Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century

No idea why Matt is limiting this to the twenty-first century. These things have always been with US concerning nuclear weapons.

It's a good (long) read, but well worth your time. Too much there to excerpt so you have to click on it.

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Note: Headline links to source. Clicking on image will enlarge it (usually).

Trends in Party Identification in Wisconsin

No real point to this other than to be a smart ass.

All during the primaries everyone lamented the media treating each contest as a horse race.

Well what the fuck! Look at the chart. It is a horse race in Wisconsin. Or at least its a horse. Heh.

Note: Headline links to source.

Theology and politics

Here's how theology and politics commingle.

Congress considers a bill. The church doesn't like it.

Although the church is, usually in my estimation, correct they kill it.

This ain't right.

Politicians need to do what they think best for the people without outside influence.

Breaking: Senator Edward Kennedy Rushed To Hospital, Shows Symptoms Of Stroke

I just heard about this via Blue Gal which happens when one lives in a cave with bats and guano.

Have I always agreed with Sir Ted? Hardly. I often don't agree with myself.

But, for a multi millionaire who has no fucking obligation to do anything, he's always been good for America. His loss or incapacitation would be a huge crime.

Crooks and Liars has more.

Sen. Edward Kennedy was rushed to Cape Cod Hospital in Massachusetts Saturday morning, a well-informed, prominent Democratic source in that state told CNN.

The source said the 76-year-old senator had “symptoms of a stroke.”

Kennedy was taken to the hospital around 8 or 9 a.m. from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannis, according to the source. The source said the senator would be transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

That hospital said it had no information on Kennedy.

Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the Senate since 1962. He is one of only six senators in U.S. history to serve more than 40 years. He is known as a liberal champion of social issues such as health care, family leave, and the minimum wage.

Even if you're a non-believer, please send your prayers. God won't mind.

Note: Headline links to source.

Diebold E-Voting Machine Key Copied from Online Picture!

It was revealed in the course of last summer's landmark virus hack of a Diebold touch-screen voting system at Princeton University that, incredibly, the company uses the same key to open every machine. It's also an easy key to buy at any office supply store since it's used for filing cabinets and hotel mini-bars! That is, if you're not a poll worker who already has one from the last time you worked on an election (anybody listening down there in San Diego?) [emphasis in original].

Please see my post just below. See what I mean?

Via Political Bunker which got it from Brad Blog.

Super Tuesday

Just trying to be realistic here. For many years I never had a doubt I'd marked a ballot and it would be counted. Not so much anymore.

Actually this post is a charade because my state isn't part of Super Tuesday. Gotcha!

Politics

Does this remind you of politicians?

Oh, the games people play now
every night and every day now
never meaning what they say now
never saying what they mean
so they while away the hours
in their ivory towers
till they're covered up with flowers
in the back of a black limousine

-- Hank Williams Jr

Lawyers: Bush "Off the Page" of Constitutional Rights

Can anyone out there tell me what the fuck this guy is saying? I have no clue.

Bush is willing to push to restore your rights? Huh? The same rights he's taken from you? Hell, what a guy.

"The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights." - Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, speaking with reporters on Thursday.

And am I so out of it I don't understand "off the page"? Is that street talk like, "Man he be so off da page wit dat shit. Damn!"

Via Political Bunker.

"The Great Awakening" of the American People

The Awakening of Elizabeth Shaw
Ya know, the candidates from both parties really do take you for maroons. They pander, posture, preen and think you can't really think about issues or can't understand them.

If people don't understand a candidate's position on an issue its because the candidate is too fucking stupid to make their position clear.

When John Edwards tells me that he will begin talking about civil liberties after the caucuses, he is basically saying either that it isn’t a priority, or that the American people are just too stupid to understand more than three things at once. He is fighting against the corporacracy (and I believe I was one of the first people to coin that word over five years ago), he is fighting for health-care for Americans, and that’s just about it. I have not heard him say that he will abolish the Military Commissions Act of 2006, nor have I heard him say that he will try to abolish the revamped Insurrection Act. I have not heard him state that he will follow the Constitution and restore equal power to the three branches of our government, or completely leave Iraq and stop construction of the giant bases they are building there now.

This is a screed about Edwards because that's who the author was engaging, but fits all the candidates equally.

Via Daily Scare.

Senator Rockefeller, It's For You

Sometimes even Democrats are pure shit.

The nation's largest telecom companies made contributions to Sen. John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which agreed to a measure to wipe out lawsuits relating to the telecoms' role in White House surveillance.

Well, probably not pure.

Via Freepress.

Hotline After Dark -- The Speaker Has The Floor

The not at all fierce looking Genghis Khan

Jesus H Christ running the Boston Marathon, why 60 votes? You can make a political statement to the American people and the world with a simple majority and cut the Republicans off at the ankles.

Tell the world we are tired of feeding our troops into a meat grinder. We're abhorred to be killing innocent people. We aren't a blood thirsty regime such as Temüüjin (Тэмүүжин, Genghis Khan). Impressed? I have Dictionary.com. I couldn't spell Genghis Khan if my life depended on it. And forget about Тэмүүжин.

