Quote of the day

From an article depicting how Democrats and President Obama are willing to scale back and compromise on a scaled back, compromised, and largely ineffective (it's a like a running theme of the past year+) climate and energy bill.

But they said the president acknowledged that he could agree to a more limited climate and energy bill than any the senators had previously drafted.

“We believe we have compromised significantly, and we’re prepared to compromise further,” Kerry said.

Christ is there any more fitting epitaph that could be written on the Democrats' gravestone this November? I bet that phrase is on t-shirts they all wear underneath their suits.

The future framework for failure

With the Copenhagen conference well underway, Democrats in the Senate have taken the opportunity that an increased focus on climate change by the media (more specifically: Sarah Palin's ideas on climate change by the media) to release their own framework for a climate bill. Sure, we could discuss what's in it, from 17% greenhouse gas cuts to government loans for nuclear reactors, but why waste time when the whole damn thing will be changed by the time it's passed? No, instead we'll focus on yet another example of Democrats not understanding how the Senate works, the basic concept of negotiations, or just how badly they've set themselves up for failure.

"We would like to underscore the fact that the framework we are releasing today is a starting point for our negotiations going forward," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
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Kerry has for weeks been working with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., on broadening the Senate bill in hopes of gaining more Republican support.
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But the three acknowledged they are nowhere near getting the votes needed to overcome a certain GOP filibuster threat on any climate legislation. "We don't have 60 votes," said Lieberman.

Graham said the commitment to expand nuclear energy and open new opportunities for new oil and gas drilling both on shore and on the Outer Continental Shelf is hoped to attract additional support from Republican senators.

Christ John, you fell for it again. You actually thing this bill you released is a starting point for negotiations? No, this bill you outlined is the best this bill will ever look. Things will not move forward, they will move backward. You already admit you don't have the votes and already weakened your position in any future negotiations by crafting a bill that already starts off as a massive compromise and will still yet have to be compromised in order to pass. Why? Because you wanted Republican support. Because apparently you haven't been paying attention to the past couple of years. You magically got Graham on board and your only other two options come from Maine. The rest of the Republicans will vote against anything you propose based on general principle.

So let's see here, we have an optimistic Democrat introducing massively important legislation that absolutely has to be passed in order to stave of a giant problem that has been ignored for decades. Because he actually thinks that the other side can be bargained with he starts off by offering huge compromises in order to marshal bipartisan support that will never come. Remind me again, how did this plan of action work out for bailouts, the stimulus, financial reform, and health care? Ah, good 'ole Democrats: fool them once, no offense taken; fool them twice, no worries, you can just keep on foolin' them. I can't wait to see how this all unexpectedly blows up in Kerry's face. I'm sure it'll really surprise him when the has to whittle away this bill into nothing.

You don't say

I don't want to alarm you too much while you're still groggy from turkey consumption and the elbow you may have taken to the head on Black Friday while you trying to cut in front of some elderly pensioner to get a discounted blu-ray player, but there is shocking news of a revelatory nature to discuss. Yes, it seems that shortsighted planning, bad decisions, and political/military failures have taken a problem in the Middle East and turned it into an even bigger problem that dramatically affected the US and our foreign/military policy years after it took place. This is the first time that has ever happened.

The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.
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"Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report says. "But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora."

Well, it's not like we didn't already know that, but it's nice to have a definitive account of how the Bush Administration completely shit the bed on capturing bin Laden by not devoting enough troops to the cause of finding him and then pulling what ones they did have to go to the new war they were starting in Iraq. And what wonders that war did for us all. As a bonus, the report was delivered by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and it's chairman John Kerry, who futilely tried to make that exact point all throughout the 2004 Presidential election he fucked up. He must feel very proud that this gets added to the list of things he was right about five years ago. Ask Al Gore, I'm sure that's almost as good as being President.

So let's see, I think that means that America pretty much fucked up every single thing possible in the aftermath of 9/11. Not only did we gut our laws at home and violate our Constitution, we violated them abroad with our rendition, detention, and torture policies, we started a war in a wrong country, half-assed the war in the correct country to a degree that not only didn't we defeat the Taliban, but we allowed them to regroup, come back stronger, and helped them play a part in trying to destabilize Pakistan. Oh yeah, and we let the guy who masterminded the attacks waltz away, have shown little interest in capturing him, and there's still nothing built where the Twin Towers stood. By "we", I mean "the Bush Administration", but then again, we couldn't even be bothered to pay attention until 2008. Meanwhile, our one attempt to prosecute some of the guys involved in the attacks can't be done without half our country wetting itself over the horrors that will befall us if we follow the laws of our country.

