Sometimes I just close my eyes and pretend that the media still plays a useful role in the republic, the Democrats are a genuine and effective opposite party, our government isn't being sold piecemeal to corporations, our elections are fair, we've got universal healthcare, and Al Gore is really our president.
And sometimes I just close my eyes and pretend I'm making out with Al Gore.
Phil Ochs was still a young man when he died in 1976. But he left a rich legacy of protest music that still impacts people today. When I was a student he I saw him at all the big protest rallies-- against the War in Vietnam and for civil rights. Many thought he was the real musical heir of Woody Guthrie. His second album, I Ain't Marching Anymore came out in 1965, just as the War in Vietnam was starting to heat up. Here's the title track. Do you have a favorite protest song of all time?
Joe Sudbay of AmericaBlog and Reverend Lennox Yearwood delivered 32,000 signatures to the FEC, cosigning the complaint filed last Thursday against John McCain and his campaign. It took three reams of paper and 1,400 pages to print it all out. This morning at a McCain event in Alexandria, McCain was introduced as a "hero" because of his work in campaign finance reform. Right. The guy who helped to write the law now doesn't want to obey it, just because there's nobody around to enforce it...read on
You can still cosign the complaint here. If you missed the story you can read all about it here. As Jane rightfully says. The law applies to everyone else---except---John McCain. I'm working on a fun little contest that I should have up and running in a few days about this very issue.
We brought you Attorney General, Michael Mukasey's tearful remarks about 9/11 and the ongoing FISA battle in Congress last week and on Tuesday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow dig deeper into what was either a series of lies from the AG or an admission of gross negligence on the part of the Bush Administration leading up to that tragic day.
Mukasey claimed that the U.S. received a phone call from a terrorist safe house in Afghanistan prior to 9/11, but couldn't trace the call because the FISA laws were too restrictive -- which is, of course, a lie. Mukasey was a Federal Judge, he knows that. Olbermann says that someone in the House or Senate needs to haul the Attorney General in and question him and find out whether he was lying to make a political point, or if the Bush administration really did receive such a call and chose not to act on it, leaving the country vulnerable to attack.
Maddow:"...Oh please, just let him have just been lying, because if he was telling the truth here, if there really was a call from a known al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan to the United States before 9/11 which the Bush Administration did not tap and trace? That is huge news and we ought to get some answers about why we were left so unprotected and surprised on 9/11. Let's hope that he was just making that up."
*On a side note, we would like to wish Rachel Maddow a very Happy Birthday!
A few months ago, there was quite a stir over whether Reagan employed a divisive Southern strategy in 1980, starting his campaign with a speech supporting states’ rights in Philadelphia, Miss. — the same town where three civil rights workers had been murdered. With that in mind, I was a little surprised to see that John McCain was kicking off a major campaign tour yesterday in Meridian, Miss., not far from Reagan’s kick-off point.
Another instance of the GOP’s Southern Strategy? It’s possible, but a closer look suggests McCain picked the Mississippi town for family-history reasons.
Sen. John McCain kicked off his “biographical tour” Monday morning, seeking to connect key moments in his life to his policy agenda. The first stop was Meridian, Miss., home to McCain Field, a naval air station named for his grandfather and namesake, John Sidney McCain, who was a four-star admiral. Mississippi is also the ancestral home of the McCain family, though as the son of a naval officer, the future senator moved frequently and had no real childhood home.
To say that McCain was laying it on thick would be an understatement. His campaign is billing this as a “biographical tour,” but if yesterday was any indication, McCain is actually making this a “look-who-I’m-related-to tour.”
Chalk this up as a win for Deborah Shank and decency... props to the blogoshere and Keith Olbermann, who hammered Wal-Mart all last week as his "Worst Person" for their shameful treatment of a former employee. We've been exposing this horrendous story for a while now.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) is dropping a controversial effort to collect more than $400,000 in health-care reimbursement from a former employee who suffered brain damage in a traffic accident.
The world's largest retailer said in a letter to the family of Deborah Shank it will not seek to collect money the Shanks won in an injury lawsuit against a trucking company for the accident.
Whatever explains Wal-Mart's change of heart, this is great news for Mrs. Shank.
"On April Fool's Day, the biggest joke of all is being played on American families by big oil," said Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.
