Monthly Archives: February 2010

Tuesday Open Thread

Welcome to another snow day Tuesday! Even though we only got a dusting last night, it was enough to make the commute a nightmare this morning. So, what’s on your mind? Let’s get started.

One story that has been fascinating me lately is the story of Amy Bishop, the Harvard-trained Ph.D. biologists who shot 6 faculty members after a tenure hearing. I guess it hits home for me because both my brother and sister-in-law are biology professors and my husband is a chemistry lecturer. It’s just part of that “small world” feeling you get in academia. The more her story comes out, the more you see the big blinking warning signs all over the place that were ignored or covered up by others. One big warning sign, the “accidental” killing of her own brother in 1986:

To bring you up to speed, the accounts of those who were on the scene shortly after crime or familiar with incidents surrounding it hold that Bishop discharged the gun in her bedroom, then fired the fatal shot into her brother in the kitchen, then discharged the gun again in the house as she fled the residence. She then ran with the gun down the street apparently looking for a getaway car. In that search she reportedly threatened two others — one in an attempt to get him to stop his vehicle (presumably so she could take it) and another at an auto repair shop where she was rifling through a collection of keys trying to steal a car.

…

Hours later, as Bishop was being booked, the booking officer received a call from the then-Chief of Police, or someone calling on his behalf, instructing him to release Bishop into the custody of her mother, who at the time sat on the town Board of Personnel.

The one report that still exists is that of the State Police who did a subsequent investigation, apparently at the behest of the District Attorney’s office, with interviews conducted some time later. The key was that Bishop’s mother claimed to have witnessed the shooting. And she insisted that it was accidental.

The investigative report of the incident no longer exists, but the police insist there’s no cover-up.

Cheney’s chest-thumping aside, Obama’s cooperative foreign policy initiatives appear to be brining success. A joint Pakistan/U.S. military operation captured the #2 Taliban figure in Pakistan.

The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

Free Advice For Chris Coons, Part 2

Like we discussed yesterday, we at Delaware Liberal are offering absolutely free advice to Chris Coons in his Senate run against Mike Castle. Unlike a lot of people, I believe Castle is beatable. In fact, I think Coons could be in a great position if he plays his cards right. Castle is the de facto incumbent in an anti-incumbent year. Coons can run as a Washington outsider and as a man who understands the needs of Delaware. It should be simple to paint Castle as a long-time Washington insider who votes with his party above his state and who doesn’t understand the issues facing Delaware.

I know there’s a lot of concern about Coons turning off independents by looking too partisan. However the problem I see is that a significant portion of Castle’s support comes from Democrats. Coons is going to have to woo back and excite Democrats if he wants to win. So, how will he do that?

First I think he needs an energized base. As we discussed yesterday, the netroots is a subset of the base, but with high influence. In my opinion, Coons should try to energize the netroots, then energize the base and then appeal to independents. The base is where you get the volunteers you need to win the election. So, what issues excite the base?

Health Care Reform

Coons should have a clearly articulated position on health care reform. In fact, I think there is absolutely no penalty on Coons to come out in favor a public option and Medicare buy-in. Both programs are very popular with the public at large and even though Coons won’t be voting on the package now, hopefully Democrats will pass some kind of reform. Coons can discuss how he would fix the reform for the better.

Senate Dysfunction

This is a fairly new issue but is a hot topic in most of the netroots right now. The Senate is completely dysfunctional because even with a 19-seat majority, Democrats can hardly get any legislation through Congress. A bill sponsored by Senator Harkin has been proposed to kill the filibuster. So, although I doubt this bill would ever be enacted Coons should come out in favor of filibuster reform and should be able to discuss this issue. It’s an important issue because Mike Castle would become part of the do-nothing Republican voting bloc.

Bipartisanship

I’ll admit that I want to spit every time I hear this term. It seems to be a religion among conservaDems and Washington pundits. I do know that the vague concept of “bipartisan” is something that appeals to swing voters and independents but it is not something that will excite the base. Coons needs to find a way to reassure the base that bipartisanship for its own sake is his goal, but that he’s not driven completely by ideology. One formulation I’ve seen of this dilemma is one the Obama uses – he’s open to anyone with ideas that work.

