Harry is up for a very tough reelection battle in his home state of Nevada this cycle. To win this battle he is going to need an abundance of cash and goodwill. Here is the particular swamp that Reid tops up his campaign war chest from: These lists are based on 2005 – 2010 amounts.

Highest contributors:

MGM Mirage
Weitz & Luxenberg
Harrah’s Entertainment
Girardi & Keese
Station Casinos

Lots of Las Vegasy stuff in there – hardly the people most likely to be on board with either Obama’s stated objectives or the wishes of the American people at the time of the 2008 general election.

Highest contributors by industry:

Lawyers/Law Firms
Securities & Investments
Casinos/Gambling
Real Estate
Health Professionals

Securities and Investments, Casinos and Real Estate all in the top five – again hardly going to be calling Reid and telling him to push for universal health care.

Source – with $ amounts.

Now a politician has to do what a politician has to do to get to Washington and that varies hugely depending upon which part of the country they are representing I get that but the idea is that you don’t throw everyone who is not paying top dollar for your career under the bus, (unless of course your name is Leiberman, Bayh, Lincoln, Prior, or Nelson that is). This article shows that Reid knows exactly which calls are worth making and who he needs to keep sweet:

Late last year, when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was losing members and taking fire from the White House — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called Chamber President Tom Donohue to say “Keep your chin up.”

“That call was just to remind Donahue who his friends are,” said a source familiar with the conversation. “Reid didn’t ask for an endorsement [from the Chamber], but he wanted [Donahue] to know he was a friend of the Chamber.”

I grant you that this is from Politico so there are no named sources within a country mile of the article but it does ring true based on what we know about Reid.

so, Harry is worried about what the US Chamber of Commerce (USCoC) think about him? Now is the time to start getting angry – remember those blatant lies that the USCoC peddled for months during the health care debate? Not half truths or opinions but blatant lies stated as fact. Remember how they were quite happy to be used by the insurance industry as a front for their disinformation? I wonder how many progressives have received a friendly chewing the fat type call from Harry lately.

The Politico article then indulges in a little speculation and I think that they may be onto something which should really interest us.

At the same time, several GOP-aligned interest groups are weighing whether to target Reid to help Republicans regain control of the Senate — and risk burning bridges with the Senate’s most powerful man should he manage to hang onto his seat. Some are even weighing opposition to Reid against worry about what — or who — might come next. If Reid loses and the Democrats keep their majority, the next majority leader might be someone more liberal and partisan.

“A lot of these groups are scared to death of Chuck Schumer,” said one Nevada Republican official, referring to the Democrat from New York who many expect would compete with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) for the majority leader spot if Reid loses. “They would rather have Sen. Reid as Senate majority leader than a more liberal alternative.”

This actually makes a lot of sense. If the GOP were to gain Reid’s seat at the next election it wouldn’t make much difference as far as the numbers game goes but it would mean that the Dems would have to pick a new Senate leader and the senate leader effectively gets to make the rules – think ending the filibuster for example.

A thought experiment – If there was no politician called Reid and his seat was currently in GOP hands the Democratic party and Obama’s and the majority of the American people’s wishes would be much more likely to succeed. I do realize that if Reid were to step down as Senate leader he would probably be political toast but his current position is completely untenable. We would be much better off with a slightly thinner majority and no Harry Reid.

The Bad:
Coakley was an abysmal candidate. Their is absolutely no excuse for the complacency that she showed. She may have received bad advice but that doesn’t matter, it was her candidacy. She now has to live with the consequences of her defeat and I suspect that won’t be pleasant.

Saying that, it is becoming apparent that Tim Keane is not an effective DNC Chair. Howard Dean had a definite plan for revitalizing the Democratic party and was an extremely effective organizer. The impression with Keane is one of drift.

Not many are saying this but I think that the media really does have to take a long hard look at itself. They are allowing fascism to flourish due to their insistence on covering everything as equal, a substantial well thought out position is given exactly the same weight as a wacko pulled out of someones rear end a minute before airtime. I am not talking about Fox News here – they are a known quantity and people make the required allowances, The networks and especially CNN are the big offenders.

That is it as far as blame goes, maybe a little for the Whitehouse, a missed phone call here and there but nothing systemic.

