Day: November 17, 2005

We are close, very close, to a big victory for the American way. Let the senators who are trying to prevent parts of the USAPatriot Act from being made permanent know you’re behind them.

The senators are Republicans Larry Craig of Idaho, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Ken Salazar of Colorado.

Congress is facing two deadlines. Lawmakers want to leave before week’s end for Thanksgiving and many parts of the Patriot Act are to expire by year’s end if Congress does not renew them.

The Republican-controlled House hoped to approve the compromise on Friday. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told senators on Thursday that they will have to address the legislation “before we leave.”

But Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, said there are several different delaying tactics available to stop the bill in the Senate.

Feingold said he had cleared his schedule through Thanksgiving. “And this time I don’t think I’ll be alone,” he said.

Added Murkowski: “We have worked too long and too hard to allow this conference report to eliminate the modest protections for civil liberties that were agreed to unanimously in the Senate.”

No matter how far Bush slips in the polls, no matter how much other bad legislation we defeat, if the Patriot Act is allowed to be exempted from public review forever, we lose. See this earlier story on exactly what’s at stake, and then contact your own senators, along with the six true patriots who don’t want to quit being Americans in order to protect America.

MSNBC’s David Schuster just reported that his network asked each top White House official if he or she had been the unnamed source who revealed the identity of a secret CIA agent to Bob Woodward. All of them denied except for the vice president, who issued a “no comment.”

Earlier Woodward described the source as a senior official he had interviewed several times.

Manny’s moribund mandate: In another win for the concrete crowd, Miami Mayor Manny Diaz won easily in Tuesday’s Miami City election. Of course, a campaign war chest of $1 million donated mainly by developers and a cast of unknown opponents made it a sure thing.

The mayor should be credited with bringing Miami’s finances and bond ratings out of the cellar and back to fiscal health. He has also refrained from beating his wife, punching commissioners, placing his hand over news video cameras or running around the city in his bathrobe trying to get the early edition of the Miami Herald to see what lies they wrote about him today — all common behaviors among his predecessors.

But it is his endorsement of aggressive development, wildly unplanned and unmanaged development, that is a problem for Miami. Diaz is a lawyer, but has aligned himself with developers, stacked the Miami Commission with developers and has one of his former proteges in a runoff for the commission seat left open when Arthur Teele blew his brains out in the lobby of the Miami Herald building. If Michelle Spence-Jones wins the runoff, and Manny and his political goons have been beating up her opponent, the Rev. Richard Dunn (who, by the way, was asked to say the invocation at Diaz’ first swearing-in ceremony), hizzoner will have locked up the commission. Period.

But the election was no mandate. A mere 17.8 percent of the 150,000 registered voters even bothered going to the polls. That’s just 27,000 voters, and only 17,000 of them voted for Manny “Concrete” Diaz.

Of course, having the election delayed two weeks by a major hurricane couldn’t have helped the turnout. Neither could the still-frazzled condition of most of the residents of South Florida just less than a month after we were hammered.

However, the electorate is not Manny’s constituency; the developers are. And they got what they wanted. And they will continue to build McMansions and knock down trees and fill in wetlands and pave every last inch of the tip pf the peninsula because they can, and because they have the full blessing and cooperation of our mayor and city commission.

Goddamn the bastards!

Unhappy trails: Katherine Harris is eating Bill Nelson’s dust on the campaign trail in her challenge for his U.S. Senate seat. Behind by 24 points, with a campaign manager who quit the ranch either due to differences of opinion or to allow savvy Florida political gunslingers to run the dog and pony show, Harris’ hopalong campaign is hobbled with lackadaisical fundraising.

In true GOP fashion, however, she’s standing tall in the stirrups and blaming it on the goll-dang hurricanes. Smells like a load of horse manure to us.

Escape from reality: Things have gotten so bad under the Worst President Ever, a new poll suggests Americans are fantasizing about the way things might could be in 2008. This is from National Journal’s PollTrack:

Two marquee names top Americans’ lists for their visions of the two major political parties — but according to a new Diageo/Hotline survey, only one represents the reality.

