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You don’t often get a piece of cable TV this good, so it’s worth transcribing and posting in its entirety.
Yesterday, two Netanyahu propagandists appeared on MSNBC prior to Glenn Greenwald, painting a picture of the flotilla raid that was so grossly distorted it was unrecognizable as the incident that is being rightfully condemned around the world. Host Eliot Spitzer vigorously agreed with them, and then brought them back once again to counter Glenn after his appearance.
Spitzer was not nearly so conciliatory with Glenn, and during the interview, clips of the selectively edited IDF propaganda videos and their helpful English subtitles played continuously. In a rare and contentious eight minute cable news segment, Glenn decided to set the record straight:
ELIOT SPITZER: Now let’s bring in Glenn Greenwald from Salon.com who calls Israel’s actions quote, “heinous and repugnant” and, well let me just ask you, you have ships approaching Gaza, controlled by Hamas; Hamas is a terrorist organization, Israel did (I don’t think this is disputed) offer to have the ships inspected, if there was no contraband on board, let the ships continue on to Gaza. Why was that not a reasonable offer, why should Israel not intercede to stop the flow of contraband?
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, international waters, which is where this ship was, is not owned by Israel. It is a crime, a war crime, to attack a ship in international waters that has not engaged in any aggression, and no one claims that these ships were. I mean, what you’re describing is absolute anarchy, that any country can just say, “no ships can go here, and if you disobey our order, we’re going to attack you, board your ship forcefully, and kill anybody who does resist.”
SPITZER: Well, let me interr…
GREENWALD: No, let me just finish because you just had on 10 minutes of uninterrupted pro-Israeli propaganda filled with falsehoods. The blockade is one of the most brutal and inhumane blockades that we’ve seen in the last generation. Look at UN reports that are objective, not Netanyahu aides, that say that 60% of the babies in Palestine have anemia, 65% of the population is food insecure; the entire Palestinian economy has collapsed as a result of this blockade. Israel routinely refuses to permit all sorts of imports including food, chocolate, french fries, anything but the barest necessities to keep those prisoners — which is what they are — alive…
SPITZER: Glenn, I hear you. Hold on one second. Let’s go back to Ruth Wedgewood, who is really a top-flight intellect and scholar of international law, said that nations that are a war are permitted in international water to enforce a blockade and to check to see if contraband is on board. Now, nobody has said that Israel has prevented humanitarian materials to flow through to Gaza. You may be saying there’s not enough…
GREENWALD: I just said that, the UN has said that, everybody says that. Israel constantly prevents humanitarian aid from going through to Gaza, and that’s why the claim, “oh, you just give us the cargo and we’ll take care of it for you,” is an absolute absurd joke.
For the last three years, the Israeli prime minister’s aide – top aide, when the blockade was first imposed — said, “The purpose is to put the Palestinians on a diet.” That’s what the Israeli prime minister’s top aide said about the reason this blockade was instituted. It is a completely inhumane blockade; that is that it starves the people of Palestine, as the UN says, not as I say, or as Hamas says, or as you say, or as Netanyahu aides say. Look at the objective reporting about what’s happening to that population.
SPITZER: OK, can we…let’s step back for one second. Let’s see if we can agree on one thing. Is Hamas, in your view, a terrorist organization?
GREENWALD: Hamas is the democratically-elected leadership of the people in Gaza and they’re recognized in fair and free elections as having been elected by everybody across the world, so that’s what they are. Have they engaged in terrorism? Yes. Have the Israelis, who founded the Israeli government and the Israeli state, engaged in terrorism? Yes, they have. Turkey says that what Israel just did is an act of terrorism itself. But Hamas is the democratically-elected government of the Gaza Strip and is the chosen government and is to be represented. Has Israel been brutally occupying the Palestinian people for the last 40 years? Have they or haven’t they?
