December 2005 Archives

It’s rare that we get a clear-cut view of the twisted lengths to which the Bush administration will go to cover its tracks, but here’s a good one.

At a Pentagon press conference on November 29, featuring Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff head General Peter Pace, Rumsfeld was asked a question about what role U.S. troops should play in stopping abuses by Iraqi security forces. Rumsfeld gave a vague, rambling response:

During the 2004 election season, we heard much from the extreme right side of the Republican Party about how homosexuality was immoral, and a stain on the soul, and gay marriage will end with box turtles and people getting married and all and sundry sort of crap. And I didn't hear alot of middle-of-the-aisle Republicans telling the residents of Wingnuttia to shut the hell up, so as far as I am concerned, they were pushing that self-serving meme as well.

You know what they should have been pointing out is immoral? Tolerating a relationship with a country like Uzbekistan, which does this:

At the Khuderbegainov trial I met an old man from Andizhan. Two of his children had been tortured in front of him until he signed a confession on the family’s links with Bin Laden. Tears were streaming down his face. I have no doubt they had as much connection with Bin Laden as I do. This is the standard of the Uzbek intelligence services.

The former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, defied gag-orders to bring us this important information on what activities the US is supporting in Uzbekistan and incase the Bush Administration needs a primer on the subject of what is actually immoral, versus what is just a bunch of made up crap, here's a sample for them to use as a guideline: What's immoral? Giving half a BILLION dollars a year to a country which tortures children, all because of it's geopolitical import, which was considerably less important before the Iraq debacle. That's immoral.

And now the United States is the country which looks the other way and does business with people who torture children. And looking to increase the level of that business. Lovely.

So this is the Bush Administration's message on morality:

Gay people=very bad and dangerous to humankind

Torturers of children=not so bad, and really great to do business with.

Thanks for that bit of moral clarity, Mr. President.

(Apologies for excluding this in the original post- a hat tip to Atrios)

A week ago, I discovered that I was Rip Van Winkle and had slept through 2002, figuratively speaking that is. I discovered my kinship with old Rip during an adventure I had with Aaron, Representative Schwartz's legislative aide. Most of you are familiar with that story.

But bear with me while I retell just a little for any of our kind lurkers out there.

During a conversation with Aaron, he mentioned a court behind the Supreme Court. I thought he was nuts! What kind of secret court is there behind the Supreme Court? I was positive that statement alone was blatantly false.

Bush's policy of allowing illegal wire taps is nearing the final throes of crashing and burning.

If you were an administration engaging in illegal wiretapping, who would you want to argue the legality of doing so, Scott McClellan or Samuel Alito?

In the Washington Post we read that new documents released showed that Alito made a similar argument, one favoring immunity from lawsuits stemming from illegal wiretapping, while he was an attorney with the Reagan administration.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. once argued that the nation's top law enforcement official deserves blanket protection from lawsuits when acting in the name of national security, even when those actions involve the illegal wiretapping of American citizens, documents released yesterday show.

[Note: Thanks to our friend, Joe Schickspack, for sharing his thoughts about the Men Behind the Curtain and the "war on terriss." Joe is a relatively new DCPer, and we're happy to have his contributions. I hear that Joe also knows a lot about music, so perhaps he'll do some writing about music and politics some time.--KB]

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In America there are words so true and powerful that the government thinks that we should not speak them aloud, lest our Security be Threatened.

Our Fearleader-in-Chief tells us that it is a "Shameful Thing" for a media outlet to have run a story that indicates that the Men Behind The Curtain may be breaking the law, illegally spying on American citizens, allegedly to keep us all safe.

Christmas in DC is quiet: the sky is overcast and gray, almost cold enough to snow. All of our wonderful museums are closed, the one day a year that you can't just walk in and see some of the most inspiring art and natural history. Now there is even a place to learn about the many peoples who were already here in North American when the Europeans arrived and started exterminating them.

What would the world be like if average people ran the world, instead of being dominated by those whose deepest motivation is a lust for power above all else? I read a mention yesterday of a famous "Christmas truce" in World War I, when Allied and German troops along a section of trench warfare, against the orders of their superior officers, spontaneously stopped fighting for a few days over Christmas, came up out of their festering trenches, and mingled in the deadly no man's land that separated them, exchanging food and gifts, playing cards, singing songs. The image is as indelible as the war was unforgiveable. In the story I was reading, the reporter interviewed some current French generals who were still seething at this act of insubordination, almost ninty years after the fact.

I have participated in politics in many ways over the last thirty years, as a demonstrator, an organizer, an author, and an editor. I have worked in the "belly of the beast," at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, at the Democratic National Committee, in John Kerry's presidential campaign.

When I look around, even within a mile or two or my own home in DC, much less at the carnage in Iraq or the genocide in Darfur, I cannot help but feel how far almost all of our political rhetoric falls from challenging the deep roots of structural violence that quietly maim and distort the lives of so many billions of people. Why is it that the capitol city of the richest country in the world has so many poor people, so many homeless people, so many terrible schools, so many murders? Is there no answer? The Bush regime does many disturbing things, but one of the most odious is the regime's active hostility to the poor; witness the recently passed budget bill. There are questions today about whether Bush violated the law with his warrantless wiretapping, and whether he should be impeached if he did.

