Starboard Broadside

I thought this was an interesting and thoughtful discussion on The Colbert Report this week. The author, Gary Wills, argues in his book Bomb Power that the national security apparatus that grew up around the executive branch in the nuclear age has given the president far too much military power (even in conventional war).

He makes a lot of great points, but the discussion is excellent because Colbert pushes back on some of his contentions (in a serious way), so that Willis digs deeper to clarify or provide nuance and shows he's thought this through. He's no pushover guest, but Colbert doesn't let his arguments slide, even if he might agree with some of them. For example, Colbert points out that the US Senate hasn't shown itself able to agree on simple things, let alone war, so if Congress re-asserts its constitutional role, there could be problems: "If you ask the Senate to push The Button, Richard Shelby will put a hold on, until the button is manufactured in Alabama."

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Garry Wills
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), who several years ago boldly said that (simple) majority rule was sufficient for everything in the Senate, whether budget-related or not, recently tried to argue Democrats can't use budget reconciliation to pass health reform with 51 votes because our "Founding Fathers" established a 60-vote filibuster requirement and rejected the parliamentary system consciously.

I can only imagine he believes the Founding Fathers were in the Senate in the 1970s... which is when the not-Constitutionally-based filibuster power was reduced from 67 votes to 60 votes, and when they would have been far enough into the age of the Westminster parliamentary system's modern application around the world to be able to reject it (if that were a good idea). Steve Benen of The Washington Monthly sums up the problems with Gregg's claim:

It's hard to overstate how truly ridiculous Gregg's analysis is. It simply has no foundation in reality. The Senate wasn't "structured" to require supermajorities on literally every bill, nomination, and resolution -- that's the exact opposite of the truth [the Constitution grants tiebreaking authority to the Vice President, thus the Founding Fathers cannot have anticipated a supermajority requirement that would render a tie impossible]. This isn't a subjective question open to interpretation; Gregg is just lying.

And when Gregg says the framers of the Constitution "saw the parliamentary system" and rejected it, he's just making things up. Matt Yglesias, who refers to Gregg as "an idiot," explained, "There were no countries operating on a modern parliamentary system when the constitution was written. And why doesn't it work? It seems to work in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, etc."

Update: While I'm on the subject...on Thursday, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) submitted a proposal to change Senate rules (mostly) to make a motion to proceed non-debatable -- thus eliminating one opportunity for obstructionists to stall and delay until 60+ Senators vote to stop debate and get on with it -- while preserving the opportunity to filibuster cloture (end of debate) on actual debate. Basically, Senators would get one less chance to filibuster, and there would be an immediate up or down vote on whether or not to proceed, without creating a debate-within-a-debate on that motion. If that makes sense.

This is not news in the general sense of the word, but it was news to me when I found out about it a few weeks ago, and I think most of our readers aren't familiar with it either, so I figured it would be educational to discuss it anyway.

You've heard of Rev. Pat Robertson's hateful comments about the Haitian earthquake being the result of a "pact with the devil," and you may be familiar with his similar comments about 9/11 made right after the 2001 attacks. If you've followed politics, you'll know about his Christianist media strength and his presidential campaigns and his involvement in building Christian Conservativism. But this is mostly his horrible words, without extending to truly horrible deeds.

Well, while doing research on Virginia politics (where he is based) I recently learned that for over a decade, Pat Robertson has been deeply involved in illegal and now dubiously legal diamond mining in Liberia, with close ties to notorious transnational West African warlord Charles Taylor, currently rotting in The Hague on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Since the current Wikipedia summary is consistent with my research and sources (and thus probably reliable) and is fairly concise, I'll include it here:

According to a 2 June 1999, article in The Virginian-Pilot,^[19] Robertson had extensive business dealings with Liberian president Charles Taylor. According to the article, Taylor gave Robertson the rights to mine for diamonds in Liberia's mineral-rich countryside. According to two Operation Blessing pilots who reported this incident to the state of Virginia for investigation in 1994, Robertson used his Operation Blessing planes to haul diamond-mining equipment to Robertson's mines in Liberia, despite the fact that Robertson was telling his 700 Club viewers that the planes were sending relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda. In response to Taylor's alleged crimes against humanity the United States Congress passed a bill In November 2003 that offered two million dollars for his capture. Robertson accused President Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country." At the time Taylor was harboring Al Qaeda operatives who were funding their operations through the illegal diamond trade.^[20] On February 4, 2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Charles Taylor testified that Robertson was his main political ally in the U.S., and that he had volunteered to make Liberia's case before U.S. administration officials in exchange for concessions to Robertson's Freedom Gold, Ltd., to which Taylor gave a contract to mine gold in southeast Liberia.^[21]

