T,G,I. FITZ !!!

itzfe

hubba hubba–Bubba, come scrubba Dubya –Fitz!

fitzbubba!

I’m glad that you call him a Republican, because the crappiness of Bush seems to have made people forget that Clinton was also pretty awful on many many issues.

But, just look at his record, and he would fit in well with the fiscal conservative, business class wing of the current Republican party.

Bubba was also the first black president some say.

And Nixon was the last liberal President.

hurm

it is said that he was the first black president. was he the finest black republican president of your lifetime?

OT – EPU’d lol

I strongly suspect that this…

“Archer Logistics, won a contract to provide bottled water, first-aid kits and other supplies to CIA agents in Afghanistan and Iraq.â€

http://www.signonsandiego.com/…..8duke.html

Is tied in with this…

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/sto…..id=4074372

Jeff Ake is a business acquaintance of mine.
Nothing nefarious, just VERY coincidental. It’s never been published who Jeff’s “customer” was, intentionally. It sure wasn’t the Iraqi government, there wasn’t one.

“…a strong majority of respondents said President Clinton outperformed Bush on a host of issues.”

Uh, like fucking HEL-LO ?????

He had this one major central moral flaw (not to excuse it), but the dude was an eloquent, studious, thoughtful policy wonk who cared about actually GOVERNING effectively. Unlike the incoherent, narcissistic Dilettante-in-Chief.

The CNN quick vote is Bush v. Clinton: currently 74% Clinton at 10606 votes.

damn, beat to the punch (line).

Geeze I miss Bubba. Eloquent. Smart. Fiscally conservative but fine on most fiscal issues. Think I’ll go over and find that poll.

The caption and the photo are perfect! I’m still laughing.

The funniest thing is that Linda Tripp runs a sausage cart in some backwater.

See Linda, that’s what pimps do when they don’t need you anymore.

-GSD

ccmask-

You know why they say that? (1st black President)

- Plays blues sax;
- fucks ugly white women;
- his wife works, but he doesn’t, but still gets a govt check every month.

;)

Bill Maher is creaming Bush on the 7 1/2 lb perch. Bush lied, a fish died. When Bush pulled the fish out of the lake he was treated as a liberator.

My dear fdl, you have accepted a very skanky ad about internet neutrality/government regulation. I fear you are not on the side of the angels on this one.

Please review this ad carefully to see if it truly benefits content providers such as fdl who are not automatically spewing a Republican or corporate viewpoint. It might be worth losing the revenue to deep six this one.

That’s not so surprising. Poppy Bush seems to like Clinton better, also.

it was so comforting to see him on 9-11.

Calling Bubba Republican is like calling Bush Democratic. Personally, I don’t like it.

I may not have agreed with everything he did, but I still think he was better than most. Carter’s has always been my favorite, even before it was cool (like when he lost to Ronald the Asshat That Everyone Loved (exactly why, I have never figured out).

and he lives in Harlem, BobbyG :)

George Bush is God’s gift to America. One of those tough love kinda things. (This’ll teach ‘em!)

How in God’s name can you people just sit here blogging while Warren Jeffs “The Renegade Polygamist” is still at large?

-GSD

ccmask -

LOL!

Forgot that. Yeah!

Gotta go.

George W Bush has lowered the bar to the point that an admitted adulterer (with very questionable taste, who worked hand in hand with a Republican Congress to enable offshoring of jobs and with the Chinese to make our meals happy looks GOOD.
Heckuva job Bushie.
Seriously, I voted for Bubba twice, the first time because he passed the “not George Bush” test, and the second time because,well…
Bob Dole? c’mon.
The joke is that Bush 41 and Clinton get along so well because they are unitied in their gratitude to W for making their stink shine.

GSD -

Just thinking about “polygamy” makes my prostate swell uncomfortably.

I don’t have that much energy.

The enforcement of illegal immigration will be like what the Soviets did.

If you are in line with the Party, no prob; if you are a dissident/Democrat/someone who refuses to pay BRIBES, then your company will be investigated for OOOH ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.

The Soviet legal system: too many laws, but only enforced against ‘Enemies of the State’.

Man, I miss the blue dress. And the Whitman poetry. And the parsing of “is.” Glory days. I’ll even take the third way, for now.

Talk about politically sensitive information in the May 5 Libby Motion Hearing transcript (in my opinion, anyway):

Special Counsel Fitzgerald and Libby’s Attorney Wells both basically acknowledged and agreed that Scooter Libby testified that he may very well have revealed still-classified NIE information to both Bob Woodward and Judy Miller in June, 2003. Libby has apparently testified to the grand jury that “on July 2nd” or at any rate by July 8th he had received authorization (from the President via the Vice President) to release now-declassified portions of the National Intelligence Estimate to the media…. But Libby isn’t positive of the exact date, he said, and there is no proof of a precise declassification date in Fitzgerald’s possession. Fitzgerald has not charged, and is not planning to charge [”It is not a big deal” legally to Fitzgerald] for those two earlier June conversations Libby had with the media about the classified NIE. So at this point Fitzgerald can’t prove when the declassification happened: he has only Libby’s imprecise testimony saying July 2nd or 8th, but the matter has not been/will not be further pursued, Fitzgerald appeared to indicate.

An illustration of the advance plotting of the selective release of the NIE, from Libby’s grand jury testimony, as paraphrased by his Attorney Wells:

“He[Libby] said that the release of the material was a go, then it was a stop, and then it was a go. Then he was asked at some point was it possible that you went too fast. He [Libby] says I could have made a mistake but I know I was supposed to go, then I was told to stop, and then I was told to go.” [From the transcript.]

That’s not the tale of some ‘rotten apple’ acting all on his own. That’s the tale of the plot to “get Joe Wilson.”

P.S. The two deputy special counsels walking into court with Special Counsel Fitzgerald May 5 were Attorneys Peter Zeidenberg and Debra R. Bonamici.

BobbyG #17

Sorry, but that ain’t funny to me. As I remember, a Secretary of Agriculture got the boot for a joke like that not so many years ago, and rightly so.

egregious — We neither endorse nor oppose the ads we run on this site. Our position on net neutrality is clear for anyone who cares to search for it, and if it’s not pornographic or a scam we’ll accept an ad.

I’m not interested in being the PC police when it comes to advertising. I’m afraid my position is firm and this is as nice as you’ll ever see me addressing the situation.

William Timberman -

“Loose shoes…” Earl Butz.

Yeah.

Digby’s got a great take on this — great & very compressed rant that sums up in one paragraph really how horrible Bush has been.

I wonder how the nostalgia for Clinton will play itself out in Hillary’s presidential campaign. It will probably get her votes. And why is CNN asking this question now? Maybe there’s something going on behind the scenes.

from CNN:
Verizon Communications on Friday would neither confirm nor deny whether it has provided domestic telephone records to the National Security Agency, but the company insisted it protects customer privacy and would never participate in a government “fishing expedition.”

AT&T also released a statement saying that though it has an “obligation” to assist government agencies “responsible for protecting the public welfare,” it does so “strictly within the law and under the most stringent conditions” to protect customer privacy.

“Beyond that, we don’t comment on matters of national security,” AT&T said in a statement.
snip

The ole no comment on national security trick!

rcauthen -

That IS dead-on.

Please tell me this isn’t true:

From Harper’s:

Posted on Friday, May 12, 2006. “The Leader,†an anonymous poem, was published by Pakistan’s National Book Foundation in 2004 in A Textbook of English, intended for eleventh-grade students. The education ministry announced plans to remove the poem from future editions after it was revealed in December to be an acrostic spelling “President George W. Bush.†Several Pakistani newspapers claimed the poem had been deliberately included in the book at the behest of President Pervez Musharraf in order to please President Bush. Originally from Harper’s Magazine, March 2006.
Sources

Patient and steady with all he must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real.
Isn’t afraid to propose what is bold,
Doesn’t conform to the usual mold,
Eyes that have foresight, for hindsight won’t do,
Never backs down when he sees what is true,
Tells it all straight, and means it all too.
Going forward and knowing he’s right,
Even when doubted for why he would fight,
Over and over he makes his case clear,
Reaching to touch the ones who won’t hear.
Growing in strength, he won’t be unnerved,
Ever assuring he’ll stand by his word.
Wanting the world to join his firm stand,
Bracing for war, but praying for peace,
Using his power so evil will cease,
So much a leader and worthy of trust,
Here stands a man who will do what he must.

William Timberman- Please don’t judge Bobby G. harshly on this one. I know he’s perfectly capable of explaining, but he may be on his way to catch a plane. Anyway, if you imagine that he is a racist, he is most def. not. He has mucho history and perspective re: this issue.

30% of the adults of this country think Bush handled natural disasters better? Than who?
I can’t even remember a natural disaster that Clinton handled, but I know he was better at it than Bush. We didn’t lose any American cities while he was president, right? For the 30% favoring Bush, I can only say their brains must be natural disasters.

Geez….GSD. For real??

pow wow — it’s a strange transcript, I was up until 2am reading it. Lots of kabuki, fairly opaque. But it hints at the hand Fitz is holding, and I think Shuster deserves some points for picking up things that the others did not. The first time I read it I wasn’t sure Walton was saying the Rove investigation would be over soon, but given all the code they were speaking in by the time I was finished I decided I thought he was. And Fitz definitely did say Libby was warned that talking about Plame could be illegal, though I’m not sure I’m buying the time frame others are imposing on that conversation.

Emptywheel wrote a great launch pad piece on it, I’ll be reading it again tonight.

I’ve gotta say belated FITZGOLD. Now on to the show.

This poll essentially confirms a suspicion I’ve had for some time — GW denies stem cell research to prevent the cloning and re-election of Bill Clinton’s similacra or family members. Has Chelsy had a child yet? Women in the Britain are having kids in their ’60s. Hillary? Any more buns in the oven?

Clinton ran a surplus, openly studied universal health care options, hired brainiacs to run the agencies, and talked about values to common people. GW lies, kills, spends, and divides. What America do you want to live in?

Come on back, Bill. The country needs you and yours.

Yeah, Jane, I’m sure jonesing for Bubba too – have been since before he left – nice to know that almost everybody else is too.

I am shocked, though, that CNN ran that poll – and I’m even more shocked that they reported the results!

OT – you know how the rightwing mouthpieces are always talking about how dubya and the GOP hope that the dems try to make a fight out of the NSA wiretapping vs. privacy thing – saying it’s a fight Bush wants, a winning issue for the rethugs, blah blah blah? BUNCHA HOOEY!

I was reading about it over at redstate – just trying to get a glimpse of how the rightwingers were explaining it to themselves – Guess what? THE WINGNUTS DON’T LIKE IT ANY MORE THAN WE DO! Well, a lot of them anyway…

http://paconservative.redstate…..8518/52403

So, the rightwing windbags are lying (shocker, I know). Revelation here: It really is a winning issue for dems – if they press it – HEAR THAT CONGRESS?

GSD- Pretty Gross, eh? Someone at Kos thought so too and wrote this:
THE FEEDER* by citizen bronte

Petulant piques which we all must bear,
Ready to sidestep every challenge with care,
Easy to manipulate, slippery as an eel,
Strong in his sect, he obnoxiously deals.
Isn’t afraid to propose what is doled,
Doesn’t mind handing out favors to cajole,
Eyes that have forsaken, hindsight won’t do,
Never reviews all the history so true,
Tells it all jumbled, spins it all too.
Going ever backward only wanting to fight,
Even in doubt he never listens to right,
Over and over he makes mistakes so clear,
Reaching to punish the ones who won’t veer.
Growing in doubt he won’t be unnerved,
Ever ensuring his mistakes are preserved.
Wanting the world to kneel at his feet,
Bringing world war and creating deceit,
Using his powers so evil can’t cease.
So such a leader is unworthy of trust,
Here stands a man whose legacy is disgust.

Frank Luntz’ toupee’ comparing George W. Bush to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper:

“The Canadian and U.S. leaders could not be more different,” Frank Luntz said yesterday. “Stephen Harper is a genuine intellectual, brilliant in his understanding of issues.

“I think I’ll leave it at that.”