SPITZER: Does it affect your analysis Hamas has as its stated policy the destruction of the State of Israel? And, in fact, Egypt as well is blockading Gaza and Hamas because Egypt as well views Hamas as a terrorist organization. So, both Israel and Egypt here are agreeing that only humanitarian materials can go through and both have as a stated objective to prevent more material from going through over this border by land or by sea. And so it would have…
GREENWALD: What you’re referring to is the Egyptian dictator that is the leading recipient of US aid, several billion dollars, billions of dollars a year, right after the Israelis. So, yes, the Egyptian dictatorship, along with the Israeli government under the patronage of the United States, all agree that the people of Gaza should be suffocated and closed off into a prison. And if you’re going to cite actions of the Egyptian dictatorship, as though that lent moral authority to this horrendous blockade. That’s pretty bizarre. Now yet…
SPITZER: Wait. In all fairness, I think, Glenn, I think what you also need to acknowledge is that Egypt is in form a democratic government as well, as is Israel, of course. And so when you say that that alone…
GREENWALD: As is Hamas. As are the Gazans.
SPITZER: Hamas has — again, let’s get agreement where we can – Hamas has stated very clearly that it wants…that the destruction of Israel is what it seeks, and therefore it is rational for people to say they are trying to get armaments, they have been shelling into Israel for many, many years, so Israel has a legitimate reason, in terms of self defense, to check to make sure that armaments are not flowing through with humanitarian resources. I assume agree with that.
GREENWALD: Nobody ever claimed or thought until today that those ships had arms, and they didn’t have arms. Not even the Israeli government claims they have arms. Everybody knew that the purpose of that flotilla was to try and deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, which is not being allowed to pass through by the Israeli government as a means of dramatizing what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians. That was the entire purpose of that flotilla, and nobody ever claimed, “oh, this is a terrorist organization trying to deliver arms.” That’s an absolute, after-the-fact lie and the entire world knows it.
SPITZER: OK.
GREENWALD: So I was just saying, you could have as many Netanyahu aides on your show as you want, but the entire world outside of the United States is condemning Israel. Democracies all over the world…
SPITZER: Glenn. I appreciate your participating. I think there are startling, divergent views here about both the morality and the legality of what we’re seeing. I think, to a certain extent, you assume your conclusion when you say there are only humanitarian materials…only humanitarian materials are on those ships. That is precisely what the Israeli government said it wanted to verify.
Kudos to Barney Frank, too, who — unlike Anthony Weiner, Jerry Nadler and Kirsten Gillibrand — had strong words for Israel and is demanding an independent inquiry.
Co-authored by Jane Hamsher.
In 2007, 82 Democratic members of Congress signed a pledge. They would never again vote to fund the war in Iraq without plans for troop withdrawal.
Republican critics accused them of demagoguing the war. Of using our soldiers as a political pawns, of not meaning what they said.
Those who signed that pledge need to cast their vote against the Supplemental Appropriations Act on Tuesday and prove them wrong.
We may agree or disagree about what needs to be done in Iraq, but a promise is a promise. Anti-war activists have supported these members of Congress because of that 2007 pledge. They knocked on doors and distributed leaflets and donated to their campaigns. They and marched side by side with them as they sought to bring an end to the war that still lingers in Iraq and escalates in Afghanistan, as the new film Rethink Afghanistan documents.
Teabaggers are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that true "grassroots" demonstrations aren't orchestrated by corporate lobbyists. Understandable -- if you didn't have any experience organizing a demonstration that didn't have millions in free PR from Fox News and well-funded GOP fat cats providing a national infrastructure, you wouldn't know the difference.
They seem to be particularly upset about links I sent out yesterday on Twitter (using the teaparty hashtags #tcot and #teaparty) regarding a report by Lee Fang at Think Progress documenting the involvement of corporate lobbyists FreedomWorks in organizing the teabaggers. FreedomWorks is run by ladies' man (and registered lobbyist) Dick Armey, and if they're not "organizing" the Tea parties, it's news to them.
