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: 61 0 60 4272

Articles from The Liberal Doomsayer

Keeping The Heat On Abu G. 2007-08-01 12:59:00 The latest from Democracy For America...Congress is beginning to get it.After years of evidence that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is both an embarrassment and a danger to the Justice Department, The Seattle Times reports that Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA), "will introduce a resolution today directing the House Judiciary Committee to investigate whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be impeached."¹Democracy for America has been pushing Congress to take this action for months. Over 80,000 members have already petitioned their representatives.²Now that we've made real progress on Capitol Hill, will you show your support for the impeachment resolution by becoming a Citizen Co-Sponsor?Click here.As The New York Times wrote this weekend, "Americans have been waiting for months for Mr. Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently proved that he can't tell the truth. Mr. Bush refused to fire him after it was c ...

Ending Another "Boys Only" Tradition? 2007-08-01 12:07:00 I’m getting to this a bit late, but Parade Magazine on Sunday featured a story in the Intelligence Report column here about a lawsuit filed against the CIA by women fired from that agency for having foreign fiancées, boyfriends, or relatives (that is claimed in the lawsuit anyway, and the charges seem to be valid – the story appears under “Sexism Among Spies”).This actually is based on an extensive U.S. News and World Report article written by David E. Kaplan last April that can be accessed from Talk Left here. Kaplan’s story discusses a few of the cases, with almost all of the women using aliases to tell their story – Janine Brookner is featured primarily; she is a former agent who was dismissed and subsequently put herself through law school and now represents the 25 (at last count) who have joined the complaint against the agency. The CIA’s Centers for Security and Counterintelligence is the department singled out in the complaint (the equivalent of a police departmen ...

I Smell (More) Trouble 2007-07-31 17:27:00 Karsten Voigt is my new hero (for the moment, anyway); he is identified in this story as the foreign ministry coordinator for German-American relations in Berlin.This is why…Washington is trying to assure Gulf allies, worried by the growing strength of Iran and by the war in Iraq, that the United States is committed to the region and will stand by them, and the (recently announced $43 billion) arms package is part of that process, U.S. officials say.The plan to upgrade Saudi Arabia's missile defences and air force and to boost its navy is at odds with U.S. plans to nurture democratic standards in the region, Voigt said.'The U.S. said a couple of months ago the main problem in the region was the lack of democracy,' he said. 'I do not know how one can support democracy by supplying weapons for Saudi Arabia, which is anything but a very democratic country.'And our "dear friends" the Saudis would never support the insurgents in Iraq – would they? ...

Nobody Touches, Sees…Or Thinks 2007-07-31 16:44:00 This takes you to a post from People for the American Way about the “modesty movement” from those dear, oh-so-tolerant hammerheads at Focus On The Family. Quoted is Colleen Hammond, who tells us…'We’ve learned from history that as the morality of women declines, the culture follows with it,' Hammond said."Please do me a favor and take a look at the drawing accompanying this post (and this related news story) and explain to me what separates Hammond and her ilk philosophically from the Islamic fundamentalists who abuse women even slightly uncovered from head to foot; to me, these are two groups of people developmentally immature to the point where they are afraid of the human body in all of its God-given wonder. ...

Played For Fools 2007-07-31 15:44:00 After all that has been written and said about Alberto Gonzales and his parade of lies and evasions before the Senate Judiciary Committee, can someone please explain to my why an organization like the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Executives still allowed him to speak before their annual training conference yesterday?I have no clue as to why that invitation wasn’t withdrawn, so why don’t we access their web site from here and ask them why not (here is a contact Email address). ...

Today's BoBo Blather 2007-07-31 15:19:00 In his bi-weekly opportunity to offer the literary output you might expect after an hour or so of gazing at your navel, David Brooks finds himself a bit torn today as he decides whether or not to chide the anti-poverty proposals of Democratic presidential candidates John Edwards or Barack Obama (here). He finally decides that he dislikes what Obama proposes less, and here is why…The Obama policy provides more face to face contact with people who can offer praise or disapproval. Rising out of poverty is difficult – even when there are jobs and good schools.Speaking from firsthand experience, I’m sure…It’s hard to focus on a distant degree or home purchase. But human beings have a strong desire for approval and can accomplish a lot with daily doses of praise and censure. Standards of behavior are contagious that way.So…making those in poverty feel like the dregs of the earth and then telling them, “but, really, you’re profoundly important dregs of the earth, and never for ...

Keeping Iraq (And Us) In The Dark 2007-07-31 12:01:00 This appeared from David Roberts at HuffPo yesterday concerning the Iraq electricity crisis (of course, Bushco won’t characterize it as such, but that’s what it is).Roberts notes that the amount of electricity available to residents of Baghdad, according to reports from our ruling cabal, was about 5-6 hours a day as of earlier this year, but as of last week, Baghdad residents could count on (drum roll, please) a grand total of one hour per day.I’ll let that sink in for a minute – a grand total of one hour of electricity per day.Can you imagine anything approximating normal activity in one’s life when all you can count on is one hour of electricity per day?Well, leave it to Bushco to snap into action on this; as Roberts tells us…(The duration of Baghdad’s electricity is a figure that) has not been sent to lawmakers for months because the State Department, which prepares a weekly "status report" for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of ...

