YellowLinesandArmadillos

No those are West Virginia constituents, check out Berkley Springs sometime. Doesn't matter about the vetting and Schumer got on it hard, but not till after the issue already had some traction. And there is the rub, traction. But you are right, little is being said about the other ports except Duncan Hunter's bill demanding devestiture of foreign government owned companies from all ports. Doubt that it is going anywhere, but one never knows in this climate...once a feeding frenzy gets started, the sharks still hungry go looking for something else. Something tells me this won't be the only blow up over the next couple of weeks with GOP dissenters. Edit...P.S. Meant to respond to GG too.ob Lobbying bill failed to get cloture, lobbying bill has been removed from the floor.

And then there was a Hail Mary, Senator John Warner. Still sounds like you lost your bet, but not sure if the details will create more fodder. Will have to wait and see?

Funny, oh heck that would just draw out this issue more and give us one more good thing to get our voters to the polls. I hope they do! Still pretty funny having a battle cry...Halliburton, kinda like Pittsnoggled.

Schumer was trying to attach his bill to the lobbying bill, anyone know anything about this lobbying bill and what it does? They are having a cloture vote on it now, to preclude a vote on the ports deal, makes some sense from a political maneuvering stand point. Still what the heck is this lobbying bill and does it do anything good or bad? Just downloaded a CRS report on the issue, but don't know anything about it?

It has gotten worse, a lot more access and briefings were given under Bush I and Clinton, and they were more responsive with working deals. Bush has been so secretive that he is pissing off his own folks and cooptable Dems. Unfettered is hardly there and because of that it leaves congresscritters to assuming and getting infor from other sources, and they will always find ways to get info. Fully accurate or not, info will be generated with enough plausiblity to put the WH on the defensive. Some of this is a result of one party is in control, they tend to fight too much among themselves and info being power, is less likely to be shared. Dems had similar problems before '94 and started eating their own. What I can't figure is why doesn't the White House be a little more responsive and work on controlling the message better. Is it just laziness, a lack of understanding of congressional needs, stupid partisanship...which I know has gotten a lot worse...or because of a lame duck session politics. Probably a combo, which makes it a lot worse. P.S. CNN just announced Sen. Warner read a letter on the Senate floor from the CFO of Dubai ports, turning operations of these ports over to U.S. authorities...not sure what that means?

It's is over but for the crying, too many GOPers on the Bush bash bandwagon. Not that I agree, just that when it gets this far it is going to take one heckuva Hail Mary to make it happen. Maybe a partial deal or some more give from Dubai, but it is not looking good, 3rd quarter down by 30points and Frank Reich is not your quarterback!

Understood, but then we would have office politics, where is the fun in that...too mundane. Something akin to Kremlin watching! Like Communism, nice theory...will never work.

"Could have", too late, they are covering their asses and on the Bush bash bandwaqon whole hog. If Bush and worked to piece meal this deal out, it might have worked. I think the enormouness of it probably killed it...6 majors and how many small ones..21?

No kidding, that is the best statement as a result of all this crap that I have read on this post. Won't play with consituents much back home, but it is a start.

Oh they do, get clippings of that stuff each day, but they are not proactive...there is that term again...but only reactive. Shoot Bib, you should know that by now. Also, they wait for things to get ripe...meaning getting attention, then they look for an advantage with their constituents, the more emotional the better, especially if their stance is generally supported and allows a partisan advantage that hurts the other side. So the only question for me was this going to play back home and if it did, this deal...dead or not is not the point, can folks use it to their political advantage, the answer is clearly yes. Opponents of this deal can only hope that it drags out longer and gets more controversial.

No just bomb Iran and have Haliburton dig a moat filled with oil they sold to U.S. troups between Iraq and Iran, should cost enough to keep Halliburton in business for years.

Oh I disagree, I think it is an informed decision, just not based on facts directly related to the proposed deal, but on political reality. Congresscritters deal with the attitudes of their isolationist minded constituents and facts are...there is an attitude in the hinterlands not to give Arab countries anything, especially when Dubai has had a dubious past. Easy to broad brush this issue...of course racist attitudes get amplified, but those with more open minds don't trust negotiating with folks in the next moment stab you in the back and support terrorists..smuggling. This is just normal business for them, but American politik doesn't like to play that way and will just as soon take their ball and go home even if they have to suck it up and pay some consequences. From a business this is a stupid decision, security, I have my doubts but am not expert, from a political standpoint it is an easy decision for me. Bush screwed up and didn't keep this deal under the rug. Too big not to get noticed.

Interesting timing, when the focus is relatively off the prison, at least in Iraq right now.

Ever read a book about Denis Kucinich when he was mayor of Cleveland, something called Crisis Politics... It was interesting about an anti-establishment guy, still is a left wingnut, fighting a corporation over a municipal electric company. Led to his demise as mayor, but still a very interesting read about local hard ball politics.

And they are off, the hounds have been released...get 'im Mickey, get 'im!

Yeh you do...

That's what I was thinking, so you have a bunch or rich derelict kids running around with no inhibitions, looking for something to do because they are bored. Sounds like the 60s, only they didn't have a Vietnam War or a McCarthy to protest...wait! Oh man we have really sunk to a new level. Guess the guy who wrote "Rioting Mainly for Fun and Profit" was right!

Now there is a plausible conspiracy theory. The Ghost still lurks!

Now, Now, he was educated by the Best American Universities, kinda like the Taliban spokesman. I will check which college, but I pretty sure he was here for a while.

Oh common, I survived the 94 take over, you can survive this. Not that given the time since then we have been going this direction no matter who is President. Canada sounds good to me, Global warming will create tropical weather there in the next 10 years.

Nice try, not exactly, just the Republicans have managed to keep their riff raff together and are more disciplined. Dems still suffer from fighting themselves as much as fighting GOP, hence why they don't speak with one voice on subjects. This is not very good for them as a party.

Then this is one that we need to get or keep the rest of the World, including China and Russia at least tacitly on our side, if not rhetorically. Sounds like they grudgingly are at this point. Hope the Bush folks ride herd delicately on those folks, but insistently.

Is this more just sabre rattling or are we headed for a show down? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...339.html?sub=AR

A lot of folks think that though.

I am not so sure, they used to frame things in a way that even up in the Senate the last four years we used to squirm at. Sure they don't give Bush much of a free ride, didn't give Clinton one either, but their bias seemed to be more towards congressional GOP. Not always and their editorial folks were all over the map, some biases I obviously liked, others I didn't. But we still think they gave way too much deference to the House.