Arkansas Blog

"The Arkansas Dems were in
the majority."

So you're saying Pryor voted with the Democrats for a change. He's just full of surprises, isn't he.

The Bill Moyers report was indeed awesome. It was great to see such an inside analysis of journalists and their craft. I think the journalists have re-learned a good lesson about the importance of skepticism in their job. I think we've all learned a lot about the need for skepticism.

But if the Golden Gate Bridge went crashing into the bay tomorrow, the result of a terrorist attack, can any of us say we wouldn't rally 'round the government and accept their word as gospel?

Yes, I'd like to think we've all learned a good lesson from the neo-conservatives' mistakes, but I fear we're doomed to repeat our poor choices over and over. Well, not us exactly. We've learned our lesson. But our children. And their children. Over and over and over.

We never learn. We just never learn.

An aside to the Moyars special tonight about the press and war.

After the carnage of World War I was over in 1919, there was a lot of soul searching as to who was the blame for starting the War in 1914. In his 1920 book, ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM, Leonard Woolf wrote on page 10 that all were to blame for the War: "The millions of men and women who read the English, French and German newspapers and believed what those papers told them to believe, and desired what those papers told them to desire."

It appears nothing has changed since those days and there's not much hope for the future. Dr. Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of the American Press and it's role in supporting the "Big Lie" technique so often used by the Third Reich. Perhaps were are more like the Third Reich than we care to admit.

Pardon my implied profanity, but the Moyers report should on its face be sufficient to start impeachment proceedings against the two f***ers who have lied and dragged this nation into a hole that will keep us as a target, and with understandable rationale, for a generation. And the mainstream press from Russert to the NY Times should be turned out for the same reasons Gonzalez should--gross incompetence.

Pardon my implied profanity, but the Moyers report should on its face be sufficient to start impeachment proceedings against the two f***ers who have lied and dragged this nation into a hole that will keep us as a target, and with understandable rationale, for a generation. And the mainstream press from Russert to the NY Times should be turned out for the same reasons Gonzalez should--gross incompetence.

Nothing like High Stakes Politicis. Democrats using our troops in a high stakes poker game to win the White House in 2008!

Not to quibble, Spirit...oh who am I kidding, it is to quibble. But you should really save your criticism/praise for Pryor when it's warranted, ie, when the Senate votes on something.

I realize that many people on this board dislike our Senate delegation, but at least let's be intelligent in our criticism.

"Democrats using our troops
in a high stakes poker game
to win the White House in
2008!
Posted by: Catfish Eater"

Even if you were right there, if it ends with us out of Iraq, I'm all for it.

I can't imagine anything more supportive of the troops than to get them the hell out of that civil war.

Pardon me, Catfish, but a Democrat will win the next election for President. That's a given.
And I don't know that I am happy about it. I really think it would be justice if a republican would be elected, so that he or she would be the one to dig us out of the mountain of shit Bush-Cheney has buried us under.
I'd still like to know what the defination of victory in Iraq is.

Spirit,

Pryor is a Senator not a Representative.

We won't see if the raspberry Gonzales and the Bush administration gave him today will remove the blinders he' been sporting or if he'll still be promoting his "secret timetable."

Spirit,

Pryor is a Senator not a Representative.

We won't see if the raspberry Gonzales and the Bush administration gave him today will remove the blinders he' been sporting or if he'll still be promoting his "secret timetable," until tomorrow or the next day.

Then what will the #2 stealth Republican Senator do?

"I realize that many people on
this board dislike our Senate
delegation, but at least let's be
intelligent in our criticism.
Posted by: RazorbackDem"

I'll agree that my too-quick reading of the headline caused me to place Mr. Pryor on the roll of the House vote, but I'll never apologize for criticizing him at every opportunity. He has to go. To say that I "dislike our Senate delegation" is far too mild. I feel our Senators are actively and repeatedly hurting our country and I'll continue to speak out against them, for they deserve no less.

"Spirit, Pryor is a Senator not
a Representative.
Posted by: docholliday"

Et tu, doc-a. Yes, just stick that knife in and twist it with relish.

