The McCompany you keep

John McCain says he's standing by the endorsement of controversial televangelist John Hagee.
As usual, the "maverick" wants to have it both ways. He courts the pastor's supporters for votes, but doesn't want his alignment with such a fringe bigot to soil his appeal to moderate, reasonable people.

McCain's statement:

Well I think it's important to note that pastor John Hagee who has supported and endorsed my candidacy supports what I stand for and believe in. When he endorses me, it does not mean that I embrace everything that he stands for and believes. And I am very proud of the Pastor John Hagee's spiritual leadership to thousands of people and I am proud of his commitment to the independence and the freedom of the state of Israel. That does not mean that I support or endorse or agree with some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said or positions that he may have taken on other issues. I don't have to agree with everyone who endorses my candidacy. They are supporting my candidacy. I am not endorsing some of their positions."

And who is Hagee?

Here are some of his greatest hits:

Hagee on Hurricane Katrina

"All hurricanes are acts of God because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that." From NPR's Fresh Air, Sept. 18, 2006

Conservatives Catholics have a problem with Hagee — From The Washington Post.

But Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement Thursday that Hagee has written extensively in negative ways about the Catholic Church, "calling it 'The Great Whore,' an 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ,' and a 'false cult system.' "

So do liberal Catholics:

On Wednesday, Senator John McCain was “honored” to receive the endorsement of the Evangelical pastor John Hagee. Pastor Hagee is well known for his anti-Catholic rhetoric such as past suggestions that the Catholic Church gave Adolf Hitler inspiration and support for the Holocaust. In a letter to John McCain’s campaign, Catholics United is asking the Senator to distance himself from Pastor Hagee’s anti-Catholic comments and reject the endorsement.

Hagee on the Holocaust:

In "Jerusalem Countdown: A Prelude To war" Hagee has stated that Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by rebelling against God and that the Holocaust was God's way of forcing Jews to move to Israel where, Hagee predicts according to his interpretation of Biblical scripture, they will be mostly killed in the apocalyptic Mideast conflict Hagee's new lobbying group seems to be working to provoke.

The media has covered Louis Farrakhan's support of Barrack Obama quite extensively. Unlike, McCain, Obama rejected the support outright.

McCain wants to accept Hagee's on the one hand and disagree a bit on the other (without mentioning any specifics as to where he disagrees - just a vague "some of the things that Pastor John Hagee might have said...")

Seeing as how McCain is the beltway media's golden boy and appears on Tim Russert's show practically every Sunday, it will be interesting to see if Russert will spend anywhere near the amount of time pressing McCain as he did with Obama in the Democratic debate.

Pander bears on the loose

One from the Journal that I overlooked last week — a legislator's plan to create an "aborted fetus registry:"

This year, 61 bills were introduced in the state Legislature attempting to change existing abortion laws. Delegates Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, and John Overington, R-Berkeley; and Sen. Clark Barnes, R-Randolph, were among those to introduce the measures.

Legislators said they recognize that the initiatives are not likely to make much progress this year.

“That hasn’t been taken up, and the committee chairman isn’t going to have that on the agenda,” Overington said of House Bill 2149, for which he was the lead sponsor.

The measure, which was forwarded to the Committee on Health and Human Resources, aims to create an “aborted fetus registry.” The bill would require a “fetal death certificate,” and mandate that information about the fetus’ gestational age, the type of abortion performed and the age and county of residence of the woman receiving the abortion, be recorded. Any possible birth defects would also have to be noted, as would the “method of disposal of the remains,” the bill states.

Hot button tactics are nothing new for Overington. He's the same "pro-life" guy who want to bring executions back to W.Va., after all. And, along with pal Blair, felt the state was in some dire need of an amendment to the constitution to "protect" marriage from those scary gays.

Photo: AP

Congressional Darwin awards

You'd think he'd be smart enough to see this one coming, but he walked right into it.

Rep. Jack Kingston R-Georgia, has been going on TV stating that questions need to be asked about Barack Obama's patriotism, due to the fact that he doesn't wear an American flag lapel pin.

Kingston took this spiel on Bill Maher's show last week and did a follow up smear on Dan Abrams' MSNBC show last night.

Abrams wasn't buying it. (Crooks and Liars has the video here):

Abrams: You’re not wearing a lapel pin, are you?

Kingston: I will wear one and I have worn one. I’ll bring one to your next show.

Abrams: But you see my point. I had no idea you were going to show up without a lapel pin, but it seems kind of absurd that you’re saying that Barack Obama’s patriotism should be questioned because he’s not wearing a lapel pin and then you come on the show not wearing one.

Kingston: Well Dan, I’m not following that at all.

Spare me, Bill

Recovering tabloid anchor O'Reilly's still trying to attack those for behavior he's been guilty of tenfold in the past.

On his latest show, he's still harping on the Huffington Post thing and he's taken it to an even more absurd level:

O'REILLY: You know, what's the difference between the Ku Klux Klan and Arianna Huffington? What's the difference?

HAM: Well, I think there's difference. But she actually -- I think things have actually improved because people like you and like myself speak out about these things and say that, "Hey, this is an --

O'REILLY: I don't see any difference between Huffington and the Nazis.

HAM: She actually --

O'REILLY: I don't see any difference.

Yep. There's absolutely no difference between a Web site administrator not deleting a few random comments from a message board of hundreds and a fascist government that conquered Europe and exterminated millions of people.

Does anyone take this guy seriously anymore? Or is his entire audience watching for the pure train wreck entertainment value?


And HuffPo's James Boyce has this to add:

Because of all the people to compare to a Nazi, he picked someone who actually has experience with real Nazis.

[...]

Her courage comes from her mother, who I am sad I never met, and who in Greece during World War II stood outside her house and faced down Nazi soldiers to protect the occupants of the house. Can you imagine the strength, the courage that took?

Arianna's courage comes from a mother who stood up when others would have run, a single Greek woman who faced down real Nazis, real soldiers with real guns, real Nazis who killed millions of innocent people and came close to destroying our world, not blowhards with a falafel.

Nader names running mate

Ant the pick is former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Matt Gonzalez.

From AP:

"I want someone who shares my sense of justice and opposition to corporate state control over our society," Nader said Thursday at a news conference announcing his choice. Nader launched his White House bid last weekend.

The Texas-born Gonzalez ran for mayor of San Francisco as a Green Party candidate in 2003 but lost to Gavin Newsom.

From the S.F. Chronicle:

"Nader said he got to know Gonzalez during a 2005 anti-Iraq war campaign in which they traveled up and down California. Gonzalez, an attorney, also worked on ballot access issues for Nader's 2004 presidential bid, when the candidate was listed in just 34 states.

"He has a great, steadfast commitment to justice," Nader told The Chronicle after the press conference.

"He's shown it in his work on the Board of Supervisors, he's shown it in his work on criminal justice issues, electoral reform and his work in urban politics and problems."

Bloomberg says no third party run

The NYC mayor is staying out of the presidential race.

From an op-ed in Thursday's NY Times

I believe that an independent approach to these issues is essential to governing our nation — and that an independent can win the presidency. I listened carefully to those who encouraged me to run, but I am not — and will not be — a candidate for president. I have watched this campaign unfold, and I am hopeful that the current campaigns can rise to the challenge by offering truly independent leadership. The most productive role that I can serve is to push them forward, by using the means at my disposal to promote a real and honest debate.

Ron Paul says he's out — probably due to the fact that the GOP is targeting him in the primary. He may possibly change his mind once that's out of the way.

And of course Nader's in.

Your Thursday video: Buckley Vs. Chomsky

Not off-topic this week.

From 1969 - an icon of the right goes up against an icon of the left.


Part 1



Part 2

Valley fill bill

The West Virginia Senate Energy Industry and Mining Committee is meeting Wednesday to discuss SB 588, a bill introduced by Sen. Jon Blair Hunter, which would ban valley fills.

The committee will hear first from representatives of the WV Coal Association who oppose the bill.

