I hope to see more input from you in the future. Am I mistaken, or have I seen your handle in the comments on some of the other progressive blogs? If so, or even if not, there’s no reason to ever be shy about piping up here.

Again, kudos to you, friend.

There is more recent speculation that Feinstein is being blackmailed by the White House. The suggestion is they have information via NSA on her. Now there’s an irony, in light of her preferences wrt warrantless wiretaps.

Quite frankly she’s just another Blue/Bush Dog when you look at the entire record from the 2002 go ahead to wage pre-emptive war on Iraq, downward to the present.

Note that the article said that DiFi and Klein
claimed
there was a Secret Senate Ethics ruling, but refused to produce it. The ruling, if it exists, came from the GOP dominated ethics committee.

alank, selise, toby martin, Thanks for making me feel so welcome. Sorry to leave the thread for so long, but responsibilities called. I’ll pipe up again.

The article again is Senator Feinstein’s Iraq Conflict and the link is at the beginning of post #154. Good night!

But then, he probably won’t.

I seem to remember Bush cutting a deal with Democrats in the Senate, a deal stating that Bush wouldn’t make any recess appointments during the August break…if Democrats would let some of his worst nominations be voted on by the full Senate.

When this “deal” is viewed in conjunction with Specter “turning” Feinstein and essentially stabbing Leahy in the back, one can see a concerted strategy being applied to get some of the most corrupt Republicans possible onto the federal bench.

It just boggles the mind that Democrats in Congress don’t grasp exactly what the nature of the evil is that they face, an evil that will haunt our nation long after Bush and Cheney are gone. Just look at Alito and Roberts and all the lies they told to get placed on the Supreme Court.

Street Smart, you went from lurker to hero in one giant step.

Christy, I sure hope you are getting this.

Christy, my dear, won’t you please do the same re the Metroactive article? The best antidote for the possible blackmail scenario is to out all the secrets, loudly and aggressively.

Leahy needs to turn on Specter. Period.

Don’t blame the Repubs for acting like snakes. That’s what they do.

Ask DiFi why she changed her vote?

I like Edwards, Kucinich, Richardson, Dodd and most other Democrats. And of course Gore. There are perhaps 4-6 Dems I don’t care for.

Most of the Blue Dogs are in states where Republicans frequently win state-wide offices. Whether they fear taking more Progressive positions or are really Conservatives isn’t always clear.

Democrats who stand out as being different, as the Blue Dogs do, are really the odd-balls, the 3rd party. Some of them may even be Republican plants.

It’s assumed Dems will win a lot of seats in Congress this time, so it might be safe to assume some of the Blue Dogs are really Republicans in sheep’s clothing.

Given that, we can take their votes to organize the majority, but we should look at them askance and not ever count on them…for anything. Remember how they’ve tried to piss away the Constitution with the FISA vote? Did any of them vote to allow torture? How many in the Senate voted for the AUMF which more-or-less authorized the war in Iraq?

We have some good Dems in Congress, but not nearly the majority we deserve. The American people know who butters their bread when it comes to governance, we just have to win elections better and try to get better Progressive candidates into office instead of letting business always win by putting more money into Republican or Blue Dog campaigns.

We may be trying hard for Edwards or one of the other Progressive Dems, but we should really work hard to get more Progressive Dem legislators in Congress. That’s the purse strings and the legislative force.

Christy re 160:

Considering the discussion above, I think there is a possibility which involves no bad faith on the part of you or your sources. Remember that one of Rove’s favorite tricks is the dissemination of rumors. He used to spread rumors about his opponents through a law school in Texas, and they would pop up all over the state. None of the people he slimed could ever trace it back, remember?

If the GOP is blackmailing DiFi with a corruption investigation and uproar through the Mighty Wurlitzer, they would have to come up with a cover story when the DFH started getting excited. Perhaps someone very chauvinistic came up with this as a cover story and saw that it was rumored far and wide on Capital Hill, knowing that someone would post it on a blog. It gets to you, it gets distributed, no problem. DiFi’s not running again, she doesn’t have to care what is said in Left Blogistan. She just has to keep her mouth shut, vote as she’s told, and exit to a graceful retirement, dishonor averted.

This would be just the kind of cover story the GOP would come up with. Not only does it reflect their own prejudices, but it may reach people who are predisposed to accept the line that women are too vain and egotistical to be trusted in higher office. (Hillary’s “fatal flaw?)

If I am correct, DiFi is a boil we must pop.

Or maybe I should just loosen the tin foil hat.

Agreed, that there is another angle being missed by misconstruing Difi’s motives or sensibilities via whatever the ultimate source of the meme was.

Christy:

You can’t see the forest for the 5 trees. This sexist angle is the red herring, not my pointing it out.