I apologize Y’all, I had to take a few mental health days and not even look in the direction of this site. I’ll be back strong Sunday. What’s on your mind? Tell me somethin’ good-as Chaka Khan used to say.
The deadline for the first quarter of fundraising for Presidential candidates will pass in about one hour from now. I expect an announcement from Obama and Hillary that they both cleared $25 million, what do you think?
Republican attempts to scuttle the nonbinding timeline failed, 50-48, largely along party lines.
The vote marked the Senate’s most forceful challenge to date of the administration’s handling of a war that has claimed the lives of more than 3,200 U.S. troops. It came days after the House approved a binding withdrawal deadline of Sept. 1, 2008, and increased the likelihood of a veto confrontation this spring.
After weeks of setbacks on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid said the moment was at hand to “send a message to President Bush that the time has come to find a new way forward in this intractable war.”
“It is a choice between staying the course in Iraq or changing the course in Iraq,” he said.
But Republicans _ and Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent Democrat _ argued otherwise.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a presidential hopeful, said “we are starting to turn things around” in the Iraq war, and added that critics “conceive no failure as worse than remaining in Iraq and no success worthy of additional sacrifice. They are wrong.”
Bush had previously said he would veto any bill that he deemed an attempt to micromanage the war, and the White House freshened the threat a few hours before the vote _ and again afterward. “The president is disappointed that the Senate continues down a path with a bill that he will veto and has no chance of becoming law,” it said.
Similar legislation drew only 48 votes in the Senate earlier this month, but Democratic leaders made a change that persuaded Nebraska’s Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson to swing behind the measure.
Additionally, GOP Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon sided with the Democrats, assuring them of the majority they needed to turn back a challenge led by Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss. “The president’s strategy is taking America deeper and deeper into this quagmire with no exit strategy,” said Hagel, the most vocal Republican critic of the war in Congress.
Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to the Capitol in case his vote was needed to break a tie, a measure of the importance the administration places on the issue.
The debate came on legislation that provides $122 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as domestic priorities such relief to hurricane victims and payments to farmers. Final passage is expected Wednesday or Thursday.
Separately, a minimum wage increase was attached to the spending bill without controversy, along with companion tax cuts that the Republicans have demanded as the price for their support of the increase in the federal wage floor. The House and Senate have passed different versions of the minimum wage-tax package, but they have yet to reach a compromise.
The House has already passed legislation requiring troops to be withdrawn by Sept. 1, 2008. The Senate vote assured that the Democratic-controlled Congress would send Bush legislation later this spring that calls for a change in war policy. A veto appears to be a certainty.
That would put the onus back on the Democrats, who would have to decide how long they wanted to extend the test of wills in the face of what are likely to be increasingly urgent statements from the administration that the money is needed for troops in the war zone.
“I hope he will work with us so we can come up with something agreeable for both” sides, Reid said at a post-vote news conference. “But I’m not anxious to strip anything out of the bill.”
As drafted, the legislation requires a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days, with a nonbinding goal that calls for the combat troops to be gone within a year.
The measure also includes a series of suggested goals for the Iraqi government to meet to provide for its own security, enhance democracy and distribute its oil wealth fairly _ provisions designed to attract support from Nelson and Sen. Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Despite the change, Pryor voted with Republicans, saying he would only support a timeline if the date were secret.
The vote was a critical test for Reid and the new Democratic majority in the Senate nearly three months after they took power. Despite several attempts, they had yet to win approval for any legislation challenging Bush’s policies.
Photo by Hanoian
By BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press Writer
March 25, 2007, 3:00 PM CDT
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Iraq war is diminishing America’s standing in the world and diverting millions of dollars that should be spent on health care, education and alternative energy research in the United States, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama said Sunday.
“We have to recognize that if we don’t make some fundamental changes right now that we could be the first generation in a very long time that leaves an America behind that is a little poorer and a little meaner than the one we inherited from our parents, and that’s unacceptable,” Obama told a crowd of about 600 supporters at a fundraiser in West Palm Beach.
The Democratic presidential hopeful said all Americans should have universal health care, vehicles should be getting up to 60 miles per gallon, workers should get wage increases and education should be fully funded so the next generation can compete in the world market.
“But here’s the thing, we can’t initiate all these creative ideas to solve our domestic challenges if we don’t bring this war in Iraq to a close,” Obama said.
