Ondelette said:

If you commit a personal indiscretion or crime, related to "character", you will pay for it. If you lie about a casus belli for a conflict that kills a million people, if you systematically torture and detain incommunicado, if you destroy the economy by failing to impose regulations mandated by laws duly enacted, if you perpetrate billions of dollars in contractor fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you finance the creation of a 40,000 person private militia owned and operated by a Christian nutcase --- Your character is fine.

My thoughts, too...but more eloquently stated.

And yes, I've also noticed that history is repeating itself.

Can we please have more like Barbara Boxer?

"[...] Tensions are so high that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., erupted on the Senate floor against her own co-sponsor on a tax amendment, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., after Ensign advised the Senate to "slow down."

"If this thing gets away from us," Boxer charged, Republicans are "going to be the party of Herbert Hoover over there all over again."

Boxer said she was shocked that a senator from a neighboring state where the housing market has crashed as badly as in California would urge the slow-moving Senate to slow down even more. Republicans were digging in, suggesting that the mid-February deadline set by congressional leaders should slip into March.

Boxer accused Republicans of trooping to the floor with coordinated talking points against the bill even as one of their own, New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg, joined the Obama administration as the nominee to be commerce secretary.

"Jobs being lost every minute - maybe you should look inside yourself and roll up your sleeves and get to work with us," Boxer said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/02/03/MNPC15MGPH.DTL&type=politics&tsp=1

has this take:

GOP senators rail against plans to provide assistance to the states. They claim that large (read: ethnically diverse) states are simply wasteful spenders who shouldn’t be bailed out by the federal government. This is a coded racist argument that they get away with.

Every time you hear someone from the south, or Missouri’s Kit Bond, or any other small state GOP cracker rail against bailing out California, keep in mind that California sends more money to Washington than it gets back. A lot of California’s excess “contribution” to the Beltway goes to smaller, skinflint GOP states, whose senators now blast the Golden State for being wasteful. Yet there is no pointed, aggressive, broad based Democratic pushback campaign against these smears.

Barbara Boxer gets it. Does the White House?

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/013774.php

And Jim White, this is perfect:

Harry Reid's actions on these two amendments show that he still is incapable of standing up for the principles of the Democratic Party and that he will continue to allow the Republicans to control social hot-button issues despite the huge Democratic majority.

New and better leadership, please!

Only one question: does the Democratic Party as we know it even have priciples? If so, I would just remind them of that old saying: actions speak louder than words.

about my outrage not being history title above:

I'm talking about my small hope that I might have been able to turn down my outrage meter somewhat after constantly being in the red zone these past 8 years...guess not.

Yes, I saw that in your article. It's interesting that only two Republican senators crossed the aisle to vote "no" on Coburn's amendment as well. Why two? Again? I'm going with Boxer's take that the Republicans have come en masse with their talking points and, I believe, strategic voting...[although I coudn't begin to deconstruct their reasoning.]

I know, it sounds paranoid...but, what can I do?

Words...[and soon to be lots of words?] disecting the First Lady's HAIR...with Hillary Clinton it started during the campaign and continued for eight years and more. It may have been a small side show, but it added to the sleezy-creepy-carnival feel of the media coverage of the time.

"The Michelle Obama Hair Challenge"..."Nappy or relaxed..."

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2009/02/03/michelle_hair/index.html

...good morning!

Wouldn't want any wardrobe malfunctions, now would we?

The US has been throwing their weight around as usual, as can be seen in this June 2007 finding by The European Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights

October 4, 2001 - NATO Allies met to consider a set of concrete proposals from the United States. In a press statement after the session, NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson announced that the Allies had “agreed today – at the request of the United States – to take eight measures, individually and collectively, to expand the options available in the campaign against terrorism.” The European Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights asserts: ”The invocation of Article 5 could have been developed as a basis upon which to conduct a military campaign of a conventional nature […] Instead it became a platform from which the United States obtained the essential permissions and protections it required to launch CIA covert action in the “war on terror””. The committee also notes “the similarity in the language of “options” used to describe the intergovernmental NATO authorisation and […] the US domestic covert action authority in the Presidential Finding of 17.09.2001 […]” For details see [20].

Learn more about Biyam Mohamed’s case here:

[53] Rendition, Fact/Fiction, ACLU http://www.aclu.org/safefree/rendition/renditionfactfiction.html

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