Henry Waxman

KT says
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But with Democrats now in control at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, those kind of investigations were certain to be put on a back burner.
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Not if LIEberman has anything to say about it!
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lol nice article Karen

Well this is fairly reminiscent of the surprise victory over Hillary in Michigan and Florida at the DNC. Makes you wonder if this inside game isn’t part of a larger strategic vision.

Truck Nutz for the 137 Democratic Congresspersons!

Go Henry! I love the idea of shoving Dingell out and making real progress on higher CAFE standards.

KT reports that Waxman would be seen as “not be sensitive enough to the need to protect jobs”. Funny, that.
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NAFTA has helped ship more jobs overseas than any environmental regulation. Not that I’m against either, but if both cost jobs, why is it that free trade is seen as a Good Thing and environmental regulations are seen as a Bod Thing? Jus’ sayin’.

KT
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They just ready your article about HRC and “Team of Rivals” on MSNBC

ready=read

KT – Considering how important this change is to Obama’s agenda, it’s awfully hard to believe his fingerprints aren’t all over this, either through Emanuel or Pelosi. Yet you suggest that Pelosi stayed out of this. Can that possibly be true? Isn’t this as important as the Lieberman issue? Is this just an example of how well they can avoid leaking when they in charge of all the players?

SG -

Oh dear. Have you become “noun, verb, Joe LIEberman”?

kathy
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If I was a conspiracy theorist, and contrary to the rumors I am not, I would point out that Rahm was on the Hill today ostensibly to talk to the GOP in the House and Senate. But he could have always slipped in the side door….

Is it mean to say Waxman reminds me of Moleman on the Simpsons?

kathy
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If i was a conspiracy theorist, which I am not no matter what rumors you might here, I would point out that Rahm was on the Hill today supposedly to talk to the GOP in both houses. But maybe he slipped in the side door…

kathy
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yeah I am pounding the LIEberman drum. I want somebody to pay, and right now I am calling for Harry Reid’s head. By the way Reid the cowardly lion’s quote today was “what is bringing a bunch of bills ot the floor that won’t pass do?”. What a spineless chump. I wonder if he noticed that the Dow tanked today after they announced they were throwing in the towel instead of voting for the 25 billion for the Big 3

sgw-MSNBC has an unnatural fascination with all things Clinton.

Apparently if you can’t say anything nice about Bill, sit next to Andrea Greenspan. Which reminds me- did anyone see Meacham on the Daily Show? The groans from the audience did not deter his Clinton-bashing. Twit.

And Waxman made my day.

SG – I hope you’re wrong about Reid being a wimp. He actually seems to have held the caucus fairly well over the last couple of years. I know he appears ineffectual, but that may just be appearances. I’m serious.
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becca – didn’t see the Meacham. last night? I’ll catch it on the replay tonight if so. I’m fond of Meacham. I don’t remember him being especially anti-Hillary during the campaign.

KT here–

Kathy: Considering how important this change is to Obama’s agenda, it’s awfully hard to believe his fingerprints aren’t all over this, either through Emanuel or Pelosi. Yet you suggest that Pelosi stayed out of this. Can that possibly be true?

Pls note the word “publicly” in my story. I have no idea what was happening behind the scenes…

beccabyrd
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You are absolutely right
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Tweety is OBSESSED right now.
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Even worse than my obsession with Lieberman
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Its sickening really.
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Michelle Bernard’s stealth conservative azz is on now bashing the Clintons

KT here–

kathy: i meant to add one of those winky things at the end:

kathy
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Why did Harry Reid speak glowingly of Ted Stevens today during his sendoff? This guy just caught 7 felony cases! It appears that he is spineless AND dumb.

