Go to hell, Harry.

Who knew Mormons could be assholes?

I’d be in favor of helping him if:

1) there is no viable Dem primary candidate to take him out

and

2) we could replace him as Senate leader.

They’re usually more assertive about it.

Hey there Doctor Evil

we desperately need to get rid of this clown

Yeah, he’s so out of character.

It’s interesting, isn’t it, that Harry wasn’t raised Mormon but converted after being raised by alcoholics and sent to college by prostitutes. He has an interesting approach to his personal history: destroy health care for all and oppose abortion.

Harry’s secret reelection strategy is code-named Preparation-H.

Harry Reid is a great Republican.

;>)

Hey, Teddy. How’s life treating you?

Not so much that – any religion can produce them – as that he did such a good job of hiding it when he wanted our backing.

I’d like to see him grovel for a while before helping him (preferably out the door).

He will never be replaced as Senate Leader until Democrats lose their majority. In the view of Senate Democrats, it’s Harry Reid’s stellar leadership that has gotten them to 60.

The only way to get him outta that chair without losing out majority first is to see him lose the Senate election next year.

He’s the best kind of Republican: he caucuses with the Democrats.

give harry hell

Oh, I meant to include the very warm welcome Harry Reid gave Arlen Spectre when he turned tail on his GOP caucus in the face of an overwhelming primary challenge in Pennsylvania, making it necessary to mount an insurgency campaign to get an actual Democrat elected to Arlen’s seat.

I am well, you?

Reid stated in an interview with Brigham Young University’s Daily Universe that “I think it is much easier to be a good member of the Church and a Democrat than a good member of the Church and a Republican.”

Pardon me while I puke.

NO
Never happen weasel! Give me one reason to help the little weasel who has no idea how to whip his troops together to defeat the Pukes. He is just a fucking wimp who has relented to every puke demand!!

Would I lift a finger for Reid, a political lightweight who sold us out more often than not? Sure. The middle one.

Ah don’t ya mean send Harry to hell?

Will you take time before and after the convention, a week perhaps to walk some dusty precincts for Harry Reid? Will you sign up to call undecided voters to help Harry Reid get elected to a fifth term?

Not. Bloody. Likely.

I would donate and door knock for a Repug to get Harry out of office. OK – that maybe a little extreme but I would like him to lose his Majority Leader title and just be another spineless Dem in the Caucus.

ding!

I’m not ready for classes to start again…other than that, fine.

I would not lift a finger to help Reid do anything.

What, you mean we’re not living in a classless society?

Every shepherd needs a flock.

;>)

Take whatever you might have given to Hapless Harry and give it right now to the campaign for marriage equality in Maine.

Time is running out to defeat the haters that are coming from Orrin’s and Harry’s states to try to halt the momentum.

Tell them Harry sent you.

Heh. Probably to the chagrin of many, I will go to NN2010.

It ain’t just about Harry.

I Will Be Loud.

White America is the most classless society on earth. :waggles eyebrows:

Anti choice Reid… That Democrat.. in charge of the Senate? Who gives a so called anti choice Dem ten million dollars!!

I’m guessing Harry will be a no-show.

Oh, and by the way, great pic of the Hapless one.

Harry Reid needs to grow a pair or he needs to go. If we can’t rely on our leadership, what good is a numerical advantage in the Senate?

You mean them guys in the Redneck Comedy Tour ain’t classy?

One can only hope…

The only good redneck comedy follows the phrase “Y’all watch this.”

Go to hell, Harry.

Well said. One that Teddy missed was Reid’s instrumental role in getting the infamous Military Commissions Act passed. It was September 2006 and the Senate had only a few working days before the elections. Rather than delaying and pushing action until after the election or to the next Congress, Reid in exchange for a few amendments he knew would go down to defeat (because the Republicans still had the majority at that time) worked out a unanimous consent agreement that ensured the MCA would get a speedy vote. This is the bit that I have often quoted from the Congressional Record for September 25, 2006:

But I also say this: I think we could work something out if we can get to the bill. When we start late in the session like this, any one Senator weighs about 1,000 pounds because any Senator can stop anything they want. So we have to make sure we can get to this. It takes all 100 Senators to agree that is the case.

