I could write a million words about how great Julia Sweeney’s Letting Go Of God is, how wonderfully funny, moving, and genuinely thought-provoking, but I couldn’t possibly convey how much of a blast it is to see and hear live. I saw it last night on a whim. One of the best whims I’ve had in years.
If you haven’t seen it and you live in New York, then for God’s sake – or for the FSM’s sake – call up some friends and get tickets. It’s only playing through this Sunday, the 29th, and the theater seats around 100/150 tops. She’ll be performing the piece elsewhere as well, so you might want to check her site for the where and when.
Trust me, you want to see this one live (unless your name is Deepak Chopra, for reasons that become obvious). If you’ve heard Sweeney on the radio, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. What are you waiting for? Go get your tickets before it sells out, you goddamn, God-forsaken fools!
The NY Times blog “The Empire Zone” doesn’t seem to think it’s even possible that Joe Lieberman could have done anything unethical with his 387,000 slush fund. They have relegated the story to its blog that nobody reads.
The truth is that $387,000 in petty cash expenses in a primary race is an enormous sum and it should set off all kinds of bells in the minds of journalists and, as Matt Stoller discusses here, the good government campaign finance groups:
If a Senator put $387,000 in cash out on the streets in the final two weeks before the election – we’re talking cash here – and then failed to disclose where it went to reporters or anyone else by using the petty cash account, wouldn’t you think that good government groups who care about campaign finance laws and disclosure would be slightly interested? I would. Yet since Lieberman revealed this on his FEC forms late last week, only the Lamont campaign has been willing to file an FEC complaint.
If Lieberman gets away with this, FEC laws are effectively meaningless, and so are state election laws. I’m frankly surprised that a scandal of this magnitude is going largely ignored by Democrats, Republicans supporting Alan Schlesinger, and good government groups across the spectrum. Can you imagine if Bob Menendez did this in New Jersey? The good government groups would be all over it. Or Tom Kean Jr? You’d see a press conference with Reid and Schumer the next day. And yet, because it’s Joe Lieberman, he’s handing out hundreds of thousands in cold hard cash before the primary to undisclosed individuals, there’s no outside groups calling foul. Still, we’re all in this together, which means that if Lieberman is allowed to shovel hundreds of thousands of dollars without consequence through his petty cash account, then next cycle you’re going to see every Senate, House, and Presidential campaign use it to avoid disclosure requirements. Their claim can simply be ‘Lieberman did it’, and they will be absolutely right.
Where are the good government groups? Common Cause? CREW? Democracy 21? Public Campaign? Public Citizen? Any one of them could file a complaint with the FEC. Any one of them could file a complaint with the state board of elections. Here’s information on how to do it. This is a really really bad precedent to allow to be set.
Yes it is. There is nothing to stop campaigns from hiding huge, unusual expenses in a petty cash account and then avoid scrutiny of it until long after the election unless somebody draws attention to it.
…October marked the deadliest month for U.S. forces in Iraq this year…
On Tuesday, the military announced the deaths of four more U.S. troops, raising the month’s toll to 91. At least 2,801 members of the U.S. military have died since the war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In case anybody’s wondering what the conventional wisdom on the Lamont-Lieberman race is, check out this TV report from Chris Matthews on MSNBC:
Chris Matthews: The Connecticut senate race was called a political weathervane suggesting that Ned Lamont’s anti-war win would blow away suporters of the president’s tactics in Iraq. So why is Lieberman running ahead in the polls right now? NBC’s Chris Jansing is following the race up in West Hartford.
Chris, so what’s wrong? Can’t Lamont get the Democratic vote?
CJ: He can’t get any votes right now. And this is a surprise, most people thought that he was going to be the golden boy, but there’s a couple of reasons this whole Iraq referendum isn’t working. It was the number one issue for voters in the primary, now only 35%. For those for whom the war is the number one issue, they go Lamont. Every other area, voters are going for Lieberman.
He also made some missteps and you really hit on one of them when you had Lamont on Hardball Chris. You said, “Look when you had him down after the primary in August, why didn’t you step on his neck” and he said, “well, we needed a break after the primary.” Mistake. Another mistake a lot of people think Lamont made is he used these kind of off-beat political ads using the same guy who got Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura elected. But Connecticut isn’t Minnesota and so he squandered a lot of money there. He’s only started running more conventional ads in the last couple of weeks.
This is a very expensive race for a small state like Connecticut. Take a look at these numbers Chris. Almost 13 million dollars spent by Ned Lamont against — some people say, not well used. Almost every penny of it, by the way, out of his own pocket. And Joe Lieberman loses the primary but raises more money than any candidate in the history of Connecticut — 15 million dollars. And if you’re wondering what happened to Alan Schlessinger just take a look at that, he’s raised less than 195,000 dollars not that Republicans have ever run strong here but that is obviously a very poor showing. So, since August, this has been great political theatre but it sure hasn’t followed the script that Ned Lamont thought it would.
