My understanding is that Sen. Byrd knows the rules of the Senate like the back of his hand. Is it possible that he could tie things up via the rules to actually force an end to the madness of Iraq?

I like the joke (I suppose it was) I read recently about Byrd’s age.

They say he has a personally autographed copy of the Constitution which says, “Best of luck, Bobby. — James Madison”

Also, back in the ’80s when Reagan looked pretty stupid, someone asked Byrd about being president and he said he could handle the job of being president, but that getting the job was the hard part.

Leiberman: Ahmadinejad is a ‘terrorist dictator’ with the ‘blood of americans on his hands’

His bosses might not like hearing they have a dictator for an employee.

Curiously, he mentioned ‘managers’ and I got the feeling he felt he was managed by the religious guys and that maybe even here in America that Bush had ‘managers’.

What would he think of the way Cheney has run the warring portfolio?

Eureka – exactly. The candidates need to come clean and tell us their plans. Richardson has – but crickets from Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

Back in the early 60s I started my involvement with politics as a kid working for LBJs campaign since he promised to “bring the boys home” and then he didn’t. I won’t stand for that kind of nonsense again.

Nobody knows for certain what any new president is going to do, but you can decide for yourself which ones to trust and which to disregard.

Who was it that recently said, “No money, no time-lines, no excuses.”?

…
I still kind of favor Edwards, but his health plan gives me serious concerns.

I just heard him on C-SPAN this evening in a Q&A situation with journalists. He sounded great.

I don’t know why people are concerned about his health care plan. His description of it sounded pretty good.

Interestingly, he says he considered the single-payer universal plan and his complaints with it were that it would be pretty much impossible to get passed into law and that he had heard some arguments which lead him to feel uncertain which kind of plan was absolutely best — so he’s leaving in choice, choice for the public to make based on their own needs.

To me it seems like a pretty good step (not first obviously with CHIPS and Medicare and Medicaid already out there).

And his “tough talk” on Iran as well.

Is it ‘tough’ or is he just keeping all options open?

Keeping options open isn’t ‘tough’, ’soft’ or anything else in particular.

I keep asking myself why Edwards can’t figure this out?

I know the Iran situation is on the minds of everyone here. If you plug it into the search function at FDL, you will find numerous posts that deal with various aspects and implications of the dangerous game the administration seems to be playing in the area.

You will have to ask those more knowledgeable than I to get specific answers. I have plenty education, but not much in world history or political conflict in that area of the world.
I have read enough to know it’s been hair-raising for centuries, longer than European interlopers such as my own ancestors have been spawning in the Americas.

YES the problems today are HUGE!

Yes, they need to be addressed. Fine minds are wrestling with them here, and they will be in the future.

NO I honestly do not believe FDL would be even half as effective a vehicle for quality dialogue and positive change, if they always interrupted whatever they are doing to follow every terrier down the nearest rabbithole.
Constant interruptions, after all, are one of the things damaging the effectiveness the MSM in its former role as a trusted source of news.

FDL makes its biggest impact through careful analyses backed up by precise documentation, accompanied by in-depth discussions which serve as a fertile ground for developing new ideas and approaches to solving difficult problems. Given the broad-based nature of the community, threads are indeed interrupted frequently with asides and quips and notations of important new developments, but nevertheless the basic discussion continues on. Without some sort of control, how would YOU propose filing the valuable information formulated and revealed here, so that it could be retrieved and used to accomplish something positive and lasting?

In my experience lurking and commenting here, the discussion of a particular topic is key to success in many of the threads of the blog.

If you had come forth with new information, and carried forth with notes about developing events, yes, under those circumstances, I’ve seen dialogue develop and progress, parallel to the announced subject matter on a thread.

But iirc, what you did, and apparently have done before, if I understood Siun’s comments correctly, was basically try to halt the current discussion totally with repeated comments essentially saying, “listen to me, listen to me, listen to me, my subject is more important, listen to me.” This series, admittedly exaggerated by me here for purposes of example only, gives us nothing by way of information worth totally interrupting an ongoing discussion.