The Good

The Superbly wonderfully excellently Good:
Harry Reid has lost his cover. He can no longer play the game of not putting anything that may offend the Democratic party sponsors up for a vote on the grounds that he is a vote short. The 60 vote rule has really suited Reid, it meant that he could carry on more or less as he did on opposition. He will now have to send things for a vote which will at the very least get the GOP and Conservadems on record with some very unpopular votes.

One thing that Reid has slipped by the media and the public at large is that if a Senator knows no actual vote on an issue is going to be forthcoming he can say what he likes withour fear of reprisal. I still feel that if Reid had sent a strong healthcare reform bill up for a vote he would have got the votes. The likes of Bayh, Lincoln, Nelson et al wouldn’t have dared to vote against it as it would have been electoral suicide. While there ws no vote they could keep their paymasters happy and not piss off the voters. The only real joker in the pack was Leiberman as he had nothing to lose, his state loathed him and his chances of re-election were thin. Joe also bears a grudge and wouldn’t miss a chance to stiff the Democratic party in general and the Liberals in particular.

The normal good:
The Whitehouse must now realize that appeasing wingnuts doesn’t work on any level. Certain noises are coming from the administration indicating that this message is finally beginning to gain some traction. Obama has tried to take the moral high ground which is all good so now he get down and dirty and slap his opponents from both sides of the aisle around a bit.Make no mistake the forces for the status quo nominally on the Democrats side see this one coming and will resist. They will be out on the Sunday talk shows and cable news explaining how the Dems need to stay the course and not do anything rash. They need to be ignored, pilloried and treated with disdain – we cannot let these people turn the debate. Watch for Jim Webb to lead the charge. He sent a very strong signal last night, within minutes of the result becoming official.

Some Local Stuff
MA does have a better healthcare system than other parts of the US. Therefore this is probably where supporting health care reform wouldn’t have been a huge net positive. People do vote with their pocketbooks and telling residents of the state that they would have to pay taxes for something that they wouldn’t use was probably not the hardest sell in the world – whether it was actually true or not wouldn’t have mattered. I honestly believe that this alone accounts for the margin of victory by Scott. There is still no excuse for losing this seat though- the Dems should have been able to absorb that hit without breaking stride.

Final Thought:
There is no polite way to say this;a large chunk of the MA population is very very stupid. They have elected a proto fascist to power in Ted Kennedy’s old seat. I have long thought that it is the so called independents that pose the most danger to this country, not through design but through ignorance.

A Michigan supplier of sights for high-powered rifles has long been etching subtle references to Jesus on equipment it sells to the US military, possibly in contravention of army regulations that forbid religious proselytization.

Raw Story

The comany in question is Trijicon Inc., of Wixom, Michigan.

Image: Boing Boing

Here are some photographs, click on the small thumbnail for the larger image and the double arrow for an even larger one.

A quick note about the photography: Accuracy was deemed more important than warm and fuzzy so I went with two full spectrum daylight balanced floor lamps one on each side of the quilt. These were placed at a roughly 20 degree angle to the quilt. This is great lighting for bringing out lumps and bumps i.e. the third dimension. Not great lighting to use on a middle aged or elderly people unless you are going for gritty realism.

No diffusion was used and this really adds to the cool hard look. Again, don’t do this when photographing your elderly relatives – they won’t thank you.

I placed a homemade reflector under the quilt at a 45 degree angle to throw a little more light onto the bottom edge of the quilt. The reflector is a 4ft disc made out of a plastic hula hoop and that insulating silver material that is a bit like bubblewrap.

We have been told for so long that “enhanced interrogation techniques” are just “aggressive questioning”; that the ancient waterboarding technique is not torture; that Guantanamo Bay is a model prison facility where detainees are, if anything, molly-coddled (in fact, Rudy Giuliani recentlyopined that “Guantanamo is better than half the Federal prisons.”) We are also told routinely on Fox News that the United States has not and never would torture prisoners; we are told by the New York Times and NPR that use of the word “torture” is too biased; we have been told by many that to argue that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are war criminals is such an extreme position it disgraces anyone who states it, and marginalizes them to the fever swamps of leftist haters and hysterics.