In 2010, a spokesman for Robertson said that the company's arrangements - the Liberian government got a 10 percent equity interest in the company and Liberians could purchase at least 15 percent of the shares after the exploration period - was similar to many American companies doing business in Africa at the time.^[22]

I find it jaw-dropping that this aspect of Robertson's past and present doesn't get more coverage. He has consorted with war criminals, diverted resources from genocide relief to extract conflict diamonds, exploited a civil war and almost certainly child soldier-miners to make money, and he has tried to protect his horrible warlord pals who have ripped apart Liberia and Sierra Leone in two civil wars and financed al Qaeda. He has bought key political allies such as Mark Earley (see below) to protect himself from investigations into these dealings. I mean, it's not nice of him to say Haiti made a pact with the devil, but that doesn't begin to cover how evil this unchristian 'reverend' truly is.

In a 2005 article in The Nation focusing on Robertson's enrichment scheme exploiting Hurricane Katrina (which he also blamed on voodoo and decadent culture in New Orleans), his dealings were explained thusly:

Far from the media's gaze, Robertson has used the tax-exempt, nonprofit Operation Blessing as a front for his shadowy financial schemes, while exerting his influence within the GOP to cover his tracks. In 1994 he made an emotional plea on The 700 Club for cash donations to Operation Blessing to support airlifts of refugees from the Rwandan civil war to Zaire (now Congo). Reporter Bill Sizemore of The Virginian Pilot later discovered that Operation Blessing's planes were transporting diamond-mining equipment for the African Development Corporation, a Robertson-owned venture initiated with the cooperation of Zaire's then-dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.

So he was also trying to link up with Mobutu in the Congo, which suggests he might still be involved in blood diamond mining there, too.

After a lengthy investigation, Virginia's Office of Consumer Affairs determined that Robertson "willfully induced contributions from the public through the use of misleading statements and other implications." Yet when the office called for legal action against Robertson in 1999, Virginia Attorney General Mark Earley, a Republican, intervened with his own report, agreeing that Robertson had made deceptive appeals but overruling the recommendation for his prosecution. Two years earlier, while Virginia's investigation was gathering steam, Robertson donated $35,000 to Earley's campaign--Earley's largest contribution. With Earley's report came a sense of vindication. "From the very beginning," Robertson claimed, "we were trying to provide help and assistance to those who were facing disease and death in the war-torn, chaotic nation of Zaire."

It's disgusting that somebody as corrupt and morally bankrupt as Pat Robertson can claim to be a Christian and hold sway over so many, and it's disgusting that he's treated as anything legitimate. For example, Alliance for Climate Protection (which I usually support) did an ad campaign showing unlikely left-right pairings of people who believe we have to act on global warming, and Robertson was included in one ad with the Rev. Al Sharpton. I don't want Robertson associated with Repower America, even if he is so influential over his sheeple. Especially since he used the ad to say "I'm ususally right," instead of "I'm usually on the Right." Urgh. But somehow, there he was.


To sum up: Pat Robertson directly supports blood diamond mining and violent civil war in Africa. This is a fact, not an opinion. We need to start bringing this up every time he's in the news. As they say in the trailer for the 2006 film Blood Diamond, "all who touch it are left with blood on their hands." He shouldn't be able to wash out the damned spot so easily.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV), the longest-serving member of Congress in history, and the inventor of much of the current Senate procedures -- including the law concerning budget reconciliation -- smacked down The Daily Mail, from his home state, for misleading its readers on reconciliation... here's an excerpt from after his thorough explanation of the process and how it works in the current health reform situation:

With all due respect, the Daily Mail's hyperbole about "imposing government control," acts of "disrespect to the American people" and "corruption" of Senate procedures resembles more the barkings from the nether regions of Glennbeckistan than the "sober and second thought" of one of West Virginia's oldest and most respected daily newspapers.

