Does anybody know? Or how to discover this important number? That there are ANY is a fucking scandal. Why do ANY of them retain their positions? Why do ANY of them still preside over prosecutions?
Holder's DoJ last week announced that it had reviewed the convictions of a couple of Ted Stevens' co-conspirators in the fleecing of Alaska and discovered prosecutorial misfeasance enough to throw out the convictions and release the criminals from jail. These were the second and third Busheviki so honored by Holder's atttention to justice.
Mark Crispin Miller echoes the general frustration with the Obama/Holder DoJ:
The man (and the man he works for) just can't seem to stop exonerating BushCo's men-and also just can't seem to start considering the gross injustices committed by Bush/Rove against Don Siegelman, Paul Minor, Oliver Diaz and all the others.
The eight Democratic senators who signed on to the letter are the doddering, senescent Robert Byrd (WV), the feculent, detestable Blanche Lincoln (AR), the moronic and treacherous Ben Nelson (NE), the wretched, drooling fool Evan Bayh (IN), the singl;e-set-of-grandparents' Mark Pryor (AR), the predictably dishonest Bob Casey (PA), the gutless, sold-out shill Carl Levin (MI), and the vacuous, venal slag, Mary Landrieu (LA).
If you are 'represented' by any of these cheezy, sleazy, skeevy fux, perhaps you should reconsider your loyalties...
When President Obama submitted a budget that predicted passage of a revenue-raising climate change bill, hopes rose that Congress could successfully rein in carbon emissions this year.
But a cap-and-trade climate bill is almost certain to be filibustered by Republicans -- and in a letter delivered to the Senate Budget Committee yesterday, eight Democratic senators joined 25 Republicans to defend the GOP's right to set a 60-vote margin for passing emissions limits.
"We oppose using the budget process to expedite passage of climate legislation," the senators, including eight centrist Democrats, wrote in their missive.
Using the procedure of budget reconciliation, which would allow a climate change measure to become law with 50 votes while preventing filibusters, "would circumvent normal Senate practice and would be inconsistent with the administration's goals of bipartisanship, cooperation, and openness," the 33 senators wrote.
Budget reconciliation was used by George W. Bush and congressional Republicans to prevent Democrats from stalling both the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The opposition of nearly one-half of the Senate, however, means that President Obama's party will have little room to use the tactic as successfully as Bush's supporters did.
Filibuster-proofing the upcoming health care reform bill through reconciliation already has been ruled out strongly discouraged* by pivotal Democratic senators on the Finance Committee, Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WV).
Democrats' reluctance to take advantage of their procedural arsenal to pass climate change and health care this year doesn't mean that both pieces of legislation would necessarily fall to filibusters. But it does mean that Republicans will have significantly more opportunities to insert pro-business provisions into these pivotal bills.
Late Update: The eight Democratic senators who signed on to the letter are Robert Byrd (WV), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Ben Nelson (NE), Evan Bayh (IN), Mark Pryor (AR), Bob Casey (PA), Carl Levin (MI), and Mary Landrieu (LA).
*Late Late Update: Baucus has not ruled out reconciliation entirely. As he told the Kaiser Family Foundation last week, "I am doing whatever I can to avoid reconciliation [on health care] and don't take it off the table totally, because it is a backup.
There's a lot of smoke and furor over the open admission of some in the GOPuke noise machine that they want Obama to fail.
SO?
I wanted Bush to fail, from the first moment of his regime. I worked for his failure. I gave money for his failure. I donated time and energy for his failure. I wanted him to fail utterly, totally, and completely at the job he was installed by the CorpoRat masters to do: destroying the commons of the US, privatizing the Government, and eliminating the ability of the people to resist.
I wanted the Dims to MAKE him fail.
Who among you wanted him to "succeed" in clusterfucking the country for the profit of his CorpoRat masters?
Not me!
I wanted him to FAIL, horribly, totally, wholly, eternally, embarrassingly, again and again...
What about you?
Did you want him to "succeed" in his attack on Iraq? I didn't.
Or, put another way, if you were elected President, what would be YOUR first official Act?
There would be many votes for 'ending the war.'
Probably, there would be much sympathy for prosecuting the departing Busheviks, assuming there were any them who had not been pardoned by the Chimp/Cheney on the way to Paraguay/Dubai.
But if it were me, the first think I'd do would be to summarily fire EVERY person the Bushevik regime hired, in whatsoever position they now occupy, wherever they might be.
The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.
"I have said in the past - and I'll repeat again - that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.
Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations - that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supports the legislation, too. Cities around the country, including Obama's home of Chicago, have endorsed the idea, and so has a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Obama has worked to be seen as someone who will bring people together, not divide them into various interest groups with checklists of demands. Supporting reparations could undermine that image and make him appear to be pandering to black voters.
Right! So pander to the far more numerous "white" voter. Good plan.
There is, in the final analysis, only one fundamental reason why it ISN'T free.
The parasites of the HMO/Health Insurance Industry are preventing reforms which would squeeze them out, like pus from a zit. The Health Insurance industry consumes between 15-20% of premium costs in overhead (salaries of CEOs of biig HMO/HI companies are in the hundreds of MILLIONS). That's money that is NOT, obviously, going to securing treatment for ill peoples' diseases.
Health insurance in private hands is and always has been an invit-gegen-ation for abuse. The ends of Insurance contra health care are simply incommensurable. You can't make a profit making people well. That costs money, often a LOT of money. Monthly, single-dose treatment with one, single anti-cancer drug, Avastin, can cost $110 THOUSAND a year. So, a certain number of insureds either have to die sick, or not be covered in the first place for the insurers to make a buck.
