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You are here: Home / 2003 / Archives for February 2003

Archives for February 2003

Tapped, Wrong as Usual

by John Cole|  February 27, 200312:34 pm| 4 Comments

This post is in: Media

From today’s Tapped:

Also, Mary Lynn F. Jones explains why we’re likely stuck at orange on the color-coded terror alert system for the near future. The government has put itself in a situation where none of the other colors are really an option anymore — and that renders the system just about meaningless.

From the NY Times:

The Bush administration on Thursday lowered the national terror alert from orange to yellow, suggesting the threat of an imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil has eased somewhat.

The conclusion of the Muslim hajj holiday period played a role in the decision to lower the threat level from orange, the second-highest level on the five-part scale, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a joint statement.

TAPPED also explains to us how we can just pick up our troops, go home from the Middle East, and declare victory in Iraq.

Quit giggling.

Tapped, Wrong as UsualPost + Comments (4)

Blinded By Science

by John Cole|  February 27, 20039:51 am| Leave a Comment

This post is in: War

I’m with BigWig on this one:

The Win Without War phone-in protest tied up the phone lines on Capitol Hill today, at least the ones whose numbers are given out to the public. Senators have lots of phone lines, so I doubt that too much sand was thrown into the Congressional gears. Not that we’d be able to tell. Deliberative bodies are…..deliberate, after all. Sloths are models of haste in comparison.

BigWig thinks they need a dose of their own medicine. I agree:

Suppose for a moment that war supporters just spontaneously decide to call Lynn Erskine, the listed contact for Win Without War, at her phone number, which by the way is 202-478-3429, to let Lynn know how they felt about the war, or left her a voice mail detailing their views on tying up Washington’s phone lines during a time of crisis? How many calls do you think it would take before that number was rendered useless for the purpose of organizing the next protest?

How many voice mails, (long, polite ones, mind you, because war supporters are a genteel, reasonable and extremely slow talking folk when it comes to leaving voice mails), do you think Win Without War would wade through in order to hear ones more supportive of their cause? How many voice mails before someone reaches the tipping point and decides to just hit the delete button until all the messages are gone?

Would that tipping point be higher or lower for Not In Our Name, if war supporters also called their national office, at 212-969-8058.

Everyone hurry along now and call the good people. And while you are at it, send a check to any moderate Republican who has stood with Bush on this issue, but might have a tough fight ahead of them. My own Rep. Shelley Moore-Capito (R., WV) could use some help, as she is the only Republican elected to Congress in my lifetime, and in a state where the majority of the voters trend Democrat.

Blinded By SciencePost + Comments

Gimme A Break

by John Cole|  February 27, 20039:41 am| Leave a Comment

This post is in: Republican Stupidity

Alex Knapp rightly skewers Sam brownback for his anti-cloning legislation and this ludicrous op-ed in the National Review.

You remember the Raelians– the cultists who are a step above Heaven’s Gate crowd– the morons who claimed to have cloned a baby- Brownback is terrified of them, and he thinks you should be too:

Let’s be clear, the Raelians and those interested in human-cloning research seek to create human life through a process of human cloning that a vast majority of Americans clearly oppose. The threat presented to us by the Raelians is one that should refocus our attention on the immediacy of passing a permanent and comprehensive ban on all human cloning.

The only threat the Raelians present to anyone is to their own credibility.

Gimme A BreakPost + Comments

Goodbye, Mr. Rogers

by John Cole|  February 27, 20039:30 am| Leave a Comment

This post is in: Open Threads

Today started on a sour note and deeply disturbing note. Fred Rogers died yesterday. If you don’t know who he is, then you have no idea how much he meant to a couple generations of kids. This is really a terrible loss for everyone.

Goodbye, Mr. RogersPost + Comments

Liberate Iraq

by John Cole|  February 26, 20038:34 pm| 2 Comments

This post is in: Foreign Affairs

A touching op-ed in the CS Monitor:

Since Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, started warning that a US invasion of Iraq would “open the gates of hell,” the retort that has been flying around Iraqi exiles’ websites is, “Good! We’d like to get out!”

