’nuff said.

comment by eCAHNomics”

The passage of time usually sharpens our vision and allows a clearer view of past events. The passage of time also erodes the memory of the stark reality of a given moment. That erosion can mask the terrible pain of a bygone era.

Both my mother’s and father’s families were absolutely destroyed by the Depression. The totality of the destruction is almost impossible to understand at this point in time. Still less understood is the feeling of utter despair among so many people who were, as well, physically hungry. The irony of the despair is that so many people actually felt some measure of personal shame for a state of affairs COMPLETELY beyond their control. The wealthy, with whom Hoover associated, arrogantly made matters worse by taking advantage of people in desperate circumstances.

My mother had to leave school at 15 to find some way to bring a quarter or half dollar into the house. She never had a joyous teenage youth. She was one among millions.

There was no unemployment insurance, no jobs and no jobs in any foreseeable future. There was no welfare, no food stamps, no labor regulations. The lucky workers would line up in the morning outside a plant that had once employed them full time. They had become day workers and they were the lucky ones. A good employer would pay a lucky worker’s trolley fare so that he could come in on Sunday to work for no pay. And if he refused. He had no say, no power. He either donated a day or got nothing at all.

Thousands upon thousands of once proud Americans lived in makeshift shantys.

Passenger trains rolled from town to town EMPTY.

Desperate workers in Detroit. Otherwise proud, honest men stole food for their families. This was not isolated, it was widespread.

Local public servants like teachers and police officers often worked for periods without pay and the rest of the time at greatly reduced pay. Everyone who still had a job worked fewer hours and for reduced pay.

The crash hit in Hoover’s 8th month in office. Unemployment had been increasing sharply since before he entered office. In less than a year of the crash European markets collapsed and the entire economy was destroyed.

Hoover’s government did virtually nothing. The American people had been grievously impoverished and he did nothing. Stripped of dignity, pride and sustenance with no control of their lives and Hoover’s government did nothing.

Today we can’t possibly imagine what that period was like.

So today with most of the victims of the Hoover era no longer with us, no longer able to testify, C-Span2 tells us how HE suffered from nasty letters.

CRY ME A FUCKING RIVER.

From my personal observation it appears that the Clinton camp is sooo GOP Lite.

It’s like the Clinton people don’t realize that the clock has moved forward.

The Iran vote was both foolish and tone deaf. Her foreign policy advisors supported the Iraq invasion and now support the “surge.” Her FP group is part of the old FP establishment that hasn’t figured out today’s world. These clowns still have a Cold war mentality and I doubt they are even remotely capable of changing.

The list goes on and some items are quite minor. I’ve always had this chilling feeling that a child brought up in an upper-middle class Republican household, president of the Wellesley College Republicans, etc. couldn’t be trusted to be an actual Democrat. A few months ago she was asked why she had become a Democrat. Her answer had no impact, no fervor, no identification of fundamental principles. The delivery of her answer was arkward at best. She’s hired DLC and GOP types for her campaign.

What the Clinton people are missing is that at this point in history an actual Democrat has to be offered to the American people. More importantly, if a Democrat does win the White House in 2008, that president must be an obvious Democrat and must take action ASAP to demonstrate that fact. The American people must be shown the stark difference between a Republican and a Democrat in ways that are easy to understand and something the media can neither ignore nor screw-up or obvious to the people in spite of the press.

If a Democrat wins the White House in 2008 it will yield an opportunity to contrast a real Democrat against the worst president in our history.

If a DLC type Democrat wins the White House far too many people will say – there’s not a nickel’s worth of difference. That state of affairs will make for no real resolutuion of our current political state and future struggles with Republicans will be very difficult.

I’m an Edwards supporter and feel he is the most progressive candidate of the lot with the best chance to win the general.

I’ve felt since the gains in the mid-terms that the press would do its best to elect a Republican president. I’ve seen much ongoing evidence that supports that fear.

Democrats simply can’t attack other Democrats with cheap Republican style trash.

I’m not surprised that the Clinton camp did just that.

such as Obama not holding any foreign relations committee meetings since he’s been chairman,

What chairman of where?

No one gives a shit about his present votes in the Illinois legislature–he has more ability in his little finger than anyone running except for Edwards.

And as for the sexual assault victim’s name being sealed–that wasn’t what he was voting on at all during the votes for against Illinois Senate Bill 485 that would have denied time off for good behavior for certain classes of sex crimes.

What was the amendment to which Obama objected? According to Illinois SB485, it adds the following criteria for denying time off:

[…] and (4) a person who is convicted of criminal sexual assault under paragraph (a)(3) of Section 12-13 of the Criminal Code of 1961, criminal sexual abuse, or aggravated criminal sexual abuse

Illinois SB485

Bush’s cocaine use then, must have fried his brain because he’s made a real shitstorm of the years in Washington.

The Republicans will get little milage out of Obama’s use of whatever over 20 years ago, because the candidates they are fielding are the most pathtetic field in two centuries.

I fully expect the Republicans to do what they’ve been doing–slinging mud over meaningless issues, championing a unitary executive, coverying up scandle after scandle with the help of a gutless Congress, and endless deaths in Iraq.

HRC doesn’t have any significant foreign relations experience, and obviously neither did the total fuckups Rice and Bush.

HRC never asked for security clearance to read the PDBs and participated in Clinton’s presidency the way you’d expect a wife with a Yale law degree to participate. That wasn’t “foreign policy experience.”

BTW–what foreign relations group is Obama chairman of?

He’s a junior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Veterans Affairs Committee, and in 2005 and 2006, he served on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

Scalia’s puppy,

Spot?

HRC may be real on a personal level, but her political persona is highly calculated and she is the epitome of the focus group driven politician.

As she closes in Iowa, her hollow homilies sound like an eighth grader writing his first history essay. Her health plan has few specifics, and does next to nothing to take care of the 48 million uninsured or to address many of the major headaches for physicians trying to get decent care to people.

Okay to be critical of Obama’s platform, but personal issues are, apparently, off limits.

If they’re punishing Shaheen by 10-20%, then how much might they punish Hillary in NH?

Dang, this hurts. We need every single senate seat we can get our hands on, Blue Dog or not.

SCOTUSblog has displayed numerous statistical analyses over the years as have a number of other sites

It will take me a little more time than I have now to lay my hands on several studies that underscore what I said, but I will try do it over the next few days and get them to you.

22 Criminal Cases
SCOTUSblog Agreement Stats for OT06 – Agreement in CRIMINAL/HABEAS Cases: Ideology 22 Criminal Cases OT06

5-4 Decisions in OT06: Membership & Left Right Voting Patterns

5-4 Decisions in OT06 Ranked by membership in 5-4 Majorities

5-4 Decisions in OT06 Ranked by Overall Left-Right Voting Patterns

The Real Judicial Activists by Thomas J. Miles and Cass R. Sunstein