My commitment to protecting the best interests of all West Virginians and the American people remains as firm and consistent as my devotion to observing the necessary and essential Senate rules and procedures intended to guarantee debate and the airing of diverse views.

Owned. 

With less than half of Republicans believing climate change is a man-made event and strong minority denying its existence outright (see link), Mitt Romney's views on climate change could seriously jeopardize his 2012 chances:

In “No Apology,” Mitt Romney sets himself up in the shrinking “climate change is happening but we don’t need a carbon tax” camp.

I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor.

Again, this issue is evolving so fast, with people like Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) becoming Tea Party folk heroes and sites like Pajamas Media demanding that Al Gore return his Academy Award, that by the time Iowa caucus-goers come out, Romney might be in the deep minority of GOPers.

I'm also wondering what he thinks we should do about it, since he acknowledges "climate change is occurring." I just re-watched An Inconvenient Truth last night, and Al Gore argued in it that politicians don't want to acknowledge the reality because it would force them to do something about it... but I guess maybe Romney's trying the approach of acknowledging and still doing nothing.

Just earlier this week, the abrupt resignation of a Georgia Republican to focus on his gubernatorial campaign this year made the math easier for House Democrats to pass the health reform legislation. With supporting Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Daniel Akaka (D-HI) having resigned already, with the sudden death of supporting Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), and with the decision of Rep. Anh Joseph Cao (R-LA) not to support the health reform bill the second time around, Democrats were trying to determine how to come up with the required number of votes... until Rep. Deal (R-GA) resigned, bringing the number down to 216, instead of the usual 218.

Facing serious ethics charges and life-threatening health problems (allegedly), Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) has announced his sudden resignation as well. The math doesn't change, however, because he voted no last year on the bill anyway, and the House will still need 216 for a majority. (435-5=430, half is 215, majority is 216).

The previous vote in favor was 220, and will now be 216 if no other changes happen (and nobody changes their votes).


UPDATE @ 1:20 AM, 3/6/10: Actually, I've just read that Deal now won't resign until the end of the month, so Massa's immediate resignation does help Democrats. 

Some excellent news today: with Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) declaring his support for budget reconciliation to make some small fixes (via a 'sidecar' bill) to the Senate health reform bill so that the House will pass it and the Senate will pass the changes with a simple majority, we've now reached 50 US Senators definitely supporting this maneuver. With one more Senator, we should be set to pass health reform at last. This is something that should have happened last year, but I'll take it now, if Senate Dems come through.

No thanks to the current administration (as with previous administrations), we have some good news again from the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted narrowly [23-22] on Thursday to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians early in the last century, defying a last-minute plea from the Obama administration to forgo a vote that seemed sure to offend Turkey and jeopardize delicate efforts at Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

Bush convinced the leadership in 2007 not to let it come to a floor vote, when it passed before, so it remains to be seen what happens this time. Turkey immediately started the blackmail ball rolling by recalling its ambassador to the US.

This resolution, which would label the Armenian genocide as such, always faces resistance from the powerful Turkish lobby (the US has been a longtime military partner with Turkey, which is a NATO member) and from the Anti-Defamation League and the Israel lobby out of a ridiculous and selfish that claim that identifying the 1915-1918 events - the massacre of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in the crumbling Ottoman Empire - as genocide will somehow diminish the significance of the Holocaust. The Obama Administration is currently claiming that this move will jeopardize recent progress in Turkish-Armenian relations. This is an unfortunate change of heart from his previous boldness on the issue (he also used to call it a genocide as Senator).

Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA-28) noted that despite the importance of US-Turkish alliance, “nothing justifies Turkey’s turning a blind eye to the reality of the Armenian genocide. He also said, “The Turks say passing this resolution could have terrible consequences for our bilateral relationship, but I believe that Turkey values its relations with the United States at least as much as we value our relations with Turkey.” I think that's a good perspective. Turkey needs to grow up and accept their past. For them to have successfully imposed their legal system's gag rule on this issue onto the US government for so long is outrageous.

From Ben Smith at Politico:

The Republican National Committee is planning to raise $60,000 at a fundraiser next month at the North Carolina compound owned by [Xe] the company formerly known as Blackwater.

According to the RNC fundraising presentation I wrote about yesterday, the committee will hold a gathering of its "Young Eagles" -- major donors under 40 -- at the U.S. Training Center in Moyock, North Carolina April 16, an astute reader points out.