Several public opinion polls show Obama trailing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, with former vice president Al Gore in third, even though Gore has said he has no plans to run.
Obama lashed out at the Bush administration for an energy policy that gives money “to some of the most hostile nations on Earth,” while unchecked greenhouse gas emissions threaten the world’s climate.
This is crazy funny, Y’all. Be prepared. No liquids unless you wanna spray it all over the computer.
The Edwardses come across as incredibly compelling.
photo by columbia
Hillary Clinton’s campaign apparatus is now in full swing to court a part of the electorate she thought she had locked down in pre-Obama days: black women. According to one campaign source, Minyon Moore, a Hillary operative and former political director in Bill Clinton’s White House, held a strategy session last week with influential black women, like Marva Smalls (a top exec at Nickelodeon) and NYPD chaplain Suzan Johnson Cook, at Hillary’s Manhattan headquarters. “We’ve always said we need to earn every vote,” Moore says, and hopes the women will act as cheerleaders for Hillary. An ABC–Washington Post poll released last month shows that Hillary’s support among blacks has dropped dramatically (from 60 percent to 33 percent), and her support among women overall has dipped as well (from 49 percent to 40 percent)—owing almost exclusively to the fact that black women are now supporting Obama. “Black women will be key,” says Donna Brazile, a Dem strategist (still unaffiliated) and Al Gore’s former campaign manager. “What drives politics in the black community is the early support of black women. They drive the discourse. They pick a candidate, and stick with it.”
Prometheus 6 tipped me off to the situation involving Shaquanda Cotton. Steady yourself before you read this. Take your blood pressure pill and your nitro glycerin, have a drink, a smoke, a massage, or whatever you have to do to relax because after you read it, you’ll want some answers and won’t be quite up to hearing about, “The Audacity of Hope.”
HAT TIP : By ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press Writer
A sharply divided House voted Friday to order President Bush to bring combat troops home from Iraq next year, a victory for Democrats in an epic war-powers struggle and Congress’ boldest challenge yet to the administration’s policy.
Ignoring a White House veto threat, lawmakers voted 218-212, mostly along party lines, for a binding war spending bill requiring that combat operations cease before September 2008, or earlier if the Iraqi government does not meet certain requirements. Democrats said it was time to heed the mandate of their election sweep last November, which gave them control of Congress.
“The American people have lost faith in the president’s conduct of this war,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif. “The American people see the reality of the war, the president does not.”
The vote, echoing clashes between lawmakers and the White House over the Vietnam War four decades ago, pushed the Democratic-led Congress a step closer to a constitutional collision with the wartime commander in chief. Bush has insisted that lawmakers allow more time for his strategy of sending nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to work.
The roll call also marked a triumph for Pelosi., who labored in recent days to bring together a Democratic caucus deeply divided over the war. Some of the party’s more liberal members voted against the bill because they said it would not end the war immediately, while more conservative Democrats said they were reluctant to take away flexibility from generals in the field.
Republicans were almost completely unified in their fight against the bill, which they said was tantamount to admitting failure in Iraq.
“The stakes in Iraq are too high and the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families too great to be content with anything but success,” said Republican Whip Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), R-Mo.
Voting for the bill were 216 Democrats and two Republicans — Wayne Gilchrest (news, bio, voting record) of Maryland and Walter Jones (news, bio, voting record) of North Carolina. Of the 212 members who opposed the bill, 198 were Republicans and 14 were Democrats.
The bill marks the first time Congress has used its budget power to try to end the war, now in its fifth year, by attaching the withdrawal requirements to a bill providing $124 billion to finance military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year.
Excluding the funds in the House-passed bill, Congress has so far provided more than $500 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, including about $350 billion for Iraq alone, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. More than 3,200 U.S. troops have died in Iraq since war began in March 2003.
Associated Press is announcing the endorsement of the borg Queen by former Iowa Governor and Presidential Candidate Tom Vilsack. The ritual of total submission and sycophancy will reportedly take place on Monday. Damn. Another good man has been assimilated by the Clinton juggernaut. Vilsack’s campaign disintegrated after he was disabused of the delusion that he could compete with celebrity contenders like Hillary and Obama.
By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, Associated Press Writer
A Senate panel, following the House’s lead, authorized subpoenas Thursday for White House political adviser Karl Rove and other top aides involved in the firing of federal prosecutors.