Iraq/Afghanistan

Among most of the U.S. the popular position is to end our involvement in those conflicts as soon as we can, while keeping our national security as the first consideration.

One issue that I don’t think appeals to the base is debt and deficit, although it is an important issue to right-leaning swing voters and independents. Again, I think there is a fine line to walk to reassure the base you’re not going with the Republican talking points of cut taxes for the rich and cut Social Security and Medicare. The way to formulate this, IMO, is that modest fixes are needed for Social Security (removing the income cap from the payroll tax) and that the best way to fix Medicare is to fix health care in America. The best way to deal with the deficit is to improve the economy and yes, use PAYGO rules for new programs (including defense spending).

The floor is yours. What issues should Chris Coons focus on to excite the base? What issues are full of traps?

Snow Days

I drove my daughter to school this morning and the entire time I was thinking… why are schools open?  For while the main roads are clear the side roads are a rutted mess of ice which turned my normally 10 minute round-trip into a harrowing 35 minute keep-my-wits-about-me experience.

There’s no doubt about it.  The side roads are dangerous, and the fresh coating of snow – already laying on the clear roads – doesn’t bode well.

While it isn’t my favorite thing to do, I don’t mind driving in snow.  But this morning’s commute wasn’t about snow.  It was about what happens to snow on roads that haven’t seen a plow.  It’s about two lane roads that turn into one.  It’s about so much snow piled up on street corners that school children’s only choice in getting around these mountains is walking in the streets – streets with drivers who realize that if they stop they probably won’t move again.

It also occurred to me that if school hadn’t been canceled last week it would have been canceled today.  Which makes me question where safety ranked in the decision to open schools.  After my morning drive I’m thinking safety wasn’t #1 on the list.  My guess is that it ranked third, after the dilemma of making up snow days and the upcoming DSTP.  Think I’m over-reacting?  Then ask yourself if last weeks snow storm had been our first and only storm would school be open today?

I’m guessing… no.

Health Care Summit: Make ‘Em Put Up Or Shut Up

The Obama administration may finally be learning how to deal with Congress. Obama has proposed a bipartisan health care summit for February 25, basically answering the critics who have said the process has not been transparent enough. Jonathan Cohn and others noticed some interesting passages in the invitation:

It came when President Obama issued his formal invitation to the bipartisan meeting on February 25. The invitation sketched out the who (Congressional leaders and ranking committee members from each party, plus a few guests), the where (Blair House), and the what (opening remarks followed by discussion about key policy questions.)

But the letter’s most important passage was this one:

Since this meeting will be most productive if information is widely available before the meeting, we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package. This legislation would put a stop to insurance company abuses, extend coverage to millions of Americans, get control of skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket costs, and reduce the deficit.

That passage caused some confusion. Was the Obama administration going to introduce its own health care bill? Ezra Klein followed up with the White House and confirmed that the package will be the deal between the House and the Senate (Senate bill + reconciliation sidecar). The White House also says that the bill will be posted to the internet 72 hours before the summit.

Obama is challenging the Republicans – we’ll post our bill and discuss and you post your bill and we’ll discuss it. Obama knows this is an argument that he can win. The Republicans don’t have a comprehensive bill, and the one they did propose covered only 3 million additional uninsured people. Obama has called the Republicans’ bluff. Republicans have argued that the bill was not posted online, the process was not transparent and that they haven’t been consulted. Well, now the Republicans have the opportunity, live, on national TV. They’ve now been trapped in a cage of their own making. As Ezra points out, the Republicans are now in a state of confusion:

That’s not necessarily surprising: The two chambers were pretty close to agreement on a compromise package before Scott Brown’s election threw everything into chaos. Presumably, that’ll be dusted off for this meeting. The Republican response to this is that they’re demanding that the House and Senate refrain from coming up with any unified plan before the summit, which is sort of an odd argument. In essence, the Republican position is that a free and frank exchange of ideas sounds great as long as the Democrats don’t bring their ideas.

The fact that Republicans are making bizarre requests to change the rules of the summit rather than just ignoring the gambit altogether suggests they’ve not figured out how to deal with the event. This is the first time since the Massachusetts election, in fact, that’s it’s been them, rather than the Democrats, who’ve seemed confused. The White House deserves some credit for that, and we’ll see if they can keep congressional Democrats in line long enough to press the advantage.