They will be followed by the bill's supporters, including attorney Joe Lovett, novelist and former Mountain Party candidate for governor Denise Giardinia and West Virginia Highlands Conservancy mining chair Cindy Rank.

And in Burma

The junta announces the rules for its fake constitutional referendum.

Opponents of military rule aren't getting the option to give input.

From AP:

The announcement broadcast on state TV and radio evening news said the junta had passed a law covering the matters such as the preparation of electoral rolls, vote counting and postponement and cancellation of voting.

Oh, and that Nobel Prize winner who won the last real election in 1988 and was put on house arrest?

Taken care of.

Guidelines for a constitution released by the government late last year would bar Suu Kyi from national office because she was married to a foreigner — her late British husband, Michael Aris — and enjoyed the rights to a foreign passport, residency and other privileges as a result.

Meanwhile, China is trying to deal with activists calling for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics, due to the nation's continued support for the military rulers.

Also AP:

The 88 Generation Students group, which was instrumental in last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar, accused China of bankrolling and arming the junta and failing to facilitate a meaningful dialogue between it and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party.

The 88 Generation Students joined a growing group of critics urging an Olympic boycott over complaints ranging from Beijing’s human rights record to its failure to more actively press Sudan — where China is a major oil buyer — to end violence in the Darfur region that has killed at least 200,000 people.

And in a Tri-State connection, while I'm not the biggest fan of Kentucky's Sen. Mitch McConnell, credit is certainly due for his action last week:

Weeks after the House of Representatives voted 400 - 0 to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the leader of Burma’s democracy movement Aung San Suu Kyi, 75 US Senators have introduced an identical measure today in the US Senate.

The effort is spearheaded in the US Senate by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The measure is supported by Presidential front-runners Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Barack Obama.

Photo: Supporters of Myanmar's National League for Democracy, the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, shout anti-junta slogans near the entrance of the NLD's headquarters during Union Day ceremonies Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008, in Yangon. (AP Photo)

Nader weighs in on the Democratic race

:

Because I was away when he announced.

From CNN:

(On Obama)

"Above all, explain why you don't come down hard on the economic crimes against minorities in city ghettos: payday loans, predatory lending, rent-to-own rackets, landlord abuses, lead contamination, asbestos," Nader said.

"There's an unseemly silence by you, Barack -- a community organizer in poor areas in Chicago many years ago -- on this issue," he said.

(On Hillary)

Nader called Sen. Hillary Clinton the Democrat "most loved by big business," referencing a Fortune magazine article from last year.

The June article said Clinton had "probably the broadest CEO support among the candidates" at that point.

Photo: Ralph Nader speaks at a news conference in Reading, Pa., in this July 14, 2007 file photo. The consumer advocate will appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday Feb. 24, 2008. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Here we go again...

Just when people were starting to get over "Wrong Turn..."

Looks like it's time for another controversy regarding Hollywood's depiction of W.Va.. The casting call for extras in "Shelter," starring Julianne Moore, has been released.

From The Pittsburgh Tribune Review via Huffington Post:

The casting call scheduled for Sunday invites "men and women of all races, 18 or older," to try out as extras, according to the announcement from Downtown-based Donna Belajac Casting. But the extras wanted for the West Virginia scenes evoke images of "Deliverance" and "The Hills Have Eyes."

"It's the way it was described in the script," Belajac said Monday. "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."
...

The announcement -- which was sent out in a news release and posted on the casting company's Web site -- asked for people with the following attributes:

"Extraordinarily tall or short. Unusual body shapes, even physical abnormalities as long as there is normal mobility. Unusual facial features, especially eyes."

According to IMDB, the writer of this film is Michael Cooney, whose past scripts include "Jack Frost" and "Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman," so we're definitely going to be treated to high art. (Just so you know, he also directed both of these masterpieces of the popular 'snowman slasher' genre).

Chances are it will be a fairly stupid movie and, based on the writer's track record, a box office flop, but local political figures won't pass up an easy applause line. AP has Gov. Manchin's reaction:

"It's clear that they have no real understanding of who the people of West Virginia are," Manchin said. "And that's not only unfortunate, but in this case offensive. Certainly it doesn't sound like a movie worth watching."

And UMW president Cecil Roberts weighs in:

“Why must it be automatically assumed by the surgically enhanced ’beautiful people’ who populate Hollywood that those who live in the hills and hollows of places like West Virginia are all afflicted with physical abnormalities?” Roberts said.

[..]

“It harkens back to a dark time in our nation’s history when flimflam artists roamed the country making a quick buck with traveling ’freak’ shows, displaying human beings who may have different bodily characteristics, in darkened cages,” Roberts said. “I believe our society has progressed past that point — maybe not in Hollywood, but it has in other, more enlightened parts of America.”

Poll: Heavy Clinton lead in W.Va.

From the Daily Mail:

By nearly a two to one margin, West Virginia Democrats and Independents are more likely to vote for Hillary Clinton than Barrack Obama, according to a new poll.

Forty-three percent of those surveyed said they'd vote for Clinton in the upcoming West Virginia primary election compared to 22 percent who selected Obama, based on a public opinion poll conducted by Charleston-based Mark Blankenship Enterprises.

Thirty-five percent said they were undecided

Not surprising. the western counties of Virginia heavily favored her and she's still doing all right in Ohio. So demographically, it makes sense that W.Va would go the same way as the rest of the reason.

Hint of the future

AP says that Obama will face attacks from the GOP regarding his patriotism.

At issue is the infamous pledge photo.

Paragraph four of the story quotes "Republican consultant" Roger Stone.

"The reason it hasn't been an issue so far is that we're still in the microcosm of the Democratic primary," said Republican consultant Roger Stone. "Many Americans will find the three things offensive. Barack Obama is out of the McGovern wing of the party, and he is part of the blame America first crowd."

Who is Roger Stone? Probably one of the lowliest lifeforms in politics.

Josh Marshall has the answers and they're not pretty. To put it simply, Stone likes to pick on the elderly and form offensively-named groups to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

It was only inevitable that this kind of campaign would start up as soon as one candidate closed in on the nomination.

McCain did hire another of the dirtiest operatives in the business, Terry Nelson, to work for his campaign, after all.

Who is Nelson?

Media Matters has that:

Nelson was responsible for a television advertisement attacking Senate candidate Rep. Harold Ford Jr. that many criticized as racist. Last year, the indictments of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) on campaign finance-related charges alleged that Nelson was the conduit for money transferred through the Republican National Committee (RNC) between DeLay's political action committee and Republican Texas House of Representatives candidates. Questions have also been raised regarding his knowledge of the 2002 New Hampshire phone-jamming scandal. Moreover, Nelson's consulting firm employs a former adviser to Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose 2004 campaign tactics McCain himself called "dishonest and dishonorable."

Joe Conason says they're just getting started.

False accusations about Mr. Obama’s religious affiliation have surfaced in anonymous we-mail campaigns, with little impact so far. But easily denied charges about his supposed Muslim upbringing are gradually giving way to more concrete allegations. The latest round involves his political intervention in Kenya, the home of his late father, where violence between ethnic and partisan factions has erupted in the wake of a disputed presidential election.
As usual, the right-wing narrative melds half-truths and lies with facts to create a seamless indictment.

It's going to be a long, ugly year.

Quickies

- Nader announcing run tomorrow?

From the Meet The Press schedule:

In 2000, many think Ralph Nader's presidential candidacy helped George Bush win the White House. He ran again unsuccessfully in 2004. Will he make another run in 2008? Find out Sunday in an exclusive interview with Ralph Nader. Plus, a political roundtable with insights and analysis on Clinton vs. Obama and McCain vs. the New York Times -- featuring David Brooks, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michele Norris and Chuck Todd.

- Cartoon up at WVaBlue and 50 State blog roundup by me.

- Saturday Night Live has picked their Obama impersonator.

The Projected Man

One of the worst movies played on Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was the 60s British sci-fi flop, “Projected Man.