-GSD

CCMask,

I think so.

On Iraq, I think Clinton was Bush 1.5 .

But yeah, I do miss his competence.

I miss a smart, educated, eloquent, compassionate, enlightened (by his wife and daughter), savvy servant of the people. I felt safe and knew that if we made mistakes, they were honest ones and could and would be corrected. I miss him like crazy.

egregious #19: My dear fdl, you have accepted a very skanky ad about internet neutrality/government regulation. I fear you are not on the side of the angels on this one.

I took it as an opportunity to click through and cost the bastards some ad dollars. :-)

(Jane or anyone else, can you confirm for me whether it works that way? I wouldn’t want to be wasting effort.)

Bill Clinton was no Hubert Humphrey or Bobby Kennedy or LBJ…he didn’t give a shit about the many millions who are left out in our society. Now he is raking in the millions from his corporate friends. I believe that Clinton is the worst thing that ever happened to the Democratic party.

VG #40

It’s not my place to judge people I don’t know, and besides, I’m a guest in Jane and Christy’s house, and I try to behave accordingly.

On the other hand, I grew up largely in the South before the Civil Rights Act. I heard a lot of “jokes” like this, and to be honest, I don’t have fond memories of the people who told them.

Forgive me if I’ve done BobbyG an injustice, particularly at a time when he has other serious worries. He may not be a racist, but from my perspective, the joke is. Maybe context is the key after all; that’s mine, anyway — just so you know.

BTW, I don’t think that this is going to help or hurt Hillary. I think that Bill and Hill exist in separate compartments in people’s minds.

GSD – that (ahem) “poem” sounds like something written for Kim Jong Il. I guess every nation needs it’s own Dear Leader…

Per Clinton – he is coming to Seattle June 3 to do a fundraising event for Jim McDermott’s legal trust fund. It’s a low-dollar event, probably about $50 per person. For those of you in WA, please consider showing up and supporting our local whistleblower. He really needs our help. You’ll get to meet the smartest ex-president too. Oh, and earlier that day, Clinton is hosting a fundraiser for Cantwell (a high-dollar event) that looks to alienate her from the regular folks once again.

The point is, everybody wants Clinton by their side, to help them raise money. I was pissed at him for his continual triangulating, and withheld my vote in 1996, but fer crissakes – the guy still has the magic touch! “It’s the economy, stupid” – it was short and sweet, and right on target. Those people knew something about framing.

Give the 26 percent who favor Bush truth serum and he would slip into the single digits.

So, John Gibson is a video guest on Bill Maher right now and again is saying that the Wilson trip WAS a boondoggle.

what a loser!

at least when I listen to Bubba speak, I don’t get dizzy with confusion… with Bubba, I actually feel like I’m comprehending the conversation…

I miss that!

Re ad policy: humbly accepting all decisions of JH and CHS about what ads to run, it is your blog, as I have often professed to people who criticize what is happening here.

In an ideal world, we readers would provide sufficient support and advocate that others chip in, both of which I have periodically tried to do.

I worry that internet regulation, like Iran/WWIII, is an uber-issue that could render all our other intellectual discussions moot. Just my discounted $.01 and offered with honor and respect for our hosts.

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/sto…..id=4074372

“Jeff Ake is a business acquaintance of mine.
Nothing nefarious, just VERY coincidental. It’s never been published who Jeff’s “customer†was, intentionally. It sure wasn’t the Iraqi government, there wasn’t one.”

More on this if anyone’s interested. Jeff wasn’t “working at a water treatment plant” as was reported in the above link. He’s a machinery dealer. He (likely) sold an automated bottled water filling line to *someone* and then help set it up, install it. That’s what he does.

William Timberman- I understand your reaction, and understand why you made the comment. And, in the context of growing up in the South, your response was well founded. Or, in the context of growing up anywhere, for that matter. I have been at FDL for quite a while, and so I know a bit more about Bobby G’s history than you, or most, might be expected to know. I’m sorry right now that I can’t find the links from Bobby G. that would give you some info about his family. But, this is his grandson: http://www.keenanstennis.net/

I’m-a missing him, too. & the days when I was proud to be ‘Murican. A-and this CNN poll’s a wonderful antidote to Morin’s WaPo please-spy-on-me headliner.

Clinton’s successes outweigh his failures by a very large margin. He was smart, he was prescient, he was savvy. He doesn’t need to be compared to George W. Bush–the worst, most incompetent horse’s ass to ever lead this country–in order to look good.

I know I miss him– he was not perfect, but then, who is? I did fully respect Jimmy Carter and still do to this very day. I tried very hard to get George McGovern elected while I was still a child– (I handed out buttons ;) )

I think my best adult life was spent under the Presidency of William Jefferson Clinton. He did bad things, and he did good things during his time in office. I respected the hell out of his wife and daughter during their awful and trying times. That was one Presidential family! They knew diplomacy. They tried to give health care to all. The decifit was scrubbed and a surplus created– a big surplus.

The administration endeavored to make peace in Palestine/Israel, they continued horrific sanctions against the Iraqi people, they failed in Somalia and did not go to Rwanda, they tried to reign in angry forces in Asia while abandoning the Afghan people, they brought an end to the genocide in the former Yugoslavia under the competent military leadership of Wes Clark.

They made serious mistakes: sure. Has he tried to atone: absolutely. Do I want Hillary as my President– nope. Do I wish Bubba would eschew his fellowship with George Sr– you betcha.

I think he is a force for good in this world. So is Hillary. So, probably is Chelsea, with parents like this.

I miss him; wished he hadn’t lied; wish even more he was never asked such a stupid question. That was a personal thing. It was nothing at all that would really affect the country.

Now, we have lies ad nauseum, ad infinitum and people are dead and dying with no end in sight.

Redshift — no it doesn’t mean anything in terms of what we get paid. It’s nice to reinforce advertisers who are willing to advertise on progressive sites but if I were going to encourage any click-throughs it would be to working assets on the top right hand side.

While Bubba may have been a centrist in a number of ways, that does not make him a Republican. The clear distinction between the two men is that Clinton cared for the little guy where Bush only kowtowed to the rich and powerful. Clinton was very much in the tradition of FDR, where Bush is a failed and fake Reaganite. That sounds awfully simplistic, but it’s the fundamental truth.

Hillary, on the other hand is a former Democrat who has morphed into a Republican for purely opportunistic reasons.

jane hampsher:

calling bill clinton “the finest republican president of my lifetime”
really is one of the dumbest sentences you have written in the last 6-8 months.

clinton made a lot of things of consequence happen in his eight years,

following a time when other presidents had not had the wisdom or experience to make those “things of consequence” happen

for years.

and he did it because he genuinely cared about how government worked in the u.s.

you don’t have to like or support Clinton entirely,

to credit what he tried to accomplish,

together with with what he actually accomplished.

you might ask yourself,

under the circumstances,

how much more effective could a president have been?

and what might he or she have done?

report back tomorrow.

BobbyG 17 and ccmask 23 (that’s as far as I’ve gotten on comments) you might want to reconsider those jokes? They belong on little green footballs, not here.

I don’t know what Hillary has morphed into. I just know that I can’t stand her.

“I did not have sexual relations with those weapons of mass destruction.”

We fled to northern Arkansas to get away from Hurricane Rita, and we stopped at the Clinton Library in Little Rock on the way home. It was really depressing for me. Has it really been only five years since we had a President who gave a shit about the American people? It feels like decades.

Jane, I hope you get a chance to check your email. I sent you something about poodles and pjs.

Interesting tidbit Jane, in this story from the gray lady: C.I.A. Aide’s House and Office Searched
snip
Searches at the offices and homes of intelligence officials have been carried out in criminal cases, almost always in connection with counterespionage investigations. In two inquiries in the 1990’s, investigators searched the offices of Aldrich H. Ames and Harold J. Nicholson, who pleaded guilty to spying.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05…..r=homepage

Back from my errand. Boy, those kids working at the convenience store really hate the Chimp.
I think I miss Clinton most when I read something like Joe Wilson’s book and the description of Clinton’s mental faculties is truly amazing; e.g., doing a crossword puzzle while being briefed, but also retaining all the details of what was said. I wonder how Clinton would have reacted to the president of Iran’s very interesting –and I think engaging—letter to Jr. Would he act like a hawk, or would curiosity take over? I wonder.

The Psychotic Patriot tripped over and blogged this:The U.S. House Of Representatives Hearing on Terrorist Use of the Internet believed a parody video using South Park’s creator’s voiceover was a real terrorist training video. A private contractor brought them this evidence. Don’t y’all feel safer now? I sure do.

I miss Bubba, too. Certainly he has a big old flaw and I’m glad I’m not married to him. On the other hand, he’d intelligent, articulate, and really does care for people beyond his major campaign contributors.

I’d like to have a president again whom I could respect. I’d like to have some faith that the checks and balances that were puposely built into our system are, in fact, functioning. I’d like to think that we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people….NOT of/by/for a small circle of corrupt campaign contributors.

I’d like to believe that I have rights that are considered sacrosanct by my government. You will NOT track or record my phone calls for no good reason. You will NOT impinge on my freedom of religion by forcing yours on me. You will NOT bully me out of my freedom of speech by trying to say that I’m aiding the terrorists when I disagree with you. You will NOT arrest and indefinitely hold people without charging them. You will NOT suspect people of terrorism or crimes just because of their ethnicity or skin color.

The president works for me, regardless of whether I voted for him or not. I pay 1/250millionth of his salary. I am not happy with the man on my payroll.

VG #60

I repeat my apology. Context is the key after all. It’s a good lesson on the limitations of written text, and on the importance of keeping an open mind. I’ll try to remember it.

51, edward deevy…I mostly agree with him. Overall, Clinton did fine, but I was anxious to see him and Hillary go. I wished they both would have stayed away. I’m glad that the cnn poll shows him ahead of Bush; but I worry about Clinton’s game plan for the Democratic party. He, AND Hillary, still seem to be wed to the idea of getting huge corporate donors instead of massive small donations from regular folks. I worry that his continuing fundraising “model” is bad for the Democrats. It’s almost like cocaine…always has a bad long-term ending.
Ghostman

Oh what a timely post for me. I saw Pres Clinton and Former Bush today in New Orleans. They were announcing some grants from their Bush Clinton Katrina Fund. Just reminded me again how far we have to go on the recovery but also how much I miss Clinton. He was so genuinely interested and happy to see the little kids singing the pledge of allegiance and a little song of welcome. I never get the feeling that Bush is happy to be anywhere except on vacation. I suspect it is because he is an idiot and he knows that everyone else knows it too. Clinton is just a jolly guy particularly now that he has gotten over his bypass surgery. Last time I saw him it was the week before the bypass. He looked pale and white and didn’t look that good. Today he was beaming and I missed his optomism and spirit. I used to love Hillary too, now that I know her positions…not so much.

Jane — darn, I was hoping it was like sending back postage-paid envelopes taped to bricks.

VG 40, 60, not to harp on it but if you make a racist joke then people are going to think you’re racist. Back when we were scouring the rightwing sites for examples of racism, any of us would have plucked that example.

mui– Bill Clinton would have seen that letter as a real challenge, not a threat. If only it had happened then and Ken Starr and all Bill’s other handlers not been in the way, we could very well be in another universe altogether…

with Mr. Carter as Secretary of State (pssssssst. Peace)

OK, I’m packed and ret’ to go…

William Timberman -

My apologies. I was just responding to the earlier “tasteless” allusion. Whatever.

BTW- I’ve told that one to my — BLACK — daughter. She laughs.

