As Digby notes in a post from Austin tonight

I can't wrap my mind around the fact that the right wingers decided to hold a confab here in Austin at the same time as Netroots Nation.

They claim to be "confronting" us "head-on." Except we didn't know it existed.

Yes, it’s called Rightonline, sponsored by Americans for Prosperity and it somehow just happened to turn up in Austin exactly the same time as Netroots Nation.  What a coinky dink.  It has even got Barry Goldwater Jr., Robert Novak, pompom queen Michele Malkin and most of the editorial staff of the Wall Street Journal.  

California Senator Diane Feinstein, supposedly a "liberal voice", proved once again yesterday that her primary allegiances lie with the rich and the powerful and not with her constituents, justice or the Constitution.

Despite a mountain of calls, faxes and e-mails urging her not to do so, she never wavered from her position of flat-out support for telecom immunity and support of the massively flawed FISA bill which now provides the current administration further legal cover for its illegal wiretapping activities.

Similarly, Ms. Feinstein's support (along with that of Sen. Charles Schumer of NY) was largely instrumental in winning approval of Michael Mukasey as attorney general, replacing the disastrous Alberto Gonzales.  And it is becoming increasingly clear how well that has worked out.   Via dday at Digby's Hullabaloo, a review today of just how forthright Mr. Mukasey has been in his actions as AG.....and then a look at Sen. Feinstein's views on the man she helped put in office:

Oh woe is Billy......just this week he devoted an entire column to touting the skills of McCain's 2000 Campaign Advisor Mike Murphy and telling everyone that he was hearing strong rumors that Mike was just about to take on the leadership of the foundering 2008 effort.  Didn't take very long for that soap bubble to burst did it?

And if you want a picture of just what Billy is worried about, AdNags at the NYT has a wonderful panoramic view of the inflighting scenario now in place.  

Better yet, his story notes, is the kind of image it is creating about what a White House team would look like if McCain were "in charge" (and I use that term loosely since being "in charge" is something McCain apparently finds as challenging as reading off a teleprompter.)

I know, I know.....I've hard it before....don't get cocky.  

It's too early to get over confident.  Remember Karl Rove's Math!

Watch out for the October surprise!

But I really have to say, when you start looking at all the dynamics right now, the Republican Party, when it gets behind a closed door to try and plot a route to victory this fall, has to be absolutely petrified.  Am I blowing smoke?   I don't think so....Join me below the bump for a look at what I believe are 26 good reasons why this November could see a Democratic victory of truly epic proportions:

Yesterday Atrios had a post calling attention to a brief Time Swampland blog posting by political reporter Karen Tumulty.  And I do mean brief.  In reference to the recently announced firing of GSA Head Lurita Doan (likely Hatch Act violator for asking staff what they could do to help assure the election of loyal bushies), Tumulty posted a single line...."What took so long?"

But as Atrios quickly noted, a Google search reveals that TIME itself had devoted exactly 0 words to that subject then or since it happened.  Yet another example of the failure of the MSM to do its job.

Tumulty's post drew a sizable number of response posts, the vast majority of them critical, sometimes heatedly so, of the media's performance overall and Tumulty responded....finally in frustration...saying that she was going back to cover health care issues and leave the posters to "their bile."   But what TIME apparently did next says volumes about their actions.....

The Senate Commerce Committee Thursday demonstrated just how deep the opposition is to continued concentration of media ownership by voting to throw out an FCC rule change, passed late last year in defiance of Congressional warnings and in the face of massive public objection.

The Committee vote, led by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota (D), sends the proposal to the full Senate for a vote.  The measure has two dozen sponsors including Senators Clinton and Obama.  Dorgan predicts the bill will pass both the Senate and the House, but the Bush Administration is already threatening a veto.

Dorgan cited a proposed deal by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation to buy New York’s Newsday as a symptom of the problem.  News Corp. already owns the NY Post, the Wall Street Journal and two local TV stations.  Dorgon said there are “…five or six major corporations in the country that determine…what Americans see, hear and read every day.”

