First Door on the Left

This is just silly. The only thing Rudy has going for him is 9/11, and some people say he doesn’t even have that. Yet he says he will not accept any donations to his campaign that are in the amount of $9.11.

So here’s the challenge: Let’s all send Rudy $9.11! We’ll then see how quickly our donations are returned. Please report back here (use the Contact link).

Giuliani Won’t Accept Donations Of $9.11

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said on Wednesday that his campaign would not accept any contributions in the denomination of $9.11.

On his way to a house party in New Jersey, the candidate was addressing criticism over a California house party fundraiser where attendees were asked for $9.11 per person, saying the decision to do so was “unfortunate.”

CBS News reporter Ryan Corsaro reports Giuliani said his campaign put a block on his system to not accept such contributions.

“I think they made a mistake,” Giuliani said.

Online donations (remember, $9.11 only) may be made here. You may also mail your $9.11 donation to:

Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee, Inc.
P.O. Box 1023
Merrifield, Va 22116-9565

When mailing a contribution, the campaign asks that you include this form.

Remember, this is a no-risk deal. Rudy has promised to return your $9.11. The most you should be out is the price of a postage stamp.

Let’s see if there is at least one Republican out there who is true to his word.

This is (probably) the last I’m going to mention that MoveOn.org ad that the rabid right is so upset about, but this was just too good to pass up. Plus, I get to post a picture of Bill Clinton, which I know will please the righties to no end (click on the picture to make it bigger)…

Bill Clinton slams ‘smearing’ Republicans

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former President Bill Clinton blasted Republicans Wednesday for their recent uproar over a MoveOn.org newspaper ad questioning Gen. David Petraeus’ credibility, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper their “feigned outrage” was completely “disingenuous.”

“This was classic bait and switch — focus on that as opposed to focusing on what’s happened,” the former president said.

Clinton also highlighted a string of past questionable campaign commercials targeting Democrats, and suggested Republicans are acting hypocritically.

“These are the people that ran a television ad in Georgia with [former Sen.] Max Cleland — who lost half his body in Vietnam — in the same ad with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. That’s what the Republicans did,” he continued. “And the person that rode to the senate on that ad was there voting to condemn the Democrats over the Petraeus ad.

“I mean, these are the people that funded the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. And the president appointed one of the principal founders of the Swift Boat ads to be an ambassador,” Clinton added. “But they’re really upset about Petraeus. But it was okay to question [Massachusetts Sen.] John Kerry’s patriotism on a blatantly dishonest play that had dishonest claims by people that didn’t know what they were talking about.”

When did it become the job of Congress to approve or condemn newspaper ads?

House overwhelmingly condemns MoveOn ad

The House on Wednesday passed by a wide margin a resolution that condemns an ad from liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org that referred to Gen. David Petraeus as “General Betray Us.”

Republican leaders had been calling for congressional action since the ad first ran in The New York Times ahead of Petraeus’s testimony on the situation in Iraq. The requests for action in the House grew louder after the Senate approved a similar measure with broad bipartisan consensus.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) hailed the outcome of the 341-79 vote and praised GOP lawmakers for taking the lead on the issue…

In response to the vote, the executive director of MoveOn.org’s Political Action Committee, Eli Pariser, said the group would continue its “ad campaign to accuse the Republicans who are blocking an end to the war of a ‘Betrayal of Trust.’”

Pariser noted that U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians lose their lives every day and “with every passing day, more information comes to light casting more and more doubt on the validity of the facts and conclusions presented by General Petraeus in his testimony before Congress.”

Pariser strongly criticized Congress for “fiddling with an ad while Iraq burns.”

“It is unconscionable and outrageous that instead of doing the people’s work and ending this war, Congress chooses meaningless and distracting gestures,” he said.

Mr. Pariser is 100% correct.

I would refer you once again to this Time Magazine editorial.

It is past time for the Republicans to stop showboating and let the Congress get back to doing the work for which we pay them.

Larry Craig is sticking it out…

Craig to Stay in Office Pending Ruling

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sen. Larry Craig said Wednesday he will remain in office while a Minnesota judge considers his bid to withdraw a guilty plea, overturning the senator’s previous statements of intent to resign by Sunday.

The Idaho Republican said he will stay in office “for now,” but people close to him said he will remain until the judge rules. Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter said he probably won’t decide the matter until next month.