From the FreedomWorks website:
With your help, we have been able to organize hundreds of Taxpayer Tea Parties across the country, from Santa Barbara, California to Amarillo, Texas, and all the way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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If you are not able to organize or attend a Taxpayer Tea Party, you can still help the cause by donating or buying a t-shirt. You can also spread the word via email, facebook and word of mouth. If you would like to post updates on tea parties in your state, or if you’d like to get in touch with other people planning tea parties, visit our Tea Party HQ. We have created an interactive Google map that you can use to locate a tea party near you!
The "donation" for the Tea Parties page goes to -- you guessed it -- the FreedomWorks Foundation. The "thank you" lettter is signed by Matt Kibbe, President & CEO, who cut his teeth working for Lee Atwater. He was behind the attempt to get Ralph Nader put on the ballot in Oregon in 2004, prompting a complaint to the FEC of illegal collusion with the GOP.
Remember: Tell members of Congress that you want them to take action here. And join us today at 4:30 pm Eastern Daylight Time (1:30 pm Pacific) for a chat with economist James Galbraith, and at later, at 7:00 pm Eastern (4pm Pacific), when Rep. Alan Grayson joins us to talk about the need for bank bailout transparency.
Last night, Timothy Geithner appeared before the House Democratic Caucus and was singularly unimpressive. He was apparently dispatched to absorb Congressional ire about the AIG situation, but didn't say much of substance, according to those who attended the meeting -- he mostly just shook his head and cussed about AIG.
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From Roll Call (subscription only):
Banks’ Cash Still Welcome
Members of Congress are scoring political points tongue-lashing Wall Street for its role in the economic meltdown, but they are proving less willing to put their campaign money where their mouths are.
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The list of 400 companies that have taken advantage of the $700 billion bailout package includes some of the biggest donors in politics: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, among others. Altogether, TARP recipients doled out $5.2 million to members of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committees in the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Bank lobbyists were working through Ellen Tauscher and the New Democrat Coalition, in conjunction with the Blue Dogs, tried to kill the bill that would allow bankruptcy judges to write down mortgages, cutting foreclosures by 20% at no cost to taxpayers. Thanks to a big public outcry, the New Dems backed down and the bill passed the House. A bankruptcy judge in Kansas speaks today about how important it is going to be that it pass the Senate and that judges be given the powers that they need to help deal with an unmanageable crisis.
In Ryan Lizza's New Yorker profile, Rahm Emanuel says:
"They have never worked the legislative process," Emanuel said of critics like the Times columnist Paul Krugman, who argued that Obama's concessions to Senate Republicans--in particular, the tax cuts, which will do little to stimulate the economy--produced a package that wasn't large enough to respond to the magnitude of the recession. "How many bills has he passed?"
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Now, my view is that Krugman as an economist is not wrong. But in the art of the possible, of the deal, he is wrong. He couldn't get his legislation."
The stimulus bill was essentially held hostage to the whims of Collins, Snowe, and Specter, but if Al Franken, the apparent winner of the disputed Minnesota Senate race, had been seated in Washington, and if Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, had been regularly available to vote, the White House would have needed only one Republican to pass the measure. "No disrespect to Paul Krugman," Emanuel went on, "but has he figured out how to seat the Minnesota senator?" (Franken's victory is the subject of an ongoing court challenge by his opponent, Norm Coleman, which the national Republican Party has been happy to help finance.) "Write a fucking column on how to seat the son of a bitch. I would be fascinated with that column. O.K.?" Emanuel stood up theatrically and gestured toward his seat with open palms. "Anytime they want, they can have it," he said of those who are critical of his legislative strategies. "I give them my chair."
Krugman responds (via email):
One more sigh of relief:
In late December the United Nations General Assembly held a symbolic vote on a statement calling for the universal decriminalization of homosexuality. France spearheaded the resolution, which was a 13 point declaration "to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention." The statement received 60 votes in support, mostly from Europe and South America. Opposing the resolution, were the United States, the Holy See, and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. At the time, the Bush administration couched its objection to the measure in legal technicalities.