The plot’s unimportant…something to do with a guy beaming himself across the planet, but one of the best lines line was when Mike and the Bots said the tile referred to "a guy who tries to apply his faults to everyone else."

If any pundit has earned the title of Projected Man, former Inside Edition anchor and FOX News host Bill O’Reilly is the leading candidate..

In his latest column, posted online and syndicated to a number of papers, O’Reilly goes after political Web sites for the alleged crime being purveyors of hate speech.

O’Reilly starts off with a reference to the manufactured controversy over Michelle Obama.

It was also painful to see how political Internet sites analyzed both of these situations. On the far left, they basically ignored the Michelle Obama controversy. Only one prominent far-left site dealt with it, and it blamed conservatives for trumping up hostility against Mrs. Obama.

For future reference, a “far left” site is one that disagrees with Bill O’Reilly on occasion.

It’s interesting that O’Reilly leaves out who one of these conservatives is: himself.

Apparently, the “far left” site Media Matters took issue with O’Reilly’s casual reference to the days of southern hate crimes when he said, “"I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels."

O’Reilly also forgets to mention the firestorm, which was not limited to one site as he claims, led to an issue of one of his trademark half-apologies, in which he tried to deflect criticism by making the absurd claim that he was actually complementing Mrs. Obama.

After this bit, O’Reilly’s column then goes into hackneyed autopilot, playing the old “cherry-picking a few random comments from a thread of hundreds to dismiss a political site as ‘extremist’” game.

Discussing former first lady Nancy Regan’s recent fall in her home:

[..]that was a far different story. On the crazy-left Huffington Post, the following hateful comments were posted about the former first lady:

“Like her evil husband, she has lived far too long. Here’s hoping the hag suffers for several weeks, then croaks in the tub.”

“The old bat will probably steal everything in the hospital room.”

“I feel no pity for the (woman) who took delight in watching thousands die of a horrible disease and watching the poor having to eat out of dumpsters because of her husband’s political beliefs.”

I’m guessing “crazy left” is a bit more extreme in Bill’s hierarchy than plain ol’ “far left.”

O’Reilly accuses the site’s founder Ariana Huffington of furthering hate speech because the comments were not deleted immediately. [“She should ] be taken out to the village square and publicly scolded,” O’Reilly writes.

Lest you believe Bill is simply, out of the pureness of his heart, calling for people to be more respectful, bear in that when he was accused of the same thing, comments threatening the life of Hillary Clinton on his Web site were left up long after they were brought to his attention. This isn't the first time O'Reilly has expressed such canned outrage towards the Web. He attacked DailyKos using the same tactic last year.

But the Projected Man act is nothing new for O’Reilly.

Remember the so-called ‘War on Christmas?”

A few years ago, Bill was going around the airwaves claiming that an evil ‘secular-progressive’ conspiracy was out to get Christmas. The crown jewel of his supposed evidence was that certain discount stores were referring to ‘holiday trees” rather than “Christmas trees” in their ads and that “Happy Holidays” was the preferred greeting in place of “Merry Christmas.”

Yet, oddly enough, over on the Bill O’Reilly Web store, you were able to order O’Reilly Factor ornaments for your “holiday tree.”

This leaves me, naturally, asking two questions:

1. Who, in their right mind, would actually want an O’Reilly Factor ornament for their tree? (I was holding out for the Hannity and Colmes nativity set myself.)
2. Why does Bill constantly find it necessary to attack others for behavior he is guilty of?

And, of course, the idea of O’Reilly accusing others of hate speech is laughable in the first place.

Here are a few choice gems from Bill over the years:

- There was the time he used a racial slur on the air.

Searching for a word to describe someone who assists immigrants crossing the border, O'Reilly came up with "wetback" (2/6/03). The incident was explained away by Fox officials as an unfortunate gaffe (New York Times, 2/10/03), but the Allentown, Pa. Morning Call (1/5/03) had O'Reilly using the same racist term in a speech earlier in the year: "O'Reilly criticized the Immigration and Naturalization Service for not doing its job and not keeping out 'the wetbacks.'" O'Reilly denied making the comment (Washington Post, 2/17/02), but the reporter stands by his account.

- Or maybe when he more or less said it would be OK for terrorists to attack San Francisco.

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

- Or this one, which manages to be bigoted in all sorts of ways.

“During an interview for Stuff magazine (11/02), O'Reilly opined that "the most unattractive women in the world are probably in the Muslim countries." O'Reilly later insisted (New York Daily News, 10/10/02), "There was no malice intended. It was just in jest."

There’s tons of these floating out there, but you get the idea.

O’Reilly ends his column on this note:

A few years ago, people who spewed hatred in public were ostracized. Now they can join clubs on the Net.

For those involved in Internet “hate speech,” the real problem is you aren’t aiming high enough. Why settle for an anonymous comment on some Web site? With a little determine and practice, you can follow Bill’s shining example and land a coveted spot in primetime on a major cable channel!

Photo by me

Progressive populist movement

Tom Hayden writes on HuffPo that it is at hand, citing the way a bottom-up force has shaped the Democratic primary debate:

It was not so long ago that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were hawkish neo-liberals, eager to prove that they were neither peaceniks nor mindless populists. Now they appear as solid progressives in sync with the broad base of their party.

Thom Hartmann's essay from last January sums it up nicely:

When we look back on the history of political movements in America, none has ever been instigated by a politician. They've always arisen out of the Parade. From the liberal democratic republic we founded, to the abolition movement, to the suffrage movement, to the anti-war, civil rights, and women's rights movements of the last century, every one originated with masses of people standing up and speaking out as we did this past weekend.

And in every case, when a critical mass of people became passionate enough to form a Parade, eventually a politician jumped out in front of it and said, "This is MY parade!"

Abraham Lincoln was not elected on a platform of freeing the slaves. Teddy Roosevelt never spoke of taking on the trusts and the Robber Barons before becoming president. Franklin Roosevelt ran on a very middle-of-the-road platform in the election of 1932.

No recusal for the 3.5 Million Dollar Man

From AP:

Benjamin Declines to Withdraw From $240M Massey Case

CHARLESTON -- Supreme Court Justice Brent Benjamin on Thursday rejected the
latest bid seeking his recusal from a case involving Massey Energy Co. over the
millions the coal producer's chief executive spent to help Benjamin get elected
in 2004.

Benjamin decided to stay on Massey's appeal of a $240 million judgment
against it in Brooke County that Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp. and Mountain
State Carbon LLC. won in a coal contract dispute.

In turning down the plaintiffs' request, Benjamin cited his previous
refusals to disqualify himself from another pending appeal.

"I would further observe that inaccuracies and innuendo do not serve as a
proper basis for seeking the disqualification of a judicial office," Benjamin
wrote in his reply.

Off topic Thursday

"Pure Imagination"

Everybody likes Gene Wilder. If you don't, there's something wrong with you.

Quickies

- Huffpo's R.J. Eskow says the 527 group started by Clinton backers to go after Obama will backfire.

- AP says Clinton has to win 57 percent of remaining delegates to catch up to Obama. An unlikely scenario, given current trends.

- A key figure in the Abramoff scandal, Ohio's former Rep. Bob Ney, leaves prison in W.Va. and is sent to a halfway house. Like all disgraced politicians, a career as a pundit probably awaits.

- The Nation: Mountaintop Mining: Like a third-world autocracy

They could at least keep their myths straight

First, the rightwing tried to spread rumors that Obama's a covert radical Muslim, sworn in on a Koran and sent to infiltrate the American government. We've all seen the moronic SPAM mailing about him supposedly not reciting the Pledge of Allegience .

Then a FOX News host and rightwing blogs decided he's the new Hitler and a fascist.

Now the conservative flagship magazine, The National Review, insinuates that his family is tied to communists or something.

And it's only February.

At this rate, expect the wingnuts to try to link him to Scientology, Hare Krishnas, Satanism, aliens and the Whig Party before the campaign's over.

