I ate the fried chicken breast and salad that Uncle Bud fixed for me, while listening to C-Span's replay of some of LBJ's taped phone calls. Uncle Bud suggested I listen to them to find out how a real politician worked. LBJ was Uncle Bud's favorite Democrat. Come to think of it, LBJ was damn near the only Democrat he admired. He loved the way the big Texan could overwhelm any opposition. "Listen carefully, and you can hear the toilet flush," Uncle Bud had said as he walked out the door. "The bastard's chewing out the Speaker of the House from the can! And I swear, when he flushes, he must be holding the receiver in the bowl, just so the Speaker knows where he's calling from!" I guess style is in the eyes, and ears, of the beholder, but I have to admit that McCormack seemed shaken by the flush, and his initial objections were swept away in the spiraling woosh. He promptly agreed to pass the latest Supplemental Funding Request for the Viet Nam War, and hung up. I think he was desperate to get off the the line before the President of the United States and the Leader of the Free World audibly sighed and zipped his pants with a grunt.
A loud knock on the door interrupted my lesson in practical politics. I hit the mute and hollered, "C'mon in!" The door swung open and slammed against the wall. "The White Wonder!" boomed the bass voice of Freedom Fyter. His six foot, five inch frame filled the doorway.
The RoadBlock Republicans have now become the RoadBlock Revival Revue.
This is the definition of irony--in action! The group who has filibustered the most bills ever are now refusing to leave the hallowed halls in Congress. And of course this irony follows the footsteps of this breaking news,
Address by Mayor Ross C. "Rocky"- Anderson on October 27, 2007
By Rocky Anderson
Salt Lake City, Utah --
Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”"
I could not help feeling sorry for New York Governor Paterson on Thursday. All he wanted to do was announce that progress was being made on a bill to extend health care benefits to people suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress disorder. But Republican Senate Majority leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Democrat Sheldon Silver couldn’t stop getting their little digs in at each other so that Paterson ended up with his head in his hands. I thought he was going to cry. And that is just politics as usual. It could have been much worse. Everybody involved could have been Republicans.
Considering how much attention mass media has spent on electoral politics it has missed the elephant in the room (pardon the pun): The extreme peril of the Republican Party. Almost all coverage is now on the Democratic primary, and the least likely (and most dramatic) scenarios are getting the most focus. But here is what seems most likely: The candidates fight it out, a winner emerges in the next month or so and emotions peak. Everyone takes the summer off, spends some time at the beach with a good book, and returns at the end of August tanned, rested and ready to crank up an energetic election campaign. Meanwhile, each contested state gets two industrial strength Democratic voter registration machines rolling through, extends the Democratic monopoly of the news cycle and sharpens the campaigning skills of the eventual nominee.
Republican Congressman Vito "Vino" Fossella is really not looking too good right now. His conduct the night of his drunk driving arrest is something he is going to have a hard time living down.
until Hillary Clinton is out of the Democratic Primary Process.
What do I mean? Read the following:
We must have our eyes WIDE OPEN, wit in check, and counter punches ready for November.
While many are worried, or not worried (I am not) about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the GOP should be deathly worried about the MSNBC/Wall Street Journal Poll.
Bush is the albatross, the elephant in the room, the oxygen sucker for the GOP and John McCain.
As long as McCain continues to promote, pimp, pump Bush's agenda, we are looking at a third term of George W. Bush. In November, this election will be about CHANGE, because the public will demand it.
The Republican Party must stand by their record of the past eight years.
::
Here is the laundry list, quite lengthy and not even complete:
A group of Marines ogling a pinup girl outside their bunkers in Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, in January 1968
Targetting Congressional Pages or Toe Tapping in public bathroom stalls is just fine and dandy, as well as giving male prostitutes seemingly unlimitted access to the White House Press Room and only rove knows where else, and the other numorous sex related adventures of mostly republican congressmen, bet the women have a few little secrets themselves.
But shockingly, once again, after being the Lead Cheerleaders, along with their equally sex confused talking heads, o'really are you listening, you to fatboy cyst, to the extremely failed policy of Wars/Occupations Of Choice we get this:
Now that John McCain has virtually cinched the GOP Presidential nomination, almost if it were on cue, the chief of the US Northern Command, Air Force General Gene Renuart has warned that "Al Qaeda terrorists may be plotting more urgently to attack the United States." The timing of the warning is perfect, allowing McCain to continue with his campaign of fear and harping on the danger of terrorism. If he doesn't have a viable plan to salvage the economy, secure the southern border, and a host of issues the GOP refuses to address, then only one path is left, and that's to use the tactics of fear and intimidation. The problem is, General Renuart's warning doesn't make sense once you add-up the facts and what we know of Al Qaeda:
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the additional headaches we will have to confront as a result of the Administration's attempts to radically expand executive power. There are problems in existing areas as well, and here are just a few examples.
Copyright (c) 2008 Diatribune
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify the content of
this site (except where otherwise noted) under the terms of the GNU Free
Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the
Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts,
and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is available here
