Posts from — June 2007

CNN is reporting: Bloomberg drops Republican affiliation

WASHINGTON (CNN) — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg changed his party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated Tuesday, a move that will surely increase speculation he is considering an independent White House bid.

But Bloomberg, who has repeatedly denied he is planning a run, said in a statement his future plans haven’t changed.

He wasn’t much of a fit for the Repubs anyway, so if he is interested in even statewide office, he had to get out from under the mantle of the GOP. He’s a billionaire, so running as an independent isn’t out of the question.

Update Yellow Doggerel Democrat in comments:

So it’s Tom Ravenel
Dragging Rudy through hell,
Not the sort he likes sharing a fetter with.
Rudy knows it’s no joke
Because this kind of coke
Is not really the kind things go better with.

– SB the YDD

Via CBS an Associated Press report: Politician Charged With Coke Distribution

(AP) South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury for distribution of cocaine.

The indictments accuse Ravenel and another man of distributing less than 500 grams of cocaine starting in late 2005.

…

Thomas Ravenel is the state chairman for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

Ravenel is Rudy’s kind of guy, just like Bernie Kerik. It’s a problem when you’ve been a prosecutor, you meet all of these people and it’s not always easy to remember where. Maybe he needs index cards to keep the good guys and bad guys separate. There was less than half a kilo of Colombia’s major export involved, so he wasn’t a major player, but when you’re the state treasurer people get nervous.

I took my Mother to the airport this morning so she could visit her newest great grandchild and the brain trust that is TSA apparently confiscated her jello and chocolate pudding. They were the individual-sized containers in her lunch bag, and they took them.

As her plane was an hour late taking off and they have changed her reservations on the fly, I’m already contemplating having to arrange bail before this trip is over. She has lived through the Depression, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and now she is being asked to put up with the Shrubbery’s stupidity. I’m waiting to hear that she has beaten someone to a pulp with her cane. A wonderful woman, but there is a limit to her patience.

After the drubbing the so-called “conservatives” took in the 2006 elections, a number of the “honest conservatives” suddenly discovered that the Shrubbery wasn’t really a conservative. The problem they face is that if they don’t separate themselves from the Shrubbery they have to admit that there is no majority for their policies, and their policies are failures. As they can’t possibly do that and maintain their personal illusions, they again discover that another of their poster children wasn’t really part of their movement.

Anyone who supported the “W-04” campaign can forget being considered “an honest conservative.” Digby discusses that bit of theater in A Word To The Wise. If you throw all of your weight as a movement behind an individual, that individual defines the movement.

The Pensacola Beach Blogger came across an interesting conservative project that might be a reaction to the excesses of the current mob in the White House: the American Freedom Agenda. Basically they want candidates for President to sign a pledge to forgo the unitary Executive.

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The current make-up of the House of Representatives should make it obvious that the Democratic Party has a mandate to change the way the government works. At this point the Democrats need to push their agenda and forget about making nice. If the minority party blocks progress or the Shrubbery vetoes a bill, that’s a Republan problem, not a Democratic problem. The people have voted, and expect their votes to count. The election showed what the polls have been saying, the country is headed in the wrong direction.

Congress has dropped in recent polling because they backed off. The voters want accountability.

Susie Madrak’s The Cowardly Lions excerpts an Arianna Huffington post at Alternet that lays it out. Democrats have been given an opportunity by the voters. If they don’t start using it and standing by their principles, voters won’t turn out. Democrats had better stop looking for compromises and worrying about what Republans will say about them, or they will return to minority status when the people who voted for them in 2006 stay home in 2008. The Hedgemony looks at compromise and bipartisanship as cowardice, not statesmanship.

Susie’s Surrender Monkeys has a Steve Benen post that covers the same ground.

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Sorry, Mrs. Clinton, but if you can’t admit your vote for the authorization of the use of force against Iraq was wrong, I can’t vote for you. I’m not voting for Presidents who can’t admit they’ve made a mistake. You are wrong on Iran because you have tied yourself to the AIPAC/Likud view of the Middle East. They are in the minority in Israel, and you should recognize that you don’t have to accept their opinions to be taken seriously. You need to take Democratic voters concerns more seriously than you do. You husband could pull off triangulating, you can’t.