Now to be fair what Reid points out is that any Senator could have put a wrench in this deal and none did. But it was Reid who went out of his way to accommodate the Republicans and make sure the MCA got passed before the elections.

Harry Reid needs to grow a pair or he needs to go.

I’m okay with that but with his build anything larger than a b-cup would be tacky.

Harry Reid is a great Republican.

Yes, as I have said before, this is the first time that both the Senate Majority and Minority leaders were both Republican.

Evening all. Personally, I am ready to give money to any real Democrat who will primary Harry “Jellyfish” Reid.

The cross-your-fingers bra: legislates, lifts, and separates.

Hey, Rev, are you home safely from the shindig in Pittsburgh?

Who puts a forced-birth proponent in charge of the Democratic caucus in the Senate?

Oh, he was very happy to welcome us to the Riv. I hardly expect him to skip the Rio. I imagine it puts the organizers in a bit of a bind.

The Democratic caucus in the Senate.

This has been another episode…

go home harry. its time to retire harry. I have great faith in netroots progressives ability to root out and replace corporate fossils like harry reid, because this isnt a short term thing. progressive activists’ time, hard work and money have created this democratic majority, we have to be a great deal more selective about who we put in there. i hope theres a general walk out for harry reid at the convention

I wonder why he isn’t a Republican.

And why he doesn’t have a decent GOP opponent yet; reeks of Connecticut in 2006

gonna be awkward when he is introduced and there is total silence instead of welcoming applause.

You thinking there wouldn’t be any boos?

I think the Reid machine will likely pack the house; his son Rory is running for Governor next year as well. Imagine — a father & son on the same ballot, for the two highest offices in the state.

hmmmm reid and lieber-liar are buddies…

The Democratic caucus carcass in the Senate.

Fixed it. Also explains the fetid aroma in the chamber.

I’ll be there, and so will you; boos guaran-damn-teed.

We need to primary the hell out of all of these people. I think we have Dean on our side, so there is some institutional support there.

we will have the house odds

Not to mention the “Fuck yous!” and the flying crockery.

I wonder just how serious Dr Dean and his brother, who heads DFA, are about primarying some of these jokers. And who is gonna primary the big kahuna in 2012?

I think at this point I’d support throwing everybody out of DC and starting over from scratch.

Reid isn’t really much different than Daschle was as majority leader. Democratic senators seem to favor those who know the rules inside and out but let themselves be weakened and pushed around by them. A good leader would know the rules inside and out and use them to strengthen his caucus. I guess it’s easy to avoid responsibility when you can claim “the rules are the rules, just following them.” Bah.

i think silence is a much more effective weapon… silence and laughter

Not sure, but he sounded pretty serious when he said that anyone who votes against the public option “will” be primaried.

So why did Reid get such a warm welcome at YK?

No waving of naughty parts? Damn, that puts the kibosh on my act…

I am not quite ready to go that far (a few are at least educable), but we definitely need a good house cleaning. You are either a progressive or you are history.

I really don’t expect him to lead the charge.

i don’t think he knows how to deal with silence… he rambles to fill it. it would put him off his game

Pretty much moot if there is no public option in the forking bill as it is presented for voting.

I’ve been wondering that too. Not to say someone will, but someone could. Ted Kennedy did Carter, and people always point to that as ushering the Reagan years, but Carter couldn’t have one anyway, what with the rat-fuck set up of Iran. I remember those days clearly.

But these days? I couldn’t begin to guess. You’d probably get my lovable little nerd Dennis K in, but I don’t know who else. Depends how long Rahm is COS, and then what the make up of whatever remains of the true liberals are post 2010. It’s all maddening.

