Maine Owl

Hey, I picked it up!

Know your bobblespeak (h/t Atrios):

Tucker: she wants a career in national politics but she's petty, vindictive, shallow and stupid

Stephanolpous: yes but what's the downside

THIS belongs in my sidebar if I could ever get around to a thorough update.

He's done.

A bigger jackass than Norm Coleman I am hard pressed to name. This has been my feeling towards the guy since 1996. Those were days we lived in my home state of Minnesota and Coleman switched from Democrat to Republican in order to better turn St. Paul (where he was mayor) into a corporate office park on the taxpayer's dime.

Below is my good riddance review of this awful man. Note how he appears alongside Senator Susan Collins in many of the items where their lack of oversight of U.S.-involved war corruption allowed Iraq (and the U.S. taxpayer) to be hammered while their hyper-attack on the U.N. over the 1990s Iraq Oil-for-Food program unfairly sullied reputations.

Previous posts re Norm Coleman:

• Norm Coleman of Minnesota, 100% a-hole
• Susan Collins no-show at Palin rally
• Minnesota politics
• Iraq waste, fraud, & abuse dissected
• Iraq: rampant American corruption
• Susan Collins and the Oil-for-Food double standard
• Galloway versus Coleman
• Norm Coleman attacks Kofi Annan

Please post your own favorite Norm Coleman tales in comments below.

"Fraud did take place in the 2008 election-conducted for, and paid for by, the Republican Party."

The California Republican operative responsible in this pretty massive case, Mark Jacoby, was given probation this past week, but "two felony counts of perjury and one felony count of voter registration fraud were dismissed under the deal."

The accusations last fall against ACORN from the McCain/Palin camp became so crazy that false does not even begin to describe the absurdity. The Republicans must just reason that it is easy to distract the American people from the real fraud in which they engage because no one with a grasp of the truth would vote for them.

Letterman rips our favorite jackass:


Thanks, Dave, for the stiff dose of truth.

Black Agenda Report: failure so far

It's finals week and it's time for all freshman to show us what they've done. According to Black Agenda Report (via Bruce Gagnon), the score for President Obama is too low to pass at 25%.

This has gotta be the most serious and thorough assessment of all the 100-day b.s. that passed for news last week. (Mark Shields: "People like him.") It's a solid effort to analyze Obama in 18 areas from health care, to war and peace, to urban policy, to government contracting issues.

Susan Collins's old senate BFF is an election expense hypocrite

I grew up in Minnesota and last lived there from 1996-2002. When Norm Coleman was mayor of St. Paul and a gubernatorial candidate during that time, I despised the man. The 2002 election that sent this jerk to the U.S. Senate immediately following the death of Paul Wellstone was one of the most heartbreaking stories of modern politics.

Coleman for some weeks has been suggesting a full, statewide election re-do in Minnesota after he lost the recount of the November 2008 vote by a razor-thin margin to Democratic challenger Al Franken. The cost estimate of such a hypothetical re-do came in today: $3.5-5 million. The hypocrisy is rich, as this TPM ITEM today by Eric Kleefeld, "Flashback: Coleman Said To Spare State Cost Of Recount -- But Is Now Angling For Multi-Million Dollar Election," points out.

When Coleman in November just after the election counseled Franken to step aside to spare expense (with Coleman appearing to be ahead), the estimated cost of the recount was under $100,000. After the recount put Franken ahead, Coleman suddenly became eager to have the taxpayers spend $5 million for his do-over. Oy...

I have a few old Norm Coleman posts. THIS ONE from 2004 analyzes the sorry distraction perpetrated by Coleman and his senate Republican colleague Susan Collins in attacking former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan over the Iraq Oil-for-Food program.

In a December 2004 letter demanding that Annan resign over Oil-for-Food corruption, Coleman included this gem,

Since it was never likely that the U.N. Security Council, some of whose permanent members were awash in Saddam's favors, would ever call for Saddam's removal, the U.S. and its coalition partners were forced to put troops in harm's way to oust him by force. Today, money swindled from Oil-for-Food may be funding the insurgency against coalition troops in Iraq and other terrorist activities against U.S. interests. Simply put, the troops would probably not have been placed in such danger if the U.N. had done its job in administering sanctions and Oil-for-Food.

Alas! A completely novel explanation for the Iraq War! The U.S. simply had to root out the corruption that all the other compromised U.N. member states never would. So it's the fault of the U.N. and Kofi Annan that U.S. troops had to die in Iraq. The unwritten corollary here is that President Bush and his Iraq team did nothing except react properly to the circumstances.

Coleman (and Collins) were BLIND at the time to the U.S.-run cleptocracy in Iraq called the Coalition Provisional Authority.

There is a lot more to say about Coleman's senate performance, surely one of the worst six-year stints in senate history. A follow-up Oil-for-Food episode included a Coleman attack on UK politician George Galloway, see HERE,

Coleman: If in fact he lied to this committee, there will have to be consequences.

Wow, Norm, some threat! How'd that turn out?

The post cited, from May 2005, blogs a response on his old radio show from none other than, Al Franken!

I never cared much for Tom Daschle. I felt that he was far too accommodating of the Bush agenda after he re-acquired the post of Senate Majority Leader in June 2001. Others may disagree. During his failed 2004 bid for re-election, he was accused of obstructing Bush's judicial nominations, and not being a sufficiently enthusiastic cheerleader for war.

But of course, he happily voted for the Iraq use of force resolution in October 2002, stating that "it is clear from this debate that Saddam's weapons of mass destruction are the principal threat to the United States and the only threat that would justify the use of the United States military force against Iraq."

