First Draft

So Say We Fucking All

This blog needs a category for you just blew my tiny little mind:

We are so risk averse in this country, so afraid to settle on something that might not be the right thing, we hedge our every fucking step. Drive giant tank SUVs so we can walk away from unforeseen disasters, watch picture-in-picture televisions so we don’t miss what’s on the other channels. We do not like the unknown, we guard against every possible contingency. We assume any choice might be the wrong one, so we don’t choose anything, really. We do not trust the world around us. We do not trust ourselves. We have seldom been asked to do so by the current administration. We’ve been asked instead to be afraid, and then we were told outright, over and over, that we must be afraid. And as if there wasn’t enough in the real world to fear, they invented and hyped new stuff and force fed it to us, straight into our lizard brain.

And we sucked on it.

So here we are. There are plenty of us, including Clinton voters and for that matter, Republicans and Independents, who are weary and beat down and ready for change. The thing is, people want the change to be quantifiable and recognizable, they want to know what they are getting into before they jump. They want their change to look familiar and welcoming, and above all, safe. And if possible, easy.

The thing is, we are miles past that being able to happen.

Go read the whole thing. I mean it, go. NOW.

I've been having this conversation a lot, with everybody in my life lately: colleagues, friends, allegedly supreme beings who may or may not be tempting me back to their parties. You do not lose people because you ask too much of them. You lose people because you ask for too little. I know this because I've seen it, anybody who's read that book up there top right knows what I mean when I say it's not too hard and you can in fact beat back the inevitable with your bare hands and it can happen, and all you need is the example of someone telling you, instead of sit down, shut up, stand up, start yelling. Fight, for the love of your immortal souls. Fight.

In the aftermath of 9/11 they could have asked us for anything. Anything. Enlistment en masse. National service. Financial sacrifice. Put your pantyhose in a drawer and draw a line down the back of your legs with an eyeliner pencil; they could have asked us to build 100,000 airplanes and we would have done it, because we can. But they asked us to go shopping, they told us to take off our shoes in the airport, they lied to us about Iraq. They asked us to be angry and they asked us to be scared and they asked us to turn on each other, and wouldn't you know it, that's exactly what happened. They asked us for nothing and that's exactly what they got.

And the irony is that in our whole life as a country we were never stronger than when we reached out and held on to one another. When we have been weak, when we have failed, it is only because then we let go, turned our backs, hated and feared and strung up garlic and picked up stakes. It is only because then we forgot ourselves, as we have now.

Is it any wonder we want something like our own strength back again? It isn't even a Clinton-Obama thing, necessarily: we saw a little of its beginnings in 2004, with the crowds Kerry drew, which up until then were like nothing you'd ever seen in all your livin' life. Kerry, though, said he and Edwards could help us; Obama's saying it's not me, it's you that can help us. Take it to my crazy sci-fi place, as I'm wont to do on the weekends, not "God helps those who help themselves" but "the gods lift those who lift each other," that's the formulation of the message. It's easy to sneer, it's just stories, just speeches, just words. It's just poetry, but come the fuck on, people have died for worse things than poetry.

Countries have died for worse things. We've watched it happen in front of us, going now on seven years.

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Happy Birthday

I got into Dylan late, maybe six, seven years ago. Before that he was my Dad's music, along with Neil and Bruce (Mom likes Billy and Barbra). We were driving to a wedding in rural Kansas and I'd brought a CD along, it was long enough to keep me awake on the road. When I started searching out everything of his I could get my hands on after that, my parents were amused. I told them, "if my generation is gonna be forced to repeat all the least fun parts of the 1960s and 1970s, including the fashion, it's only fair we get some of the music, too."

I saw him live a couple of years ago; he tore through an 80 minute set with no break, not even looking up until the end. He said maybe six words the entire night. It was something else.

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Saturday Blogwhoring Thread: Outsourcing Edition

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Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

Careful You Don't Get None Of That Bush Stank On You, Johnnie

Q I wanted to ask about McCain -- three fundraisers next week. First of all, why are they closed? And second, do you all expect that sort of pace, I mean, three in a week, that kind of thing, to continue?

MS. PERINO: I think we'll see -- I think we'll see, in terms of a pace.

[snip]

The reason that they're closed is that the McCain campaign has a practice of having their fundraisers as closed press; and these are in private residences, which is where we have had closed press fundraisers, as well.

[snip]

Q To follow up -- you're saying that the McCain campaign announced it may they be closed?

MS. PERINO: I'm saying that the locations are at private residences and that -- their practice has been closed press fundraisers for -- across the board, both at private residences and other places. As you know, our practice has been somewhat different -- when they're at a larger locations like hotels, ours have been open. But that's their practice and we'll respect it.

Q Can we actually expect to see them together at any point publicly?

MS. PERINO: Next week?

Q Well, not necessarily next week, but in the near future?

MS. PERINO: Sure --

Q I mean, initially -- (inaudible) supposed to be open, at least the first one --

Q So they will be together?

Q I mean, appearing publicly together?

MS. PERINO: They'll be together in Arizona, but then we break off and we go on to Utah and --

Q Publicly, though?

MS. PERINO: Stay tuned for the details, but I think that you'll see a -- when we arrive or when we depart, I think there will be a chance.

