I've never written a diary, posted a comment, or even uttered a word that attacked Joe Lieberman.
To me, he's always been a bread-and-butter Democrat. After all, he was our party's well-respected vice presidential nominee eight long years ago. Even in the past few years, I respected that he transcended 'party' altogether--and I refused to join the bash-Lieberman train, even when I disagreed with him about the war on terror. Even when I disagreed with him about the Democrats' ability to handle national security issues. Even when I disagreed with him about the war on terror, the next seventeen times.
I have refused to bash him...until now.
On Thursday, the United State Senate voted overwhelmingly to advance a legislative compromise on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, marking the beginning of the end of a fierce battle over civil liberties and national security that has been waged in the halls of Congress for more than three years.
In the end, only 15 U.S. Senators were willing to resort to procedural tactics as a last ditch effort to hold up the legislation. The list of those who voted against cloture included:
Joseph Biden, DE
Barbara Boxer, CA
Sherrod Brown, OH
Maria Cantwell, WA
Chris Dodd, CT
Dick Durbin, IL
Russ Feingold, WI
Tom Harkin, IA
John Kerry, MA
Frank Lautenberg, NJ
Patrick Leahy, VT
Robert Menendez, NJ
Bernie Sanders, VT
Chuck Schumer, NY
Ron Wyden, OR
"It's the most embarrassing failure of the Democrats I've seen since 2006, other than the failure to vote to end the Iraq war," said Russ Feingold. And as a Democrat I find this unbelievable as well. I've seen the list of Representatives who got big payouts from the telecom industry. The list of Senators will likely be forthcoming.
What this really proves is that no matter who is elected, liberal or conservative, it is up to the people to hold their feet to the fire and not forget what they have burdened us with when elections roll around. Unfortunately we have to bite our tongues and hold on to get the Republicans out... but we must still remember this vote and be aware of what we are going to do in the future.
Cross posted from Dailykos
The only issue where John McCain scores higher than Barack Obama in the polls is National Security. I think it's pretty clear this is for two reasons. The Republicans tend to exude bravado in their rhetoric, which tends to make people feel 'safer', if you will. The mind set of "don't F--K with us, we'll protect you."
But also his military experience plays a significant role. Let's examine that for a minute.
Every day, it seems, John McCain says something which, if either of the Democratic candidates had said it, the media would most certainly end their candidacy. But because the media is John McCain's base, they won't call him on it. So it is up to us, I suppose. Also, this story highlights why a long and drawn-out primary process has helped to deflect attention away from the absolutely nutty things that John McCain says.
The folks over at ThinkProgress have called John McCain out on his repeated references to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, labeling him as the main formulator of Iran's foreign policy. The only problem is that he isn't, and it demonstrates a very scary incompetence on McCain's part.
More on the jump.
It looks like John McCain is trying to rustle up those good ole national security fears to divert from his worrysome lack of knowledge about the economy.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/19/m ccain.free.trade/index.html
(CNN) -- Sen. John McCain Monday faulted Sen. Barack Obama for downplaying the threat from Iran and again called the Democratic front-runner's judgment "reckless," the latest jabs in a foreign policy fight that could continue to the general election."Such a statement betrays the depth of Senator Obama's inexperience and reckless judgment," McCain said. "Those are very serious deficiencies for an American president to possess."
more after the flap...
National security has "traditionally" been a repubican mantra, talking point, and perceived strength, that is until GWB lied us into a war on Iraq. However, we are now seeing the erosion of the republican edge in security, and according to public opinion polls, the public now sees democrats evenly or more "trusted" to deal with issues of national security.
As a last line of defense (pun intended), the repugs nominate John McCain....who will run a campaign on national security and foreign threats in an attempt to keep attention away from issues at home. Therefore our candidate must be able to address these issues with equal force (pun intended again, as the repugs will wage war!) to disallow the republicans to win at this most critical juncture for our country.
The North Carolina News and Observer featured an article today by Joe Wilson called "Legitimate Questions of Judgment, Experience" that is relevant as North Carolinans consider their vote on Tuesday.
The media and the pundits have focused on one small part of Sen. Clinton's plan to reign in the outrageous cost of gasoline. Her proposal for a gas tax holiday over the summer has been met with derision as pandering. The media should perhaps do their homework and report the full proposal to the voters.