But hey, at least Zacarias Moussaoui is in jail. We didn't fuck that one up. Mark that in the 'Job Well Done' column with.............. uh........................ um........................... yeah.

The new disappointment

With the health care debate largely over and only the scope and size of the public option left to get to get blindingly angry about, the choice of whether to allow people access to it was successfully fobbed off onto states (states rights, bitches! eat it Lincoln!), and the spectacle of largely conservative, right wing states enacting a hilarious process of screwing their own citizens on health care with the tacit tea bagging approval of those citizens, Congress now moves on to a new debate for us all to get immensely worked up over inevitably leading to anger and disillusionment in government as intelligent plans based on science and research are diluted and made terrible by the dumbest and most politically craven members of the Democratic Senate caucus: the environmental debate! The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee starts public hearings on climate change bills! Whooo!

With a clearer picture on health care, the Obama administration and Congress today are pivoting toward climate change legislation.

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee began hearings this hour on Chairman Barbara Boxer's bill, with President Obama's Green Cabinet expected to testify.
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With just over a month before climate change negotiations begin in Copenhagen, environmental advocacy groups have been pressuring the White House and Congress to take action so world leaders have a framework to build upon.

Administration officials have stressed for weeks they are comfortable with negotiators using the House-passed bill as a starting point, but the activists closest to the issue say that's not enough.

Sorry activists, hope you like getting less than what's in the House bill you think is inadequate. Hell, I hope you like getting less than what's in the Kerry/Boxer Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) that the hearings are going to be about. Because the lesson around here, and we try to impart it on a daily basis, is that the Senate is a stupid place and legislation only goes there to be made worse. The climate bill has been ordered to pass through the land of wind and ghosts and we can only hope that it emerges from the other side in a manner that doesn't worsen climate change, only fails to inadequately and effectively address it and fails to help set up the American economy to grow and expand into green technologies.

It matters not that people support cap-and-trade measures by a 60% to 37% measure and that the numbers are even higher for people under the age of 50. They felt the same way about a robust public option and we all saw the bruised, battered, and dismembered body that is still trying to drag itself out of the US Senate's shame basement. No, the future of America is clearly coal, so coal state Democrats (and God there are more of them than the ones who opposed a strong public option) will make sure that climate change legislation reflects the wishes of the coal industry that will fuel our economy into the 22nd century. Get ready, we've found the next Country Polarizing Thing To Hate that everyone on both sides can get angry about: climate change legislation! Get your teabags and haikus about Mother Earth ready.

Whew, crisis averted

Ladies and gentlemen we have averted a crisis. Hamid Karzai has accepted the results of the UN's Electoral Complaints Commission and will consent to a second round of voting. That means we get to add 40,000-70,000 news troops on the ground! Oh and something about democracy, constitutional something something, rule of law, and blah blah blah. 40,000-70,000 more troops!

Afghanistan will hold a second round of voting on 7 November after an election panel reluctantly accepted that massive fraud took place in August's poll, which President Hamid Karzai was declared to have won.
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The US senator John Kerry, who was in Kabul for some diplomatic arm-twisting, sought to put the best spin on what has been a chaotic election process. Praising Karzai for his "great leadership", Kerry told reporters: "A great moment of uncertainty has been transformed into a time of great opportunity.
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"It was feared that Karzai was preparing to reject the UN Electoral Complaints Commission's (ECC) findings of fraud, which had the effect of cutting his total by 954,526 votes and reducing his percentage of the vote from 55% to 48.3%.

Yeah John, nothing says "great leadership" like finally relenting in your opposition to the multitude on international election agencies and diplomats pointing out, with specific detail and with reams of evidence, specifically how you rigged your election to the tune of a million votes. Karzai is the new Churchill. And that "great opportunity", is that for us to escalate the war without it looking like we support a total despot or for Afghanistan to move forward with only a largely compromised leader who is more and more distrusted by the non-Pashtun ethnic groups in the country?