Now we know what it takes to get a smile out of her.
Seriously, she's...glowing.
Via Media Matters
Ben Smith says today that the left is "silent on Social Security reform" even as the administration considers it, and quotes Blue Dog Jim Cooper who says Obama is "in a honeymoon phase, and many liberals are afraid to express concerns."
Atrios calls it trolling. Perhaps it is, but there have been signs that serious Social Security reform is in the works, and people who have been briefed on the administration's plans indicate that things like raising the retirement age and cutting benefits are under consideration.
Consider -- in December, Cooper said a report which showed "that the governments unfunded liabilities are roughly $56 trillion" was "shocking." He called for a commission to address it, which Hoyer endorsed but Pelosi opposed. The White House agreed to it in January:
Obama said that he has made clear to his advisers that some of the difficult choices--particularly in regards to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare - should be made on his watch. "We've kicked this can down the road and now we are at the end of the road," he said.
So who is going to be on this panel? Kent Conrad, Judd Gregg, the Blue Dogs and "a host of outside groups with ideas on the matter." Said Paul Rosenberg:
So, Blue Dogs in. Progressives? Not so much. Surprised? Didn't think so. The agenda here "difficult choices--particularly in regards to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare" is straight out of the fiscal slasher movie on CNN last weekend, IOUSA, which Digby blogged about earlier in the week, and which was thoroughly debunked by economist Dean Baker and his associates at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), which he co-directs, when it first came out in theatrical release last fall.
Whatever plan the task force comes up with, Cooper does not want Congress to be able to amend it.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee cleared Hilda Solis' nomination as Secretary of Labor today. The vote by the entire Senate will probably happen this week.
Only two Republicans voted against her -- Pat Roberts and Tom Coburn. Even though Mike Enzi made a stink and said that she was not qualified to be Secretary of Labor because she supported labor, he ultimately voted for her.
Mike Hall of the AFL-CIO blog:
After eight years of the Bush administration's Department of Labor under Elaine Chao�trashing workers' rights, weakening workplace safety rules, ignoring wage and hour violations and siding with Big Business at about every juncture�the idea of a labor secretary siding with workers must be terrifying to some.
According to Robert Gibbs in a just-concluded press conference, Obama is going to hold town halls in Elkhart Indiana and Ft. Myers Florida on Monday. Which appears to be an attempt to pick up the needed Senate votes for the stimulus bill -- Dick Luger and Mel Martinez looking to be the most persuadable Republicans.
There's also another Senator from Indiana who has been a pain in the ass. But as Bowers notes, the vote situation doesn't look pretty.
Rather than simply allow the Collins/Nelson confab to just hack away at the present bill by making it more appealing to conservatives, eliminating things like child nutrition so they can include more defense spending, it looks like Democratic leadership is going on the offensive -- from the left.
It was surprising to hear Diane Feinstein say today that she wouldn't vote for a bill that had too many tax cuts, which would not be effective stimulus. And Olympia Snow says that Reid approached her to work with leadership to reduce the tax cut portion of the bill. It's an interesting piece of gamesmanship in what's looking like an all-out war to get this thing passed in some form that will be effective.
But it doesn't appear that even if Harry Reid files for cloture today that anything will be resolved with a Sunday vote.
Meanwhile, Sirota says that according to a new Harris poll, 84% of Americans support "buy America" provisions in the stimulus bill. I wonder if they get any say in where their money goes.
Of the 27 Democrats who voted with the Republicans to oppose Obama's stimulus bill, 21 were Blue Dogs:
But according to Democratic leadership sources, the number was almost much higher -- and could have been high enough to hand the Republicans a monumental victory -- had it not been for a letter from President Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag.
