Midday Open Thread

Daily Kos Staff

Monday June 04, 2007 · 10:53 AM PDT

2007/06/04 · 10:53

A grand jury in Washington is set to indict Rep. William Jefferson, D-LA, in a long-running bribery investigation. Jefferson needs to go. Hopefully he'll recognize the drag he is on the Dems and will do the right thing by resigning.

Free and fair debates? For everyone who was thinking that Wolf's time allocation to the candidates was egregiously skewed to the front-runners, you were right. At the extremes, Obama got 16 minutes of free airtime and Clinton 14 minutes, 26 seconds whereas Dodd got 7 minutes, 28 seconds and Gravel 5 minutes, 37 seconds. You can argue that the front-runners are more relevant to the debate, given their position on the national stage, but that argument weakens when you consider that Dodd and Biden have the advantage of seniority over the other senators, and thus are potentially more powerful in the senate. There are lots of other arguments for why CNN might have structured the debate that way, and Chris makes them. But as he concludes,

No matter what their justification might actually be, and no mater how reasonable it may or may not seem, CNN should at least offer an explanation for why the candidates in the top two tiers received noticeably more talk time during their debate. These numbers can't be explained away be mere randomness.

Greg and Eric at Election Central have some posts on the debate. Eric has this roundup, Greg points out that, yet again, CNN fails to identify Carville as a Clinton supporter who has sent fundraising letters on her behalf, so that when he called the debate for her, he wasn't a disinterested observer. Greg also posts about Clinton's implication that she had a more direct 9/11 experience because she's from NY, using that implication to suggest that she somehow has a greater claim on understanding terrorism than the others. That, as Greg says, buys into the "bogus Dems-don't-grasp-the-terror-threat talking point" that the GOP and the traditional media keep pulling on Dems.

Republicans are absolutely ghouls. The GOP presidential debates have proven their great love of torture. And now we've got the new chairman of the state party in Arkansas looking for another terror attack on U.S. soil. From Steven Benen filling in at C&L:

He said he’s "150 percent" behind Bush on the war in Iraq. "At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001 ], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country," Milligan said.

Note to media--that's not being tough on national security or terrorism. That's stupidity.

Planning on being in DC on June 26? If not, consider doing so, to participate in the ACLU's Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice. Rally and lobby your representatives in Congress to restore habeas corpus, fix the Military Commissions Act, and restore our constitutional rights.

Another important action item: over a quarter of a million people have urged the FCC to use a valuable slice of the public airwaves to make Internet access more open, affordable and accessible to everyone. The Commission is deciding how to set conditions on the auction of the newly available “700 MHz band” of spectrum. The comment period to the FCC on how we want this spectrum to be allocated--whether to the highest bidder among the big telecommunications companies or to a much-needed "third pipe" competitor to broadband services offered by phone and cable companies--ends today. So you can still weigh in on this decision. Use that link to tell the FCC to expand Internet access.

Finally, it was a sad weekend for Kossacks with the loss of two leading lights. The entire lefty blogosphere will mourn Steve Gilliard. His loss leaves a gaping hole in the conversation. And within in our smaller dKos community, we have to say good-bye to station wagon, one of the most steadfastly positive, funny, fun, and substantive commenters to have graced our community. pastordan has memorial service and contributions information for station wagon. Steve and Meg, we love you and will miss your voices. Godspeed.