For Dems only.

[Balta1701]

Hopefully no one minds the visitor, but I was reading the samethings and just shaking my head. I know the two big kids on the block were destined to rumble, but I hate to see the fire back to the Clinton campaign go down the predictable road of their ethics. I'd really like to see the Obama camp stay above that, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. This is going to be a long, long 21 months, isn't it?

Unless one of these 3-4 campaigns actually makes a concerted, 100% effort to stay above the fray...ungodly long. We barely knew who the candidates were at this point in the 04 race, in the 08 race now it seems like we're 6 months or more ahead of the pace last time through.

 

And on top of that, eventually we're going to be dealing with this level of sniping from both sides, since for once there is no clear standard bearer for either party. Although, the Republicans have something of a niceity in that they can spend some of their time defending Mr. Bush from his disasters instead of attacking each other, but that will only last so long.

Edited February 21, 2007 by Balta1701

[NorthSideSox72]

Unless one of these 3-4 campaigns actually makes a concerted, 100% effort to stay above the fray...ungodly long. We barely knew who the candidates were at this point in the 04 race, in the 08 race now it seems like we're 6 months or more ahead of the pace last time through.

 

And on top of that, eventually we're going to be dealing with this level of sniping from both sides, since for once there is no clear standard bearer for either party. Although, the Republicans have something of a niceity in that they can spend some of their time defending Mr. Bush from his disasters instead of attacking each other, but that will only last so long.

If Edwards continues to show how little substance he actually has, and Clinton and Obama just keep pummeling each other... I like Richardson's chances.

[Balta1701]

If Edwards continues to show how little substance he actually has, and Clinton and Obama just keep pummeling each other... I like Richardson's chances.

Well, on paper that's what you'd think, but I'm not really sure how the dynamics of this election are going to work out. Right now, Richardson is getting virtually no media attention; his campaign page I believe even ranks below his wikipedia page on Google. Right now, there is some thought that the media have become so totally willing to ignore substance in arguments that the only people who really will have a chance will be these "Rockstar" candidates, just because the media doesn't bother talking about anyone else.

[southsider2k5]

Right now, there is some thought that the media have become so totally willing to ignore substance in arguments that the only people who really will have a chance will be these "Rockstar" candidates, just because the media doesn't bother talking about anyone else.

 

 

I'd buy that for sure. Obama is front page news for his Hollywood fundraiser which netted him over a million dollars, but who heard about Richardson's which was the largest in his states history and netted something like $2 million?

[NorthSideSox72]

Well, on paper that's what you'd think, but I'm not really sure how the dynamics of this election are going to work out. Right now, Richardson is getting virtually no media attention; his campaign page I believe even ranks below his wikipedia page on Google. Right now, there is some thought that the media have become so totally willing to ignore substance in arguments that the only people who really will have a chance will be these "Rockstar" candidates, just because the media doesn't bother talking about anyone else.

Could be. But I think that things are just getting started, like you said, and Richardson will make money better than anyone else outside the big 3 (if his history is any guide). Then, once people start seeing his campaign, things will change.

 

If he's smart, he needs to start spending a lot of time in Iowa.

[Texsox]

Fun With Bush

[Balta1701]

Newsweek.

The British are leaving, the Iraqis are failing and the Americans are staying—and we’re going to be there a lot longer than anyone in Washington is acknowledging right now. As Democrats and Republicans back home try to outdo each other with quick-fix plans for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and funds, what few people seem to have noticed is that Gen. David Petraeus’s new “surge” plan is committing U.S. troops, day by day, to a much deeper and longer-term role in policing Iraq than since the earliest days of the U.S. occupation. How long must we stay under the Petraeus plan? Perhaps 10 years. At least five. In any case, long after George W. Bush has returned to Crawford, Texas, for good.