Sen. Clinton's full proposal addresses the CAUSES of the ridiculous cost of gas at the pump. Here is the link to the press release
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/relea
se/view/?id=7375
The following is a quote from the Clinton campaign press release yesterday.
In 1999 and then again in January 2001 a commission chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH) warned that terrorist attacks on U.S. were inevitable and called for the "creation of a Cabinet-level agency to assume responsibility for defending the United States against the increasing likelihood of terrorist attacks in the country."
The historical record shows they were ignored. On September 12, Gary Hart said:
...
Bush administration officials told former Sens. Gary Hart, D-Colo., and Warren Rudman, R-N.H., that they preferred instead to put aside the recommendations issued in the January report by the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century. Instead, the White House announced in May that it would have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism -- which the bipartisan group had already spent two and a half years studying -- while assigning responsibility for dealing with the issue to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, headed by former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh.
From the vantage point of April 2008, its obvious to all but 20% of Americans that the Bush administration's decision to ignore the warnings of Hart and Rudman in early 2001 amounted to nothing less than criminal negligence. And yet, if we're not paying attention, there's a high likelyhood that we'll do it again.
Hart and Rudman's current endeavor, the American Security Project, featuring a board of directors including fellow former Senator George Mitchell, General Anthony Zinni, Senators John Kerry and Chuck Hagel, and Richard L. Armitage is releasing a new report on the current national security situation called The New American Arsenal.
Here's Gary Hart talking about it on the Huffington Post:
This Thursday, May 1st, the American Security Project will release A New American Arsenal, a groundbreaking bi-partisan proposal for understanding security and what must be done to achieve it. Rather than limit the discussion to Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan, or even the "war on terrorism," this far-reaching project challenges Americans to think more broadly about what does, and does not, make us secure, how much of that security can be achieved by military means alone, and how we can reduce partisan politics and restore a common national interest to our security deliberations.
The next president will face the following security threats, most new and different from the previous Cold War era: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their availability to stateless nations (i.e. jihadists); ground forces exhausted by two protracted wars; energy dependence in the Persian Gulf; America's disproportionate role in protecting the global flow of oil; the security implications of climate change, and the list continues.
Issues that were recently separated into policy "boxes" are now interrelated. Consider the linkages among the cost of food and fuel, the world price of oil, increase in demand for oil in coming decades, the cost to U.S. taxpayers to protect global oil supplies, the impact of oil consumption on climate, two wars in the Persian Gulf, and so forth. Consider also how global warming is changing weather patterns. In the American West and elsewhere aquifers and reservoirs are drying up. Crops are becoming scarce and costly, thus leading to massive instability among the world's poor. In South Asia, over a billion people may lose their source of fresh water as Himalayan glaciers recede. Two of these nations are India and Pakistan -- nuclear states with indigenous terrorist movements and a history of conflict between them.
To break this cycle of interlinkage, everyone has a magic bullet. One is nuclear power. Yet mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle, traditionally necessary to develop a national nuclear power industry, is virtually inseparable from access to material and technology necessary to produce nuclear weapons. We now find out that even the promising ethanol harbors its own economic and climate risks.
These are but illustrations of the ways in which national security is increasingly becoming global security and of the limits of purely military power to achieve it. These facts also illustrate how destructive it is for political "strategists" and spin-doctors to make security a partisan issue.
Cassandra is speaking. Will anyone listen?
· Jim Gilmore Praises Bush, Calls SCHIP "Welfare" (lowkell)
· MyDD Blog Talk Radio -- Live from Netroots Nation (Jonathan Singer)
· NYT Kinda Confirms Al Gore Special Guest at #NN08 (Adam Conner)
· Nate Wilcox Interviewed on Netroots Nation, Netroots Rising (lowkell)
· Comprehensive Q2 & CoH Numbers for Senate Candidates (Senate Guru)
· IA-05: Steve King embarrasses Iowans again (desmoinesdem)
· MS-Sen: Musgrove Comes Out In Favor Of Net Neutrality (cottonmouthblog)
· Rasmussen: Obama Up in Nevada (Sven at My Silver State)
· Livebloggin McCain in Kansas City (clarkent)
· DFA Night School featuring Lakoff convenes today (desmoinesdem)
· CA-46, CA-50: Cook, Leibham Outraise Incumbents (dday)
· SD: Tim Johnson Leads Big in Polls, $$$ (lowkell)
