Your humble referee presumes to take no position in this matter, and, should any apparent bias emerge, shall endeavor to resign it to the deepest, darkest available pit. The diarist's intent is merely to foster awareness and discussion of these two divergent views on dissent.
And no, I haven't been drinking.
Things I didn't know: Tillman signed up expecting to serve in Afghanistan, but was first diverted to the Iraq invasion, to which he was vehemently opposed. He was openly critical of the administration and read Noam Chomsky.
And he was shot three times in the forehead.
This is f@cking sick. The heart of it after the break.
"Dems should vote for Roberts, not try to defeat him."
It's a dumb argument because it ignores a third option.
Dems should vote no on Roberts, but not filibuster. And they should be very vociferous about voting no but not filibustering. It should be framed as a gift to the Reeps that Dems aren't burning DC to the ground to keep this partisan political operative from becoming the head of the federal judiciary.
From here, the argument has gone, the responsibility was left to the State to tell FEMA what they needed and where it needed to go--FEMA couldn't just "start pitching these things out of the back of a truck". But that's not quite the case. According to the the Stafford Act, "Immediately upon his declaration of a major disaster or emergency, the <u>President shall appoint a Federal coordinating officer to operate in the affected area</u>." The President did just that, appointing "William Lokey as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected area".
There's a new argument spreading through the Reeposphere . . . Somebody named George Adair seems to be the originator, but Malkin, National Review, Red State, and, of course, Freeperville have already picked up on it.
Adair went Lexising and found an NYTimes editorial from April of this year calling for the defeat of $17 billion in spending for the Army Corps of Engineers on projects billed as "flood control." With some skillful editing and no link, Adair gave the distinct impression that the NYTimes was advocating not spending money on flood prevention in New Orleans, with the obvious implication that we are all a bunch of hypocrites because the NYTimes is, of course, the flagship of the "liberal media" and therefore speaks for all of us.
Which is why so many New Orleanians, black and white, never went north. They didn't want to leave a place where they felt at home in neighborhoods that dated back centuries; they didn't want to leave families whose rounds of weddings, births and funerals had become the fabric of their lives. They didn't want to leave a city where tolerance had always been able to outweigh prejudice, where patience had always been able to outweigh rage. They didn't want to leave a place that was theirs.
And so New Orleans prospered, slowly, unevenly, but surely - home to Protestants and Catholics, including the Irish parading through the old neighborhood on St. Patrick's Day as they hand out cabbages and potatoes and onions to the eager crowds; including the Italians, with their lavish St. Joseph's altars spread out with cakes and cookies in homes and restaurants and churches every March; including the uptown traditionalists who seek to preserve the peace and beauty of the Garden District; including the Germans with their clubs and traditions; including the black population playing an ever increasing role in the city's civic affairs.
As Greg Palast explains:
In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget.
Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your rightful share!"
Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928.
· Schumer: 60 Dem Senators Possible (Josh Orton)
· Jindal Out (Josh Orton)
· Scalise and Kennedy Shilling for Big Oil (DailyKingFish)
· IA: Grassley and Christian conservatives at odds (desmoinesdem)
· Richardson tells McCain to stop whining (fbihop)
· OR-SEN: New DSCC/IE ad in Oregon (karichisholm)
· NM Dems GET the netroots; GOP not so much (fbihop)
· Louisiana House 2Q Fundraising #'s (DailyKingFish)
· OR-SEN: Merkley's Netroots Nation video (karichisholm)
· AK-Sen: New Begich Ad (Matt Browner Hamlin)
· Not a Bad Cover for Obama in Colorado (Jonathan Singer)
· Chris Matthews: Open Up Your Hearts (Jonathan Singer)