If, in the future, you hear/see something supremely important and “live”, try to relate, as simply as possible, what the subject matter is, with a link to further info. if appropriate, and with an intro of “OT” so people can shift their focus smoothly from the subject on which they are currently focused.

If other people find it compelling enough to join in discussion with you on the spur of the moment, then some will. And FDL has indeed successfully carried on parallel discussions.
Many others might make a notation and catch up with your suggestion shortly. FDL dawgies are notoriously good at multi-tasking, but it’s just not suitable for everyone in every instance. Maybe they’re coping with a cranky child or boss, something boiling over on the stove or an urgent appointment, or maybe they’re searching deep in some archives to ferret out info. desperately needed for the discussion at hand.

Finally, most people here know that, these days, EVERYTHING is taped, and replayable. You may very well see a comment thread devoted to what happened today at Columbia, with all the bells & whistles appended. But that takes time, especially with limited resources. I personally am blown away by prompt, in-depth coverage of important topics here.

Since you are so rivited to today’s events (and frankly, I don’t blame you), why don’t you do some research of your own, and be ready with links to back up your statements in a discussion which is sure to come soon.

We’re figuratively all in the same boat.
If you’ll keep bailing, I promise to do the same.

Silver — who, among other things, has long been a leader in efforts to free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from prison — did not even bother to disguise the threats he was making:

As the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, prepares to address Columbia University today amid a storm of student protest, state and city lawmakers say they are considering withholding public funds from the school to protest its decision to invite the leader to campus.

In an interview with The New York Sun, the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said lawmakers, outraged over Columbia’s insistence on allowing the Iranian president to speak at its World Leaders Forum, would consider reducing capital aid and other financial assistance to the school.

Lawmakers warned about other consequences for Columbia and its president, Lee Bollinger, who has resisted campus and public pressure to cancel Mr. Ahmadinejad’s appearance today, arguing that Columbia’s commitment to scholarship requires the school to directly confront offensive ideas.

“There are issues that Columbia may have before us that obviously this cavalier attitude would be something that people would recall,” Mr. Silver said. “Obviously, there’s some degree of capital support that has been provided to Columbia in the past. These are things people might take a different view of . . . knowing that this is that kind of an institution” . . .

“It’s not going to go away just because this episode ends. Columbia University has to know . . . that they will be penalized,” an assemblyman of Brooklyn, Dov Hikind, who also attended the rally, said. The lawmaker said Mr. Ahmadinejad should be arrested when he sets foot on campus.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..source=rss

Columbia dove deep into the darkness today. One can clearly see how journalist in this country and being trained not to ask any hard questions about the I/P issue. It was crystal clear today, that one should not go to Columbia’s journalism school if you want to learn about fair and balanced reporting .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..source=rss

The war train is racing towards Iran and millions of peoples lives are on the line and it was more important on the only day that President Ahmadinejad will speak in two places about the situation in Iran and the I/P issue for FDL to focus on these other issues that will still be here tomorrow.

Folks would have witnessed first hand (and they will more than likely never watch that speech) Columbia University’s
President Bollinger bend to the I-Lobby’s will in the most disgusing way before the President of Irans speech

“Before Ahmadinejad’s address to students Monday, Columbia University president Lee Bollinger gave an introduction, which is likely to go down in history as one of the most bold and critical set-ups in modern memory. Point-blank, he asked the Iranian president how he could deny the Holocaust, why his country silences and arrests political critics, how he could excuse Iran’s proxy war in Iraq against U.S. soldiers, how Iran can excuse funding terrorism and its support for wiping Israel “off the map.” It went on and on.

At the end of his list of fact-filled questions, Bollinger said this: “Frankly, and in all candor, Mr. President, I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mind-set that characterizes so much of what you say and do … I am only a professor, who is also a university president, and today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.”

I have never witnessed anything like this happen on any University campus in 35 years.

FDL may come out tomorrow with a piece but that is not the same as encouraging people to watch those speeches as they took place.

I accept this but find it telling.