dinner at THE LAST CHANCE DEMOCRACY CAFE

I know "the food Nazi" wouldn't approve, but I have a real taste for "Bleeding Heart Spareribs".

Or maybe a Republican Pork Barrel Sandwich (packed with so much pork that even Senator (Bridge to Nowhere) Stevens would blush!)

Or maybe Antonin Scalia Original Intent Fried Chicken. (fixed the way your great, great, great, great grandmother would have fixed it.)

At the risk of sounding like a "gushing fan", I will once again refer you to my (fictional) friends at The Last Chance Democracy Cafe. Something has changed since the last time I posted a link though. This time Stephen C. Day has his own site and it's sort of a blog because it has posts on current news but it's also home to more great episodes with Winston, Zach, Horace and Tom.

You can join in the fun here:

http://www.lastchancedemocracycafe.com/?p=66


And don't forget to register so you can join in the discussion. I'll have to say that some of the most thoughtful and thought-provoking posts on the web can be found appended to Day's works.

And in current news.....

I find it incredibly strange that Bush would personally visit Pakistan. Mussariff is in a tenuous position in his country and we' re just one coup de etat away from having Pakistan as a nuclear armed, long-range missile possessing Islamic State. Why would they want to stir up the country?

Yes, and about Pakistan being a democracy? I don't think so. Mussariff took over at the point of a gun and dissidents were rounded up and put under house arrest before Bush arrived....oh...wait a minute....Bush thinks that IS a democracy.

And meantime, back in old foggy bottom (Washington D.C.). Senator Rockefeller rounded up enough votes on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence(SSCI) to call for an inquiry into the NIA wiretapping. The SSCI has operated under special rules since 1974 to have an equal number of Democrats and Republicans no matter what the majority party of the Senate is. But since they've "mutinied", Senator Bill Frist is threatening to change the rules to put a Republican Majority on the committee to stop the inquiry. Click here and scroll down.

Feel free to jump in anytime...the more the merrier! Oh yeah...snow scheduled for tomorrow...good day for blogging.

e

The dilemma

One of my favorites, The Rude Pundit has a few suggestions for How to Start a Civil War in the Republican Party.

Here's how he starts out:

There's reasons that Karl Rove vomits blood at the thought of the Rude Pundit actually advising Democrats in a less blocky, more official capacity: because the Rude Pundit knows how to use the Lee Atwater bag o' tricks that Rove has drawn from (along with a few thuggish sleights of hand of his own). What Rove knows is that having power is all that matters: how you get the power is so much sh*t under the fingernails of the elephant cage cleaners. 'Cause you can be as noble and as right-minded as you like: without the power, you can do f***-all about your agenda. But once you have power, held high like the head of a deposed king, then the world can be yours.

Read the rest here

This is a dilemma I've written about and debated with some of my more radical friends on the blogosphere for some time. I was brought up in politics during the Lee Atwater reign of terror. I got to see first hand what he was capable of and I shudder to think of KKKarl Rove as a Lee Atwater without a conscience. The truth is that the Atwater School of Campaign Politics was absolutely brutal and now KKKarl has raised it to an art form. But we, as Democrats disdain those kind of tactics. We abhor the kind of dirty tricks and less-than-ethical activities that Atwater and his latter day disciples engage in.

...and yet....

They aren't going to quit. They're going to win if we don't match them....We can't go to a knife fight with a hacky-sak....

So do we abandon our principles?

What do you think?

Note on the picture: This is a picture of the infamous Brooks Brothers Riot in the Dade County Courthouse which STOPPED THE RECOUNT of Ballots in Dade County and helped give George W. Bush a 512 Vote win in Florida. The picture has been labelled to identify the people who were engaged in the "riot" to stop the counting. They were not, as portrayed by the press, "angry citizens". Instead, they are ALL Republican Staffers including one working for Tom Delay. I thought it was appropriate to display this picture to illustrate the "dirty tricks" that Republicans are capable of.

e

Katherine, Katherine, Katherine.....

