Obama transcript in the Oil Spill. Read it and be grateful the other isn't president

This remarkable document came to me by email from the White House press office because I'm a registered blogger and the White House is much more open that it was when Dick Cheney met with the oil kings to decide energy policy. Your blogger gets things like this a lot. Reading this transcript for the second time, however, made me think how grateful I am that Barack Obama is the president, and not John McCain or George W. Bush. We have a president who understands and takes things forward, and lets people talk about the right amount. 


My only comment/piece of advice at this point is: As much as we want to help the people of the Gulf coast, we have to avoid futility. Darn, they may want to stay for the sixth generation now, but their home may be about to be gooed up by oil for years to come. We have to avoid futile efforts that won't work. This will be a hard judgment call, and there's another reason I'm grateful that we have a wise man as president now, and not some martinet neocon.


Read and enjoy the result of your electoral labors:

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN CONVERSATION WITH LOCAL RESIDENTS

Camardelle’s Live Bait and Boiled Seafood
Grand Isle, Louisiana

    THE PRESIDENT:  Everybody knows the Mayor.  The Mayor has gathered up a group of local businesspeople.  Butch, for example, owns a marina; Terry, a shrimp boat; Floyd, oyster fisherman; and Patti has a convenience store; Chris is the owner of this bait shop.
    And so we were just talking about the economic impact that this has had.  And just to give you a sense of perspective -- Terry has been shrimping out here for 46 years.  His grandfather did it before him.  And right now things are completely shut off for him.

Floyd, he leases the oyster beds from the state.  The state now, obviously, and properly so, has said he can't be pulling seafood out of these waters right now.  He’s got oil that's starting to seep in into these oyster beds where he’s got leases and, as a consequence, Floyd is trying to figure out how long this damage is going to last.

FLOYD LASSEIGNE:  I'm a fourth generation, and I've got a son who is a fifth generation, so we've been -- somebody lease has been -- been in the family for 100 years.

THE PRESIDENT:  Butch was talking about the marina and making the point that these three, four months are basically when all the business comes down.  And normally all his slips would be full right now -- sounds like about only a third of them are full and it may get worse from there.

BUTCH GASPARD:  Our charter boat guys are hurting real bad, too, because all the charter boat business is shut down.  They make a living off of taking people out fishing.

THE PRESIDENT:  So right now, Butch isn’t taking a salary so he can pay his employees, but he doesn’t know how long that's going to last.

Then you’ve got Patti, who owns a convenient store.  Obviously that store is dependent on these guys -- the boats coming in, filling up with gas, buying ice, buying soft drinks.  So she’s down 85 percent on her business right now.

So this is just a sampling of what’s happening out here.  And part of what we talked about was what we can do to prevent oil from coming into these areas; part of what we talked about is -- in terms of the relief effort -- can we deploy folks who’ve got boats here to help save their livelihoods right where they are, as opposed to having to go to other places.  And so I'm going to ask Admiral Allen to make sure that he’s looking at where people are being deployed, where vessels are being deployed, to make sure the people who know the waters best end up being hired there.

And the final thing is we've got to talk about -- what we talked about up in New Orleans -- which is are we making sure that claims are being processed effectively.  And right now, after that initial $5,000 check that BP wrote, the claim center has been taking in claims, but it sounds, based on what I'm hearing, that there’s a lot of process but not much actual action.  And so we're going to see if we can do something better on that.

But the main point I think I want to make -- and, Mayor, feel free to chime in on this -- is these are communities that have had a way of life for generations, and what people are concerned about right now is not just the damage done in the short term -- because these are some tough folks.  They’ve been through hurricanes and --

VOICE:  Low prices.

THE PRESIDENT:  -- low prices --

VOICE:  High cost of fuel.

THE PRESIDENT:  Terry was talking about how the walls stay up on a building around here; a hurricane comes, you wash out the mud and a week later everybody is back in business.  So these are folks who are used to hardship and know how to deal with it.  But what they’re concerned about right now is, is this going to have a lasting impact that they can't recover from.  And that's why Thad and the rest of the federal team is so committed to making sure that everything that can be done will be done.

This is going to be bad, no matter what we do.  But we can hopefully minimize the damage, but it requires good coordination between the state, federal and local; and it requires BP to make sure that, as I said up in New Orleans, folks aren’t getting nickled-and-dimed and that we're doing what we need to do early to prevent the worst-case scenario from happening later.