The letter, addressed to House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., promised to return to "pay-as-you-go budgeting," and stressed that the stimulus was an "extraordinary response to an extraordinary process" and thus subject to different rules.
"It should not be seen as an opportunity to abandon the fiscal discipline that we owe each and every taxpayer in spending their money -- and that is critical to keeping the United States strong in a global, interdependent economy," the letter stated.
Orszag also emphasized Obama’s support for paying for any temporary tax cuts in the stimulus that he would like to make permanent. The budget director said Obama would detail those offsets in his budget.
"Moving forward, we need to return to the fiscal responsibility and pay-as-you-go budgeting that we had in the 1990s for all non-emergency measures," Orszag wrote. "The president and his economic team look forward to working with the Congress to develop budget-enforcement rules that are based on the tools that helped create the surpluses of a decade ago."
A commitment to "paygo" right now is problematic for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it could doom any meaningful health care legislation. But the fact that Obama was forced to kneel to Blue Dog demands is as clear an example as I can think of about something we've been saying for a long time -- the Blue Dogs now hold the power in the House to either join with Republicans or Democrats and control what legislation gets passed. If eight more Blue Dogs had crossed over and voted against the bill, it would have failed.
While few found the economic stimulus bill perfect for a variety of reasons, most sensible people admit that it was desperately needed. Bernie Horn of Campaign for America's Future called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act "a remarkably 'clean' bill" and "the biggest and boldest progressive legislation in 40 years."
But the praise isn't one-sided. James Clyburn said:
"Economists across the political spectrum agree that a bold plan is needed to jump-start the economy. Economist Mark Zandi of Economy.com and an advisor to the McCain campaign said that the House plan would create 4 million jobs by 2010. In South Carolina, Zandi predicts the recovery package will create or save over 37,000 jobs by 2010, helping to decrease the unemployment rate by 1.7 percent. For every month we don't act, Zandi predicts an additional 2 percent will be added each month to the unemployment rate. We can't wait to act. I believe, along with a long list of economic experts, that this package is the best approach to turning our economic crisis around."
Media Matters has a rundown of the zombie lies now in circulation about the bill, but suffice to say that there was no shortage of people willing to sacrifice the American economy for political gamesmanship. The Republicans unleashed their inner Church Lady and demanded contraception be cut for the sinfully promiscuous poor, then complained they didn't "get" anything in the bill and turned the whole thing into a well-choreographed publicity stunt. They looked like a bunch of petulant, narcissistic brats and did a nice job of making Obama appear measured and statesmanlike by comparison.
Billmon writes that the the press, in its rather mindless acceptance of the lies being propagated by Bush and Cheney about their time in office, are in a "pre-amnesia" state and about to banish the crimes of past eight years from memory:
[A]s in late Soviet times, the absurdity of the official story line is only reinforced by the other systemic failures that surround it: in our case, financial collapse, plunging asset prices, massive fraud and a corrupt, sclerotic political system that may be incapable of doing even the most simple, obvious things (like printing and spending sufficient quantities of fiat money) to stave off an deeper downward spiral.
This being the case, I have a strong hunch the political-media complex (i.e. the Village) is going to want to move fairly quickly to the post-Soviet solution I described earlier -- skipping right over the perestroika and glasnost to get directly to the willful amnesia and live-in-the-moment materialism of mid-1990s Russia.
Which means, in turn, that Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Feith and the whole noxious crew are about to get flushed straight down the memory hole: banished fairly quickly from public discussion and corporate media coverage -- in much the way the Iran-Contra scandal (go ahead, Wiki it) was almost immediately forgotten or ignored once it became clear that the fix was in. America apparently had its big experiment with truthtelling and reform in the post-Watergate era, and the experience was so unpleasant that nobody (or nobody who counts) is willing to go there again. That would be like expecting the Baby Boomers to start dropping acid again.
That could well happen. But I'm not sure the "villagers," such as they are, control the conversation any more.