I hear Harry is terrific at karaoke (I’d love to teach the world to sing…).

You’re exactly right; it’s a negotiating tactic. After one counters an offer, the first party to speak LOSES.

And Harry always fills the gap.

Hell, based on his performance in the Senate, he doesn’t know how to deal with anything.

Yep. I had a train ticket for tomorrow but Cabin Girl from Booman Trib gave me a ride. She and Booman had both driven on separate days so had 2 cars and room to spare. Besides we had lots to talk about. They live about 20 minutes from me.

Really tired. Need to get some sleep. Back to day job on Tues. Lots to do tomorrow.

It wasn’t the Kennedy challenge that killed Carter’s chances, although it was certainly the Carter surrogates frequent mention of Chappaquiddick that killed the Kennedy challenge.

The economy was lackluster during Carter’s term but the Iranian hostage crisis was what really nixed his chance at reelection. They all came home alive though, which was a good thing in my opinion.

G’nite, RevDeb.

Yeah, I gotta say that the thought of helping Harry Reid isn’t much incentive for showing up there. Will anyone be giving away iPods?

The first real iteration of the “Dems are soft on defense/foreign affairs” meme.

Not sure about that. After all, Scrapple was almost warmly welcomed on Friday by the crowd. We were much too polite. Liberals in general are.

But by next year at this time, Harry won’t be able to show his face anywhere at the rate he’s going.

g’nite revdeb

Right, but I remember that’s when Ted Koppel and Nightline fostered and began the new 24 hour news cycle. Carter didn’t stand a chance.

And I’ll never forget the afternoon of Regan’s Inauguration when the Iranians let the hostages go free. It totally smelled as a set up against Carter, and once Iran-Contra became news, I was sure of it.

thanks for the push . . .

g’nite all.

wasn’t trying to push – thought you had said your g’nites revdeb :)

I think like a lot of us, the Iranians might have been concerned that Ronnie would do something stupid and get everybody killed. Mainly though I think the timing was intended to humiliate Carter in retaliation for his and previous administrations support of the Shah.

Carter was certainly the most intelligent President in my lifetime, but the machinations of the James Baker/GHWB team during the hostage crisis made it impossible for him to succeed. If that story was ever completely known, I am sure it would result in treason trials for the principals involved. You just can’t negotiate with a foreign country, especially one holding American hostages, behind the back of the President of the United States.

And that’s exactly what James Baker III did, imho.

Sorry, didn’t mean to be pushy.:)

yeah they cared nothing for american politics and made no moral distinctions between carter and reagan. they were exerting what power they had.

There have been serious allegations that Reagan negotiated a secret deal with the Iranians before the election.

Probably the most fundamentally decent and moral as well.

Sure, I’ll be willing to help him out. Preferably in the middle of the desert with no water and no cell phone. I’d even hold the door for him and give him an assist with a Tony Lama in his butt if he needed it.

I don’t understand why the Nevada GOP is having such a tough time finding an opponent for Harry Reid. The Lite-guv was indicted, the Guv probably will be, Dean Heller took himself out and so did ex-Rep Jon Porter. And this is with Harry’s approval numbers near 40%. Even the unknown GOP state chairwoman polls ahead of him in a party-sponsored poll.

And why isn’t that nice Jack Carter primarying him, I wonder? He certainly impressed me at YK, and he owes Harry Reid nothing; Reid never lifted a finger to help Carter when he ran for Ensign’s Senate seat. Reid and Ensign have a deal not to speak ill of one another, ever — Reid beat Ensign by less than 500 votes a coupla cycles ago, and since then they’ve been real buddies.