Aside from all their episodes of shooting civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan (and even New Orleans after Katrina), there have been allegations of the company's involvement in child prostitution, and they are almost certainly heavily involved in covert CIA-led extrajudicial killings around the world (including drone strikes)... we also know a lot of their top security teams were trained Pinochet death squad members from the Chilean regime. So basically, there's a pretty solid case to be made that Xe-Blackwater is a corporation full of war criminals.

And Republicans love war criminals.

Former US Senator Lincoln Chafee (R-RI) is running as an independent candidate to become governor of Rhode Island. The liberal ex-Republican served in the US Senate from 1999 to 2007, when he left after now-Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) defeated his re-election bid. Chafee, who's pro-choice and supports climate action and marriage equality, among other things, and opposed the Iraq war (the only Republican Senator to do so), often butted heads with the conservative Republican leadership and President George W. Bush. He briefly considered challenging Bush in the 2004 Republican primary and says he didn't vote for him in the general election, and he had admitted that his own 2006 defeat which handed Senate control back to the Democrats was best for the country. I think he's an admirable guy, and he's more liberal than several of the current Democratic Senators, so I'm probably going to support his campaign for governor, though perhaps not very actively.

In any case, Rasmussen Reports has a new poll out from the Rhode Island gubernatorial race, with Chafee leading. As usual, I'll offer the caveat that Rasmussen has been heavily criticized since after the 2008 election for seeming to disfavor Democrats fairly consistently with an unusual 2010 turnout model. But I doubt Chafee supporters are conservatives, and the actual Republicans fare poorly, so this might be one of the better Ras polls. They did do ok in this year's Massachusetts polling, so maybe they get how to do New England, where others don't. Who knows. Here it is, regardless...

This statewide telephone survey of 500 Likely Voters in Rhode Island was conducted by Rasmussen Reports, February 25, 2010. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 4.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

Lincoln Chafee (I) 37%
Frank Caprio (D) 27%
John Robitaille (R) 19%
undecided 17%

Lincoln Chafee (I) 38%
Patrick Lynch (D) 24%
John Robitaille (R) 22%
undecided 16%

They've also been criticized (more than other polling outfits) for picking and choosing whom to include in polls, even when there are other declared candidates, sometimes even including undeclared people. They only show one Republican here, but I think he's not the only one. Oh and they asked some push-polling questions (ones with biased wording to push a certain result) at some point, but it might have been later in the survey.

The current governor is a regressive Republican, who is term-limited and thus will not be in the election. This poll found he has 45/55 approval/disapproval rating, anyway, so he'd probably lose if he were running.

Hurray!

Students in the California public universities declared March 4 a national day of action against budget cuts and tuition increases, and today we will see the results. March 4 on Twitter.

Today, ethics-challenged Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY-15) finally yielded his powerful chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, at least temporarily during another ethics violation investigation. This is good for Democrats who've been trying to present themselves as the uncorrupted and ethical party in Congress for several years, especially during the house-cleaning 2006 cycle, because Rangel's been an inconvenient representation of the counter-narrative. Now, Rangel will be out of the way for this cycle, at the very least.

Rangel has been replaced by the only (and first) avowed atheist in Congress, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA-13). I guess this is a historic day? Update on 3/4: Oops. Never mind. Stark has in turn ceded the gavel to Rep. Sander Levin.

Incidentally, a few weeks ago, I had a really funny dream that included a bunch of top Democratic politicians, one of whom was Charlie Rangel. I'm not a big fan, obviously, so that was sort of weird.

Tuesday was Primary I in the state of Texas for 2010. If candidates won an outright majority in their party's primary, they will proceed to the general election in November; if a primary resulted in no outright majority for one candidate, the top two proceed to Primary II later in the year (it's a runoff system). With that in mind, here are the results, via The Texas Tribune, that people outside Texas would probably be most interested in... but the selection is, of course, based mostly on what I am most interested in. These results are (unless noted) from around 11 PM Tuesday.

Texas Governor's Race
Republican Primary
Gov. Rick Perry, arch-conservative secessionist, waged a bitter and very contentious primary campaign against Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, whose people allege that Perry had promised not to seek re-election this year so she could crown her career with the governorship. There was also a lot of back-and-forth about whether and when Hutchison would resign her Senate seat to focus on campaigning. The other side-plot was whether or not Tea Party-anointed, Ron Paul-endorsed, 9/11 conspiracy theorist Debra Medina would do well, and whether she could break past a teabagger ceiling of support or just play spoiler. As it turns out, her support plateaued, but not high enough to deprive Perry of a majority tonight, thus ending Hutchison's dream as well...