Chimpy's Just Too Busy

Q Just to follow up on that, the President endorsed McCain in March, and now two months, almost three months, when this actually happens, he's going to be getting out to campaign for him. Why so long?

MS. PERINO: I think you need to look back and look at the President's schedule, and also look at President John -- President McCain has a nice ring to it, but it was a little bit premature. President Bush has done several fundraisers here in town, but he's not raising money just for a McCain campaign, but for Republican candidates everywhere. President Bush is a formidable campaign fundraiser, as has been reported over the years, and I expect that he'll continue to be.

But remember, he's not on the ticket. And also, President Bush, since that time, in, it was early March -- late February/early March -- President Bush has had an international trip to NATO; he has traveled the country to host a international summit in New Orleans, where we hosted Prime Minister Harper and President Calderón; and then we just recently got back from a trip to the Middle East where the President is trying to help bring that region along to a Middle East peace conference. And we'll do what we can when we can. But the President has Commander-in-Chief responsibilities. And next week we have a chance to go out -- we'll also be doing a commencement address at the Air Force Academy, and then we head off to another international trip in early June.

So we'll do what we can when we can.

Q So it's scheduling, that's why?

MS. PERINO: I won't say. But again, President Bush isn't on the ticket. John McCain is on the ticket, and he's the one who's out there making the case for why he should be President of the United States.

Dana Throws McCain A Bone

Q You said several times that the President is not on the ticket. Are you seeking to distance the President from Senator McCain?

MS. PERINO: Victoria, I'm stating a fact.

Q Right, which we know.

MS. PERINO: Well, okay, then, no, I'm not -- I'm seeking nothing but to tell you that the President is not on the ticket, he's not running, and you can't -- you don't expect for him to be out running for President. He's done that twice and been successful.

Ken.

Q Dana, have decisions been made on whether he will do campaign trips with McCain?

MS. PERINO: I don't know if they've gotten that detailed yet, in terms of ramping up as we go over the next several months. So at this point, I couldn't tell you. And I'm not really involved in those scheduling discussions.

If It Quacks Like A Duck...

Q Is the veto override vote on the farm bill and the vote on the Iraq supplemental evidence that the President is facing now a kind of lame duck syndrome where he doesn't have the leverage with Congress that he once did?

MS. PERINO: I've been asked this question for about a year, and so I don't --

Q Well, I'm asking it now -- (inaudible) -- actual vote.

MS. PERINO: And I know you're asking it now. I think on the farm bill, though, I think that it says a lot more about Congress than it does about the President.

Q Why?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think that they've made a decision in an election year that they can throw caution to the wind and throw fiscal discipline out the window and pass a bill that will cost taxpayers an enormous sum of money. And the President had very clear principles all along the way on the farm bill, and they decided that Congress was going to overrun that. That's their right. They didn't quite do it exactly the way that they thought they would, but I'm sure that that will work itself out when they get back and they'll be able to fix the mistake.

Q How about the war supplemental?

MS. PERINO: But on the war supplemental, we have a long way to go when it comes to the war supplemental.

[snip]

Q So do you think there is a lame duck effect, or do you think that's an urban myth?

MS. PERINO: I think that it -- I don't think that it applies, and especially in these two cases. I think that any time you have a Congress that's nearing the last several months of their legislative session, they try to get more done as they get closer to these recesses, like Memorial Day recess. I am sure you'll see a lot of activity leading up to that last week of July before they go on the Fourth of July recess, but time is running out to get a lot of things done.

The Stink Of Cheney

Is all over this.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The United States is trying to bully its allies into weakening a treaty banning cluster bombs, Jody Williams, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for leading a campaign against landmines, said on Friday.

Representatives of more than 100 nations are working on an agreement against the use of cluster munitions, although the United States, China and Russia are not participating. Opponents say cluster bombs are unreliable and indiscriminate.

The United States said on Wednesday the treaty could jeopardize U.S. participation in joint peacekeeping and disaster relief operations by "criminalizing" military operations between countries that signed the ban and those that did not.

Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize together with her International Campaign to Ban Landmines, said genuine peacekeeping operations backed by the United Nations would not be affected by a global ban on cluster bombs.

[snip]

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon earlier week told delegates in Dublin, where the treaty is being finalized, that the use, development, production, stockpiling and transfer of cluster bombs should be prohibited.

Friday Bike Blogging: Cooking up a Casseroll

For quite some time I planned this bike and have now completed building it.

I started with a Salsa Casseroll frame.

It is a unique and versatile frame. First it is steel and as we like to say-- "Steel is Real." It can accept fenders and larger tires. But most important it has old school dropouts which you don't see anymore on new frames...

With those dropouts you can run the bike as a road bike, fixie, single speed or with an internal geared hub.

For now it is a roadie meant for transportation so it has fenders and a front rack both which are quite exquisite. The fenders are Honjo Hammered fenders. Notice the leather washers used to dampen any vibration....

The front rack is just beautiful in my opinion...

It was a beast to install as it had to be placed just right and then the tanges had to be drilled. Two of my bike mechanic co-workers did the job. It took over 2 hours (thanks so much G and J) One tange had to be bent just so to fit under the fork between the fender....