So, Mr. Mayor, anything you want to add?

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  Well, again, the main concern is to block these five passes that we talked about.  The barges are available, Admiral, right there all along the coast, from Venice to Harvey Canal, all the way back to Homer. They’re standing by, and hopefully we can get the President to get on BP -- between both of you guys -- so we can put some barges there temporary to block these passes so we can save Claiborne Parish, LaFourche Parish, St. Charles Parish, Orleans Parish, Jefferson Parish, Plaquemines Parish.  And Jefferson Parish, where we live at -- if we can block them five passes right now, these fishermen can tell you that we can save -- continue to save the rest of the 2 million acres of oysters.

We have $2 billion worth of seafood that comes out behind me, right in this estuary -- $2 billion worth.  We have a billion dollars of recreational license -- recreational fishing -- that generates to the marinas, to all the stores, all the way across Louisiana.  But these guys -- this woman here with the convenience store, if we lose the estuaries in the back, we're history.  And they’ll tell you that.

We're born and raised -- our grandfathers, grandmothers.  We made a living right here behind us.  There’s no reason why this shrimp boat should be tied up, it don’t have skimmers on it, to make sure we can block the oil until we put these booms.  And I'm asking you to --

THE PRESIDENT:  To go to work.  Last week when I was talking to the Mayor, he started choking up just talking about the fact that out of his own pocket he was having to provide some help and some loans to his buddies, to fishermen, folks in the area.  That's what we should be able to prevent.  There’s oil washing in, but people can help each other.  And the company that's responsible can make sure that it’s responding quickly and effectively.

And when the Mayor told me that story it was, I think, an example of what’s happening all across this Gulf Coast.  And it’s going to be multiplied not just in Louisiana, but in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Florida.  There are small communities like this all across the Gulf and they’ve got to make sure that their voice is being heard day in, day out.

And I know that they’ve got a fierce advocate in Thad Allen.  But I wanted you to know that behind Thad Allen stands the President of the United States.

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  And like I said, since the last time you’ve been here, the Coast Guard is unbelievable.  Admiral, I want you to know that.  You guys are really working 24 hours for us.  And you did push BP.  And, like I said, I'm very emotional because I'm still giving -- I'm not going to cut the water off, I'm not going to cut the electricity off, and I'm not going to cut the gas off.  I have one of the businesses right now that has a $5,200 electricity bill, and I'm calling energy to make sure not to cut him off.

When these businesspeople come up to you and say it’s time to help, it’s not easy.  And Patti can tell you -- the night before last I told her that I'm going to keep you strong, I'm going the try to bring you more business.  Butch calls me, telling me we need more boats, get some vessel of opportunities. He’s fighting to save his oysters.  I'm trying to keep Grand Isle alive, to try to get tours.  I opened the beach Memorial Sunday at 3:00 p.m. -- people were calling me.  So the marinas can sell a towel so these young kids can lay on the beach.

And watching oil come across the shore -- some people think I'm better than God, you know.  That's how serious this is.  And they’ll tell you, I live right down the street.  I've been averaging two hours of sleep, just going in and looking at the ceiling fan and wondering what’s going to happen tomorrow, and praying to God that no more oil comes on the beach.

So, like Terry said earlier, his wife is sick.  I bring seven people a day to -- New Orleans in a van, to cross that long bridge you crossed, and putting gas in the truck to make sure that we can keep the help.  And we help each other.  And we don't have no money, don't matter.  We help each other.  That's what we do.


THE PRESIDENT:  Well, that's supposed to be what the entire United States does, is helping each other.

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  Exactly.

TERRY VEGAS:  We're not bitter at the oil companies for what’s happening. We're just bitter at those that cut the corners and cause the havoc that we're having right now.

VOICE:  It’s not getting cleaned up fast enough.

VOICE:  -- the oil company down here and we enjoy the business.  We support them.

THE PRESIDENT:  Well, I think the point with the oil companies is they’ve got to support you the same way you support them.  And they’ve got to make sure that -- because there are a lot of folks in the oil business who do the right thing and who aren’t cutting corners.  We've just got to make sure that we find out what happened and that those who are responsible are held responsible; that we fix whatever is wrong.  We're still going to need the oil production, but we've got to make sure that we do it in the right way, because we just can't have a situation like this happen again.