Governor - R Precincts reporting - 48%	Rick Perry	491,896	51.32%
	Kay Bailey Hutchison	297,711	31.06%
	Debra Medina	168,838	17.62%

I guess it's good (for herself) that Hutchison didn't give up that US Senate seat after all. It was always going to be tough to finagle such a resignation anyway because if she did it too early she'd give Perry the power to appoint and if she did it too late, she'd leave it open for a lengthier span or risk Democrats capturing it in a special election sneak attack (though after Massachusetts, it seems that would never have been in the cards). So, she just decided to hold onto it. Smart move.

Democratic Primary
Former Houston Mayor Bill White faced off against a field of lesser-known candidates and triumphed easily.

Governor - D Precincts reporting - 50%	Bill White	323,655	76.16%
	Farouk Shami	50,880	11.97%
	Felix Alvarado	21,585	5.08%
	Alma Ludivina Aguado	12,832	3.02%
	Clement E. Glenn	6,809	1.60%
	Bill Dear	4,897	1.15%
	Star Locke	4,302	1.01%

The good thing is that Bill White fares better against Perry than against Hutchison in polling matchups I've seen (e.g. R2K, 2/10/10: Perry 46, White 42), so this increases the chances of Democrats saving Texas from another term under its crazy governor. He was also the only Democratic candidate that could mount the (very expensive) statewide campaign to win. That doesn't mean he will win, but the planets are aligned as close as they will be. EDIT: This post has been partially retracted. Find out why. -CR, 7/1/10

Rep. Ron Paul's Primary
There was some brief discussion recently about whether or not Ron Paul was endangered by the Tea Party movement's primary candidates, despite his general alignment with the movement on most issues. His positions on earmarks and on defense were most at issue. However, Rep. Paul prevailed easily, winning 81% of the vote. Presumably, he will now cruise to re-election.

U.S. House District 14 - R Precincts reporting - 72%	Ron Paul	33,001	81.01%
	Tim Graney	3,829	9.40%
	John Gay	2,115	5.19%
	Gerald D. Wall	1,792	4.40%

Texas State Board of Education
District 9
This one's a bit obscure, and as of right now it's too close to call, but it's very, very important for the country. The Republican primary is between incumbent (and former Perry-appointed board chairman) Don McLeroy and challenger Thomas Ratliff. McLeroy is basically the ringleader of the seven Christian fundamentalists on the fifteen-member state board that controls the content of school textbooks in the most important market in America. Don McLeroy is in charge of fucking up America's education system, since his content amendments make it into the textbooks and curricula of about forty-six states. McLeroy puts the Tex in "Textbook." I don't know much about Ratliff, but I'm guessing he's trying to replace McLeroy to join the sane Republican bloc that has often tried to halt the Christianists. Since this race is in "District 9," I have to wonder if this primary is a battle for whether the people from earth or the ones from another planet will control the Texas State Board of Education. However, he's just a ringleader of the seven, so McLeroy being defeated won't stop the problem, just mitigate it.

There appears to be no Democratic primary.
11:45 PM Results: Too close to call... but good for the moment.

State Board of Education District 9 - R Precincts reporting - 83%	Thomas Ratliff	46,664	50.96%
	Don McLeroy	44,910	49.04%

District 5
In the 5th district's Republican primary, I notice the winner (by a solid majority) is Ken Mercer, currently the Vice Chair of the board. He has a bachelor's degree in biology from UT-Austin, in addition to some business degrees. I feel like that's a good thing on a board with seven creationists.

Small update @ 1:45 AM: Here's a list of the three big Board of Education races to watch, one of which I'd already included. The others are the very tight 10th district Republican primary and the 12th district Republican primary where one of the sane board members is currently losing. If she does lose and McLeroy pulls out a win in District 9, the crazies will have a majority. Not good.

Update @ 9 AM, 3/3/10: Texas Tribune has called the 9th for the sane Republican and the 12th for the insane challenger. Assuming this isn't altered by a recount, the fragile sane majority is preserved. Meanwhile the 10th district has gone to a runoff, and I don't know what that would mean for the board's composition.



