Traveling Wheels

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Hello one and all, and greetings from lovely downtown Providence, Rhode Island. Marcy and I are both here for Netroots Nation; she has been in town since yesterday, and I just arrived this morning. We will both be here through Sunday afternoon.

So far Marcy and Jim have kept up regular posting, which is fortunate because I had a literal clusterfuck of problems rain on me yesterday which I was supposed to be providing content and getting ready to go. I have no idea what substantive posting we will do, so Jim may be piloting the ship. I’m a gonna guess he may want to be trash talking about Alabama, an SEC team, finally breaking through and winning the Women’s College World Series in softball. Credit where due, they rolled the two other best teams in the brackets, Oklahoma and ASU.

More importantly, if any of you are at Netroots, or in the vicinity, we would love to say hi. Leave a note here, or just find us – we are wearing stinking badges!

We will be around, but if there is any hot breaking news, and we don’t look to be around at the moment, put it up in comments and let fly with the analysis. In the meantime, since these Wheels are traveling, some traveling music for you from Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.

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10 replies
  2. MadDog says:

    “…We will be around, but if there is any hot breaking news, and we don’t look to be around at the moment, put it up in comments and let fly with the analysis…”

    Not necessarily breaking, and perhaps more smoke than fire, but I’ll take a couple of kicks at this particular can – via Politico today:

    White House leaks draw ire of lawmakers’ group

    “Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill don’t agree on much these days, but they agree that the Obama administration has a serious problem with leaking classified information.
    And with national security in the balance, a group of congressional leaders say there’s an urgent need to get things back in line.

    “A special prosecutor can take years. We don’t have years. We need to legislate and we need to do things quickly,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) Thursday at a press conference of chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees…”

    Two points:

    1) It’s clear from their headline, Politico has decided that the White House must have been the source of all these leaks. Not the intelligence agencies, not the military, not Congresscritters or their staffers. Just the White House.

    In their desire to out-Drudge Drudge, Politico insists that proof is not required. Their word is final, doncha know?

    2) Ummm…Senator Feinstein? Have you never heard of “shutting the barn door after the horse has left”? Since Senator Feinstein believes a special prosecutor would take years, her solution is to legislate “something”?

    Well she ought to be careful what she wishes for because speaking of the kettle calling the pot black, this from that same Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) who said this to CNN (and reported again by Politico) yesterday:

    “…One report that has irritated lawmakers is New York Times correspondent David Sanger’s story last week confirming long-suspected U.S. involvement in development of the computer virus Stuxnet, which reportedly caused significant damage to nuclear centrifuges in Iran.

    Feinstein suggested that in advance of the publication of Sanger’s story, he misled her about the likely impact of his reporting.

    “He came into my office. He saw me….He assured me that what he was publishing, he had worked out with various agencies and he didn’t believe that anything was revealed that wasn’t known already,” the senator said on CNN. “Well, I read ‘The New York Times’ article and my heart dropped, because he wove a tapestry which has an impact that’s beyond any single one thing. And he’s very good at what he does. And he spent a year figuring it all out. And he’s just one. And this is a problem…”

    Hey Senator Feinstein! Yoo-hoo!

    Might we ask WTF were you doing talking to the NYT’s David Sanger about intelligence matters? And what did you tell him?

    After all, David Sanger wasn’t there just to shoot the breeze, was he?

  3. pdaly says:

    in response to MadDog @5:24pm

    Senator Feinstein on David Sanger’s article on Stuxnet:

    “Well, I read ‘The New York Times’ article and my heart dropped, because he wove a tapestry which has an impact that’s beyond any single one thing. And he’s very good at what he does. And he spent a year figuring it all out.”

    And, didn’t Feinstein in this quote above just officially confirm details in Sanger’s story?
    Her recollection, on the record, of her reaction to Sanger was certainly not a “Glomar” response.

  4. pdaly says:

    Have fun at NetRoots Nation, bmaz and emptywheel.

    NN came on suddenly this year. And I didn’t realize it was so close to my neck of the woods this time around. I won’t be able to attend unfortunately.

  5. pdaly says:

    @klynn:

    That’s a great write up for a startling experience.

    We should forward it to Elizabeth Warren’s camp. It would be nice for her to hear what is happening to consumers when they are not consuming. (Not that I expect she’ll bad mouth Obama in public but it should be made clear to her we need more than just consumer protection in America these days).

  6. Bay State Librul says:

    Find a cozy bar and watch the Celts.

    Heat then Thunder, or will Lightning strike…

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