Genentech just got a ruling allowing them to more than triple their annual sales of Avastin, by the way, even though the efficacy of the drug in many cases has been dubious at best. Up to maybe as much as $3 BILLION next year.
Obama to expand Bush's faith based programs
By JENNIFER LOVEN - 22 minutes ago
CHICAGO (AP) - Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and - in a move sure to cause controversy - support some ability to hire and fire based on faith.
Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday in Zanesville, Ohio, at Eastside Community Ministry, which provides food, clothes, youth ministry and other services.
They wouldn't have done ANYTHING different this year.
With an opposing party tied to the least popular, most detested, "Worst President Ever," with a populace united in opposition to an immoral, illegal "war," with an environmental crisis much of which is attributable to the inertia of the ruling elites, with the economy bobbing around like a turd in a maelstrom, with food and energy prices spiraling upwards and no end in sight, with medical care costs growing while coverage for citizens declines along with their health, with unemployment rising, and wages stagnating, with ALL these pop/prog issues in play, the Dems offer not one but two "exotic" candidates, neither of whom is populist or progressive (much less "liberal"), either of whom will inevitably divide both the party and the Country, and both of whom can make it close enough for the GOPukes to steal, if they want to.
To Arms, mes Enfants! The fucking Congress is getting ready to pardon the Busheviks for their war crimes! According to this vid, the House has already passed the fucker; it awaits only Senate approval: and with gutless Harry Reid at the helm, that's gay-ron-fuukin-TEED, chers.
Just watch.
Then go get your neighbors and fucking torches and a pitchforks, and head for the offices of your local legislators, and tell 'em nobody goes home til that fucking bill is DEAD!
It is no accident that King's "I Have A Dream" is the one which shaped his posthumous public image. It is certainly his best known, and that is not an accident, either. The hagiographers want you to forget this one.
In April, 1967, King announced he was expanding his civil rights work to include the injustices he recognized as being immanent in the already fearsome, and always expanding, bloody intervention by the USofA into the civil war between North and South Vietnam. I have heard it was this sermon that got him killed. King was NOT talking to the black population alone; but his gravitas there might well have poisoned them to the injustice of the 'war' and deprived it of necessary cannon fodder, and was thus not allowed to long persist. The date of this sermon is April 30, 1967. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, while leading workers' resistance in a garbage collectors' strike in Memphis. The man walked it.
The race to replace Pajama Pete Domenici in the US Senate from New Mexico got simpler this morning when Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez announced he is withdrawing from the race.
Chavez announced at the same time that he will endorse Rep. Tom Udall (D, NM3) for the spot. Chavez said he was withdrawing because he believes NM Dems needed to unite behind a single candidate, and that the candidate with the best chance to win the seat was Udall.
Udall polls between 10 and 20 points ahead of possible GOPuke contenders, Rep. Heather Wilson (R, NM1), and Steve Pearce (R, NM2).
Local radio stations are behaving this morning like Tom Udall, scion of the old, Western political family, and incumbent Congresscritter in northern New Mexico's 3rd District, has announced, although there's nothing on the web to that effect. However, Don Wiviott, who had announced for the Senate seat absent Udall's decision, announced today that he's withdrawing from the Senate contest to run for Udall's seat in the House...Marty Chavez, the loathsome, DINO Mayor of Albuquerque, is still in the race, too, on the Dem side. There are at least three serious GOP contenders, including both Heather Wilson and Steve Pearce, who are also sitting Congresscritters, NM1- and NM-2, respectively. Heather was Domenici's heiress apparent and passive lapdog until she nearly came acropper on the uninspired campaign run against her last year by Patsy Madrid. Pearce has been a non-entity in Congress, gaining his only repute as a Bushevik rupper-stamp.
Tom Udall, the long-time back-bencher occupying the NM-3 seat (northern New Mexico) is seen by many observers as having pretty much a lock on the Senate seat being relinquished next year by "Pajama" Pete Domenici, if he decides to run for it. In a field of near-unknowns (Wiviot, et al), too-well knowns (loathesome Albuquerque machine mayor, DINO Martin Chavez, has announced for the seat, too) and with Diane Denish, the State's very popular Lt. Gov. taking herself out of the running recently (saving herself for a run at the Gov. job in 2010), with Bill Richardson committed to the presidential contest, Udall would/should be the overwhelming favorite against any GOP candidate (the field includes Heather Wilson, Domenici's heir-apparent/little laptop, and Steve Pearce, the Bushevik-loyalist incumbent in NM-1). Polls show Udall winning handily over ANY GOP candidate.
Udall to Speak at Today's Dem State Central Committee Meeting
Sure sounds like this will be the day that Rep. Tom Udall (NM-03) announces his entry into the race for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate from New Mexico. The Democratic Party of New Mexico released the following statement last night:
Albuquerque - Rep. Tom Udall's office has just confirmed that he will deliver an address to the Democratic Party of New Mexico's State Central Committee meeting Saturday afternoon at CNM in Albuquerque. Udall's office announced yesterday that he is reconsidering a run for U.S. Senate. The meeting is open to members of the media as well as the general public.
* WHO: Democratic Party of New Mexico State Central Committee * WHAT: Fall Meeting * WHERE: Central New Mexico Community College (CNM, formerly TVI), Smith Brasher Hall * WHEN: Saturday, November 3rd, 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM (media credentialing begins at noon) * MORE INFO: DPNM website
In a post yesterday I said this would be the perfect opportunity for such an announcement, with so many of the state's Dems gathered to focus on Party business. I imagine the hall will be packed even more than usual with Democrats, politicos and media of all sorts. See you there.