Craig, who originally had planned to seek a fourth term next year, pleaded guilty in August to disorderly conduct following a June 11 sting operation in a men’s room at the Minneapolis airport.

Craig’s comments Wednesday were greeted with chilly silence from Senate Republican leaders who have made clear they wish he would step down and let Idaho’s GOP governor name a replacement. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters he had nothing to add to previous statements in which he said he thought Craig made the right decision on Sept. 1, when he announced his intention to resign by the month’s end.

Good for Larry Craig! I hope he sticks it out until the bitter end. After all, he really did nothing wrong. He didn’t have sex in that public restroom. All he did was a bit of toe tapping, paper reaching and stall gazing… just your average trip to the bathroom.

If the Republicans force Senator Craig out and allow David Vitter to stay, they will prove once again that they are a bunch of dang hypocrites. Vitter, unlike Craig, actually had illicit sex. The differences, of course, are that Vitter’s sex was heterosexual and the governor who will appoint his replacement happens to be a Democrat.

House Votes to Expand Insurance for Kids

The House voted Tuesday to expand health insurance for children, but the Democratic-led victory may prove short-lived because the margin was too small to override President Bush’s promised veto.

Embarking on a health care debate likely to animate the 2008 elections, the House voted 265-159 to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years. Bush says he will veto the bill due to its cost, its reliance on a tobacco tax increase and its potential for replacing private insurance with government grants.

SCHIP is a state-federal program that provides coverage for 6.6 million children from families that live above the poverty level but have trouble affording private health insurance. The proposed expansion, backed by most governors and many health-advocacy groups, would add 4 million children to the rolls.

The bill drew support from 45 House Republicans, many of them moderates who do not want to be depicted as indifferent to low-income children’s health needs when they seek re-election next year. But 151 Republicans sided with Bush, a move that Democrats see as a political blunder.

Nevermind that we’re paying $12 billion per month for George’s War in Iraq. $35 billion over five years is just too much to pay to get health insurance for more kids.

Republicans… can’t live with ‘em… well, that’s pretty much it. You can’t live with ‘em.

Unless you are white, heterosexual, male, Protestant and making over $200,000 per year (or not yet born), the Republican party could care less about you.

New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Hebert tackled the white issue today…

The Ugly Side of the G.O.P.

I applaud the thousands of people, many of them poor, who traveled from around the country to protest in Jena, La., last week. But what I’d really like to see is a million angry protesters marching on the headquarters of the National Republican Party in Washington.

Enough is enough. Last week the Republicans showed once again just how anti-black their party really is.

The G.O.P. has spent the last 40 years insulting, disenfranchising and otherwise stomping on the interests of black Americans. Last week, the residents of Washington, D.C., with its majority black population, came remarkably close to realizing a goal they have sought for decades — a voting member of Congress to represent them.

A majority in Congress favored the move, and the House had already approved it. But the Republican minority in the Senate — with the enthusiastic support of President Bush — rose up on Tuesday and said: “No way, baby.”

At least 57 senators favored the bill, a solid majority. But the Republicans prevented a key motion on the measure from receiving the 60 votes necessary to move it forward in the Senate. The bill died.

At the same time that the Republicans were killing Congressional representation for D.C. residents, the major G.O.P. candidates for president were offering a collective slap in the face to black voters nationally by refusing to participate in a long-scheduled, nationally televised debate focusing on issues important to minorities.

The radio and television personality Tavis Smiley worked for a year to have a pair of these debates televised on PBS, one for the Democratic candidates and the other for the Republicans. The Democratic debate was held in June, and all the major candidates participated.

The Republican debate is scheduled for Thursday. But Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson have all told Mr. Smiley: “No way, baby.”

They won’t be there. They can’t be bothered debating issues that might be of interest to black Americans. After all, they’re Republicans.

Click on the headline to read the entire column.

Iraq war budget jumps for 2008

WASHINGTON — – After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure — totaling nearly $200 billion — to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.

If Bush’s spending request is approved, 2008 will be the most expensive year of the Iraq war.

U.S. war costs have continued to grow because of the additional combat forces sent to Iraq this year and because of efforts to quickly ramp up production of new technology, such as mine-resistant trucks designed to protect troops from roadside bombs. The new trucks can cost three to six times as much as an armored Humvee.

The Bush administration said earlier this year that it probably would need $147.5 billion for 2008, but Pentagon officials now say that and $47 billion more will be required. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other officials are to formally present the full request at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing Wednesday.