Conclusion: I'm sure there were a few races (especially on that education board) across the state that I missed that deserve attention, but these were the ones I was paying attention to. I will add more or update this post tomorrow, if I find more interesting race news.

By the way, the block was in fact lifted finally this afternoon after some wheeling and dealing, but before that the conservative punditry was bending over backwards to praise Kentucky Republican Sen. Bunning's blockade of an extension of federal funding for unemployment benefits, Medicare payouts, and transportation projects (among other things, to which he later added a blockade on administration appointees)... for Limbaugh, FOX News, and the rest of the wingnut media, Bunning was just taking a principled and heroic stand on screwing over unemployed Americans during a major recession. Laura Ingraham, almost incredibly, claimed without any proof that if Americans were polled right now they would be wildly supportive of Jim Bunning cutting off their unemployment benefits.

The short extension needed to be passed by Sunday, and when it wasn't we started seeing immediate layoffs at current projects under the Dept. of Transportation and slashes to Medicare payouts to doctors. Without the extension of this one package, up to 90,000 jobs were projected to disappear. 1.2 million Americans temporarily lost unemployment benefits.

Here's a roundup of clips by Media Matters, showing the FOX News narrative specifically:

The Supreme Court of the United States has rejected a petition to halt the issuing of same-sex marriage licenses in the District of Columbia, beginning tomorrow, as scheduled. Chief Justice John Roberts said the court would continue to avoid interfering with lower courts on purely local disputes such as this. Roberts also cited a lack of movement from Congress to stop the DC law as a reason to let it go forward unimpeded. Opponents continue to demand a voter referendum on the issue.

The first applications for marriage licenses by same-sex couples will be accepted tomorrow, with the first ceremonies expected to occur next Monday. For our previous coverage in December when the law was passed, check out CirceCalypso's post entitled "Washington DC legalizes same-sex marriage."

Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA-09) has announced he will resign his House seat to focus his attention on his campaign for governor, thereby facilitating the second passage of the health reform package through the US House, which had looked somewhat endangered under some previous calculations:

Mr. Deal’s departure will leave 431 members in the House, meaning Democrats would, for the time being at least, presumably need 216 votes to pass their health care bill [not 218, as under a full House of 435].

The House passed health care legislation in November by a vote of 220-215. Three of the Democrats who voted for that measure are no longer in the chamber — Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii and Robert Wexler of Florida have both resigned since then, while John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania died in February. And Representative Anh Cao of Louisiana, the lone House Republican to vote for that bill, is not expected to support the current proposal.

So that's some good news.

Retiring Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), known for some serious anger management issues in public, is not handling criticism well after he seized the Senate and blocked extension of some unemployment benefits, transportation projects, etc. This resulted in immediate termination of benefits to over 1 million Americans today as well as cuts to Medicare payouts. His actions have already resulted in the Dept. of Transportation furloughing a thousand workers today, with more layoffs imminent if he's not stopped. In fact, because the DoT is furloughing inspectors at job sites, this means a ripple effect as job sites shut down temporarily and workers have to find work elsewhere. It's a bad situation.

Today he flipped out at some journalists who tried to ask him about this:

He also flipped them off, off camera, they're claiming. But screaming at them is unseemly enough. We already knew that he doesn't like the local media, but this took it national.

How many telepromter-hating wingnuts will think this is real?

Obama Caught Lip-Syncing Speech

Update on 3/4/10: Yup, some wingnuts did think it was real.

Oh happy day! Former Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.) has decided not to run for US Senate in New York. Now I can stop attacking him in every post I write that mentions him... oh wait, nope, I still revile him and will not allow him to resuscitate his political career for a future run. I will say, to his credit (at least until we find out the real reasons, if we're cynical about it), that he made the decision ostensibly for the best reasons:

Under intense pressure from Democratic Party officials, Harold E. Ford Jr., the former Tennessee congressman, has decided not to challenge Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand in the primary this fall.

He has told friends that, while he is convinced he could prevail against Ms. Gillibrand, he feared the winner of the primary would have little money and remain highly vulnerable to a well-financed Republican challenger at a time when the Democratic party controls the Senate by a slim majority.