The stakes are high for this summit. Polls have shown that more than 60% of Americans want Congress to keep working on health care reform and I think the White House has finally gotten the message – do it right. Obama has also learned that despite the fact that Congress is full of able-bodied adults, they need a lot of hand-holding. America will be watching. Democrats – don’t screw this up.

Monday Open Thread

It’s Monday and it’s time for an open thread. I’m hearing that we will get more snow tonight. They are calling for only 2-4,” which in a normal year would cause a panic but now we consider that a dusting.

PR disasters in the age of Twitter:

Kevin Smith, the writer and raconteur, was recently booted from a plane for being too fat. He’s a big guy, but not so big he doesn’t fit in an airplane seat — so this looks like some weird, nasty, rude policy being pushed by Southwest Airlines. It’s an injustice, but it’s also hilarious, because Kevin Smith is the kind of guy who can turn it into a 1½ hour rant.

It’s also amusing because Smith has 1½ million followers on Twitter, and he tweeted the whole escapade. He has far more followers than Southwest Airlines, and while maybe they’re trying to say their side of the story on the airline’s blog, Smith’s readers have melted their blog down.

Joe the Plumber thinks he was used by McCain, and doesn’t like Sarah Palin anymore:

Too funny:

Wurzelbacher touched on several different points during his speech, and many of them were surprising. He said he doesn’t support Sarah Palin anymore. Why? Because she’s backing John McCain’s re-election effort. “John McCain is no public servant,” he told the room, calling the 2008 Republican nominee a career politician.
I pointed out he’d just be plain old Sam Wurzelbacher of Ohio — Joe the Plumber wouldn’t exist – without McCain. His response was blunt. “I don’t owe him s—. He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.”

Wurzelbacher said, “McCain was trying to use me. I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy.”

So Joe the Plumber traveled around the country solely because McCain touted him as the everyman. McCain is responsible for unleashing this know-nothing on the nation and now he’s complaining that people have figured out he’s a phony. I’m so sad for him.

Breaking: Sen. Evan Bayh to Retire

Here’s the Washington Post report.

Bayh was a DINO who never took a bold position on anything, unlike his father, Birch Bayh, who was an early opponent of the Vietnam War.

The money (literally & figuratively) quote:

“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned,” Bayh will say.

What’s the over/under on how soon his lobbying career begins? My prediction: It already has.

Coons for Senate’s Bad Start

I just got an email from the Coons campaign.  The topic of the email was PayGo. Seriously?

Look, I like the idea of PayGo, but here’s how Coons puts it:

Every week, I’m watching Congress debate incredibly important issues that impact Delaware, even though they often don’t get much press attention. Last week, the House of Representatives voted to reinstate “pay-as-you-go” rules. It doesn’t sound exciting, but these rules make it much more difficult for Congress to increase spending or cut taxes unless they also vote for a way to pay for it. It’s an important tool to keep Congress from over-spending or enacting reckless tax cuts, and when George Bush and his congressional allies abolished these rules in 2003, it paved the way for the massive budget deficits that have troubled us for years.

As someone who has introduced tough budgets as New Castle County Executive, I’m troubled by these deficits; as Delaware’s Senator, I’d fight to keep “pay as you go” rules. Indeed, I was disappointed to see every Republican member of Congress vote against these common-sense rules.”We need leaders willing to make the tough calls, especially when taxpayer money is on the line.

How many times does Coons mention Mike Castle?  Zero. He doesn’t mention that Mike Castle is a Republican member of the US House.  I guess that we are supposed to infer that Castle is one of the useless Republicans that opposed PayGo.  It’s looking like Coons isn’t serious about kicking Mike Castle’s ass to win this.

Look, Chris, if you want to win this, you have to point out that Mike Castle votes against the interest of Delawareans time and time again.  You have to challenge Castle at every turn.  You have to point out his hypocrisy every chance you get.  Failure to do that, sends the message that you are just running to hold down the fort for Democrats, not trying to win the damn thing.

Utah Considering Plan To Make 12th Grade… Optional

Is it any wonder we have an education problem?

