syntax's blog

(c/p from ScruHoo)

The Asheville Citizen-Times ran this letter to the editor this morning, a telling indicator of Congressman Shuler's dwindling progressive support in the 11th District:

Polls show a majority of Americans favor impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney for deceptions and abuses of power. However, Rep. Heath Shuler still supports the vice president. Shuler refuses to co-sign Articles of Impeachment against Cheney.

The reason I ask is that I saw this in my RSS feeds this morning:

On Thursday, during House votes, a very angry Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) had some distinctly non-collegial words for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). The words “gutless,” “chickens–t” and “thief” were flung.

And that was it - a teaser for non-subscribers. If anyone here has access to Roll Call's "exclusive" content, please share! We're dying to know more information, and we'd at least like to know the proper context before we pretend that we're offended by such language. ;)

Last night Brad Miller and Mike McIntyre assisted in the defeat of HR 1707, the Latin America Military Training Review Act. This bill would have cut funding to the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, or WHINSEC (p.k.a. the School of the Americas), a Pentagon-run training facility at Fort Benning in Georgia that teaches torture techniques to Latin American military officers. Many of WHINSEC's graduates include such luminaries as Manuel Noriega and Roberto Viola.

Reps. Miller and McIntyre: why did you vote to train the future leaders of juntas and death squads? Why do you wish to perpetuate flagrant human rights violations? You've got some explaining to do.

(For the record, Rep. Coble voted "Y" on HR 1707.)

(Cross-posted from Scrutiny Hooligans)

Congressman Heath Shuler, addressing the delegates at the 11th District Democratic Party Convention, 5/19/07.

This recording was made at the beginning of the convention, which was held at Pisgah High School in Canton. It was generally well-received by the audience of delegates and officials.

After a few years of using Blogger (and dealing with all of the technical issues therein, such as the dreaded eaten posts, outages and downtimes, etc., all of which seemed to be exacerbated by Blogger's takeover by Google), the Hooligans sat down a few months ago over homemade chili & cornbread to discuss our options regarding the future of this blog. We decided to take matters into our own hands and jumped platforms from Blogger to WordPress, from Blogspot to our very own domain.

After a few years of using Blogger (and dealing with all of the technical issues therein, such as the dreaded eaten posts, outages and downtimes, etc., all of which seemed to be exacerbated by Blogger's takeover by Google), the Hooligans sat down a few months ago over homemade chili & cornbread to discuss our options regarding the future of this blog. We decided to take matters into our own hands and jumped platforms from Blogger to WordPress, from Blogspot to our very own domain.

Recently I stumbled upon a website that had a whole bunch of scans of US Forest Service fire prevention ads that featured Smokey the Bear, and one in particular screamed out "remix me!" So:

Link to Image (added by gf for users who can't see it in their browser)

A local WNC blog called West and Center posted this earlier this morning:

Here's a rumor I heard yesterday that got my interest going: An acquaintance who is plugged into the local media told me of chatter from the Asheville Citizen-Times editorial staff about a "big story" in the works about our new Congressman, Heath Shuler. According to this acquaintance, the AC-T is currently mulling over the possibility of going public with a story that would potentially be damaging to Shuler. This acquaintance did not press for more information, so it is anyone's guess what this is, how scandalous or damaging it might be or what its future implications are. Or even if it will ever be public.

Great Jumpin' Jeebus on a Pogo Stick! The man's not even due to be sworn in as our new Congressman for another week and there are already rumors of "potentially damaging information" swirling around!

Heath Shuler (D-NC11) is appearing on the Bill Press show on 880 AM at 8:30 Friday morning. Asheville area listeners can listen on the air. The rest of you can listen online.