CM: Has the national party basically declared neutrality in this race? With all that money going to Joe you’ve got to believe that nobody told them not to — because they’re all Democratic givers probably — nobody told them don’t give to Joe, he’s not the Democratic candidate. It looks to me like somebody waved a white flag up at the headquarters.
CJ: It seems like everybody likes him. I mean, not only are they giving him the money but you’ve got people who are saying “hey, if he gets elected we’re gonna let him caucus with the Democrats.” He says he will caucus with the Democrats. You’ve got Republicans who are liking him. I mean, what what was it Dick Cheney said, “he is one of the most loyal and distinguished Democrats of his generation.” You’ve got basically everybody praising Joe Lieberman and so Ned Lamont is left out there saying “hey what happened, where is everybody who’s supposed to be supporting me?” He does have, I grant you that one ad with Chris Dodd…
CM: You mentioned some ads, some numbers there, but it seems to me, as a state — I just looked at here — 46th on how much they like President Bush, 46th in approval — the president’s down to 31% approval in that state, that means the Iraq war is way down. People who are against this Iraq war in the worst way are going to re-elect the strongest hawk on the Democratic side.
CJ: Well they might not re-elect him, but you have to look again at that number. 35% of people say that Iraq is the number one issue. For the rest a very strong percentage are those care about the economy. And remember Chris, when the Groton sub base was going to be closed, Joe Lieberman went in and got it to stay open. That’s 31,000 jobs right there. He is somebody who they think can go back to Washington, he may be in the Democratic majority and they’re saying “Look, I don’t think any single Senator can necessarily change the course of where we’re going in Iraq but they can make a difference about the things that matter to me like the economy, like jobs, like gas prices. That may be the ace in the hole for Joe Lieberman.
CM: I just don’t want to hear from those people later about how terrible the war is because the one thing about these elections is that in every national poll the number one issue is Iraq and the issue is going to turn on that elect because we are already seeing develop a new policy refinement based upon these new political circumstances right now.
A couple of things about this are just glaringly wrong, of course. Joe is not getting money only from Democratic givers. Republicans have been giving big money to his slush fund as well. And, Lamont most certainly is getting some votes from the grassroots Democrats who put him on the ballot, who I guess are considered useless pieces of nothing to these people. And it’s always funny to hear people sound as if there’s something wrong with Lamont spending his own money — as if it shows he’s some sort of phony when, in fact, he’s relieving the party and the party donors of the obligation to fund their nominee. (Sadly, many of them then felt “free” to give to his opponent, the Lieberman for Lieberman nominee.)
But I do find Matthews’ comments interesting. He seems to be scolding the voters of Connecticut, who hate the war and loathe George W. Bush, for failing to notice that they are voting for a warmongering Bush enabler and are out of step with the rest of the country by doing it. I feel like scolding them too. (And I especially feel like scolding “headquarters” who do seem to have waved the white flag. More on that later.)
WASHINGTON – Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) today hailed President Bush’s signing of a bipartisan resolution giving the President the authority to use military force to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Lieberman, who was one of the chief sponsors of the resolution in the Senate, attended the bill signing ceremony at the White House today.
“Saddam Hussein is the most significant threat to our national security, and we must take strong action to pry the poisons, toxins, and the plans for nuclear weapons out of his hands,” Lieberman said today. “This resolution not only expresses our resolute support for President Bush as he seeks international backing to finally force Saddam to disarm, but also strengthens his hand as commander-in-chief to take decisive action if Saddam does not comply or if the United Nations fails to act.”
Lieberman said this is the proper time for action, saying, “The question isn’t ‘why now?’ but ‘why not earlier?’ Over the last decade Saddam has built up weapons of mass destruction, developed the means to deliver them on targets near and far, and consistently ignored and violated U.N. resolutions. We’ve waited too long to address this threat.”
He wasn’t just a typical Democratic war supporter. He was one of the most enthusiastic war supporters in the congress. He can say now that he wants “peace with honor” or whatever Nixonian formulation he’s come up with today, but he’s the most hawkish Democrat in the Senate — so hawkish, Dick Cheney is counting on him to help him stay the course. He is not just another conservative Democrat. He’s the conservative Democrat most responsible for the Iraq bloodbath and he deserves to pay for that great error in judgment with his seat.
Connecticut Dems who are voting for Joe and yet are against the war need to wake up.
Update: D-Day has a transcript from Tweety’s show yesterday:
MATTHEWS: If you’re against the war, vote against it. You only get one vote. Shouldn’t you vote against it, if you care about it? If you care about other issues more, fine.
(crosstalk)
DICKERSON: That’s where they’re coming down, is they’re saying they like, you know, the war is complicated, a lot of positions, they like Joe.
MATTHEWS: There’s nothing complicated. Use your intelligence and vote your brains.
Back in 2004, the rightwing bloggers came up with the idea of google bombing the name John Kerry so that negative articles came up first on the search page when people googled his name. it worked.
Chris Bowers decided we should do the same thing with our wonderful GOP opponents this time and has come up with a handy list of links to make this easy.
