Top Comments: Steve Gilliard on Daily Kos, part 5

(From the diaries, as I dab a tear from my eye. I still have the program from his lovely funeral services on my night table. I can't believe it's been a year... -- kos)

In an article James Wolcott wrote for the June Vanity Fair on battling bloggers, his section on Daily Kos and Markos included the following:

Apart from the late Steve Gilliard, a blogger whose untimely death left an unfillable void in the warrior class, few have set a healthier example of consuming concern trolls for breakfast than Markos. So the site that bears his name is not for the demure.

Steve died a year ago today, and that void still echoes.

Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

Bill Beutler at The Nation writes:

Byron Dorgan’s Contracting Fraud Crusade

The North Dakota senator has made investigating contractor corruption his mission, but will he succeed in creating a congressional committee devoted to it?

While Congress has launched sporadic inquiries into contracting fraud, one legislator, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., has made it his mission to investigate contractor corruption.

Dorgan chairs the Democratic Policy Committee, a Senate entity tasked with gathering and distributing policy, strategy, and oversight information to congressional staff and other Democratic officials. (There is also a Republican Policy Committee.) Since 2003, the DPC has held 14 hearings dedicated to exposing the corruption of the Iraq reconstruction effort, and last month the committee released an encyclopedic report detailing major examples of fraud.

When the war in Iraq began, says Dorgan, "no one really [decided] to say, ‘All right, now we’re going to be an investigative committee so there’s accountability.’"
... since 2005 Dorgan has attempted to establish a congressional committee with full oversight clout to oversee military contracting. Dubbed the Special Committee on War and Reconstruction Contracting, the proposed panel is modeled on the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program (commonly known as the Truman committee), which was charged with investigating the waste and corruption of billions of dollars of World War II-era defense contracts. ...

If Dorgan gets his way, it could substantially bolster the Democrats’ efforts to uncover and deter acts of fraud and corruption in war contracting.

The Overnight News Digest has been posted.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana 1976, Painty Kat, jennyjem, dadanation, grog, and joyful, with shayera editing.

• MAL Contends lays out the case against US Naval man Keith Roberts in Jailed Wisconsin Veteran Awaits Court Decision, in Fed Prison for Claiming PTSD Benefits and suggests some possible, plausible, angering reasons as to why Roberts is being made the fall guy here. (dadanation)
• dogemperor is back with yet another fine essay on the marriage of fundamentalist religion to America's military in Prosyletisation in Iraq: A minor history. (joyful)
• Mike McL re-examines the policies of the party that has long proclaimed that it is the party of fiscal responsibility in Borrow and Spend Republicans. (jennyjem)
• Rumproast's Women for Obama: A Photo Essay is a celebration of the beauty that is the Democratic Party! (joyful)
• In LDS Obama Voters = Blue West, tommy s wonders whether an Obama candidacy would gain traction in Utah of all places. Stop laughing, he's serious. (grog)
• OrangeClouds115's Obama Obama Obama Obama (Well, Actually It's About the USDA) has nothing to do with a candidate and everything to do with funding cuts to the agency's Risk Management program. (joyful)
• June 2, 1941: He had an awful lot to live for is iampunha's warm tribute to athlete Lou Gehrig. (joyful)
• shirah offers a very thoughtful, robust and sourced look at the controversial Highway Privatization Pennsylvania Style. (dadanation)

Enjoy, and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

Senator Kennedy: "I feel like a million bucks. I think I'll do that again tomorrow"

Proving that you can't keep a good man down, Ted Kennedy emerged from 3 1/2 hours of brain surgery and told his wife:

I feel like a million bucks. I think I'll do that again tomorrow.

According to the Associated Press:

Dr. Allan Friedman, who performed the surgery at Duke University Medical Center, pronounced the operation a success and said it "accomplished our goals." Up next: chemotherapy and radiation, aimed at shrinking whatever is left of the tumor.  [...]

In the following days, Kennedy will probably be given drugs to prevent brain swelling and seizures, which are possible complications of the surgery. The senator will also be closely watched for bleeding and blood clots, because strokes are also a risk, though they are uncommon. He is expected to return to Boston in about a week.

"After a brief recuperation, he will begin targeted radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital and chemotherapy treatment," Friedman said. "I hope that everyone will join us in praying for Sen. Kennedy to have an uneventful and robust recovery."

Good wishes can be sent to Senator Kennedy here

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