I
‘m a bit obsessed with this story ~ this monumental story. I honestly did not pay much attention to Tunisia and I watched cautiously during the early days in Egypt waiting for the people to give up or die trying.
This time, however, I have been quite glued to the multiple Internet sources available. It truly is amazing how much information has managed to get out.
One message has been made quite clear, however.
h/t to Shaun and AJE for the picture.
And Thursday Colonel Gaddafi likened himself to Queen Elizabeth, prompting this picture:
Unfortunately for him I think most Libyans will like this one:
Bouazizi, a 26-year-old street vendor, set himself on fire on December 17 after police abused and humiliated him. He died of his burns on January 4. The protest movement that began in Sidi Bouzid swelled to become a nationwide phenomenon, and spread to other countries in North Africa and the Middle East. Most recently, it reached Libya. http://blogs.aljazeera.net/afr…
As US secretary of state, Colin Powell gathered his notes in front of the United Nations security council, the man watching – Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, known to the west’s intelligence services as “Curveball” – had more than an inkling of what was to come. He was, after all, Powell’s main source, a man his German handlers had feted as a new “Deep throat” – an agent so pivotal that he could bring down a government.
Except…
I took a circuitous route that led me to a bit with the same title. I started to write a comment in the latest open thread but it got to be really long so I decided to do a diary.
If you want to know the answer, look below. (Not down; unless you’re her mother or father the answer isn’t in your lap.)
For awhile it looked like the Senate’s ratification of the new START Treaty might be dead because Sen. Reid chose to hold the DADT vote first.
But not so fast ~ the Senate has blocked a filibuster attempt with 67 votes. What makes that ’67’ number even better is that, because a 2/3 majority is necessary to ratify a treat, this vote likely signals that there are enough votes to ratify START.
Let’s see how we got here from the dead-in-the-water of late last week.
First we get a bit of horse-trading from the 2008 Dynamic Duo of McCain and Graham:
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) had promised the White House early last week that they would deliver the votes necessary to ratify the START treaty if the administration would pull the repeal of the military’s DADT policy off the lame-duck agenda, according to Democratic aides familiar with the pair’s offer.
Well, our homophobe-in-chief turned down the deal (which gives some lie to that TPM article from late last week that tried to start up some crap about the White House stalling DADT).
Sen. Graham went on Face the Nation to complain about the lame duck session, calling it poisoned and suggested that any ratification would have to wait until the next session of Congress.
Sen. Corker of TN likewise had some issues with the order of the voting. He told Greg Sargent:
pushing for DADT repeal and other issues “is hardening them against passage of this treaty at this time,” referring to unnamed Republican colleagues. He then clarified: “I just want to make sure it’s clear they’re not going to oppose the treaty permanently … But it’s hardening them against doing it right now.”
So things were looking bleak for START.
Not anymore, though. Today we get a vote with a number of Republicans, including Mr. Corker, voting for cloture. So what, you might ask, turned some of the naysayers around? Was it the President’s wit and charm? Was it the Democrats’ powers of persuasion? Or maybe the public support for the treaty?
Nope ~ it wasn’t the president or Harry Reid. It wasn’t constituent phone calls or letters or protests. It was, apparently, some Congressional staffers with either too little or too much imagination….
The Senate today voted 63-33 to move forward with the bill to repeal DADT. With the House already having passed the same bill and the Senate now only needing a simple majority (51) for the bill to pass it looks like DADT will soon be history.
(or My War on Christmas)
I’ve never been a particularly religious person but I’ve never questioned that Jesus was the son of God or that God existed.
I’ve gone to church a few times after some significant event in my life ~ but never quite felt that I belonged. Maybe it was the songs that I didn’t know or the sermon that didn’t quite relate to me or the people with whom I didn’t feel a connection. Maybe it was all of the above or none. Maybe it’s me, though, not those external trappings of religion.
He’s been talking since 10:25am EST and apparently has back-up in Sens. Sherrod Brown and Mary Landrieu.
I like message songs. The greatest song with lyrics ever, and you’ll never convince me otherwise, is Get Together by The Youngbloods.