By Hanlon, on January 31st, 2007 at 07:57 PM
 I don’t have a heck of a lot to add to this story, so here you go: Al Franken is leaving Air America to gun for a Senate bid.
The news was not unexpected. Franken has been calling members of the Minnesota congressional delegation to get their input on a run, and he announced this week that he would be leaving his show on Air America Radio on Feb. 14. He told listeners he would be making a decision on a race soon.
The response has been swift!
In a swiftly issued statement, Minnesota Republican Party Chairman Ron Carey said he was confident Minnesotans “will reject Franken’s divisive, scorched earth attacks.”
Yes, I’m sure they will. After all, it’s not like divisive attacks carried the Republican party from 1994 up until the 2006 midterms. I mean, Bush didn’t derail any attempts to discuss issues by swamping Gore with “liar and exaggerator” claims or ruin Kerry’s campaign by making him defend his military record against a bunch of people who weren’t even present at the contested events, not to mention pretty much any “a vote for a Democrat is a vote for Al Qaeda” ad from the past six years.
Good point, Carey!
By Hanlon, on January 30th, 2007 at 05:59 PM
 Actually this may be the same one, he’s just going for it again. Chuck Rangel, D-N.Y., seems to firmly believe that war supporters should be willing to buckle down and sacrifice everything if they believe the Iraq Fiasco is as crucial to America’s survival as much as they say they do. I agree. However, his constant pushing of the draft bill is starting to get borderline weird. From the text.
To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, to authorize the induction of persons in the uniformed services during wartime to meet end-strength requirements of the uniformed services, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to make permanent the favorable treatment afforded combat pay under the earned income tax credit, and for other purposes.
Now this isn’t news. It’s new, but it’s not news, if that makes sense. This was getting bantered about last November, but the fact that it’s still going on is just ridiculous. Yes, we get it. The Republicans that want the war but do not want to have to sacrifice anything are big fat disgusting hypocrites. However, pushing the draft bill time and time again isn’t going to do much aside from make you look crazed.
Also, a note. I’m working on another big project, so while I’ll try to get posts up at least once a day, I may be slow.
By Hanlon, on January 28th, 2007 at 08:00 PM
 If I said this was surprising I’d be a big fat liar. The reason I’m reporting that Saudis are funding the Iraq insurgency is not that I expect anyone will be unaware of it, but rather in the interest of contrasting presidential rhetoric with reality.
Two high-ranking Iraqi officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity, told the AP most of the Saudi money comes from private donations, called zakat, collected for Islamic causes and charities.
Some Saudis appear to know the money is headed to Iraq’s insurgents, but others merely give it to clerics who channel it to anti-coalition forces, the officials said.
So not always insurgents, my bad. Sometimes just anti-coalition forces. Much better. But keep in mind the Iran/Syria chanting that goes on, the talks about cutting off the funding for terrorists, eliminating safe havens for terrorists, and toppling oppressive regimes in the fight for liberty.
Saudi Arabia. The home of the Bin Ladens, where 15 of the 19 hijackers came from, and the most oppressive regime in the area, who is now funneling millions to Iraq insurgents. And they’re an ally.
By Hanlon, on January 28th, 2007 at 02:01 PM
 I could imagine life is a little difficult for the Republican Party these days, at least in terms of the upcoming presidential frenzy. Every single one of the frontrunners has been shot down for one reason or another. Rick Santorum was voted out, along with George Allen. Bill Frist has thoroughly embarrassed himself, and McCain’s position on the war and the media’s ever so gradual willingness to point out his flip floppery are hurting his chances. Beyond that, Brownback? Not likely.
It has be a pain when you have no viable candidates for your party. Worse still, the Democrats have two damn popular potentials. Now, bashing Hillary Clinton has become stale, and it’s just no good to leave the other guy all un-smeared, so the campaign against Barack Obama seems to be up and running.
It seems that our reliable liberal media doesn’t have much to actually go after him for, he’s introduced 152 bills in his two years in the Senate and he’s got a solid voting record plus everything he stands for appears to be eminently reasonable: health care for all citizens, strong education, get the troops home. The issues that would normally be prime for attack are now strong points for Obamamama.
So what’s the solution? Simple: start attacking him over completely irrelevant issues.
We’ve already seen the multiple times his name appears as “Osama” on the media, or the fact that right-wing commentators are having a field day with the fact that his middle name is Hussein, and then the more recent “madrassa” bullshit.
This current one has to be my favorite, however. This Is London, which for some reason is paying closer attention to American politics than I will ever pay to British politics, has introduced the latest salvo: Obama’s father was a jerk. I’m not going to quote anything from this story, it’s fairly pointless.
That’s what they’re “reporting” on Obama. Won’t go after a single issue of his, instead they attack his name, lie about his youth, and go after his father. This is how it’s been for years now. Gore was taken down for “inventing the internet”, Kerry over his war record, and now Obama for his father and his name.
I often wonder what would happen if political ads and campaigns had to be built solely on the comparison and contrast between the candidates’ actual stances on issues.
