Poli Ticks

9:28:12 PM EDT

This blog was a useful experiment and worked reasonably well, but I really would like to run advertising to earn some revenue for my effort. So, effective immediately, my new political commentary will be posted on my new Political Desk blog. See you there.

-- Jack Krupansky

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5:48:05 PM EST
I was just reading a reference to "nonaligned nations" in a NY Times article ("U.S. Compromises on Wording of Iran Nuclear Resolution") and it occurred to me that so many of of citizens are simply not aligned with one of the major political movements (liberals, conservatives, "lefties", neocons, etc.), that it makes sense to refer to us as nonaligned citizens.

What this means and where we can go with it remains unclear.

We're no strictly independents either.

I consider myself a centrist, but that's a bit vague since there are a lot of people who "belong" to the Democratic and Republican Parties who are centrists, but also choose to be aligned with one of those parties.

-- Jack Krupansky


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8:14:56 PM EST
I just finished reading the official White House transcript of President Bush's State of the Union Address and I have to say that I was not impressed. Sure, there were a few good points here and there, but mostly the message was "business as usual", "let's focus on shifting all our old wine into new bottles", and "we don't care that a lot of Americans find our 'plan' absolutely unacceptable."

The President continues to pursue a dangerous right-wing agenda, and the sad thing is that far too many Democrats are either too ignorant, too afraid, too immoral, too corrupt, or too spineless to call the President out and stand up and say "This is Wrong, This is Not the path that we Democrats will Travel."

-- Jack Krupansky



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12:35:16 PM EST
It was a losing battle, but we need to congratulate the 24 Senate Democrats (plus independent Senator Jeffords from Vermont) who voted to sustain the Filibuster against Alito. Thanks for showing that at least a few Democrats still have spines.

This votes goes to show you how low the Democrat Party has sunk (or slunk or slithered).

Alito was bound to be confirmed, but there was no excuse for going along with it.

-- Jack Krupansky



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4:12:16 PM EST
Way to go Sen. John Kerry! He's on board with my call for the Democrats to filibster the Alito confirmation vote ("Should the Democrats filibuster the Senate confirmation vote on Alito?").

Let's just hope that Sen. Kerry's "spine implant" is not rejected by the Democratic body politic.

Actually, this is almost a bigger surprise than the Hamas victory in Palestine.

-- Jack Krupansky



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1:18:35 PM EST
For the most part, I've lost faith in the New York Times, but today they happen to agree with what I wrote yesterday in a post entitled "Should the Democrats filibuster the Senate confirmation vote on Alito?". In their editorial entitled "Senators in Need of a Spine", they agree that a filibuster is needed in this case:

A filibuster is a radical tool. It's easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

-- Jack Krupansky



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2:33:53 PM EST
What should the Democrats do now that Alito's confirmation is virtually "assured"? Some argue that a filibuster would be inneffective, but I think it would serve some value.

Sure, the Republican majority can (and would) pursue "the nuclear option" and change the rules for the Senate to override the filibuster, but that would allow the Democrats to take the moral high ground and note that they had no other acceptable choice. The only other choice open to them now is to simply roll over and play dead and vote along party lines. To me, that's less effective than doing a filibuster, which let's them stand tall and say "We tried" and not go down without a fight.

So, my advice to the Senate Democratic leadership is simple: Go for it. Filibuster the confirmation vote for Alito.

Note: a filibuster could disrupt the administration's plans to get the new Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (Ben Bernanke) confirmed on Tuesday, January 31, which is the end of Greenspan's term. It's not a big problem for Greenspan to serve a few more days or weeks beyond the end of his term, but delaying the vote on Bernanke would surely raise some conservative hackles.

At a minimum, the Democrats should cause the administration at least a little real pain before giving up the fight.

So, come on guys, Go for it.

-- Jack Krupansky



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2:05:13 PM EST
Although Howard Dean heads the Democractic National Committee, he's being excrutiatingly ineffective. He can talk all he wants, but he's not scoring any points. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on the other hand makes a few carefully crafted comments and the entire right-wing body politic responds as if their very survival was at stake. Her every word scores a few lots of points.