Do what you were elected to do you fucking dunderheads.

The president vetoed that bill. He got quite a response to that veto and the Republicans in the Senate then decided that he was never going to get a bill on his desk again. So we have a barrier. And it's important for the American people to know that while I can bring a bill to the floor in the House, it cannot be brought up in the Senate unless there is a 60 vote."

Sometimes its about making the gesture and not necessarily "winning".

Do I have more political savvy than the experts in office? Just asking.

FYI Genghis Khan's first name is also depicted as Chinggis, Chingis, Genghiz, Jengiz, Dzsingisz, and probably others. My guess is Charlie isn't one of them, but I have no proof.

FYI even more, Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan was notorious for his sexual as well as his territorial conquests. But the extent to which he captured women's hearts* has now been revealed with research suggesting that he has 16 million Asian descendants.

Khan was a one person population explosion.

* I serious doubt "capturing hearts" had anything to do with it. He took women when he wanted and probably raped most. Some Casanova.

Ain't it great what you learn at SPIIDERWEB™?

Via Hotline.

McConnell Misleads Congress

Whoda thunk it?

In testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell testified that the recent high-profile arrests of terror suspects in Germany were made possible by the amendments to FISA passed by Congress last month. According to the New York Times:

Not so much.

Via Anonymous Liberal.

Antiwar leaders stymied, frustrated

There really is nothing new of note here except it just takes on what all of know from a different angle.

A well-known antiwar leader has gone public with the transcript of a private conference call that shows peace activists are exasperated with the Democratic congressional leadership and at a loss for a long-term strategy.

The Aug. 29 call highlights divisions in the Democratic Party that Republicans are gearing up to try to exploit as Congress debates its response to the report on Iraq this week by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker.

On Monday, the pair begins two days of testimony on Capitol Hill.

Republicans say the call reflects the degree to which war opponents have failed to gain the advantage that many in both parties thought would build over the summer.

Rabbi Michael Lerner, the editor of Tikkun magazine, posted the transcript Friday on the Web site of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, of which he is a co-chair.

The transcript reveals that opponents of the war in Iraq have decided to first try to enlist conservative Democrats, before moving on moderate Republicans. The call shows they are having little success because of fears about the impact on next year’s elections if the party is seen as defeatist.

The call, which Lerner titled “Strategizing with leaders of the Anti-War Movement,” included two sympathetic members of Congress and representatives of groups ranging from Code Pink to the Progressive Democrats of America.

Lerner -- who is based in Berkeley, Calif., and is a leader of what he calls “the religious left” -- told Politico in a phone interview on Sunday that he concluded from the call that the antiwar movement does not have a long-term strategy, even though the war “is going to continue through the end of President Bush’s administration” and perhaps into the term of the next president.

Lerner said he posted the transcript in an effort to persuade war opponents that they need “some fundamentally new thinking.”

“Right now, we could write the story of this Congress as ‘Profiles in Cowardice,’” Lerner said. “There’s a great deal of frustration with the Democrats in the Congress – a sense almost of betrayal. The Democrats don’t have – and even the people in the antiwar movement don’t have – a coherent alternative worldview from which to base a strategy. That’s why they end up debating everything on the same terms that the Republicans do.”

Via Politio.

Quote of the day

"We don’t need a third party in this country, we need a second one"

-- Chuck Dupree
Blogger
Delos?

Ancient politician

No I'm not talking about Strom Thurmond.



Via Jonco.

Hamas: Fatah foiling Johnston release

Kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston
Photo: AP

This stinks to high heaven. I hate it when people play politics with innocent people, even when its only one.

Fatah leaders have been urging the captors of BBC correspondent Alan Johnston to hold on to him to avoid a situation where Hamas would take credit for his release, Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, said Saturday.

"Hamas is making a big effort to release the British journalist," Abu Zuhri told the Quds Press news agency. "But some Fatah leaders in Ramallah have been phoning the captors to ask them not to release him." He said Hamas had evidence that the Fatah leaders were trying to hinder Johnston's release. "They don't want Hamas to take credit for his release," he added.

Although the Hamas spokesman did not name the Fatah leaders, sources close to Hamas claimed that top Fatah operative Muhammad Dahlan, who is currently living in Ramallah, was one of them.

(read more)

Her Way: A New Book Explores Hillary's Iraq Problem and Why It's Not Going Away

Sometimes I really hate the fucking internets tubes. ARGHHH!!!1!

OK, I'm calm now. The thing worked.

Her Way, a new book about Hillary Clinton, documents her entire Senate career and the triangulation and shiftiness in her stance regarding the war as she tried to keep step with public opinion.

That little game of political chicken Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton played during the Senate vote on the Iraq spending bill Thursday night would not have surprised you if you had read Her Way, the new book by New York Times investigative reporters Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta, Jr. which I've just finished.