“I’ve examined this race in every possible way, and I keep returning to the same fundamental conclusion: If I run, the likely result would be a brutal and highly negative Democratic primary — a primary where the winner emerges weak-ened and the Republican strengthened,” Mr. Ford wrote in an opinion article to be published in Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times.

The article goes on to link mounting party pressure to the growing scandals of Gov. David Paterson (D) that make NY Democrats want to reduce negative press about Democrats, as well as to the Massachusetts Senate loss that showed Democrats can't afford to take risks with allegedly safe seats.

As you'll find in my post earlier today promoting a hard-fought Democratic primary in Arkansas for the Senate seat there, I don't oppose all primary challenges, and I actively advocate many of them... but my big conditions for supporting a big primary challenge are if the primary is early in the cycle to allow recovery time (New York primary is September, too close to November), and if the primary is between a proven and electable progressive challenger against an overly centrist incumbent (here we have a conservative-turned-liberal incumbent doing a great job so far, with a right-wing challenger).

The other big problem in this case was that Ford is a failed US Senate candidate from out-of-state with an extremely conservative and reactionary record that matched his old constituency better, and that he was a big proponent of trying to push the party rightward. A primary should be between an incumbent and somebody who can better represent the state/district than the incumbent, for me to want to support a primary fight. An anti-gay, anti-choice Democrat from Tennessee is not a better fit for New York in the US Senate than an upstate conservative woman who's demonstrated a change of record since assuming her new role. Ford's also so sleazy and opportunistic, to a sickening degree, even compared to other career politicians.

For more details and citations for my attacks, please reference my previous posts on Harold Ford and the New York Senate race:
-"For the record, I oppose Harold Ford" 1/8/10, my big post on the subject
-"Harold Ford hires campaign staff" 1/11/10
-"Dear New York" 1/17/10, an open letter to NY Dems about his carpetbagging and banking ties (though not his tax cheating)
-"Running in New York" 1/31/10, Helicopter Ford visits NYC
-"Colbert blasts Harold Ford" 2/2/10, Stephen Colbert's interview with Ford goes badly for the latter

As you can tell, I was vehemently opposed to his candidacy. Therefore, I'm glad to see him gone. I think the primary's risks would have outweighed the benefits, so I'm not one to mourn the loss of an opportunity for a dragged out brutal fight.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley appeared at the Newton MA Democratic caucuses on Feb. 20, and some people thought she did well. Huh? I'm sorry, but this is not a "better late than never" situation:

Snyder said that Coakley, who was criticized by some as being distant and disengaged during the Senate campaign, appeared to be learning from her detractors.

“I shook Martha (Coakley's) hand, and she seemed very upbeat and anxious to meet with people,” Snyder said. “She was doing the regular politician thing, holding babies and everything.”

She just lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat to a Republican and she's not even seeking re-election. Way too late to figure out "the regular politician thing," Coakley. Way too late.

Obstructionist conservative Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) will face a serious primary challenge from popular Lt. Governor Bill Halter (D), as of this morning. After a major recruiting effort by netroots Democrats fed up with Lincoln's record and the damage she's caused progressive legislation (e.g. health reform, climate change bill, etc.) through her threats of filibuster or heavy-handed use of chairmanships, Bill Halter announced today his intention to run against Lincoln in the Democratic primary for US Senate this year.

Since most of the polling out (example) there suggests Lincoln will probably lose the general election if trends continue, with Halter faring somewhat better in the general and doing well against her in the primary, most Democrats see this development as an improvement. We're virtually guaranteed to lose the seat if she runs in the general, and we have no interest in supporting her, whereas we have an interest in supporting the more popular and more progressive Halter, who actually does have a shot at winning, even if it's slim. As long as we're going to lose the seat with Lincoln, we may as well try to take her out in the primary.

Blanche Lincoln certainly did not build up a reservoir of progressive support over the past year. Recently she opposed the central democratic principle of majority rule, for example, and delusionally insisted bipartisanship on health reform was still possible.  She's one of the worst of the NASCAR Senators, the ones who should be required to wear jumpsuits with their sponsors' logos emblazoned on them because they're so beholden to their contributors' interests, rather than to the voters. She also aggravatingly alternated back and forth on the public insurance option, before coming down so firmly against it that she would join Republicans to block it rather than let it go to an up-or-down vote.