It got me wondering: What if you antiwar protesters and politicians succeed in stopping a US-led war to change the regime in Baghdad? What then will you do?

Will you also demonstrate and demand “peaceful” actions to cure the abysmal human rights violations of the Iraqi people under the rule of Saddam Hussein?

Or, will you simply forget about us Iraqis once you discredit George W. Bush?

You are irrelevant. The election in 2004 and world opinion is what is important to the left.

Via Neal Sheeran

Liberate IraqPost + Comments (2)

Excellent

by John Cole|  February 26, 20038:02 pm| Leave a Comment

This post is in: The War on Your Neighbor, aka the War on Drugs

Via TalkLeft:

A 30 second tv ad will begin airing Thursday spoofing the Nick and Norm ads of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy that push the theme that marijuana funds terrorists.

Here is the text of the ads:

In the spoof, Nick tells Norm the marijuana trade supports violence only because marijuana is illegal. “If I buy a beer, that doesn’t support terror, because beer is legal, right?” Nick asks. When Norm agrees, Nick concludes, “So what you’re saying is if we make marijuana legal and regulate it like beer, it wouldn’t support violence.”

You can view the ads here.

I have essentially stolen Jeralynn’s whole post (sorry Jeralynn- but this one was too important to hope people would click through), so make sure you do the right thing and just go visit her site to see what other things she has posted.

ExcellentPost + Comments

Dennis Kucinich

by John Cole|  February 26, 20037:56 pm| 18 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Stupidity

Imagine if ANY Republican had this in his background and was running for President:

Basically, in the early days — before he was running citywide, let alone nationwide — Kucinich’s political schtick was posing as the champion of the ‘forgotten’ white ethnic voters over against the rising force of black political power. Sort of a great white hope type, or great Slavic hope, if you will.

Would Josh Marshall write this:

People do ‘evolve’ politically — and not just in the euphemistic, wink-wink kind of sense. People really do change. And they change their style of politics too. But usually, for this to work, or be legitimate and believable, the pol in question has to make some sort of public accounting for why circumstances changed or why he or she did.

Given that Kucinich is now making a play for the votes of dyed-in-the-wool liberals, a bit more of such an accounting seems in order.

Would Atrios write this:

I’ll have to learn more to know if he’s attoned for it enough for it to not still matter.

Quit laughing.

Many Kudo’s to Kos for writing this:

I don’t know enough about Kucinich to say one way or another whether he’s made amends for his “youthful indiscretions”, but this kind of past automatically disqualifies a candidate in my book.

Josh, Atrios, -follow Kos’s lead. He is right. There is no room for this, period, although I am sure the Atriettes and the DU fruits will spend a couple of weeks doing the usual tap-dance- “Hey this is only one story,” or “the paper has an agenda,” or “but he’s changed.,” or “but he is so right about the war being wrong.”

*** Update ***

Full disclosure- I should mention that I want Dennis Kucinich in this race to the very end. I think he is great- for Republicans.

*** Update #2 ***

It gets even better. Now the conspiracy twits are out, and the Kucinich story has only come out because the Bush White House wants it to (Josh Marshall, ari Fleischer’s puppet, you know):

Marshall posted another link. The article he links to was very unprofessional, in fact its just awful, and all over the place like someones first draft–basically I thought it was crap.

If Marshall has something else he wants to offer up, I’m sure we will read it. Mean while Richard Cohen trashes Dennis Kucinich like he was a French import.

Why? Because Kucinich use the O word (as in this war is about OIL) on “Meet the Press” whereby Richard Perle called Kucinich a “liar”.

Get that- this is a hack job, because Kucinich was having success in his anti-war crusade. Muahaha.

Dennis KucinichPost + Comments (18)

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