The Political Voices of Women

Why are over 94% of Senate Bills passed without debate?

I’M SORRY IF THIS VIDEO IS NOT AVAILABLE - MSM HAS FORCED REDLASSO TO DISCONTINUE SERVICE.

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Is this really how our government is supposed to work? What do you think? Let me know in comments.

Here is the full video of Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin…

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Obama’s Berlin Speech Appears To Resonate With Crowd…

Tens of thousands of Germans, along with some resident Americans, filled Berlin’s Tiergarten park to hear Barack Obama talk about the U.S., Europe and their shared visions and challenges. It was a remarkable turnout for the lazy days of late July, when most Germans are more focused on summer vacations than foreign politics.

The audience repeatedly interrupted his speech with applause and cheers, and erupted in chants of “Yes, we can!”

A lot of Europeans are hoping Obama will give them a reason to love America again.

“I expect Obama to be a president who makes it possible to be proud of being a fan of the USA,” said Gerda Schulz, a 72-year-old retiree. Schulz has watched historic speeches here by a string of American presidents — John F. Kennedy in 1963, Ronald Reagan in 1987 and Bill Clinton in 1994 — and on Thursday added the Democratic presidential contender to the list.

Did you hear Barack Obama’s speech? What did you think?

John McCain Iraq surge blunder. Why did CBS air a heavily edited interview of John McCain with Katie Couric?

Part One…

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Part Two…

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From America Blog…

This one is hard to even explain, it’s so bizarre. McCain, looking just awful on camera, made yet another major gaffe about national security policy, on CBS. So what did Katie Couric do? She aired the interview with McCain, aired the question that led to the gaffe, and then inserted an “answer” to the question that wasn’t the real gaffe-filled answer - it was something McCain said in a total other part of the interview. It’s absolutely astounding how far the corporate media is willing to go in order to defend John McCain. And seriously, take a good look at McCain in this video, I was kind of shocked by his appearance - he doesn’t look well at all.

From A Long Tough Blog…

This is ugly. Katie Couric asks John McCain a question - and she and/or her producers air his answer to another question. Because his actual answer was so embarrassingly wrong. That her firing hasn’t been announced already shows us how bad off we are.

From Crooks and Liars…

As I reported earlier, CBS violated their own Standards when it aired the heavily edited interview of John McCain with Katie Couric. A CBS spokesman tried to defend their behavior and told TV Newser:

Of the 14-minute interview, a little less than three minutes was used on the Evening News. A CBS spokesperson tells TVNewser, “As all news organizations do with extended interviews, last night’s Obama and McCain interviews were edited to fit the available time and to give viewers a fair expression of the candidates’ major differences. The full transcript and video were and still are available at CBSNews.com.”

OK, so this person is saying that they edited these segments to ‘ give viewers a fair expression of the candidates’ major differences’.

I’m sorry that is not what CBS did in this case and maybe the spokesman should look at their own standards in editing and then get back to me.

From Media Matters…

On the July 22 edition of the CBS Evening News, while airing portions of an interview she conducted that day with Sen. John McCain, anchor Katie Couric removed a part of his response in which he falsely asserted that the 2007 U.S. troop surge “began the Anbar awakening.” In fact, the so-called Anbar awakening reportedly began in September 2006, months before the surge was even announced. Couric had asked McCain, “Senator [Barack] Obama says while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shia government going after militias, and says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?” But rather than airing McCain’s direct reply, including the false claim that the surge “began the Anbar awakening” — an agreement by some tribal leaders in western Iraq to accept U.S. aid and cooperate with anti-Al Qaeda operations — Couric aired comments by McCain spliced together from three separate statements he gave during the interview, one of which responded to a different question. Couric gave no indication that these comments had been edited in any manner, nor did she otherwise note McCain’s falsehood.

So…Why would CBS edit this interview with John McCain? How do we know this is the only time they have done something like this? What do you think?

Even though Afghanistan has become more deadly for our troops than Iraq, there will be no surge. It’s because of the war in Iraq, that there is just not enough troops available for a surge in Afghanistan. This will be another mess that the Bush administration will leave behind for the next President.

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From Jessica…

First off, let’s be clear about what “surge” was supposed to mean in reference to Iraq. It was supposed to mean that troops would be added to trouble spots in Iraq for a period of six months. The addition of these troops was supposed to bring down violence so that political reconciliation could take place (as the violence levels were being blamed for the lack of political reconciliation). After the six month period, the troops were to be withdrawn, this was why the administration was calling it a “surge” and not what it really was, an escalation. (Keen observers might note that the “surge” has, in fact, lasted an entire year and that the ultimate goal - political reconciliation - is still very far from being achieved.). . .

Afghanistan has needed reinforcements for a long time as the forces there have, for many months, been losing the ground that was initially gained. Resources were directed away from Afghanistan when we went to war in Iraq and we’ve been paying the price for it dearly. This month will likely be the third month that U.S. casualties in Afghanistan are outpacing those in Iraq and considering we a much smaller force in Afghanistan, that’s really not good. Paul Reickhoff, Executive Director of the veteran organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America says that many soldiers that served there call it “Forgotistan.”