The Senate Judiciary Committee decided by voice vote to approve the subpoenas as Republicans and Democrats sparred over whether to press a showdown with President Bush over the ousters of eight U.S. attorneys.
Democrats angrily rejected Bush’s offer to grant a limited number of lawmakers private interviews with the aides with no transcript and without swearing them in. Republicans counseled restraint, but at least one, Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record) of Iowa, backed the action.
A House Judiciary subcommittee authorized subpoenas in the matter Wednesday, but none has been issued.
Democrats said the move would give them more bargaining power in negotiating with the White House to hear from Bush’s closest advisers.
“We’re authorizing that ability but we’re not issuing them,” Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said of the subpoenas. “It’ll only strengthen our hand in getting to the bottom of this.”
Republicans countered, however, that subpoenas were premature.
“I counsel my colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to work hard to avoid an impasse. We don’t need a constitutional confrontation,” said Sen. Arlen Specter (news, bio, voting record) of Pennsylvania, the panel’s top Republican.
Even as Democrats derided the White House’s offer, Bush spokesman Tony Snow maintained that lawmakers will realize it is fair and reasonable once they reflect on it.
“We’re not trying to hide things. We’re not trying to run from things,” he said. “We want them to know what happened.”
Democrats, however, called Bush’s position untenable.
“What we’re told we can get is nothing, nothing, nothing,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (news, bio, voting record), D-Vt., the Judiciary chairman. “I know he’s the decider for the White House — he’s not the decider for the United States Senate.”
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, fighting for his job amid the prosecutor furor, vowed he would not step aside and promised to cooperate with Congress in the inquiry.
“I’m not going to resign,” Gonzales told reporters after an event in St. Louis.
“No United States Attorney was fired for improper reasons,” he added.
The Senate panel voted to approve subpoenas for Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and her former deputy, William Kelley. The House subcommittee Tuesday authorized subpoenas for Rove, Miers and their deputies.
Snow, in an interview on CBS’s “The Early Show,” accused supporters of subpoenas of wanting “a Perry Mason scene where people are hot-dogging and grandstanding and trying to score political points.”
“I know a lot of people want this ‘Showdown at the OK Corral’ kind of thing. People might have a beef if we were withholding anything. We’re not,” he said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Even as both sides dug in publicly, prominent lawmakers worked behind the scenes to avert a court battle between the executive and legislative branches. Specter said he wanted to find a way for Bush’s aides to testify publicly with a transcript — which he called “indispensable” — but would not insist on putting them under oath.
He said later he had not spoken with anyone at the White House about such a compromise.
“The dust has to settle first,” Specter said.
Bush is standing by Gonzales, as Republicans and Democrats question the attorney general’s leadership. The president insists that the firings of the prosecutors over the past year were appropriate, while Democrats argue they were politically motivated.
The prosecutors are appointed to four-year terms by the president and serve at his pleasure. meaning they can dismissed at any time.
Democrats have rejected Bush’s offer — relayed to Capitol Hill on Tuesday by White House counsel Fred Fielding — in large part because there would be no transcript and the testimony would not be public.
Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., the majority leader, said it would be “outrageous,” to allow Rove to testify off the record.
“Anyone who would take that deal isn’t playing with a full deck,” Reid said.
Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator and Presidential Candidate John Edwards has announced her diagnosis with stage IV breast cancer. Senator Edwards has elected to continue campaigning and remains “optimistic” about the diagnosis. Mrs. Edwards fervent belief that she can continue doing the things she does now while undergoing treatment has given me great pause. Senator Edwards has said that her cancer is not curable. I am not sure how I feel about this yet because, quite frankly, I am stunned. Mrs. Edwards reported wrenching her back moving a box and later hearing something pop after she received a hug from her husband. She went to the doctor to see about it and they found a malignancy in the bone that was localized in one place. All anyone can do is pray, but I can’t help feeling frustrated and anxious for them.
photo by rachel feierman
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
Campaign officials refused to answer any questions about what the Edwardses learned at the doctor’s appointment or how it might affect his candidacy. Edwards had cut short a trip to Iowa Tuesday night to be with his wife Wednesday but still attended a barbecue fundraiser later in the evening in their hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C.
The campaign had said that Mrs. Edwards, 57, had a follow-up appointment to a routine test she had Monday. The campaign explained that she had similar follow-ups in the past but they always resulted in a clean bill of health.