Neither Clinton nor Obama were on the Senate floor when the voting began. Sources tell me that Obama was holding off to see if Hillary would go first. When it was clear she wouldn't, and time was running out on the vote, he headed into the chamber and voted no. Less than a minute later, Clinton barreled in and did the same.

It was yet another example of her instinct for "followership." Anyone willing to bet that if Obama had voted yes, Hillary would still have voted no?

The idea that Clinton is all tactics and calculation -- and would rather stick her finger in the air to see which way the political wind is blowing than actually take the lead on something -- is painstakingly documented in Her Way. Forget the stuff about Monica, Gennifer Flowers, Vince Foster, Hillary's record as a lawyer, or the Clintons' 20-year plan for both of them to become president. The money chapters are the ones on Iraq. When it comes to Hillary's shape-shifting stances, explanations, and votes on the war, Gerth and Van Natta offer a definitive and chilling portrait of a politician solely driven by political expedience -- even when it comes to life and death matters such as Iraq.

It's a portrait that will likely prove to be an anvil around her neck throughout the 2008 campaign, unless she can somehow transform herself from political weather vane to political leader.

(read more)

A must read IMHO

Its pretty long, but comes from Chuck Dupree so ya know its worth reading. A snippet.

Even non-Bush-related issues, such as the number of people who expressed support for “old fashioned values about family and marriage” or who support allowing school boards to fire homosexual teachers, have moved left by about ten percentage points. If you haven’t seen the graphs, I recommend them, they’ll give your spirits a lift. From more support for government programs to less social conservatism to less religious intensity, the country is moving in a consistent direction, and it’s not one the Republicans would choose, at least not the Republicans of the recent past.

Do you think I'm angry?

Is that how I come across? Do you envision some raving maniac sitting at a computer (nude?) attacking, attacking, attacking?

Well the nude part is right^* but...

Do you think I wake up each day and wonder how many news items I can find to rail against? How many times I can use the word "fuck" and its variants to show my outrage? How I can feel hurt and how much horror I can take? How I can attack Bush and his hyenas? How I can find comfort in the new Democratic government?

Hahaha. That last sentence is ridiculous. That would never enter my mind.

But, to continue with my original train of thought. Not hardly. I wake and think today will be good. Except for the fact I'll spend the next 12-15 hours of my life feeding the beast known as the SPIIDERWEB™ blog site.

Unfortunately I also face that blank page (writers can relate). And then the news stories start coming at me. I am alternatively incredulous, mystified, angered, confused, cynical, dumbfounded, vindicated, outraged, amused (sometimes), shocked (rarely), impotent (mentally), lethargic and worried.

No, never fearful except for others. I'm not sure WWIII isn't just around the corner. I trust that much of Bush

Many anguishing hours later I find I've posted many items and can relax. Until that time comes, my shoulder muscles are tight and I'm "this close" to getting a stress headache.

So, if you are contemplating starting a blog...don't!!!1!! That is a political blog. If you want to post about you're life and your cats and such, fine, but political blogging is a barrel of monkeys you don't want to open.

^* That's a joke folks.

The definite spin zone

I will take advantage of this "brief?" window of opportunity to post a couple other things.

The fear that virtually any piece of communication will have to be turned over has paralyzed department officials' ability to communicate effectively and respond in unison to the crisis, as has the fact that senior Justice officials themselves say they still don't know the entire story about what happened that led to the crisis. So they are afraid that anything they put down on paper could be viewed as lies or obfuscation, when in fact, the story is changing daily as new documents are found and as the Office of Legal Counsel conducts its own internal probe into the matter.

I'm having a problem with this, but am not sure what all I think.

In political positioning and strategizing, inside and outside government, there is brainstorming and suggestions on how to spin information or gain political advantage.

In some cases these email exchanges might include illegal activity because the author doesn't realize they are illegal. Such strategies, if not enacted, aren't necessarily illegal activity.

How can government or a company function if every word put in an email must be considered, by non-attorneys, for its legal ramifications and the realization it may become evidence in a future grand jury or criminal investigation or lawsuit?

In the US attorney firings, the emails are very good evidence and I'm glad we have them, but the ramifications are frightening.

I seriously doubt there is anything illegal with the firings. Immoral, political, unethical, vindictive, shameful all apply, but not illegal. Bush can fire any US attorney at any time. That he did it for political reasons is beside the point. Attacking a foreign country and killing civilians is illegal. Choose your fights.

Perhaps my unease is this. I'm not allowed to wire-tap an individual. So why am I now privy to personal emails between government employees? Maybe only prosecutors with a "need to know" should be accessing such things. They can interrogate the people involved to attempt to determine the level of legal understanding and criminal intent, but the political manipulation should be withheld from public scrutiny.

From The Anonymous Liberal

I think we should gum this to death: ask the Senators to give Tim a chance, meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say "no never" (and the longer we can forestall that the better), then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in "good faith," of course.

This isn't anything any politician wouldn't try to do to game the system. Don't kid yourself. The Dems are exchanging emails which are precisely the equivalent of some of these emails and they would look just as ugly. Politics ain't a pretty game.

Why can't the world be black and white as it is for Bush?

(read more)