One half-sample of this month’s survey named the politician they thought each party currently stands for; the other named the politician they thought the party should stand for.

For the Democrats, the answer was the same: New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Twenty-eight percent of respondents said she best represents her party and a quarter said she best represents what her party should be. She also came out ahead in every party breakdown, with more than three in 10 Democrats saying she symbolizes what their party’s values are and should be.

But the GOP had a gap between its current image and the one respondents envision. Three in 10 — a big plurality — said Arizona Sen. John McCain best represents what his party should stand for. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, McCain’s next closest contender, had just 17 percent of the vote; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had 16 percent.
[…]

It’s funny — in an uncomfortable way: To the jugheads who characterize Pensito Review as “extremist,” I give you the following excerpt from a report from CNS News (“The Right News, Right Now”):

America is defeated in Iraq, British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a “slave of slaves,” and the political strength of President George W. Bush is beginning to “seep away into the sand,” according to British MP George Galloway who made the remarks in a speech delivered this week at Damascus University in Syria.

The remarks were carried by the Al-Jazeera TV network on November 13.

“America is losing the war in Iraq,” said Galloway. “[P]ublic opinion in Britain and America is moving decisively against the policy of Bush and Blair.”

“No American soldier who leaves his barracks can be sure that he will come back alive,” said the MP who has previously described insurgents in Iraq as “martyrs” who “are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars…”

“Every Iraqi, every roadside, every car is a potential deadly ending for him. And the American army… The American army is losing the will to fight.”

“[T]hese are the final days of Tony Blair,” said Galloway. “The British media is discussing every day whether this day Blair will resign.”
[…]

Maybe he should just stay in Asia: The latest Harris Interactive poll gives Bush a 34 percent approval rating, which is a point or two less than his lowest rating in several other polls. Still, he should be pleased because 34 percent is still an incredibly high rating for the Worst President Ever:

Bush’s current job approval rating stands at 34 percent, compared with a positive rating of 88 percent soon after 9/11, 50 percent at this time last year, and 40 percent in August…

Vice President Dick Cheney’s approval ratings slipped to 30 percent this month from 35 percent in August, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s approval ratings dropped to 34 percent from 40 percent and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s approval ratings fell to 52 percent from 57 percent according to the poll…

Mr. Bush’s current ratings don’t compare favorably with those of three of the last four two-term presidents at a comparable time in their fifth year in office. In November or October of their fifth year, Presidents Johnson (67 percent), Reagan (66 percent) and Clinton (58 percent) all enjoyed the support of majorities, while President Nixon (29 percent) was less popular than Mr. Bush is now.

Bush’s only hope is that the Republican Party continues to follow him blindly off the cliff!

Lying liars: There was a dust-up last week before the Congressional hearings into price gouging by oil companies. The hearing was chaired by an oil company stooge, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Of Course), who decided that it wasn’t necessary to swear in the CEOs of the nation’s largest oil companies before they testified.

The Democrats objected to this, but Stevens simply over-rode their objections. The oil execs went on to field questions from the Congressional panel – and, it turns out, most of them lied:

Here’s an exchange during the hearings last week:

SENATOR FRANK LAUTENBERG: Did your company or any representatives in your companies participate in Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force in 2001, the meetings?

MR. RAYMOND [EXXONMOBIL]: No.

LAUTENBERG: Sirs?

MR. O’REILLY [CHEVRON]: No.

MR. MULVA [CONOCO PHILLIPS]: We did not, no.

MR. PILLARI [BP AMERICA]: To be honest, no. I wasn’t here then.

LAUTENBERG: But your company was here?

MR. PILLARI: Yes.

MR. HOFMEISTER [SHELL]: Not to my knowledge

Just a few days after this “testimony,” an unnamed government official leaked a document to the Washington Post that showed that these companies did indeed meet with Cheney in secret to draft the nation’s energy policy:

[…]