The campaign refused to elaborate Wednesday. Family friends said Wednesday night that they didn’t know of any new complications to her health.
“Her health has been so good for so long,” said Kate Michelman, an Edwards adviser who was planning to work closely with Elizabeth Edwards to appeal to female voters around the country.
Mrs. Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer in the final days of the 2004 campaign, when her husband was the Democratic vice presidential nominee. He announced the diagnosis the day after he and presidential nominee John Kerry lost the election.
Mrs. Edwards wrote about her life, including her breast cancer treatment that included chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, in a book published last year called “Saving Graces.”
March 11, 2007
Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959
Dear Jodi:
Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.
For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other whether or not she was going to run.
I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing it would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed something other than what he believed.
I talked about how rare it was to meet a man whose Christianity was not just “in word only.” I talked about Barack being a person who lived his faith and did not argue his faith. I talked about Barack as a person who did not draw doctrinal lines in the sand nor consign other people to hell if they did not believe what he believed.
Out of a two-hour conversation with you about Barack’s spiritual journey and my protesting to you that I had not shaped him nor formed him, that I had not mentored him or made him the man he was, even though I would love to take that credit, you did not print any of that. When I told you, using one of your own Jewish stories from the Hebrew Bible as to how God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?,” that Barack was like that when I met him. Barack had it “in his hand.” Barack had in his grasp a uniqueness in terms of his spiritual development that one is hard put to find in the 21st century, and you did not print that.
As I was just starting to say a moment ago, Jodi, out of two hours of conversation I spent approximately five to seven minutes on Barack’s taking advice from one of his trusted campaign people and deeming it unwise to make me the media spotlight on the day of his announcing his candidacy for the Presidency and what do you print? You and your editor proceeded to present to the general public a snippet, a printed “sound byte” and a titillating and tantalizing article about his disinviting me to the Invocation on the day of his announcing his candidacy.
I have never been exposed to that kind of duplicitous behavior before, and I want to write you publicly to let you know that I do not approve of it and will not be party to any further smearing of the name, the reputation, the integrity or the character of perhaps this nation’s first (and maybe even only) honest candidate offering himself for public service as the person to occupy the Oval Office.
Your editor is a sensationalist. For you to even mention that makes me doubt your credibility, and I am looking forward to see how you are going to butcher what else I had to say concerning Senator Obama’s “Spiritual Biography.” Our Conference Minister, the Reverend Jane Fisler Hoffman, a white woman who belongs to a Black church that Hannity of “Hannity and Colmes” is trying to trash, set the record straight for you in terms of who I am and in terms of who we are as the church to which Barack has belonged for over twenty years.
The president of our denomination, the Reverend John Thomas, has offered to try to help you clarify in your confused head what Trinity Church is even though you spent the entire weekend with us setting me up to interview me for what turned out to be a smear of the Senator; and yet The New York Times continues to roll on making the truth what it wants to be the truth. I do not remember reading in your article that Barack had apologized for listening to that bad information and bad advice. Did I miss it? Or did your editor cut it out? Either way, you do not have to worry about hearing anything else from me for you to edit or “spin” because you are more interested in journalism than in truth.
Forgive me for having a momentary lapse. I forgot that The New York Times was leading the bandwagon in trumpeting why it is we should have gone into an illegal war. The New York Times became George Bush and the Republican Party’s national “blog.” The New York Times played a role in the outing of Valerie Plame. I do not know why I thought The New York Times had actually repented and was going to exhibit a different kind of behavior.
Maybe it was my faith in the Jewish Holy Day of Roshashana. Maybe it was my being caught up in the euphoria of the Season of Lent; but whatever it is or was, I was sadly mistaken. There is no repentance on the part of The New York Times. There is no integrity when it comes to The Times. You should do well with that paper, Jodi. You looked me straight in my face and told me a lie!