VOICE:  Can't have that happen all the time,, no.

VOICE:  Have to follow the rules.

VOICE:  Just tell the truth.

VOICE:  From day one they lied to us -- BP.  They said 1,000 barrels a day, then said it’s 2,000 -- put the tube in there, it was 5,000 -- now it’s up to 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.  Just tell the people the truth, you know.  That's all we want.

MAYOR CAMARDELLE:  Like I said, the biggest shrimp dock in America is right here in Grand Isle.  It’s Blanche’s Seafood.  And he’s completely shut down.  They’ll tell you, the boats are tied up.  How many boats does he have right now -- about 100, close to 100 boats just tied up.  And you’ve got the Vietnamese families, you’ve got the true Cajun people here, and they’re just sitting on the deck of the boat and just waiting on the vessel of opportunity.

And I want to respect the Admiral and BP, where they try.  It’s just since you left, they’ve made a big change.  Since you came to me, you made a big change and we support you for that.  But we just worry.  You hear us here and we worry.  And we don't know what’s going to happen tomorrow.  And that's why we depend on you -- both of you guys -- to make sure that -- and you heard them today.  We don't want to be on food stamps -- none of my people -- we want to just untie the boat, be able to see your two daughters right here and kiss them in the evening and Daddy’s going to work.
                       END

Guest blogger: Why no prosecution for torture?

By John Dudley, a member of the Miami Beach Democratic Club

‘Words’ do have consequences. The former vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, has been campaigning on Fox News almost daily claiming that American torture has saved American lives. To call him a liar would be too easy. Apparently Cheney’s torture couldn’t save the lives of the 4,294 American soldiers that have died in combat or the 31,249 American soldiers that have been wounded. So when he says that ‘torture’ has saved American lives, which is untrue, no one has asked which American lives is he referring to.

In a nice twist of words, he also states that America hasn’t had a domestic terrorist attack on our homeland. Do Americans owe this new found safety to Dick Cheney’s torture? In over 200 years, America has only been attacked on its homeland twice; once by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor in 1941 and second by Al Qaeda in 2001 while Cheney and the Republican Party were in office.

So for seven years thereafter, Cheney is claiming that ‘torture’ has kept Americans safe. As infuriating as these false claims are, Cheney recently added that former President George W. Bush approved it. What consequences do these words have?

Let’s start with ‘torture’. The 27 BC Romans used torture for interrogation. Yes, torture is over 2000 years old. More recently (nearly 200 years ago), torture was abolished by Frederick the Great in Prussia in 1740. Italy followed suit in 1786, followed by France in 1789 and Russia in 1801. America 2003? In 2009, under President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder, torture has been abolished in the United States.

For goodness sake, torture has been illegal in the United States, at least, since 1882. Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is: "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

Signatories of the Third Geneva Convention and Fourth Geneva Convention officially agree not to torture prisoners in armed conflicts. Torture is also prohibited by the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The four Geneva Conventions provide protection for people who fall into enemy hands.

The Geneva Conventions consist of four treaties formulated in Geneva, Switzerland, that set the standards for international law for humanitarian concerns. Common Article 3 has been called a "Convention in miniature." It is the only article of the Geneva Conventions that applies in non-international conflicts.

It describes minimal protections which must be adhered to by all individuals within a signatory's territory during an armed conflict not of an international character (regardless of citizenship or lack thereof): Noncombatants, combatants who have laid down their arms, and combatants who are hors de combat (out of the fight) due to wounds, detention, or any other cause shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, including prohibition of outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment. The passing of sentences must also be pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples. Article 3's protections exist even though no one is classified as a prisoner of war.

Nearly all 200 countries of the world are "signatory" nations, in that they have ratified these conventions. Clara Barton was instrumental in campaigning for the ratification of the First Geneva Convention by the United States; the U.S. signed in 1882. On August 22, 1864 several European states congregated in Geneva and signed the First Geneva Convention.

The United States Code is the codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States. Crimes and Criminal Procedure, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C, Section 2340A states (a) Offense.— Whoever outside the United States commits or attempts to commit torture shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both, and if death results to any person from conduct prohibited by this subsection, shall be punished by death or imprisoned for any term of years or for life. (b) Jurisdiction.— There is jurisdiction over the activity prohibited in subsection (a) if— (1) the alleged offender is a national of the United States; or (2) the alleged offender is present in the United States, irrespective of the nationality of the victim or alleged offender. (c) Conspiracy.— A person who conspires to commit an offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties (other than the penalty of death) as the penalties prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.

So why isn’t Dick Cheney being prosecuted for breaking the law and committing war crimes? US Attorney General Eric Holder is correct, “we (the United States) are a nation of cowards”. The top attorney is now guilty of his own words. He and the Democrats are the cowards. The Democratic Party as a whole is suffering from cowardice, which is the lack of courage to face danger, difficulty, opposition, pain, etc. Cowardice is the complete opposite of bravery. The extremely unpopular Republican party motivates their members with ‘fear’. Unfortunately, it is the Democratic Party that is suffering from fear. Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid; apprehension, consternation, dismay, terror, fright, panic, horror, trepidation. If the US Attorney General won’t prosecute and the Democratic Party won’t prosecute, who has the courage to prosecute former Vice-President Dick Cheney?

Miami thinker lays out a tough argument on torture and the Bush administration

Michael Froomkin, law professor at the University of Miami, has been writing extremely pointedly on torture for quite a while, and his argument now is honed to perfection. It’s on his superb blog, discourse.net, and here’s the first paragraph:

An important part of the war crimes defense strategy employed by US torturers has been to plead advice of counsel. This modern version of the ‘just following orders’ defense has had two strands. Both are unraveling.

Read it and become wise. Takes only a few minutes. Are the judges listening?

Did you see that? – objections to the torture memo were suppressed. As in Watergate, it’s the coverup that is fatal.

I’m reading this after having had my poor brain assaulted by Sean Hannity and Oliver North this evening. It was, as usual, via the car radio and I was driving, so I made no notes, and what follows is mere paraphrasing. Hannity let convicted felon North rip with raving: That what Obama is doing will be the absolute end of the United States, that this will lead to the collapse of the intelligence services and the military, and all morale will crumble, and on and on.

Any wingnut listening out there must hear the trumpets calling: Rise up, take arms. Don’t they understand the drive of their words? Violence.

Grating moments ...

This compilation has been emailed to me three times now and it still makes me laugh. So, in case you missed it, here's our blessedly former president showing his usual eloquence and class.

DailyKos takes up donation drive for Joe Garcia and Annette Taddeo

George W. Bush is such a recruiter for Democratic victory. He's coming to Miami today to raise money for his rubber-stamp party, and this inspires the blogosphere to start opening their wallets for two of our superb congressional candidates, Annette Taddeo in FL-18 and Joe Garcia in FL-25.

Here's the post on DailyKos, by Kos himself, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, with its special link to the ActBlue donation site.


These two fine candidates are no strangers to Markos, as they attended the Netroots Nation convention in Austin back in mid-July and were repeated stars of the national progressive crowd there.

If you've been waiting for an excuse to donate again -- surely you've donated repeatedly to them, right? -- this is a great moment to reply to W and help Garcia and Taddeo.

Last night I was at an Obama fundraiser on Miami Beach, where one of the guests said that Barack Obama should say at his inauguration in January that he owes his election to one man. Who. I wondered? "President Bush," was the answer.

Testing the First Amendment with the Bush Legacy Bus

Email inbox reports that Miami police did a motorcycle box around the Bush Legacy Tour yesterday, and here’s the video from Channel 4.



Funny, the guy in the beard looks familiar.

Here’s some text from the email, sent by Julie Blust of the Bush Legacy Tour, sponsored by Americans United for Change, which was formed in 2005 to oppose privatization of Social Security.

You need to hear about the Bush Legacy Tour's stop near Miami yesterday.
The local AFL-CIO set us up with space a few doors down from their office, which happened to be in front of McCain/Palin headquarters.

Before we arrived, though, the Miami police were out in force. But so were dozens of supporters. The police wouldn't let the bus stop. They surrounded us on motorcycles and prevented us from turning in to the parking lot.

Instead, we did a few laps around the strip mall, with the crowd of supporters going wild each time we did. Fortunately there were news crews already there and they captured the whole thing.