Going to Hoboken for Kos’s stint. Major outting for me (disabled), but close enough for government work, as they say. Clinton was to squishy to polls, as was his insecurity, and I depored his advisors (squishy jerks), I always saw a central purpose as a person and FOR THE PEOPLE. I miss that ‘for the people’ stuff. You know, the Consitution, and still playing smart. Terror was a Czar on the Cabinet…makes me sick and I live due west from the Towers…never will forget the ignorance and arrogance before and after…never bought his blasphemy then, nor will I now. This war is insane and riduculous and I will not acknowledge anyone who said that it might be a good idea. My cousin in Texas and I discussed this endlessly and we both thought it was crap. Housewife and a disabled person got it right. And I don’t have cable. This is a wretched misuse of the trust of the American people. I have read novels from the 20s and 40s, and they recoginized the danger. It is the world response that mattered then, and it is our response that matters now.

op99 -

Point taken. And, y’all are right; this is not the place. My Bad. and cc’s.

markg read my mind, saying:

30% of the adults of this country think Bush handled natural disasters better? Than who?
I can’t even remember a natural disaster that Clinton handled, but I know he was better at it than Bush. We didn’t lose any American cities while he was president, right? For the 30% favoring Bush, I can only say their brains must be natural disasters.

I mean, we all see figures in polls all the time that make us scratch our heads. But this one?

Which great American city did Clinton lose? Was there some grand metropolis, whose loss was so catastrophic that I totally blanked out all memory of it?

Did he lose Atlantis?

Or should the people in that 30% be discarded from the sample as obviously not being of sound mind, or alternatively, not giving serious answers?

Any way you look at it, it makes the rest of those who favored Bush on any other measure look even more suspicious.

Not to mention, of course, that that 30% figure is right in line with Bush’s approval ratings of late, a couple of 31s and a 29.

BobbyG, love ya, I expect y’all to keep kicking me in the ass as needed. :)

William Timberman- Thanks for your comment. And I really do understand the context of your earlier comments. It is completely correct to call anyone on comments that sound racist. It is unfair to expect that you would have known the context, in this case.

marily– safe travels and i meant to leave you a big hug for your words about your Dad on the last thread. so here it is {{{{{{{*}}}}}}}} that vision was beautiful.

Has Bush ever even held the same job for 5, 6, 8 years?

Ever?

Clinton Honored As ‘First Black President’ at Black Caucus Dinner
By Marc Morano
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
October 01, 2001
snip

The chair of the all-Democratic caucus, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.), told the crowd that Clinton “took so many initiatives he made us think for a while we had elected the first black president.”
snip

Bill’s office is in Harlem, a predominantly black area of NY. At least it was when I moved in on 86th street in 1973 in a 4th floor walk-up and lived there for many years. In fact, I was in Harlem last week. I walked from the Cloisters up in Washington Heights down to 125th street, I think. It is a great neighborhood! I was taking pictures (over 500 of them) of gargoyles because I am a lover of the architecture of brownstones.

I don’t feel what I SAID was racist. I could be wrong, though…

Bill Clinton appealed to our higher angels, our better selves, calling on us to think large, to see ourselves as part of something bigger than our own lives. Bush preys on our fears, manipulates us into thinking small, greedy, myopic, fearful, like rats in a maze.

I want those days back, when the future was something to look forward to, not to dread.

Valley Girl, William -

BobbyG stands reproached. I cop.

(but, y’all wouldn’t believe some of the crackin’ conversations Danielle and I have all the time on racial stuff. We don’t mean anything hateful by it, believe me, after what WE went through. Still, this is not the place, like I said)

I thought Clinton kicked the line significantly to the Right. Maybe to the right of Nixon on many program funding issues.

I work in the environmental field and many of the veterans say -interestingly enough- that Bush the First was better for environmental enforcement than Clinton…Clinton really embraced the idea as Business shaking hands with Government when it came to enforcement issues. Of course, the Chimperor has been Attila the Hun on the issue.

cc- My Bad, I’m the one that picked it up and ran with it.

Issue now settled as as I’m concerned.

Nostalgia for Bubba — yes, very much . . .

Hillary — not so much . . .

Al Gore gets it, but is still a binary kind of guy . . .

Russ Feingold gets it, but still kind of nebbishy . . .

I dunno — the 1990’s were boom times, with competent caring Administrations in the WH; now, the exact opposite . . .

The worst part is — the MSM Bigfoot Media are totally wedded to defending the WORST PRESIDENT EVER — even though the American People have see through the bullshit, the Beltway Media Whores are committed to defending Bush, until the last cocktail weenie is consumed . . .

That said — right now, our team is winning . . .

Bobby G- mucho hugs for a safe trip. xxoo

MsAnnaNola- aren’t they going to do the Commencement Speech at Tulane? Did you happen to catch Kerry’s flaming of the admin today on the Senate floor wrt the waste, fraud, and lies about the “recovery”?

PS Bill Clinton speaks to all humans– he is a communicator and that is a gift!

…is this old news?…Jason Leopold says at Truthout that Rove announced to the prez he will be indicted and plans to resign…??? No one of you seems to be talking about this so jus’ wonderin’….

We now have proof that dogs can read.

http://www.bgladd.com/Bush_Mal…..n_read.jpg

Yeah, well, a lot of us thought Bill was gonna be the first GAY president, too, and look how well that turned out, what with DADT and DOMA.

I miss Bill, although I felt betrayed at the time. I certainly don’t feel betrayed by W, since I never expected anything but evil from him, although I feel a mite abused….

I really don’t miss Bill enough to want him to be First Consort, or whatever weird title we’re gonna come up with for the first female President’s spouse. No “2-for-1″ specials that involve Hillary taking the oath, please. We could repeal the 22nd amendment, though, as long as we do it in a way that excludes the current Occupant of 1600.

You know angie, I wonder though if the genocide in Rwanda happened so quickly that there wasn’t much time for action. That may be a poor excuse though. I thought Clinton went to Rwanda and gave one of his decent, hopeful speeches. I could be wrong. Bush wouldn’t have empathized with victims and urged healing. The Chimp just isn’t capable.

Rhandi Rhodes is horrendous on Larry King. Yelling is not debating…..

The Rwanda was an international disgrace. Bill Clinton and the US sat on their hands because of the Somalia disaster…The UN and Europe were no better…France was actually helping the genocidaires….bad all around.

No heros or and no excuses there.

-GSD

Jane — darn, I was hoping it was like sending back postage-paid envelopes taped to bricks.

Oh Good Grief. That urban legend? Get real!

Newsflash, from a postal worker who has dealt with this nonsense for years: Bricks with postage paid envelopes taped to them don’t go anywhere but in the dumpster. Same goes for bowling balls and rusted lawn mower blades (thanks for the door prop, though!). I know most people think we’re a bunch of morons, but we’re not that fucking stupid.

If I ever seen anyone dropping off that garbage. I will call the Postal Inspectors on his ass. It’s called mail fraud. And it’s a federal offense.

Besides, it pisses me off to come close to separating my shoulder by picking up a bucket of what I think will be letters–only to have that bucket contain fifteen bricks covered in letters. Jerkoffs thinking they’re being cute don’t get that they can seriously injure someone with their idiotic stunts.

And if that’s not enough, that little prank just wasted a whole bunch of my time.

So knock it off, already with the bricks and all that.

Don’t get me wrong, Dennis Prager and the Pudgy young Jonah “Pantload in waiting” is a goof too.

-GSD

I’m critical of Randi because I do like her.

-GSD

…what does it mean to be “moderated”?

GSD, no heroes. I for one do not believe in heroes—with the exception of Fitz—but just in comparison to the present regime.
I love Randi Rhodes, by the way, screaming or otherwise. Then again, I like ‘em “bad.â€

30% of the adults of this country think Bush handled natural disasters better? Than who?
I can’t even remember a natural disaster that Clinton handled, but I know he was better at it than Bush.

Must be all those white people Bush poured money to (even if they didn’t need it!) in Florida, to buy–er, WIN–their votes. IIRC, Florida got hit with something like four ‘canes the season before the 2004 election.

105 spiderpaws says:

May 12th, 2006 at 9:36 pm
…what does it mean to be “moderated�

It means you’re in the center. Sort of like Bill Clinton.

GSD, my reply is awaiting moderation. I like Randi a lot, but didn’t see Larry King. I also think we are not talking heroes, but comparisons.

Hell yeah I miss him . . . I miss SMART- not enough to be mired in monstrous and souless, but to be stuck on stupid. Jeebus, this guy surrounded himself with Smart, not the least of which is his wife, for goodness sakes, the likes of Sidney Blumenthal was in that first brood of wonks – we’re all missin’ Robert Ruben – I know everyone with a 401k is – Repugs meme he was’lucky’ – when in fact they maximized the benefits of the greatest economic expansion in history – it was a very high tide, liftin’ lots of boats – or how ’bout the free reign he gave to James Lee Witt and FEMA? – yeah I miss SMART

there’s plenty not to miss, but we’re so vulnerable now, I’d take a month of Smart

Nite all-

And thanks again for the best value in American media.

We’re all blessed not to be on AbuG’s staff tonight, who are no-doubt working the weekend shift to come up with a Constitutional argument about why its OK to classify information for political purposes.

Thanks again.

GSD, yeah, but the part where the 24 year old winger pissant is bathering about supporting the troops, and Randi tells him, “then GO!” is precious.

yes. kidding. Many of us have had our comments “awaiting moderation”. It seems to clear quickly.

‘Go-ing to the chapel, and we’re…’

;>)

Egads, darkblack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess I tend to be an apologist for Clinton because of what we are going through now. But I really want this country to progress forward and get beyond BushCo first, but also beyond the Clintons as well if possible.

No, I do like Randy, but when anyone rants on like that it just makes for bad t.v.

As to Rwanda, I was being figurative. The world sat out that horror because it was just a poor, tiny, African country….

A human tragedy and an indication that even decent people stand by idly while atrocities go on.

-GSD

((((angie)))) thank you

Randi does much better homework than Big Ed, but Ed does better TV. I just wish he didn’t remind me so much of Rush.

I like to tell myself I come here for the intelligent commentary, but in my heart I know I stay for the dark, dark, darkblack….

marily,

you are special and among the few– makes me smile thru familiar tears.

spiderpaws, that reporter hasn’t been terribly accurate, so when he is the only source, many don’t take it seriously.

Darkblack- there you go being a genius again! HEH

GSD, I wonder if the colonial stuff or postcolonial , the Belgian and French “stakes†and interests, sometimes keep other governments from wanting to interfere.Again, I am thinking of Joe Wilson and the absolutely insane and possessive attitudes he described the French diplomats as sometimes having.

If BushCo did not OWN the Media — lock, stock, down to the short hairs — Commader Codpiece would have never been anything more than the Texas Great Executioner.

Because the Beltway Media Whores cannot control themselves, the Golden Kneepad Brigade have done more damage to this county and this planet than anyone could have imagined . . .

Spawn of Satan, go back where you came from . . .

angie @ 116

Egads, darkblack!(+)

Now, now…

They’re just good friends

;>)

cbl, I am very much with you.

Goodbye have done enough damage here love to friends mfi norske imman lhp jlr scarecrow crc cbl wt rh grJ jc skb kirk mary bobbyg pach et gsd anne mary zen leslie angie siun epu meta vg and others thank you in some parallel universe people who are mentally ill can become stable and healthy pray for that time i speak from pain our country is nearly lost please fight for those of us who can no longer

Dru @ 124

Pshaw…

I just got into the lineup early.

:)

Wait, stop talking,,,,, whisper… someone’s out there, quick turn off the flashlight and get under the blankets.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Hi Dru and darkblack and GSD and mui and Jane and marily and motherlowman and TeddySan Fran and Rob Zuber and everybody….

Is anyone else out there?

TeddySanFran:

:)

It was funny when Randi told young Militant McPudwipe to go to Iraq…..He could only say: “I like the Yankees but I don’t wear a uniform”.

Mui, from what I’ve read about Rwanda..the dividing line was the old colonial trick…Line up a minority party and make the the rulers to keep the larger ethnic groups in check…Just like in Iraq—Sunnis were the lords over Shia…when that model is shattered it don’t work so hot.

-GSD

Rob Zuber: thanks for informing me…what?… everyone planned to ignore me?…scheeesh… but is Leopold making this stuff up?

BobbyG – If you’re still here and wrt your question in the last thread about responding to the “what do you have to hide” challenge, Digby briefly raises the implications of corporate vs governmental big brotherism:

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com…..3952171681

Egregious,

Don’t leave for good. We need to keep the good folks around.

-GSD

angie: they did Tulane commencement this am. I did not see Kerry but good on him! I feel proud to have had my Kerry sign in the window for at least a year after the election!