Sincerely and respectfully yours,
Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. ,
Senior Pastor
Trinity United Church of Christ
Rock The Boat
( Sung to the 70′s tune by The Hues Corporation ) So I’d like to know where, you got the notion (for a subpeona) Ever since my voyage of fascist imperialism began My Administration is like a ship on the ocean So I’d like to know where, you got the notion (for a subpeona) Up to now we sailed through every storm Condi’s love is like a ship on the ocean (the Titanic) So I’d like to know where, you got the notion (for a subpeona)
Said I’d like to know where, you got the notion
To rock the boat, don’t rock the boat Leahy
Rock the boat, don’t tip the boat over
Rock the boat, don’t rock the boat Leahy
Rock the boat
A compliant congress has thrilled me like the rush of the wind
And your arms have held me safe from a rolling sea
There’s always been a quiet place to harbor you and me
We’ve been sailing with a cargo of Fox News propaganda and right-wing devotion
Said I’d like to know where, you got the notion
To rock the boat, don’t rock the boat Leahy
Rock the boat, don’t tip the boat over
Rock the boat, don’t rock the boat Leahy
Rock the boat
And I’ve always had Condi’s tender lips to keep me warm
Oh I need to have the strength that flows from Congress
Don’t let me drift away my dear, when wingnut love can see me through
We’ve been sailing with a cargo of Fox News propaganda and right-wing devotion
Said I’d like to know where, you got the notion
To rock the boat
Rock the boat
Rock the boat
Rock the boat
Rock the boat
Rock the boat
Rock the boat
Rock the boat
HAT TIP: MSNBC
By voice vote, the House Judiciary subcommittee on commercial and administrative law decided to compel the president’s top aides to testify publicly and under oath about their roles in the firings.
The White House has refused to budge in the controversy, standing by embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and insisting that the firings were appropriate. White House spokesman Tony Snow said that in offering aides to talk to the committees privately, Bush had sought to avoid the “media spectacle” that would result from public hearings with Rove and others at the witness table.
“The question they’ve got to ask themselves is, are you more interested in a political spectacle than getting the truth?” Snow said of the overture Tuesday that was relayed to Capitol Hill by White House counsel Fred Fielding.
Publicly, the White House held out hope there would be no impasse.
“If they issue subpoenas, yes, the offer is withdrawn,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow. “They will have rejected the offer.”
He added that the offer for interviews on the president’s terms — not under oath, on the record or in public — is final.
‘There must be accountability’
Democrats dismissed the overture, in large part because there would be no transcript.
“There must be accountability,” countered subcommittee Chairwoman Linda Sanchez, D-Calif.
The Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled a vote Thursday on its own set of subpoenas, with Democrats complaining that the threat of force is the only way to get a straight answer from the White House.
“The White House is in a bunker mentality — won’t listen, won’t change,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “I believe there is even more to come out, and I think it’s our duty to bring it out.”
The House subcommittee Wednesday approved, but has not issued, subpoenas for Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, their deputies and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales’ chief of staff, who resigned over the uproar last week.
Halelujuah! Thank You, Jesus, for Maxine Waters. While too many in the Congressional Black Caucus were getting cozy with their new lobbyist friends, Sistah Maxine introduced a Katrina Housing Bill on the last day of February and got it to the floor in less than a month. Damn. You Go, Girl. It just goes to show that some talk the talk, but it takes a real sistah to walk the walk. Once again, I am impressed by somebody in the Congressional Black Caucus. Any reservations I may have had on previous issues with her is gone. Maxine is still my girl. Her bill, H.R. 1227 is impressively comprehensive and hopefully, will do something for our people left out and left behind in the gulf coast.
A fellow blogger, YoungBlackMan, and his law student chums just got back from the Mississippi Gulf Coast and told me that the outreach programs, workshops and seminars designed to “help” black folk connect to section 8 and other assistance that they need is just another hustle for some do gooder Negroes that ain’t gettin the job done. Ain’t nobody without a cell phone, telephone, or cable access going nowhere to find a damn website out in cyberspace to obtain assistance.
He spent extensive time talking to folks (mostly seniors) and learned that in Gulfport, Miss, the city fathers are planning a wholesale Negro removal program that involves giving public housing residents a voucher of $200.00 bucks to move somewhere else with a “right” to be first in line for “affordable housing” that will be built in place of public housing.
He ended up in some B.S. workshop and gettin into it with the city fathers and the “Director of Negro Removal.” Later, walking on the beachfront and looking at all of the devastated housing, he and his friends were racially profiled by “Gulfport’s finest.” The bastard threatened to arrest all of them if they didn’t get on down the road. YoungBlackMan, broke him off something proper and said something to the effect of , “Please, Mr. Poeleese Man, take me to jail so I can sue yo azz and pay off my damn Law School loans.” ”Take us all, we could all use the money.”