We eventually tried to park in the AFL-CIO parking lot nearby, but it was a tight turn, so we needed to swing wide and turn from the middle lane to do it. The amazing guys from the local came out and helped safely block traffic so we could finally get off the road and allow the large crowd on to see the exhibits.

Well, the police didn't like that and tried to ticket our driver!

A lot of truckers drove by during the course of all this and many of them honked to show their support, but some of them got ticketed.

If there's been one consistent theme as this bus has crossed the country, it's that everywhere we go, we draw attention to the Bush legacy. Protesters, supporters, reporters, and everyone in between -- when the Bush Legacy Bus pulls into your town, you can't help but look.

Blame the rich for the subprime crisis

Thanks to Joy Reid for the tip on this one.

Do we remember how Eliot Spitzer was found out? Oh, yeah, his bank turned him in. Finally, herein, a possible reason. And why the poor and minorities should not be blamed for the subprime crisis.




Some say we don't have a subprime mortgage crisis. It's a subprime economy crisis.

How's Barack doing?

You've seen the headline stuff about Barack Obama's brilliant appearance at University of Miami's BankUnited Center before 8,000 very happy people. This report will assume you're up on the main points, and I'll cover some side elements.

This was the fifth time I've seen him speak in person, and never has he spoken with such power. Was it only that the sound system was totally cranked up? I don't think so. He's ahead or rising in the polls, the economic issues have turned fully negative on the Republicans and it's entirely their own doing, and Obama is in his full stride with six weeks-plus to go.

He has a way of tugging on the heartstrings that I don't see analyzed much. In the past week I finally finished reading "Dreams from my Father," his memoir that we may think of as a recent book, but which in fact was published in 1995, "before his political career began," as Wikipedia puts it.

The book is full of tender and penetrating thoughts about his parents and everything he was discovering in his background (subtitle is "A Story of Race and Inheritance"), and as I read, my eyes often welled up with emotion and admiration of his power to describe.

His standard speech uses this repeatedly. His late mother appears and becomes a reason for his race for the presidency, through the evocative trauma of her fight against cancer and the health insurance maze. His still-living grandmother Dunham is in there, too, with her determined but slow rise in the business world and encounter with the glass ceiling. In the book, his African female relatives are the lead characters in his sojourn in Kenya, and he brims over with empathy for their struggles. I don't see how women, especially, can avoid succumbing to him. "This is personal, for me," he said about health care issues and his mother's final illness.

So in his speech Friday afternoon, Obama brought out memories of his mother and grandmother with the refrain, "That's why I'm running for president." And not to forget his wife, Michelle, whom he likened to the Chaka Khan song "I'm Every Woman." John McCain is a weak opponent in this area, as Obama counted McCain's deficiencies in equal pay, abortion, discrimination and health care.

McCain. in a speech earlier Friday, somehow tried to blame Obama for the economic mess. "I think it's clear," Obama retorted, "that Sen. McCain is a little panicked right now."

Further: on the silliness of Republican charges, "That's what you do when you're out of ideas."

It was interesting to hear him say that he supports the crisis intervention the Bush administration now is undertaking -- he specifically named Treasury Secretary Paulson and Fed Chief Bernanke, not Bush -- and he said he backs bipartisan work in Congress to find solutions.

Finally, he cited "my friend Hillary Clinton" and her 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

One last note: the honor of introducing him was given to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-20), who declared that Obama will be carried to the presidency "by the women of this country." A few weeks ago she was not in the Obama camp but rather fighting every way possible to get Sen. Clinton the nomination. In Denver she also was honored by giving one of the seconding speeches for Obama, so I've got to say she has come around to the good side of the ledger throughout. Reward: in all the TV images of this speech she's sitting right there behind him. Further payment by her: her endorsement of all three Democratic candidates for congress from South Florida, Annette Taddeo (FL-18), Joe Garcia (FL-25) and Raul Martinez (FL-21), who were mentioned by name in Obama's speech. (Correcting that they were NOT on stage.)

McSame demo with cutouts

Almost alarming, how much these cutouts look like the real perps.



John McCain was raising money Monday afternoon at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Miami, and a crowd of about 50 of us from the Miami-Dade Democratic Party and the AFL-CIO demonstrated for two hours, getting good response from motorists on Biscayne Boulevard and from people waiting for the next Metromover.

He ain't no maverick, we said, with signs and cutouts on the theme of Six of One, Half a Dozen of the other.

UPDATE: Here's a link to a CBS4 report on the event. Click on the first video to see ample coverage of our demonstration.

For your viewing pleasure

The Diaz-Balart brothers are stars of this little video.

(Tried to embed it but that function flopped, but the link below should work, too. The video also can be seen at onesouthflorida.com)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wczlXTrT0YM

Homeless in Alachua County

Your blogger is on the road again, but the headline above does not refer to me. I’m safely housed in Super8 Country tonight somewhere between Tallahassee and Pensacola en route to the bloggers’ convention in Austin via back-roads Louisiana.

As I was barreling up I-75 past Gainesville I believe the FM locked on UF public radio for a while and there was a local story about a big surge of homelessness in Alachua County. I was driving and couldn’t take notes, of course, but I believe they said the number was up 40 percent from last year, and the total was 1,800. Taking care of the homeless is more difficult than usual because donations to charities are off, the report said.

This is what we get after a Bush as governor and a Bush as president. How could this have happened in our splendidly well-educated land?

Anyway, I am away from my usual desk for a couple weeks but will try to blog as much as possible. This is also a time for readers to step up and contribute tasty comments, photos, song and dance. If you’d like to post something on the main page, email it to me and I’ll try to put it up crediting you as guest blogger.

Restaurant Review: Jay’s Restaurant on US 90 in Live Oak serves up a mean liver and onions. Don’t tell my cardiologist.

FISA analysis

Our colleague Joy Reid has a fine rundown on the FISA vote in the U.S. House over on her blog. It includes this recap of how our local Democrats voted:

While we were on the air, Hastings voted for the bill, which is unfortunate in my opinion. To their credit, Kendrick Meek, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Robert Wexler voted no. Maybe Wexler can convince Obama to reject it when it reaches the Senate.

Thank you, Debbie, Kendrick and Robert for being on the side of the angels!

And what Joy's talking about regarding Obama is his statement that he'll try to get retroactive immunity out of the bill. Let's hope.

In case there's doubt, our Republican incumbents, Ileana Ros Lehtinen and Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart, all voted for what Sen Russ Feingold calls a "capitulation" to the Bush administration on warrantless wiretapping.

Wings with Joe vs. banquet with Worst President Ever

This would be an easy choice for me: Fast food with Joe Garcia or fundraiser with the Worst President Ever and the guy running against Joe Garcia.

Sign me up, Joe!

Er, I would go if it weren't that Barack Obama will be in town on Saturday and I hope to be listening to his speech to the U.S. Mayors Conference Saturday afternoon. Sorry, Joe!

But everyone else is welcome to lunch with Joe, 2 p.m. Saturday at Sports Grill in Kendall, 104th Street and 147th Avenue. Man, this is out there with the alligators, right?

Take your checkbook or (better yet) donate in advance online so that Joe Garcia will keep up with Mario Diaz-Balart and the Worst President who ever wielded a rubber stamp, George W. Bush.

Click on www.joegarcia08.com/contribute to get aboard.

This event was previewed on Naked Politics the other day.

UPDATE: Friday afternoon this topic was on the front page of DailyKos, with Markos himself writing an appeal to help Joe. Thank you, Markos!

Joe TV: how to combat the Bush/Diaz-Balart linkup

A little message from Joe Garcia surfaced in my inbox. Time to listen to the man who will do such a better job in FL-25 than the incumbent:

From the Crawford ranch to the threshold of federal prison?

The headline above refers not to the president but to one of his guests: Zachariah Zachariah. Wednesday’s Miami Herald has the excellent revelation that “insider trading figure has ties to Bush family.” Thanks, Beth Reinhard, for laying this one out for us.

It’s fitting that this is about insider trading. The currently ruling crowd thinks the law doesn’t apply to them, and they can make up the rules as they wish. Whether it’s war by deceit or signing statements that change the will of Congress, it’s OK for the White House. And don’t worry about making stock market profits on information not available to the public. We don’t care if it’s not fair or legal or moral – just do it.

I’m going to shift gears here and post a link to an article in The Atlantic June issue, just hot from my mailbox, that revealed a lot to me about how Barack Obama has been able to raise a quarter of a billion dollars. Not from so many big donors, according to this long piece in the magazine, but from a ton of smaller donors. Well, we knew that, but … the detail, the detail – how?

There’s also an article with some predictions of how the Obama administration will use the internet in new ways.

Obama clearly intends to use the Web, if he is elected president, to transform governance just as he has transformed campaigning. Notably, he has spoken of conducting “online fireside chats” as president. And when one imagines how Obama’s political army, presumably intact, might be mobilized to lobby for major legislation with just a few keystrokes, it becomes possible, for a moment at least, to imagine that he might change the political culture of Washington simply by overwhelming it.

Now there’s an interesting thought: to overwhelm the political culture of Washington. And this form of money raising through many smaller donors leaves Obama less vulnerable to accusations of influence by big donors. Anyone remember the selling of the Lincoln Bedroom? Too cringe-making.

One more reason to oppose McCain

He's against equal pay for equal work. Here's a link to today's NY Times editorial on this topic, which you may recall from a decision by the activist judges on the loyal Bushie Supreme Court that made it impossible to contest unfair pay. So McCain is for activist judges as well as against equal pay. Makes you wonder what he spent all that time in captivity for.

"Condi must go" petition -- a good idea

An email rolled in from Democracy for America and hit my Sign-Petition button right on center. Signing helped me recover from the helpless feeling that followed the ABC debate the other night.

Have a look yourself:

Sometimes I try to understand why public events can have such an impact on my happiness. Hey, things are pretty good for me, why do I get down when someone in government screws up bigtime. Thank goodness for great literature, in which the lines often have nuggets of wisdom. Today I started rereading Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," and there in the early pages Marlow tells his companions why he was struck by unease as he was introduced to his new environment.

"You know, I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie ... There is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies ... It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do."

This is what we're getting from the loyal Bushies, and they wonder why we're bitter.

YouTube remedy for wavering on McCain

Keep watching to the end, where your distaste for John McCain will be reinforced.

Florida Congressional District 18: famous squatting

Thanks for the tip! Sorry to be late catching up with this one.

Some terrible people in Washington are making fun of my representative in the U.S. House. Darn, what is that Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-18) doing to make them snarky?

She’s got all this influence, you know, from her zillion years in the House, so what’s wrong with her “squatting” there in the House so that she can get a little extra time with the Commander in Chief?

Wait, maybe it’s not exactly extra time. Maybe this is the only time she gets with Bush. So she squats there trying for a spot on the aisle so she can have a second or two with him. Then she goes home and flashes the photo – See! Me and the President having a chat!

Sorry, that’s it. All she got this year was three or four seats in from the aisle – maybe a wave or a fingertip brush – and that’s it for the last year of a presidential term.

And – people were watching and writing it up on blogs. Some with impolite terms of reference, which you may see if you Google “Ileana Ros Lehtinen squatting.”

Here’s part of Politico’s writeup:

Lawmakers like Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Todd R. Platts (R-Pa.), Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), Mary Bono (R-Calif.), Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) are so-called State of the Union Day squatters.

Bachmann, you may recall, drew headlines last year after she kept her hand on Bush’s shoulder for a record 30 seconds and then reached in for a smooch.

...

“Being there, in that place, on that night,” Ros-Lehtinen echoed, “it’s just thrilling.”

The day of waiting, however, is not, the congresswomen said. Ros-Lehtinen always brings a “mountain of paperwork” to the chamber to kill time.

....

If Capito has to walk away, she always leaves the stack of paperwork on her seat, a signal to her colleagues that someone has already reserved that spot — or if she has to go far or use the facilities, she has Ros-Lehtinen hold her place for her.

“She watches my back and I watch hers,” Ros-Lehtinen confirmed.

But being on the aisle only goes so far. One must stand out in a room of black, steel gray and navy blue, the lawmakers said.

Despite her best efforts, Ros-Lehtinen couldn’t secure a seat soon enough. She and Capito had to settle for spots three and four seats away from the aisle.

“I’m not too disappointed,” Ros-Lehtinen said Monday evening. “I’ll still reach over and talk to the president about the [Florida] primary tomorrow.”

Next time we send someone to Washington from FL-18, how about a little depth? A person who will win influence? Not a fawner? We are so ready for change.

Congress overrides Bush veto

First time. Let's call this a precedent.

And it was overwhelming, as the NY Times puts it.