The rack tange and fender are attached to a bolt that hangs from the brake bolt and extends down through the fork crown.

Here is a shot of the bottom tanges which also had to be drilled, cut and filed...

I built the front wheel which has a Shimano generator hub.....

Your President Speaks!

Today, at the White House.

Trade Defined

Carlos Gutierrez is the Secretary of Commerce. Trade means commerce.

Products With Jobs

Today I'm going to spend some time so our fellow citizens understand the importance of trade by connecting trade with products with jobs.

The Global War On Articles Continues

Good jobs policy is a good trade policy.

Not "The Ambassador De South Korea"?

I want to thank Federico Humbert, the Ambassador de Panama. I want to thank Lee Tae-sik, Ambassador from South Korea.

What It Is

First of all, the -- you know, it's rough economic times.

If There Is Uncertain Times

If there's uncertain times, there's no worse signal to send than, you know, we may be raising your taxes.

What They Got

Of course, they got a huge appetite for spending your money, so it shouldn't surprise you that some up there really do want to raise your taxes.

Who Says This?

In other words, people think it makes good politics to say we're not going to let you trade.

What Our Fellow Citizens Have Got

And our fellow citizens I understand, you know, have got concerns about trade, and the reason why we've asked you to bring some of your products here is to remind people that that motorcycle is made by American workers, and that if we're able to more likely sell those motorcycles into Colombia, for example, or Panama or South Korea, that the worker who made that is more likely to get a pay raise or have somebody else join him or her on the floor.

Brainwreck

But I want to thank you for helping to try to change that attitude by bringing a practical -- some practical thoughts to this debate, kind of fight through all the rhetoric and remind our fellow citizens that -- of some of the facts.

More Better Good

One, our economy grows better when we export; two, there are jobs.

What We Got

If you're a farmer, we got some products here, grown right here in the United States of America.

Practical Lessons Of Why

Now, let me give you some of the practical lessons of why. Take dairy products.

Chunk Of Cheese

That means that the cost of that dairy product, chunk of cheese -- you know something about cheese, Petri, in Wisconsin -- a chunk of cheese is going to be 20 percent more expensive, which makes it harder to sell that product.

What Poppy And Bar Got

Broccoli -- they got a really high tariff on broccoli at my father's house.

What The Columbia Free Trade Vote Have Got

Secondly, the Colombia free trade vote, like these other free trade votes, have got national security implications.

What Colombia Has Got

Colombia has got a very bold leader named President Uribe, who is a reformist.

What All These Leaders Have Got

All these leaders have got a clear vision about enhanced prosperity in their country.

It Makes It Here

They're a threat to peace inside Colombia, and they provide a threat to the United States, in the sense that they -- to the extent that they facilitate drug trafficking, it makes it here.

What Dear Leader Needs

And a rejection of the free trade agreement with Colombia will undermine that which the leader -- the region needs.

Is Is

And all I can tell them is, is that politics is too strong right now.

What He Also Tell

But I also tell I haven't given up hope.

"One Time"

Oyster has a scenario. It would make Ricky 'I love my brother. Should we call these relationships marriage, too?' Santorum's head explode

Friday Ferretblogging

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Today on Athenae's Obsession with the Freepi: The Gay Blades Make Demands

McCain rejected Hagee on the orders of the secret gay campaign staff:

Wow. I didn’t know the VietCong cut his balls off.

---

McCain should just say we don’t agree on all things but I respect their right to express their opinions.

He lets the media make him react to non-issues.

He’ll lose this campaign if he doesn’t stop jumping to media toadies’ tunes.

Maybe that’s the plan.

McCain—when you care enough to send the very worst.

---

99.9% of the negative material on Rev. Hagee is prepared by an activist homosexual website.

It's quite interesting to me to find that McCain seems to eat this stuff up.

How many gay people does he have on his immediate campaign staff? 10, maybe 100, or 10,000?

He's showing absolutely no common sense in this situation.

---

I'm afraid I'm beginning to understand where John McCain is coming from too.

He laps up their garbage like it's sugar water.

It's like he's in some sort of psycho-sexual disconnect from reality. The gay blades demand, he jumps!

---

Hagee’s endorsement of McCain certainly turned me totally 360 on my views of him and his ministry. I discarded all my Hagee books... after rereading some sections in question.

Elsewhere in the thread, they're quoting Martin Luther King. I need a nap.

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Holy Crap!™

Double-Whammy!

Home prices fell a record 1.7 percent in the first quarter and the number of workers on jobless benefit rolls held at a four-year high, underscoring the economy's woes, data on Thursday showed.

The continued slump in housing prices in the first quarter pushed them 3.1 percent below their year-ago level, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight said. Like the quarter-to-quarter drop, the decline was the biggest in the 17 years the housing regulator has tracked the data.

OFHEO said prices fell 0.4 percent in March from February and are now down 3.7 percent from their April 2007 peak. Other home price measures have shown even steeper declines.

A separate report from the Labor Department showed first-time claims for state unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell 9,000 last week to 365,000.

However, the number of workers still on the benefit rolls after drawing an initial week of aid held at 3.073 million in the week ended May 10, the latest for which figures were available. The last time so-called continued claims were higher was in March 2004.

