This Bud isn't for you.

I understand that the board of directors of a corporation is only responsible to it shareholders but it seems to me that there must be more.  Anheuser-Busch was recently sold to InBev, a Germany company for a gazillon dollars ($52 billion).  The stockholders, including Cindy McCain, are doing a victory dance.  Everyone is happy.  InBev gets to decrease competition.  Upper management and stockholders of Anheuser-Busch get to cash in.  Yahoo!  Everybody dance.  

It seems there are some folks that aren’t dancing, again.  American Workers.  The employees of Anheuser-Busch aren’t dancing.  InBev is going to cut costs - their specialty.  Cutting cost is business speak for firing workers and making the workers who stay work harder for less money.  This is a very common scenario.  We, Americans, should be use to this by now.  We have seen companies buyout other companies and then institute "cost" savings.  Wall Street loves this.  The stock usually will skyrocket and folks with money will make more money.  

The Errington Thompson Show is a progressive political talk show that airs on 880 AM (streaming) from the beautiful mountains of Asheville, NC on Saturday's at 9 am EST.  Today, we are talking with Linda Monk, constitutional scholar, about several recent Supreme Court rulings - guns, Exxon, Gitmo and more.  It should be fun.  You should join us!

Congratulations, Glenn Greenwald.  Glenn Greenwald challenged both Barack Obama and Keith Olbermann over this FISA legislation.  The bottom line, as Glenn pointed out, was that Barack Obama stood firmly against immunity for the telecom companies during the primaries.  Now that he is one step away from the White House, he appears to be playing politics, and backing off from this pledge.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

You know, I'm tired.  I'm tired of liberals acting like conservatives. Now, as I flipped through the liberal handbook I can't find anywhere where supporting spying on Americans is a liberal ideal.  So, can somebody explain to me, why this new FISA legislation is good for us, liberals, or good for the country.  There is so much about its domestic spying program that we know nothing about.

I interviewed Kargo X, of Daily Kos fame and fortune, for the ins and outs of what happened this week.  As you may or may not remember at the beginning of this week, FISA looked like a slam dunk (sorry, I couldn't help myself) but by the middle of the week, it had lost a significant amount of steam.  Senators Dodd and Feingold stood up and spoke out.  Interestingly, we never heard a firm statement from Senator Leahy which I think is important.  The chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee is silent on this subject.  Curious.  

Update: This Netroots community is quickly organizing to fight this FISA legislation.  The House slipped the bill passed us too quickly for us to mount an adequate response.  Below is more information from some of the guys who are writing some great stuff on this issue.  (I have posted some more stuff on FISA including an audio interview with McJoan here and here.)

Senator Chris Dodd took to the Senate floor last night. (I'll get the video as soon as it is available) Thankfully, he will oppose the FISA legislation. here's a portion of what he said:

Now, I know that everyone is typing furiously to try to be the first post which mentioned Markos on Countdown.  I can't type that fast.  But what I can do is embed the video.  Here's Kos on FISA and Obama.  

I spoke with McJoan early today about FISA.  Here's that interview.

Senator Hillary Clinton has really been through a lot over the last 6 months. In November of 2007, she was the front runner by a long margin in the democratic race. She was able to look over the Republican field and know that she was smart enough and political enough to beat any of the Republicans in the general election. She was going to be the next president of the United States. Well, that was 6 months ago. She lost Iowa but had a nice come back in New Hampshire. She split Super Tuesday - not so good. She then lost 12 or 13 contests in a row. Just like that, she went from front runner to runner up.

Throughout the 70s when the Dallas Cowboys were clearly the best team in the NFL, fans like me let losses roll off our backs. We could do this because we knew that the Cowboys were always the best team on the field. They just didn't play up to their potential. Well, the Senator Hillary Clinton supporters are now using the same argument that caused Pittsburgh Steeler fans to yell, "Look at the scoreboard" at Cowboy fans.

They are trying to argue that Clinton would be best at the top of the ticket. They argue that she is the best candidate.  A group of Hillary Superdelegates have gone so far as write a letter which expresses why they think that Clinton is the best candidate.

