Because some poor people from the Bronx projects have managed to succeed, it's ridiculous to be impressed by any of them.Atrios: The Very Liberal MSNBC
Not even going to link to it. You can find it on Fred Hiatt's crayon scribble page.
Pat Buchanan demonstrated long ago that there's nothing he could say which would cause MSNBC to remove his cot from the green room.Atrios: The Full Wingnut This was my first thought when I heard about Pawlenty not running for re-election and probably running for president. My second thought was that our media, which has basically ignored Coleman's silly attempt to delay Franken being seated, will think that it's perfectly normal.
- Marshall: Bad News for Franken?
I hope I'm wrong. But Gov. Tim Pawlenty's (R) apparent decision not to seek reelection does not bode well for Al Franken's ability to get seated in the senate any time soon. That's because the most probable next step in the endless Franken-Coleman drama is that the Minnesota Supreme Court will rule in Franken's favor and it will fall to Pawlenty to issue the certificate of election that will get him seated in the senate. The details are sort of murky. But the upshot is that Pawlenty will likely have just enough wiggle room to refuse to do so, if he wishes, perhaps using the excuse of possible litigation on Coleman's behalf in the federal judiciary.
As long as he was going to run for governor and had to face Minnesota voters again, there was good reason for him not to completely stick his finger in the eye of the election process. But now that's not holding him back. And since he's probably running for president, he'll have tons of incentive to pander to the hardcore tea-bagging wing of the GOP and keep Franken out of the senate as long as he can.
Late Update: Several readers make the good point that much depends on just how the Supreme Court rules for Franken, assuming they rule in his favor. It's possible the Court could give quite specific instructions to Pawlenty, which he'd be hard-pressed to ignore. So the devil will be in the details of the ruling.
Josh Marshall: Khmer Rush Strikes Again
John Cole: They Simply Can’t Help ThemselvesFrom the Wausau (Wisconsin) Daily Herald ...
The Republican Party of Marathon County has stripped its spokesman of his title less than three months after he wrote a column critical of conservative talk radio star Rush Limbaugh.Kevin Stevenson said he believes his March guest column in the Wausau Daily Herald criticizing Limbaugh turned local party members against him.
"They felt I was too moderate in what I was speaking and printing," he said.
Stay classy, conservatives:
But in an interview with POLITICO, Manuel Miranda – who orchestrated the letter – went much farther, saying that Mitch McConnell should “consider resigning” as Senate minority leader if he can’t take a harder line on President Barack Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee.Miranda accused McConnell of being “limp-wristed” and “a little bit tone deaf” when it comes to judicial nominees.
Miranda, now the chairman of the conservative Third Branch Conference, served as counsel to McConnell’s predecessor, then-Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist. He left that job in 2004 amid allegations that he improperly accessed thousands of memos and emails from Democratic staffers – circumstances McConnell’s supporters recalled as they pushed back hard against Miranda’s arguments Monday.
For those of you keeping track at home, the conservative spokesperson is now using homophobic language to bully the Senate Minority Leader into fighting for the right to call a Hispanic woman a racist and to filibuster her appointment. The great conservative outreach continues unabated.
- Sargent: Leader Of Conservative Opposition To Sotomayor Was Nailed For Hacking And Spying On Senate Dems
Manuel Miranda is back!
The New York Times reports that a coalition of heavyweight conservative groups has signed a letter pressuring Senate Republicans to filibuster Sonia Sotomayor. The organizer of the pressure campaign — which has angered Senate GOP leaders — is identified as one Manuel Miranda, whom the paper only describes as a “former adviser on judicial issues to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.”
There’s a bit more to Manuel Miranda than that, however. Miranda, as longtime Congressional insiders will recall, was the GOP Senate staffer who was nailed in 2004 for hacking into the computers of Senate Dems and downloading thousands of documents relating to the strategies of Dem Senators on judicial nominations.
Miranda’s scheme — widely referred to as “Memogate” — was a big deal. A Senate probe found that many of the swiped files had been systematically downloaded “from folders belonging to Democratic staff,” with some leaked to friendly reporters. Miranda resigned, and a Washington Post editorial denounced his “political spying operation” that indicated “how low the nominations process has sunk.”
Miranda’s operation opened a rift between Republicans and conservatives. While some GOP Senators denounced the effort — Orrin Hatch pronounced himself “mortified” — conservative groups on a war footing over judicial nominations rushed to defend him.
Now Miranda is creating a similar rift between GOP Senators and conservatives as he reemerges as a leading public face of conservative groups locked in the judicial nomination fight of the moment. The more things change…
- Benen: WHO IS 'EVERYBODY ELSE'?...
Manuel Miranda, despite his controversial past, is apparently helping lead a coalition of conservatives against Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination. He spoke to a group of conservative bloggers this afternoon at the Heritage Foundation, and explained how the right could go after the judge without alienating Hispanic voters. David Weigel reported this observation from Miranda's remarks:
"Hispanic polls, Hispanic surveys, indicate that Hispanics think just like everyone else. We're not like African-Americans. We think just like everybody else. When I was on the leader's staff, someone called me once and asked me: 'What's Senator Frist's Hispanic agenda?' I said, 'low taxes, better education, more jobs ... what are you talking about?' And that's how Hispanics are. This is an opportunity to educate them on all of our issues and they will resonate in the way that they resonate with everyone else."
I had the same reaction Adam Serwer did: "What does it mean that Latinos are 'not like African-Americans' because they 'think like everyone else'? I'm interested to hear Miranda's explanation of the cognitive differences between black people and the rest of America."
There’s a very revealing moment buried in an interview that Dick Cheney gave to Fox News last night that really gives away his game plan on torture.
Specifically: Cheney seemed to edge away from the claim that the documents he’s asking the CIA to declassify will prove unequivocally that torture worked.
The key moment came when his interviewer said: “You want some documents declassified having to do with waterboarding.” Cheney replied:
“Yes, but the way I would describe them is they have to do with the detainee program, the interrogation program. It’s not just waterboarding. It’s the interrogation program that we used for high-value detainees. There were two reports done that summarize what we learned from that program, and I think they provide a balanced view.”
Bear with me here, because this is crucial. Cheney is carefully saying that the documents summarize what we learned from the overall interrogation program. Torture, of course, was only a component of that program. So he’s clearly saying that the docs summarize what was learned from a program that included non-torture techniques, too.
Here’s why this is important. It dovetails precisely with what Senator Carl Levin, who has also seen these docs, says about them. Levin claims the docs don’t do anything to “connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of the abusive techniques.”
My bet is Cheney is planning to cite the valuable intel in the docs and say that the program — of which torture was only a part — was responsible for producing it. He’ll fudge the question of whether the torture itself was actually responsible for generating that information. Cheney is as experienced as any Washington hand at using precise language to obfsucate, and this is the game plan. You heard it here first.
Ann Friedman calls on the Obama administration to put teeth back into the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act:
While FACE improved the situation (the number of clinics experiencing severe violence dropped from 52 percent in 1994 to 20 percent in 2000), it didn't succeed in ending the violence. Attacks against women's health clinics -- both those that provide abortions and those that do not -- continued throughout the Bush years. According to the National Abortion Federation, since 2000 abortion providers have reported 14 arsons, 78 death threats, 66 incidents of assault and battery, 117 anthrax threats, 128 bomb threats, 109 incidents of stalking, 541 acts of vandalism, one bombing, and one attempted murder.
Add one murder to that list.
117 anthrax threats? If those were traced to Islamists, can you have any doubt what the reaction would be?
C&L: Vote With Your Feet: Olbermann Calls for Boycott of Businesses Displaying Fox News
Susie Madrak Tuesday Jun 02, 2009 9:00am
[h/t to Heather.] On Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked about the power of words and why Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News Channel are at least partially responsible for the assassination of Dr. George Tiller. As his guest, he had author Frank Schaeffer, who wrote "Crazy for God" about his years in the religious right.