I still don't think Hillary has a credible plan for winning back everything that has been lost in recent years, but at least she has a credible voice and knows how to really draw blood in a political battle.

An important thing to keep in mind is that the key issue right now is not who wins what election, but putting forth an idea campaign that can truly capture the hearts and souls of three-quarters of likely American voters. This shouldn't be about who wins some more seats in the Senate or House/Plantation or even the Presidency, but having a plan that can garner enough support so that there will be sufficient support for good programs and good policies.

Howard should just sit down and shut up, or do something useful like offer to carry Senator Clinton's bags.

-- Jack Krupansky



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5:26:33 PM EST
I certainly don't concur with Michael Ledeen's overall arch-neocon agenda and philosophies, but even if believe that the neocons are pure evil, it still makes sense to find out what they are actually saying, since that's what a lot of Washington policymakers are hearing, so that's what you need to be prepared to combat.

Michael has an article on the "showdown" with Iran in the National Review Online dated January 18, 2006 entitled "Do the Right Thing: Let's Avoid Making a Catastrophe Out of an Embarrassment."

Interestingly, he argues that sanctions won't work, but he doesn't argue for immediate military action. I can't disagree with him there.

He even argues that bombing Iranian nuclear facilities won't work, saying:

Do you really believe that our intelligence community is capable of identifying them? The same crowd that did all that yeoman work on Saddam's Iraq? The CIA that once received accurate information on Iranian schemes in Afghanistan, only to walk away from the sources that provided it? The CIA that, three times in the past 15 years or so, seems to have had its entire "network" inside Iran rolled up by the mullahs? And even if you believe that we have good information about the nuclear sites, are you prepared to deal with the political consequences, in Iran and throughout the region? Do we even know, with any degree of reliability, what those are? Look at the problems we now face in Pakistan, after a handful of innocents were killed in an assault against a presumed terrorist gathering. Then imagine, if you can, the problems following hundreds, or thousands of innocents killed in raids inside Iran. Are you prepared for that?

Again, I can't disagree with any of what he says there.

Instead, Michael continues to lobby for supporting "democratic revolution" in Iran. Here things get very vague, but partly that's because this relates to a lot of covert activity that a lot of people really want to keep out of the hands of the government in Iran at this time. And partly it may be vague since the approach simply isn't yet all "there."

But the real bottom line is that supporting efforts like we saw in the Ukraine are relatively cheap and nowhere near as messy as long, drawn-out sanctions and big-bang wars.

Personally, I don't know what the right answer is, yet, but I sure know that we're not heaving about any right answer from Washington these days.

Anybody know what Howard Dean or John Kerry think we should be doing (besides toothless "diplomacy")?

Personally, I don't know anybody who is more knowledgable about the geopolitics of Iran than Michael Ledeen. Although I don't concur with all or even ncessarily very much of Michael's thinking, at least he's not spouting the kind of complete nonsense such as we've been hearing lately from so many politicians, unelected government officials, pundits, and the media.

Take a look at what Michael has to say and then draw your own conclusions. Hopefully you'll be able to transcend all of this stuff and come up with your own new ideas which will likely be a lot more enlightening than "the general consensus".

Addressing the issues surrounding Iran will take a lot of clear thinking. Is that clear?

-- Jack Krupansky


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4:45:36 PM EST
I just got an email from Howard Dean. Well, I supposed he sent it to a few (hundred thousand) people besides me, but he informs me that the government is for sale. Cool.

If Howard is right about this, then all we have to do to "take back our government" is simply collect a little money and then it will be ours again. Cool. What could be simpler?

So, why doesn't he simply buy it and be done with the Republicans once and for all. He doesn't need to ask my permission. Or, maybe even he himself doesn't believe that the government is really for sale.

Or, maybe he's trying to suggest that if we all pitch in, we can bribe the Republicans to do what we want.

I wonder how much a "Plantation" costs, anyway... does anyboday know?

-- Jack Krupansky

He didn't give an actual price.


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