DNC LGBT fundraiser featuring Biden, along with Frank, Baldwin and Polis, is facing pushback from the gay community after Obama DOJ brief in support of DOMA equates same sex couples with pedophiles and incest. Several high profile names (including HRC) have informed DNC they will not be attending after all.

http://www.americablog.com/2009/06/breaking-hrc-and-former-top-clinton.html

Glenn Greewald makes a good point, linked off Sullivan: those very, now noble demonstrators the Right is so itchy to help would be among the dead in a big strike by US or Israel on Iran. Sully also points out the humanizing influence of seeing and hearing people on screen and not just as a "video game" style abstraction. Naturally the Cons don't see the dissonance/don't care, but we should remind them of it every chance.

(Glenn Greenwald)

Good news on GHG accumulation:

Great Britain meets and exceeds its Kyoto goal.

Also, look at the size of that rotor and nacelle. I had no idea they were that large.

From DailyKOS:

"Heading into a critical vote, House Republicans are unified against the $106 billion war supplemental bill, saying it's because they don't trust President Barack Obama's promises to never let certain detainee abuse pictures see the light of day.

For eight years, with supplemental after supplemental, the GOP position was that voting against funding was voting against the troops. And so today, the Republicans plan to vote against the troops."

Gotta love them Repigs. Where is McCain's blubbering wife to scold those nasty ol' repigs? The screams of 'traitor!', "emboldening the enemy!", 'UnAmerican!". Where are they?? "America first"? "Support the troops"? Right. These guys change their tunes like the weather and hope that their brain-dead followers are either too dumb to notice, or don't care as long as them 'brown people' and 'libruls' get the short end of the stick. I'm sorry, but they are Rank Fucking Hypocrites, pure and simple.

If our political system made sense, the "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" report would spark immediate interest in an ambitious new energy policy.

Interest? We already have an ambitious new energy policy, and the Waxman Committee is working on the next revision to it.

Hey, I found an interesting resource to describe what the conservatives are trying to accomplish (swinging the system back to the right). From "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky (via RedState http://www.redstate.com/david_hinz/2009/06/15/overwhelmed-and-feeling-like-giving-up-that-is-what-the-left-wants-you-to-do/)

Quote:

1. “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.�

2. “Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat…. [and] the collapse of communication.

3. “Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)

4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.�

5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.�

6. “A good tactic is one your people enjoy.�

7. “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time….�

8. “Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.�

9. “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.�

10. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.�

11. “If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside… every positive has its negative.�

12. “The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.�

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and ‘frozen.’…

“…any target can always say, ‘Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?’ When your ‘freeze the target,’ you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments…. Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the ‘others’ come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target…’

“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.�

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MczOf7R93IQ&feature=player_embedded

Best. Campaign ad. Ever.

It's a purge not a coup.

It's a purge because popular elections can be legally obviated by the ayatollahs, which means they are not a fundamental element of government, but a pretty object to keep the saps happy, a pretty object that has become annoying and distracting to the grown-ups.

Consequently they're getting rid of people who think elections mean anything, therefore it's a purge.

Steve Benen wrote: "If our political system made sense, the 'Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States' report would spark immediate interest in an ambitious new energy policy."

Who knows, maybe it will even spark some interest by certain liberal bloggers in writing about it.

Or will that only happen when Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin start talking about it first and it becomes another opportunity for expressing outrage and snark at the "crazy" and "confused" Republicans?

Several high profile names (including HRC) have informed DNC they will not be attending after all. - bkmn

The HRC here is Human Rights Campaign.

I checked out the Letterman clip, and in Palin's response, she notes that she hopes that "men who 'joke' about public displays of sexual exploitation of girls will soon evolve."
I thought that humans can not evolve. That we are static, that we are identical in every way to Adam and Eve. Otherwise, her whole worldview (if she can figure out what that is) will come crashing down.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev) about to come clean about an extra-marital affair. Any bets on the gender?
He is Republican, after all.

I just saw the coolest thing on NBC news: Obama being interviewed, fly buzzing around him. First Obama waves off, then ... smack! Fly crashes to rug and we get a closeup. It was cool. I name the fly "Rush."

Book idea: Global Warming and the Failure of American Democracy

If our political system made sense, the "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States" report would spark immediate interest in an ambitious new energy policy.

Glad to see you finally got there Mr. Benen.

I understand why people are reluctant to look too hard at the situation. But the facts are assembling even as carbon is ascending. American democracy is dysfunctional and totally incapable of attending to global warming. Isn't that fairly self-evident by now?

We should be terraforming Arizona right now a la the Grand Solar Plan. A massive public works project coupled with private enterprise. Where is McCain on this? Kyl? Any of our Congressional Do-nothings and Know-nothings? Where is Obama? Where is Presidential will-power when and where you need it most?

Instead we are busy twittering little naughties, filibustering every attempt at a step forward, and trying to find humor in a Palin-Letterman tiff.

Someone is going to write that failure book eventually. The facts practically self-ensemble. But of course, like everything else this country does about global warming, it will be way too little way too late.

