Catfish Wallow

02-09-09

Yet another skyscraper burns but fails to collapse (mcclatchydc) - Neither before nor since, only on 9/11 -- then it was 3 in one day. Amazing!

Robert Parry: GOP hypocrites were against the filibuster before they were for it (consortiumnews).
Responding to Crisis (digby) Republican supporters of $1.3 trillion Bush tax cuts in 2001 now call $900 billion recovery plan ‘too much’.
Alaska Senate finds Todd Palin in contempt in 'troopergate' (mcclatchydc) - Why incriminate yourself? Just don't show up.

U.S. Bank Failures in the Next 3 to 5 Years May Reach 1,000 on Commercial Property Loans (bloomberg) - So far it's only 34 since the beginning of 2008 (thestreet). Looking at 1000 in all, we Have a long way to go, folks.

Greenwald: Obama fails his first test on civil liberties and accountability -- resoundingly and disgracefully (salon - nytimes - emptywheel). "This was an opportunity for the new administration to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition, but instead it has chosen to stay the course. . . . It will be extremely difficult for even the most loyal Obama followers to deny that this was an active and conscious decision on the part of the Obama DOJ to embrace one of the most extreme abuses of the Bush presidency. . . . They're embracing a theory that literally places government officials beyond the rule of law." Well, here we go again.

Madsen: WMR has learned from inside sources in Washington that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has actually been sidelined in her position as secretary of state by Barack Obama’s mega-powerful chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel (onlinejournal).

A History of Violations at Ted Haggard's New Life MegaChurch (signorili - queerty) - Investigator alleges up to 10 cases of sexual misconduct on the part of Ted Haggard and that three of these involve minors. More church suppression of information.

Obama: Undermining his Own Mandate for the Sake of Bipartisanship (firedoglake) - "There is no inherent value in bipartisanship, it's the means to an end. If the administration doesn't define what that "end" is and gives the Republicans the power to determine success or failure by a simple refusal to participate, they will continue to do so."
A Place In Hell (digby) - "Just in case anyone was wondering what the effects of taking out all that silly, stimulus "pork" that was planned for the states might be, this story is a good clue."
Krugman on The Destructive Center (nytimes) - "What do you call someone who eliminates hundreds of thousands of American jobs, deprives millions of adequate health care and nutrition, undermines schools, but offers a $15,000 bonus to affluent people who flip their houses? A proud centrist. . . . But how did this happen? I blame President Obama’s belief that he can transcend the partisan divide — a belief that warped his economic strategy." - Obama is not learning from his expensive mistakes.
Why is that $50 billion radioactive antique toilet still in the stimulus bill? (smirkingchimp)

Each election cycle the Republicans trot out their fallacious arguments about the grave dangers of voter fraud (illegally casting a ballot), in order to drum up approval of their latest legislative attempts to further restrict Democrats' access to the voting booth. They try to conflate voter fraud with election theft in order to draw attention away from their real attempts to steal the elections by denying Democrats the vote and by using Republican-controlled electronic voting equipment to count and manipulate the votes. Of course the conservative-biased corporate media go along with the game because the GOP's and the corporate media's goals are essentially the same. Bush and Gonzalez fired US Attorneys who wouldn't prosecute Democrats for voter fraud just before the elections. However, those conscientious attorneys didn't prosecute because they didn't find enough evidence that the crime existed.

Voter Fraud: However, now we have one of the Republicans' own most vitriolic mouthpieces, Ann Coulter, under investigation for voter fraud by the Connecticut Elections Enforcement Commission (bradblog - harpers - thinkprogress - firedoglake) for living in New York but voting in Connecticut. This is not the first time for Coulter, either. Such a fitting representation of the real Republican Party.
Election Theft (the legal way): Mississippi Republicans Push For Disenfranchising Polling Place Photo ID Restrictions (bradblog) - This is one of dozens of ways the GOP uses to keep Democrat voters out of the voting booth.

Obama Facing Stiff Pentagon Resistance to His Iraq Troop-Withdrawal Timetable (skeeterbitesreport) - Pentagon Plans Public-Relations Drive to Force Obama to Back Down - There is no viable option. Obama MUST get in control of his military.
Greenwald: Israel poised to lurch to the right (salon) "If, as it appears, the face Israel is now choosing for itself is that of Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, then the cost to the United States of ongoing, one-sided support for Israel is going to skyrocket, and the need for serious change in U.S. policy towards Israel will be even more acute." - How far will Obama bend over for them? He's getting very good at that.
Lendman: A Short History of the Israeli - Palestinian Conflict: Past Is Prologue (globalresearch.ca)

Monday, February 9, 2009