At least it'll remove all the uncomfortable silences from the track we used to be on, where we talk about not escalating until we do a "careful assessment" of the Afghan government...and then escalate anyway while Karzai refuses to allow a new election. Now we get to say "Sure he rigged an election, but when everyone pointed it out he admitted it and allowed the second round of voting to commence" and proceed with moving more troops in. I know that doesn't sound good, but you just made the tiny mistake of thinking about it. Don't concentrate so much on the "rigged an election part" and focus more on the "allowed the second round" part. Still don't think about it too hard, just bathe in the light of the "allow" and start to feel good about 40,000-70,000 more troops in Afghanistan. No, I can see you thought about it again, I saw that ugly look on your face. Stop. "Allow", "great leadership", "great opportunity", happy thoughts, good feelings.

Health Care gauntlet thrown down

President Obama, the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, PhRMA, AdvaMed, America's Health Insurance Plans, the SEIU, the Greater New York Hospital Association, and the California Hospital Association are all going to come together to announce a comprehensive plan to save this country $2 trillion dollars over the next decade. That plan: To somehow make doctors pay back all the money we gave the bankers. But if that plan can't pass, they have a backup: to lower costs through greater care coordination, lower administrative costs, and the bundling of payments among health care providers and recipients. This in turn will grease the skids for a public health care plan that will be the dawning of the Fourth Reich and the end of commerce as we know it. My daily Michelle Bachmann e-mail alerts swear this is true.

So the plan has some big language, fancy plannin', large numbers, and a group of heavy hitters. Seems serious. I'm also certain it's a good plan and a necessary step. How do I know this? Because there's a concerted effort to sink it by the huge assholes who brought us the swift boat attacks and the "Harry and Lousie" ads.

The television ads that began airing last week feature horror stories from Canada and the United Kingdom: Patients who allegedly suffered long waits for surgeries, couldn't get the drugs they needed, or had to come to the United States for treatment.
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Scott, a multimillionaire investor and controversial former hospital chief executive, has become an unlikely and prominent leader of the opposition to health-care reform plans that Congress is expected to take up later this year. While disorganized Republicans and major health-care companies wait for President Obama and Democratic leaders to reveal the details of their plan before criticizing it, Scott is using $5 million of his own money and up to $15 million more from supporters to try to build resistance to any government-run program.

The campaign is being coordinated by CRC Public Relations, the group that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks against 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, and is inspired by the "Harry and Louise" ads that helped torpedo health-care reform during the Clinton administration.

Seriously, Republicans are waiting until they know something before they criticize it? Good one. So on one side we have a hilariously named group (Conservatives for Patient's Rights) backed by the Swift Boaters saying do nothing, we don't have a plan. On the other side we have the Obama Administration, a bunch of health care heavy hitters all saying it's time to do something and here's our idea. An idea which made a jubilant Paul Krugman pump his fists and proclaim it "the best policy news I've heard in a long time." Sounds like we should do nothing. I mean after all, someone somewhere in Canada (or the UK, I forget) once had a bad experience one time. Our system is flawless and everyone loves it, we should not poison it with this socialism. The Swift Boaters said so.

Enter Hill-Dawg

Clinton Met With Obama About Role In New Administration

A Democratic official confirms to the Huffington Post that Sen. Hillary Clinton met with President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday to discuss her role in the new administration.

Clinton's trip to Chicago, described in press reports as "personal business," came following a request from Obama, the official said.

The New York Senator is reportedly under consideration for Secretary of State, but it is unclear whether she had discussed that position with the transition team before making the trip. "If they told her beforehand, she did not tell her people," the official said.

I'm sure that was a fun meeting. "No Barack, despite all the things I and my supporters said about you not being able to win and all the attacks I dredged up that McCain took and ran with, I totally thought you were gonna win. So, Secretary of State?" Then President Barry, Tata at his side, smiles and says "Uh...yeah...I'll get back to you on that." Others apparently being considered for the Secretary of State position are Bill Richardson, sans evil beard, and John Kerry, as some sort of an attempt to repair his fragile emotional state after seeing the ease with which Obama won by comparing a guy to Bush.