It looks like H.R. 2346, the supplemental war spending bill that everyone loved to hate, passed. Does anyone know if the Lieberman-Graham amendment was included, and where I might find a breakdown of the vote? It looks like they managed to force the House Republicans to vote against a war funding bill, but making a specific set of photos secret seems like a shitty price to pay. That's scary the way Stalin having people painted out of photographs is scary.

Re global warming, NBC tonight also had re avg. temps in mid West up around 7° higher, water table going down, etc. But the conservative antiscience/lousy fare crowd is going wild about temporarily cooler temperatures in the MW, easily explained by shifting jet stream and the early end of summer.

(I mean, early part of summer - I sure am getting ham-fisted or brained or something, with so many corrections to make lately.)

BTW the clearly conservative-Palinite operation, http://www.firedavidletterman.com/, misrepresents what Letterman did: they say, instead of 18 y.o. Bristol, that "62 Year Old Letterman Violates Common Decency With Sexist Insults of 14 Year Old Girl." They have phone #s etc. of sponsors, call them and tell them *not* to pull off the David Letterman show!

RE: Global Warming.

Just an observation from when I lived in Seattle in the 90s to my just recently moving back I've noticed a change in the climate. Winters are colder and more harsh (see the December snow storm news coverage) and summers are hotter with less precipitation.

We are poised to break a record for consecutive days without measurable precipitation (1/100 of an inch, if I remember correctly). That's unheard of for this region. The record is 29 days; we're on day 28, and the forecast is iffy for the next couple of days, depending on your source.

Does anyone know if the Lieberman-Graham amendment was included, and where I might find a breakdown of the vote? - Jamobey

Here is a list of the bills voted on today. If you scroll down to HR 2346, you can see what ammendments there were, and if you click on the number (in this case 202) in the left column, you will see who voted how. The Lieberman/Lindsey ammendment does not appear there, so I assume it was dropped.

Good news on GHG accumulation: Great Britain meets and exceeds its Kyoto goal. Posted by: MatthewRMarler on June 16, 2009 at 6:00 PM | PERMALINK

That is good news -- not in the least because it refutes your long-standing argument that the Kyoto treaty is "worthless".

Sorry Jamobey - That 2346 was voted on last month. I'm tired, I guess, so disregard my 7:55 comment.

trex:That is good news -- not in the least because it refutes your long-standing argument that the Kyoto treaty is "worthless".

maybe. there is still the problem that the Kyoto Treaty had no restraints on India or China. Each of them has had CO2 increases greater than the reduction observed in Great Britain.

Did you like the photo of the rotor and nacelle? Pretty cool, huh?

No biggie Danp - I'm guessing I can use the same method when they post the new info, right? Thanks either way!

-J

OK Let's try again. It was the conference report (House + Senate compromise) that was voted on in the House today. Congressmatters has a list of house members who crossed party lines.

"In a display of unity with South Korea's leader, Obama said the world must break a pattern in which North Korea puts the globe on edge, only to put itself in line for concessions if it holds out long enough."

Sunshine was working; it is the long game that Obama's uncritical supporters claim he employs. That Obama is now joining himself at the hip with the rightwing hawk Lee Myung-bak is not a good development, unless of course like some in this forum you want to see war on the peninsula.

Keeping the visitor log private. So much for transparency. Retaining don't act don't tell and defense of marriage act. So much for being a progressive. Way to go, Obama.

Did you like the photo of the rotor and nacelle? Pretty cool, huh?
Posted by: MatthewRMarler on June 16, 2009 at 8:09 PM | PERMALINK

Not as much as I like pointing out your factual errors and inconsistencies, but it was all right.

If you stood in front of it and blew how much electricity do you think you could create? And would you get carbon credits for it?

"CNBC's Erin Burnett makes little effort to hide her antipathy for liberals, but to compare the Employee Free Choice Act to the Iranian presidential election is ridiculous, even for her."

Sadly, it's just her speed.

Keeping the visitor log private. So much for transparency. Retaining don't act don't tell and defense of marriage act. So much for being a progressive. Way to go, Obama.
Posted by: jen f on June 16, 2009 at 8:35 PM | PERMALINK

WE have to push him. He never said he was a 'progressive' and he isn't. But he is the best and most responsive listener we've had in the WH in a very, very long time. If the People lead, Obama will get behind us most of the time. He WON'T, I repeat WON'T act progressively (as we keep seeing) with out pressure from us. And if he responds most of the time, I will surely vote for him again.

“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other.�

Posted by: Blue on June 16, 2009

Long lists are hard to remember.

Strategy -- stick to the proper strategy
Tactics -- know what is appropriate for that situation and be ready to take advantage
Psychology -- push (or pull) your opponent onto tilt

There's a small but potentially big story out of Sprinfield Mass and the Biomass company that is getting stimulus funds to create energy from clear cutting and building material waste (which has extremely toxic side effects).

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/06/biomass_plants_called_threat_t.html?category=Greenfield+category=Springfield

http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews/articleid/3262632

Of course you won't read about things like this from a the "progressives" at PA. We can't wait to here more stupid shit from Mike Steele and Sarah Palin!!

Or will that only happen when Dick Cheney, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin start talking about it first and it becomes another opportunity for expressing outrage and snark at the "crazy" and "confused" Republicans?"

no shit. This blog is pure infotainment. I'd be better off watching the "E" channel.