O'Reilly's going to blow a vein

His nemesis, Al Franken, has been steadily moving up in the polls since beginning his run for the great Paul Wellstone's old Senate seat.

He was down by double digits when he announced last year, but now he's overtaken incumbent Republican Norm Coleman slightly. This is the second poll to show these numbers.

From Rasmussen:
The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found Al Franken slightly ahead of incumbent Senator Norm Coleman in what is likely to be a closely contested campaign. Franken, a former comedian and political commentator, leads Coleman 49% to 46%. If the Democrats nominate trial attorney Mike Ciresi, the poll shows Coleman attracting 47% of the vote while Ciresi earns 45%.

C-Span may be a lot more entertaining next year.

A real "Support the Troops" bill

One of my favorite senators, Ohio's Sherrod Brown, plans to introduce legislation this week to help sufferers of post-traumatic disorder.
It would require additional regulations before personnel who suffer from service-connected PTSD and traumatic brain injury are discharged by the defense department.

Brown's bill would:

- Require the Department of Defense to supply detailed explanations of the consequences of discharge status on federal benefits and services.
- Require notice of the right to legal counsel before discharge.
- Instruct Departent of Defense to release the number of upgrade reviews the Discharge Review Board performs for each service, along with the number of upgrades actually granted.
- Require Department of Defense to test for PTSD, TBI and related conditions, and prohibit less than honorable discharges in cases where service members test positive.
- Provide additional protection by waiving the statute of limitations on discharge appeals, for individuals suffering from service-connected PTSD or TBI.

Source: Mansfield News Journal

Poll: Clinton and Obama nearly even in Texas

Take it for what it's worth. Some groups still have her with a healthy lead.

From CNN:
Clinton 50
Obama 48

Supreme court candidates talk recusals at forum

From the AP via The H-D:

Chief Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard on review of recusal decisions:

"We need some system to second-guess a justice on recusal," Maynard said at the event, hosted by the Independent Insurance Agents of West Virginia and broadcast by the MetroNews Radio Network.

Maynard appeared with Democratic candidates Bob Bastress and Margaret Workman and Republican Beth Walker.

Bastress, speaking on the issue of a pending motion to recuse justice Brent Benjamin:

"It's a question again, of appearance," said Bastress, a West Virginia University law professor. "That case is so public, so big, so much the object of public scrutiny. You have the appearance of Mr. Blankenship spending all that money and benefiting Justice Benjamin."

Chamber ads against McGraw raise tax issues

The Chamber of Commerce and Business Industry Council have aired ads criticizing West Virginia Attorney general McGraw for spending a $10 million settlement with Purdue Pharma L.P. without first consulting the legislature.

From Paul Nyden:

Managing Deputy Attorney General Fran Hughes said business groups often deduct the costs of such advertising campaigns when reporting their federal income taxes if those costs can be classified as "business expenses" under the federal Tariff Act passed in 1913.

Section 501(c)(6) of the Internal Revenue Code, created by that law, states chambers of commerce and business leagues may "work for the enactment of laws to advance the common business interests of the organization's members."

But such expenses are not tax-deductible if they are specifically designed to help or hinder the election of any candidate for public office. "Businesses donating to these campaigns do not have to identify themselves," Hughes added.

Roberts said members who fund the Chamber of Commerce cannot deduct any money they give that "is directly associated with lobbying."

Nader releases mine safety study

From Ralph Nader's Center for Responsible Law:

Nader said:

I have been involved in coal mine health and safety issues since before and during the passage of the landmark Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety

Act of 1969. All the data demonstrate that introduction of governmental
health and safety regulations has prevented injuries, disease, and death.
But as Christopher Shaw's report demonstrates, coal operators have
repeatedly acted to undermine the effectiveness of health and safety
measures.

The tragic disasters that have recently befallen miners serve to
highlight how the Bush Administration's misplaced priorities are
detrimental to the public interest. The quality of the Mine Safety and
Health Administration's efforts, while Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao
has been at the helm of the Department of Labor, has been poor. The Mine
Safety and Health Administration needs to focus on upgrading and rigorous
enforcement of all standards designed to protect miners.

The full report is available as a pdf here.

Photo: July 27, 1996 / The Associated Press.

Post for a slow news day

Robert Byrd plays The Grand Ole Opry

W.Va. Democratic primary details

Clem Guttata at WVaBlue has all the of specifics on the selection of delegates for the primary.

A sampling:

* "West Virginia will use a proportional representation system based on the results of the Primary
for apportioning delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention." In other words, our May 13 primary matters.

* "The first determining step of West Virginia's delegate selection process will occur on May 13,
2008, with the West Virginia Primary and the Presidential Preference. This will be followed by a post-primary convention in June 13-14 at the Civic Center in Charleston, where the delegates and alternates will be elected."

Texas race tightens up?

Via Talking Points Memo:

Two have Hillary ahead:
Rasmussen - 54 Clinton, 38 Obama
Public Opinion Strategies/Hamilton Campaigns - Clinton 49, Obama 41

One has Obama up
ARG - Clinton 42, Obama 48

Starcher recuses himself from Massey case

Calls on Benjamin to do the same.

As The Herald-Dispatch reported Friday:

CHARLESTON -- A second Supreme Court justice has disqualified himself in a highly controversial case involving one of the state's most powerful coal companies, while simultaneously launching an assault on the company's head man.

Justice Larry V. Starcher joined Chief Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard in bowing out of the re-hearing of a case that, at the circuit level, had awarded a $76 million verdict against Massey Energy. That verdict was initially overturned by a 3-2 margin by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in November, with Maynard and fellow Justice Brent Benjamin -- who also has been asked to step aside -- voting in favor of the coal giant. Starcher was in the minority.

Starcher released a statement Friday saying he is stepping aside "hoping that Justice Benjamin does the same" in order to restore faith in the state's high court.

In his notice of recusal, Starcher admitted he had "become part of the problem" in the case because of his opinions on Massey Chief Executive Officer Don Blankenship.

A word to all

Apparently a link from Jim Ross brings in the audience. Thanks to all for reading and sharing your thoughts

I've been away and busy the last two days, but I think I have all of the comments up now. I've tried to respond as best I can, given my time constrictions tonight.

Coming up, I'm hoping to have more lengthy stuff this week, mainly two interviews that I'm working on that I think will be interesting. Stay tuned.

Winning Ohio

In the latest "Editor's Cut," Ohio's Sen. Sherrod Brown, who ran one of the tightest campaigns in the country last year, talks to The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel about how Clinton and Obama can win the state's upcoming primary.

I will not endorse before the Ohio primary. I'm weighing what my state does, that's certainly part of it. Also, my conversations with both Barack and Hillary, and with Governor Sebelius calling for Barack, and with Bill Clinton calling for Hillary, and Dick Durbin – all the people who have called for them, in addition to talking directly with the candidates… [we] talk about trade, talk about a populist, progressive message in Ohio, talk about privatization and anti-privatization, and all the things they need to do around tax and trade policy.

Photo: Sherrod Brown, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senator of Ohio, campaigns on the steps of the Lawrence County Courthouse on Oct. 31, 2006, in Ironton. Photo by Lori Wolfe/ The Herald-Dispatch

Blankenship meets the candidates

Despite the controversy with the Maynard situation, two candidates running for the WV Supreme Court have also met with Don Blankenship.

Republican Beth Walker and Democrat Menis Ketchum both met with the Massey chief prior to filing for the race.


The magazine Shepherdstown Observer said Walker has been "in talks" with Blankenship.

Beth Walker, who has announced that she will be trying to become a judge on the WV Supreme Court, says that she has been in talks with controversial political donor and CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship. Walker would not say whether Mr. Blankenship has committed to supporting her campaign. She also would not discuss her values or which issues are important to her. “The Supreme Court should interpret the law, nothing more than that,” she said.

Walker said she met with Blankenship once, but told the Charleston Daily Mail that she's asked for a retraction from the Observer, claiming the two merely discussed issues and that it was not a discussion regarding support.