The sudden buzz over the relative value of senior year stems from a recent proposal by state Sen. Chris Buttars that Utah make a dent in its budget gap by eliminating the 12th grade…

…Buttars has since toned down the idea, suggesting instead that senior year become optional for students who complete their required credits early. He estimated the move could save up to $60 million, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.

This proposal strikes me as odd, especially coming from a group that constantly uses Think about the children mantra along with their critiques on the problems with public education.  My first thought when reading this was… if children have completed their required classes by Junior year why not up the requirements?

And while I don’t dispute “Senorits” exists, I do question the priorities.  It’s as if we’re willing to sacrifice the future generation for the present generation.  God forbid we raise taxes when we could simply lower the education bar to save money.  I’ll say it again, if Senior year is considered a waste of time why not add value?

That said, given we’re living in a time when a degree from Harvard or Stanford is something to sneer at I can’t say I’m surprised by this proposal.   Although I am having trouble reconciling the Right’s disdain for intelleckchewals with their I’m proud of my Honor Student bumper stickers.  There’s a big disconnect here, and I have to wonder what message their children are receiving.  Mixed?  Study hard, but getting into Harvard sucks?

It just seems to me that instead of promoting a way to get kids to ditch school our efforts would be better spent in finding ways to make Senior year really matter.  As my Conservative friends like to say, the children are our future – not that they walk the talk when it comes to valuing intelligence or science, but it does fit ever-so-nicely on a bumper sticker.

Absolutely Free Advice For Chris Coons, Part 1

Part 1 – New Media

On the blogs, we all act as armchair pundits. Many people think our advice is worth what you pay for it, but the blogs do provide an insight into what the netroots is thinking. The netroots is fairly small compared to the whole Democratic party, but it does have outsize influence and is a source of money and “buzz.” So, what can Chris Coons do to generate some excitement in the netroots and translate that into the grassroots? Here’s my take:

Rock the New Media

What do I mean by new media? I mean blogs, social networking and You Tube.
— Hire at least one, possibly more aides to monitor and post on blogs. The blogs I recommend be monitored daily, if not more are the following: Daily Kos, Open Left, Think Progress, Fivethirtyeight, Talking Points Memo and Paul Krugman’s Conscience of a Liberal. Pundits to follow would include Ezra Klein (health care reform), Jonathan Cohn (health care reform), Glenn Greenwald (civil liberties), Spencer Ackerman (international policy) and TV pundits Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. If you monitor these people you will definitely know what is exciting the netroots.
— Sign up for a Twitter account. Use it! Use the account to direct followers to articles of interest (Castle does this), position papers, appearances and hopefully give everyone a taste of your personality.
— Use Facebook. For an example of how Facebook was used effectively, look at Rob Robinson’s campaign. He used Facebook to contact his followers about events and opportunities for volunteering. I thought it was quite effective.
— Hire a videographer. Have your videographer record your public appearances and put them on You Tube. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I say a video is worth a thousand op-eds. Have your videographer tape Mike Castle’s public appearances as well. You want to know what he’s saying and also if he makes a gaffe, you want to be able to take advantage of it. Also, be prepared for Mike Castle’s team to have a videographer follow you as well.

Part 2 will be published tomorrow and will discuss the issues that motivate the netroots.

Now it’s your turn. Is my advice good or bad? What advice would you give Chris Coons regarding the new media? What blogs and pundits have I left off the list? The floor is yours.

Rachel Maddow Takes On Congressman On Stimulus Hypocrisy

Rachel Maddow is rapidly becoming must-see TV. Sunday she was on Meet the Press and took on Rep. Aaron Shock (R-IL). Also notice how David Brooks at the end whines about the televised health care summit.

Transcript:

MR. GREGORY: Congressman Schock, where are the Republicans going to be on this?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, look, I think, unfortunately, it’s more of the same. I mean, all of this talk about bipartisanship, and yet the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality. As David Brooks mentioned, there was some, some Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Senate to come up with a jobs bill only to have their leadership put the kibosh on it. We, we are for creating long-term economic growth. You do that by incentivizing entrepreneurialism, risk taking, and investment. You do that through creating certainty in the markets through certain tax incentives. And that’s where we’ll be on a jobs bill.