I'm certainly not an internet idealist -- there are limits to what people can do online to offset what is happening in the virtual media world. But the ability to drive public perception has been occasionally hijacked by the online world (Social Security, FISA, Plame, the US Attorneys), and the ability to do so is usually a function of achieving critical mass sufficient to overcome the inertia and self-interest of the corporate media-generated political narrative.
I understand the critiques launched by Paul Krugman, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., and others against Dr. Sanjay Gupta -- he did accuse Michael Moore of "fudging the facts" in Sicko when Moore had done no such thing. But in the end he apologized and admitted he was wrong, which is a lot more than is frequently forthcoming in these situations.
I actually think Gupta is an inspired choice. This morning in Politico, they note that Tom Daschle may use Gupta in a grassroots campaign to sell the Obama health care plan to the public. Gupta is a known and trusted public personality, and this appointment gives him the official status to explain and defend the plan on the government's behalf. His familiar face will be a powerful antidote to any kind of well-funded "Harry and Louise" style campaign aimed at tanking it.
It seems Caroline Kennedy has decided she'd rather have a US Senate seat than a pony for Christmas:
Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of an American political dynasty, has decided she will pursue the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, a person told of her decision said Monday.
The decision came after a series of deeply personal and political conversations, in which Ms. Kennedy, who friends describe as unflashy but determined, wrestled with whether to give up what has been a lifetime of avoiding the spotlight.
Ms. Kennedy will ask that Gov. David A. Paterson consider her for the appointment. The governor was traveling to Utica today could not immediately be reached for comment.
If appointed, Ms. Kennedy would fill the seat once held by her uncle, the late Robert F. Kennedy.
Ms. Kennedy has been making calls this morning to alert political figures to her interest.
Really? She's "making calls this morning to alert political figures to her interest?" I guess it was either that or get her nails done.
Ms. Kennedy first telephoned the governor Dec. 3 to inquire about the job, but Mr. Paterson described that conversation as "informational" and said it was clear Ms. Kennedy had not decided whether she wanted to pursue the position.
But since, then, she has begun reaching out to key political figures in New York, such as Sheldon Silver, the speaker of the state Assembly, and State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. She has also hired Knickerbocker SKD, a prominent political consulting firm headed by Josh Isay, a former chief of staff to Sen. Charles Schumer, to advise her.
How about the public, huh? How about them? You know, those little people whose ordinary lives she hopes to enrich by her presence? How about getting out and talking to them? Maybe she could overcome her legendary shyness and tell people what she stands for? Now there's a thought. What exactly does she believe in? Why does she feel she's qualified? What does she hope to accomplish in office?
1. Cherry picked a 2007 National Journal ranking which concluded that Obama was the most liberal Senator. This despite the fact that it was an outlier with a deeply flawed methodology that no other ranking confirmed, and only a true nitwit would swallow credulously the notion that Obama was more liberal than Russ Feingold or Bernie Sanders.
2. Nodded approvingly as Clinton campaign pushed "Obama is too liberal" meme. Ignored the fact that even in the National Journal ranking, of the 267 issues on which they both cast votes in 2007, they differed by only 10 votes. "The policy differences between Clinton and Obama are so slight they are almost nonexistent to the average voter," said Rutgers University political scientist Richard Lau.
3. Turned into complete bobbleheads as McCain campaign and a woman who excised the letter "g" from the alphabet endlessly repeat the same.
Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, who is a member of the Obama transition economic advisory board, appeared on Rachel Maddow. Of the Citibank bailout, he said:
SCHMIDT: When I looked at the structure of the Citibank deal, it looks roughly correct. And I know that both President Bush and President Elect Obama and their teams worked on getting it right. It's got the right set of incentives, the right ownerships and the right guarantees.
Really?
Mark Thoma has the rundown of informed reactions. A bailout was necessary -- but this bailout is an outrage: a lousy deal for the taxpayers, no accountability for management, and just to make things perfect, quite possibly inadequate, so that Citi will be back for more.