By Hanlon, on January 27th, 2007 at 12:21 AM
 Okay, this is just ridiculous. Via a blog I discovered simply through this story, it appears that an amendment was slipped into a health care bill that would, effectively, abolish the minimum wage.
We’re not making this up. Here’s what Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) had to say about the Allard amendment that was offered to the Senate bill (S. 2) to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour:
“On the Allard amendment, members should understand what the effect of the Allard amendment is, and that is effectively to repeal the minimum wage for any states among the 50 states. That effectively is what the Allard amendment does.”
You can read more of Kennedy’s remarks on the link there, but the important thing is this Allard Amendment business. The AA, as we’ll call it hence, was squeaked into the larger HR2, which ironically enough proposing increasing the minimum wage. The amendment is pieced into the Health Care section, and reads as follows.
SA 116. Mr. ALLARD submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2, to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to provide for an increase in the Federal minimum wage; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:
At the end of section 2, add the following:
(c) State Flexibility. — Section 6 of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 206) is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(h) State Flexibility. — Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, an employer shall not be required to pay an employee a wage that is greater than the minimum wage provided for by the law of the State in which the employee is employed and not less than the minimum wage in effect in that State on January 1, 2007.”.
That (h) is the important part. Via one paragraph, Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) attempted to eliminate the federal minimum wage. Just poof, gone. It is now entirely up to the states to decide. There is no standard, and if states want to have no minimum wage at all, the federal government can’t force them to.
Now, severe conservatives may adore that. Those who think the federal government should be weak as possible may be cheering. However, they are in a bit of a minority. Around 80% of the nation supports RAISING the minimum wage, imagine how few of them would support getting rid of it entirely.
Many on the right like to say that this is just something for teenagers making summer money. Looking at the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (which appears to be a bureau dedicated to statistics concerning labor) data seems to contradict that.
Minimum wage workers tend to be young. About half of workers earning $5.15 or less were under age 25, and about one-fourth of workers earning at or below the minimum wage were age 16-19. Among employed teenagers, about 9 percent earned $5.15 or less. About 2 percent of workers age 25 and over earned the minimum wage or less. Among those age 65 and over, the proportion was about 3 percent.
So right off the bat, half of ‘em are over 25, which throws the theory that most are teenagers earning weekend money out the window. But “under 25″ is a little nebulous. Their table 7 takes care of that, showing that about half of THOSE are 16-19, so a full 75% of those earning minimum wage or under are over 19 years old. So no, abolishing the minimum wage isn’t going to just hurt teenagers with weekend or summer jobs.
And in case your curious about who would vote for such a thing, here’s the list:
- Alexander (R-TN)
- Allard (R-CO)
- Bennett (R-UT)
- Bond (R-MO)
- Brownback (R-KS)
- Bunning (R-KY)
- Burr (R-NC)
- Chambliss (R-GA)
- Coburn (R-OK)
- Cochran (R-MS)
- Cornyn (R-TX)
- Craig (R-ID)
- Crapo (R-ID)
- DeMint (R-SC)
- Ensign (R-NV)
- Enzi (R-WY)
- Graham (R-SC)
- Gregg (R-NH)
- Hagel (R-NE)*
- Hatch (R-UT)
- Inhofe (R-OK)
- Isakson (R-GA)
- Kyl (R-AZ)
- Lott (R-MS)
- McCain (R-AZ)
- McConnell (R-KY)
- Sununu (R-NH)
- Thomas (R-WY)
If any of those are from your state, I’d suggest you go after them. I added the emphasis to point out two guys who appear to be vying for a 2008 presidential nod. Here’s a hint guys: it’s hard to get support when you take a position that harshly against the public opinion. Also, I wonder if anyone will go after McRage for that.
*Dammit, Hagel, what happened? You did so well on the Senate floor with the Iraq speech…
By Hanlon, on January 26th, 2007 at 07:47 PM
 Both depressing and encouraging is the news that the Canadian government gave a nicely sized sum to a suspected terrorist who had been… interrogated in Syria before being let go again.
Maher Arar was detained in the US while returning to Canada from Tunisia. He has dual Syrian-Canadian citizenship.
A Canadian government inquiry cleared him of any involvement in terrorism. Syria denies that he was tortured.
PM Stephen Harper said Mr Arar would receive $10.5m (US$8.9m, £4.54m) compensation, and urged the US to drop him from its list of terror suspects.
See, I still get confused with the strange dichotomy of rendering terror suspects to Syria while at the same time pointing the finger at them as an aid to terrorism in the Iraq Fiasco. Like we might send them people they sent into Iraq initially.
Now, the thing that really gets me is that we have a good idea about how many (or, more accurately, how few) people in our custody are actually guilty of anything. If the Canadian government were to pay them all for their trauma, the country would go bankrupt before everyone got their checks.
And, unsurprisingly…
Despite repeated calls from Canada to drop Mr Arar from its security watch list, the US refuses, saying it has reasons of its own to keep him on the list.
Yep, reasons of its own. Meaning, “we don’t care what you found out.”
By Hanlon, on January 26th, 2007 at 01:12 PM
 I’m not big on hearsay and rumor, but this is too hard to ignore. Comedy Central, not known for being the pillar of journalistic thoroughness or their ability to break stories first, apparently called Rummy’s resignation before anyone else after getting an anonymous tip. Well now it’s phase 2: out with Cheney, in with Condi.