MR. GREGORY: So it sounds like you’re–you like what the Democrats are doing here?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, I don’t like all the pork that was in the bill. Seven hundred eighty-seven billion dollar stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in, in history, one of the reasons why it didn’t create long-term growth is it didn’t have stimulative tax cuts in it, but rather a lot of pork and spending.

MS. MADDOW: Which are the least stimulative things in the stimulus. I mean, when you assess what creates jobs, in the stimulus band it’s the tax cuts that were put in in order to try to win Republican votes that didn’t come anyway that are the least effective thing in the stimulus bill. So the theory doesn’t match the practice here.

But, I mean, you, in your district…

REP. SCHOCK: Well, I, I can assure you…

MS. MADDOW: …just this week you were at a community college touting a $350,000 green technology education program, talking about how great that was going to be for your district. You voted against the bill that created that grant. And so that’s happening a lot with Republicans sort of taking credit for things that Democratic bills do, and then Republicans simultaneously touting their votes against them and trashing them. That’s, I think, a, a, a problem that needs to be resolved within, within your caucus, because, I mean, you seem like a very nice person, but that’s very hypocritical stance to take.

REP. SCHOCK: Well, Rachel, with all due respect, I can assure you Republicans were not consulted on the stimulus bill. That bill was filed at 11 PM the night before the 10:30 AM we began debating it. None of our amendments were considered. There was no debate and no bipartisanship on that bill.

MS. MADDOW: How about the…(unintelligible)?

MR. GREGORY: But, but answer–all right, let me, let me…(unintelligible)…Rachel, which is that the, the question about you–you’ve called for spending caps out of Washington.

REP. SCHOCK: Sure.

MR. GREGORY: But to Rachel’s point, does that mean that you will not accept any federal money that comes the way of your district?

REP. SCHOCK: No. I think that argument that liberals are making is absolutely ridiculous. With all due respect, Rachel, does that mean you’re going to give back your Bush tax cuts that you continue to rail against? The fact of the matter is our country operates and govern by a majority. And I, along with almost all of my Republican colleagues and a good number of Democrats, have voted against the stimulus, the omnibus, all of this runaway spending. But we’ve lost those battles in the House. And at the end of the day, my constituents…

MR. GREGORY: But you’ll take the money for, you’ll take the money for your district.

MS. MADDOW: Take the money and tout it…(unintelligible).

REP. FORD: Here’s, here’s, here’s a…

REP. SCHOCK: Well, let me finish. At the end of the day, my constituents and their children and grandchildren will be on the hook for the debt that’s being created by this majority…

MR. GREGORY: OK.

REP. SCHOCK: …and they deserve to have their fair share of federal spending.

MR. GREGORY: Harold’s turn.

REP. FORD: I was in Congress for 10 years. I can tell you, your party ran up a lot of debt. Matter of fact, we, we grew–from the eight years that President Bush was there, the rate of growth exceeded any other presidents in the history of the nation. So we found ourselves in a moment…

REP. SCHOCK: Until this one.

REP. FORD: Well, no, this, this president, he’s only been in a year. I know you want to blame him for everything, but you can’t blame him for quite everything yet. And I don’t want to blame President Bush, but we got to put it in context.

Two, I, I love it when Republicans talk about the desire to come around the table and work together. It was a Republican-Democrat thing that happened in the Senate. It was Grassley and Baucus, and it was Hatch and Schumer. They’re–that was the centerpiece of the, of the stimulus bill and the jobs bill that’s working its way through the Senate. But it was McConnell who told Reid the other day, “I will not work to, to, to collect any votes for this bill if you bring it to the floor.” There has to be a genuineness and a sincerity here. Republicans say they want deficit reduction and deficit control, they vote against a deficit commission. I do hope President Obama will use an executive order to create a deficit commission in spite of what Republicans may say. You can’t have it one day Monday in the morning and have a different message in the afternoon on, on, on Tuesday.

MR. BROOKS: But can I say this?

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

REP. FORD: I think it just has to be fair. Now, Democrats deserve some blame here.

MR. GREGORY: Right.

MR. BROOKS: Yeah.

REP. FORD: But Republicans have to be, have to be honest, too.