According to the Daily Mail's Thursday report, Blankenship met with at least three potential candidates for the bench.

Greg Thomas, a political consultant who has worked with Blankenship in past elections, said Blankenship met with Walker and Ketchum - a Democrat - and Cabell County Circuit Judge Dan O'Hanlon, another Democrat who was considering a Supreme Court run but didn't officially file for the election.

Long fight ahead for Clinton

Unless Obama breaks through her firewall in Ohio and Texas, that is

According to ABC, Clinton will take the campaign all the way to the convention.

“My prediction is there will be no fight,” said Clinton campaign advisor Harold Ickes on a conference call with reporters Saturday. “All of this is going to be settled out before we hit the floor.”

“We don’t think our party or our candidate will be served by a bitter floor fight,” he added later.

But Ickes also made it very clear that Clinton would not give up without a fight -- no matter what happens in the upcoming primary battles with Sen. Barack Obama.

Unless she wins by two-thirds margins in all of the remaining primaries, Clinton can't catch up to Obama in delegates and can only win through superdelegates. Or by insisting that the docked delgates of Florida and Michigan are counted.

Al Gore could become the peacemaker:

Party leaders described Mr. Gore as a potentially crucial mediator because the putative head of the party — and the man who chose him as his vice president — Bill Clinton, is hardly a neutral observer when it comes to his wife’s candidacy.

“Because President Clinton is very involved on one side, there is an opening for him to be a more neutral force and an honest broker,” said a close associate of Mr. Gore’s, who like most of the associates spoke only on the condition of anonymity. “He’s probably the only unaligned person with the kind of stature to step in to that role and have a real impact on this.”

Photo: Presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., looks out at her audience as she speaks at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin dinner, Saturday, Feb. 16, 2008, in Milwaukee. The Wisconsin primary is on Tuesday Feb. 19, 2008. (AP Photo/Darren Hauck)

Off-topic Thursday

Nothing to do with politics, but new R.E.M. is always worth sharing.

Recommended reading: Corporate Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road

From Common Dreams:

Corporate globalization, savagely embodied by NAFTA, is not just a threat to Mexican farmers and rural villagers. The economic, health, and social damage created by industrial agriculture, corporate globalization, and the patenting and gene-splicing of transgenic plants and animals, are inexorably leading to universal “bioserfdom” for farmers, deteriorating health for consumers, a destabilized climate (energy intensive industrial agriculture and long-distance food transportation and processing account, directly or indirectly, for 40% of all climate-disrupting greenhouse gases), tropical deforestation, and a rapid depletion of oil supplies. Lest we forget, forty percent of the world’s population are still small farmers and rural villagers. If we allow corporate agribusiness and so-called “free traders” to continue to drive these last two billion peasants from the land, replacing them with chemical and energy-intensive, climate disrupting industrial farms, cattle ranches, and agrofuels plantations, we are doomed.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel

Seeing polls showing a dark November for the GOP, radio wingnuts have sunk to yet another new low.

From Media Matters:

Summary: Fox News Radio host Tom Sullivan took a call from a listener who stated that when listening to Barack Obama speak, "it harkens back to when I was younger and I used to watch those deals with Hitler, how he would excite the crowd and they'd come to their feet and scream and yell." Sullivan then played a "side-by-side comparison" of a Hitler speech and an Obama speech. Sullivan mimicked the crowd during both speeches, yelling, "Yay! Yay!" When a later caller complained that Sullivan was "denigrating" Obama with the comparison, Sullivan said he wouldn't play it again, then begged: "Can I, please, one more time? Just one more time? Then I won't do it again. ... Until the next time."

So that's the new talking point from the "Fair and Balanced" network: Delivering an inspiring speech = Hitler.

They're not alone in this stupidity. A quick look around reveals that here are similar posts on a few conservative blogs.

This is beyond parody.

Another sweep for Obama

On to Wisconsin.

From AP:

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama powered past Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race for Democratic convention delegates Tuesday on a night of triumph sweetened with outsized primary victories in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
"Tonight we're on our way," Obama told cheering supporters in Madison, Wis. "But we know how much further we have to go," he added, celebrating eight straight victories over Clinton, the former first lady now struggling in a race she once commanded.

Clinton has ditched her deputy campaign manager. She and Penn are staking everything on Ohio and Texas. Though with 8 wins in a row, Obama may now have the momentum to hold his own.

CNN and AP now give Obama the delegate lead, with and without superdelegates.

On the GOP side, assumed nominee McCain has finally won again for the first time since Super Tuesday.

(Photo: Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., waves to supporters after speaking at a campaign rally Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2008, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

For what they're worth: Ohio polls

Survey USA has a 2/12 poll with Clinton over Obama, 56-39.

A strong lead, but closer than the Feb. 3 Columbus Dispatch poll, which gave her a 23-point lead at 42 over Obama's 19.

Senate caves to White House, Telecoms

From Salon:

The Senate voted Tuesday to shield from lawsuits telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

After nearly two months of stops and starts, the Senate rejected by a vote of 31 to 67 a move to strip away a grant of retroactive legal immunity for the companies.

President Bush has promised to veto any new surveillance bill that does not protect the companies that helped the government in its warrantless wiretapping program, arguing that it is essential if the private sector is to give the government the help it needs.

West Virginia's Senator Rockefeller just received a strong rebuke on the Senate floor regarding his work on this deal from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

The House is preparing to take up reconsideration of the bill. DailyKos details Judiciary Chair John Conyers' letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding.

Throughout this past year, the Administration has sounded a drumbeat that Congress enact the Administration’s request for amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). However, during this same time, the Administration has denied to Congress essential documents and information that would permit Congress, in the exercise of its Article I responsibilities, to consider the proposed amendments to FISA in a prudent and careful manner. This Administration cannot be heard to complain about the unwillingness of Congress to enact legislation that the Administration claims to be so vital for the national security when the Administration at the same time has denied to Congress documents and information that are essential to its legislative responsibilities. Frankly, the Administration’s refusal to provide the requested information belies its position on the importance of the legislation: rather than the Administration giving Congress all the information it needs, the Administration has provided a slow trickle of information to only selected members of Congress, almost assuring that Congress cannot adequately consider its requests.

Glenn Greenwald's take:

Amnesty Day for Bush and lawbreaking telecoms

The Senate today -- led by Jay Rockefeller, enabled by Harry Reid, and with the active support of at least 12 (and probably more) Democrats, in conjunction with an as-always lockstep GOP caucus -- will vote to legalize warrantless spying on the telephone calls and emails of Americans, and will also provide full retroactive amnesty to lawbreaking telecoms, thus forever putting an end to any efforts to investigate and obtain a judicial ruling regarding the Bush administration's years-long illegal spying programs aimed at Americans. The long, hard efforts by AT&T, Verizon and their all-star, bipartisan cast of lobbyists to grease the wheels of the Senate -- led by former Bush 41 Attorney General William Barr and former Clinton Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick -- are about to pay huge dividends, as such noble efforts invariably do with our political establishment.

(Photo: Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) announced that he will run for re-election in the U.S. Senate on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2008, at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va.. Rockefeller is pictured with family members, from left, granddaughter Laura Chandler, his wife Sharon and his son Charles. The Associated Press)

Tri-State moving into focus

The New York Times says Ohio will be critical for Clinton:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and her advisers increasingly believe that, after a series of losses, she has been boxed into a must-win position in the Ohio and Texas primaries on March 4, and she has begun reassuring anxious donors and superdelegates that the nomination is not slipping away from her, aides said on Monday.


Mrs. Clinton held a buck-up-the-troops conference call on Monday with donors, superdelegates and other supporters; several said afterward that she had sounded tired and a little down, but determined about Ohio and Texas.

Superdelegates explained

For those who want to know more about this confusing idea.

From Sean Gonsalves:

The idea of superdelegates was born out of a desire to avoid a “brokered convention” in which no candidate wins the party’s nomination on the first ballot. The last time that happened was the 1952 Democratic Convention when 11 names were nominated in a nail-biter that included Adlai Stevenson, who became the party’s third-ballot nominee.

This year, the winner will need 2,025 delegates - half the total number of delegates who will be seated at the upcoming convention. And though the DNC isn’t keeping an official Clinton-Obama delegate score, they did say there were still 1,435 delegates up for grabs.

This is funny

The W.Va equivalent of damming the Grand Canyon?

The Surface Mine Board is considering an appeal for a mountaintop removal permit in Fayette County.

From Vivian Stockman at OVEC:

The permit borders the Hawks Nest State Park. With this permit, mountaintop removal would be visible from the historic Midland Trail and the New River Gorge Bridge.

The Surface Mine Board is scheduled to hold a hearing on this permit Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 8:30 a.m. at the WV DEP building in Kanawha City.

Mike Papantonio interview

If you haven't read it yet, my interview with Mike Papantonio made the 50 State Blog Network Roundup.

An excerpt:

On October 22, 2007 a jury ordered Dupont to pay $196.2 million to residents of Spelter, W.Va. The company was found negligent in creating a 112-acre waste site laced with arsenic, cadmium and lead. The poisons left for 50 years, had become airborne and had contaminated the groundwater. Health problems were abundant in the town, causing the area to be known as the "cancer triangle."

Representing the citizens of Spelter were environmentalists Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Mike Papatonio. The pair are co-hosts of Air America's news magazine Ring of Fire and are founders of GoLeft.TV a web site devoted to progressive video.

Papantonio, known for stinging "Pap Attack" commentaries on the network was featured in the 2006 documentary "Jesus Camp," in which he takes the camp's founder Becky Fischer to task for indoctrinating children into rightwing fanaticism.

Papantonio spoke with me before the Spelter case went to court.

Q: Your program is one of the few media outlets that regularly reports on mountaintop removal. How do think activists can overcome the mainstream media blackout and bring the issue to national attention?

A: If you look at how disastrous West Virginia's been treated - mountaintop Mining - In the history of this country, since the Bushies took over, there's never been so much complete destruction of mountain land mass as we've seen under this administration. Not only do you have the power elite to overcome, but you've got the power elite that controls the message completely.

In other words, activism doesn't do what it used to do. If you look at activism marches anymore, the mainstream media chooses to ignore them. So it's an uphill battle. I think that's what the tragedy is in West Virginia.

I kind of wear two hats. You may know about the Spelter case I have going on. Dupont got away with killing, absolutely poisoning an entire community in Spelter, West Virginia. It's unbelievable, these documents.

Now, can I take these documents and give them to media up there that will do something with them? I can, but I have to get the case to trial first.

Activism alone doesn't work anymore. There has to be something dramatic that happens.

In West Virginia, my god, every time I turn around, it's another disastrous story about corporate America, either attacking labor, polluting streams, blowing off the tops of mountains. It's as if people yawn and say, "You know, well that's West Virginia." They don't pay attention to it until somebody punishes Dupont or one of these corporations.

I know it sounds pretty cynical, but I've done progressive radio for nearly four years and have done plaintiff's trial law for 25 years and see it's pretty clear what has to happen.

Junta schedules another fake election

A follow-up to yesterday.

According to AP, Myanmar's military government announced it will hold elections in 2010 and that a constitutional referendum will be held in May.

Pro-democracy activists are not impressed.

“The announcement is vague, incomplete and strange,” said spokesman Nyan Win.
“Even before knowing the results of the referendum, the government has already announced that elections will be held in 2010,” he said, implying that the government was certain that the draft constitution will be approved.

They have reason to be skeptical. The referendum is scheduled so as to make it difficult for the government's opponents to organize.

Not to mention that the last time the junta promised an election, they locked up the winner for prime minister, Aung San Suu Kyi.

From the Burma Campaign:

On Saturday 9 February the junta announced that it would hold a referendum on a new constitution in May, and general elections in 2010. However, the constitution enshrines military rule, giving 25 percent of the seats to the military, and also gives the military effective veto power over decisions made by Parliament.

“This is a move away from democracy, not towards it,” said Mark Farmaner, Director of the Burma Campaign UK. “It is public relations spin because they are afraid of stronger sanctions being imposed. They are defying the Security Council by going ahead with this sham process and refusing to hold genuine talks with Aung San Suu Kyi and leaders of ethnic groups. There needs to be a strong international response to say that this will not be accepted.”

Recommended reading: The Chicken Doves

Matt Taibbi, whose work is quite possibly the only thing worth reading in Rolling Stone, has a new one up detailing the sellout of Congressional Democrats on the war:

Pelosi seemed especially broken up about having to surrender on Iraq, sounding like an NFL coach in a postgame presser, trying with a straight face to explain why he punted on first-and-goal. "We just didn't have any plays we liked down there," said the coach of the 0-15 Dems. "Sometimes you just have to play the field-position game...."

In reality, though, Pelosi and the Democrats were actually engaged in some serious point-shaving. Working behind the scenes, the Democrats have systematically taken over the anti-war movement, packing the nation's leading group with party consultants more interested in attacking the GOP than ending the war. "Our focus is on the Republicans," one Democratic apparatchik in charge of the anti-war coalition declared. "How can we juice up attacks on them?"

Obama 4, Clinton 0

With a clean sweep of today's 4 contests (Louisiana, Washington, Nebraska and the Virgin Islands) and heavily favored in next week's primaries, Obama could have a very strong showing for February.

Clinton's team has been counting on holding him back with the early March primaries in Ohio and Texas.

She's currently favored in both, but if Obama generates momentum from his victories, both states could become very competitive. Clinton ads are expected to go on the air in Ohio in the coming week.

In such a scenario, it makes the few remaining primaries, which include Kentucky and West Virginia, of even greater importance.

So it's a very real possibility that the Tri-State may play a major role in determining a party's nomination for the first time in a generation.

(Photo: Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., waves to the crowd along with Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine prior to a speech before the Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond, Va., Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008. The Associated Press)

While the media slept...

...or obsessesed over Britney's psych ward visit.

You won't hear about this from cable journalism:

From AP:

BANGKOK, Thailand—A Buddhist monastery that provided a hospice for AIDS patients has been closed down by the regime in Myanmar, which is also still arresting dissidents, the top U.S. diplomat in the country said Friday.
The monastery, in the biggest city Yangon, was raided Thursday. "Apparently, it was ordered closed. No one knows why," said Shari Villarosa, charge d'affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Myanmar.

She was speaking to reporters during a visit to Bangkok in neighboring Thailand.

Three military trucks arrived outside the Maggin Monastery and told everyone inside to leave, according to the online edition of The Irrawaddy, a news magazine run by Myanmar exiles in Thailand. The AIDS patients were moved by the authorities to an unknown location, it said.

Nor could you find anything about the mass protests last October of one of the world's most brutal regimes in the nation formerly known as Burma. You had to seek out the few real journaists working today, Amy Goodman, to get the story:

The image was stunning: tens of thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marching through the streets of Rangoon, protesting the military dictatorship of Burma. The monks marched in front of the home of Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was seen weeping and praying quietly as they passed. She hadn't been seen for years. The democratically elected leader of Burma, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since 2003. She is considered the Nelson Mandela of Burma, the Southeast Asian nation renamed Myanmar by the regime.

After almost two weeks of protest, the monks have disappeared. The monasteries have been emptied. One report says thousands of monks are imprisoned in the north of the country.

The U.S. has been strangely quiet on the matter. Other than a few stern words from Laura Bush, no real action has been taken.

You may wonder why an administration that presents itself as one that "spreads freedom" seems to ignore these atrocities.

Goodman has that covered, too:

The U.S. government has had sanctions in place against Burma since 1997. A loophole exists, though, for companies grandfathered in. Unocal's exemption from the Burmese sanctions has been passed on to its new owner, Chevron.

Rice served on the Chevron board of directors for a decade. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her. While she served on the board, Chevron was sued for involvement in the killing of non-violent protesters in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. As in Burma, Nigerians suffer political repression and pollution where oil and gas are extracted, and live in dire poverty. The protests in Burma were actually triggered by a government-imposed increase in fuel prices.