Kathy I have been trying to convince folks to see the obvious orchestration from Lieberman’s pardon and movement off of the environment committee to the waxman maneuver. We certainly have a chess master at the helm. Of course, as KT says publicly they have to attribute the moves to other things.
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becca — I saw the show I thought he bombed because he wasn’t funny and he tried too much to make every statement a teaching moment rather than go for the cheap one liner. this is a show that celebrates cheap one liners.
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But overall there is just way too much Clinton hating in the msm. I don’t know about you but I’m starting to just tune them out at this point.

kathy- never have been a Meacham fan. He had a puritanical streak during the impeachment that turned my stomach. Too blurry about separation of church and state for my taste. He’s not by any means the worst of the worst, tho.
Oh!! are you kathy as in KUSA at TalkLeft? Been curious.

sgw- Tweety is the worst of the worst. Someone really needs to do an intervention, but the whole network is filled with enablers.

Dee
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Now you KNOW you can’t talk about Liebeman around me. Listen the guy said at the press conference that he will be introducing his own climate change bill with of course McSame as soon as the next Congress starts. Removing him off the committee does nothing to stop him from getting attention about Environmental issues. And I have to say Ironically enough he has been much BETTER on environmental issues than he EVER was on investigating the government. By the way did I mention that LIEberman said the Environmental was not in fact taken from him? I am sure I mentioned that like 50 times right?

Dee- I agree he was trying to be funny and failed, but the groaners were the Bill BJ jabs.

That’s my story and I’m stickin to it.

I have never understood CDS. What does Josh Marshall have against the Clintons? Isn’t he , like, twelve? Where do all those young male bloggers get all that venom?

Sorry for going off topic. What was it again?

Yes SG — but he’s not the chairman anymore and at the moment that’s enough for me. And I’m sure someday my sister and her friends in CT will make all of this moot point because they are adamant about making sure he doesn’t get another term.
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Oh yeah since when is Michele Bernard a stealth conservative? She’s been an out front right winger since day one.

The Clintons can be disliked for many valid reasons. That doesn’t stop people for liking them for irrational ones. Bush was a fake bubba, Bill was the real deal. The David Broder crowd could tell the difference. I think a bunch of it is class snobbery. Bush could order waterboarding of arab toddlers on the White House lawn on Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday Mo Dowd would be in the NY Times with a story about the shrew in the pantsuit, or Bill’s genitalia.

Dee
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They don’t announce her as a conservative and for the last two months she has tried to make it seem like she was a centrist ie her “Independent Women’s Forum”. MediaMatters did an article onn her because she has tried to sell herself as someone that is middle of the road when the truth is her whole board is made up of WingNuts and if you read her articles on her website she is a wingnut deluxe! And the problem is if people think she is a centrist and then she blasts Obama over something they are likely to believe she doesn’t have a bias thus making her opinion more credible

SG – I’m sorry I realize now that I’ve known who she was before she started as a regular and I’ve always known the independent women’s forum was a right wing front. See what happens when your world is inside the belt way. You think everything is national.
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I always thought they were trying out one black pundit after another and after Buchanan dissed Kelly Goss (told her to shut-up and Rachel had to chastise him) they pretty much settled on Michele. I think they thought that if she was black she had to be a Barack supporter and nothing else mattered.
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Kind of like CNN and Amy Holmes always claiming to be an independent — and clearly a right winger. but every show they needed someone black on the screen even though she was not an Obama supporter. It was pathetic.

By the way Markos from dailykos represented for the blogosphere today on MSNBC!
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Dee
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You know Amy Holmes is a part of that IWF too right?

SG

Yeah now but she used to work for Frist (speech writer) so she’s a wingnut through and through.