 

But don’t take my word for it. I’m merely a messenger for a coterie of counterinsurgency experts who have helped to design the Petraeus plan—his so-called “dream team”—and who have discussed it with NEWSWEEK, usually on condition of anonymity, owing to the sensitivity of the subject. To a degree little understood by the U.S. public, Petraeus is engaged in a giant “do-over.” It is a near-reversal of the approach taken by Petraeus’s predecessor as commander of multinational forces in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, until the latter was relieved in early February, and most other top U.S. commanders going back to Rick Sanchez and Tommy Franks. Casey sought to accelerate both the training of Iraqi forces and American withdrawal. By 2008, the remaining 60,000 or so U.S. troops were supposed to be hunkering down in four giant “superbases,” where they would be relatively safe. Under Petraeus’s plan, a U.S. military force of 160,000 or more is setting up hundreds of “mini-forts” all over Baghdad and the rest of the country, right in the middle of the action. The U.S. Army has also stopped pretending that Iraqis—who have failed to build a credible government, military or police force on their own—are in the lead when it comes to kicking down doors and keeping the peace. And that means the future of Iraq depends on the long-term presence of U.S. forces in a way it did not just a few months ago. “We’re putting down roots,” says Philip Carter, a former U.S. Army captain who returned last summer from a year of policing and training in the hot zone around Baquba. “The Americans are no longer willing to accept failure in order to put Iraqis in the lead. You can’t let the mission fail just for the sake of diplomacy.”

[southsider2k5]

A little poll assist....

 

Edwards leads Iowa by 6 points right now

 

http://strategicvision.biz/political/iowa_poll_022207.htm

 

4. If the 2008 Democratic presidential caucus were held today between, Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, Bill Richardson, and Tom Vilsack, for whom would you vote? (Democrats Only; Names Rotated)

John Edwards 24%

Hillary Clinton 18%

Barack Obama 18%

Tom Vilsack 14%

Joe Biden 5%

Bill Richardson 3%

Wesley Clark 2%

Chris Dodd 1%

Dennis Kucinich 1%

Undecided 14%

[NorthSideSox72]

A little poll assist....

 

Edwards leads Iowa by 6 points right now

 

http://strategicvision.biz/political/iowa_poll_022207.htm

This will be an interesting year. I suspect that poll to change dramatically, if taken about 10 months from now.

 

Whats amazing to me is, Vilsack is 4th. Its his state, and half the candidates are still unknowns at this point... and he still can't get better than 4th?

[Balta1701]

This will be one of the 3 biggest messes that whoever replaces Mr. Bush will have to deal with, and I think Andrew Sullivan sums it up quite well. Link.

What's more telling is how unpopular the war is in Britain, and how an entire generation of Brits have now grown up thinking of the United States as a bullying, torturing force for instability in the world. That's not the America I love - but it is the image of America that Bush and Cheney have built for the largest generation of human beings ever to grow up on the planet. In Italy, the government has fallen because there is no longer support for even a minimal presence in Afghanistan, let alone Iraq.

 

Soft power can be over-hyped. It's no substitute for military prowess. But soft power still matters. Once, for all the residual anti-Americanism out there, it was a significant plus for the U.S. Bush has somehow managed to give the U.S. a soft-power deficit - in a war against some of the most barbaric, evil enemies we have ever faced. That really is an achievement. And it will take another generation to fix it. It's one reason Obama is so appealing, I think. Electing him after Bush-Cheney would amount to the strongest signal that America is moving past the Bush-Cheney era. That's a message the world is desperate to hear, and it would make enlisting more allies in the war against Islamist terror much easier.

And deep down, I think this is probably a big part of the reason I'm on the Obama bandwagon.

[Balta1701]

i'm estimating that a pretty badass piece by seymour hersh is gonna come out in the next couple of months.

Yeah Yeah, like that was such a hard prediction to make. Hersh has been on this topic for what, 3 years now?

[Balta1701]

Flaws admitted in a 2002 study which has been commonly used by anti-embryonic stem cell research advocates to suggest that adult stem cells are as useful as embryonic ones.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Yeah Yeah, like that was such a hard prediction to make. Hersh has been on this topic for what, 3 years now?

 

That may be true, but information detailing secret US funding going to support Sunni jihadists with Al Qaeda links in an effort to counter Shiite influence in the Middle East is a bombshell, even for Hersh. Add in the implications that Negroponte stepped down because the whole thing was starting to mirror Iran-Contra and it's a pretty big story for anybody paying attention.

[Balta1701]

So, here's a giant shocker...you know how we've suddenly starting having much more common outbreaks of food-borne pathogens, like the E-Coli spinach outbreak or the contaminated food @ Taco bell a few weeks ago? Guess what...it just so happens that we've also been slashing the budget at the FDA that goes to inspecting for those sorts of problems. Link.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

 

FDA ‘just can't manage the job’

That’s not all that’s dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

 

* There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.

* Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency’s own statistics.

 

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation’s food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains.

Don't worry, I'm sure the Free Market will take care of things, right? After all, people clearly have the ability to evaluate on their own whether or not their food is safe to eat, right?

[Balta1701]

That may be true, but information detailing secret US funding going to support Sunni jihadists with Al Qaeda links in an effort to counter Shiite influence in the Middle East is a bombshell, even for Hersh. Add in the implications that Negroponte stepped down because the whole thing was starting to mirror Iran-Contra and it's a pretty big story for anybody paying attention.

See, here's my problem with Sy Hersh...as far as I'm concerned, I don't see any reason to trust him that much more than someone like Judy Miller (with the notable exception of him having been in the "correct" group on Iraq, along with very few others).

 

Hersh's business is exactly the same sort of business that the Bush administration used to sell the Iraq war; unattributed sources. Single anonymous source links. In 2002, the NY Times kept running single, anonymous source links as front page articles, chirping that Iraq had bought aluminum tubes for weapons production and so forth. Those claims, however, could never be investigated or validated in any real way, because no one would go on record with it. And eventually, it turned out that they were all false, and the anonymous sources had wound up all getting their intel from 1 or 2 liars within Chalabi's group. Because no one would go on record, we could never evaluate the veracity of the claims, and we wound up stuck in an idiotic war for 4 years so far.

 

Hersh, sadly, does exactly the same thing. For example, Sy Hersh has been beating the drumbeats on Iran now for over 2 years. That link is to a 2005 piece where one of his anonymous sources reports that the U.S. has been conducting recon operations inside Iran since mid-2004. As far as I know, this still to this day has not been corroborated. Furthermore, Hersh was predicting a military strike against Iran back in 05 as well, something that hasn't happened.

 

Because so few of Hersh's key sources are willing to sacrifice their careers by going on record...we're left with the same mess of mistakes that got us into Iraq. Hersh says that he has a source saying the Bush Administration is funding Sunni groups. Well, that's all well and good, but what other possible motives might someone have for telling him that? To discredit specific people within the administration who are advocating that position? To send a message to other governments (the saudis) that we will do more against Iran? Without knowing who the people are, and hearing from them, it's simply impossible to evaluate things like this.

 

Hersh has one thing going for him; he's made his bet on the Bush Administration being stupid enough to attack Iran. It sure looks like that's a pretty darn safe bet to make. But other than that, I just can't bring myself to trust him or his "sources", because I have no ability to evaluate what any of them actually want.

[southsider2k5]

So, here's a giant shocker...you know how we've suddenly starting having much more common outbreaks of food-borne pathogens, like the E-Coli spinach outbreak or the contaminated food @ Taco bell a few weeks ago? Guess what...it just so happens that we've also been slashing the budget at the FDA that goes to inspecting for those sorts of problems. Link.

Don't worry, I'm sure the Free Market will take care of things, right? After all, people clearly have the ability to evaluate on their own whether or not their food is safe to eat, right?

 

Have you ate at Taco Bell lately? I know I haven't.

[Balta1701]

Have you ate at Taco Bell lately? I know I haven't.

I haven't eaten fast food in months, but that's more a function of having no money. I do have a bag of (surprisingly cheap) spinach in my fridge that I'm working through right now.

[Texsox]

Have you ate at Taco Bell lately? I know I haven't.

 

Let me know where you ate and got sick so I can stay away.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Because so few of Hersh's key sources are willing to sacrifice their careers by going on record...we're left with the same mess of mistakes that got us into Iraq. Hersh says that he has a source saying the Bush Administration is funding Sunni groups. Well, that's all well and good, but what other possible motives might someone have for telling him that? To discredit specific people within the administration who are advocating that position? To send a message to other governments (the saudis) that we will do more against Iran? Without knowing who the people are, and hearing from them, it's simply impossible to evaluate things like this.

 

Hersh has one thing going for him; he's made his bet on the Bush Administration being stupid enough to attack Iran. It sure looks like that's a pretty darn safe bet to make. But other than that, I just can't bring myself to trust him or his "sources", because I have no ability to evaluate what any of them actually want.

