The Liberal Doomsayer My blog deals primarily with national politics in the U.S. as well as, on occasion, local politics in Pennsylvania. From time to time, I may have something to say about sports and entertainment as well. I try to interpret information that shapes the news and provide context to current events. I am definitely left of center politically, but as far as I'm concerned, neither major party is perfect. Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 12 0 60 4272

Articles from The Liberal Doomsayer

Settling Some Scores? 2007-11-01 13:33:00 The Washington Post reports here that Harry K. Thomas, director of the State Department’s Foreign Service, recently told diplomats in that department that some of them will have to report to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs.As noted in the story…At a town hall meeting in the department's main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State's personnel policies in Iraq. They took issue with the size of the embassy -- the biggest in U.S. history -- and the inadequate training they received before being sent to serve in a war zone. One woman said she returned from a tour in Basra with post-traumatic stress disorder only to find that the State Department would not authorize medical treatment.…Service in Iraq is "a potential death sentence," said one man who identified himself as a 46-year Foreign Service veteran. "Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now," he said to sustain ...

Wednesday Videos 2007-10-31 22:49:00 An excerpt from the Democratic presidential candidates debate last night that I thought was good......Edwards spoke on Iraq in the debate of course, and with that in mind, I'd like to dedicate this short video to Ed Snider and Freedom's Watch. ...

Tuesday Videos 2007-10-30 22:40:00 Ted Leo (without The Pharmacists - "Colleen"; catchy little tune)......Happy Birthday to Grace Slick ("White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love" on "The Smothers Brothers," opening up that '60s time capsule once more; I think that was Jorma Kaukonen dealing those hot licks on the ax)......Bow Wow Wow ("I Want Candy," a song a lot of kids will be singing tomorrow, including the young one)......and since Clear Channel, in their infinite, dunderheaded stupidity, has decided not to air this song, here's "Radio Nowhere" by Bruce Springsteen (personally, I think he's done better work, but hey, it still rocks). ...

Dubya Can't Hyde From This Choice 2007-10-30 17:48:00 (Pic TBD - Blogger's photo upload is hosed for now...also, probably no posting tomorrow.)This tells us that Dubya announced this year’s recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and some of the names are truly illustrious indeed. They include Brian Lamb of C-SPAN, the novelist Harper Lee who wrote “To Kill A Mockingbird” (a fave), NAACAP former Executive Director Benjamin Hooks, economist and 1992 Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker, and Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.And Henry Hyde.Yes, you read that correctly…Henry Hyde.As in “the House-leader-of-the-Clinton-impeachment-circus Henry Hyde, the adulterer-who-involved-himself-in-a-four-year-affair-with-a-married-woman-from-1965-to-1969-and-ultimately-wrecked-her-marriage Henry Hyde” (dismissing it as a “youthful indiscretion”…see how casually he strolls away from the train wreck he created).Yes, THAT Henry Hyde, ladies and gentlemen.I know he served our country in World War ...

Patrick On The Job, Again 2007-10-30 16:07:00 The following letter to the editor appeared in the Courier Times yesterday...Labor Day is a great time to spend with your family, have a barbecue and watch some football. But we should also remember that Labor Day is a time to honor and respect hardworking Americans.Even with Labor Day well behind us, I still wanted to look back over the recent months at some of the refreshing changes we have seen on behalf of working families. Congressman Patrick Murphy and the new Democratic Congress are clearly and consistently on the side of America's hardest workers. While our previous Republican Congress seemed happy to send American jobs overseas, with such legislation as the Central American Free Trade Agreement, Rep. Murphy demonstrated his commitment to hard working families by helping pass legislation to raise the minimum wage in his very first week in Congress.Thanks to the efforts of Murphy and others, American workers making minimum wage got a raise on July 24 that will continue until th ...

We're Reaching Deep All Right, Charley 2007-10-30 13:34:00 The Bucks County Courier Times published a Guest Opinion today from incumbent Repug Bucks County Supervisors James Cawley and Charley (“I Have A Semi-Open Mind”) Martin responding to a Guest Opinion by Steve Santarsiero and Diane Marseglia (here).I glanced over what Cawley and Martin said, and it’s really about what you would expect from two patronage kings trying to keep their gravy train in operation. And trying to siphon particles of truth from their words in between the childish invective and outright misrepresentation of what Steve and Diane said is an exercise that is beyond me at the moment.For example, I cannot locate a quote from Steve and Diane where they say that Bucks County is “broken, corrupt, and doesn’t care about its citizens”; it’s impossible to source this stuff when it is no doubt pulled out of Cawley and Martin’s imaginations, and of course they don’t source this “quote” either.And I’m not going to quibble over percentage raises of tax incre ...

A Message (Mainly) For The Edwards Campaign 2007-10-30 11:26:00 Aside from “reporting” on an anatomically correct model of Jesus appearing in someone’s bed and the new, improved design of miniature toy cars in time for holiday shopping (God, I don’t even want to deal with that yet), CNN bothered to inform us that the candidates from the Democratic Party seeking the nomination to run for president have arrived in these parts for another debate tonight.And with that in mind, I want to point out that John Edwards gave another terrific speech yesterday in New Hampshire, hitting on all of the important issues of the campaign (you can read it here; it’s truly great, stirring stuff).Every issue, that is, except one; I did a text search for FISA, and couldn’t find anything.And that is sad.Yes, I know the person who owns this issue now, and rightly so, is Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut. And it is also a fair reward that his campaign has gotten a huge shot in the arm over it.But even though Dodd has hit on what is for me personally, aside from th ...