We could be experiencing "theapocalypse" and he'd be saying that we're just experiencing some unusual weather formations at the moment. "Stay in your homes, people. It'll all be over soon!" Ali Velshi begins a segment about Big Oil being grilled by Congress today over their huge profits, tax breaks and how it's affecting Americans. We really need a right wing oil apologist on the air to muddy the waters in a time when this country's economy is falling apart and people can't pay their bills. Of course we need Corporations making money, but at what cost to the people? And how much money should they be making and how are they making it? We need the CNN's of the world to give us facts and information---not far right opinions. We almost slipped into a depression with the Bear Stearns fiasco. How's your gas bill lately? He had a lot of nerve by praising Beck's intelligence:
Velshi: The average American struggle at the pump, my next guest says---not so fast, a good deal of the American public whether they know it or not have a vested interest in big oil making big money. Headline News host and radio personality Glenn Beck joins me now. He makes a lot of sense a lot of the time, what are you talking about. Glenn. We have a vested interest in these guys making more money?
Beck: When are we going to pull Big Milk to Capitol hill. When are we going to pull up Big Egg on Capitol Hill.
You can write a transcript if you like. Yes, food is up too. Maybe the erosion of the US dollar has something to do with it? Not that I'm an economist, but again, he's trying to fog up the issue. Here's a few of the very serious and sensible things Glenn Beck has said on the air in the past that made CNN use him during their important economy show.
CNN’s Beck on wildfire victims: On the October 22 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, host Glenn Beck stated, “I think there is a handful of people who hate America. Unfortunately for them, a lot of them are losing their homes in a forest fire today.
We usually don't cover daytime TV here at C&L, but Montel Williams told the truth to conservative commentator Rachel Alexander's blah blah blah blaming the Democratic Congress for "bogging down" healthcare for veterans:
Montel will also address the ever growing problem in America of soldiers who are returning home from Iraq with insurmountable injuries and financial problems. We’ll hear from Jerry, whose vehicle was hit just before he was scheduled to return from his second tour in Iraq. After first being pronounced dead at the scene, Jerry was later revived and treated at the burn center, only to be released early due to overcrowding. How can our troops be treated like this after putting their lives on the line?
Montel particularly points out that our "reservist" President Commander-in-Chief ought to "quit turning his back on those who are doing his dirty work."
NonnyMouse sent this article from The Motley Fool UK, and while this is focused on the UK banking system, it was still as disturbing to me as the thought of Madonna trying to make an updated version of Casablanca set in Iraq (which is to say, on so many levels). But it also occurred to me that given the hyper-partisan and crony-favored atmosphere fostered by the Bush administration, this wouldn't be a completely out-of-left-field thing to be happening here in the US too, if only tacitly:
You may have noticed that, for the past few years, this website has compared personal loans. Thousands of people have used the comparison tool.
As a writer, my involvement with it has largely been limited to looking through data to see patterns in the loans market. We survey users to find out how their applications went, so that we can identify patterns and provide better guidance in our articles. We've found that, of course, sometimes people don't get the loan they apply for, or that the lender offers them a worse rate than the typical APR that was shown.[..]
However, analysing the data we've collated, it's clear that who you vote for in elections affects whether you'll get a loan with a bank. If the bank supports one political party through donations or other means, and you vote for that party, you're more likely to get a loan. If you aren't a known supporter, you're less likely to get the loan. If you're a known supporter of a different party, you're even less likely.
Also, you're more likely to get the cheapest rates (the 'typical' APRs) if you support the same party as the bank!
This has serious implications about data protection, amongst other things.
I'd be curious to know how private banks in the UK would get voter information...but it should serve as a HUGE red flag on the dangers of the Voter/REAL ID cards here in the US.
Although I disagree with Chuck Hagel on pretty much everything else, he's one of the few Republicans who actually gets it when it comes to Iraq. There is nothing more dishonorable to our troops than forcing them to referee someone else's civil war.
"What each of us in elected office, I think, have as our most important responsibility is a policy worthy of the sacrifices of these young men and women."
Although Hagel declined to endorse anyone for President, he made pretty clear that he has a huge problem with McCain's position on Iraq. Is it possible he would endorse the Democratic nominee?
We love Shakespeare's Sister because she writes posts like this:
Chalk this up as a win for Deborah Shank and decency... props 
Although I disagree with Chuck Hagel on 