One of the most lucrative positions in D.C. is to be a token black conservative. J.C. Watts lately seems to be chafing at the concept to his credit. He genuinely is concerned about conservative ideas and getting african-americans attracted to the GOP. He is on the outs in other words.
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He is not on tv as much as Ron Christie. Christie knows not to bite the hand that feeds him.

trifecta
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To JC Watts credit he has been chaffing for quite awhile now. I think if he thought he could do it without looking like a sellout he would totally jump ship to the Democrats. But because he took so much guff for being a Republican and fought back against any and everyone who called him an Uncle Tom I think he just couldnt bring himself to change affiliations. What I am really waiting on is for Steele to run for RNC chairman and then get embarrased to see how many of the few black folks they have stay with the party. By the way I don’t know how many of you guys know anything about the Boondocks cartoon but there is a character called Uncle Rukus that exemplifies the mentality of some black folks for real. I personally know a few Uncle Rukuses personally. To give you an idea watch this clip
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Warning, gratuituous use of the N word. And yes the cartoon is made by a black man. Aaron McGruder.
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Goodness knows. KT will be chatting with me and Jay Rosen, in Second LIfe, shortly.

http://inworldstudios.com/vs/

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/virtuallyspeaking

SG — you’re phucking hilarious. I remember when Steele was running here for Lt. governor and they put six foot cut out photos at all of the black polling places in PG county. I guess they wanted to remind everyone he was black as if that was enough to make difference the same way that they tried to replace Hillary with Palin. — They focus a lot on experience and I can’t figure out why because they don’t learn from it.
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What’s funny is when Steele was at the state of the black union and he tried to make a case for black Republicans he was trying to be down saying that when push comes to shove nothing trumps race. Of course, when all this race baiting was going on I did hear him challenge his party about it. The one thing you can say about Colin Powell is at least he stood up for this just like he stood up for affirmative action at one of their conventions.
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But truthfully, if you are starting out in politics in DC the competition is so fierce, that if integrity is not your strong suit, then you might find that the road to the top of the operative world is a little easier and faster to navigate as a black Republican than a Democrat.

Dee
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Is it true that Steele actually had homeless people handing out flyers that said he was a democrat? I have a feeling that its an urban myth but I just wanted to know for sure

KT — I couldn’t tell if you were channeling the Sopranos or SI’s Peter King in your headline. Having covered the hill since the Fillmore adminstration (I joke, I joke), do you see this as a significant shift inside the beltway?
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What does this tell you about Pelsoi’s ability and power as speaker? Is Steny Hoyer still hovering closely in the background, or does she have a wider base of support now from the democratic caucus?

Slight correction needed, KT. Dingell has not served as chairman since 1981, simply because the Republicans controlled the House from 1995 until 2007. Dingell has been the committee’s top Democrat since 1981, but when the GOP had control he was ranking minority member, not chair.

Dee, Republicans never let integrity get in their way in the pursuit of power or public office. If they have any it’s a value add; not a prerequisite.

KT
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I am listening to you on jayackroyds program and I just wanted to mention something that I had to learn about interviews. People always used to jump on uhms and uhhs that interviewees would use as fillers, but the most popular new filler is “you know”. I have the WORST habit of saying “you know” over and over again and I never caught it until I started getting the tapes of my interviews so I could critique them. Now most people don’t get in a tizzy about it anyway but I am just saying you might want to request tapes of all your TV and radio appearances so you can critique yourself and sharpen your knife. The substance is off the charts by the way.

SG — I think he probably used homeless people to give out fliers but he probably didn’t claim to be a Democrat when he was Lt. Governor. Of course when he ran for the senate he didn’t emphasize that he was a member of the GOP. In fact, that strategy was used again this year and a number of folks running for congress called themselves independent voices and such. They were Republicans period.

I feel a guilty happiness that real issues are at the forefront. Happy not to be hearing the Repubs social/moral/summer patriot preachiness, guilty that it required a serious mess for our country to refocus.

KT here–

Thanks, Sg.

Dee and sg, eher’s a link to the Steele thing:
“the flier read, “Ehrlich-Steele Democrats,” and underneath it announced: “These are OUR Choices.”"
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/cats/michael_steele/

Dee
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It was supposedly when he ran for the Senate. Supposedly it was this big scandal but since you never heard of it I will bet it didnt happen

sg, I beat you to the punch, and it did happen.

sg, can you point me towards jay’s interview with KT?

wvng
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Going by this flier does this mean that Michael Steele did not get the RNC chair or has it even been decided yet?