"The data tends to support our call of a move in the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for Merk Investments in New York. The jobless rate stood at 5 percent in April.

Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

The White House Wants To Make Sure You Know That The Press Corps Laughed At Congressional Democrats

Q Farm bill -- where are we with the farm bill?

MS. PERINO: You tell me -- or the Democrats tell me.

Q What did he veto?

MS. PERINO: He vetoed -- the President vetoed the bill that the Democrats sent us. And, look, I understand there's a technical error and we'll have to see what the Congress decides to do, but maybe it gives them one more chance to take a look and think about how much they're asking the taxpayers to spend at a time of record farm income. The Congress had an opportunity to put forward -- I'm sorry -- to implement reforms, much needed reforms, and they decided not to. And I think with this move it shows that they can even up screw up spending the taxpayers' money unwisely.

Q What was that --

MS. PERINO: Said they can -- they've proved that they can even screw up spending the taxpayers' money unwisely. (Laughter.) Laughter by reporters. (Laughter.)

NOLA Levee Leaking

Not good news at all:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Despite more than $22 million in repairs, a levee that broke with catastrophic effect during Hurricane Katrina is leaking again because of the mushy ground on which New Orleans was built, raising serious questions about the reliability of the city's flood defenses.

Outside engineering experts who have studied the project told The Associated Press that the type of seepage spotted at the 17th Street Canal in the Lakeview neighborhood afflicts other New Orleans levees, too, and could cause some of them to collapse during a storm.

The Army Corps of Engineers has spent about $4 billion so far of the $14 billion set aside by Congress to repair and upgrade the metropolitan area's hundreds of miles of levees by 2011. Some outside experts said the leak could mean that billions more will be needed and that some of the work already completed may need to be redone.

"It is all based on a 30-year-old defunct model of thinking, and it means that when they wake up to this one -- really -- our cost is going to increase significantly," said Bob Bea, a civil engineer at the University of California at Berkeley.

SNIP

Over the past few months, however, the corps found evidence that canal water is seeping through the joints in the sheet metal and then rising to the surface on the other side of the levee, forming puddles and other wet spots.

Engineers said the boggy ground is a more serious problem than the corps realizes. Bea said there is a roughly 40 percent chance of the 17th Street Canal levee collapsing if water rises higher than 6 feet above sea level. During Katrina, the water reached 7 feet in the canal.

John Schmertmann, a retired University of Florida professor and a consultant on foundations, agreed with Bea that the corps "may still be embedding some of these not-properly-considered factors, so the new walls may not do what the corps expects."

Reducing such seepage might require the driving of sheet metal far deeper into the ground than is done now, or some other solution, said Bea, who was part of a team of experts sent by the National Science Foundation to do an independent study of the levee failures during Katrina.

Donald Jolissaint, chief of the corps' technical support branch in New Orleans, denied the problem at the 17th Street Canal is serious.

"I personally do not at all believe that this little wet spot is anything that is going to cause a breach or a failure of any kind," he said. A newly installed floodgate could be used to cut off the flow of water into the canal and reduce pressure on the levee, he said.

Nevertheless, the corps is concerned enough that for weeks, workers have been analyzing the wet spots and digging a 160-foot-long, 10-foot-deep trench to zero in on the source. "We're doing everything we can to chase this down," Jolissaint said.

The McCain Campaign

Like a city council race, with 99 percent less WIN.

I think what chiefly offended me about the McCain Girls videos was just how grimly serious they seemed. It wasn't even that they were godawful, it's that they didn't know they were supposed to be godawful and have a good time with it. Most campaign songs suck ass, and they're kind of supposed to. Way back in the prehistoric days of the Dean campaign, there was a guy who rewrote all the lyrics of every song you could imagine to feature Dean, like we're talking Monster Mash here, and because he was clearly being seven kinds of silly, instead of being pathetic it was AWESOME. Same thing with, say, Chris Dodd and the rally monkey:

And Obama Girl is hardly La Traviata here. Even the Hot for Hillary girl is having fun:

Part of what I loved about political blogs back in 2003 was the joy they injected into the process, the same kind of goofy shit you come up with at 2 a.m. in the office when nobody's had any sleep (except during daylight, sober, without any direct electoral consequences, and on the Internet). McCain's early 2000 run had some of that sense of humor. It's gone now, one of many things about the McCain campaign that are just depressing and sad.

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Happy Frozen Democrat Photo: Alaska Edition

Have a listen to the man who's gonna school Ted Stevens in the ways of the tubes.

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Minnesota Ponies

Unloved in the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.

Minnesotans are profoundly dissatisfied with the job President Bush is doing -- and are even more disenchanted with the general trajectory of the nation.

A new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll found that only a quarter of the state's residents approve of the president's job performance, the harshest assessment of his tenure. Two-thirds give his performance a thumbs-down.

At the same time, only 14 percent of Minnesotans say things in the nation are generally headed in the right direction, while 77 percent say the United States has gotten seriously off on the wrong track.

That level of dissatisfaction also is higher than at any other time during the Bush presidency.

[snip]

His current approval rating is lower than any ever registered for his father, George H.W. Bush (32 percent); Bill Clinton (46 percent) or Ronald Reagan (45 percent). The lowest presidential approval rating ever measured by the Minnesota Poll was for Richard Nixon, when he hit 20 percent several months before his August 1974 resignation.

