Unfortunately, as Matthew Blake reports, it appears that new members will be selected for their political loyalty, rather than any commitment to clean elections.
Same old, same old.
Note that McCain is still committing a felony in his spending until the FEC votes on his withdrawal from public finance though.
Seriously, I’d take Jack Abramhoff, or Larry Craig, or Randy “Duke” Cunningham.
Even now, Penn is suggesting going nuclear on the nomination process.
If there is any justice in the world, Penn will be selling shoes for a living in 6 months.
Muckraked has a review of the book War Journal, My Five Years in Iraq, and we find this quote:
“This is the great war of our times. It is going to take forty years,’” [Bush told Engel]. “Bush said in forty years the world would know if the war on terrorism, and conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, had reduced extremism, helped moderates, and promoted democracy.
And he doesn’t care if it works or not, because then he’ll be dead.
If there is any justice in the world, he will die in a prison cell.
After about 56 weeks of blogging, I broke $50 ad revenue:
By this time next year, should I continue writing, I’ll be able to get a baby sitter for the kids, and take my Sharon* out to a nice dinner.
Note: this is not a request that you click the ads, though if one catches your eye, that’s cool.
*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.
No link, just heard it on Tee Vee.
You may recall that I wrote about MediaDefender’s terrorist DDOS attack on internet TV station Revision3 last Friday.
As promised, I sent Revision3 an email saying that if they wanted to sue, and set up a legal fund, I’d throw in a few bucks.
Well they got back to me, and they are not suing, at least not now.
reprinted with permission
Jim Louderback <@@@@@@@@> Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 3:24 PM
To: @@@@@@@@@Ha, that’s a good idea. Probably won’t do it, but I appreciate the thoughts!
jim
–snipped forward form support email—
—– Forwarded Message —–
From: “Matthew Saroff” <@@@@@@@@>
To: @@@@@@@@
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 12:10:55 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: Re: The MediaDefender DDOS Attack, Will You Set Up a Legal Fund?Have you considered putting up a link for a legal fund to sue those folks?
If you did, I’d throw in a few bucks.
—
Matthew Saroff
Standard Disclaimer Applies
Yadda, Yadda, Yadda, I Gotta Blog
http://40yrs.blogspot.com
For lethargy and a mild fever. He’s 90, and you have to be careful about such things.
Interesting, it appears that the US Navy, from the CNO on down, is not aggressively pushing more DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyers.
At one Congressional hearing, when asked what the DDG-1000 brings to the Navy, CNO Adm. Gary Roughead said, “is an introduction of new technologies that will be very important to how we go forward.”
That is not a sterling endorsement of a ship that will be the largest surface combatant to be fielded in a long time, it’s 80% bigger than the Arleigh Burke Class, and a quick Wiki shows that the last hull of its size was built somewhere around 1950.
If you go read the article, it appears that the Navy has no real clue as to what it wants, with fuzzy thinking on anything, whether it be more Burkes, whether the CG(X) should be nuclear powered, LPD landing ships, maritime patrol aircraft, etc.
For some reason, except for carriers and submarines, the Navy seems completely adrift (pun not intended).
Word is that he will start chemo today.
Obama missed the vote on the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, and McCain is hammering him on it.
If he had voted against it, I don’t think that it would be a big deal, but he missed the vote, and he has done so on a number of other contentious votes, the MoveOn resolution comes to mind.
If McCain hammers him on the substance, that he opposed the resolution, it shouldn’t be a difficulty, as Obama spokesperson Hari Sevugan response shows, “Instead of recognizing reality, John McCain continues to run on a platform of doubling down on George Bush’s failed policies.”
However, if McCain starts harping on the contentious votes where he did not show up, and makes his attendance an issue, it is a problem, because it strikes at the core message of any presidential candidate, that he will stand up for you.
So far, so good, but I expect this worm to turn shortly.
He is endorsing Obama, which comes as no surprise at all.
He’s been an enthusiastic Obama since before the South Carolina primary, though I understand why he held off until now, given that he is the #3 guy in the House leadership.
Well, retail gas prices set a new record high again, $3.978/gallon, making 26 new records in 27 days, and yesterday was flat, even though oil fell just under $4 to $123.99/bbl, and it’s $11.19 lower than the record on May 22.
Lehman is expected to post a loss of around 1/3 billion, and is making noises about selling more stock to raise about $4 billion in capital, which has driven the dollar down a bit.
The fact that the dollar has fallen today is odd, given that Bernanke has said that he is concerned about the weak dollar and that further rate cuts are unlikely, both of which should serve to strengthen the dollar, at least in the short term.
In the mean time the Fed shoveled another $75 billion to banks as a part of their sh&^pile for cash scheme, so perhaps someone is noticing the sound of printing presses at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing going to warp 9.
Finally, we have Thornburg Mortgage delaying its earnings report to the SEC, which in these times almost always means bad news.
I hope that Lautenberg wins, because Robert Andrews is a real faux Democrat, but it was forseeable that Lautenberg’s age would be an issue on this. He’s 84 years old.
Why the cleared the field for him, leaving only a right wing puke who aggressively lobbied for votes for every Bush war resolution, voted on behalf of big pharma, against unions in trade deals, for “defense contractor sweetheart deals for retiring military officers”, and against rolling back the Bush tax cuts. (see here)
Lautenberg is a bit too old for the Senate, and Andrews is way too evil for the Senate.
Lovely choice for NJ Dems today.
Rasmussen has Lautenberg with a significant lead, but still under 50%, which is worrying.
Let me start by saying that I am not a fan of Barack Obama. He want to the bottom of my preferred nominee list in October, so I understand the imperative that some pro-Clinton bloggers feel on this issue.
There has clearly been a lot of misogyny in the campaign, both on the part of the blogosphere and the MSM, and calling both groups out on this is justified.
Furthermore, the sort of Teflon he has experienced with the MSM is something appropriate to discuss.
That being said, there are differences in how this is handled, with folks like BTD and Jerylyn being generally fairly well reasoned and calm, with Taylor Marsh being over the top with alarming regularly, though not universally, and Larry Johnson being completely batsh%$ insane to the degree that he is quoting former Nixon dirty trickster, and wife swapper, Roger Stone.
It’s OK not to like Obama, and to see him as either weak or lacking in candor (or both).
I do, and have ever since he threw gays under the bus in South Carolina.
But this does not mean that you pick up anything scrawled on a bathroom wall, and run with it.
The leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, just held a news conference to show that he was in charge:
The impunity of Mehsud’s behavior has outraged the administration of George W. Bush, which is pressing the Pakistani government to arrest and prosecute him.
But the Pakistani government, which at times has considered Mehsud an ally and is now fearful of his power, appears reluctant to hunt him down. Days before his news conference, Pakistani forces pulled back from his realm in South Waziristan as part of the peace deals.
Yes, Bush and His Evil Minions™ are losing two wars simultaneously, not just one, as evidenced by the press conference of the man who likely whacked Benazir Bhutto.
Syria will be allowing the IAEA to inspect the site bombed by the Israelis in late June.
I’m not sure if this means that they think that they can fool the inspectors, if they have decided that coming clean is the best way to cut their losses, or if the site wasn’t a nuclear power plant in the first place.
I await the report from the inspectors.
Whatever you think of the candidates, Publius is spot on when he says that this primary season has shown that the current nominating process is completely broken.
In previous years, where you were left with what was effectively one candidate standing by the time the primaries were half over, never stressed the current system, and now that we have two very closely matched candidates, it’s showing its problems.
His first suggestion, that Iowa & New Hampshire get their “first in the nation” ticket pulled, is a good start, and probably fixes more than anything else, because it gives all the states a chance to be relevant and receive attention.
As to “rotating regional calendar”, I favor the rotating, but the regional thing I’m not so sure about. You want an opportunity for low dollar candidates to compete early.
He also suggests dumping caucuses entirely, but I’m ambivalent on this. You have to have the opportunity to measure the activist response, because these people are going to be the foot soldiers of the election.
As to killing the Superdelegates, I agree. It’s clear that they don’t work.
I would add that the option of adding some sort of “first past the post/winner take all aspect”, even if it’s only a portion of the delegates per congressional district, would be a good idea.
This time, it’s Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris, who made news last week when they announced across the board price increases, says that, “he thinks the U.S. is underestimating the level of inflation in the economy and he expects the rise in energy costs is beginning to destroy demand.”
The “demand destroying” will become even more true when interests rates finally rise.
Another part of the unsustainably low rates that created the mess that Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan made.
The New York Times notes that there is a labor shortage in Iowa, and says that, Remedies are not simple. Companies want to be in Iowa because wages are lower than elsewhere in the nation or region, except South Dakota. But low wages also drive young college graduates out of the state, especially as student debt loads have risen, and they discourage workers from other states from moving to Iowa.”
The remedy is tough to find, and in the very next sentences the source of the problem is found: there is a worker shortage in Iowa because wages are too low.
Employers are subject to the same laws of supply and demand as everywhere else.
If they want wages to be more competitive, then they need to tighten up their minimum wage laws ($300K turnover and 90 days without a minimum wage don’t help), and revoke the state’s right to work laws so that unions can organize more efficiently.
H/T Dean Baker‘s Beat the Press.
This time, it’s a $3 billion cotton subsidy dispute with Brazil.
The US claims that this does not distort world markets, which is absolutely laughable.
It’s likely that Brazil will, “target U.S. trademarks, patents and commercial services”, in terms of imposing trade sanctions.
I’m kind of hoping that they set up a Bit Torrent free zone.