Totally off topic, but “Sarah Palin pardons turkey, while others are being slaughtered, on camera, behind her.” (AmericaBlog)

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It just never ends.

By the way Dee
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Did you see Rachel Maddow’s disgust at watching Harry Reid gush over Ted Stevens today? I HATE that she was off on Tuesday night

sgw, that was two years ago. For repuglicans, that kind of behavior isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Just ask Palin and her pardoned turkey.
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And keep hitting refresh over at Rachel’s, waiting for the web videoas.

wvng
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Rachel had that turkey clip on also. But with out all the word salad. Seriously how did that woman get a degree in journalism without ever using the words “I am”

SGW (you prompted this with your last post) et al. I’m sure you’ve gotten this in your inbox, but just in case:
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Obama’s Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
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REUTERS — Chicago, Nov. 19 — In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack
Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight
years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political
observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama’s appearance on CBS’s 60
Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect’s unorthodox verbal
tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences
virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama’s decision to use complete sentences in his public
pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last
eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it “alienating” to have a
president who speaks English as if it were his first language.
“Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in
agreement,” says Mr. Logsdon. “If he keeps it up, he is running the
risk of sounding like an elitist.”
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete
sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, “Okay,
subject, predicate, subject predicate — we get it, stop showing off.”
The president-elect’s stubborn insistence on using complete sentences
has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov.
Sarah Palin of Alaska.
“Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way
that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder
can’t really do there, I think needing to do that isn’t tapping into
what Americans are needing also,” she said.
–Andy Borowitz

SG- Yeah I saw Rachel. And I’m with you on this one. There is not excuse for all the gushing being afforded this crook they should be turning their back to him in silence – Yeah I like it he deserves shunning.

WVNG: As to the Steele debacle. I’m not saying that he didn’t do this. I believe that he would pay homeless to handout fliers — kind of standard practice actually. But as far as saying he’s a Democrat that wasn’t a big thing here and I have the feeling that if this was something that was wide spread it would have blown up pretty big. In fact, the big things here were the fear that his ads, not the typical political fare (puppy ad especially) were so appealing that he might make inroads — but blacks weren’t fooled for a second and he got absolutely no love and the tendency to remove any indication that he was a Republican from his literature.

Dee, the WaPost thought it was pretty sleazy. From the link above:
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“Which nefarious election stunt from 2006 will live on in greater infamy, the NRCC’s robo calls, or Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich and Lt. Gov. Michael Steele’s recruitment of out-of-state homeless men to hand out misleading campaign literature in African-American neighborhoods?
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The Washington Post makes the case for Ehrlich and Steele (who made an apparently unsuccessful bid for chairman of the Republican National Committee) in today’s paper, even including a picture of the now-famous fake ballot that the men were handing out, which showed Ehrlich and Steele as Democrats. So check it out.
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An Ehrlich aide who agreed to discuss the strategy on the condition of anonymity said the purpose of the fliers was to peel away one or two percentage points in jurisdictions where the governor would be running behind. No one inside the campaign expected a strong reaction.”
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Details at the link. I heard about it in WV, but then I read blogs.

Wvng – Again I am saying that it wasn’t a big scandal. It doesn’t matter much what the Washington post printed, if it didn’t blow-up on black radio it doesn’t blow-up in African American neighborhoods
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And as to the homeless thing — Democrats do it too. It’s about bodies, whether you are talking fliers, gathering signatures, acorn etc. He11 the Washington post regularly recruits the homeless to sell their paper daily at every red light on the way downtown once you exit the highway at New York avenue.

Wow, I had no idea Waxman was 69 years old! He doesn’t seem that old, or am I just getting older? I hope he’s healthy because in my mind he’s a fantastic person to help enact the Obama policies for which we voted!