Recently, I posted a diary which started with this quote from an Op-Ed piece by CA Senator Dianne Feinstein:

Judge Mukasey has my vote
LA Times Nov. 3, 2007

Judge Mukasey is not Alberto R. Gonzales. In our confirmation hearings (and subsequently, in writing), Judge Mukasey's answers to hundreds of questions were crisp and to the point, and reflected an independent mind. That's why I intend to vote to confirm him to be our next attorney general. I truly believe he will be a strong advocate for the American people.
....

The bottom line is this: I hope that Judge Mukasey will fairly and evenhandedly represent the American people and direct the Justice Department wherever the facts and the law lead, not where the White House dictates.

Our nation needs a strong and independent attorney general, and I believe that Judge Mukasey will rise to the challenge.

This week, Mukasey came to Feinstein's turf, stuck a fork in her, and clearly demonstrated that he has given up any pretense of independence as Attorney General and has become simply an older Alberto Gonsalez.  The story below the jump.

Anyone remember this last November....an Op-Ed piece in the LA Times?

Judge Mukasey has my vote
LA Tiimes Nov. 3, 2007

Judge Mukasey is not Alberto R. Gonzales. In our confirmation hearings (and subsequently, in writing), Judge Mukasey's answers to hundreds of questions were crisp and to the point, and reflected an independent mind. That's why I intend to vote to confirm him to be our next attorney general. I truly believe he will be a strong advocate for the American people.
….

The bottom line is this: I hope that Judge Mukasey will fairly and evenhandedly represent the American people and direct the Justice Department wherever the facts and the law lead, not where the White House dictates.

Our nation needs a strong and independent attorney general, and I believe that Judge Mukasey will rise to the challenge.

OK...I'm nuts.  I've been using AOL for years and over those years the service has steadily degenerated so that today the home page is a giant smorgasboard of tiny graphics and even tinier type, polls with no scientific validity about topics of no interest and useless tips and pseudo-trends.

I should drop it, but I've had the e-mail forever and changing it is a pain in the nether regions.  But increasingly, keeping it is becoming a similar pain.  Recently, I made the mistake of "upgrading" from Version 9.0 to 9.1.  BIG Mistake and after mounting frustration, I finally found a way tonight to connect with a customer service rep and vent my frustration.

The Sydney Herald’s March 8th edition carries a detailed excerpt from a new book, due out Monday, which chronicles White House efforts to cover up the clear incompetence of then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice in the months leading up to 9/11.

Other news stories have provided some details of this story, but Philip Shenon’s The Commission - The Uncensored History Of The 9/11 Investigation by (Little, Brown, $35), brings together an array of material which, taken in total, paints a devastating picture of Rice’s incompetence and lack of attention to the threat of Al Queada attacks on the U.S. despite a deluge of warnings.  It also details how the head of the 9/11 Commission made it his job to make sure those facts were kept away from the public.

OK...I did the "right thing."  I dug down and contributed to candidates I believed in...candidates who were challenging the status quo....candidates who were battling entrenched DINOs and who clearly needed help from small contributors to get things rolling.

I pulled my automatic contributions to the Democratic Bond fund after I watched the party march in lockstep with bush on continuing the war, FISA rape, habeas corpus and on and on and diverted those funds to selected candidates.

And just what did I get for my money?

How would you react if I argued that we are now living in a dictatorship?  The signs are there:  The admininstration has defied the 2006 election mandate on Iraq, it has vetoed a broadly bi-partisan child health insurance bill.  It continues to delay demands for action on global warming, it conducts warrantless wiretaps, it rules by Presidential fiat and excessive secrecy, and now it is about to take perhaps the most blatant act of defiance of the public will yet:

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to ram through new regulations allowing further consolidation of media ownership by newspapers and television stations.  

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is defying four years of massive public opposition, and now both houses of Congress – despite clear face-to-face warnings to delay the vote.  In so doing, he has ignored his Commission's own research and treated public input as a sham.  Details below the jump:

A weekend online editorial from the Wall Street JournalAnother Iran Curveball- once again demonstrates the potency of the neo-con Kool Aid years after it has been drunk.