They were evil bastards. I recall an episode of Frontline that suggested the Carter Admin was close to finding out who was responsible for murdering those nuns in El Salvador and one of Ronnie’s first acts as president was to pull the plug on the investigation. IIRC, Frontline also said the two Salvadoran generals now known to have given the order are retired and living in the U.S..

wouldn’t surprise me at all – given the ends justifies the means win at any cost strategy of the r’s it would be more surprising if he had not

I’ve always had the notion that Carter was TOO intelligent to be an effective president. Too often we have leaders who see the world in black and white but Carter perceived so many gray areas that it created the impression that he was indecisive.

The Nixonian legacy. The bastards can say what they like, but the modern Republican party is the bastard child of Goldwater’s far right psycho policy agenda and Nixon’s dirty tricks politics.

Not all that different than Nixon’s sabotaging the Paris Peace Talks in ‘68.

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Too decent as well. At heart, you have to be a bit of a bastard to really be effective in politics (see LBJ).

What you might call a “family” tradition (as in the Gambino Family).

exactly

Oh great, I’ll get epu’d. Reid is a wuss.

Really surprising someone lacking a heart of darkness could attain the office. He probably wouldn’t have had a chance if the Republicans hadn’t self-destructed, much as they did in the years preceding the last election.

LOL…. naw, the tech crew should have us back up way before late late nite posts – you won’t be epu’d due to the tech work

Yeah, I think even some Republicans had a problem with the whole Watergate melt down Ford’s pardon.

Think I’ll retire before the techs give me the bum’s rush. Splendid evening to all.

A break! That’ll give me time to think of something thoughtful, rather than just belching whatever out of my mind, depending on the last comment I saw! [whew!]

Adios RF!

See y’all on the other side….

g’nite ratfood

wonder if toilets across america will all be flushing at the same time

Hey, there, stick around, we’ll be back soon….

Night, rf.

Are we back yet?

that didn’t hurt too bad

Sort of what my friend said after his colonoscopy.

now where were we

oh yeah

harry’s gotta go

Soon.

You know what they say:
If you can’t say anything good about someone, don’t say anything at all.
The best I can say about Harry is … nothing.

Wee! Love those Time Warps!

OK, yeah Harry’s Gotta Go.

I love how you just don’t miss a beat. I really do. I envy your equanimity. :)

lets do the time warp

The Republic may not survive his indifference and ineptitude. At least not with the howling lunatics who have taken over the Republican Party. We really need an LBJ to kick ass and grab ‘em by the short & curlies.

Doing it! Remember, before I cam out to my real name I was the “Unconventional Conventionist” :)

at least lbj was pretty forking clear to mlk in his make me do it. we don’t even get that.

Or, as I think Alice Longworth said : If you can’t say anything nice, come sit by me — or close to it…

Jack Carter can’t shake the stigma of being a carpetbagger. Plus his family name really doesn’t play at all in the Republican counties, and frankly even with a registration edge we need the crossover votes.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley is going to battle Rory Reid. Ross Miller (former governor Bob Miller’s son) has really not indicated he wants a higher office. State Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford is still too much of an unknown.

Seriously, the Republican bench is weak but ours isn’t much better.

If the Tony Lamas go missing, I have a pitchfork, It’s decked out with lots of red-white-and-blue ribbon: nice and patriotic looking, for when we have to take some DINO out of town on a rail.

And he had the balls to do it. He could be a right bastard at times and the whole Vietnam thing sucked pig’s ass, but he did the right thing on civil rights at the cost to his career.

My mama always told me to say what you mean and mean what you say. She also told me that other thing, but I ignored that.

Howdy folks.

Is Teddy still here?

If the aggie is not around to do it, I have several pairs all polished and ready to apply what we used to call “the Okie enema.”

OK, I’m going to risk wrath here.

I think Obama “won’t do it” by which I mean he won’t totally challenge the status quo, even though he SEEMED like he wanted to because of this:

He does not want to be equated with the Angry Negro. This is a frame/meme that he feels is death to any agenda he wants to have.

My point is, look, the Right is doing it ANYWAY! They’re just not calling it that. They’re saying “Socialist” and “government run” and “I want my country back.”