The primary, to the best of my knowledge, will be held on May 18, unless neither candidate reaches 50% (I think there's another minor candidate), in which case a Democratic runoff will be held on June 8.

UPDATE: Since I actually wrote most of this post right after the announcement, I've only just had a chance to update it from reactions. Markos Moulitsas, the founder of self-titled DailyKos.com, has been a big proponent of the Draft Halter push, and he lays out the big reason we should want to take out Lincoln:

These self-styled "centrists" operate at the bidding of their corporate masters, and are awash in their cash. That's who pulls the strings. And with their GOP puppets in the irrelevant minority, it was up to the Lincolns of the Democratic Party to carry their corporatist water. And they did. Eagerly.

You need someone to kill EFCA? Call Lincoln, eager to do Wal-Mart's bidding. You need someone to protect Big Oil from regulations that could limit greenhouses? Call Lincoln, who was happy to join Republicans like James Inofe to gut the EPA's ability to protect not just the environment, but the world. You need someone to carry water for the health insurance industry? Call Lincoln, who threatened several times to join filibusters of the public option, and has suddenly become distraught at the notion of using reconciliation to pass health care reform -- after she was one of just 12 Democrats to vote for the 2001 Bush tax cuts. Using reconciliation.

Kos also cites Halter's outsider, populist credentials with proven ability to win a statewide race as reasons why he's a great choice for the primary. It's an outsider's year.

As previously pledged, the military regime that suddenly seized power in Niger from the democratically-elected president just over a week ago in a violent coup d'état has begun taking steps to restore democratic rule:

As its promised transition to democratic rule begins, the military junta that overthrew Nigerien president Mamadou Tandja on February 18 has named a former information minister, Mahamadou Danda, as the new prime minister while retaining legislative and executive powers for itself.

Danda, 59, is seen as unaffiliated to any political party, was appointed on Feb. 23 by the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (known by its French acronym, CSRD).

In a declaration broadcast nationally the previous day, CSRD head Djibo Salou was announced as head of state and the government; the junta will, for the moment, have the final word in governing the country.

Marou Amadou, president of a coalition of groups opposed to the ousted president known as the United Front To Safeguard Democratic Gains (FUSAD, after its French acronym) believes this first decree provides further guarantees of the junta's intention to return power to civilians.

"The length of this transition will be decided after the consultations with all political and social stakeholders in the country announced by the junta," Amadou told IPS. He hopes the transition will be neither too slow, nor overly hasty.

Because of the falling popularity of the democratic administration -- due to it's consolidation of power and the famine conditions nationwide -- the coup has been met with generally positive reactions within Niger, though some expressed concern of a repeat of the breakdown of bureaucratic function seen in the months after the more violent 1999 coup.

Outside Niger, there were mixed reactions as most major power diplomatic corps struggled to decide whether to condemn the coup, encourage the rapid reintroduction of democratic norms, or help the average Nigerien get critical food supplies. Since sanctions placed on the democratic regime were already aggravating a food crisis, further sanctions would have been damaging and entirely unproductive. The United Nations pledged food aid, while the United States cautiously urged the junta to continue steps toward democracy and lightly condemned the illegal seizure of power (which involved heavy exchanges of fire right near the US embassy in Niamey). An interview about the coup with the Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs, William Fitzgerald, can be read here.

As I previously examined, Niger is a major uranium-producing country, so there is a good reason for the world to be paying attention to its politics.

Here's an amusing story (to me as a Democrat) from Politico on the continuing rifts amongst Republicans over Michael Steele's spending profligacy and outright wasting of resources, with his supporters trying to justify his expenditures and his detractors bitterly complaining and taking their money elsewhere.

As I looked at on Thursday, a very prominent expenditure was in the news this week: Steele's costly investment in "party-building" in Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, which helped elect him chairman of the Republican National Committee but won't help the party much in general.

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL, brother of W.) doesn't make it sound like he's too keen on Sarah Palin as a presidential candidate, in a Newsmax interview:

My personal belief is that, for Governor Palin to be a successful candidate for higher office, she needs to take this charisma she has and add to it some depth of understanding of the complexity of life we’re living in today. [...]

I mean, I don’t know what her deal is, but my belief is in 2010 and 2012, public leaders need to have intellectual curiosity.

Unfortunately he did offer some praise in the interview, and he indicated that she has a (positive) role for the party's future more broadly, if not a presidential future.