If you think that Morin hatchet job poll today was oh so very special then whatever you do, do not , I repeat DO NOT read the bold-typed opinion piece up at WaPo from some Brookings Inst. lunatic – “Thank You Gen Hayden for tapping our phones and saving our lives, please confirm this hero to lead the CIA immediately.” I’m going to fucking puke. Is that what passes for “patriotism” on the right these days?

What a day!

Also, I am not liking the new “militarize” the border talk going on. The less that Bush feels he can use the military as his playthings the better….and when it starts getting close to home, I start hearing CSNY songs ringing in my head…..”Four dead in Ohio”.

-GSD

egregious – we need your voice so please take care

it’s a hard time now for all, despair and distress … but we’re trying and fighting and we need you fighting with us

jealous? The chapel with the big heart over it: tell us your scheme for the perfect chapel of Constitutional rights. With or without a wedding dress. Droll is always in fashion.

A lot of these countries in Africa are definitely interesting. I should try and read more. As one Roman or Greek said: look to Africa, everything new comes from there.
We think we are dealing postcolonialism, but based on the past five years, it might be the beginning of colonialism.
egregious. Hang tight. Sheep that flock together . . .

Clinton – 250,000 – 500,000 dead iraqi children and a secretary of state who said “the cost is worth it”

no thank you

GSD that was her very best shot to that byron york wannabe with the hair– the one that is also a tucker wannabe– he howled like a banshee!

me no wanna, canna go, i am only 24!!!

blech!

MsAnnaNola– i still have my snow scraped raggedy John Kerry sticker in the most prominent place on my tea- drinking librul VOLVO!

along with some other things i am very proud of…

Cozumel 59 – has his wife had any kind of information or indications that there could still be some hope? It would be very easy to picture a tie between the stories.

egregious, we’re here for you, but sounds like you need to go talk to a live human about this, OK?

Uh oh, angie, a Volvo? That’s a scream. We need more of those back in New Haven with lots and lots of stickers.

egregious,

Take a deep breath. You’re one of my favorite and long time posters here. See ya in the morning, OK?

Coz

Clinton saw what was happening in Rwanda, and hemmed and hawed until it was too late for bold decisive action . . .

Rwanda regrets, no matter how heart felt, are part of his shtick . . .

I’m pooped. I think I got less than ten hours of sleep in the past two/three days. (angie?) (egregious? Stick around the ranks)

If people are waxing rhapsodic reminiscing over Bubba, then it really is game, set and match. Anything can happen of course, but….all that demonization of Clinton and Dem’s and he still beats Chimpy – in a romp. It makes the polling (assuming it wasn’t done by a “Morin”) that much more devasting – really, think about it. All of their marketing messages were based on Clinton’s embodiment of all that was, allegedly, “wrong,” “bad,” “immoral,” “ammoral,” “corrupt” [insert your own word here], etc., about the country in general and Dems in particular, and he still wins. Now they’ll claim he isn’t human, b/c he can’t be destroyed.

And also proves that, no matter how good the marketing, sooner or later people WILL realize that shit is, well, shit.

egregious come back now! please, you have done nothing wrong at all and neither have we. this is a community– we care for one another. yep, it seems we are losing touch with our country. but, please come back to help make it whole again!

The sad part is that in a better time, Clinton might have become one of our greatest presidents, right up there with Lincoln and Roosevelt.

To me his errors were tactical, not strategic, but given the divisions in the country at the time, the difference between tactics and strategy didn’t matter as much as they should have.

His greatest asset as president was his apparently genuine desire to knit things together. For a womanizer, he seems to have a remarkably well-developed feminine side. The reason he’s so well loved by such a diverse group of people is that he loves them, and wants to be loved by them, a quality he shares with both Lincoln and Roosevelt. (”With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right” could have been written by either Roosevelt or Clinton, but not by Reagan or Bush Junior.)

The perversity of the right’s hatred for Clinton can probably be explained by their hatred of this “unmanliness” in his character.

Which is why, I think, that after six years of an ignorant, stubborn caricature of manhood in the presidency, and all the butchery and incompetence that has been visited on us because of it, many of them are feeling just a wee bit nostalgic for Bubba.

Serves them right, I would say, even if there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of them ever admitting their error.

Just made a post #144 about Rove awaiting moderation. On another topic I heard on the radio today that Bush is thinking of sending National Guard units to patrol the Mexican border.

Like GSD #139 says “Four Dead in Ohio” I had the exact same thought when I heard it. Bush is not beyond using the National Guard or the Military against U.S. Citizens, after all he is a Dictator.

What did I miss re: Egregious? Did something happen here?

I miss Clinton ALOT. I have read that JFK always regreted his decisions for the Bay of Pigs so soon after his election. He listened to the ‘experts’ and did not trust his own judgment. Clinton was like that at first I think. He wanted to do something for gays in the military, but everyone started yelping so, he backed off and ended up with the awful ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. The same with somalila.

I believe a dem should work with companies and corporations and make it easier for them to be much more enviroment and worker friendly. The republicans pounding on Clinton from the get go lost us Congress (well Shrum etc. helped) and after that he was forced to compromise.

But I always felt safe.

Egregious, let me add my voice to the chorus. No matter what, you can’t go till I thank you for the wedding advice, and report on my daughter’s wedding, now only eight days away.

You belong with us.

EPU,
Reminds me of Tommy Boy: “Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time.”

Mary,

“Cozumel 59 – has his wife had any kind of information or indications that there could still be some hope? It would be very easy to picture a tie between the stories.”

Zippo, nothing that I know of. Sounds like a “black contract”, code for CIA front company.

Funny about that integrity thing.

Clinton was a total liar on his personal life, but he was very honest about what he would do in office.

He said what his polices were and he did them.

Bush, on the other hand, is a total liar in both respects. Pretends to be religious and anti-gay but is gay himself. (Not that I have anything against gay people. I don’t.)

In case I forget later this weekend:

HAPPY GRADUATION MATT!

(thanks VG)

Clinton saw what was happening in Kosovo and, to me, acted too late. But that was politics. He stopped an ethnic cleansing of Muslims that has not been exploited in the press at all.

The last best thing we did (and no US soldier died.) Do we have standing at the Haig? I read that that was revoked under Reagan.

egregious –

clicking on a skanky ad takes money out of the skanky advertiser’s pocket, and gives it to FDL — while giving the skanky advertiser nothing more than a piss poor Return On Investment . . .

In my book, that is a GOOD thing . . .

No they won’t admit error. Now that the Chimp is limp they are saying: “He wasn’t a conservative after all…he’s a LIBERAL!”

The far right-rump will adhere to the words of wisdom that Porter Goss gave to college graduates last weekend:

“If this were a graduating class of CIA case officers, my advice would be short and to the point: Admit nothing, deny everything and make counteraccusations,”

-GSD

Jane, Christy…. Please moderate my post @144 before it gets EPU’d? Thank you.

egregious– what happened? please tell me sweetie whoever you are m/f! i am leery of your 129 and don’t want a goodbye. so there. don’t understand and promise i will try if you tell me.

;( ;) come on!

egregious,
What Cozumel said. Take care, hugs.

I presently live in AZ – not in the south but AZ is on the “front lines.” AZ may be red (although we have a Dem governor), but it is also very libertarian (in the good Goldwater conservative sense. Yes, there are the minute men (they don’t deserve init. capitalization), but I just don’t see Arizonans appreciating a military presence. Since I think most repug ploys are the result of tone deafness (hubris, whatever), I see this ploy as only being popular with the hard core right. I have never met anyone who thought immigration (illegal or otherwise) a problem. Plus, half the resorts and most restaurants would shut down. It’s just dumb.

Just finished the transcript of the May 5 Libby hearing. It’s a little different from the media reports, I think. Rove, obviously, is the key issue. The reports I read implied that the judge would rule on whether Libby could have Rove materials (i.e. Rove’s e-mails, grand jury testimony, etc) AFTER Fitz has decided whether or not to indict Rove. But that’s not what Fitz is arguing in the transcript. Fitz is saying that he has to turn over only the Rove material that relates directly to Libby, regardless of whether or not Rove gets indicted, since Fitz isn’t planning on calling Rove as a witness. The distinction is crucial. What I think it means is that Fitz is going to hold off on indicting Rove until the judge has made a final ruling on a lot of the issues that were brought up at this hearing. At that point, Libby will be officially even worse off than he is now. (Believe it or not, that’s still possible, although he’s getting to the point that the only thing worse would be a notarized HD video of Libby fucking a dead horse.) Fitz will give Libby one last chance to rat out Rove. If he doesn’t take it, Rove gets indicted, and Libby’s chances at a deal (not to mention defense funding) plummet, since Karl will be more than willing to “flip” and say that Libby thought up the whole thing on his own, Karl went along with it, and neither the Chimp nor the Shooter knew anything about it. Enjoy your weekend, Scooter!

egregious,

guess I haven’t gone far enough up thread to know what’s going on – but you’re not leaving us – that would be like a little -Snip- to the community’s fabric – take care of yourself and remain with us – I’m out there on that porch with cha

sweet dreams

Jonesing for Bubba,
Bobbing for Paula?

okay– egregious you are one of my most favorite words; now what the hell am i gonna do if every time i want to use egregious, i cry? that is just plain geedubya wrong.

egregious –it’s an indignant cry from the heart. it defines what they did, but i personally id it with you. it’s happy and progressive to me.

EPU,
I’m in AZ, too. Did you hear the DJ (don’t remember the station, but it was FM) who said that every week he was all for illegal immigration until his yardwork was done? Then he was against it. To me, that pretty much sums up how many people here feel about it.

ck says:
May 12th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Clinton saw what was happening in Rwanda, and hemmed and hawed until it was too late for bold decisive action . . .

Rwanda regrets, no matter how heart felt, are part of his shtick . . .
———————————————————-
We’re seeing the same thing again in Darfur, and I think it goes back to Somalia. Bold, decisive action usually does not turn out well. And it would require a massive troop deployment and a significant commitment of resources. I’m not saying it shouldn’t be done, but you need to be aware of the difficulities involved. My acid test for “Should we send in our troops?” to fight in a given conflict–Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, etc–is to ask myself: “Would I be willing to die for this cause?” Because that’s what you’re asking someone else to do. And it’s usually someone who’s poorer and had far fewer opportunities in life than I have. The ONLY recent conflict we’ve had that passes that test is Afghanistan.

I think another option would be to form a new volunteer force specifically for people who feel strongly enough that they want to go into areas like Darfur and do what they can to help. I think of it as a cross between the Army and the Peace Corps, if that makes any sense.

Night all.

Egregious please be well.

-GSD

Heh, Drudge is highlighting resistance to Bush’s upcoming immigration speech:

Schwarzenegger says National Guard ‘not right way to go’

Quotes Gropinator saying Guard returning from Iraq should go back to work, not patrol the border. Apparently objecting to California having to fund Bush’s plan to have National Guard patrolling the border.

So much for attempting to rally the base, guys!

punaise says:
May 12th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
Jonesing for Bubba,
Bobbing for Paula?
———————————————————-
I think Paula was bobbing, but you’re close enough.

I don’t hold Clinton, the man, in high regard. As a straight man he didn’t respect the sanctity of his marriage, and he signed DOMA, which basically denies me as a gay man the right to marry.

He did some good things as president, however he left the Democratic party weak and in the hands of corporate interests.

Hands down I would rather have him then Bush, however that’s not saying much.

egregious – sometimes you do have to disengage to not be overwhelmed, so if you need to, do it and recharge – but don’t stay away. For one thing, you are next up to explain what being EPU’d means and someone will be left in the desert without manna until you come back.

{{{egregious}}}

Hey, EPU, if I look out my window, I bet I could see the whirling of your starry arms, the impenetrable black emptiness at your core. (Not being a cosmologist, I’m perhaps confusing you with a galaxy, which is much less magnificent, if more perceptible, than an entire universe.)

Anyway, my much less magnificent self resides in AZ too. A happy coincidence.

