Month: April 2008
Recording of Floor Debate Captures Republican Laughter at Florida Democrat Who Tried to Follow Dean’s Rules
Rep. Dan GelberA fascinating new blog offers the up close and personal on what’s happening in Tallahassee while the state legislature is in session, and it’s hard to resist peeking. State Rep. Dan Gelber (D-Miami) is House minority leader, and is running for Florida Senate this year. While most Democrats in Tallahassee are unhappy with their Republican colleagues, few are so plain spoken about it. For example:
Tallahassee is a two party town and increasingly so the Republicans — especially my colleagues in the House — are becoming more and more partisan. Ideas are no longer as important as who proposes them, and principles are malleable depending upon who they are being used to bash.
Yownza.
But Gelber would know. He was the one who withstood Republican scorn last year to offer an amendment to the legislation changing Florida’s primary date. Gelber wanted Democrats to be able to vote one week later than Republicans in order to stay within the calendar established by the DNC in the 1970s. His amendment was met with derision and disrespect by the Republicans. Hear it for yourself. A transcript follows but it makes better listening:
Republican Representative: “Let me get straight. You’re asking us to help the Democratic National Party stop punishing the Florida Democratic Party?”
Speaker Marco Rubio (R-West Miami): Rep. Gelber, in all fairness I did not recognize you to close on your amendment. These are questions. Rep. Rivera.
Rep. David Rivera (R-Miami): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Rep. Gelber, If I understand this correctly, the intent of the bill is to make Florida more relevant in the presidential nominating process by moving the primary up to Jan. 29. Your amendment is trying to move the primary beyond Jan. 29 to Feb. 5. I assume, in, in trying to appease, ah, perhaps leaders of your national party that would like to do that. Why are you, exactly, trying to appease the leaders of your national party?
Quote du Jour
It’s not the voting that’s democracy, it’s the counting.
— Tom Stoppard (1937- ), English playwright
Air America Suspends Randi Rhodes for Calling Clinton a ‘F-ing Whore’
Air America talker Randi Rhodes, a longtime hero of mine, has flipped from rabid Hillary Clinton supporter to even more rabid Clinton-basher in recent months. The network has suspended her because, as shown in the clip above, she called Hillary Clinton a “fucking whore” at a private, non-Air America event in San Francisco on March 22.
What the clip shows, more than anything, is that news people should avoid attempting stand-up comedy. Which is not to say she didn’t have the crowd laughing as she called Geraldine Ferraro a whore; Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney racists and anti-Semites; and then dropped a combo f-bomb/’ho-bomb on Hillary.
Here’s the official statement from Air America:
Gen. Clark Attacks McCain for Failure to Support Bill to Improve Veterans’ Benefits
Former Gen. Wesley Clark, a top Hillary Clinton adviser, critized Sen. John McCain yesterday for failing to enlist his support in the Senate for a bipartisan bill that would expand benefits to veterans, especially including troops who have served in Iraq:
An e-mail sent from Clark’s political action committee WesPAC, and co-signed by the former general, takes aim at the GOP senator, asking “Why Won’t McCain Support Our Vets?â€
The message urges individuals to sign a petition calling on McCain to back a veterans benefit bill co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and criticizes him for not yet pledging his support for the measure.
“So far, John McCain has refused. The same McCain who insists he supports our troops. The same McCain who is voting lockstep with the Bush administration (who has also resisted this bill),†reads the e-mail.
It adds that a young Iraq and Afghanistan vet “thinks John McCain ought to stand in his shoes to know how difficult it is to be a vet and have to pay staggering education costs. THIS is your call to arms. …â€
McCain has advocated deploying U.S. forces in Iraq for the next 100 years and longer.
Poll: Whopping 81% Say U.S. on Wrong Track
More evidence that George Bush has “Katrina-ized” the U.S. economy:
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction.
Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.
In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,†up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.
Although the public mood has been darkening since the early days of the war in Iraq, it has taken a new turn for the worse in the last few months, as the economy has seemed to slip into recession. There is now nearly a national consensus that the country faces significant problems.
A majority of nearly every demographic and political group — Democrats and Republicans, men and women, residents of cities and rural areas, college graduates and those who finished only high school — say the United States is headed in the wrong direction. Seventy-eight percent of respondents said the country was worse off than five years ago; just 4 percent said it was better off.
Heckuva job, Georgie.
We Have Updated Our Comments Policy
Because of the presidential campaign, the tenor of some comments this year has grown more emotionally charged and inflammatory. While we put a premium on lively, informed and well-reasoned dialogue, and we don’t expect everyone to share our beliefs, we do expect a certain level of discourse. We appreciate sarcasm and snarkiness — they are our stock in trade — but we will not tolerate hate speech, insults, threats or lies. If you want to engage in those behaviors, get your own web site.
For these reasons, Pensito Review recently updated its comments policy. We now moderate messages that fall into the categories laid out below, along with others that might crop up that we haven’t anticipated. Commenters who persist in abusive behavior will be banned and their comments may be expunged.
What we consider “abusive behavior”:
Abusive language: Comments that contain racial epithets, personal insults, intimidating language, threats and the like.
Troll behavior: Comments that are primarily intended to disrupt regular discourse, annoy, harass and aggravate, to be purposefully and persistently unreasonable, or that are malicious.
Purposefully spreading falsehoods: Since it is the practice of certain ideologues to spread falsehoods, particularly about candidates (also known as “Swiftboatingâ€), as well as to attempt to rewrite history in order to mask the nefariousness or incompetence of their leaders, we reserve the right to flag these statements as false by posting the truth within the comments.
Pres. Carter Winks, Nods, and Blows Kiss at Obama
He was a little cagey about it but former Pres. Jimmy Carter used the name “Obama” four times when asked who’s getting his super delegate vote.
Speaking with a Nigerian paper while in Abuja, Carter noted several reasons why he might be leaning toward the Illinois senator.
“Don’t forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia,” Carter said. “My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama.”
“As a superdelegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess,” Carter added.
The Carter Center confirmed to CNN the newspaper did quote Carter accurately.
Perhaps the best way to tell if Carter was saying he’s voting for Obama was the reaction of the Clinton campaign. Can you say, “frosty?”
Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson said Thursday, “Both Senator Clinton and President Clinton have a great deal of respect for President Carter and have enjoyed their relationship with him over the years, and obviously he is free to make whatever decision he thinks is appropriate with regard to presidential choice.”
Quote du Jour
I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it. I renounce war and never again, directly or indirectly, will I sanction or support another.
— Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), American clergyman
In Case You’re Not Scared Yet …
The Bush administration continues to issue vague information alleging that al Qaeda is still trying to kill all of us. This, despite the fact that Iran supposedly has been trying to develop nuclear capabilities for a decade with no success. But hey, a bunch of guys living in caves in Pakistan could really be a threat to everybody living anywhere near Times Square:
Two high-level government intelligence experts testified Wednesday that al Qaeda is intent on attacking the United States with a nuclear weapon but has not developed a nuclear device.
In a hearing, Charles Allen, chief intelligence officer for the Homeland Security Department, said there is no doubt that al Qaeda wants a nuclear weapon. But, he told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, “I do not believe that any terrorist organization currently has developed a nuclear device.” He said, however, that this capability “could change drastically” with the recruitment of people with knowledge of nuclear materials and design.
‘We do not yet know when and where they intend to strike us next,” Mowatt-Larssen testified, “but past experience strongly suggests that they are seeking an attack more spectacular than 9/11.’
— Rolf Mowatt-LarssenHis testimony was buttressed by Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, director of the office of intelligence and counterintelligence of the Energy Department. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he said, many in the intelligence community believed it was too hard for terrorists to develop a nuclear bomb.
“We should not, however, assume that the technology of a nuclear weapon is beyond the capability of a terrorist group,” Mowatt-Larssen said. “A terrorist group needs only to produce a nuclear yield once to change history.”
Both experts plan to testify before the committee later Wednesday to discuss classified material. “We do not yet know when and where they intend to strike us next,” Mowatt-Larssen testified, “but past experience strongly suggests that they are seeking an attack more spectacular than 9/11.”
Mowatt-Larssen said a global effort must be undertaken to get nuclear materials off the black market and stop global trafficking in them. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., summed up the testimony of both men as sobering.
Matthew Bunn, a nuclear exert at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said that nuclear stockpile security in Russia “has improved dramatically in the past 15 years” but called for more global nuclear security. He too warned of the threat from a terrorist group.
“This is a real danger,” he said. Homeland Security Department’s Allen said any terrorist nuclear bomb would lack the sophistication of one developed by a country and be of unknown yield. But, he warned, “A nuclear device of any yield could produce thousands of casualties, significant damage to the infrastructure and render large areas uninhabitable.”
Similarly, Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Susan Collins of Maine supported that assessment, saying that a 10-kiloton nuclear device in Manhattan’s Times Square at noon would result immediately in the loss of half a million lives.