President Bush has been scrambling to rescue his Iran policy after this week's intelligence switcheroo, but the fact that the White House has had to spin so furiously is a sign of how badly it has bungled this episode. In sum, Mr. Bush and his staff have allowed the intelligence bureaucracy (to undermine) four years of U.S. effort to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions.

This kind of national security mismanagement has bedeviled the Bush Presidency. Recall the internal disputes over post-invasion Iraq, the smearing of Ahmad Chalabi by the State Department and CIA, hanging Scooter Libby out to dry after bungling the response to Joseph Wilson's bogus accusations, and so on. Mr. Bush has too often failed to settle internal disputes and enforce the results.

When president bush nominated Michael Mukasey to fill the AG vacancy left by the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, the immediate question was, “Will Mukasey pledge to protect the U.S. Constitution, or like Gonzales, blindly defend the administration's deconstruction of the Constitution, claims of new Executive powers, secrecy and torture. “  Now, a looming confrontation between Congress and the administration will put that question to an immediate test.

Many, myself included, have been dubious that president would appoint a true Constitutional defender to the post, given how much he relied on gonzales to blindly defend his administration on tortured legal grounds.  Indeed, during his hearing, Mukasey steadfastly refused to identify waterboarding as torture, signaling that he knew the risks to his potential boss in doing so.

Despite the concerns and questions,  Mukasey won confirmation, in part with the help of Democratic Senators Charles Schumer and Diane Feinstein.  And now Henry Waxman’s House Oversight Committee is about to give him his first real test of where his loyalties truly lie.…..More on the issues involved and what’s at stake below the fold:

A Saturday article in the Washington Post (and PC World),Internet Capacity Could Max Out in Two Years, Study Says, expresses grave concerns that a surge in video and other technologies could overload the net within two years.  The study, conducted by an “independent research firm,” says that $137 billion in new investment is needed in the next 3 to  5 years to keep up, and says that is more than twice what service providers plan to invest.

Let me urge all readers here to click on the original WaPo article and read through it from beginning to end.  When you do, see if you can spot the one gigantic missing element in the story…..the elephant in the information pipe…..the reason this whole argument is a sham.

Below the fold, some very interesting details on who is behind this boondoggle, why it is a fraud,and why it could become a major weapon in the ongoing battle to eliminate net neutrality:

Reports are circulating that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning some parliamentary maneuvering designed to keep the white house from engaging in one of its favorite means to get unpopular and often unqualified appointments cleared...the so-called "recess appointment."  Dan Froomkin's Thursday blog in the WaPo White House Briefing reports:

Democratic leaders once again are considering holding the Senate in a series of pro forma sessions to stop President Bush from using the break to install any of his outstanding executive branch nominees.

"The move comes as speculation mounts that Bush will use the period to push through some controversial appointments while Senators are out of town for the two-week period. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could all but block the president from doing so, however, if he opts to call the chamber into nonvoting sessions every three days -- thus doing away with an extended recess."

I've go a real concern that Reid's maneuvers may well not be sufficient to block the president unless he arranges to hold pro forma sessions every working day during the holiday and not every few days.

Thursday's New York Times features an Op-Ed piece by neo-con and noted "thinker" Max Boot -- a lengthy screed so filled with egregious nonsense that I could not refrain from responding to it point by point.  

It is entitled "Send the State Department to War"

In terms of "fair use" policies, I no doubt am stepping across the line here, but in this case, I hope those in charge of the DK power levers will grant me some slack.

Herewith, Max's text and my responses below the jump:

The New York Times reports tonight that a federal judge has ordered the White House to preserve all e-mails in response to a lawsuit seeking information about how the administration has handled its past management of such critical materials.

A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.

In response, the White House said it has been taking steps to preserve copies of all e-mails and will continue to do so. The administration is seeking dismissal of the lawsuits brought by two private groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive.