Posts by Joe Sudbay

Joe Sudbay is a DC-based political consultant with over twenty years of experience at both the state and federal level.

Democratic Senators Cave On Mukasey, Endorse Torture
Posted by Joe Sudbay, AMERICAblog on November 3, 2007 at 6:07 AM.

This post, written by Joe Sudbay, originally appeared on AMERICAblog

Late this afternoon, via Talking Points Memo, we got the news we all basically expected. Democratic Senators are caving on the nomination of Michael Mukasey as Attorney General.

Chuck Schumer (NY) and Dianne Feinstein (CA), both on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are the culprits.

It's despicable, but, unfortunately, not unexpected.

This is a big one. The issue is torture. TORTURE. Bush wants to torture. He wants another Attorney General who will let him torture. And, key Democrats just enabled him -- AGAIN.

Coincidentally, just as this news broke, I was working on a post linking to Dan Froomkin's column from today. Basically, Bush knew the Democrats would cave. THEY ALWAYS DO.

Dan Froomkin gets Bush better than most people on the Hill do.

President Bush yesterday asserted that he would never nominate anyone for attorney general who would be willing to state that waterboarding is torture -- so, if the Senate doesn't approve Michael Mukasey, "that would guarantee that America would have no attorney general during this time of war."

There is, of course, no attorney general right now because Bush's last choice spectacularly self-destructed. And many members of Bush's own party are quite comfortable stating that waterboarding is torture. It's not exactly a controversial position, seeing as waterboarding has been an iconic form of torture since the Spanish Inquisition.

But it's not Bush's style to back down, especially when a key element of his radical and unprecedented expansion of executive power is at stake.

Instead, Bush has learned that the higher he ratchets up the rhetoric, especially if he can accuse his critics of being weak on terror, the more likely Congressional Democrats are to fold. He's simply counting on that happening again.

Bush who is so wrong about so many things, was right on this one. Bush knew he'd win on Mukasey.

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Senate Passes SCHIP Again, Bush to Screw Over Sick Kids...Again
Posted by Joe Sudbay on November 2, 2007 at 7:04 AM.

This post, written by Joe Sudbay, originally appeared on AMERICABlog

They must be all excited at the Bush White House tonight. Bush gets to pull out his veto pen again. And, one more time, he gets to screw sick kids. The Senate passed the children's health insurance bill tonight:

The Senate passed a new bill Thursday expanding a popular children's health insurance program, despite the lingering threat of a veto from President Bush.

The bill -- which boosts the number of low-income children covered by the State Children's Health Insurance Program -- was recently passed by the House, but without the veto-proof margin it received in the Senate.

Bush vetoed the first SCHIP bill and is expected to veto this one.

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GOP '08 Candidates to Kiss Religious Right Butt at "Values Voter Summit"
Posted by Joe Sudbay on October 19, 2007 at 7:59 AM.

This post, written by Joe Sudbay, originally appeared on AMERICAblog

Big weekend in DC for the ultra-right wingers. They're having their "Values Voters Summit" at the Washington Hilton, conveniently located in the gayest neighborhood in the city.

All the GOP presidential candidates are going to be here to kiss the butts of the religious right. The religious right types aren't so enamored with the GOP candidates as the Washington Post reminds us:

For months, Republican presidential candidates such as Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John McCain have courted evangelical Christians, meeting with religious leaders throughout the Midwest and the South.

Today, thousands of Christian conservatives will gather in Washington to confront the fact that none of the candidates has won them over.

So big test for all those Republican wannabes. Can they win over the fringe James Dobson-types of the GOP?

They've already started tripping over themselves to be the most right-wing of the right-wing according to the Associated Press preview:

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain's argument to woo restive religious and social conservatives comes down to this: "I have a record that can be trusted." GOP rival Mitt Romney's goes like this: "I am pro-family on every level, from personal to political."