Housekeeping

If you'll direct your attention to your right, you'll see you can add First Draft to your feeder thingies with just a click now.

I personally find it easier to manage my blogs via an incredibly long list of bookmarks, but people seem to like the feeders, so there we go.

Any other new bells or whistles we seem to be in need of? Besides a bigger crack van, that is.

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Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

Meet Your Propagandist-In-Chief

Q The policy change allowing Americans to send cell phones to family members in Cuba -- are you sure that if people send these phones, that they'll work, or are you just allowing a change and hoping that they'll work?

MS. PERINO: I'll refer you to what -- earlier today in the briefing room that Dan Fisk said that we do believe that they would work. And I think what's important here is that the President is saying, all right, Raul, if you say that you're going to allow people to have cell phones, let's actually really let them have them. As Dan was saying this morning, the average income -- monthly income for a Cuban is $12, and a cell phone is about $120 plus the service plus the activation fee. So they're completely out of reach for the majority of people in Cuba.

What the President wants to do is say, let's call you out on that. If you are serious about allowing people to have a cell phone, let's make sure that they can actually have them and use them. And so that's what we're trying to do here.

Q So how will they get service if they can't afford it? I mean, does the government have to allow it?

MS. PERINO: What he said -- what Dan said this morning is that included in this change is not only do you allow for the device to be sent, but that American -- Cuban Americans who are living here in America could pay for the service, as well.

Q And you have confidence that would work?

MS. PERINO: As far as I know, from what was said this morning, yes.

Q Well, how do you know it would work on the Cuban network? Isn't this just a case of the President trying to call their bluff for the propaganda advantage? There's no --

MS. PERINO: I'm sure that this is all given consideration. And Dan Fisk this morning -- I don't have any other information except for what the expert said this morning, that he believed it would work. Certainly this is something that would have to be taken into consideration in a policy process. I'm sure it was, and I'll see if there's any more I can get for you.

B-B-But...  What About The Glorious Embargo?

Q Yes, Dana, back to Cuba. If Americans are now able to send phones to a place they couldn't send phones before, and send money for a service that they couldn't send money, how is that not a loosening of the embargo?

MS. PERINO: Well, I think, remember, that this is a changing of the existing regulations. There's -- the embargo is based on doing business because the regime makes you do business with just the regime, and the money doesn't get passed on to the people who are living in Cuba. There is already an existing regulation -- and I don't have all the details at my fingertips -- that allows for gift parcels to be sent from Cuban Americans to their families back in Cuba. What this did is allow for, if you were putting together a care package, to put a cell phone in it, as well. That has not been allowed before.

Q But it is being allowed now. So that's not a loosening?

MS. PERINO: What I just said is -- no, I think it's separate from the embargo. That's how I would describe it.

Q One other question, too, about the money. In order to get service in Cuba, presumably you have to pay the state-run Cuban phone service provider. Are Americans not going to be then subsidizing the regime by paying money to that provider?

MS. PERINO: Let me go and back and see how it will work because what -- that doesn't correspond with what Dan said this morning at the gaggle. So I'll go back and find out in terms of where they believe the service is paid for.

Happy Teddy Photo

From one of my favorites of his recent Bush-smackdowns, this one about FISA:

If Congress immunizes the telecoms for past violations of the law, it will send the message Congress approves what the administration did. We would be aiding and abetting the President in his illegal actions, his contempt for the rule of law, and his attempt to hide his lawbreaking from the American people. Voting for amnesty would be a vote for silence, secrecy, and illegality. There would be no accountability, no justice, no lessons learned.

The damage will not stop there. The telecommunications companies are not the only private entity enlisted by this administration in its lawbreaking. Think about Blackwater and its brutal actions in Iraq, or the airlines that have flown CIA captives to be tortured in foreign countries. These companies may also be summoned to court one day to justify their actions. When that day comes, the administration may call yet again for retroactive immunity, claiming the companies were only doing their patriotic duty as ``partners'' in fighting terrorism.

The debate we are having now about telecom amnesty is not likely to be the last round in the administration's attempt to immunize its private partners. It is only the opening round. In America, we should be striving to make more entities subject to the rule of law, not fewer. Giving in to the administration now will start us down a path to a very dark place.

Think about what we have been hearing from the White House in this debate. The President has said American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity--no immunity, no FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies.

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Meet Mr. 23%

Zogby:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Growing anxiety about their economic prospects and deep unhappiness with President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress plunged Americans into a dark mood this month, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

[snip]

Bush's approval rating fell 4 percentage points to 23 percent, a record low for pollster John Zogby, and positive marks for the U.S. Congress fell 5 points to tie an all-time low at 11 percent.

The number of Americans who believe the country is on the right track fell from 23 percent to an abysmal 16 percent, another record for pessimism, as uncertainty about the economy and rising gas prices fuelled growing doubts about the future.

KY, OR Crack Van

Posts in the van belong to their posters, not to me, Scout, Holden, Jude or the ham. NO VIOLENCE. Play nicely.

Van closed! Thanks for coming by!

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Chimpy Sure Loves His Hand-Holding Buddy

Yepper.