But in a just society, any leader who consciously acted to harm the poor should be impeached on the spot. There is no excuse in a rich country for pretending that we have done all that we could to help those at the bottom. Jesus was crystal clear on this point, yet these unctuous preachers and their misled flocks spit in the face of their Lord when they support public officials who are not doing everything they can to make people's lives better, much less officials who are essentially murdering people by cutting off funds of life-supporting services.

How brave do we have to be to stand up for what is right?

Much braver than we have been.

So on this quiet Christmas, I pray for the fierceness of heart to refuse to accept what is given, and the willingness to fight for a better life for all human beings, not just those who benefit from tax cuts.

I imagine this story will surprise no one here, but disturbing, nonetheless. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

Since 9/11, my assumtion has been that anytime I used the word "nuclear" or "bomb" in a sentence, my conversation would be picked up and data mined by the NSA. I'm not sure why this was my assumption, but it was.

Did any of you have any similar assumptions about what kind of monitoring activities have been taking place?

[Editors note: Sometimes our writers at the DCP craft a piece and it doesn't get posted immediately because events of the day are overtaking the discussion. This is one of those pieces. Suz originally wrote this blogpost months ago. Amazingly, it is as, if not more, timely and topical than ever.]

President Bush and his administration clearly must have loved playing the game "Hide and Seek" when they were kids, because they've now brought their expertise to their offices; they are officially the most secretive administration ever.

Why is this important? Why should this concern us?

It's important and should concern us because it clearly concerned our Founding Fathers. Our founders declared upon their separation from the corrupt King George III that, "NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW." Therefore, when they created our constitution, they made the three powers of government: the Executive branch, the Congressional branch, and the Judiciary branch. But in their eyes, that wasn't quite enough to make sure that each office holder would be held accountable for their actions; therefore, they created a fourth arm of democracy: the freedom of the press (media) and the idea that all of the government's actions would be open for the citizens to see.

The idea of watching for corruption was a mainstay of our constitution and in that light, other laws were passed to aid in this idea. One key idea in preventing corruption of our Public Servants is to make sure there is transparency and accountability.

However according to Yahoo News,

"The federal government is keeping more secrets than usual — and keeping most of them under wraps far longer. The Information Security Oversight Office, a government agency that reviews security classification programs, says federal employees issued a record 15.6 million decisions to classify information last year, a 10 percent increase from 2003. An advocacy group, OpenTheGovernment.org, said in a statement many months ago that the statistics 'show that Congress and the executive branch have failed thus far to set adequate checks and balances on secrecy in the federal government.'"

A special missive from our resident political healer Polly Sigh…

In light of the recent prime-time tantrum from George Bush that he has every right to listen to Americans' phone conversations and read our emails, I thought I’d start a list of questions that we can randomly throw into conversations and electronic communications.

And don’t worry if they don’t make sense to the person you’re talking to. You can explain it all when you meet in person behind a potted palm in a hotel lobby.

[Editor's Note: DCP blogger and staunch Democrat, Christy, relates her hilarious experience of "reaching out" to folks on the other side of her aisle in a piece entitled, "How It Came About That I Thanked A Republican Today". As you will see, it's not about being a Republican or a Democrat, it's about doing something, and getting involved. Thanks for showing us how it's done, Christy!]

How it came about that I THANKED a republican today....

Here is how it went down. Big lunch at my house. Dead mans lunch even since we wound up with 13 participants. Of those 13... 7 are LIFELONG republicans. Never ever been registered or even considered registering as a dem.

But, as was pointed out often, they have VOTED for dems, as with most of us it just depends on the candidate.

I must say I was honestly SHOCKED to hear these life long repells, along with the other mod repells or dems start bashing bush.

It seems even southern women can comprehend what warrantless spying means. Anyway...

The conversation, to my delight, turned to IMPEACHMENT.

An argument ensues. Not about whether he NEEDS to be impeached but whether or not the republican controlled house and senate would actually take such an act SERIOUSLY.

I admit I started the argument by pointing out he will NEVER be impeached as long as the republicans are willing to just LET Bush commit open CRIMES.

I told them ALL it did not matter THEY were lifelong yellow dog ticket republicans because NONE of the repell leaders CARED.

Ohhh it got very interesting. In the verbal melee... I had a bright idea.

I said Ok ladies hush and listen. I got my phone book popped it open to the oft overlooked gov. section and picked out one of our state's repell leaders in the senate. I will call him senator blah blah.

I dialed the number and put the call on speaker phone..

This is not the EXACT transcript of what followed but it was damn close. (I woulda recorded it but a little birdy told me that is a crime.)

The assistant, a lady, answers... The group around me goes still as mice.

The Washington Post's polling editor Richard Morin recently sounded off during a chat about why the Post had never asked a question about impeaching Bush. Morin offered lame excuses, and attacked those who were writing to him asking him to include an impeachment question. (See Impeachpac for the transcript.)