The U.S. ignored the crimes of Saddam Hussein's Iraq when they were occuring throughout the 1980s. Reagan's envoy at the time Donald Rumsfeld was on warm and fuzzy ground with Saddam and was more than eager to do business with him. It wasn't until 2003 that Rumsfeld suddenly had a problem with what happened.

Restoring democracy to Burma could easily be done peacefully. Forcing Chevron to cut ties with the Myanmar junta would deprive the military rulers of their financial stability and hold on power.

Maybe we can count on a future U.S. president addressing the issue 20 years after the fact.

(Photo: Members of the Solidarity Committee for Burma's Freedom Fighters stage a sit-in demonstration, demanding immediate release of Myanmar citizens Monday, Feb. 4, 2008 in Calcutta, India. 36 Myanmar citizens were arrested by Indian defense personnel near Andaman and Nicobar Islands in February 1998 and put under trial, according to a press release from the Solidarity Committee. The Associated press)

Look, a falling star!

Following her use of a homophobic slur at last year's conference and the resulting media firestorm, CPAC organizers disinvited rightwing nutjob Ann Coulter from appearing at this year's conference.

One wonders what took them so long. The previous year, she used racial slurs and received mass applause from the conservative group. They had no problem inviting her back for 2007. They even got conservative also-ran Willard Mitt Romney to introduce her.

Anyway, desperate to remain relevant, the spokeswoman for Republican values gave a video "speech" (if you can call it that) 50 yards away from the conference today.

Ann Coulter wasn't invited to CPAC this year but she came to CPAC anyway and gave a speech just down the hallway from the ballroom where John McCain spoke Thursday. [...] I guess we'll name this speech, "Ann Coulter's 2008 not-at-CPAC-CPAC speech."

As her 15 minutes of fame run out, I'm reminded of a favorite headline from The Onion a few years ago:

Marilyn Manson Now Going Door-To-Door Trying To Shock People

Obama up in Virginia

Faithfull at WVaBlue points out that Obama, an anti-mountaintop removal candidate, is leading in the coal state of Virginia.

Virginia is showing that not only can a candidate who opposes mountaintop removal be competitive...but two seperate polls are showing that Senator Barack Obama is up by 15+% in a mountaintop removal state.
Two polls have confirmed Obama over 50%, and Clinton under 40%.

Recommended reading: Bizarre Class War

One of my favorite writers, David Sirota, has a good piece up:

In most states, polls show Hillary Clinton is beating Barack Obama among voters making $50,000 a year or less-many of whom say the economy is their top concern. Yes, the New York senator who appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine as Big Business’s candidate is winning economically insecure, lower-income communities over the Illinois senator who grew up as an organizer helping those communities combat unemployment. This absurd phenomenon is a product of both message and bias.

Obama has let Clinton characterize the 1990s as a nirvana, rather than a time that sowed the seeds of our current troubles. He barely criticizes the Clinton administration for championing job-killing trade agreements. He does not question that same administration’s role in deregulating the financial industry and thereby intensifying today’s boom-bust catastrophes. And he rarely points out what McClatchy Newspapers reported this week: that Clinton spent most of her career at a law firm “where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards,” including Wal-Mart’s.

Time: McCain ties Clinton, loses to Obama

Obama captured 48% of the vote in the theoretical match-up against McCain's 41%, the TIME poll reported, while Clinton and McCain would deadlock at 46% of the vote each. Put another way, McCain looks at the moment to have a narrowly better chance of beating the New York Senator than he does the relative newcomer from Illinois.

"Mitt quits" or "The Great Conservative Implosion of 2008?"

After losing badly in Super Tuesday's primaries, Mitt Romney announced on Thursday that he was suspending his campaign.

Although Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul are still in the race, John McCain has more or less won the nomination.


Given the events of the day, McCain's appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference could not have had more interesting timing.

CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative leaders in D.C. is sort of the Lollapalooza of the rightwing.

To give you an idea of the atmosphere, last year's conference, attended by most of the political candidates was best known for Ann Coulter's use of a homophobic slur to refer to John Edwards (to which she received loud applause and laughs). Fearing a repeat media frenzy, Coulter was disinvited by the event's organizers this year.

Following several early speeches from commentators like Laura Ingraham attacking McCain and advocating for Romney, Mitt stunned the gathering Thursday by announcing he was dropping out.

McCain, already scheduled to speak to a group he was largely unpopular with, was no longer addressing the convention as a mere candidate, but the de facto nominee.

CPAC organizers, fearing a public relations disaster for the party, actually had to ask the audience in advance not to boo McCain.

During registration last night at the Omni Shoreham a registrant was asking to upgrade his CPAC package and then proceeded to ask what time GOP front-runner John McCain was going to speak today. “Oh good,” he said to the response — answer: 3 p.m. today — “I hope they boo him out of the room.”

“No, no no no no” came the reply from the person registering him. “We’ve been instructed to tell participants not to boo McCain.”

McCain's success in spite of conservative opposition is due, in large part, to the failure of the movement's leaders to solidify behind a single candidate.

It really began in 2006.

Sen. George Allen of Virginia was widely considered by the right to be the heir apparent to Bush. Yet after slipping on a "Macaca," his presidential aspirations were gone along with his Senate career.

The same election brought an end to the aspirations of another conservative leader, Pennsylvania's Sen. Rick Santorum, who was beaten in a wide margin by his Democratic opponent.

Left without their two leading lights, conservatives looked elsewhere for a candidate. They considered Newt Gingrich, but he decided against a run. Fred Thompson, touted as the Great Conservative Hope, seemed to forget the part about campaigning after announcing his run and fizzled.

Rudy Giuliani and Romney were always odd fits for the movement, given their former positions as social liberals. Mitt tried to run away from his stances and became anti-choice overnight, while Rudy tried to deflect criticism with a promise of conservative judges.

Giuliani flopped after his personal scandals came to life. By this point, McCain had momentum with wins in New Hampshire and Florida.

The right tired to make a stand by "putting it all on Mitt," but by then it was too late. The all-out assault on McCain by talk radio bombed. The last minute surge for Romney didn't happen and now Limbaugh, Hannity and company are left with the two candidates they wanted least: McCain and Huckabee.

But before you get the wrong idea, the rise of McCain and the defeat of Romney isn't the transformative moment in the party one would think.

While McCain isn't a member of the segment of the rightwing coalition that came to power with the Gingrich Congress, was championed by talk radio and reached its peak under the first 6 years of the Bush administration, media attempts to refer to him as a reformer or moderate are not entirely accurate.

In fact, McCain has always been far more conservative than either his supporters or detractors acknowledge. In 2004 he earned a perfect 100 percent rating from Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum and a 0 percent from NARAL. Citizens Against Government Waste dubs him a "taxpayer hero." He has opposed extension of the assault-weapons ban, federal hate crimes legislation and the International Criminal Court. He has supported school vouchers, a missile defense shield and private accounts for Social Security. Well before 9/11 McCain advocated a new Reagan Doctrine of "rogue-state rollback."

Incidentally, CPAC's organizers weren't able to stop the crowd. McCain got booed anyway.

(Photo: Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, gets a hug from author Laura Ingraham prior to a speech before the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008. The Associated Press)

Bill to ban valley fills introduced

W.Va. Senator Jon Blair Hunter, a Democrat from Monongalia County, has introduced legislation to end the practice of valley fills, in which thousand of miles of streams are buried under the rubble created by mountaintop removal coal mining.

From a press release:
“I introduced Senate Bill 588 because I fervently believe that God did not intend for us to destroy the mountains, the streams, the forests and His people in order to mine coal,” Sen. Hunter said.

[...]