The CC Insider/InDecider has just heard more rumors (see earlier posts) from a SECOND reliable source that Dick Cheney will be stepping down as Vice President and will be replaced as Vice President by Condoleezza Rice. And now we’re hearing that she would like to be on the ticket as the GOP VP candidate in ’08.
According to our rumor-meister, John Negroponte will be filling Condi’s current position as Secretary of State. Negroponte is currently the Director of National Intelligence (the first person ever to hold the few-years-old position) and the former US Ambassador to Iraq.
It could be true, it could be false, but if true it would be something incredible. Cheney is somewhat of a liability to the president. His approval numbers are dismally low and his constant attack style of dealing with questions can’t be helping the administration’s image. Throw in the leak scandal that’s growing by the hour and there’s not much of a good reason to keep him around.
Keep an eye on this one, folks.
By Hanlon, on January 25th, 2007 at 11:57 PM
Folks, this is why I’m frequently depressed with the ol’ US and A. Want to know what the state of the union is? It’s a country where more people watch American Idol than the president’s address.
Each of the Big Four networks covered the State of the Union address Tuesday night, but it was “American Idol” that led FOX to a ratings win.
FOX averaged a 9.4 rating/15 share for the night (numbers for everyone but The CW are affected by live coverage of the presidential speech). CBS took second with a 6.2/10. NBC, 4.8/7, came in third, followed by ABC at 3.9/6. The CW earned a 2.2/3.
That’s right. More people watched American Idol on FOX than the sum of the people watching the SOTU on the Big Four. Adding the cable stations finally lets the address pull ahead, but that’s not really encouraging.
The SOTU address was on the Big Four and an additional five cable stations. It had to be on instead of House, The Unit, Big Day, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent (plus Veronica Mars on The CW, but who cares about that razz?) as well as five more channels in order to usurp the one-channel Idol. Not to mention be on afterwards, grabbing all of the FOX viewers who were expecting House to show up.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m happy that many people watched. I just think that it doesn’t show quite so much a swelling of political interest so much as a “well, there’s not much else on” situation.
By Hanlon, on January 25th, 2007 at 08:17 PM
I see the stormclouds a-brewin’ overhead. Right out of the cannon, we’ve got the Senate Foreign Relations Committee soundly rejecting Bush’s little “surge” plan. It’s a nice gesture, and certainly a start in the right direction.
The Foreign Relations Committee approved the resolution by a vote of 12 to 9, with a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, joining 11 Democrats in supporting it. But even Republicans who opposed the resolution, including Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, expressed deep doubt about whether the troop increase could succeed and suggested it was time for a new direction.
…
Some Republicans expressed reluctance to support the legislation because they feared it could be seen as a political attack on Mr. Bush, but left themselves open to backing a similar plan offered by Senator John W. Warner, a Virginia Republican.
What baffles me is that, at this stage in the game, Republicans are afraid to say what they really thing about the Iraq situation for political reasons (think about all of those times Democrats have been blasted for going only by polls). These people disagree with the surge, and they actually do support the legislation, but they won’t vote for it for fear of… attacking the president?
I think this is a good time to throw out there the video of Chuck Hagel.
[youtube]xaqec2tSd68[/youtube]
Now, I think it would be foolish not to take a look at the other side. Specifically, let’s ask the veep what he thinks about all of this.
In a television interview that turned increasingly contentious as it wore on, Cheney rejected the gloomy portrayal of Iraq that has become commonly accepted even among Bush supporters. “There’s problems” in Iraq, he said, but it is not a “terrible situation.” And congressional opposition “won’t stop us” from sending 21,500 more troops, he said, it will only “validate the terrorists’ strategy.”
…riiiiight. I love that defense. If you oppose ANYTHING concerning this mess, you’re validating the terrorists. Want the troops to come home? That’s just what the terrorists want. Disagree with a surge? You must love Al Qaeda. Think we should fight Al Qaeda instead of policing Iraq? I can’t believe how much you want to have sex with bin Laden.
Cheney said the administration would disregard the nonbinding resolution opposing the troop increase and suggested it undermines soldiers in a war zone. “It won’t stop us,” he said. “And it would be, I think, detrimental from the standpoint of the troops.”
I really do think that Cheney could save a lot of time by walking around with one hand on his crotch and the other flipping the bird. That seems to be the gist of every interview he gives.
So let’s review: bipartisan opposition to the surge, Republicans are too cowardly to vote their conscience, and Cheney proves that he doesn’t give a good god damn what anyone thinks.
By Hanlon, on January 25th, 2007 at 07:08 PM
I’ve been incredibly busy lately folks. Sorry. In the meantime, here’s ThinkProgress with an amazing detailed discussion on the State of the Union address, in video form!
Or you can take a look at the Washington Post, who comes up with a great discussion on the flawed definition of “enemy”. More from me later, but at this point any in-depth discussion on the SOTU is… gratuitous. You all know what I thought, and those two guys got it deeper than I could have gone.
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