Daschle has been an expert at making people believe he is a good liberal/progressive while at the same time furtively doing the bidding of corporate interests. His major clients over the years, both during his time as senator from South Dakota and after have included mining and logging concerns.

For example, in late 2001 he went to bat in Congress for Barrick Mining. For those familiar with the HBO television series "Deadwood," the amendment Daschle sneaked through nicely could become a late chapter of the saga. It granted legal immunity for Barrick's Homestake mine in the Black Hills, the very one once owned by William Randolph Hearst. The Lakota Sioux cannot pursue claims on billions of profits extracted from land once belonging to them.

The contradictions inherent in Daschle's character finally came to light in his failure to pay taxes on the extraordinary perks awarded him by InterMedia Partners, an insurance industry lobby. How the great benefits Daschle accepted from these guys would have affected the health care reform program apparently intended in the Obama Administration, we don't know. Suggestions (including in his own book) that Daschle would be a thorn in industry's side, an advocate of single payer, designer of a tough-on-industry health board deserved much skepticism. I'm happy that point is moot now, at least as far as Daschle is concerned.

Update: Before I wrote this, I had not read Greenwald's incredible post on Daschle, HERE. Greenwald is much more pointed than I was.

Greenwald: But there's no need to withhold judgment on Daschle himself. He embodies everything that is sleazy, sickly, and soul-less about Washington. It's probably impossible for Obama to fill his cabinet with individuals entirely free of Beltway filth -- it's extremely rare to get anywhere near that system without being infected by it -- but Daschle oozes Beltway slime from every pore.

And he has much to back this up, including the story of Daschle's behind-the-scenes work for telcoms during their successful bid in Congress for spying immunity.

I also fixed a misspelling in the original post and put in "included" for "been" for clarity.

Gerald has the text HERE

As a peace activist, some of this did not thrill me at first. It sounded almost too much like Bush: "We will not apologize for our way of life," and, "You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you."

How many more innocents will we slaughter in order to stop "slaughtering innocents"?

But the jingoism is "tempered" in some very good ways, "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."

And this was a terrific dig against the Bush record: "We will restore science to its rightful place."

But my favorite line: "Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake."

As someone who is pretty skeptical of Obama (and will continue to be), I say this is hopeful.

And also, I do second Gerald's suggestion to take a look at the incredible new whitehouse.gov.

Ms. Owl and I cheered our little hearts out


Thanks to C-SPAN and Peace de Resistance

It is a new day.

Our Hero on the Bush legacy


Helen Thomas (Maine Owl photo)

History Cannot Save Him
by Helen Thomas

WASHINGTON -- As he leaves office, President Bush is passing on to his successor two wars and a growing economic debacle. What a way to go!

Because of Bush's policies, the U.S. also is complicit in the Israeli attack on the Palestinians on the Gaza Strip by providing a "made-in-America" high-tech arsenal for the assault and blocking a ceasefire for nearly two weeks, a move intended to help the Israelis consolidate their hold. ...

Original continues HERE. See also, Helen Thomas on "An Unconscionable Legacy", Democracy Now!, HERE.

Good grief. And THIS! Holy crap!

What's going to happen to the Democrats? A 1994 collapse re-do? Voters sour quickly on this shit. The Democrats in Congress by '94 were bathed in corruption. Perhaps the Republicans had set new records by 2006, but the 1994 Democrats were pretty awful. Guess they feel the need to wrest the record back.

Back in the day Dan Rostenkowski was the prime example. He was a quintessential smoke-filled room kind of guy. In 1994, it came out that he had ghost payroll and a gift scandal to make Ted Stevens blush, all while running the Congressional Post Office like an official money laundry. They couldn't take that even in Chicago!

Twelve years of Republican Congressional rule followed. We lived in the Chicago area then and I worked in a downtown skyscraper. I knew we were in for a long, long decade during that fall and the subsequent rise of Gingrich. It was a sinking feeling then...

Next thing we know, Obama will be impeached.

Here is Rice during the Iraq War run-up:

RICE: "I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)

RICE: "We need to be ready for the possibility that the attack against the U.S. could come in some form against the homeland, not necessarily on the battlefield against our forces. And I think there, too, is an area where the American people need to be better prepared by our leadership. ... It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side." (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)

RICE: "I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it's a question of timing and tactics...We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions." (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002)

(H/T to the excellent A Tiny Revolution for those quotes.)

Of course they belong to Susan Rice, President-elect Obama's choice for the key foreign policy post of U.N. Ambassador. News fluff suggests, "Rice has spent her career studying how to prevent violence by alleviating poverty, curing disease and addressing climate change."

Fair enough, except the liberal hawk part is left out.

I also learn from the news today that Ms. Rice has roots and a summer home here.

New government for Canada?


Canada is held in high esteem in our household


Awesome site during our travels in New Brunswick, Canada

Looks like the Bush-friendly Harper government is about to leave in the wake of the economic meltdown.

The only reason the Conservative Party led by Harper was ever able to gain power as a minority is because the opposition to it was divided. In the wake of Liberal Party arrogance and scandal (see "Sponsorship scandal" HERE), it's standing sank, creating an opening for the Conservatives to slip in with only 36% of the vote in early 2006.

In recent elections, the Conservatives seemed to maintain the minority government. But the economic crisis has overtaken Canada too. Conservative reluctance to pass economic stimulus appears to have driven former enemy opposition parties--Liberal, New Democratic, and Bloc Québécois--into coalition to put an end to Harper's regime.

Monster slaying

Krugman calls the monsters of the last eight years by their names: Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney.

For now, "they’ve been banished to the wilderness."