So, we hear a lot about how the surge in Iraq is working, and how important it is for us to “win” the war in Iraq. But…Are we winning the war in Iraq at the expense of our troops in Afghanistan? Could we “lose” the war in Afghanistan? Let me know what you think in comments.

The House has passed the Housing Bill after Bush says he will now sign it.

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From The New York Times…

But the legislation, much of which has been debated and fretted over on Capitol Hill for months, also leaves numerous questions unanswered. The biggest unknown is whether the measure will be adequate to slow the downward spiral of home prices and help the economy recover from what many analysts now expect to be a prolonged slowdown.

Perhaps most significantly, the legislation hardens the government’s long-implicit assurance that it would step in to rescue the two mortgage giants who together own or guarantee about $5.2 trillion of the nation’s $12 trillion in mortgages. Currently, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee financing for about 80 percent of new mortgages.

To accommodate a potential rescue for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the bill raises the national debt limit to $10.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion.

From Tami Winfrey Harris at The Political Voices of Women…

What Your President Says When He Thinks You’re Not Listening.

Of course we knew this all along. When President George W. Bush is with his cronies behind closed doors and the cameras are (supposedly) turned off, sometimes he lets a little truth slip out.

Greg Mitchell of The Huffington Post reports that Houston’s ABC affiliate has produced embarrassing footage of Bush at a local fund-raiser for Pete Olson, blaming Wall Street for “getting drunk” and screwing up the American economy.

In footage obtained by reporter Maya Shay, a smirking Bush says…

From the Politisite…

The U.S. House of Representatives has overwhelmingly passed the long-awaited housing rescue bill (H.R. 3221) sending it now for a last Senate approval before President Bush can sign it into law.

From The Back Story…

There has been a lot of wrangling over this bill. Until today, the president has been threatening a veto over $3.9 billion in grants to local governments to buy up abandoned houses. The president called that a bailout.

But included in the bill are guarantees to back housing mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and those guarantees sure look like bailouts as well. I’m not referring to the loan guarantees. I’m talking about the government’s promise to use tax dollars to buy Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae stock, in the event that their stock prices tumble.

What do you think about the Housing Bill? Will it help the average homeowner?

Barack Obama meets Afghan leader and discusses terrorism, and he is also going to Iraq. Check out the video clip and let me know what you think? Is this trip going to help or hurt his campaign?

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From The New York Times…

In an interview with CBS News on Sunday, Mr. Obama said: “We have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism.

From Politico…

In a presidential campaign where the Democrat faces an especially intense variation of a familiar Republican assault-that he is, in some sense, not “one of us,” the trip abroad represents an opportunity for Obama to assert that he is, rather, not one of them.

He began with stops in which he has been pictured largely in the company of American soldiers. In Kuwait, he examined military vehicles and signed autographs for soldiers on a military base. The first images out of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where he landed after a brief visit to a base in Kuwait, show him with two uniformed members of the military, three other American officials, and a large statue of a bald eagle.

From Washington Street Journal…

I believe U.S. troop levels need to increase. And I for at least a year now have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three. I think it’s very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough. The Afghan government needs to do more, but we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front on our battle against terrorism. …

I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq.

Let me know what you think about Obama’s trip to Afghanistan and Iraq in comments.

Al Gore’s Challenge For Environmentally Friendly Power

Al Gore wants Americans to abandon electricity that is generated by fossil fuels, and instead develop environmentally friendly power. Gore thinks we can do this within ten years, what do you think?

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From The New York Times - Gore Calls for Carbon-Free Electric Power…

Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.“The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. “The future of human civilization is at stake.”

From TreeHugger…

There’s also a warning from Gore: If we don’t act, the price of oil will keep rising because of demand from China and India, most of the world will be at the mercy of oil-producing countries, and irreparable harm will be done to the planet and the ecosystems that support our life.

From The Slant…

It appears even Al Gore (right) can’t get congressional Democrats to move quickly in addressing global warming.

According to The Hill, activism to save the world from greenhouse gases and global warming are taking a backseat to the hue and cry over $4-a-gallon gas.

The big concern: Appearing too much of a tree-hugger in a close presidential election would leave Democrats open to political reprisals from Republicans. The last thing Democrats — even those from an environmentally conscience state like Florida — want is to be seen as “soft” on energy.

[cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog]

Here is a guest post by Cynthia Samuels from Don’t Gel Too Soon.

OK. What do we think about this? I can tell you one thing. It hurts to look at it, even though I guess I understand what the artist, Barry Blitt, says he was trying to do. Rachel Sklar’s Huffington Post interview with the magazine’s gifted editor David Remnick explains further.

Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics. I can’t speak for anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama’s supposed “lack of patriotism” or his being “soft on terrorism” or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.