The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.

The bill would subject OPEC oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Iran and Venezuela, to the same antitrust laws that U.S. companies must follow.

The measure passed in a 324-84 vote, a big enough margin to override a presidential veto.

The legislation also creates a Justice Department task force to aggressively investigate gasoline price gouging and energy market manipulation.

[snip]

The Senate previously approved similar legislation as part of a broad energy bill. However, the OPEC-suing provision was removed after White House opposition in order to get the underlying energy legislation signed into law.

AP Photo/Susan Walsh

Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

On To Iran!

Q I want to ask you about the denial of the Jerusalem Post story --

MS. PERINO: Yes.

Q -- when you say that the White House's preference is to solve this through peaceful, diplomatic means. That still leaves the door open, though, to planning an attack. I'm not saying you are planning an attack, but by your specifically saying that your preference is to have a peaceful, diplomatic means, doesn't that leave the door open to still --

MS. PERINO: I don't see how that changes -- I don't think that what I said today in response to a Jerusalem Post article that quotes an Army Times* piece that quotes unnamed officials who were quoting unnamed officials -- seems a little bit less than ethical to run that as a big story on their website. So what I said in there was I was restating longstanding Bush administration policy, which is to work with our international allies on a multilateral way to get the Iranians through diplomatic means, bringing economic and diplomatic pressure to bear on the Iranians to get them to change their behavior so that we could sit down at the table with them. And until they halt that nuclear enrichment we're not going to sit down with them.

But what I said in terms of, as the President said before, no President should take options off the table when dealing with any situation. So -- but I don't think I said anything different from what I've said before.

Q But on the -- go ahead.

Q Dana, it doesn't -- you don't deny the premise of the Post article, the Jerusalem Post article, which was that a senior U.S. official said that the President and Vice President were of the opinion that military action is called for in Iran?

MS. PERINO: I have no knowledge of anybody saying that to anybody in Israel, no. And as I said, I will restate that the United States position is to work with our international allies to bring diplomatic pressure to bear, both economic pressure and the diplomatic pressure that comes from working with all of our allies and also the countries in the region who have grave concerns about Iran's ambitions to obtain a nuclear weapon.

"Well Knitted Up" -- Like An Old Sock

Q One quick follow on that. A broader question in the story, it also claims that there are sort of two camps in the administration: the President and the Vice President who are leaning more towards an attack, and Secretary Rice and Secretary Gates are sort of pulling them back. Is there any sort of split in the administration?

MS. PERINO: This is something that I have seen reported over the years, and I think it's just people surmising or trying to string along story lines and rumors that aren't based in fact. The President's team is well knitted up.

Yep, Chimpy And Chestpain-ey Want To Attack Iran Now

Q What about the substance of it, though? Do the President and the Vice President feel that an attack is called for -- whether someone said that in Israel, or not?

MS. PERINO: Keith, I feel that I just answered that question when I talked about what our policy is.

Q Can you answer yes or no to that?

MS. PERINO: I just told -- said what our policy is and that our preference is to solve this diplomatically. And that's what we're trying to do.

Q But that doesn't answer the question.

MS. PERINO: It does answer the question, that that is what we are working with our allies to do. But the President has said -- what I'm saying today in response to the Jerusalem Post is nothing different than from what has been said at this podium for a couple of years now.

Q But it's not quite an answer, because everyone's preference is always for peace, but someone could still think that an attack may be called for.

MS. PERINO: Look, I think that when you have a longstanding policy, such as the President has, and he's working with international allies -- we've already passed three Security Council resolutions; we're now working on an incentives package; we have multilateral agreement that Iran should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, or get the technology to be able to obtain a nuclear weapon, and we're all working towards that goal. But at the same time, the President has said that no President, no matter who it is, either him or anyone in the future, should take options off the table. It's not a smart way to negotiate.

Q Does the President -- do the President and the Vice President think an attack is called for on Iran? Yes or no?

MS. PERINO: I just said what the United States policy was, which is, our preference is to try to solve this diplomatically.

Q Look, skepticism seems warranted here, because in the run-up to the war in 2003, the line was officially that negotiations were still called for and that there was no decision to attack, when, in fact, subsequent reporting has shown that there probably was a decision to attack well before the attack took place. So why shouldn't we be skeptical of the claim that there's no intention to bomb Iran?

MS. PERINO: Bill, you can be as skeptical as you want to be. I stated what our policy is, and I don't have anything else that I can give you. I'm not going to be able to -- if you're going to be a skeptic, that's your right -- you're fourth estate, go for it.

Shorter Dana:  No

Q Can you honestly maintain with a straight face that in an election season like this the White House was unaware that people would take that statement the President made as an attack on Obama or other Democrats?

MS. PERINO: What I'm saying is that President Bush was there at the Knesset to give a speech on the 60th anniversary of Israel and he restated longstanding United States policy. And I don't think that he should have to change or sit back and wait out for the next six months while an election is going on.

It's Primary Night ... You Know What That Means

CRACK VAN!

Be here round about 5 p.m.

A.

Today On Holden's Obsession With The Gaggle

Snott Stanzel Trips On The Numbers

Q What's the latest on SPR? And you said earlier the President intended to sign off on it -- why, if that's not something he really believes in?