Sullivan uses the incident where three Gitmo detainees were tortured to death, despite protestations that they were all suicides, to make his point.

But now we have a clear case of something that pierces through this mendacity like a dagger – Scott Horton’s haunting report in Harpers on those three strange 2006 suicides at Gitmo.

Like Sullivan I am a Brit. I moved to the US at age 41. I don’t know if it is this that makes the issue so cut and dried for both of us – the USA tortured people openly and that is wrong as in war crime wrong not error of judgement wrong. I grew up with the idea that the Geneva Conventions were the last word in human conduct towards enemies, that supposedly civilized countries don’t torture people end of story. Mind you, we were also taught by those same conventions that nations only go to war when they themselves or another country is either attacked or that an attack all but a mathematical certainty. Look what happened there.

In England we were taught that torture is wrong because it is wrong, no further argument needed. Some things just are and the wrongness of torture falls into that category. The arguments in the US often centered around outcomes: Does torture work? If we torture them does that mean they are more likely to torture us? Those of us that come from the torture is wrong because it is wrong school of thought have been sucked into these other arguments whereas we should refuse to give them legitimacy.

I see no pragmatic argument that supports torture, in fact logic leads to the opposite conclusion – that torturing people always works against the nation and the people doing the torturing and you know what? That doesn’t matter because the day that torture was discussed in terms of effectiveness as opposed to morality we were lost. Every time I heard a cable news bobblehead say that we shouldn’t torture their fighters because they might torture ours I wanted to, and truth be known often did, yell at the TV that that wasn’t the point.

Andrew Sullivan is exactly right, the use of torture is not a nuanced issue, there are no shades of gray.  I would argue that if we have a duty at this time, it is to let future generations know that at least some of us, a minority of Americans it must be said, understand that torture is always be viewed as  wrong – no exceptions.

On a related note, this is a probably a good time to review Keith Olbermann’s opinion piece regarding Obama’s let bygones be bygones strategy regarding the previous administrations war crimes.

Transcript

This is the Obama quote that Olbermann rightly takes issue with, arguing that Obama;s duty is to do whatever in his power to make sure that this chapter in American history is not repeated:

This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke.

We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history.

But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.

Just click on the thumbs to enlarge. If you want to enlarge durther click on the double arrow top right – it will makes sense, I promise.

I would try to vote ten times if I lived in Massachusetts.

“Yeah, that’s right, I’d cheat to keep these bastards out

There is a difference between a right wing hack – which you used to be and a voice for progressives which you claim to be now. As the former you are allowed to be undisciplined and sloppy as the audience are too uncritical to notice. Not so on this side of the divide. Up until now Schultz has had a pass, largely because there are so few progressive voices on TV but the honeymoon is coming to an end.

It must be said that I was never Schultz’s number one fan but many who supported him from the time of his conversion are now either keeping their counsel or becoming critics.

“The next morning after the earthquake, as a military man of 37 years service, I assumed … there would be airplanes delivering aid, not troops, but aid,” said retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, who coordinated military operations after disaster struck the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005. “What we saw instead was discussion about, ‘Well we’ve got to send an assessment team in to see what the needs are.’ And anytime I hear that, my head turns red.”

From here

Seems a bit strange, a retired general taking pot shots at an administration four days into a crisis overseas. One would think that said general wouldn’t want to undermine his own government and if said, very high profile general, had an issue he would use a back channel to get his point of view across to the administration – privately in the first instance.

Honore’s comments do make sense, in a grubby unethical GOP kind of way, if this pans out:

“The Louisiana Weekly and Bayoubuzz.com have learned that the hero of Hurricane recovery, General Russell Honore is seriously considering entering the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate seat against incumbent David Vitter

Politico

So I think that a story that starts with a rather bizarre attack about a very forward leaning relief operation says much more about a future fight for David Vitter’s senate seat than it does about the relief operation. If Honore is playing politics with this tragedy, and it is hard to draw any other conclusion, that makes him no better than the likes of Limbaugh or Robertson.

It doesn’t appear to be all good news as Greg Mitchell is not going to be retained, despite according to him, promises to the contrary. I am certainly inclined to believe Mitchell as his reputation for integrity is flawless – don’t know about the boating and fishing guy though. Mitchell’s albeit brief account here.

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