MR. BROOKS: This conversation exemplifies what’s wrong with Washington. It’s like two guys fighting in the ocean to see who drowns first. I mean, the–it’s–both parties are responsible for the, the deficits, and both parties are responsible for the fiscal suicide. And if you look at the polls that came out–a whole bunch of polls came out this week and they show both parties very negative. Unprecedented levels of distrust in Washington. Unprecedented, historically high levels of people want to get rid of their member of Congress from both parties. A level of distrust of Washington that is absolutely unprecedented in American history. And it’s because the two sides are trying to fight each other than actually do something bipartisan or actually do anything.

MS. MADDOW: No, but…

MR. BROOKS: And so bipartisanship has become a wedge issue, a way to make the other party look bad. So bipartisanship has been twisted into just another partisan rant.

MS. MADDOW: But the issue is not bipartisanship qua bipartisanship. It’s hypocrisy. I mean, if you are for PAYGO, if you’re for a deficit commission until the president of the other party comes around for it, and then you’re against it? We’re not talking policy anymore, we’re not talking about bipartisanship. You shouldn’t be blamed for not getting Republican votes on that. That’s hypocrisy. If you vote against the omnibus bill, if you complain about the omnibus bill, if you tout your vote against the omnibus bill, it is hypocrisy to then go to your district and go to a ribbon cutting ceremony for something that’s funded by the omnibus bill that you voted against. It’s not just bipartisanship as a sort of platonic virtue.

REP. FORD: But, but…(unintelligible).

MR. BROOKS: Listen…(unintelligible)…Republicans say–I can pick up the Democratic points. If, if Obama wants to say, “I’m going to balance the budget,” and then say, “but I won’t cut taxes on the bottom 98 percent,” well, that’s also somewhat hypocritical or inconsistent. If he says…

MS. MADDOW: Or that’s focused policy.

MR. BROOKS: …”I want bipartisan health care,” but then invites the, the cameras into a bipartisan discussion and already has the plan he’s going to come with–out with after the healthcare summit, that’s also slightly political.

This is how it should be done media. I hope you’re paying attention. Interviewing doesn’t consist of reading one side’s talking points and then dropping the subject. It

Dredging the Delaware

The News Journal had an article on Sunday that tries to describe the current state of local environmental concerns about dredging this river. And this is a good article — to the extent that it provides a summary of the arguments against the dredge. I’ve still not seen any evidence provided — either in the form of a competing EIS or challenged sections about these concerns. But I still am agnostic on this project and not really interested in taking either side.

I am wondering here is there wasn’t a big, missed opportunity for some of the dirtiest areas in this river. It seems to me that an approach that would have traded permit approval with, for instance, Federal help in strong-arming the Deepwater site to clean up may have been a net win. Or conditioning permit approvals on specific habitat protections/expansions as part of the project. Or on ensuring that water/sediment flow is managed to ensure that habitat/wetlands are not damaged. After all, the vast majority of the benefits of deepening this river redound almost entirely to Pennsylvania, who has been doing the strong arming on this thing. There were likely alot of ways to get more environmental protections out of this for the Delaware portion during those years of review and delay. Not extracting some projects that may act to enhance or protect the river looks pretty shortsighted from here — as it looks as though the courts may just let this happen.

And while the court proceedings may take some time, it looks as though the Obama Administration has not provided any funds for this project in their latest budget. They didn’t provide any funds last year, either, but those funds were restored by Congress.

VP Biden Tells Cheney He Can’t Rewrite History

(h/t for this to Truth Teller)

Vice President Biden was on Meet the Press this AM, telling David Gregory that Dick Cheney just can rewrite history accommodate his own prevarications on events during the so-called War on Terror:

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But it is interesting to note that one a weekend where there is a major offensive ongoing in Afghanistan against the Taliban, that the changing of the Media War Rules are complete — it is OK to criticize a Commander in Chief in a time of war, and it is the Party of Hypocrites who changed those rules. Again. Interestingly enough, without much of a peep from the so-called liberal media. I’m not a believer in the bullshit excuse of criticism giving comfort to the enemy, but you can sure see the depth of repub belief in the concept once their noise machine tells them to stop talking about it.

Nice job here by the Vice President. Whoever is in charge of messaging for the Democrats these days needs to flood the zone with this pushback.