Given what we face today, I think we need to be very careful to understand how we got here. We lose perspective when we face W as pres each day but we won’t solve the problems we face if we ignore the history that enabled W and that led to the war in Iraq and the threat to Iran.

Clinton, like Lieberman if we are going to be honest, chose to run to the right, to run away from traditional democratic constituencies and policies, in order to gain office. It was and is a strategic move that reflects, in my mind, a certain lack of integrity, a willingness to compromise basic principals simply to win. And that strategy is the very one that plagues us in the incumbents today – we rail against the DLC but forget that that was Bill’s pet project, forget that he was the mastermind of the very abdication of liberal values which we spend so much time trying to find a way to defeat.

Life under Clinton may have been lovely for many, but it sucked for people on welfare (as I was for 2 months) and his support for “welfare reform” allowed the right to win a major victory under cover of his “liberalism.” If you have not sat in a welfare office and prayed that you could get enough help to feed the kids for a month when your company has laid everyone off and the ex choses not to pay child support (and maybe in a few years the state will manage to negotiate with the ex’s state to get some of that money for you) and one of your kids has a serious illness and your landlord does not understand that you only get $560 per month plus $300 food stamps and you haven’t figured out how to pay the heat (in NH in winter!) and electric and rent … And when you find a temp job for $8.75 per hour, you lose your healthcare benefits and your kid is still seriously ill… then don’t tell me how lovely Bill was. For me, it was a short moment in hell, I had skills and quickly moved back into my profession. For many, that is not possible.

if only for that I would have no nostalgia but when I think of what Bill did to Iraq, the vicious policies of 41 which he chose to continue knowing that children were starving, that children dying from our depleted uranium could not receive medicines, no nostalgia here…

but a lot of worry that if we do not face the continuous colonialism of US foreign policy towards the middle east, under Reagan and Bush, but also under Clinton and now at full throttle under W – we will never move beyond the evils we now fight.

I met Bill Clinton once, back in 1989. He was, IIRC, still the Governor of Arkansas. Anyway, he was the speaker at a local event. At the reception afterward, he worked the crowd, and that man was a PRO. When he talked to me, he focused completely on me. He wasn’t looking over my shoulder to see if there was someone more important nearby. He treated everyone there exactly the same way. Very impressive. By the way, he didn’t make even the teensiest, tiniest pass at me. I didn’t think there was anything the least bit unusual about that at the time, of course. Given what we all learned later, though, I felt, in hindsight, vaguely insulted. *g*

We haven’t had a perfect President in my lifetime, and I was born in 1945. I don’t expect we ever will. But the most imperfect Democratic presidential candidate is still way better than the least imperfect Republican, particularly given what’s happened to the Republican party in the last 30 years. I won’t support Hillary in the primaries, but if she gets the nomination I will not only vote for her, I’ll give her money. I will hold my nose in the privacy of my home, but I will goddam do it.

egregious – I’m not far enough into the thread to know what’s going on, but whatever it is, hang in there and be well…..

egregious, I can’t imagine a day without seeing your name.

dammit– is this is a cyber emergency that i did not even know happened real time?

merrily we roll along, etc.

can i help egregious? should i intrude? i feel awful and am not exactly sure what happened. need to go back and read. :I

William T & Motherlowman – Hello.

In honor of a Bubba thread, I would just like to add that I toured the Clinton Library last summer and cried my way through it. To see all they had accomplished here and abroad and to realise what had been lost and yet what was left for Lord Pissypants to certainly destroy. Bill may not have been perfect but my family prospered duing his time in office. I barely gave politics a second thought. There was a comfortable level of trust.
I fondly refer to that era as “The Salad Days”
I feel sad for my kids, 22,18,16. It will be different for them.

James Witt was Clinton’s FEMA director; he served with Pres. Clinton for eight years,becoming a memberof Clinton’s Cabinet and building FEMA into the fine agency that it was when Bush became President.

As with other things, Bush decided to destroy FEMA, just as a spoiled mean child would break another child’s toy.

James is now in business with Rodney Slater, former Sec.Transportation and General Wesley Clark. They consult with a variety of clients on crisis and emergency management.
http://www.wittassociates.com/

Angie – I was late too, but I believe it relates, at least in part, to an ad on FDL that Egregious objected to.

I was at the 1992 Dem Convention. Good Bubba times. Good Bubba times.

Tinksrival –

One day I am going there and if there is any pissy panted loser along, I swear, I will wait em out at the ice scream stand til I can baptise them in our multiple rivers of our American history.

I don’t ever, during that tour, want to hear one damned joke about sex. sanctioned or otherwise.

I just want to think of what might have been…

angie – egregious questioned one of the ads on the site (it’s the one that talks about net neutrality and is funded by the telcos)and Jane said that she does not screen the ads that way but feels that if they want to pay for FDL to explain how wrong they are (I’m paraphrasing a lot here) then so be it. egregious apologized and explained her position.

egregious has written a few times about suffering from mental illness and I am praying that her message was simply a “I need to take a break” message. I don’t know how to help beyond wishing for a speedy return to the fdl community. I used to have egregious’ email but it was lost during my laptop crash … that does not help.

and egregious, if you are still reading, please email again … christina underscore siun at mac dot com.

If I may summarize for those scratching their heads about egregious, he was cheesed about that anti net neutrality ad on FDL, Jane relatively nicely replied tough shit, we gotta eat (paraphrase), then we get a kind of incoherent cry for help? from egregious at 129. Hopefully it’s just one of those Friday night had-one-too-many kind of deals, but the tenor of 129 has me a little worried.

191 or is it she?

BarbraB is brillant, as always, and egregious is well loved and will return. Hope springs eternal.

Is anyone moderating? I would like to have my post at #144 read before a new thread starts, or should I just copy and paste it in the next thread when its moderated okay for viewing?

op99

I made the same mistake a while back, and she forgave me. It is she.

George A – we often repost posts that get EPUd (and since EPU is here, I’ll let our resident extraterrestrial explain that if you would like) on the next thread … it just goes with the fdl pace

Maybe the moderator has a date, unlike us.

Geroge A – It is very hard to get EPU’d on Latenight FDL, the thread shouldn’t change till morning. And I, naturally, am more than an expert on the subject: L’EPU c’est moi. I don’t know if there is a moderator overnight.

Motherlowman – Did not hear that, but it seems to sum up the situation well.

William T – I’m the vast void :) Read your comment on my tete a tete. Appreciate your understanding my point (at least I took it that way).

thanks siun, o99 and EPU for explaining…

damn, i feel helpless.

should we be really kinder and gentler?

i. am. not. getting. more. sleep.

i. can. tell.

I hope egregious lightens up. I think Jane or Christy explained the site policy adequately yesterday. I just got back from conducting my band in a college comencement. Most of the people in the band would go for a Christian Theocracy, and would take a Christian Fascist Theocracy if they got their Christian Theocracy in the bargain. But I love ‘em anyway.

One of the band members, he’s an upper level manager for KBR (a division of Halliburton) told me his two-year-old grand daughter has been diagnosed with leukemia, and won’t be around to help me get ourv summer music together over the rest of May. I hugged him and told him I’ll pray for her – though we see way, way different visions of the sacred.

But the far right members of my band and I talk, we do things with each other that advance civilization. I’m not going to refuse to deal with the fundamentalists and evangelicals around me because they’ve helped get us into this fine mess. Nor should fdl reject ads from these corporations if the corporations are doing their business legally – a premise soon to be tested, I hope.

Point being, I’m pissed that egregious and others who are reacting to the ad are too exclusionary. You can’t have web neutrality without ad policies like fdl and tallkingpointsmemo and wonkette have taken – neutral ad policies.

And what Siun said – repost it tomorrow if it gets lost in this thread.

hey EPU,

If you’re in NYC, shouldn’t you be in bed (no need to answer that)?

re: egregious, don’t worry too much. The winds of manic depression blow where they will. When we lived in tribes we called the people who had it gifted and relied upon them like primitive radar. Even in modern times much that we now hold dear was saved by those dealing with that cyclical thing…Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Susan B. Anthony and Winston Churchill to name a few. All that sparkles with true greatness must withdraw to regenerate, and (I think perhaps) George Bernard Shaw wrote that he knew no great person who was not greatly inconsistent.

Thanks Siun…. Now I see that my post is no longer there, so I imagine its being read. I’m just wondering if it would end up being moderated again if I repost it on the next thread as it is a little long. Thanks again.

George A.

op99 @ 193, hate to say it but your 193 misses the mark badly.

egregious has mentioned suffering from mental illness, and IIRC is also absorbing the emotional hit of her daughter’s recent marriage. a recent contact from a long-estranged brother. difficult family history(?)

the ad mimi-brouhaha may just have been a catalyst.

this is a call for all FDL arms around egregious.

ET 202, we think egregious may need help is all.

Siun – I am the resident evil parallel universe, not “merely” an alien. You mock me.

MarcLord– beautifully said! Didn’t know…

ET– you are a good man! I like your ethics– a lot.

punaise 206, I was just trying to chronicle for the latecomers. I mean don’t you hate walking in late on some drama that people are referring to, wondering wtf is going on. Check my comments upthread, believe me I appreciate the gravity.

siun 192 — that is a good paraphrase. It is not so easy to run a site that pays people what they are worth as you might think; in fact I don’t know many other than this one that pay people at all. It is a platform of Markos’ and Jerome’s book that a solid progressive infrastructure cannot be built as long as we ask people to starve in order to do the work. I take that very seriously. I’ve never taken one penny of salary here but I am absolutely committed to putting together an organization that pays people an equitable rate for what they do.

The Richard Cohens and Jim Bradys and Hugh Hewitts have been very good at perpetuating the notion of the “fever swamp” and scaring off advertisers who otherwise might buy advertising on liberal blogs. What’s left are the lobbyists like Mike McCurry wandering around with boatloads of cash. I really don’t care. It’s where we’re at right now.

Every time I put up a link to Amazon someone starts complaining that we’re hypocrites or somehow un-PC. Unfortunately we have bills. Amazon pays those bills. I’ve never done a fundraiser, I put up a PayPal button on request and appreciate it when people donate but have never wanted people to feel like they had to give money to be part of the community. As far as I’m concerned Mike McCurry and others are keeping the roof over all our heads right now and I think the multiple times we’ve negatively referred to net neutrality since the ad went up are a clear indication that it has not in any way affected our editorial policy.

Anyone who wants to discuss this further is welcome to email me.

MarcLord – I moved to AZ 2 years from NYC, where I had lived for 12 years, and where (including environs) I grew up.

dammit, punaise, i cannot do the fancy stuff with the graphics. puh-leeze add my name.

EPU,

My whole family was glued to the TV during the ‘92 Dem convention. How different times now are. When George the 1st became president, we had an infant daughter. When Clinton became president, we had two little kids, and I jumped onto the “Hope” theme of the convention.

Clinton blew his honeymoon with the public by trotting out tricky issues to start his presidency – policies toward gays in the military (divisive) and reform of the medical care structure (a battle against corporate giants). There were other issues he could have brought out at that time instead which might have built political capital.

But I agree that he was the best black Republican president.

This president and the declining state of civil discourse and rationality are so bad, I’m thinking of changing my nom de blog to Benevolent Parallel Universe.

op 99 @ 210 – fair enough; the Friday night binge thing just seemed like a cheap shot.

Thank you, Marily. What a nice thing to hear just before bedtime. ‘Night, y’all.

angie, are you still awake?
I was about to get some sleep when I picked up the late NYT edition and started reading the wiretap deal and reflecting on three faces: Chimp, Gonzalez and Hayden.
I hope egregious is o.k.

Jane @ 212,

Part of what needs to happen as the left blogosphere catapults beyond the right not just in terms of morality and rationality, but in structural soundness and market share, is for commenters to realize that they’ve been watching TV for 60 years and not turning the TV off or to another channel just because one commercial came up which was placed by a company they didn’t approve of.

oops, shoulda been Jane @ 211…….

epu is in AZ? Holy fu@@@ng crap!

ET – The reason I am the EPU is b/c the reality of this one is so benevolent, fair, caring, peaceful: basically downright utopian, in that Orwellian kinda way.

punaise 215, I didn’t mean it that way. I said “hopefully” just because that seems the least serious of the possible causes.

