Even Bush is sick of the Iraq fiasco...he has been mumbling about pulling out troops and about a "time horizon"...yes, "HORIZON," not a timeline, for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. Don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone talk about "time horizons" before. Makes me think of an event horizon around a black hole...which is an ominous comparison.
Remember, though, Bush's shifting to withdrawal is not by any choice of his. The Iraq government has told him in no uncertain terms that we have outlived our welcome and they do not want us there permanently.
Yesterday at NN08, I spoke with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Vice President Al Gore, and U.S. Representative Lloyd Doggett about the bill in Congress to move Election Day to Saturday and Sunday. Check out the video.
Al Gore sits down to take some question and speak to Tom Brokaw today.
Brokaw Asks a wide range of questions, from Joe Lieberman to Climate Change.
He also talks about The New Yorker's Satire of Obama.
Gore gets a small dig in on President Bush, joking he had already won a run for the high office he just didn't serve.
Brokaw asked allot of questions but did not ask many scientific ones, which i was hoping he would in regards to burying carbon.
Just wondering what the scientific research is in burying all this carbon in this carbon capture plan. Would this not taint alot of citizens well water?
Not a bad interview all in all.
Did anyone see Al Gore on Meet the Press this morning?
How is it that this guy is not in charge? How is it that the boldest thinker on climate, energy and the economy is on the sidelines at this moment?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking to start a draft Al campaign here (staunch Obama supporter that I am), but it's pretty clear that he's got to be involved in an active way, with some clout behind it if we're going to leverage the intellect.
The background of tension and reticence that has been dogging Netroots Nation came to a boil yesterday morning when attendees were threatened with having their convention badges revoked if they disrupted Speaker Pelosi. The issue dogging the convention is that Congressional Democratic failure reached a tipping point with FISA and the base, there is no significant trust or faith anymore in our Party leadership, not to mention quite a bit of anger.
Convention attendees were obviously not trusted to be civil to Speaker Pelosi, either, and things had the potential to get really ugly yesterday. I was actually late for Speaker Pelosi’s introduction, so I didn’t hear warning, and although I probably would have accepted it I also would have been seriously provoked by it, to me it had the distinct feeling of being pushed around.
Let's see, Tennessee. So, we're not the Saudi Arabia of wind. Even counting every square inch of our rocky hillside, we can't generate as much sun-soaked thermal solar energy as 92 miles squared in the desert South-West would. Our Tennesse Valley Authority produces most of it's electricity not with hydroelectric power as is commonly thought, but with some of the dirtiest coal plants in the nation.
So how can Tennessee help meet favorite son Al Gore's challenge of producing an inspiring 100% of our nation's electrity with clean & renewable sources? Maybe getting our republican politicians out of the way in Washington would be Step Zero.
Follow me below the fold for a plan I just discovered that looks like a road map that every Tennessean, red, blue, or purple, can use to turn green...
Today was the first opportunity I have had to see Al Gore in person. [update: actually, check that--it's the 2nd time. I did see him once before briefly in Los Angeles promoting An Inconvenient Truth.]
Even at my comparatively young age, I'm fairly jaded when it comes to celebrities of any stripe. Even though I lived for almost eight years in the middle of Los Angeles, I rarely glimpsed media or film celebrities and never cared when I did. Usually, when I see a politician or major figure for the first time in the flesh I have the typical "letdown" reaction: they seem neither as charismatic nor as engaging as they do on television or YouTube.
Al Gore is just...different. Sitting three tables away from the main stage where Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi took questions from the audience, I could feel the energizing vibe of the former Vice-President's visionary and charismatic appeal in a way that appalls me when I see it in other "fanboys/girls". But with Al, call me naive: I just can't help myself.
Those of you who were unable to be here have been crying for photos, descriptions, liveblogging, video, and all sorts of other fun stuff. I aim to please. Make the jump and I'll share photos from the last couple days.
You can watch the question & answer session with Speaker Nancy Pelosi at Netroots Nation here. She was warmly welcomed when she came on stage at 9:15, and began with a short address before taking questions sent in by bloggers in advance.
The first question was about "inherent contempt": Why hasn't Congress used its power of inherent contempt to jail current and former members of the Bush administration who have ignored Congressional subpoenas? The Speaker talked instead about the failure of the Justice Department to pursue the complaint that the House has sent DOJ. Asked a second time about inherent contempt, and specifically when the House would "put [Karl Rove] into that little cell down in the basement", Speaker Pelosi responded that committee chairs have said they will take care of the matter. Congressman John Conyers, she said, asked her to leave it to him.