Mr. Edwards, I like a lot of what you have to say, I really do, but you have to show as much concern for your base as you have for your enemies. The paired “problem of Amanda & Melissa” was handled badly, especially in view of your reaction to “Mudcat” Saunders. The statements of Amanda & Melissa before they were hired by your campaign offended professional victim William DonoWho, and you handed out stern warnings. But when one of your campaign consultants, while working on your campaign, insulted liberals, you respond “that’s Mudcat being Mudcat.” Until and unless you can show as much concern for the feelings of your friends as your enemies, don’t ask for my support.

[More information on the “Mudcat” issue see Steve Bates’s post: CrapFeline Saunders.]

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Based on his justification for bombing Iran, I sure Senator LIEberman will soon be calling for airstrikes against the Vatican, as one of the Taliban’s own press interviews features pictures of its fighters preparing to use Italian anti-tank mines.

Remember, Joe, the Pope has always been against the Iraq War, and the Italians withdrew their troops. I’m sure a few Tomahawks hitting the center of Rome will convince them to stop “arming the enemy.”

Florida License Plates

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

Back in the days when I checked on TV my two favorite correspondents were Anne Garrels and Christiane Amanpour. Anne was a correspondent in Moscow in the 1980s and was so successful at reporting that the Soviets threw her out. These days she works for NPR and covers Iraq. Christiane covers wars and disasters. It’s not a major conflict until she show ups, as when she starting reporting from New Orleans after Katrina.

They both win awards, but don’t seem to get the respect they deserve. It’s not that they are always right, but when they make mistakes, they admit it.

I was more than a little annoyed when I read CNN’s coverage of the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Their article was titled: Queen knights fatwa author Rushdie. It is true that Salman Rushie was knighted, but Christiane Amanpour was made a Commander of the British Empire and she works for CNN. Where’s the pride of the institution?

These ladies make their employers worth listening to, add credibility to their news gathering, bring in multiple journalism awards and media prizes. Where is the recognition of their worth?

Via Bob Geiger’s The Saturday Cartoons, Nick Anderson, editorial cartoonist of the Houston Chronicle, has The Missile Defense Game.

Note, that as a reward for my mis-spent youth, I was actually able to hit things. Your mileage may vary.

Michael of Musing’s musings has managed to sneak back into the US from his travels in Europe, even though he didn’t have a deadly, contagious disease, and notes that there is a bill coming before Congress that could help a group that really needs it: homeless kids.

The admissions process is bewildering enough, and the financial aid obstacle course a nightmare if you have a stable home life, so imagine what it’s like for a kid who is homeless. It is cheaper to send a kid to college than to jail, so this makes economic sense.

Go, read the post, and then do something about it.

…well, sort of. They have by-passed a switch to see if that was the problem, but the computers are working for the moment.

The shuttle crew managed to staple the torn thermal blanket back in place, as they decided against the nails, and couldn’t find the duct tape.

The skeptics get their say in the Associate Press article:

The days-long computer problems fueled skepticism toward the Bush administration’s “Vision for Space Exploration,” which calls for finishing the space station in three years, grounding the space shuttles in 2010 and building next-generation vehicles to go to the moon and Mars.

“This growing chorus of opposition to the current vision … is finding expression in the difficulties of the station,” said Howard McCurdy, a space public policy expert at American University. “We’re learning a great deal from the space station, and one of things we may be learning is we shouldn’t have built this particular one.”

McCrudy probably thinks that a missile defense system ought to actually shoot down missiles and the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be able to manage emergencies. There’s one in every crowd, continually carping about waste, fraud, abuse, and incompetence.

On the 11^th I wrote about the response of a senior Iranian security official to US threats, and today Juan Cole talks about the Iranian response to the bombing of the al-Askariya Shrine:

Iran’s Supreme Jurisprudent,Ali Khamenei, managed to blame the Iraqi Baath Party, the Wahhabi sect of Islam, the Salafi Jihadi radicals among Sunnis, and the United States, jointly for the blowing up of the minarets at the al-Askariya Shrine in Samarra.

…it is my impression that in recent months he has tended to leave the wilder talk to his rival Ayatollah Misbah Yazdi and his protege, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. I don’t think Khamenei’s remarks on this matter are a good sign.

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John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, 1215, signed the Great Charter in the presence of assorted heavily armed peers of the realm, who assured him it was the right thing to do.

The British Library has pictures of the Magna Carta available, and Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the document.

The Magna Carta of 1297 is permanently residing in the US National Archives.

The Avalon Project’s translation of the 1215 version with an index and definitions.

John abided by the charter for several months, before he returned to business as normal, but the principle was established – no one is above the law [no matter what John Yoo says].