Moyers was excellent and can't be disputed by facts, of course his detractors never use facts....they run from em.

We shall see tomorrow if GO Dog GO! Pryor votes with his party or continues to lick Bushie butt. The debate in the House tonight before the vote was worth paying to watch. The Republicans in Congress are approaching the believability of those in the Flat Earth Society.

Soon Democrats will start carrying fly swatters to give the R's a good swat every time they open their mouths and lie. This is no time to be polite.

The RNC is the Mafia and on top of that they want to kill our kids until Halliburton hollers and says it's got enough money.....don't need no more. Or till the end of time.

As I said before....when I was a kid and we ran out of money at the fair, we didn't suddenly become naked, hungry and in danger. WE CAME HOME! If Democrats have to starve the military out of Iraq to bring our troops home, so be it. It will not put our troops in danger, it will put them on planes and ships and BRING THEM HOME.

If we didn't have insane criminals in the White House, better ways to bring home our troops might be discussed and debated. But clearly that's a fools game.

The only reason the Vietnam War ended is because Congress finally....finally finally cut off the money. It's not the best way to disengage from a war we're losing, but it appears to be the only way we're going to stop the madness and bring our kids back home.

If watching Moyer's program tonight didn't make you fighting mad at the Bush administration and 99% of the national news media please seek professional help and don't trust yourself to be alone with a child.

Investigate, Indict, Impeach!

"Democratic leaders plan to send the bill to the White House early next week - coinciding with the fourth anniversary of Mr. Bush's May 1, 2003, speech aboard an aircraft carrier when he declared the end of major combat operations before a banner that said "Mission Accomplished."

I love it.

Now to conjure up something on the anniversary of "Bring 'em on."

As one who thinks we should be out of Iraq yesterday I must say this process has been very interesting to watch.

When the last round was approved by the house and senate... Bushco was left with very long timetables (18 mos) and they were nonbinding. All he had to do was play the game of reporting on one of his favorite family words, "progress" in Iraq and he would have had everything he needed to nearly finish his term, kill another hundred thousand innocents or more and bow out the back door. But he said heck no and Leader and Speaker turned around and made things binding with a much much shorter timetable. YES!

a bit of the text I posted on an earlier thread.
Here's the binding language in the Conference Committee bill. Note the word "shall."

Section 1904 (Page 77 of 251)

b) If the President fails to make any of the determinations specified in subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall commence the redeployment of the Armed
Forces from Iraq no later than July 1, 2007, with a goal of completing such redeployment within 180 days.

c) If the President makes the determinations specified in subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall commence the redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq not later than October 1, 2007, with a goal of completing such redeployment within 180 days.
---------------------
Bush is the child gone astray here and he continues to play games with our armed forces for nothing more than political cover, sport and financial gain.

The adults gave him an out and he screwed himself. he will have to veto for testoster-neocon sake. At that point I think the Dems need to send him another bill with more restrictions or just a bill with funding for withdrawal only after he vetos this. Its time we take care of our soldiers who are held hostage by our own madmen.

Fiddlesticks!

I won't bemoan the details, but instead of recording Bill Moyers tonight I ended up with an episode of Will & Grace and something else.

I took hugh jr out for some errands tonight while I thought I was recording it. I've been waiting until now to watch the show. ugh

The good news is that junior will be a big enough boy pretty soon to show us how to work the DVR.

Hugh mann, thanks for the laugh. As a consolation I included a link to the follow up live blog for ya. If you have dsl, i am sure you can watch it online. It was really very well done, even for those of us who already figured this out.

I thought that war was over when Sadam was caught. Well it should have been for us.
Both parties are full of politically insane people.

I've been watching the streaming video of the show (see link) in case anyone else misprogrammed.

Thanks, E.S. I'll check out the blog after I watch the doc.

>I'd like to think we've all learned a good lesson from the neo-conservatives' mistakes<

Not really. Did you notice the number of pro-war, mainstream journalists who are back in major positions? Crystal, what's his name at NY Times, and of course the crazies at FOX, just keep on serving crazy about 3x each day, scaring little old ladies in the hospital and little old men at home.

The best thing I noted is that the very same ones promoting Bush's Iraq Invasion were the same ones calling for Clinton's impeachment and resignation.
Somehow we the people need a RICO act of our own.
_

That's ok Spirit, only your friend will tell you when you put your foot in it. I'm sure itwill be my turn soon.

However, I'm going to blame it on pesticides.

click on handle for article

". . . millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday. . . A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied . . . Possible reasons include disease, pesticide poisoning and unusual weather, varying from less than 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) to more than 30 degrees Celsius over a few days, experts say. . . ."You can see climate change really clearly these days in Taiwan," said Yang Ping-shih, entomology professor at the National Taiwan University. He added that two kinds of pesticide can make bees turn "stupid" and lose their sense of direction. . . ."

Where are the "loyal Bushie" scientific pundits and Jim Inhofe when you need them. There are two possible talkies here: 1) Gore spreads pesticides to dumb down bees! 2) Damned liberal insects promote global warming myth!

Well the Moyers' stuff was as depressing as...the last six years. Evidently being a right-wing, warmongering zealot gives you some sort of special powers: The ability to be wrong about every single thing that comes out of your Bush-sucking mouth yet still be an on-air 'news' expert about everything under the sun. And if you're Bill Kristol even a new column in Time magazine (ugh...grrr)...so much for the mythical liberal media. But on the truthful side of the ideological fence there's Dan Rather...who got strung up even though he was absolutely right about President shit for brains mythical service to the country; and the Dixie Chicks who basically got strung up and run out of town for daring to speak the truth about monkeyboy.

After watching Moyers' accounting of how rwingers successfully destroyed our country and lied us into this immoral based-on-lies war, I'm convinced Gonzo and Rove's lapdog, Griffin, ain't going anywhere until a new president takes office.

All this pessimism is new to me (six years) and I don't like it. But in my wildest imaginings I never thought one group of zealots could so successfully undermine every safeguard/institution in the country.

But I can't wait for Roger Ailes' new book to explain it all to me.

I will NEVER watch MSNBC again (it's a start...).

Zelda,

I don't think we should have ever watched any network with bling trust and they never should be. As for MSNBC I don't think Olbermann will do you wrong, he quit when they insisted he report on the monica blue dress BS incessantly, for example.

Lots of things went wrong and quite a few questions went unanswered on Moyers show last night but any chance of we have for fair reporting demands that the profitt based media be removed from the equation, imo. In short, it was the money people who demanded no one report against Karls shop. When one fears the truth will hurt profits...well, you see where it led.

Kristol is far worse than meets the eye as was briefly mentioned in the show he was an author of the PNAC manifesto which wanted to take us to war in Iraq long before Jr came to office.

I became obsessed with this whole story a year or so back and knew the story and the players last night but still it was powerful, infuriating even, to see it put together in Moyers style.

One thing I wish Moyers would have had time for is just how far astray NPR has gone.. It is astonishing just who they have on as so called "experts" and allow them to talk without questioning their alterior motives or fact checking.

zelda, the Republican takeover can be explained by looking at team sports. The average IQ of, oh let's pick on professional players and not the Razorbacks, the average IQ of a professional basketball or football player is pretty low. Look at the problems they get into off the field.

It's always drugs or women or bar fights. Pretty low tech vices. Never find them behind complicated stock fraud or diamond heists. But if a great coach can round up the right beefy dumb guys and organize them till they all have one mind directed towards one goal....you got ya a team of Super Bowl winners that can't be beat.

Well organized street thugs can whip a team of Stephen Hawkings with their eyes closed. Dumb guys band together better. Smart guys want to pick too many ideas apart. Dumb guys go where you point them. And there you have it!

Now don't skip MSNBC Monday thru Friday from 7 to 7:30 pm. You need the first 30 minutes of Countdown with Keith Olbermann. You can safely skip the other 23 1/2 hours, but you need 30 minutes of Keith to know what their making fun of on the Daily Show and Colbert. But yeah, MSNBC is a POS for what they did to Donahue. Phil's great! Plus he's seen Marlo Thomas naked!

Spirit,

Breathe easier. Pryor remembered he ran as a Democrat this time.