“Senator Hunter's bill would stop mountain top removal operators from continuing to use West Virginia's mountain streams as giant garbage cans to dispose of billions of tons of mining waste,” said Joe Lovett executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment. “West Virginians overwhelmingly oppose mountaintop removal, and I hope that the Manchin administration and others in the Legislature will stand with Senator Hunter to stop the permanent destruction of a huge swath of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. It is time for the madness of mountaintop removal to come to an end, and Senator Hunter's bill is an important step in that direction.”

Bio on Hunter from Sen. Byrd's Web site:

Jon Blair Hunter was elected to the West Virginia Senate from the 14th District in 1997. He was recently appointed co-chair of the Senate Education Subcommittee on Productive and Safe Schools. Senator Hunter is a native West Virginian, born in Richwood and raised in Nitro. He served in the U.S. Army and earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and a master's degree in social work at the University of Wisconsin. His professional "hats" have included college professor, community organizer, and administrator and executive director of numerous community and senior citizen organizations and programs. He served as Executive Director of the Region VI Area Agency on Aging from 1981 to 1991, coordinating senior citizen programs in north central West Virginia. He is a member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and has served on the boards of many other civic organizations.

Last living U.S. WWI vet is W.Va. man

a bit off topic, but interesting.
From AP:

TAMPA, Fla. - Harry Richard Landis, who enlisted in the Army in 1918 and was one of only two known surviving U.S. veterans of World War I, has died. He was 108.

[...]

The remaining U.S. veteran is Frank Buckles, 107, of Charles Town, W.Va., according the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In addition, John Babcock of Spokane, Wash., 107, served in the Canadian army and is the last known Canadian veteran of the war.

Tampa Bay Online has a story:

"In 1917 – more than 90-years ago -- the United States entered the Great Conflict in Europe. Sixteen-year-old Frank Buckles decided he wanted in, too. He figured he could fib about his age; say he's 18. But the Army recruiter told him, "No good: you need to be 21." So he kept shopping around until finally, he found a recruiter who believed him when he said his home state of Missouri didn't keep birth records when he was born; it's back home on the farm, an entry in the family Bible.

Soon, young Frank was "Over There" in England. His ultimate goal was France where the action was. It took him a while but eventually he made it, thanks to some sage advice."

USA Today profiled him last year.

(Photo: Frank Buckles at 103 years old wearing his French military decoration, the Legion of Honor for an interview with the US Library of Congress.)

Obama wins W.Va.

Well, sort of.

According to the online straw poll be CAG and WV Patriots for Peace

Democrats Votes % Dem
Hillary Rodham Clinton 284 35.90
John Edwards 157 19.85
Mike Gravel 6 0.76
Barack Obama 344 43.49

Super Duper Tuesday

On the Democratic side, Obama wins the state-by-state count (including a last minute flip of Missouri) and exceeds expectations, but Clinton takes the big prizes of New York and California.

The race is basically right where it stood before today: a dead heat.

Rough estimates give Obama a slight delegate advantage, but as DHinMI at Kos points out, it's best to ignore these estimates, as delegates are alloted according to vote counts in individual congressional ditricts and it's too soon to tell.

"Democrat, on the other hand, award delegates on a proportional basis. Until the votes are completely tallied, we won't know the proportion of the votes won in a given state by Hillary Clinton and the proportion won in that state by Barack Obama. Furthermore, about 75% of the pledged delegates awarded based on tonight's results will be parceled out by Congressional District, with the other 25% awarded proportionally based on the statewide totals.

Are any states completely done tallying the statewide totals and the congressional district by congressional district breakdowns? No. Therefore, it's impossible to know what the delegate count is."

On the GOP side, it looks like McCain has it nearly locked up, with Huckabee showing a few surprise wins. With the GOP's winner take-all delegate allotment, McCain is miles ahead of his competition.

The most interesting news from this contest is the weakening link between the GOP media establishment and the Republican base. With nearly every high-profile conservative commentator (Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Levin, etc) advocating for Romney and denouncing McCain and Huckabee, the trouncing of Romney shows these voices to be increasingly out-of-touch with their party. Limbaugh was trying preemptive damage control on Tuesday afternoon.

(Photos from AP)

Third party watch

While the Democrats and Republicans chose their nominees, a few people on the sidelines are worth mentioning:

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Independent is reportedly looking into ballot access for a third party bid.

From AP:

"Bloomberg's political operatives have spent several months assembling the skeleton of a nationwide ballot-access movement, one confidant of the mayor told The Associated Press.

Bloomberg's evaluation of his own plans could stretch all the way into May, contrary to conventional wisdom that he would make up his mind after Super Tuesday, said Doug Schoen, who was Bloomberg's pollster in his mayoral campaigns and remains part of the mayor's inner circle."

Ralph Nader has formed an exploratory committee and has started looking at another a run, either as an independent or with the Green Party. He's expressed more willingness to do so if Clinton wins the Democratic nomination.

From AFP:

"Vote "raider" and "spoiler" were some of the more printable names hurled at Nader by his critics.

"Political bigot," shot back Nader this week, as he launched a presidential exploratory committee to see if he can attract enough support and funds to launch his fifth bid for the White House as an independent."

And there's the possibility that Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul will turn his massive fundraising ability and devout following of his long-shot bid for the GOP nomination into an outside run. It wouldn't be the first time. Paul was the Libertarian nominee for president in 1988.

Whether any of these will be a factor in a general election is anyone's guess, but with polls for the fall already showing a tight two-party race, Democratic and Republican leaders shouldn't take the chance lightly.

Huckabee wins in W.Va.

From AP:

"CHARLESTON, W.Va. - Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee won 18 delegates here Tuesday as backers of rival John McCain threw him their support to prevent Mitt Romney from capturing the winner-take-all GOP state convention vote.

In first contest decided on Super Tuesday, Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, bested Romney on the second ballot with 51.5 percent of the 1,133 delegates attending the state GOP's first-ever presidential nominating convention. Romney was backed by 47.4 percent."

---

The Hill reports that Romney accuses McCain and Huckabee of cutting a backroom deal:

“Unfortunately, this is what Senator McCain’s inside Washington ways look like: he cut a backroom deal with the tax-and-spend candidate he thought could best stop Governor Romney’s campaign of conservative change,” Beth Myers, Romney’s campaign manager, said in a statement."

---

While Romney's spokesman (and a great deal of conservative commentators) accuses McCain of a shady act, this is simply what is to be expected in a caucus-type selection process as opposed to a primary. While Romney may have had more people on hand, the rules allowed McCain's voters to back Huckabee on the second ballot, denying Romney an early Super Tuesday win.

Huckabee's campaign responds:

“Once again, conservatives have rejected Romney’s conviction-less campaign,” said Chip Saltsman, National Campaign Manager for Mike Huckabee. “No amount of Mitt’s money is going to overcome what a growing number of Americans - and the Wall Street Journal - are seeing first hand: Mitt has no convictions at all.”
In suggesting Mike Huckabee’s win was a back room deal, Romney continued his weather-vane candidacy by breaking his own “rules of politics:” “one, no whining; two, you get them to vote for you.”
“Whining about his loss is Romney’s latest flip-flop,” said Saltsman. “Add this to his record of supporting abortion and gay marriage, supporting gun control, raising over $700 million in taxes - he called fees - and leaving his state with a billion dollar deficit.” SOURCE Huckabee for President, Inc.

Welcome to "I Have Issues"

Welcome to my blog. My hope is to provide news analysis and commentary of political and social issues. I plan to focus more on national and world events, but you can expect some coverage on local and state issues as well.

As far as my background, I'm a graduate from the master's program in journalism at Marshall University. I'm a former student activist and served as an officer in two groups on campus.

I'm a freelance writer, photographer and cartoonist. My writing usually focuses on either music or politics. My work has appeared in a variety of places. Some examples are here, here and here.

Full disclosure: A quick view through my work shows that I come down on the liberal/progressive side of things (To give you an idea, I consider FDR and Ralph Nader my two biggest political heroes) and I make no attempt to hide that, but my aim is to provide fair and honest coverage and to create discussion.

Feedback is always welcome.

Hope you enjoy.