So, while you are on hold on the phone today or sitting in a boring meeting or simply looking to kill a couple of minutes, click on the links below and help us bring the truth about these Republicans to the top of the Google search pages.
Update: Never mind. You don’t have to click on the links (although you might learn more about why you hate these candidates.) Just post the links on whatever site on which you have posting privileges or on your own blog. Mr. Google will do the rest.
Here’s the link to the code you can post on your blog.
I knew the Republicans would react like animals if they ever found themselves on the losing end of an election. I knew they would engage in rampant lying, race baiting and sexist stereotyping. I was a tiny bit surprised that they would support 52-year-old-man on teenager sex, but it didn’t shock me.
But I honestly didn’t think they’d go after the physically disabled. First Tammy Duckworth’s opponent accuses the multi amputee Iraq veteran of “cutting and running.” Then Rush takes a shot at Michael J. Fox. Now the GOP congresswoman who holds Dick Cheney’s old seat says to her opponent, a wheelchair bound MS sufferer, “If you weren’t sitting in that chair, I’d slap you across the face.”
I shouldn’t be shocked, now that I think about it. They had no problem questioning severely wounded war hero Max Cleland’s courage back in 2002. (In 2004, the ever so lovely Ann Coulter even claimed he had wounded himself in combat.)
These guys engage in gutter politics even when they don’t have to so it’s not surprising that they would turn into barbaric political terrorists in the face of serious losses. We’ll see if they can stroke the nation’s id and eke out a victory in these close races one more time.
Senior Bush administration officials wanted North Korea to test a nuclear weapon because it would prove their point that the regime must be overthrown.
This astonishing revelation was buried in the middle of a Washington Post story published yesterday…
One of these officials may have been Rice herself, Kessler hints. Rice, he reports, “has come close to saying the test was a net plus for the United States.” Rice has been trying to counter the prevailing view that the test was a failure of the Bush administration’s policy..
821 days left, people.
The least we can do is elect Democrats on November 7 who have pledged to investigate and apply the brakes.
According to the General, during last nights debate, Sen. Lieberman, noting Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, declared, “We’re in another time like that.”
That’s delusional BS. We’re in another time like this:
Weldon at BTC News is asking for reader submitted questions to the White House press Office:
If you’ve ever watched a White House press briefing, you’ve probably felt the sensation of drowning in tepid gruel. It can be an extremely frustrating experience and it led me to try, in the wake of the Guckert/Gannon scandal, to place my own unfettered correspondent in the briefing room. In early 2005, I managed to pester the White House press office into providing BTC News contributor — now BTC News White House correspondent — Eric Brewer with semi-regular access to the White House press briefings held by then-press secretary Scott McClellan.
Eric has done a great job under difficult circumstances (you can read his dispatches from the press room here) with both McClellan and Tony Snow, but he’s only one guy, he has a real job and he can’t be there every day. So I asked our press office contact, who is now an official spokesman, if he would field questions submitted by our readers. He agreed to do that on the record, and I’m here to ask you to ask the White House the questions institutional reporters should ask but don’t.
Drop over and leave a question in the comment section.
Nice to read, but it’s at least two, if not four, Friedman Units too late. Most interesting quote:
Americans, Iraqis and the rest of the world need clear, public signs of progress.
Mr. Bush can make the first one by firing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. There is no chance of switching strategy as long as he is in control of the Pentagon.
Sigh. Everyone still colludes with the Junior Prophet From Crawford in passing the buck to someone else. Not that Rumsfeld is competent and shouldn’t be fired. Of course he should, and then tarred and feathered. But Rumsfeld or no, the strategy Rumsfeld is pursuing is the strategy of George W. Bush. And “there is no chance of switching strategy as long as he is in control of the” White House.
For even if the strategy was somehow changed, there is no chance in hell it will change for the better. For as incompetent as Donald Rumsfeld surely is, his boss is far worse. Therefore, until January, 2009, no matter what happens, the Iraqis and the American military in Iraq will suffer horribly, needlessly, and monumentally. And the security of the US will be further eroded. It is awful, sickening, and infuriating, but it is also a fact.
A different country, with a more involved population, would demand Bush and his cabinet immediately resign. Ain’t gonna happen. A different country, one which held its leaders accountable for its safety, would have impeached Bush by September 19, 2001. But the United States in 2006 is not that kind of country. Barring anything unforeseen, like Bush getting a brain transplant or converting to Islam – both far more probable than he will change direction and that he will do so in such a way that things will get better in Iraq – there’s at least 821 days filled with unspeakable tragedy ahead for Iraq, and the US.
Contrary to what the lunatic, man-on-dog right says, I don’t like saying so, I don’t want it to happen, and I certainly hope I’m wrong. But some six years of nearly total disaster and mismanagement by the Bush administration says I’m right.
And yes, dear friends, the “nearly” in the previous paragraph was pro forma only.
Eight hundred and twenty-one more days of George W. Bush. God help us.
