It took me so long to finally get here that I'll have to leave soon, but just wanted to say that Executive Order 13233 is going to be a problem. I know I'm like a broken record on this, so I'll just post the link to a previous comment:

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/05/olc/permalink/fe6239edbbeb002fbcddee4ae4939a98.html

Am I crazy for being worried about it? [You all don't really have to be brutally honest in answering that.]

We're all mad here

I'm mad

You're mad

Fuck all of you. Steve

I got dibs on first! I never liked sloppy seconds anyway.

I appreciate

you all slowing down so I could catch up...I finally got here...but where are we?

________________________________________

We're lost, but we're makin' good time!

Oh! The MAD Team...now we need t-shirts.

When I saw that first thing this morning, what lept to mind was Glenn's comment about Team Obama gathering up/co-opting the left's infrastructure. I need to go find that comment.

Mike Lux left earlier. Now, Matt Stoller. When Kos goes, we know we're in trouble, for sure.

Well, there IS that about it.

Don't wreck the place while I'm away. ;-)

Yes, I remember that comment. Stoller might well spin it 180 degrees, regarding who's coopting who. In the end it may be difficult to tell--which wouldn't be bad, necessarily. There was a program on C-Span featuring Joe Trippi that talked quite a bit about Obama's ability to coopt the machinery. Trippi was in awe of the possibilities.

One can't be sure, of course, but my sense is that wallaby's ectoplasmic seethings reveal a person in the grip of such extreme affront and rancor that s/he Means to Get Even.

You'll be sorry! And you! and you!

Thus, wallaby eases into the room like a process server, and flings down the gauntlet: ladies and gentlemen, I declare this assembly to be an unlawful orgy of hate, and I mean to make it my business to seek out every authority and instrument to ensure that it permanently ceases and desists, and that its reprehensible participants are punished to the Full Extent of the Law.

There's what passes for a subtle threat of extortion to Glenn's host, Salon.com-- they're the one with the big pockets! And once old wallaby here puts the fear of the Lord into them-- why, they'll pull the flush handle of Unclaimed Territory with one hand, and nail up mezuzahs with the other! I'm talkin' the wrathful and vengeful Lord of the Old Testament Himself, needless to say.

So, O my brothers and sisters, it looks like we've been found out, and Doom is near at hand. It's been nice knowin' ya, for the most part.

But first wallaby will have to get a hall pass.

I'm sure he won't wilt. And you're way to wordy for your own good. You are not a poet, you're dull. Thank you.

You are not a poet, you're dull.

He dislikes Mr. Greenwald's poetry!

Obama DLC picks are betrayals, progressive picks are co-opting....

seems like a catch-22 to me

Until Hitler started his concentration camps, the main thing he was guilty of was of doing in Europe what the rest of Europe and Japan was busy doing in Africa and Asia. E.g., Hitler had as much right over Austria, Czechoslovakia or Poland as the British had over India or the Belgians had over Congo or the French had over Algeria or the Dutch had over Indonesia, Russia over Kazakhstan, the Japanese over Manchuria, etc., etc. It is a post-World-War-II sensibility that that should not be done - and yet we went ahead and did it in Iraq.

If you want to play counterfactual history, the answer to "When should we have stopped Hitler?" is (from the Indian perspective) "With Robert Clive". Which goes to show the absurdity of counterfactual history.

will you please stop thanking us? And if you're not going to engage, go away? Don't you have legal briefs you should be writing? But please do come back with the response from the CA AG. It will be interesting to know if they laugh at you as hard as I am.

If you desperately need the last word, either say that or have it. I expect you will. Children often do. Run along and be 4 now.

thank you

You don't have much of a life, do you?

The red neck who didn't know my draftee Father could box got knocked clear across a shower room after calling him the K word.

The red neck sargent major who never let me have a pass almost got himself killed one night in Vietnam he forgot a very important password.

We all remember how much you red neck lifers loved us non red neck, non cracker draftees.

Now you think you're some kind of wise intellectual.

You never had much of a life and you never will, Sarge.

for Surgeon General.

Here is the text of the article you posted the link to, nothing like what you said here:

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Venezuela ordered the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and some embassy staff on Tuesday to protest Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The decision by President Hugo Chavez, a longtime critic of U.S. and Israeli policy, to kick out the diplomats appeared to be the strongest reaction yet to the Gaza offensive by any country with ties to Israel.

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry announced the move in a statement, saying it "has decided to expel the Israeli ambassador and part of the personnel of the Israeli embassy."

The Israeli offensive in Gaza has killed nearly 600 Palestinians in ground and air strikes. Israel launched the attacks Dec. 27 to stop Palestinian militants from firing rockets into southern Israel.

Venezuela's Foreign Ministry said its U.N. mission is joining with other countries in demanding the Security Council "apply urgent and necessary measures to stop this invasion."

Officials could not immediately be reached at the Israeli Embassy in Caracas, which had closed by the time of the announcement.

Chavez earlier condemned the Israelis carrying out the military campaign as "murderers" and urged Jews in Venezuela to take a stand against the Israeli government.

"Now I hope that the Venezuelan Jewish community speaks out against this barbarism. Do it. Don't you strongly reject all acts of persecution?" Chavez said.

"How far will this barbarism go?," he said in an appearance on state television. "The president of Israel should be taken before an international court together with the president of the United States, if the world had any conscience."

While many countries have protested Israel's offensive, none so far have expelled the ambassador.

Mauritania, which established relations with Israel in 1999, called home its ambassador from the Jewish state on Monday.

Jordan and Egypt, the other two Arab nations with relations with Israel, summoned their Israeli ambassadors to protest the Gaza attacks, but they have resisted popular calls to expel them.

Chavez has long been critical of the Israeli government's policies in the Middle East and has supported the Palestinians' stance in the conflict.

During Israel's 2006 conflict in Lebanon, Chavez withdrew his top envoy from Israel, calling the bombings there "a new Holocaust."

In spite of its criticisms of Israel, Chavez's government has insisted it is friendly toward Jewish people.

Chavez met with Jewish leaders in August, pledging to work against anti-Semitism despite strong differences on Mideast politics.

Chavez's condemnations of Israel's offensive have grown gradually more severe in recent days.

He called on Israelis to "stand up against" their government. As for those leading the offensive in Gaza, he said, "they are cowards - bombing innocent people. What great soldiers they are, how brave the soldiers of Israel are."

Protests against the offensive have been held in Venezuela and other Latin American countries in recent days.

In Argentina, which has the third-largest Jewish population outside Israel as well as a sizable population of Arab descent, hundreds of people marched to the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires to call for an end to the offensive.

Brazil's government says it is sending 14 tons of medicine and food to the Gaza Strip. And in Bolivia, about a hundred Palestinians and Arabs marched to protest the violence.