With Indiana and North Carolina, the largest cache of delegates before the convention in Denver, finished their voting process.  What have we learned?  Nothing.  Nothing will be decided.  Both candidates will have more votes and more delegates.  Neither will drop out of the race.  And so it goes.  I have been searching for the point of Hillary Clinton staying in the race.  I think that I have finally found one.

I understand that the DailyKos is a political website.  The purpose of this website is to promote democratic values and the Democratic Party.  But still, I don't understand why there hasn't been several main posts in over 50 diary posts on the Jena 6.

I know that there area seemingly endless number of civil rights and civil liberties violations by the Bush administration but the egregious inequities that have occurred in Jena, Louisiana need to be brought to the attention of all progressives.

The very first question of the "debate" went to Mitt Romney. Not only did he fumble the ball. He wasn’t even suited out to play the right game. Here’s the question and answer:

From WaPo Charles Krauthammer's Op Ed (my comments are italics):

There are lies and there are memory lapses. Bill Clinton denied under oath having sex with Monica Lewinsky. Unless you're Wilt Chamberlain, sex is not the kind of thing you forget easily. Sandy Berger denied stuffing classified documents in his pants, an act not quite as elaborate as sex, but still involving a lot of muscle memory and unlikely to have been honestly forgotten.

   Bill Clinton paid for his lies by being impeached. Sandy Berger paid for his lies by pleading no contest. He was fined and given a two-year probation. I love the way conservatives tried to downplay Scooter Libby's felony. This opening paragraph suggests that nothing happened to Bill Clinton and there were no consequences for Sandy Berger. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

In WaPo:

Retreat isn't an Option

By Liz Cheney (The writer is former principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs.)

Sen. Hillary Clinton declared this weekend, " I’m in to win." Anyone who has watched her remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she’ll do whatever it takes to win the presidency. I wish she felt the same way about the war.In fairness, Clinton, with her proposal for arbitrary caps on troop levels and hemming and hawing about her vote for the war resolution, has company on both sides of the aisle. Sen. Joseph Lieberman is the only national Democrat showing any courage on this issue. We Republicans — with help from senators such as Chuck Hagel — seem ready to race the Democrats to the bottom. (Read the rest of her fantasy world here.)

So? What has happened since 2000? I just interviewed Stephen Freeman, author of Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? Well it appears that there is overwhelming evidence that the election was stolen. Election wasn't stolen any one matter but instead in multiple different manners. This occurred not just in one state, Ohio, but several states. How many votes? Maybe as many as 9 million votes were stolen. If this is true, what have we done to improve the system since 2004? Really, what major changes have been put in place since the year 2000?

What the H#$$?

From NYT:

A federal judge on Tuesday threw out the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Kenneth L. Lay, the former Enron executive, who died of heart failure in July while on vacation in Colorado.

Judge Simeon T. Lake III ruled that the conviction must be voided because Mr. Lay cannot pursue an appeal his guilty verdict.

The decision, which had been expected, prevents the government from trying to seize more than $43.5 million from Mr. Lay's estate that prosecutors claimed he stole from Enron before it collapsed in 2001.more

21 people up in arrested in London connected with a plot to blow up airplanes heading for the United States.  Early reports indicate that the plotters may be connected with Al Qaeda.  Also, that the perpetrators would use liquid explosives hidden in common drinks like a Coke or Pepsi.  Man, this sounds familiar.  Doesn't it?  I remember reading something...

Dan Balz, columnist for the Washington Post, today is talking about the significance of the Lamont-Lieberman race in Connecticut.  Unfortunately, I think Mr. Balz misses the point.  The point isn't whether you supported the war in 2002 or not, the electorate will forgive you for that.  The point is the lack of criticism over the last 18 months for the missteps, miscues and miscalculations of the War in Iraq.  Lieberman support of the Bush administration's policies has been almost total and absolute.  Many Republicans have not been that supportive.  That is the point of this election.  The point is not the popularity of the blogosphere, in my opinion.