Obama Talks Peace With Abbas

From AFP via TPM:

US president-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday called Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and vowed to continue pushing Middle East peace efforts, a senior official said.

In their first conversation since the November 4 US elections, Obama also reiterated his strong support for a Palestinian state living alongside Israel, top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.

But of course he’s evil and not to be trusted, never ever ever ever.

Cheney indicted!

According to David Kurtz of TalkingPointsMemo, it probably will come to nothing, but it’s a nice headline. A Texas Grand Jury has indicted Dick Cheney.

The indictment accuses Cheney and [Alberto] Gonzales of engaging in organized criminal activity. It criticizes Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Congratulations, Willacy County!

Congratulations, Senator Begich!

Mark Begich has a 3,724-vote lead over convicted felon Ted Stevens, with about 2,500 ballots yet to count as of the report’s dateline.

We Interrupt The Hatestorm For Some Good News

This is a week old, but I thought I’d pull it out now in a vain hope of putting a fire hose on the hatestorm going around the blogs right now:

PARIS – Inspired by Barack Obama, the French first lady and other leading figures say it’s high time for France to stamp out racism and shake up a white political and social elite that smacks of colonial times.

A manifesto published Sunday — subtitled “Oui, nous pouvons!”, the French translation of Obama’s campaign slogan “Yes, we can!” — urges affirmative action-like policies and other steps to turn French ideals of equality into reality for millions of blacks, Arabs and other alienated minorities.

“Our prejudices are insidious,” Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, a singer and wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy, said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, which published the manifesto. She said she hoped the “Obama effect” would reshape French society.

[…]

Grass-roots groups in France and Britain are trying to turn Obama’s election into electoral gains for minorities at home. Sunday’s manifesto suggests France’s elites are taking notice, too.

“The election of Barack Obama highlights via a cruel contrast the shortcomings of the French Republic, and the distance that separates us from a country whose citizens knew how to go beyond the racial question and elect a man who happens to be black as president,” the appeal said.

“What a lesson!” it went on. “We French … should listen to it well.”

The manifesto was written by Yazid Sabeg, a French self-made millionaire whose parents were Algerian immigrants, and signed by politicians from the left and right and other public figures.

Obama is extremely popular in France, yet blacks and other minorities are nearly invisible in national or local politics here. The lower house of parliament has 555 members from the French mainland; just one is black.

“We shouldn’t be surprised that Obama’s popularity is so high here: It testifies to the aspirations of all the children of France who are experiencing by proxy a recognition that France does not give them,” the manifesto reads. “It also betrays the bad faith of those who welcome the victory of modernity outside our borders, in order to tolerate the status quo here.”

The manifesto calls for affirmative action policies like those the United States used years ago to encourage greater minority representation in the workplace and in universities.

Lieberman: Suck On That, Liberals!/updated

From the WaPo through Jane, via Atrios.

Asked what it would mean if Lieberman kept his chairmanship, one Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: “The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes. Their influence would be in question.”

Now, I don’t take this at face value. Because of the way Washington works, some “Senate Democratic aides” could actually be Republicans. Or aides to people who are only connected to the Democratic Party by registration, like Ben Nelson. Or even an aide to Joe Lieberman who happens to be a registered Democrat.

But it’s a sign that giving money to the Democratic Party is a mistake. Donations should go to candidates who support Democratic principles, and not the sort of arrogant twits that would try to start a fight the first thing out of returning from a 14-year stint in the wilderness.

UPDATE: Top Democrat has no idea that Lieberman’s conduct of DHS Committee completely incompetent.

JANE HAMSHER: But I think the larger issue here is that Joe was not qualified for the gavel they gave him, and has proved himself unqualified over the past two years.

HOWARD DEAN: Look I’m not going to a dispute with you over that, because it sounds like you know his record much better than I. I never looked into what he was doing as the Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. I was too busy figuring out how to win the election. So I don’t want to get into a debate on whether he’s qualified or not.

JANE HAMSHER: But to you think that’s something that the Senate should’ve looked at in deciding whether to give him the gavel or not.

HOWARD DEAN: Well, I hope they did.

“Kill The Beast! Cut His Throat! Spill His Blood!”

From page 156 of one of the most-banned books ever:

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!”

The blue-white scar was constant, the noise unendurable. Simon was crying out something about a dead man on a hill.

“Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood! Do him in!”

The sticks fell and the mouth of the new circle crunched and screamed. The beast was on its knees in the center, its arms folded over its face. It was crying out against the abominable noise, something about a dead body on the hill. The beast struggled forward, broke the ring, and fell over the steep edge of the rock to the sand by the water. At once the crowd surged after it, poured down the rock, leapt on to the beast, screamed, struck, bit, tore. There were no words, and no movements but the tearing of teeth and claws.

I didn’t think it would happen quite this soon. I thought that maybe the tribes would wait until inauguration day. I was wrong.

Crossposted at Oxdown Gazette.