MR. STANZEL: We have -- I said this morning I thought that we had received the bill late last week, but actually we expect to receive it this afternoon. So there's been no action by the President yet on that.

I would note that as we have said numerous times, we don't believe that halting the fill of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve will have much of an impact on oil prices, and therefore an impact on gas prices. What you see in this chart is basically the daily fill of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is about 70,000 barrels. What you saw on the President's visit to the Middle East, there was talk of Saudi Arabia increasing their daily production by about 300,000 barrels. Both of those were noted to be somewhat small amounts that would not probably have much of an impact on world oil prices.

I think it's worth noting that if ANWR had come on line 10 years ago, or 13 years ago when it was rejected, we might be seeing a million barrels of daily production out of that here domestically. So we think that it's important for Congress to not get sidetracked with a discussion of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

[snip]

Q Your chart doesn't show the daily consumption, which is about 20 million barrels --

MR. STANZEL: Right, that's correct.

Q -- which makes all of these numbers relatively insignificant.

MR. STANZEL: Well, but 1 million out of 20 million is, what, 5 percent, Bill? Five percent difference is a difference.

Q Yes, but we can't get there anytime soon.

MR. STANZEL: No, we can't, because Congress keeps putting off the fact with -- going from band-aid to band-aid that they think will have an impact, but really won't.

Chimpy vs. Congressional Republikkkans

Q Scott, is the President disappointed that dozens of Republicans in Congress are supporting the farm bill? And what's the latest on timing in terms of presidential action on the farm bill?

MR. STANZEL: We have not yet received the farm bill. That was passed last week, obviously.

[snip]

But the President has been disappointed with what came forward -- what came through Congress. We see a bill that is bloated; that asks taxpayers, at a time of record-high farm income, to pay -- and at a time when they're paying more for groceries, to pay even more to wealthy farmers. And we don't think that's the right approach. And the President and the administration will continue to make that case. Like I said, we haven't received the bill yet. We expect that we'll receive it sometime this week, and the President will veto it.

Q Is he particularly, though, disappointed with his own party, members of his own party supporting it?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I think that there are -- certainly members respond to different interests, maybe from their districts. But in the grand scheme of things, the President wanted a bill that would reform our farm laws for the future, that would make wise use of the taxpayers' money, that wouldn't increase subsidies at a time of record-high incomes. There are some things in this bill that are just unconscionable.

[snip]

Q Scott, the President, though, reportedly told some of the legislators on the Republican side that it was all right if they -- or signaled that it was okay if they voted their districts, meaning they could support it if their districts supported it.

MR. STANZEL: That is actually a bit of a rumor that came out of the meeting that the President had with the House GOP conference. He did not absolve anybody of their votes. He did indicate that obviously different factors come into weighing on people's votes. But he did not say, go ahead and vote your district. He certainly put forward the reasons why he thought that that bill was bad for the taxpayers, and one that he would veto.

The Death Knell For John McStain

Q Well, 82 percent of Americans think the country is headed on the wrong track. The President has a pretty low approval rating right now. When he hits the road with John McCain, what's his pitch to voters? Does he think he can actually help this candidate?

MR. STANZEL: Well, I think that, first of all, it would be interesting to note the approval rating of Congress, as well, which is lower than all of those numbers that you cite. The President, when he gets out and talks on the campaign trail, regardless of what candidate he is supporting, will talk about the fact that he believes that Republicans going into this fall have the message that can be supported by voters, and that is one that keeps us strong, keeps us safe as a nation, one that uses -- makes wise use of the taxpayers' money and keeps taxes low, to make sure that the economy continues to grow.

So the President believes very strongly that if we get out and take our message to voters, that we can be successful.

Q Are we going to see a lot of them together?

MR. STANZEL: I think you'll see the President out on the campaign quite -- campaign trail quite a bit. We'll keep you posted on their events that they may have together.

You And Your Goddamned Liberal Blogs!

Q The White House has denied that it knew about the Pentagon program that used TV military analysts --

MR. STANZEL: We've been through this before. Do you have a question?

Q Yes. There's something new. Last week emails surfaced that showed that Pentagon officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, communicated with White House officials, including Karl Rove and Stephen Hadley, about the program. One email written by a Pentagon official mentioned that Rove was approached about arranging a meeting between the military analysts and the President --

MR. STANZEL: Your question is?

Q My question is, what was the nature and extent of the involvement of Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley and President Bush in the military analyst program?

MR. STANZEL: Well, the idea that people in the administration would brief people who are talking to reporters about our programs and our policies doesn't seem like to be that far-fetched of an idea to me. So in terms of the emails, I haven't been monitoring the staff emails here, so I can't tell you what their conversations were like. But it's not unusual for administration officials to brief people who are talking about our plans and our policies. Much like I'm standing here today, briefing all of you --

Q Right, and why was the program kept secret?

MR. STANZEL: -- and much like I'm standing here answering your question, and you go out on your liberal blog and talk about the way that you see things; we brief people who talk about the President's policies.

Q Why was the program kept secret?

MR. STANZEL: You can talk to the Defense Department. It was their program -- which they've discontinued.

Q Who was in charge at the White House?

