I Thought We Were Invited to the "Post-Partisan" Party

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Wednesday November 10, 2010 · 4:51 AM PST

2010/11/10 · 04:51

I seem to have a habit of writing comments to diaries that get way too long-winded, and need to be promoted to full-fledged diaries. In this case, I was commenting Bob Johnson's rec-listed diary "Oh no! Obama's a Blue Dog (or whatever)!", and my comment got to over 600 words. Bob expresses his surprise about others who are surprised that Obama hasn't turned out to be more liberal, since his political positioning as a centrist has been clear all along.

I agree with Bob, but there's something about Obama that I really didn't expect and it has left me quite disappointed -- and as I argue further down, it has left our national political converation in a dangerous state. The text of the erstwhile comment comes after the jump.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Sunday July 04, 2010 · 11:40 AM PDT

2010/07/04 · 11:40

This diary began as a comment to Angry Mouse's front page diary about the Second Amendment, but since it ended up being nearly a thousand words long, I've decided to make a full diary out of it.

:::

I was born in the US and have lived in Germany for the past 24 years, and although many Americans don't like to hear it, it remains an enduring truth: the proliferation of guns and prevalence of gun violence in the United States is appalling, tragic, breaks my heart as an American, and is utterly out of line with just about all of the Western democracies that we consider comparable to ours. No American, certainly no liberal, should be willing to stand for it a moment longer. Certainly it's possible to do a lot about that without changing anything about the 2nd Amendment, but if repealing the Amendment is what it takes, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Monday February 08, 2010 · 6:08 AM PST

2010/02/08 · 06:08

On January 27th, the Oracle Corporation completed the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, my former employer.

The history of Sun's high ride and demise, and the continuing story of the newly-merged Oracle's fortunes, will occupy the minds of the IT industry and its pundits for a long time to come. I could easily go on and on about it, but that's not what I want to talk about here. Instead, I think that something should be pointed out about the way it all ended. It's another example of a phenomenon that's been covered extensively in political circles, and present in the public mind ever since the Wall Street collapse -- grotesquely extravagant compensation and golden parachutes for executives whose performance, on objective terms, can only be viewed as failure, compared to the burdens borne by laid-off employees who were far less responsible for the company's woes.
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"Why I threw the shoe"

Buckeye Hamburger

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Saturday September 19, 2009 · 6:30 AM PDT

2009/09/19 · 06:30

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist known throughout the world as the man who threw his shoes at Dubya during a press conference, was released on Tuesday after serving nine months in prison for his act of protest, claiming that he was subjected to electric shocks and waterboarding while in custody. In today's Guardian, he writes about why he did it:

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Friday December 05, 2008 · 5:22 PM PST

2008/12/05 · 17:22

There's still a House election left to be settled in Ohio's Fifteenth District, and Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy suffered a setback today when the Ohio Supreme Court, controlled entirely by Republicans, ruled to throw out 1,000 provisional ballots. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner said in a statement that these voters were "clearly eligible and qualified to vote", and has also said that suit raised a "hyper-technical interpretation" of Ohio voting law.

There are still over 37,000 votes left to count in bluish Franklin County over the next two or three days, and with Kilroy currently at 594 votes behind, it might be enough for a win. Nevertheless, those 1,000 voters deserve to have their voices heard.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Sunday November 09, 2008 · 7:35 AM PST

2008/11/09 · 07:35

Aren't we glad the elections are all over? It was a wild ride and a great ending, but now we can take a breather, enjoy victory, and get our levels of time, energy and sacrifice back down to normal. And best of all, we won't have anyone wheedling us for any more donations for a while, right?

Well, not quite. There are still a few unfinished contests left to settle, in which the Democratic candidates can still benefit from our engagement, and yes, a little bit of cash. I'd like to call your attention to Ohio's 15th district, where Mary Jo Kilroy is still in a very tight race. She's set up an ActBlue page, asking for contributions to help her get through the rest of the counting process and the expected re-count. Kilroy has a very good shot at winning this one, so please consider giving her a hand.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Friday November 07, 2008 · 6:31 AM PST

2008/11/07 · 06:31

I saw this bit over at Atrios, so I went and found the video and transcript of Campbell Brown's commentary last night on CNN, and the point bears repeating: for all of the crazy stories we're starting to hear about Sarah Palin, it is McCain and his advisers who are accountable for his disastrous choice of a running mate:

You [McCain's advisers] are the ones who supposedly vetted her, and then told the American people she was qualified for the job. You are the ones who, after meeting her a couple of times, told us she was ready to be just one heartbeat away from the presidency.