Not a single, solitary, actual dyed-in-the-wool progressive has, as far as I can tell, even been mentioned for a position in the new administration. Not one. Remember this is the movement that was right about Iraq, right about wage stagnation and inequality, right about financial deregulation, right about global warming and right about health care. And I don't just mean in that in a sectarian way. I mean to say that the emerging establishment consensus on all of these issues came from the left. There's tons of things the left is right about that aren't even close to mainstream (taking a hatchet to the national security state and ending the prison industrial complex to name just two), but hopefully we're moving there.
Many people managed to convince themselves that Obama was a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool progressive at some point during the primaries. For no reason as far as I could tell -- his voting record in the Senate was pretty much identical to Hillary Clinton's, and the people he surrounded himself with weren't exactly "outsiders." But in the midst of the pie fights, that hardly seemed worth dwelling on for the pointless vitriolic arguments it would have engendered.
Let's call it what it is:
[N]ot everyone agrees that a Chapter 11 filing by G.M. would be the disaster that many fear. Some experts note that while bankruptcy would be painful, it may be preferable to a government bailout that may only delay, at considerable cost, the wrenching but necessary steps G.M. needs to take to become a stronger, leaner company.
Although G.M.'s labor contracts would be at risk of termination in a bankruptcy, setting up a potential confrontation with its unions, the company says its pension obligations are largely financed for its 479,000 retirees and their spouses.This is about union busting, pure and simple.
It was only a short time ago that every Democrat in the Senate was trashing MoveOn, refusing to stand up for them as the right tore them apart. Many of us argued that it was really stupid and irresponsible to help dismantle a critically important part of progressive infrastructure (for which I personally earned a hit-piece from Bill-O, in which he called me a "fascist").
Well, in the 2008 election it looks like MoveOn delivered:
After endorsing President-elect Obama in February, MoveOn.org Political Actions 4.5 million members contributed more than $88 million towards Barack Obamas presidential campaign, the organization announced today. And more than 1 million MoveOn members worked in a trail-blazing field effort in coordination with the Obama campaign.
In the 2008 presidential campaign, MoveOn and its members:
- Contributed more than $58 million directly to Obama's campaign
With 4.5 million members, MoveOn is now bigger than the NRA. Maybe our leaders should think about that for a while.Raised and spent more than $30 million in independent election efforts Delivered up to 600,000 battleground state volunteers. 400,000 more volunteers participated from non-battleground states Added 1 million young members from June to September 2008, and mobilized them online and offline Registered more than 500,000 new young Obama supporters in battleground states
"NewsModelsUSA" is not registered with the FEC, the contact email on the website bounces back, and the site -- owned by The Winston Group, a Republican consulting firm -- isn't returning calls. The National Republican Trust PAC says they have nothing to do with it.
Barack Obama. His pastor preached God damn America. His aunt is living in America illegally. This illegal alien aunt is living in public housing. Barack Obama accepted illegal campaign contributions from his illegal alien aunt. Call Barack Obama at 202-224-2854 and tell him you are against illegal immigration. This message was paid for by NewModelsUSA.org and is not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee, 866-283-3421.
El Tinklenberg has raised $1.8 million dollars since Michele Bachman's ill-chosen words on Hardball, saying Barack Obama is "anti-American." That's more in one quarter than any House candidate has raised in any race this year.
The GOP has bailed on Bachmann's race, so she's on her own and lying to try and stay in office:
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"When El Tinklenberg ran the department of transportation, officials called up their cronies and offered them contracts, unbid contracts," the second ad says. "The Star Trib said he broke the law. And federal authorities called it tainted."
Bachmann is also taking credit for falling gas prices:
Bachmann's allegations are based on a series of Star Tribune stories from January 2003 on the Minnesota Department of Transportation. The newspaper raised questions about changes made during Tinklenberg's time as commissioner designed to speed up contracts.