EPU…. I noticed that the thread don’t have the Late Nite FDL heading so I wasn’t sure when it would go up. I really don’t get to post much though I really need to watch myself at work. I’ve gotten into the habit of reading FDL at work and find I’m reading way too much, which could get me in trouble.

I have too go now as my weekend side job starts soon. I’ll check back later in the morning and see if its back at #144 as its no longer there.

By the way, Tice testifies next week about more NSA operations going on that is suppose to knock one’s socks off. Very scary what this administration is doing to America under the guise on National Security.

The winds of manic depression blow where they will.
Now we know how Patrick Kennedy feels and why he took ambien. Insomnia can frazzle.

I remember a 1992 election night party in Berkeley – after years in the presidential wilderness, we were elated to witness a turning tide. It had a “where were you the night Clinton got elected” feel to it. I was too young to vote for Carter, so this was the first win after having had our noses rubbed in it by gloating Republicans in the Reagan/Bush I era.

So much squandered promise.

Jane and Christy– thank you for everything. This late eve in the NE was just a little full… lots of emotion and expectation by all of us here ;)

mui– it’s a much less refined three stooges ;0

sleep well friends, see you in the morning light.

Marily – Yes, when the EPU and this benevolent universe interact it is in AZ for the most part.

op99 – gotcha

oh glorious universe, oh EPU

forgive your humble correspondent her thoughtless belittling of your mightiness

(bet you still haven’t read any Iain M Banks!)

and Jane -a wise policy – pay for good work is essential and most work on this side of the aisle assumes private wealth or something – it’s why many of us need to keep that day job leading to sleep deprivation due to fdl addictions!

Area 51 = alien
Area 52 = EPU?

policies toward gays in the military (divisive)

I think that’s exactly backwards. He should have stuck with it and forced the military to do what he said he would do. His backtracking showed Republicans that he could be rolled. It also showed the public that he didn’t have core beliefs.

The public gives Republicans credit for sticking to what they believe.

George A – You are right, no Late Night in the title. Pretty sure this is it though. But check the whole thread, I don’t think you will be #144 when it is posted.

EPU #200

Your omniscience is seamless and unblemished. I did indeed understand your point. I might also add that Chomsky agrees with you, and that’s not bad company to keep, even for a parallel universe.

EPU @212

aha. welcome to the palm trees kissed by cool night breezes. Once I heard a prophet at Brigham Young University quote a Playboy survey that measured ASU the #1 party school, and BYU as the worst. I made a big mental note of that and later went to ASU interspersed for one semester. It was a wonderful holiday.

Jane, if you promote 211 to the front page, maybe you won’t have to address the topic in comments every day for the rest of your natural life.

BarbaraB 182,
In my opinion, the Clintons were much better behaved in public than present regime. I could tell a couple of Hillary stories, but I already have. To me, she is far more human, poised yes, than the current first lady. I don’t agree with her politics but . . .

Is this Late Night?

Pow Wow 31 – I don’t think he can investigate or pursue charges re: the NIE disclosures. Part of Walton’s findings are that the reason the appointment clause was not implicate was bc the Special Prosecutor’s assignment and status fell within the limits for an inferior officer and a big part of that was that he has only limitedd jurisdiction in what he can invesgitate.

The Special Counsel’s jurisdiction is therefore limited in scope to the exact matter from which the Attorney General had recused himself. Such specific delegation of limited authority demonstrates that the Special Counsel’s authority is constrained by what was actually delegate in the letters. . . . As already discussed, the Special Counsel’s authority is limited to the investigation and prosecution of alleged violations of federal law relating to the possible unauthorized disclosure of specific classified information.

22-23, April 27th Mem Op

First, because he is given only limited jurisdiction – to investigate and prosecute only certain alleged violations of federal law committed during the course of this investigation – it is implicit that once this assigned mission is complete his tenure as Special Counsel will end.
26 April 27th Mem Op

fwiw

Since he also won’t be filing a report, there are very likely other things that he has found out that we won’t really ever know either. It seemed to me he took the limited scope seriously from the start and after Walton’s opinion is probably even more likely to walk the line. It’s why, in part, I think getting the info out that the NIE releases walk back to the President’s office was more than could have been expected from the litigation (still kind of shocks me that he laid it out like that – good shock, but shock).

Gang: re: egregious. it is beautiful and inspiring to see the open source compassion going e’s way. As it should be. e, you may be smarting, but remember, what drew you here and kept you coming was Jh’s toughness and brilliance. ( as well as much else) Everything will be ok. This is a tough and brilliant time and you have demonstrated both traits as well.
It is a full moon, after all, and it shines down now, even as our monitor’s shine, on all our faces in all our rooms at the end of this tiring and exciting week. Full moons can be this way.

punaise says:

“Area 51 = alien
Area 52 = EPU?”

Area 53 = where Bush ends up doing his time, right next to a crater left over from the Nevada nukular tests.

a. gotta give siun a shout-out: hey! you’re up late….

b. full moon – ever notice how they usually create a weird, vibrant all-senses-alive energy, yet on other occasions you feel sapped, muted? I’m in the latter category ce soir – bonne nuit a tous.

egregious is clearly in crisis. How can we help?

EPU-231

I’m out the door now for my early morning weekend job, got to pay the bills you know. I made the post at 10:13pm whatever time zone this is in. It is now 2:48am here on the southeast coast where I’m at will check back sometime later today.

Siun – Not yet.

Punaise – I can neither admit nor deny that.

Jane – If it were me, I’d try to make a profit from it. Nothing wrong with earning money to pay bills. Plus, you can always make the Marx-ish argument that you are using their money to destroy them – which might even be poetic-ish.

EPU,
I love the landscape of AZ. I was visitng a friend who is a NYer from NYC, and she couldn’t help pointing out all the gun shops, including the one across from her building, and guns racks and guns and it freaked us out just a little.
Also I would have loved to have seen this cactus park and take pictures, but her father was visiting and drove through the park like he was driving through the Bronx where he grew up. I say no more. NYC, heh! I lived there once.
Well, G’night.

Punaise! it’s late but I’m writing something and can’t stop now or I’ll lose the flow.

By the way gang, I forgot to update YKOS news – first, Brave New Films will be premiering their Tom Delay documentary *and* leading a workshop on using film to change the world. Second, Michael Schiavo will lead a panel of How to fight for your privacy rights again the religious right. Pretty cool, eh?

MarcLord – My biz partner and his wife both went to ASU, they call it Disney Land. Where I went undergrad it once snowed (including flurries) every day for an entire month. But, apochryphally, Playboy supposedly once did a survey of college drinking, and we were left out b/c we skewed the curve too much. So we had that going for us.

William T – I’ll take Chomsky.

siun 244 I signed up for ykos, thanks for volunteering. Do I have to sign up for specific panels, etc? Is there a clearing house to pair up roommates? Thanks :)

good job siun!!! i hope that the next yearlykos will bring a lot of well deseerved back patting and planning and real decidering and lastly and humbly, one that i can be a part of!

you are making a difference. thanks.

siun 244, did that poor bastard Michael Schiavo ever get a raw deal from the right. Good on yous guys for bagging him.

Happy Full Moon in Scorpio which goes into effect at 2:51 am EDT. Some more deep dark secrets should come to light but the NSA phone mess rather covers that aspect quite well, America is stinging over it. Moon is also Void of Course until 5 pm Saturday, good idea to wait to sign anything or start a new project until then. Not to be confused with the magnificent void of EPU (of course).

Jupiter is retrograde, the Petulant Prez becomes more pronounced and childishly defensive as more things go wrong and we rebel against his undisciplined excesses. The Sun is on the cusp of the 6th house which includes militaries and armies, but could signify some fireworks politically this week. Iran or Karl? A shout out to Stephen @ 5:39 pm, will look up Karl’s soon. ;)

Rather odd this turning up tonight.

â€Lewinsky Case’s Prosecutor Accused Of Stalking Woman

NEW YORK, May 12 — Robert W. Ray, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica S. Lewinsky, turned himself in to police Thursday on charges of stalking a former girlfriend, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
New York police say Ray’s former girlfriend, a 40-year-old Manhattan woman, filed a complaint that he persisted in sending e-mail and knocking on her door months after she broke off their relationship. Police charged Ray, 46, with a misdemeanor count of stalking in the fourth degree.
Ray works in the Parsippany, N.J., law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, where he specializes in white-collar criminal defense. A telephone call to his office was not returned.
Ray entered the 2002 race for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in New Jersey, seeking the seat held by Robert G. Torricelli (D), who was plagued by charges of unethical conduct. But Ray came under sustained criticism in Congress for considering a partisan race while still serving as independent counsel. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) called for the U.S. comptroller general to investigate Ray’s conduct in lining up political consultants and discussing fundraising while he was independent counsel.â€â€¦â€¦â€¦.
http://tinyurl.com/nsxhm

My parents took in lots of doctors from the slavic/russian border. They passed. I went to their house, before leaving. Do you know anyone? These women, whom my family supported, were doctors in theri own country.

ET – Have you ever been in the Yucca Mountain area? It’s beautiful in a sparse kinda way.

AZ is beautiful too, esp. up North.

oh swell, did someone mention one of my heroes?

ahem.

Noam Chomsky.

brilliant and just and a beautiful mind…

wanna read some? i just knew you did, here you go; quite a different quote tonite and if you indulge me, your spine will tingle with truth:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
In his highly praised reflections on just war, Michael Walzer describes the invasion of Afghanistan as “a triumph of just war theory,” standing alongside Kosovo as a “just war.” Unfortunately, in these two cases, as throughout, his arguments rely crucially on premises like “seems to me entirely justified,” or “I believe” or “no doubt.”

Facts are ignored, even the most obvious ones. Consider Afghanistan. As the bombing began in October 2001, President Bush warned Afghans that it would continue until they handed over people that the US suspected of terrorism.

The word “suspected” is important. Eight months later, FBI head Robert S. Mueller III told editors at The Washington Post that after what must have been the most intense manhunt in history, “We think the masterminds of (the Sept. 11 attacks) were in Afghanistan, high in the al-Qaida leadership. Plotters and others — the principals — came together in Germany and perhaps elsewhere.”

What was still unclear in June 2002 could not have been known definitively the preceding October, though few doubted at once that it was true. Nor did I, for what it’s worth, but surmise and evidence are two different things. At least it seems fair to say that the circumstances raise a question about whether bombing Afghans was a transparent example of “just war.”

Walzer’s arguments are directed to unnamed targets — for example, campus opponents who are “pacifists.” He adds that their “pacifism” is a “bad argument,” because he thinks violence is sometimes legitimate. We may well agree that violence is sometimes legitimate (I do), but “I think” is hardly an overwhelming argument in the real-world cases that he discusses.

By “just war,” counterterrorism or some other rationale, the US exempts itself from the fundamental principles of world order that it played the primary role in formulating and enacting.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0510-33.htm

G’night y’all

Shez– Hi! You just laid out a very detailed forecast. What does it mean when someone you know understands the stars will not tell you? should i be terribly worried?

Shez– sorry for the sloppiness there. Someone I know supposedly figured me out via the stars but will not tell me… should i go for a second opinion or just let sleeping wolves lie?

Oh, Slick Willie, please come back. All is forgiven!

I’d hit it.

Bless ‘im.

op99 – hey, I’m so glad you’re coming to Vegas! it’s great fun to work on Ykos and going to be even better to be there!

roomates – I’ve seen some discussion at Dailykos but we don’t have a system to match – try searching dailykos for yearlykos (he!) and see. Also some folks here have mentioned wanting roomates – good luck!

and now I’ll read the Chomsky

Phew, what a night. I wonder if there’s an organization for recovering FDL addicts.

Jane, for what it’s worth, I admire your steely practicality, and agree with you about doing what needs to be done, ad-wise, to keep this marvelous moveable feast afloat.

Go bless the (neutral) Internet!

And so to bed….

