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November 10, 2007

I just watched the first season episode of The West Wing called "The Short List" in which privacy rights are a major point of consideration in President Bartlet's choice of a Supreme Court nominee. Rob Lowe's character, Sam Seaborn, said something interesting in this episode -- something to the effect of privacy being the number one legal issue of "the next 20 years." He continued by listing the internet as a major source of potential privacy violations.

President Bartlet, in the end, selected a nominee (Edward James Olmos) with a long record of decisions upholding the Constitution's various guarantees of privacy.

This episode was shot two years before 9/11. And now our real life Congress is getting ready to pass a law in which telecommunications companies who illegally handed over your internet and phone records to the federal government will be offered legal immunity from prosecution. Your privacy is obsolete and the Bush Republicans -- along with the Democratic leadership -- are letting it happen so they don't look weak on terrorism. So instead they're betraying the Constitution and your privacy.

Do you feel safer?

10:16 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

I found this all at once shocking and, strangely, not surprising (Washington Post via Kos):

High oil prices are fueling one of the biggest transfers of wealth in history. Oil consumers are paying $4 billion to $5 billion more for crude oil every day than they did just five years ago, pumping more than $2 trillion into the coffers of oil companies and oil-producing nations this year alone.

Some of these oil producing nations, it's worth noting, have been known to finance the evildoers. Why do SUV drivers hate America?

10:09 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

I thought I'd try to list the problems with the economy in 20 seconds of typing. Start the clock now:

Dollar at record low against everything
National debt at record high -- much of it owned by the Chinese
Oil prices near $100/barrel
Subprime mortgage and ARMs causing widespread foreclosures
Gas prices approaching $4/gallon
Stock market dropping

There are many other factors, but these were just off the top of my head. The Democrats need to be saying this over and over: "Are you better off than you were 8 years ago?" Repeat, repeat, repeat. Meanwhile, the economy hasn't even begun to tank. This will be the major issue next year. You know what might fix it? A Manhattan Project for developing clean, renewable fuel. Imagine being the president who inaugurated the Green Industrial Revolution of the 21st Century. That's history, that's a legacy.

12:13 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

This is one of many reasons why I can't support Senator Clinton in the primaries:

...according to Grinnell College student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff ’10, some of the questions from the audience were planned in advance. “They were canned,” she said. Before the event began, a Clinton staff member approached Gallo-Chasanoff to ask a specific question after Clinton’s speech. “One of the senior staffers told me what [to ask],” she said.

Oh fucking hell. We've suffered through seven years of this charade, and now the senator is pulling the same shit?

10:56 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

November 09, 2007

What would it take to bring viable primary challenges against Schumer and Feinstein next time around? They're both up for reelection in 2010. And they both deserve it after this awful week in the senate.

Schumer's remarks last night during the Mukasey debate were like eery scenes from a tragic future documentary about torture in which the filmmakers show hapless senators lamenting the policy but voting to endorse it anyway.

Then there's Feinstein who has come out in support of telecom immunity in the new FISA bill.

We've done it before. Two years from now, what say we wrangle a couple of strong Democratic netroots challengers in New York and California?

07:27 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Even though I firmly believe the president is incapable of truly accepting the horrors of his wars, these photo-ops with wounded American soldiers have to affect him on some level. How could they not?

Naturally, though, the White House sanitized the photos of his visit today and only showed the pleasant stops along the way. Here.

Who wants lemonade! Yay!

Now compare that hap-hap-happy pictorial, with THIS ONE.

What brand of medication allows him to smile when confronted by the true cost of his wars?

05:21 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

From Think Progress:

Rove lamented the loss of civility in politics on the web, but then proceeded to use his speech as a partisan bashing of the netroots. According to Rove, bloggers are “nutty,” “vitriolic,” and “kooks.”

He also claimed that liberals use more “bad words,” comparing sites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground to Townhall and FreeRepublic.

This explains why Rove's favorite blogs are DailyGoshGolly and QuakerBlog.

04:10 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

I heard Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money tell Chris Matthews last night that gas prices will exceed $4/gallon within six weeks. And you know what? No American will change their driving habits. There will be more complaining, but about the same amount of actual driving -- despite costing $80 to fill the tank of a typical SUV.

03:30 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca