On this day in 1951, Supreme Court Justice Stanley Reed agreed that the contempt of court convictions of Dashiell Hammett and two other defendents, stemming from their refusal to testify regarding the skipping bail of four Communist leaders, should be upheld. This assured that one of the most prominent members of the American literary community would spend the next six months in prison. It should not have surprised anyone that prison was an experience of which Hammett would avail himself. Nor should it surprise anyone that it was over a matter of political principle.
McCain is impugning Obama's patriotism in a way no other nominee has, in the last 50 years. Not Nixon. Not Bush 43 advised by Karl Rove. Not Bush 41, helped by Lee Atwater.
When we adopted the surge, we were losing the war in Iraq, and I stood up and said I would rather lose a campaign than lose a war. Apparently Sen. Obama, who does not understand what’s happening in Iraq or fails to acknowledge the success in Iraq, would rather lose a war than lose a campaign.
McCain is charging Obama with treason.
Not even Sen. McCarthy went this far, accusing a political opponent trying to lose a war to win an election. But we need to look that far back for a fitting response.
Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?..If there is a God in heaven, it will do neither you nor your cause any good.
I thought it might be illuminating to share my political journey; Hillary and I are almost the same age. My first specific political memory centered around the duck-and-cover, hide-under-our-desks, exercises that were a regular feature of my early school life from age 5 on. I knew enough about nuclear war to be terrified. We lived one mile away from an air force base, and I used to go out to the backyard, look up at the planes, and try to determine if they were American or Russian. What I thought I could do about it, I don't remember. I even checked a book out of the library on aircraft identification. When I heard Joseph Stalin died when I was 7, I remember asking if that meant no one would drop atom bombs on us
In 1954, when I was 9, I had a severe case of the measles and my Grandma Nolan came to help nurse me. My eyes hurt so much I had to stay in a darkened room and couldn't read. Grandma was listening to the Joseph McCarthy army hearings. Hatred of McCarthy's voice might have shaped my entire political development.
Down in the bowels of Fox News lurks Ambush Central, the sacred room where the real decisions are made. Here the Fox News brain-trusts gather for their regular 5:30 am meeting. Seated at a large oval table are Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, Brian Kilmeade, Fred Barnes, Brit Hume, Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, Bill O’Reilly, Alisyn Camerota, Sean Hannity, Alan Colmes, Juan Williams, James P. Pinkerton, Neil Cavuto, Liz Trotta. Hovering over the table are the Ghosts of Joseph McCarthy, Ronald Reagan, George W Bush (brainless), Karl Rove (heartless), Dick Cheney (soulless), Donald Rumsfeld (gutless), and Christmas Past (joyless). At the head of the table sits Roger Ailes.
Senator Joe McCarthy returns from the dead! And he has reappeared in the form of Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) communication director and Clinton backer, Rick Sloan.
Clinton Backer Distributes Essay On How GOP Would Link Obama To '70s Radicals
A high-ranking labor supporter of Hillary Clinton is distributing to union leaders and to Democratic strategists a document detailing the radical activities of Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, two former members of the `70s group the Weather Underground, who decades later, in Chicago, crossed paths with Barack Obama.
The document - a three-page emailed essay by Rick Sloan, communications director for the International Association of Machinists as Aerospace Workers (IAMAW) -- takes both literary and political license to outline what Sloan believes would be the thrust of a hypothetical Republican campaign against Obama focusing on his tangential connection to Ayers and Dohrn.
The goal of the essay appears to be to discredit Obama as the prospective Democratic presidential nominee.
If last night's debate didn't convince you that Hillary Clinton would go as far as to destroy the Democratic Party in her quest for power, then I suppose nothing will. But after last night, it has become very clear that Clinton is not acting alone. There is a coconspirator in the bludgeoning of the Obama campaign. That conspirator is the corporate media and the weapon they used is something we used to call McCarthyism. I think it's high time we bring back that name to describe the tactics used by Clinton and the corporate media.
As always, the idea here is definitely not to come off as some kind of expert, but rather to stimulate discussion and sharing on some pretty-much non-poilitical topics (although more political tonight than ever before).
Wine: La Vieille Ferme, Cotes du Ventoux Rouge, 2005
Claiming she has vastly more experience than her opponent, Hillary Clinton released a campaign commercial showing children asleep in their beds as a doomsday voice asks "Who's most qualified to answer the White House phone when it rings at three in the morning?" Which makes a valid point. She's answered that phone many times at three a.m. – but it was usually Bill asking her to call him a cab. In a full-press TV studio assault, Hillary made a cameo appearance on "Saturday Night Live" followed by a drop in on "The Daily Show." Her delegate numbers may be in the tank, but she's now the front-runner to win "Last Comic Standing."
They are the beginning of a fantastic column in this morning's New York Times entitled Spies Like You and Me. Extracting cannot hope to do it justice. I do urge you to read the entire piece. But excerpt it I will. And even though I am not in Bob Herbert's league as a writer, I will also, per my custom, offer a few comments of my own.
So you are welcome to keep reading, and then to add your thoughts on the thread. Or you can simply use the link above and go read Herbert. If you do even that, this diary will have served its primary purpose.
In a recent article in The Weekly Standard about Rudy Giuliani (R-Fox News), fittingly titled, "Rudy Giuliani, Disciplinarian", Rudy gave us a preview into the outright lies, distortions and accusations of disloyalty that are sure to characterize his campaign should he become the Republican nominee next year.
This is one of those personal diaries that might get deleted because it's not political. On the other hand, I can make it political without a lot of effort. I'm going to go to the bedside of an old lady who needs help and part of why she needs help could be due to Joseph McCarthy. He and his committee didn't ruin her life, but they sure enough tried, and they made her a lot less secure financially.
She worked in the American Embassy in Russia during WWII and knew Russian (gasp!). That's where my parents met her--they worked there, too. When she returned to the US, she was in D.C. and well on her way to a good career, especially for a woman back then.
Then McCarthy hit and because they associated with people who knew Russian and a few who were actual Russians** (gasp!) she and my mother were pushed out of their career paths. By then my father worked for the private sector, so he was okay. Both women were called upon to testify before Congress. My mother got out of it because she was busy giving birth to my oldest sister. But my family's friend lost her D.C. job and never worked for the government again (My mother managed to get her job and eventually her career back. I think her GS wasn't as high? I never did the story completely straight and I wish I had because now it might be too late.)
Here is a nugget by way of Limited, Inc. and The Virginian-Pilot. It's a profile of just one of the current players involved in the tangled evils of Blackwater. His name is Joseph Schmitz, and he is the "chief operating officer and general counsel of the Prince Group," Blackwater's parent company.
It briefly traces his connection to scandals ranging from the predictable fraud and abuse at the Pentagon through a littany of less likely connections including Ed Meese, George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, and Mary Kay LeTourneau!
I would have trouble believing one person could have connections to so many scandals, past and present, if this were a made for TV movie, yet our reality seems to have become exactly this twisted and unbelievable now.
The Republicans have a very short memory as they continue to use the MOVEON "General Betrayus" add to attack Democrats. Back in June 1951 during the peak of the Korean War a war in which over 35,000 US Troops lost their lives extreme right wing GOP Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Secretary of Defense 5-Star General George C. Marshall of "deliberate treason". He also claimed that General George Marshall had been a Communist Agent for the USSR since the 1930's and that he took orders directly from Moscow.