The funding request means that war costs are projected to grow even as the number of deployed combat troops begins a gradual decline starting in December [Ed. note: I'll believe it when I see it.]. Spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is to rise from $173 billion this year to about $195 billion in fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1.

When costs of CIA operations and embassy expenses are added, the war in Iraq currently costs taxpayers about $12 billion a month, said Winslow T. Wheeler, a former Republican congressional budget aide who is a senior fellow at the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

$12,000,000,000 per month. Can you imagine what we could do with that money here at home? It kind of boggles the mind, doesn’t it?

Oh, well… it that’s what George wants, our wimpy Congress will most likely give it to him. It’s been his goal all along to bankrupt us, and it sure looks like he’s going to succeed.

Today’s Doonesbury is very good… click the image below to view…

Rudy has said some pretty dumb things during this campaign, but I do believe this takes the cake…

Giuliani’s Speech at NRA Doesn’t Reassure Skeptics

Rudolph W. Giuliani yesterday sought to persuade members of the National Rifle Association to look past his lengthy record of pushing for tougher gun control by saying that his views on this issue had been changed by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The attacks on New York and the Pentagon put “a whole different emphasis on the things America needs to do to protect itself, and maybe even a renewed emphasis on the Second Amendment,” Giuliani told the roughly 500 NRA members gathered at a Washington hotel.

Wow… talk about pandering!

Yep, if only everybody in the World Trade Center towers that day had had an automatic rifle. Things would really have turned out differently.

I posted a link to this Time editorial a couple of posts past, but I really want you to read it. It illustrates nicely just how ridiculous all this right-wing noise about the MoveOn.org ad really is…

How Dare You!

Goodness gracious. oh, my paws and whiskers. Some of the meanest, most ornery hombres around are suddenly feeling faint. Notorious tough guys are swooning with the vapors. The biggest beasts in the barnyard are all aflutter over something they read in the New York Times. It’s that ad from MoveOn.org — the one that calls General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, general betray us. All across the radio spectrum, right-wing shock jocks are themselves shocked. How could anybody say such a thing? It’s horrifying. It’s outrageous. It’s disgraceful. It’s just beyond the pale … It’s … oh, my heavens … say, is it a bit stuffy in here? … I think I’m going to … Could I have a glass of … oh, dear [thud].

Welcome to the wonderful world of umbrage, the new language of American politics. You would not have thought that the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly would be so sensitive. Sticks and stones and so on. Yet they all seem to have taken one look at that ad and fainted dead away. And when they came round, they demanded — as if with one voice (or at least as if with one list of talking points) — that every Democratic presidential candidate must “condemn” this shocking, shocking document.

The ad is pretty tough, and the pun on the general’s name is pretty witless. You could argue that since the verb betray and the noun traitor have the same root, the ad is accusing the head of American forces in Iraq of treason. The ad can also be interpreted — more plausibly if you consider the rest of the text — merely as questioning the general’s honesty, not his patriotism. But whatever your interpretation of the ad, all the gasping for air and waving of scented handkerchiefs among the war’s most enthusiastic supporters is pretty comical.

It’s all phony, of course. The war’s backers are obviously delighted to have this ad from which they can make an issue. They wouldn’t trade it for a week in Anbar province (a formerly troubled area of Iraq that is now, thanks to us, an Eden of peace and tranquillity where barely a car bomb disturbs the perfumed silence — or so they say). These days, mock outrage is used by every side of every dispute. It’s fair enough to criticize something your opponent said while secretly thanking your lucky stars that he said it. The fuss over this MoveOn.org ad is something else: it is the result of a desperate scavenging for umbrage material. When so many people are clamoring for a chance to swoon that they each have to take a number and when the landscape is so littered with folks lying prostrate and pretending to be dead that it starts to look like the end of a Civil War battle re-enactment, this isn’t spontaneous mass outrage. This is choreography.

The constant calls for political candidates to prove their bona fides by condemning or denouncing something somebody else said or to renounce a person’s support or to return her tainted money are a tiresome new tic in American politics. They’re turning politics into a game of “Mother, May I?” Did you say “Here is my plan for health-care reform”? Uh-oh, you were supposed to say “I condemn MoveOn.org’s comments on General Petraeus, and here is my plan for health-care reform.”

Continue reading.