MnDOT officials hired outside consultants without required approval from the Department of Administration. They also violated a requirement to have project funding in place before signing a contract. But the stories did not claim Tinklenberg broke the law.
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The Office of the Legislative Auditor also looked into the contract questions. Its 2003 report criticized MnDOT and five other state agencies, for not always following state statutes, guidelines or effective management principles.
But the report did not suggest any crimes were committed, and Tinklenberg's name was never mentioned.
McCain would be the first cancer survivor ever to win the presidency. Good for him. But because of his refusal to release his medical records, many questions remain about the likelihood of his melanoma recurring. As a cancer survivor myself, I think -- no, I deeply believe -- that it's incumbent on the press to ask him to be forthcoming about this:
Fifteen days before the election, serious gaps remain in the public’s knowledge about the health of the presidential and vice-presidential nominees. The limited information provided by the candidates is a striking departure from recent campaigns, in which many candidates and their doctors were more forthcoming.
In past elections, the decisions of some candidates for the nation’s top elected offices to withhold health information turned out to have a significant impact after the information came to light.
Police in Denver arrested an ABC News producer today as he and a camera crew were attempting to take pictures on a public sidewalk of Democratic Senators and VIP donors leaving a private meeting at the Brown's Palace Hotel.
Police on the scene refused to tell ABC lawyers the charges against the producer, Asa Eslocker, who works with the ABC News investigative unit.
Last night I was at a party with Matt Stoller when he found a notice in the paper announcing a party that AT&T was having that night for the Blue Dogs.
Glenn Greenwald instantly became a man with a mission: he wanted to go interview the guests and see how they felt about their telecom hosts and the retroactive immunity delivered to them by the Blue Dogs, at bargain basement prices.
We had no invitation, but nobody really cared. AT&T, Blue Dogs, Denver
The war that's broken out between Georgia and Russia is just the international incident that McCain needed to switch the discussion from the economy and healthcare onto national security. Now McCain is dispatching Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman to Georgia (ostensibly as members of the Armed Services Committee).
The Bushies insist they knew nothing about what the Georgians were planning, Condi Rice phoned it in despite the fact that she's a Russia specialist who met with Saakashvilli on July 9, and Karl Rove was suspiciously in the area with Saakishvilli shortly thereafter. Throw in McCain's lobbyist ties to Georgia and you've got quite a constellation of events that just happened to play to McCain's perceived strengths.
Well you have to say something for the #Dontgo twits -- they know how to carry Big Oil's water and back down the Democrats. Now Nancy Pelosi says that she's open to having a vote in September on mo' drilling, despite the fact that a majority of Americans think it is "more likely to enrich oil companies than to lower gas prices for American consumers."
I guess we have to take it off the table as an issue in November to insure we get subpoena power. Or more and better parking spaces for Democrats, I'm not sure which.
Noel Hidalgo, a blogger who caught footage of a pretty tame protest in Tiananmen Square and put it up online, was deported from China.
Matt Browner-Hamlin, sometime FDL contributor and veteran of the Ned Lamont, Chris Dodd and Mark Begich races was also ejected from an Olympics equestrian event for trying to unveil a Tibetan flag but was not deported.
This comes on the heels of China's revocation of Joey Cheek's visa. (Former Olympic gold medalist Cheek formed Team Darfur to protest the crisis in Darfur, and will be on the Colbert Report tomorrow).
What do women care about? Well, that is the eternal question, isn't it. From a May 14 Quinnipiac poll:
McCain aides say his hard line on abortion isn't necessarily a disadvantage among many women. Though about 60 percent agree in general with Roe, that doesn't mean they vote based on a candidate's position on abortion. The McCain camp believes Hillary backers�working-class white women and independents, in particular�could migrate to McCain rather than to Obama. A Planned Parenthood poll of women voters in 16 battleground states earlier this year showed 49 percent of McCain's supporters called themselves pro-choice and said they support Roe.