Night – but I’ll leave this for BobbyG if he sees it tomorrow: from below thread on theâ€if you have nothing to hideâ€
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So – if I don’t have anything to hide, you think that pedophiles that work for the government should acccess to information about my minor children?? I just gotta disagree about that. I also have Target receipts and this administration has employed people who manage to act illegally even with such unlikely pieces of paper as Target receipts. It’s like saying, “if your 15 yo daughter is a good girl, why not lock her in with 50 sailors for a weekend.†It is not my information, it is the character and competence of those who access it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If this administration could misuse the correct intelligence information that they were given to the point that we have ended up in the mess that is Iraq under the auspice of looking for bin Laden, I am pretty certain that they can mismanage and incompetently handle my personal information as well. It is like giving your information to a broker or banker or accountant – you have the right to assess the competence and lack of criminality of the people who get your personal information. Unless, of course, you think that because *you have nothing to hide* you would like for me to give your home security code out to every thief and pedophile in the area? After all, what do you have to hide:?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Or: Stealing my information is stealing. It isn’t “less†stealing because my information is not criminal.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Or – the Jews whose personal information was collected and fed into Hitler’s databanks were innocent too – so you think it was a GOOD THING that Hitler was allowed to set up extermination databases with that information about innocents?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Or – If they are going to be using my personal information that they are stealing for good purposes, why are the afraid to ask a judge?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Or – since I know I don’t have anything to hide and a judge would never give them a warrant for my information, I have to wonder about and resent my taxpayer employee resources and monies spent spying on me. I also have to wonder about and resent both the monies spent after they have stolen all my personal information in keeping it safe, and the consequences of identity theft and abuse of my investment or other information if just one of the thousands of government employees who may go pawing through my information is not lily pure.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Or – How about you explain how my phone calls to my children and parents help catch bin Laden as the first thing. Then I’ll fill you in on why even though I might not have anything to hide, I don’t have tell everything about me to any drunk at the bar you pick out.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you are innocent – why do you need a lawyer or a trial?

This may be old hat further up-thread but someone just told me that TruthOut is reporting that Rove has informed the WH that he will be indicted next week.

Hi egregious -

I’m late to catch up with the thread, but want to join the chorus letting you know you are valued and cherished.

I hope you take all the time you need, but also hope to see you and your deep concern here again soon.

Kirk

Hi angie! No, do not be worried. We each have Free Will and our own earth path to walk. Choices made and lessons drawn to us are individual, sometimes it is best to not directly reveal influences so as not to hamper or unfairly alter another’s important personal ‘choices’ that haven’t ripened in timing yet or scope, or unfolded enough to allow primary lessons and choices to happen first that only you can make and experience. It would be a form of interference to intrude upon your free will. Some things are between you, your Higher Self, and Source. A chosen path, which can change by the second, is simply another set of lessons and not considered good or bad, but attaining more wisdom and skills no matter what happens.

Ok, I just did my semi-weekly click on every ad on Firedoglake.com duty. I urge all others who enjoy this community to do the same. Even the icky ads.

good night gang … I’ve caught up with comments *and* finished my writing so it’s time for sleep.

WAY off topic but something really bothered me when I read about John Gibson’s call for white people to start making more babies in light of a recent story that says Hispanics will be the majority in less than thirty years.

As an American who happens to be Hispanic, I take great offense to this.

He bluntly bashes Hispanics using innuendo and, in my opinion, is trying to create a clash of cultures to energize his largely white “traditional” viewers.

I am writing a post with my response to what I see as blatant Hispanic-bashing to advance an agenda through alarmist rhetoric and scare tactics at the racial level.

angie, I just read your #257, yowza. The only person who can figure you out is you. It’s one thing to give you some general insight and guidance or perhaps say, “in 2 weeks it looks like you may come to a fork in the road (because of such and such) but I can’t tell you what one to take, you have to discern that in your heart what way to go when the time comes.”

It’s another matter entirely to claim to have all the secret answers about your soul, that’s bullshit and impossible, and to continue on that furthermore you can’t be told while smiling like a Cheshire Cat is plain hinky and sounds like an ego control issue. That person needs to work on some own self mastery and not ride roughshod on yours and your intelligence, or play Mysterious Exalted Oracle. If it’s a friend no biggie, they may think they “know you” well in an objective manner, if not a friend don’t go back.

Jacqrat – I keep meaning to make that a daily duty. Thanks for the reminder. For everyone’s reading pleasure, (if you like having nightmares, that is), Billmon presents:

Leviathan
http://billmon.org/archives/002440.html

Here is my rebuttal to John Gibson.

http://thegreatsociety.blogsom…..-genitals/

Matt O – Word is you have a big day today. Somethin’ ’bout graduatin’ from some fancy pants institute of higher learnin’. If so, congratulations! And ya’ll c’mon back and write us up some more a your fine essays on makin’ this here world a finer’n better place, now, Y’hear?

JWR -

Thanks man!

Friday was the College of Social and Behavorial Sciences commencement. I went to that one and walked across the stage and had my name announced. Tomorrow is the large commencement with every college. However, we don’t walk at that one. We just stand up by major (political science, minor in history) and then sit down again. But my parents leave at 5pm on Saturday so I am not going to that one and spending time with them. (Last time I saw my step-mom was December, and my dad in November.)

Thus why I am taking tomorrow off from my war profiteering series. I had zero time to get any research done.

It may sound a bit corny and overly idealistic but when I listened to the speeches today about changing the world and making it better: I believe it can be done, and I want to do it. One of my favorite quotes is from JFK:

What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace — the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living — the kind that enables man and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. [6/13/63]

Ironically, it was said at a commencement address.

Thanks again, JWR.

OfT but needs more air I think. Your government and taxes at work on assassinations!
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23…..=1&l=e

All the best to you, Matt. Knowing there are people of your age out there, with such optimism, and so much potential, gives someone twice your age, (that would be me) reason to believe that some day we may yet achieve that genuine peace of which Kennedy spoke. So go forth, always wear your FDL t-shirt, and sorry we left the place such a mess. (Well, I didn’t make the mess, I was just there that night, and you know.. stuff happens ;-) G’nite.

Matt O, the alarmist rhetoric bothers me and I find it very offensive too, I’ll look forward to reading your post. One aspect of the Hispanic bashing I haven’t seen brought up yet which I believe scares the hell out of this administration on a subconscious level has to do with something I’ve studied for a long time in theology. It’s revolves around the concept of the Andes (west) being the Yin center in nature and the Himalayas (east) being the Yang counterpart.

The central Americas especially Mexico have become predominately Catholic, but, unlike Rome they are drawn very strongly to Mother Mary in their worship bringing in this huge underlying wave of needed Goddess energy to help balance the universe back out. (By ‘bringing in’ I mean the physical world not the US, although both are true respectively) I doubt many are aware of this consciously or that it is even an important factor but it’s more important than they know or realize. The Great Mother nurtures all her children, we all want to be loved, taken care of equally, and live in abundance, grace, and harmony. Our Hispanic sisters and brothers are ushering in these humane values regardless of outward political appearances and there will be an inward meeting in the middle so to speak until both worlds are transmuted for the higher good of All Our Relations.

Siun #181
So well said! Bravo.

If the chimp is limp you must convict?

Only Jane Fitzgold shines out when all around is dark…

Patient and steady with all she must bear,
Ready to meet every challenge with care,
Easy in manner, yet solid as steel,
Strong in her faith, refreshingly real.
Isn’t afraid to propose what is bold,
Doesn’t conform to the usual mold,
Eyes that have foresight, for hindsight won’t do,
Never backs down when she sees what is true,
Tells it all straight, and means it all too.
Going forward and knowing she’s right,
Even when doubted for why she would fight,
Over and over she makes her case clear,
Reaching to touch the ones who won’t hear.
Growing in strength, she won’t be unnerved,
Ever assuring she’ll stand by her word.
Wanting the world to join her firm stand,
Bracing for war, but praying for peace,
Using her power so evil will cease,
So much a leader and worthy of trust,
Here stands a woman who will do what she must.

Separated afterbirth.

John “White Separatist” Gibson and someone else:

http://notes-from-the-undertow…..-baby.html

-GSD

All your lives are belong to U.S.

“We are not trying to examine an individual dwelling, for example, because what our mission is normally going to be is looking at large areas,” he said. “It doesn’t really affect or threaten anyone’s privacy or civil liberties when you are looking at a large collective area.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..spies_eyes

I feel great longing not for Clinton but for the loss of Al Gore, an absolute catastrophe in hindsight. He is a man of integrity and principle, intelligence and compassion, whatever you think of his faults, which become laughably unimportant in our present predicament.

As for Clinton being a Republican, I’m sorry but I have to protest, it is the first time I find Jane and FDL being unfair. At his core, Clinton cared about the nation and tried to do the right thing; that is why he maintained such remarkably high JAR during his lynching impeachment hearings. He tried to bring gays into the military, he tried to establish universal health care, he led a foreign policy of remarkable humanity considering our present warmongering.

To call him a republican (which I consider a 4-letter word) is to denigrate both his intentions and his real achievements. Yes his economic policies were close to the GOP, but that is the price to be paid to be able to achieve anything in this country, and in hindsight he left the country in a remarkable state of fiscal health—all of it squandered by only 5 years of GOP misrule and madness.

Sorry, but to call him a Repug is meanspirited and totally unfair.

AS Subway Serenade said:
“We are all wearing that blue dress now!”
How true how true

Alabama candidate for AG disputes Holocaust, is coming to NJ By JAY REEVES Associated Press Writer May 12, 2006, 3:56 PM EDT “BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — A Democratic candidate for Alabama attorney general denies the Holocaust occurred and said Friday he will speak this weekend in New Jersey to a “pro-white” organization that is widely viewed as being racist….” Larry Darby concedes his views are radical, but he said they should help him win wide support among Alabama voters as he tries to “reawaken white racial awareness” with his campaign against Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson….”

Left Coaster and Wolcott pointed out a while ago that the nostalgia for Clinton extends even to conservative Republicans:

“For those who don’t remember, Bruce Bartlett, was part of Reagan’s administration and has written for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the Washington Times and numerous other conservative publications. Therefore he cannot be simply dismissed as a flaming liberal casting aspersions on Bush for partisan reasons.” Bartlett’s new book:

Impostor : How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy

Here’s one little snippet:

“I think it is telling that Bush’s Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, was far better on the budget than he has been. Clinton vetoed bills because they spent too much. Bush never does. Clinton not only reduced the deficit, but he actually cut spending. Bush has increased both. Clinton abolished an entitlement program. Bush created an extremely expensive new one. One can still argue about whether Clinton was a better president or a better man than Bush, but on the budget there is no ambiguity. Clinton was much better.”

But Bartlett continues to believe that Bush isn’t a reflection of today’s Republican Party.

“I think [Republicans] will eventually think of Bush the way earlier Republicans thought of Nixon—as someone who severely undermined the party and its principles just to get reelected. Not only did Nixon come close to exterminating the Republican Party with Watergate, he put in place policies that continue to burden the economy to this day—all to win one lousy election in 1972. I think Bush and his congressional enablers basically did the same thing in 2004. Bush’s motives may have been higher than Nixon’s—Bush believes he is fighting a holy war against terrorism, whereas Nixon was simply selfish—but the results may be the same.”

More at Left Coaster and Wolcott:

http://jameswolcott.com/archiv….._quota.php

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/006689.php

Raining like crazy here in Boston…. Good day to stay in bed.

Egregious, I hope you are peeking in here. I know that the last couple of weeks for you must have been draing –both up draining and down exhausting. But I for one rather need you around. Indeed, the idea of your absence is, well, truly egregious.

Regardless of where you are now, I will deploy your name everywhere.

look what’s become of one of clinton’s stalkers:

Stalk rap for Monica prober
BY DORIAN BLOCK and JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Saturday, May 13th, 2006

A former prosecutor who investigated Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky was still a married man when he allegedly stalked his former lover in Manhattan, his estranged wife’s sister said yesterday.
Robert Ray, the independent counsel who helped probe the Clintons’ Whitewater land deal – later spawning the Lewinsky investigation – surrendered to cops Thursday.

His ex-girlfriend, Tracy Loughlin, had told police that Ray – a former GOP Senate candidate from New Jersey – had obsessively followed her and blanketed her with unwanted calls and e-mails after their breakup four months ago.