If even half of what you say now is true, then boy, did you try to sell the American people a bill of goods. If Sarah Palin is the reason some voters chose Barack Obama, that is no one's fault but your own.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Friday October 24, 2008 · 6:14 PM PDT

2008/10/24 · 18:14

According to the Progress Ohio blog and the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Ohio Highway Patrol has announced that they have arrested a man for making death threats against Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. For the past few weeks, Brunner has been deflecting an aggressive effort by the Ohio Republican Party to suppress votes in the upcoming election. The ORP has responded with a variety of scurrilous charges against Brunner, and last week there were reports of threats against her, her family, and her office. The man in custody now admits to having threatened to assassinate her in a telephone call received by one of her employees.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Sunday May 13, 2007 · 3:58 PM PDT

2007/05/13 · 15:58

This diary began as a comment I drafted for kestrel9000's delightful plea for impeachment, but it ended up running over 1250 words, so I made it into a diary instead. kestrel's diary is superb -- great images, gorgeous passion, and best of all, he starts it off as an adaption of Julius Caesar, and I'm a sucker for Shakespeare. I also commend kestrel9k greatly for making a clear statement of the case by including draft Articles of Impeachment set forth on the Impeach Bush site. In the final analysis, I do indeed agree that the standards for impeaching and removing Dubya from office are fulfilled. So I'm terribly sorry that I'm about to be something of a party-pooper.

I love the impeachment diaries that come up so frequently on the Daily Kos, because of the great patriotic spirit that motivates them. But very often, including this time, I find that the legal and constitutional arguments advanced for impeachment in those diaries are poorly constructed. I don't think that the draft Articles of Impeachment quoted in kestrel's diary cut the mustard, and I explain why after the jump.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Wednesday April 25, 2007 · 10:49 AM PDT

2007/04/25 · 10:49

Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and ranking member Arlen Specter (R-PA) have sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, asking him to try to remember all the stuff he couldn't recall during his recent testimony.

You spent weeks preparing for the April 19th appearance. Yet during your testimony, in response to questions from Senators on both sides of the aisle, you often responded that you could not recall. By some counts you failed to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70, but the most conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over 60 times.

More snarky quotations from the letter after the jump.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Tuesday March 20, 2007 · 6:11 PM PDT

2007/03/20 · 18:11

On the suggestion of some fellow Kossacks, I'm posting an expanded version of my comment on the thread about Dubya's tantrum as a full diary.

Follow me over the fold to consider a little piece of history: The 3rd article of impeachment against Richard Nixon, adopted by the House Judiciary Committee on July 30, 1974; and see if it reminds you of anything.

Buckeye Hamburger

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Friday February 09, 2007 · 4:19 AM PST

2007/02/09 · 04:19

It was bound to start sooner or later. In today's Washington Post, a former Army contractor named Eric Fair has admitted to the abuses that he committed as an interrogator of Iraqi prisoners.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

Most of our knowledge about the abuses conducted with the approval of the Bush regime has been anonymous allegations. But before long, the people involved, both victims and perpetrators, will begin to tell their stories in detail. What Eric Fair did is, by his own admission, immoral and unforgivable, but he's done the right thing by coming forward. The time is now for more people like him to shine a light on the atrocities conducted in our name.

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I Thought We Were Invited to the "Post-Partisan" Party

Why this liberal doesn't love the Second Amendment

Goodbye, Cruel Sun

"Why I threw the shoe"

OH-15: Ohio Supreme Court disenfranchises 1,000 voters

OH-15: Count still close, Kilroy asking for help

Campbell Brown: McCain and advisers to blame for Palin

Man arrested for death threats against Ohio SOS

Treason, Bribery, High Crimes, Misdemeanors?

Leahy & Specter ask Gonzo to Think Real Hard

Contempt of Congress: The Article of Impeachment against Nixon

Interrogator Confesses Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners on WaPo