The free speech and marketplace of ideas concepts that I’ve treasured all my life clash with my reaction to all of this; I know that. The Constitutional protection of freedom of speech exists to guarantee the right both to speak and to hear not only popular, but also unpopular ideas. We don’t need to protect the popular ones; it’s the ideas that enrage people that need the protection. And I’m all for that.

But for a responsible and respected publication like The New Yorker to abuse that freedom by offering such blatant stereotypes to make its point, particularly when the subjects are the first African American Presidential (Columbia and Harvard-educated) candidate and his (Princeton and Harvard-educated) wife, an accomplished attorney — each of whose life trajectory suggests two stars who did everything expected of them to grow into exciting, productive citizens — seems to me abusive and dangerous. In an effort to make a point about the hate that’s being distributed concerning these two, they’re feeding it.

It will be interesting to see how many right wing websites and publications make use of this image. There’s been plenty of reaction so far and most of it is far more sophisticated than I could dream of being. I’m having too much trouble with my emotional, gut sense of right and wrong to be very thoughtful; this just feels wrong - perhaps even more so because of who printed it. I’ve been a New Yorker groupie since I was a high school kid in Pittsburgh wishing I was in Greenwich Village living the life of Susie Rotolo. Like this - walking through the Village with Bob Dylan.

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So it’s particularly disturbing to me that something so terribly offensive was pubished by this beloved icon.

The stereotypes don’t fit the Obamas, obviously. That’s what the New Yorker is trying to demonstrate by feeding these stereotypes out there in such a naked way. But even if they did, how many of us who ever cared about anything is willing to stand by every position we adopted in our younger days?

Congressman Bobby Rush was a Black Panther. Now he’s chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, serves on the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet and is a co-chairman of the Congressional Biotech Caucus. Isn’t that what we want? Growth.Even if the Obama’s were flamers back then (and I don’t think they were, by a long shot), isn’t the American way for young activists to rebel, maybe the wrong way, early in their lives then “grow up” to ultimately help to make change from inside? Justice Hugo Black, one of the great justices of the 20th century, started out as a member of the Ku Klux Klan - then went on to be a staunch defender of civil liberties for all. If we deny our future leaders the capacity to grow and question while they’re young, we will end up with leaders who may be what we deserve, but not who we need, by a long shot.I guess what I’m saying is that this effort to force Americans to confront political trash talk by offering up a visual representation of it all is, to me, a terrible mistake. An image that casts a shadow over the remarkable symbolic gift of this landmark candidacy - an image that lingers like a scar.

[cross-posted at The Care2 Election Blog]

Also See:

McCain, Obama campaigns agree: New Yorker cover is not satire.

Sad news today, Tony Snow has died at the age of 53.

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From Politico…

Snow, who served as the first host of the television news program “Fox News Sunday” from 1996 to 2003, would later say that in the Bush administration he was enjoying “the most exciting, intellectually aerobic job I’m ever going to have.”

Snow was working for Fox News Channel and Fox News Radio when he replaced Scott McClellan as press secretary in May 2006 during a White House shake-up. Unlike McClellan, who came to define caution and bland delivery from the White House podium, Snow was never shy about playing to the cameras.

From The New York Times…

Tony Snow, the former White House press secretary and journalist, has died after a long bout with colon cancer.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a White House correspondent for The Times who attended many of those briefings over which Mr. Snow presided, wrote his obituary today.

He left his White House post less than a year ago in September, telling everyone he was doing so for financial, not health reasons.

And this past April, he signed on with CNN as a political contributor. He had been with Fox News before he joined the White House as press secretary during Mr. Bush’s second term.

In recent months, he had been forced to cancel some speaking engagements.

The White House released this statement from President Bush:

“Laura and I are deeply saddened by the death of our dear friend, Tony Snow. Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Jill, and their children, Kendall, Robbie and Kristi. The Snow family has lost a beloved husband and father. And America has lost a devoted public servant and a man of character.

Not only does the FISA bill legalize the Bush administration’s secret NSA spying program, it also gives the government more power to listen to our phone calls and read our emails. Even more than the Bush administration illegally claimed for itself under its secret program. The ACLU will be challenging this in court, here is an explanation of the lawsuit…

Listen To Interview With ACLU

ACLU Challenges Unconstitutional Spying Law

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From Firedoglake…

The ACLU is going to challenge the FISA Amendments Act in court. They’re also going to be taking out a full-page ad in a major national newspaper in protest, and the first 10,000 people to sign on will have their names included.

From Writes Like She Talks…

Here, the implication is that McCain doesn’t really need to vote on the FISA bill given that “he has consistently supported the immunity plan.” Third Party candidate Ralph Nader’s campaign tried to get the McCain campaign to say more than that, but they refused.

Well, guess what? Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy is battling a brain tumor and flew to DC this week to vote on a Medicare bill that in the end didn’t even need his vote. Why did he fly there to vote? Because that’s what elected officials who say they put their country first actually do - they don’t rest on their past actions, no matter how laudatory.

Sigh. Thank you John McCain for another example of empty rhetoric courtesy of the ORP.

READ FULL POST AT THE CARE2 ELECTION BLOG