Monday Videos 2007-10-29 23:07:00 Eve 6 ("Tongue Tied"; yes, that's half of "TomKat" - the only video for this band where embedding was allowed)......and 40 years ago today, the musical "Hair" opened on Broadway (here's the title song by the Cowsills with another homemade video for accompaniment). ...

Today's News For White People 2007-10-29 17:35:00 (I haven’t used this pic for a little while, and I’ve been looking for an opportunity, so…).Dick Polman recently posted the following here at his site, “The American Debate”…White guys, who compose roughly 36 percent of the electorate, are potentially a major impediment for the party seeking to recapture the White House in 2008 - as they have plagued Democrats in virtually every presidential election since 1968. Yet you may not have heard much about this, because, in our political discourse, "gender gap" is typically defined as the GOP's chronic inability to win the women's vote.Considering the havoc white guys have wreaked on the Democrats' presidential prospects over the last 40 years, it's clear that the white-guy gap deserves equal time - and that Democrats would be foolish to assume they can win decisively in 2008, or win at all, simply by maximizing their appeal to female voters.The stats speak for themselves: In 2004, John Kerry, who lost a tight race, attracted ...

Dubya Is All Wet, Again 2007-10-29 16:50:00 As we know, President Photo Op made a bee line to California last week to get in the way of the fire prevention effort, and in his quest to somehow make himself and FEMA look competent on this occasion, as opposed to their horrific ineptitude that is, to date, the enduring legacy of Hurricane Katrina, he said the following (from this story on Saturday)…Yet the president drew the contrast on Thursday in California when, appearing with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, he said, “It makes a significant difference when you have somebody in the Statehouse willing to take the lead.” The remark was widely viewed as a veiled swipe at Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, a Louisiana Democrat, who says she resents it.Another typical cheap shot from President Brainless; yes, there were failures on all levels of government when Katrina hit, but a life form with a speck of humility would know that and thus realize the best thing to do is to shut his pie hole.And so, if Dumbya has sounded o ...

Another Reason To Detest Ed Snider 2007-10-29 14:49:00 (Snider is the chairman of Comcast-Spectacor, let’s not forget.)I guess it’s appropriate that I should post today about a matter involving an Internet service provider, since I continue to deal with the consequences of connectivity that can best be described as moving at a glacial speed (slightly better over the last hour or so, though).This post from Timothy Karr at HuffPo tells us that Comcast has been “throttling” their Internet subscribers in the following manner (from an embedded Save The Internet post)…Service providers often slow down some types of traffic to manage flow, but Comcast is actually blocking completed files that users upload and try to share with another user. (For a detailed explanation of how this happens, visit Susan Crawford's blog.)This practice underscores the need for clear laws ensuring an open and neutral Internet.Save the Internet partner Public Knowledge says there is a right and a wrong way to manage traffic: “The right way is to let consume ...

Gotta Get Those Internet Tubes Fixed 2007-10-29 11:20:00 Lots of connectivity issues which haven’t been resolved from Friday, believe it or not, but I’m working on it – not sure about posting activity, but I’ll do what I can. ... Internet

Video From Chris Dodd on FISA Filibuster 2007-10-27 22:01:00 Another hat tip to Prof. Marcus for this one (from here)...Prof. Marcus also noted that we should be hearing words like this from the John Edwards campaign (I would say we should be hearing this from all other Democratic candidates also).(By the way, this isn't quite all of what Dodd said - I've seen the full version from his congressional site - but it's close enough.)Update 10/28: Speaking of Edwards, good stuff here, but... ...

Friday Videos 2007-10-26 23:21:00 Happy Birthday to Keith Strickland of The B-52's ("Private Idaho" - insert your Larry Craig snark here)......Happy Birthday also to Bootsy Collins ("Play With Bootsy" - like the beat)......Happy Birthday tomorrow to Simon LeBon of Duran Duran ("Come Undone" - so the guy is in drag and the woman is singing under water; got it)......and Happy Birthday on Sunday to Randy Newman ("I Think It's Going To Rain Today" - maybe for another day or so around here). ...

Where The Rubber Meets The Road (10/26/07) 2007-10-26 17:47:00 As reported in last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, here is how Philadelphia-area members of Congress were recorded on major roll-call votes last week.(This has been one nutty week for your humble narrator, by the way - it's a miracle I've been able to post anything or answer a single comment...yeah yeah, I know, I got 'yer cryin' towel right here, ya' wuss.)Children's health insurance. In a 273-156 vote, the House failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to override President Bush's veto of a bill that would have renewed the State Children's Health Insurance Program through 2012 at a cost of $60 billion, up $35 billion from current levels.A yes vote was to override the veto and enact the bill (HR 976).Voting yes: Robert E. Andrews (D., N.J.), Robert A. Brady (D., Pa.), Michael N. Castle (R., Del.), Charles W. Dent (R., Pa.), Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.), Tim Holden (D., Pa.), Frank A. LoBiondo (R., N.J.), Patrick Murphy (D., Pa.), Allyson Schwartz (D., ...