Les vs. Big Oil

Q There have been -- there has been yet another almost nationally uniform raising of gasoline prices to more than $4 a gallon. And my question: Does the President believe that there is no sign whatsoever of any conspiracy in restraint of trade here, and does the White House believe that Election Day in November that the majority of voters will blame him or will they blame members of the majority party on Capitol Hill?

MR. STANZEL: I don't think the President is focused on blame, Lester. He's focused on solutions that will have a difference for the future. Certainly rising demand in oil around the world is having an impact on gasoline prices. You mentioned $4.00 -- the average price is not yet there --

Q It all goes up together. Did you notice that? All of those oil companies --

MR. STANZEL: I certainly did notice that.

Q -- go up together. What about that?

MR. STANZEL: Well, oil is sold on a world market, Lester, so that is a case in point of what we see. But the President believes that we should focus on ways that we can reduce our dependence on foreign sources of oil, that we can expand use of alternative fuels, that we can reduce our consumption through raising CAFE standards, and make sure that we take those measures that will help us in the future, like expanding exploration in ANWR, the Outer Continental Shelf, as an example.

Great Photos

Oyster's favorite is the second one down. I'm leaning towards the last one but it is a tough call.......

What do you think? Check them out.....What's Your Fave?

Slogan Suggestions Needed

For a McCain/Huckabee ticket.

A.

Build A Wall

At least some part of the economy is booming:

Tetra Tech, a California-based company that helped build the border wall near San Diego, is close to completing this $12 million, 3.4-mile section near the Santa Teresa Point of Entry, federal officials said.

It's part of a $460 million contract awarded to Tetra Tech and others last year to erect a border fence for the Army Corps of Engineers.

The project includes 53 miles of fencing designed to impede foot and vehicle traffic in the Border Patrol's El Paso sector, which includes all of New Mexico as well as Texas' two westernmost counties.

Tight timetable

Homeland Security is furiously working to complete construction of a planned 670 miles of fence along the southern border before the Bush administration ends in eight months.

Levees are too expensive. Schools, hospitals, bridges, all of it, too pricey. This, though, we can do.

Hat tip to report from the heartland.

A.

Jara Sang His Song--A Weapon, in the Hands of Love

Victor Jara, 1932-1973

Go read Bob Harris.  Do it.

And do it every day.  The man has a way with words.

I actually learned about Victor Jara from a U2 song ("One Tree Hill," quoted in the title to this post).  And I'm glad I bothered to look him up.  Hooray for The Joshua Tree!

Seriously, though.  Check out Bob Harris' site.  And maybe buy one of his books?  You'll be glad you did.

Stuff

Via Shakesville, this.

I come from a family of pack rats and I'm married to one, but fight the urge regularly. We have a relatively small place, and I'm claustrophobic. That, combined with my inability to work at all when things are a mess, contributes to twice-yearly epic cleanouts of shit that ends up at the Salvation Army or on Craigslist. When I quit my job two years ago, we got rid of almost all our CDs and a lot of books, too, which was harder that just chucking out holey socks and broken furniture. You never know when you're going to go looking for a song or phrase and not be able to find it. Still, it was a storage issue. You can only build so many shelves.

During the horrific 2007 Summer of Suck when both Mr. A and I were unemployed, I came up with a plan that involved selling all our shit and our place and taking whatever meager proceeds that left us with and moving to Europe to live for a year or so while, like, herding sheep or something. It was the sort of thing that made perfect sense to me in my "fuck it, let's just burn it all in a big pile in the street if the universe is going to treat us like this" state of mind; luckily or unluckily, Mr. A thought that was just about the stupidest idea I'd ever had.

(And I come up with some doozies on a weekly basis; my other plan was to jump on board the Tall Ships when they come into the harbor in Chicago and become crew, like a claustrophobe with no practical skills and someone who gets seasick doing dishes should live on a 19th century sailing ship.)

Those plans, though, weren't about creating simplicity as much as they were about running away. I think if I had a big place I'd revert to a hoarding state; it's ingrained that collections of things equal security. We look at open houses every once in a while and I think to myself, "If we bought that house (if we could afford that house) that would be the house I would die in. I would line it with books and unwrap all the old china I bought in thrift stores and we would never, ever be able to pack it all up again." So maybe it's a defense mechanism, living somewhere with tiny closets.

A.

The Operative Phrase

The sensible moderate's mantra:

Bush = good. Muslims = evil. The government is owed our unconditional support. It is our duty to defeat the false religions. It’s all sensible because I choose to believe it. I am very brave for saying so. One suspects these few self-evident truths can be repeated at very high volume for long, long periods of time, endurance extended beyond normal human limits by excising any vestigial doubt.

Emphasis mine.

I think if we weeded out all the things people said over the past years that were complete horseshit, only by identifying the long pause after they said something hateful, much like the space in the script where it says "wait for applause or gasps of amazement at your genius or exclamations of admiration for your courage," we would excise perhaps two-thirds of all commentary ever from the public record.

I want to invent a time machine and go back and make these people's daddies and mommies love them, to spare the rest of us the burden of having to make them feel better with thousands of dead bodies.

A.

Sunday Sunday Sunday

Come get some!

It's Sunday. Shouldn't you sinners be in church?