As you all know, we're in the bullshit "A source told me..." interim phase of the transition. In which everyone in the Obama transition is a "source close to Obama" and they all have critical information on everyone Obama has handpicked for his administration. Apparently some of Obama's advisers want her for the role, primarily because they read that "Team of Rivals" book and jerk off to it every night, and Obama is unsure. One even said they wanted her in the tent rather than outside it, causing trouble. Well, that's as good a reason as any. It's only the Secretary of State position. I don't know, maybe she is the new Secretary, or maybe they just went to talk about that whole health care thing Clinton might have a bit of interest in, which Baucus kicked off the push for this week.

Sources close to Obama told me that.

These Bastards guide to Barrypalooza: Finale

Last night Bill Clinton spoke. I was shocked to hear he don't think much of John McCain, George Bush or his plans for America. So was the media, it seems. Apparently because Clinton was so mad his wife lost he might have gone up and not done what he was supposed to do and mumbled his way through a half-hearted speech. Not quite sure that deserved 5 hours of pre-speech runup speculation, but that's what you got. Then he came out, flashed the old Bubba charm, was booked and arrested for indecent exposure, then was allowed to come back out on the condition he wouldn't flash it again. Old ladies in the front row you see. He gave his speech and the media declared "Everything fixed again" and were now convinced that Bill Clinton and Obama are BFF and they're totally going to go on the road together, and go camping together, and tell spooky stories by the campfire.

John Kerry came back to give a speech and showed he had caught a terminal case of Al Gore disease. You know the one. The disease which makes you give speeches and demonstrate a personality that if it was shown for any length of time during the period in which they were the Democratic nominee for President, they would have won easy.

Then Joe Biden strode to the stage a mix of sound, fury, and minor speech flubs. He gave his rendition of "John McCain is an inept buffoon" in B# and really wailed on the "poor foreign policy choices" solo section.

Tonight, they're letting some Muslim guy speak. That could backfire. Also, they have moved to Mile High Stadium in an attempt to capture the magic of the Jay Cutler led Broncos. Expect whatever backdrop Obama speaks in front to be a sign of his celebrity arrogance. Dobson will flog his rain boner to the bleeding point, we'll see if it works. The Theme: Change You Can Believe In/Vote for this black guy/Hasn't the last 8 years sucked hard enough?

Pledge of Allegiance
Shawn Johnson
Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin were busy and Usain Bolt is Jamaican. So Obama got America's favorite gold medal jailbait. What hasn't been released to the media is that she will deliver the pledge while trying to perform a complicated routine on the balance beam. If she fails to hit the twisting and flipping dismount "Liberty and Justice" is officially changed from 'for all' to 'some'. No pressure Shawn.

Remarks
Honorable Bill Ritter, Jr., Governor of Colorado
Yes, yes the convention was held in your state. For that he gets to moan on and on about mountains, skiing, secret bigfoots, and voting democratic. I doubt even the people of the state know who you are and your presence will only infuriate the people eating their stadium nachos and trying to flag the beer man while you drone on and on about about how you wrote all the good episodes of South Park. Keep it short.

Remarks
The Honorable Tim Kaine, Governor of Virginia
He'll try to appear to be totally cool with being passed over for Joe Biden, but you'll see the cracks start to form at about the 2:30 mark of his speech. One too many bearded college types and old black ladies welling up with pride will wave around those "Obama/Biden" signs before he just loses it and screams out "I could have given you Virginia! Why hast thou forsaken me?" before his complete emotional breakdown. Mark Warner will try to console him, but there's nothing he'll be able to do. Kaine's a shell of a man now. A shell. Virginia....is for lovers.

Remarks
The Honorable Al Gore
His power point slide presentation on why you should vote for Barack Obama is a thing of beauty. The shots of a melting, cracked, and breaking up John McCain really underscore the risks we run as a country by not addressing this crisis. There's also some fanwank about polar bears and lack of ice. Bonus: You get yo listen to your Republican friend snark about the 'Goreacle'. Why do you let him watch these things? Didn't you learn anything on night one?

Live Performance
Michael McDonald
Just wanted to put that out there. They've got will.i.am, John Legend, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, and something called the Yonder Mountain String Band Performance. McDonald is the guy they picked to go on last, to the delight of Paul Rudd. I wonder if he's going to sing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough"? I wish I could bet on obvious shit like that. There's no way he plays "Yah Mo B There".

Video/Remarks
SENATOR BARACK OBAMA