Things just aren't getting

any better for

Katherine Harris

It seems that our favorite "Congressfloozie" has been caught lying. This time she's been caught lying to a Newspaper reporter which, in my humble opinion, is really stupid. Read the whole story here in The Daily Muck from Talking Points Memo. Here are some snippets:

snip

Now, Wade told the government that neither Harris nor Goode knew that the contributions were illegal, i.e. that Wade reimbursed his employees and their spouses for the $2K they laid out to the campaigns.

snip

What the heck had Wade, MZM's CEO, wanted from Harris in return for that money?
Harris has claimed, to me and other journalists, that she didn't have any idea. She insisted that she had assumed all those MZM-connected people -- who didn't live in Florida and whose $2,000 checks arrived in bundles -- just liked her stands on the issues and wanted to see her re-elected.

snip

As Wade plea makes clear, Wade wanted something very specific from Harris: help with a defense appropriation. He even drafted a proposal and forwarded it on to her office. And she followed up on it, writing a letter to the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee asking for the money, estimated at $10M. (Wade's plea, The Ledger)


Sigh.....Katherine, I'm sooooo disappointed. I mean, I didn't actually think you were a rocket scientist or anything but I didn't think you were this.....challenged.

Oh yeah, that picture was all over the web after her famous appearance on Hannity and Colmes. It's the same picture that prompted the monicker "Prom Queen Gone to Seed".


Have fun folks...

e

Thursday Open Thread

Thanks to firedoglake for the image

from the Mardi Gras in New Orleans

The human spirit survives despite everything, there is no limit to what it can acheive.

Thanks to everybody who is participating in the blogging. Hope to hear from more and more of our members as we go along.

So what's in the news this morning?

Well, it seems the traditional media is still in a "tither" about Bush's tape. (see firedoglake link above)

And surprise, surprise, surrrrrr prisssssssee! Associate Justice Alito sent Rev Dobbs (of Focus on the Family) a thank you letter. Here

John Bolton takes another excursion into "stupid land".

The Wisconsin Legislature finds its way to the pages of the blogosphere. Interesting to note that the Marshfield News-Herald editorial today called for voters to "think twice" about the Marriage Amendment shoved through the legislature by the Republicans.

Pop into anyone of the high-lited links and then drop a comment.....

E

I'm shocked....MSM using the tape

In case you haven't heard about it, somebody released a tape to the AP showing Bush and Chertoff getting a complete briefing on Hurricane Katrina before the storm hit! The tape shows Bush assuring local officials that "We're completely prepared.".

Now for the good part....Hardball and Wolf Blitzer Reports are both showing the video tape. This is embarrassing for Bush.

The full story from Yahoo is here (see, I finally learned how to link)

Couple of things to ponder here:

• Who leaked this tape? Brownie? FEMA workers tired of taking the rap for the disaster?
• How will Dubya spin his way out of this one?
• How many lies can he be caught in before the Country says: ENOUGH?

Another day, another lie.

e

The Repubs now have their WEDGE ISSUE

Assembly Repubs Celebrate Victory....?????

for the November elections...

That's right...by a vote of 63-31 the Republican=Controlled Assembly passed the bill to put Marriage-One Man-one Woman on the ballot for November. Why not....it worked last time...I mean if you want to drive the more rabid base out to vote, what better way than to strike up a little homophobia?

Oh yeah, did I mention that six (6)DEMOCRATS voted with them?

Here they are:

Hubler
Krusick
Staskunas
Van Akkeren
A. Williams
Ziegebauer
(I think I got them all) Is "A. Williams" the one from Medford?

edit at 2:56PM..... We should note that our Reps...Vruwink , Schneider and Molepske voted NO! (It's okay to count Louey as "ours" isn't it?)

Spew Alert!

Warning

Put your coffee down

before

reading the link

below

http://tbogg.blogspot.com/

(You don't want to get coffee all over your keyboard)