So get out there Obama. Just push it. If we don’t have your back, nobody does, and if that’s the way you’re going to govern, all wishy washy and shit, well, nobody has your back.

Just be real and you could make the change; which so far, you haven’t.

In my opinion, if the Senate Minor Majority Leader bothers to show up next year, the appropriate response at his speech would be to turn our backs to him.

yup – thought you would get a kick outta that

Heh, heh, DrDick,
My NY Mom had lots of advice, too. And I love her for it.

Kelly,

Dr. Dean had it absolutely right when he said that the public option was the last vestige of reform in this whole thing. If Obama really backs down on this, we aren’t getting health care reform in any way at all. And we ought not allow them to call it that.

And indeed I did/do – “It’s just a jump to the LEFT!”

Hey BCT – totally agree.

I really think it goes to the fact that he is by nature a moderate centrist. I never really believed he was going to make any radical changes, though I had hopes that he would tweak some things around the edges.

Yep.

at least lbj was pretty forking clear to mlk in his make me do it. we don’t even get that

I am wondering what Obama thinks 76% of the country wanting something means. If that doesn’t make him move in a certain direction I don’t know what would.

Liked when the DC students did that to Gonzo. Very effective display of venom.

Exactly. Only in a nation jerked hard to the right by Reagan –> Bush I –> Bush II could someone with Barack Obama’s record run as a liberal.

Time for me to toddle off. Take care all and fuck Harry Ried and the rest of the do nothing caucus.

He is not much to the left on most issue than Ford or even Nixon.

g’nite dr dick

Just a step to the right….

The thought was inspired by student section behaviors at Pauley Pavilion in the mid 70s when I was a student there.

Sometimes it was reading The Daily Bruin, and now they apparently have catcalls (”Who’s he?”, “So what?”, etc.) now.

I like the idea of turning our backs — it says everything that needs saying.

I skip right over that and put my hands on my hips… :)

There are so many newcomers to Nevada I never really understood the carpetbagger charge against Carter. Lotsa people there aren’t from there, and pretty recently too.

I am here

Nixon was actually a moderate on most social issue, especially by comparison to the current crop of Regooplicans.

Me neither.

Do they need 90% of the country to do something? Because they won’t move on anything in the seventies: the public option, repeal of DADT, etc.

Oui – “shunning” in it’s truest sense.

I just tried “shun.org” and it doesn’t appeare to be taken. Howzabout we snag it, and make it work for us?

Good lord, Nixon put wage and price controls on, opened the door to China, met with Brezhnev and appointed moderates to the Supreme Court. That sounds just like today’s Democratic officeholders to me.

The next step for progressives is to intentionally inflict Democratic damage. That means we must ensure the loss of some Dinos.

We can afford it; 60 senators isn’t doing us much good. If we had Russ Feingold (not gonna happen, but, arguendo), we could get everything done with a simple majority, because Russ knows how and believes in fighting for real progressive values.

There are six decidedly Blue Dog Dem senators up in Nov., 2010. They are

Bayh—-IN
Inouye–HI
Lincoln-AR
Reid—–NV
Specter-PA
Wyden–OR

Bayh is probably going to run for governor; Inouye may well retire; Specter already has a good primary opponent in Rep. Joe Sestak.

If we send money to Sestak early (per Emily’s List, early counts big), we might be able to get him over the hump that is PA Gov Rendell and POTUS.

And we should simply give money to Lincoln’s Repub opponent, whoever it is; likewise, Reid and Wyden, because we want those Dems to lose, so that other Dems begin to fear crossing us.

Power yields nothing without a demand. Let’s get rid of those folks it costs us nothing to lose.

I need some explaining sometime about why Lane Hudson’s outburst in Pittsburgh got the support it did in the GLBT community.

Are these meetings qualitatively different from other gatherings of interest groups? I’ve been in the chair a couple of times at professional meetings where outbursts like that occurred. I was warned in advance of the possibility, and shut it down immediately. In one case, I had to have the heckler removed.

I don’t think Hudson’s action was correct, but it seems the GLBT community does. And the support’s pretty vehement. Can you help me understand?

The LGBT community is not united in its support of Lane’s action; far from it. But he is a highly respected activist and blogger, and criticism has been quite muted because of that. Many people do not agree with what he did, but those of us who support him have been more vocal.

History isn’t made by well-mannered women, or men either.

Inouye is older than dirt. He was a congress critter when I was in Elementary School. I remember him coming to Ewa Beach Elementary when I was a student there.

The thing to do is get the Hawaiian Democratic Party to put up someone with serious liberal cred. The worst thing that could happen would be for Dan Inouye to go home in a box. The current Governor is Linda Lingle, a Regooplican.

History isn’t made by well-mannered women, or men either.

True, dat.

Let Linda appoint a Republican!

You’re missing the point.

We must abandon a few Dino’s seats.

Also, did you read Lane’s open letter to President Clinton, here? He explains that he was not asking the question Bill Clinton answered; he was asking for support for repeal going forward. Bill responded (yes it was a yelled interruption, and I don’t fault him for not hearing or answering what was asked) about his decisions back in the nineties.

Just for the record, I think a speech without a Q/A session in that sort of setting was bullshit.

I did not, in my original post suggest trying to get good Dems nominated to replace Dinos; they can and will promise anything.

My point is that we need to knock off Dinos; if Inouye runs, let’s defeat him.

Look anything like this? (on a smaller scale)

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1730

No, I haven’t read it. But I will.

I’ve stayed away from the Lake for a few days after getting my head handed to me in that thread. I actually thought seriously about not coming back at all.

I love it.

Let me add a thing, but not to speak for TP:

I thought it was thin ice to say “since it appeared a one way street, to talk to us, rather than dialogue” as an excuse for Lane. Fergawdsake it was a keynote address! I would not expect it to be 2-way.

That being said, why not just cop to it (Lane) and say “I refuse to be quiet and sit there; I am ACTING UP and I want an answer.”

IMO, Lane was being serious, but doesn’t want to be taken unseriously, in the Villager sense, so he concocted a reason.

Screw that. Get all yer volume on and go with it. Spine Counts! And I’m glad he had some. Politeness ain’t exactly working…

Nevada is a very odd duck when it comes to this sort of thing – despite having one of the highest rates of population turnover in the nation, it seems like you can’t make it big in politics here if you don’t have “roots” (or can at least fake it like W did).

Hell, Dina Titus still gets tarred with the carpetbagger label even though she’s lived here over three decades because of her Georgia accent.

But why Clinton? He’s not a policy maker any longer. How much influence does he wield in the corridors of power?

If I can get to Vegas next year, I’ll gladly turn my back on Harry Reid. I’ll even look for a tee shirt with some pithy message for the jerk.

Well, because Clinton was keynote, and didn’t appear to be addressing the issue of DADT and DOMA, which are giant headaches for both Lane and me. So why not?

As to what Clinton is supposed to do about it; nothing, but be an advocate, which Lane got him on record as opposed to DADT and DOMA.

This episode really should be played out with Obama, and directly, without being necessarily polite.

This episode really should be played out with Obama, and directly, without being necessarily polite.

Impolitesse toward Obama is a completely different deal. Those who wield power should never forget those whose lives they affect.

I hope my arguments weren’t part of the head-handing. Your voice is very valuable here; I certainly wouldn’t want to lose it. But I do recall it being a heated discussion.

Civil rights, and civility, almost always prompt heated discussion hereabouts.

I’m glad you are back. Been there.

The liberals need a leader. When they get a leader, things will change. Till then, nothing will happen.

In 2010 attendees at NNN might want to do a little volunteering for Reid’s Republican candidate. Better to vote for real Republicans that at the least have principles and are willing to fight for them than spineless, unprincipled and thoroughly compromised Democrats.