the corruption of justice and the Department of Justice in the Bush adminstration. The warping of criminal-prosecution decisions within that administration was one of the evils I voted against.
.
When Eric Holder was nominated, one of the raps against him from Republicans was that he was too politically malleable, as he had been as deputy AG under Clinton. I gave Holder the benefit of the doubt then, but I now see signs that he bends to Obama’s political agenda.
In this economy I was concerned that it would be difficult to find a job in my field. Many websites promised to have a large database of employers but rarely delivered. When I found Employment Crossing I was given direct access to employers rather than having to go through a recruiter.
The Terminator franchise is what got me interested in the movies in the first place. The first was a suspenseful cyberpunk thriller, and the second became my favorite movie of all time. The third fell short of intelligence but still solid nonetheless, and the TV series was a good addition to the franchise. Nearing the end of May, the fourth and latest film addition of the beloved sci-fi franchise will open, and viewers are in for a sheer summer spectacle.
Hello everyone! My name is Frida.I like to join this forum!Hope we’ll be friends.
Hey!
I used to have a lot of troubles with online video too, till I found this website http://themoviedownloads.biz. The only drawback is that you have to pay for registration, but it’s cheaper then buying all these video from different stores or buying tools like some kind of downloaders.
Hope it helps.
At least I found the site I can watch and download any online video. You can check it out http://themoviedownloads.biz
Lol my roomate was standing here as i read this and was all like LOL somone posted a link to that in a chat the other day and low and behold its here. http://tinyurl.com/ye95zu7