John McCain in his own words:
This is how you run against a war-monger. This is how you attack his supposed strengths. The American people are done with this war, and they are most certainly done with this disastrous, draconian, oppressive Republican mindset. McCain, Mr. 26%, and the rest of their Republican party are dinosaurs, awaiting extinction. War is not the answer, no matter how valiant and virtuous they paint it.
Good luck with that in November? Exactly.
On the Iowa caucus, and the inescapable fates of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani, and with them the Republican party at large, Josh Marshall saidbest:
The truth is that the Republican party tonight is in complete disarray. The best financed candidate just fell on his face. Their big winner of the evening is opposed by almost the entire establishment of his party. The frontrunner of recent months is lost down in Florida shakily repeating ‘9/11’ under his breath like a hobo who needs a stiff drink.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of guys.
In a post on Daily Kos that I wish I would have written this afternoon, David Sirota furthers my point about the uniquely and deeply disruptive progressive populism of John Edwards:
We are at a historic moment right now — and I say that not in the way the Monday Night Football-mimicking political media bills every single election as “the most important election in our lifetime.” I say it because I believe America is, for the first time in many generations, starting to think in terms of economic class. Put another way, the battle between Democrats and Republicans is being superseded by the battle between The Money Party and The People Party. How this new class awareness manifests itself in one election cycle is far less important than the fact that awareness is rising at all.
This, beyond everything else, is the storyline that will never be written by the Beltway media — because class awareness among the masses is something that threatens the powers that be. The system in Washington is set up to crush class awareness and solidarity among the masses — to break us up along racial, ethnic, geographic and religious lines so that we do not unify in support of an economic agenda based on fairness and equality. This Washington system exists, ironically, to preserve a well-coordinated class war being waged by an economic class very aware of itself — a class war by the wealthy against the rest of us. This may sound like hyperbole, but polls show most Americans know this is the undeniable truth. And no matter whether your personal preference wins or loses tonight in Iowa, We The People have already won, because class awareness and class-based politics is on the rise. [my emphasis in bold]
I am pleased that Edwards fared so well tonight, holding his own against two extremely well-funded opponents. I remain ever hopeful about his prospects in the coming weeks, as I believe Barack Obama clearly benefitted from having Independents and Republicans vote for him in Iowa (not a complaint, just a point to keep in mind). Edwards’ continued viability will take his message to more and more people, and force Obama and Hillary Clinton to sharpen their rhetoric as well.
Beyond that, I am even more heartened by the overwhelming enthusiasm and support for our Democratic candidates:
Percentage of total vote:
24.5% Obama
20.5% Edwards
19.8% Clinton
11.4% Huckabee (R)
No matter who gets the Democratic nomination, America is clearly over the unscrupulous and overly sanctimonious Republican party. That to me is the greatest victory of all.
So said Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL) to John Tanner, the man in charge of voting rights in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, last week in a hearing on Capital Hill.
This simple rebuttal was in reference to Tanner’s appearance before the Georgia NAACP where he actually said “because our society is such that minorities don’t become elderly. The way white people do. They die first.” More importantly, Tanner’s statement follows years of advocating for a law requiring a photo ID to vote, which was clearly designed to disenfranchise elderly black voters in Georgia. So when Tanner finally appeared before his committee, Davis wasted no time in exposing his utter idiocy and willful ignorance:
Other money quote, “once again you engaged in an analysis without knowing the numbers.”
I point this out not because it’s amusing (though it clearly is), but because Davis’ levelheaded, unemotional, and irrefutable line of criticism and questioning is the perfect tonic to the past seven years of faith-based fear-mongering. This is precisely how you defend the truth against the Bush administration’s known proclivity to fix facts “around the policy.”
Why we as people aren’t more forceful in the prosecution of bald-faced lies is beyond me, but if there is one lesson I hope we learn from the Bush era it’s this: we cannot afford to let these little lies and even bigger crimes against humanity go unpunished, for every day that passes without a sound provides more cover to their actions and legitimacy to their deeds. We must work day and night to expose every falsehood and fraud perpetrated by these mendacious criminals, and enlist friend and foe alike to turn back their massive onslaught against what is fair and right.
To do any less is to concede that all is already lost.
Let’s see. There’s the iPhone. Granted, that’s almost entirely Apple, but they did need a carrier for the first version, and Ma Bell stepped up. Then there’s AT&T Park, one of the most picturesque ballparks in America, in spite of being home of the woeful San Francisco Giants. And now there’s a fresh batch of Wes Anderson directed commercials, thanks to goldenfiddle from kottke for the tip.
I heard one of them in the background yesterday, but didn’t catch the video, only the story-line and absurd amalgamation of cities and places at the end. All in all, very clever, but nothing without the trademark Wes Anderson seamless movement from scene to scene to pull it all together. Roll the tape:
Typical Wes Anderson brilliance.
As for the dark side of AT&T, see the inimitable emptywheel Marcy Wheeler, at The Next Hurrah for a quick rundown:
Back in June, the Bush Administration invited one of AT&T’s key lobbyists, Ed Gillespie, to serve as White House counselor. A few weeks after that, BushCo expanded AT&T’s resident lobbyist’s role to include most of Karl Rove’s portfolio. Just days after Gillespie took over that role, the DOJ made an unusual intervention into the FCC’s request for comments on Net Neutrality, weighing against Net Neutrality.
Well today, one of AT&T’s former key attorneys, Peter Keisler, just took over the Department of Justice.
…
Basically, Bush just gave AT&T the ability to have its long-time lawyer give it legal authority to collaborate with the government to spy on citizens.
And in case you’re worried that AT&T is stuck with no good legal representation, having lost Keisler, rest assured. You see, former Associate White House Counsel Brad Berenson (who also happens to be Kyle Sampson and Susan Ralston’s lawyer) has taken over for Keisler and is working on the AT&T case, among other things.
Reaching back a week for this gem, on the matter of our esteemed former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and his desperate attempts to bury the warrantless domestic spying fiasco:
And finally, it adds another reason why telecom companies are anxious to get immunity for their work on the Administration’s warrantless wiretap program. That’s because some of that wiretapping was based on analysis the telecom companies are already doing on us.
…
You see, when these lawsuits go forward, we’ll have a sense not just of how the telecom companies are complicit in the government’s spying on us—but how much they’re already spying on us, anyway.
Luckily, all of AT&T’s and the Bush administration’s “alleged” efforts to spy on their customers and citizens takes place just right outside my front door at 611 Folsom Street. Thanks, fellas. I feel much safer already.