The next subject was the FISA bill. Speaker Pelosi said that Democrats will revisit the issue in the next Congress with a larger majority, and try to undo the damage done by the recent law. She shifted the blame for the FISA fiasco to the Senate for sending the House a bad bill. "We had no options," she said. The bill actually enacted was sent to the Senate by the House, however, not the reverse.
On the first two, very large issues, not an auspicious start. We're now moving on to less controversial issues, and the audience is reacting more favorably to Speaker Pelosi's answers.
Join in with this live blog.
Update [2008-7-19 11:22:47 by smintheus]: Rumors have been swirling that Al Gore would come to Netroots Nation to address us. He just appeared on stage to ask Nancy Pelosi about energy policy.
It doesn't get much more visionary and ambitious than Al Gore's recent speech on energy and climate change, and this sentence in particular:
Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.
My only quibble with this fantastic speech was that Gore said little about the transportation sector, which is the second largest contributor to U.S. greenhouse gas emissions.
Changing our transportation policies and funding priorities could greatly help us address the climate change emergency. More on that after the jump.
With Kevin Phillips arguing that peak oil passed years long ago, and the Association of Peak Oil and Gas saying it will occur in 2010, there should be a firm consensus that the United States must turn wholeheartedly to alternative energy sources. And yet, all we hear in the media and in the halls of Congress is zealous rhetoric endorsing an expansion of domestic oil drilling, their environmental and lack of economic impact be damned.
Luckily, a powerful new force is coming to rebut that absurd contention. The preponderance of prohibitively expensive gas will finally force Americans to reevaluate their energy priorities and needs. It will be the lasting legacy of the gas prices "crisis"; here's why...
With the state of the nation today one can't help but look back and reflect from time to time how things could have been different. How things would be today if the Federal Supreme Court had not overruled the Florida Supreme Court and Al Gore had of been the presiding officer of our executive branch the past 90 months instead of Richard Cheney.
If Al would have been our nation's leader the past 7 years America likely would not have invaded Afghanistan, much less Iraq. Instead of invading two countries Gore would have implemented what needed to be done to capture and prosecute the ringleader who put together the plan to fly planes into American landmarks occupied by innocent human beings. The world would have looked on with admiration at how our nation did not allow the attack to change the character of our nation.
If Al had been our president the past 7 years I have a hunch oil would likely be around $30 a barrel and gas less than $2 a gallon because steps would have been taken years ago that would have us well on our way to within the not too distant future allowing our nation to celebrate when the last gas burning automobile is removed from our streets.
Al Gore's speech yesterday was, in a sense, nothing new. Politicians and pundits have been observing that our economic woes, our Middle East-focused foreign policy disasters, and the climate crisis are all linked to our stubborn addiction to fossil fuels. But Gore -- who has been emphasizing this point longer, more passionately, and more effectively than any other U.S. leader -- pulled it all together in an extraordinarily cogent, forceful manner. It was a truly great speech, one of the few that really encapsulates the central national challenges we face now. If you haven't already, read it, and then then send it to everyone who will listen. The video (and a petition to sign) are at wecansolveit.org. (And at the banner ad at the top of the Kos homepage). The text of the speech is here.
Al Gore's latest plea for energy whatever it is was laden with some blatant misrepresentations. He said something like this, the USA borrows money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf which we then burn and by burning we will cover the continents with ocean in ten years from the effects of the CO2 melting the polar ice caps if we don't all build a wind mill in our back yard. Actually my problem is with the first part.
We do not borrow money from China to buy Persian Gulf oil. China invests it's trade surplus created, excess dollars in our Government debt. And because of the Petro Dollar, China needs US Dollars to participate in oil global oil markets. The Petro dollar just didn't sort of evolve on it's own from some sort of need for convenience. No, the petro dollar was fought for by Henry Kissinger during the Nixon administration which was coincidentally the same time Nixon was opening relations with China. All while China was helping North Viet Nam defeat us in the Viet Nam War. Small world, no?
What a difference a few years can make. Back in 2000, Al Gore had found in Joe Lieberman the perfect running mate. But by 2006, the political winds had changed. Already, whispers in Washington are suggesting that Democrats may move to strip Lieberman of his chairmanships if the party manages significant gains in 2008. But is it a wise move?