Yesterday, Schaeffer wrote a heartfelt apology apology at Huffington Post for his part in forming the anti-abortion movement. Keith contrasted his apology with the response by Bill O'Reilly, in which Billo blamed - well, just about everyone but himself and Fox News.
Keith spoke thoughtfully about hate speech and how it influences people, then posed this question:
So, what to do? Viewer boycotts mean little. You are already here. You are not watching Fox News channel. Advertiser boycotts are of limited value, most make barely a dent in a company. Besides which, in this economy, an advertiser who found its sales boosted by association with malaria would start breading mosquitoes.
If there is a solution, it is perhaps an indirect boycott. It is probably your experience, as it has been mine that stores, bars, restaurants, waiting rooms, often show Fox News on their televisions. Don't write a letter. Don't make a threat. Just get up and explain if they will not change the channel, leave the place and say calmly why it is you are taking your business elsewhere.
If you know a viewer of that channel, show them this tape, or just the tape of the attacks on Dr. Tiller that set the stage for his assassination. Fox News channel will never restrain itself from incitement to murder and terrorism. Not until its profits begin to decline, when its growth stops. So, not so much a boycott here as a quarantine, because this has got to stop.
I'd like to add that I already do this, and it really does have an impact. After all, businesses aren't going to anger the few customers they have left.
Benen: IN WHICH I APPARENTLY MAKE MEGHAN MCCAIN ANGRY...
I had an item yesterday noting that Dick Cheney's remarks on gay marriage may have a role in the party's debate over gay rights. I added what seemed like a pretty uncontroversial idea -- while Meghan McCain and Steve Schmidt were other Republicans of note who've taken progressive views on the issue, Dick Cheney has far greater influence.
Apparently, this has angered Meghan McCain in some way. She's added at least four tweets complaining about my observation. In the order in which they were posted:
# Hey Washington Monthly, so it's only important to speak out for marriage equality if your an old man?
# so I guess young women should just stfu and be seen and not heard Washington Monthly....? Only Dick Cheney should speak out...?
# I wonder if the Washington Monthly thinks if all women or minorities speak out it is "almost meaningless" - apparently only Cheney matters
# I guarantee you if one of my brothers were doing what I am doing right now the Washington Monthly would think it had meaning.
This is what I wrote that prompted these tweets: "It was pretty meaningless to hear Meghan McCain urge her Republican Party to come around on gay marriage. It seemed a bit more important when Steve Schmidt, John McCain's campaign manager, gave the GOP the same advice. But in terms of influence in Republican politics, Dick Cheney is on another level."
I haven't the foggiest idea why this seems so outrageous to McCain, so perhaps I should clarify the point further.
When the former Vice President of the United States, someone who enjoys considerable influence in Republican politics and ties to GOP officials nationwide, takes a policy position on a controversial issue, he's in a position to have some kind of impact. When a politician's son or daughter, who has never held elected office and has minimal influence with GOP officials nationwide, takes the same position, chances are, the significance is much, much smaller.
This isn't about gender or age, and I certainly didn't say Meghan McCain shouldn't speak out. I happen to think she's given her party some very sound advice, which Republicans would be wise to consider. The point, though, is that Meghan McCain, regardless of the merit of her ideas, isn't in a position to change GOP leaders' minds on contentious social issues. Dick Cheney's arguments, whether I like them or not, have more meaning by virtue of his role in national office.
Also, I don't know what John McCain's sons think about gay marriage, but Meghan McCain's "guarantee" notwithstanding, their opinions are also not significant in the larger context of Republican politics. None of McCain's sons or daughters, regardless of age or gender, are influential in shaping conservative attitudes right now.
Based on an 18-word sentence in a blog post, Meghan McCain has concluded that I only respect old white guys, I don't respect young women, and I'm somehow hostile to minorities. I still don't really know how she came to these conclusions, but I'm pleased to report she's mistaken.
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