 

I certainly appreciate all of those sentiments, but I nonetheless put a lot of stock into what Hersh puts into print. Maybe it's primarily because I always see the White House spokespeople being very quick to respond/deny/discredit his pieces, not just ignoring them as they do so many other "fringe" journalists.

[kapkomet]

I certainly appreciate all of those sentiments, but I nonetheless put a lot of stock into what Hersh puts into print. Maybe it's primarily because I always see the White House spokespeople being very quick to respond/deny/discredit his pieces, not just ignoring them as they do so many other "fringe" journalists.

That does indeed have to make one wonder, doesn't it?

 

However, I certainly don't think Iran is next on the hit list, because right now, candidly, it's beyond our reach.

[Balta1701]

I would say last night's Special Comment was particularly good.

 

 

(my favorite part is the Marshall plan stuff)

[Balta1701]

Salon.com is reporting that the now 8 federal prosecutors who have been pushed out of their positions by the Bush administration are coming out and actually saying that the Bush Admin. pushed them out for political reasons which had nothing to do with performance. (one of the prosecutors pushed out was the person who took the lead on the Duke Cunningham investigation, another was on the Bonds case, etc.) Most of them appear to have been temporarily replaced by Republicans who are generally inexperienced in legal matters.

[StrangeSox]

I would say last night's Special Comment was particularly good.

 

 

(my favorite part is the Marshall plan stuff)

 

 

Wow, he really ripped into her.

 

It could have been done more professionally and his point would be better-received, though.

 

Sometimes politicians manage to amaze me with the stupidity of the rhetoric that comes out of their mouths.

[Balta1701]

Supposedly the First U.S. Marine wounded in the Iraq invasion has come out of the closet as a homosexual and will be marching, on 1 leg it seems, to advocate the end of the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy.

The first U.S. Marine seriously wounded in Iraq, Staff Sgt. Eric Alva, lost his leg when he stepped on a land mine, but today he and his prosthetic leg will march right into one of the most contentious battles in American politics.

 

Alva will stand with Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass., as a bipartisan group of Congress members introduces legislation to overturn the ban on openly gay and lesbian troops serving in the military.

 

Alva says that losing his leg forced him out of the closet.

 

"It made me realize everything that I had to actually speak up for," Alva said to ABC News in an exclusive TV interview, "basically the rights and privileges of what I as an individual have earned in this country."

 

He imagines conversations with the political opponents he knows he will now face.

 

"'OK buddy,'" he said, "'you pick up a gun and you go fight in Iraq or Afghanistan for a while, then you could come back and we can have a talk because I've actually sacrificed, I've actually done duty and served in this country for your rights and freedom.'"

[Balta1701]

OH COME ON NANCY NOW THAT'S B.S.

House Republicans plan a formal objection on the House floor to the appointment of Rep. William Jefferson to the Homeland Security Committee.

 

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt announced the move Wednesday, a day after the House Democratic caucus approved Speaker Nancy Pelosi's appointment of Jefferson to the panel.

 

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio called Jefferson's appointment "baffling and troubling," in a statement.

 

The move came eight months after the Louisiana lawmaker was ousted from the House Ways and Means Committee after federal prosecutors alleged he had taken $90,000 in cash in a bribery sting and stashed it in his freezer.

 

Though committee assignments are usually passed unanimously on the floor without votes being recorded, Blunt, R-Missouri, said he will object and ask for a recorded vote.

 

He criticized Pelosi -- who took office last month after declaring that she would "drain the swamp that is Washington" by improving the ethics process -- for making the appointment.

 

"I think our side will generally think that this is not only not a good idea but totally inconsistent with the major point that the speaker made when she wanted to be the speaker -- that this would not be allowed, that there were penalties on their side," Blunt said. "And the idea that Homeland Security is somehow less important than the tax-writing committee I think is a ludicrous idea."

 

In an interview Tuesday with CNN's "Larry King Live," Pelosi defended Jefferson's appointment, saying that while the Ways and Means Committee "had something to do with the accusations made against him," his new post does not.

 

Pelosi also said the Homeland Security panel "is an appropriate place for him to be," given its jurisdiction over matters related to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated Jefferson's New Orleans-area district.