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White House Leaks Classified Info to Fox News, Tips Off Al Qaeda
Posted by Joe Sudbay on October 9, 2007 at 11:00 AM.

This post, written by Joe Sudbay, originally appeared on AMERICAblog

Unbelievable. Seriously. Leaking national security info to Fox News and destroying a year-long surveillance of Al Qaeda should put someone from the Bush Administration in jail. We are in greater danger because of the continued incompetence of George Bush and his minions. From the Washington Post:

A small private intelligence company that monitors Islamic terrorist groups obtained a new Osama bin Laden video ahead of its official release last month, and around 10 a.m. on Sept. 7, it notified the Bush administration of its secret acquisition. It gave two senior officials access on the condition that the officials not reveal they had it until the al-Qaeda release.

Within 20 minutes, a range of intelligence agencies had begun downloading it from the company's Web site. By midafternoon that day, the video and a transcript of its audio track had been leaked from within the Bush administration to cable television news and broadcast worldwide.

The founder of the company, the SITE Intelligence Group, says this premature disclosure tipped al-Qaeda to a security breach and destroyed a years-long surveillance operation that the company has used to intercept and pass along secret messages, videos and advance warnings of suicide bombings from the terrorist group's communications network.

Okay, so we know that SITE has some amazingly important intel. They pass it on to the Bush administration. And, it ends up on Fox News:

Exactly what happened next is unclear. But within minutes of Katz's e-mail to the White House, government-registered computers began downloading the video from SITE's server, according to a log of file transfers. The records show dozens of downloads over the next three hours from computers with addresses registered to defense and intelligence agencies.

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Ron Paul: "All We're Doing In Iraq Is Saving Face"
Posted by Joe Sudbay on September 6, 2007 at 6:40 AM.

This post, written by Joe Sudbay, originally appeared on AMERICABlog

Yes, the Republicans are debating again tonight -- on Fox News. Ugh. They are in New Hampshire at the University of New Hampshire (my alma mater, btw). Remember, there won't be a Democratic debate on Fox.

We'll liveblog as painful as it is...although the Republicans are usually good for a few laughs.

The candidates at the debate are going to be in a snit because Fred Thompson just announced on Leno that he's running.

If anyone says anything particularly inane, I'll try to get the video.

9:02 PM: The head of the New Hampshire Republican Party just thanked Fox for teaming up with them on this debate. Teaming up? Fox is the Republican Party channel.

9:04 PM: Brit Hume opens the festivities by asking about Fred Thompson - who blew off the debate for Leno. Gives them all a chance to take a whack at Thompson. McCain makes an age joke, yuk...and tell Fred "get out in the arena." Mitt is just laughing at his own stupid joke. God, he's annoying. Rudy thinks Fred did a pretty good job playing his part on Law & Order. What a bunch of clowns.

9:09 PM Wallace to Romney for challenging Giuliani on immigration...you couldn't even find the illegals on your front lawn. According to Mitt, Rudy's the reason we went from 3 million illegals to 12 million. Rudy also gets a question about "illegals." These Republicans are such immigrant bashers. When McCain gets an immigration question, he says American people have lost trust in us...because of Katrina. (When McCain says "us" he surely means the GOP, because they've failed at everything.)

They all keep mentioning keeping the borders secure...Huckabee said the government has ignored borders. Again, that mean the Bush administration has failed to keep our borders secure. Still.

Of course, Tancredo loves getting the immigrant bashing question. His whole campaign is based on immigrant bashing. Sounds like the GOP crowd in Durham loves the bashing, too.

Hunter gets a "viewer" question about building the border fence. He said he built the fence in San Diego...built the fence himself the way he makes it sound. And, Hunter takes a swipe at CNN.

9:20 PM...Carl Cameron even has a "man on the street" immigrant basher, too. Wow. Fox is leaving no immigrant bashing opportunity tonight. This clearly is the biggest issue for the GOP...over twenty minutes already. Mitt HATES AMNESTY and sanctuary cities. Got it?

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