“I don’t have anything to say right now,” a shaken Loughlin, 40, said outside her Murray Hill apartment building yesterday.

But the red-haired beauty then added that Ray had told her he was divorced when they were together – a claim that Ray’s sister-in-law vehemently denied.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new…..2553c.html

Great Catch bkny
Thanks for the link.

egregious, per everyone else, I hope you come back, when you want to. I remember when you stood up for *ilson and me. I really really appreciated that.
This board is about expressing opinions. You expressed one. You didn’t lie, you didn’t cheat, you didn’t intentionally try to hurt everyone. You didn’t do anything wrong.
I suspect Jane’s response triggered some old unresolved stuff within you. Maybe your family of origin, used you as a scapegoat, a kind of soul murder of you, so they could feel better about themselves and so that the “family system” could survive. Jane didn’t do anything wrong, either, she set a boundary, that’s her job.
A book that has helped me a lot is Alice Miller’s DRAMA OF THE GIFTED CHILD (less than 90 pages). If you are seeing a therapist, I would invite you, if you feel as though it will help you, to bring this thread up. Bring the thread to the session. It takes shit fertilizer to make things grow. Perhaps by “processing” what triggered the feelings in you, you can learn about yourself.
Also, I think what everyone is telling you is that we want you back. That’s our problem. You have brought a lot to FDL, you don’t owe us anything. We all have “unresolved stuff” and it never gets “all resolved.” Progress not perfection. Per siun above, johncasper at hotmail dot com.

“you didn’t intentionally try to hurt everyone”
should be: “you didn’t intentionally try to hurt anyone.”

Late to the party but ya’ll should recall that the world loved the big dog too.

John Casper @ 283:

Oh, for the days of Bill Baxley, the AL. ag who reopened the Birmingham Church bombing case. I plan to vote for Tyson, altho he is repub. He’s not too bad; not at all shy about prosecuting white collar crime.

John Casper @ 283:

Oh, for the days of Bill Baxley, the AL. ag who reopened the Birmingham Church bombing case. I plan to vote for Tyson. He’s not too bad; not at all shy about prosecuting white collar crime.

new thread

Forgive me for the long post!
Imagine if Clinton was President and the following things happened in one week:
Only 29% of the people approved of the job he was doing.
Gas prices kept hovering at about $3 a gallon.
The DOW dropped a couple of hundred points
His hand-picked CIA Director resigned under a cloud of suspicion about illegal contributions from Defense contractor’s, and poker games, and limo’s and hooker’s (male/female?), all at The Watergate! (You’d think someone would learn not to go there and do something illegal after all of these years. I’ve just gotta rent a room there one time before I die…).
That the CIA Director’s 3rd-in-command resigned over the same matter and that the FBI, CIA, and IRS (and other acronyms) went into his home and office to see what they could find. “Dusty Foggo” – sounds like like the name of a 3rd-rate Hobbit porn star, doesn’t it?
A Congressman of his own party, the man in charge of the House Appropriations Committee, was being investigated in the same scandal.
His new hand-picked CIA Director was the guy in charge of the NSA and had been running a questionable program that was listening to US phone calls, to and from, other countries.
The President’s political advisor (Rove) was waiting to find out if he was about to be charged with outing an active covert CIA agent, who was involved in trying to find out where Iran (the new Iraq), was, in it’s effort to obtain or create nuclear weapons.
Gave a $70 billion dollar tax break to billionaire’s and millionaire’s and screwed the poor and whatever is left of the middle class.
Said his own bother would make a great President on a trip to Florida, the state where his brother is Governor.
Said, at a Medicare rally in the same state, to a man in a wheelchair, “Don’t you look comfortable?” (Whaaaaaaaat?!? Would the thought of saying that ever… even… have occurred to you)?
The NSA was found to be tracking EVERY phone call made WITHIN the US. This is the same agency headed by the guy he just tried to promote to be the Director of the CIA. (You know, not the FBI, which is actually tasked with looking within the US. The NSA and CIA are supposed to look outward; the FBI, inward Now, they ALL look inward. For whom? I’ll let you decide).
A Federal Judge, Luttig (who was one of his top picks for the Supreme Court), resigned because he felt the President screwed him on a case where he supported the administration’s ability to keep a suspect in limbo (no Habeas Corpus) and was embarrassed when the President changed his mind and tried to do an “end-around.” (This one is really good. You need to read up on it. It show’s how this mis-Administration ticks-off even the true believer’s).
His Homeland Security Department (always sounded too German to me), allowed the following to happen. Headline: “Presidential Papers Found In Trash” A public sanitation worker in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday found a thick stack of papers with nearly every detail of President Bush’s trip to Florida on the floor next to a big trash truck.” And this is before the trip! Wouldn’t the terrorist’s have been interested in that? “Heck of a job, Cheney!”
The House and Senate, that his Party controls, can’t come up with a solution to the immigration problem (a wedge issue that his own people created, thinking it would help him and his party in the polls and the upcoming elections – if we have any).
And whatever the hell else happened this week that I may have missed.
If this had happened, not in one week, but in one term, under Clinton, the Republicans would have had mobs of people in the street (it would have made the mob-scene in the original Frankenstein movie look like the line waiting to get into Studio 54, back-in-the-day). They would have stormed the White House and pulled out all of the occupants, drawn and quartered them, burned the remains, and them desecrated them in unspeakable ways…
Now, it’s just another week in the US(A)SR.
I blame this all on Mad Magazine and Alfred E. Newman.
We, have become he. “What, me worry?”
Yeah, I do…
C U N D GULAG

!ztiF

egregious ~
i was gone last night and have just spent the last hour+ reading the comments. i hope you are peeking in. I am sending you many, many hugs and warm wishes. i hope you are feeling better, and less injured. i also hope that you are taking in the care and concern that was sent your way following your last message last night.

this has been a difficult week, culminating in some pretty chaotic feelings and situations where I work, and in my own personal/private universe. it feels like many of us are floating in the same life raft. please don’t leave, if that is what you were contemplating. i need your wisdom to get through the next couple of months leading up to my son’s wedding. (i bought the shoes last week). we need your wisdom to get through the next couple of years.

take a break. that’s what i do when i feel overwhelmed – for whatever reason. i just bought a book called “Peace is Every Step”. i’m going to try toread/use it this weekend and i know it will help. (my buddhist friend recommended it to me)

if you would like to contact me, i am at lwalsh1201 at comcast dot net {{{{you}}}}

c u n d gulag~
in my town, the prices are hovering around $3.40 and clinton would have been lynched.
just sayin’

egregious ~
i was gone last night and have just spent the last hour+ reading the comments. i hope you are peeking in. I am sending you many, many hugs and warm wishes. i hope you are feeling better, and less injured. i also hope that you are taking in the care and concern that was sent your way following your last message last night.
take a break. that’s what i do when i feel overwhelmed – for whatever reason. i just bought a book called “Peace is Every Stepâ€. i’m going to try to read/use it this weekend and i know it will help. (my buddhist friend said so)
peace…

Heckuva job Tony! seriously, what was this man smoking when he said yes to this job offer………….

“In a chaotic and contentious first outing — a dress rehearsal of sorts for his first televised briefing Tuesday — Snow was asked about the Bush administration’s domestic spying program, about the reports that it had collected vast data on Americans’ phone-calling habits and whether all this would sink Bush’s nominee for CIA director.

Snow said he either could not or did not want to answer many of the questions, much in the same way his predecessor, Scott McClellan, used repetitious talking points to deflect increasingly aggressive queries from the news media.

To make matters worse, Snow’s roomy office turned out to be too small to accommodate the more than 60 reporters in attendance.”

it just gets better and better. honest to god, this administration can’t hire anyone that is competent. this man can’t even figure out how many folks will fit into his office. Helen Thomas must feel like a 30 year old!

“One problem was the morning session was scheduled for 9 a.m. (1300 GMT), was switched to 9:30 a.m., then apparently started early at 9:15 a.m.

“Well, I apologize,” a chastened Snow said. “That’s just flat my fault.”

Snow replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary about a week ago and has been boning up on issues before holding his first televised briefing, now scheduled for Tuesday.”

…….Tony spent last week boning up on the issues and he’ll spend next week getting boned by the issues. hahaha. Hey Tony, pass it over man.

“Hey, Tony,
How many jelly-beans can fit in this jar?”
WRONG! By a mile!!!
These guy’s can’t even count! Can’t we impeach them over that?
Hey, George, how may “Commandment’s” are there in the Bible you love? (And, no, George, you don’t have to take off your shoe’s).

OK, so on who handles the country better?

Democrats – 100%

Corporations (as represented by the Repukes) – 0%

egregious, Hope you are o.k. & wishing you the best of best and all good things.
cund gulag (294). Agreed. The dept of homeland security translates waay too neatly into something like: heimat sicherheitsdienst. (won’t & can’t capitalize that)Blech! It makes me cringe.

MUI,
JA!

You don’t know what good you have until it’s gone. I like Bill but I have Republican friends that didn’t but they lived making money and the way the country was going. If we impeached every President that had an affair we wouldn’t have Presidents. Now look at dumb America looks to the world. Clinton impeached for having an affair and lying, Bush stealing both elections , invading countries,tortureing prisoners, secret jails, 9 trillion debt, stealing taxpayers money, illegally spying on Americans, lying to Americans and world leaders for 5 years and killing our kids. I guess we only impeach men who have affairs not Presidents who commit 751 criminal acts.

professor rat 278 — thank you so much, that was lovely ;)

Bill Clinton was so totally not a Republican. Clinton tried (but failed) on universal health care. He did increase health coverage for kids, get vaccinations up. His economic policies were sound and for the first time in decades, unemployment for blacks dipped below 10%. Take home pay increased. With a combination of child care, EITC, raising the minimum wage, education credits and other programs, the lowest paid workers were able to do about seven times better than they were on welfare or unemployment.

In the US, benefits and standing in society are all tied to HAVING A JOB. Clinton ran fiscal policy and programs in a way that Americans had jobs to support their families. Bush presidency has been characterized by people being less able to find jobs and have jobs that can support their families. Bush is all trickle down. Clinton was all about rewarding hard work. The Democratic message should be (is) that people who work hard should be rewarded. The purpose of government is not the Bush ideal to only reward the politically well connected and wealthy Republicans.

best blog subject title EVER.

thanks, it put a rare grin on my face.

CNN is reporting that the country is growing nostalgic for Bill Clinton, probably the finest Republican president of my lifetime….

Republican? Oh! [moment of puzzlement] You know, you’re right! And this explains why my Senator coleman has switched from his perennial hard-on for George Galloway [Sen Coleman playing a real tough guy copper in those Committee investigations in the Food for Oil scandal] to having a hard-on for Hillary!

Yes, in a recent email response to me, he attempted to justify his position by suggesting that none other than Senator Clinton had voted for it, so therefore I should also support him in his ‘yes’ vote!

Maybe that could be our Favoritest Republican [DLC] Senator’s campaign sloggan:
“Time to get a hard-on for Hilary.” Think of all the Republican votes she’d get with THAT one!

Calling Bill a Republican is a convenient way to excuse all of the Dems who abandoned him early on on health care and gays in the military and other progressive issues. The guy got his ass handed to him by his own party, well before they were driven out in ‘94.

Having a Republican congress was a drag I’m sure, but at least if he didn’t accomplish liberal goals, it wasn’t because of so-called liberals anymore.

So go ahead and call him the finest Republican president of your lifetime. So long as in the same breath, you also call the ‘92 congress the most effective Republican congress of your lifetime.

Given that Dubya was going to sweep into office and restore integrity to the White House and all. It is somewhat surprising that Clinton beat Bush on that too, 46% to 41%.

And brush cutter man still has time to go WAY lower than 41%.

Can you poll in square roots?

Merriam-Webster Online Thesaurus
Entry Word: consecutive
Function: adjective
Text: following one after another without others coming in between
Synonyms sequential, succeeding, successional, successive
Related Words serial; constant, continuous, uninterrupted; ensuing, following, later, next, subsequent……………………