Monday Videos 2007-07-30 22:00:00 Fountains Of Wayne ("Strapped For Cash," otherwise known as my life story, on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" - I would definitely be watching his show if this were, say, 15 years ago)......Happy Birthday to David Sanborn ("Chicago Song")......Happy 71st Birthday to Buddy Guy, performing "I Can't Quit You Baby" with B.B. King (such naughty language, Buddy!)......and Conan O'Brien introduces a retrospective of clips with Tom Snyder and all kinds of guests, cultural icons of one type or another. ...

Smerky's Such A Clever Boy! 2007-07-30 17:26:00 Yesterday, Michael Smerconish claimed credit for inventing a new word in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer, and that would be “hatriolic” (if you choose to punish yourself by reading his column and finding out why he thinks it is important, feel free to do so here if you’re registered, thought I’m sure it will be cross-posted at HuffPo shortly).The only comment I will make on the substance (what of it there is) of his column is to say that I did a Google search on his word, and all kinds of links came back that showed nothing but profanity, intolerance for anything democratic/progressive/liberal in any way, shape or form, and tons and tons of bad spelling. Why anyone would claim credit for anything that causes these results is something I cannot imagine.Actually, Smerky (and the Inquirer also), I have my own word for all of you idiots, and here it is: cancellation. My subscription officially ends tomorrow.See ya’. ...

General (President Someday?) Nonsense 2007-07-30 16:49:00 Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, said last month that the Iraq war, which he views as a counter-insurgency operation, could last as long as ten years (a nested, linked story notes that Petraeus also said that we would need to maintain a presence in Iraq such as that we have maintained for over 50 years in South Korea…I don’t recall any counter-insurgency activity between North and South Korea over that time – I always thought that the purpose of our presence was to stop encroachment along the 38th parallel).And here, Petraeus said that a recent wave of suicide bombings in Iraq was intended to create a “mini-Tet.”After hearing all of this, am I the only one who thinks Petraeus doesn’t know what he’s talking about any more concerning the war?And another thing; I think it’s high time for myself and anyone else to get over the impulse not to respectfully question a member of our military concerning the conduct of the war (a proper impulse to be sure, under or ... President

Patrick, Dems Keep College In Reach 2007-07-30 14:40:00 The following Guest Opinion appeared in the Bucks County Courier Times from Patrick Murphy yesterday.Students and parents today face the harsh reality of rising costs. While students are going to class and working hard, far too many still worry about how to pay for their higher education.Parents also face this challenge when their kids eagerly open their college acceptance letters. A college or technical degree is vitally important for a high paying job yet more expensive than ever.In my case, I worked my way through Bucks County Community College, graduated from Kings College and then earned my law degree from Widener University. I worked long hours after class and received ROTC scholarships, but still worried about the debt I would face and how I would pay for it. Now, 16 years after I started, I am still paying off my debt.More kids from Bucks County are enrolling in two- and four-year colleges and universities than ever before. Those students, unfortunately, are met with rising cos ...

What's The Frequency, Dubya? 2007-07-30 14:21:00 Staying with the secret spying and FISA abuse for a minute or two, we have this item from CNN that appeared over the weekend, in particular this excerpt (regarding why President Clouded Vision thinks FISA should be gutted in the manner he wants)…Bush said terrorists now use disposable cell phones and the Internet to communicate, recruit operatives and plan attacks -- tools that weren't available when FISA passed nearly 30 years ago.Hmmm, disposable cell phones; is that also supposed to mean, by association, disposable cell phone numbers?(This point is probably too obvious to post about, but it should be mentioned considering the life form who brought it up.)I’m sure this has happened to you also, but when I bought a digital phone because my old, clunky but reliable analog one wasn’t supported any more, my service provider (Verizon) deactivated my old phone. I don’t know the particulars about the diagnostic checks performed by a cell phone when it is powered up, and I certainly ...

Sending Abu G A Message 2007-07-30 12:24:00 This New York Times article describes the latest goings-on with our truth-impaired U.S. Attorney General who can’t seem to make up his mind on much of anything. Watching Gonzales perform his act in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week constitutes a burlesque of anything remotely related to candor and even a passing familiarity with how the checks and balances of out government are supposed to function, even by Bushco’s admittedly low standards.So Abu G.’s razor-thin, legalese-filled defense seems to be that the program for which he was seeking John Ashcroft’s signoff from the former Attorney General’s hospital bed had to do with data mining (retrieving “meta data” details of communications) as opposed to actual surveillance (with the data mining program having been acknowledged already, even though former NSA director – and now CIA director – Michael Hayden denied it)?Well, I think Glenn Greenwald pretty much blasted that nonsense to pieces here.And also, ...

Monday Passings 2007-07-30 11:45:00 R.I.P Ingmar Bergman (my introduction was “The Seventh Seal,” which I watched in an auditorium with a bunch of eighth graders who were as confused at the time as I was – as depressing as it was, “Wild Strawberries” may have been the most beautifully photographed black and white film I ever saw, and “Fanny and Alexander” is a favorite also; a humorous – I hope – appreciation follows)......and Tom Snyder; I’m not sure exactly why he never caught on as a media personality. I guess it was because he was trained as a journalist but couldn’t quite find that Letterman/Leno appeal to make a large audience gravitate towards him.It’s a shame because he conducted some really interesting interviews, such as the one with John Lennon while his deportation hearings were going on (and Snyder’s show after Lennon’s murder was memorable also), and even the one with Wendy O. Williams of the Plasmatics during the ‘80s. Snyder always dove head first into some edgy stuff and som ...

Some Saturday Fun 2007-07-28 11:45:00 Hat tips to Kagro X at The Daily Kos for this......and this; background is here - Lowe's is a much better store than Home Depot anyway. ...