Why won't the Post ask the Big I question? One minute of research was sufficient to destroy Morin's two claims. I came up with two others. In the end, it's hard not to conclude that Morin's refusal is based entirely on politics. What do you think?

******
Richard,[Washington Post polling editor]

I read a transcript of your explanation for why you get angry about being asked to ask a question about impeachment on the Post's polls. Your explanation sounds like you are shooting the messenger without paying any attention to the message.

There are four possible explanations for your refusal to poll on impeachment: the two you offered in this discussion, and two that I will suggest.

Mike Hersh from Progressive Dems and I are sitting at my dining room table, planning the January 7 Town Hall meeting we will be holding in D.C.

We noted John Conyers' report today, asking for all of us to stand with him as he demands censure for Bush and Cheney. He states:

I am taking steps against the Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq War and its collection of intelligence. I am going to need you to stand with me in fighting for accountability.

Join me to demand censure for Bush and Cheney in addition to the creation of a Special Committee to investigate impeaching the Bush Administration for its widespread abuses of power.

I have sought answers from the administration to questions arising from the Downing Street Minutes, the Valerie Plame leak, and scores of other abominable abuses of power that pervade the activities of this White House. 121 Members of Congress and many citizens like you have joined me in asking these questions of the President.

I have just completed a thorough review of this administration’s misconduct and have produced a 250-page report that provides evidence suggesting further steps to be taken. [A copy of the report may be found at RawStory.com, and also at CensureBush.org where additional action items may be found.]

It is time to take bolder measures in our pursuit of justice. This White House has responded to questions about its conduct with misleading statements, obfuscation, and vicious attacks against their critics. We must take the next step towards restoring accountability in our federal government. To this end I have:

• Introduced a resolution of censure for both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney, and;

• I am calling upon Congress to create a select committee similar to the Ervin Committee, which investigated President Nixon’s Watergate crimes. This select committee should investigate those offenses which appear to rise to the level of impeachment.

This administration must be held accountable for its misdeeds. We have considerable work to do and I am going to need your help to make this effort successful. Join me in sending a message to the President, the media, and the American people that we are not going to stand for an imperial presidency any longer.

Sincerely,

John Conyers

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was one of the greatest defenders of freedom in America in the 20th century. Douglas is the author of a beautiful but frightening metaphor about the subtleness with which our freedoms can slip away:

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such a twilight that we must be aware of the change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

President Bush long ago took us into the twilight. But too many of us were blind to the dying of the light. We did not rage when the President asserted in the Padillo case that as commander in chief, he was not bound to observe the Constitution. In the deepening twilight, unconstitutional abuses of someone like Padillo remain in the shadows, of concern only to a few who can still see where such assertions of unbridled power inevitably lead.

But now the President has stuck his sticky fingers into the lives of every single American with access to a phone or email. The revelation of the NSA’s secret spying has created more than a slight “change in the air.”

Far more people now see the darkness that lies at the end of Bush’s tunnel, and they are afraid. Oppression is no longer far away in some secret CIA torture chamber; oppression is at our ear, every time we pick up a phone; oppression is at our fingertips, every time we launch an email into the now NSA-surveilled void.

There are no more excuses left.

Douglas called for us to be aware, “lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” The darkness is here—but are our wits about us?

Today felt like the calm before the beginning of a struggle for the soul of our nation. We are long past the time when we could look to the courts for surcease: the wheels of the courts grind far too slowly to catch up with the accelerating tyrannous pace of the Bush regime.

And so today we waited: would anyone in Congress be willing to act? After the 2000 election, we were shamed when not even one Democratic Senator was willing to stand up with the brave Democratic members of the House and challenge the blatant illegitimacy of that election. In 2004, there was one Democratic Senator, Barbara Boxer, who stood up alone and forced a historical but token debate within the Congress about the latest set of electoral subversions.

We wait tonight: is the Congress prepared to impeach George Bush? It is extremely rare that you will lose money betting against the cravenness of members of Congress, especially members of a party whose grip on power is becoming more slippery every day.

We wait, we hope. There must be members of Congress who are willing to step forward and live up to their promises to uphold the Constitution. This fight has long since passed from being a partisan fight. The lies that Bush told to take the country to war were only the beginning of his assault on our freedom. It is lies that take you from the daylight, lies that take you into the twilight, lies that take you finally into the darkness.

There is only one way to end the lies: impeach George Bush. And if Dick Cheney does not resign quickly, impeach him too. Congress, acting on behalf of all of us, needs to lance this terrible abscess and flush out all of those who played a role in this shameful episode of American history.

So tonight we wait. The filing of articles of impeachment could not come too soon. Then the really hard work of taking back our country will begin.

As the days spin towards the holidays, the sense of frenzy coming out of the Capitol increases. They must get something together, budget-wise, before they can go back to their own privileged lives.

This morning's Washington Post updates us on the process:

GOP Leaders Agree to $41.6 Billion Spending Cut

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 19, 2005; 7:00 AM

House and Senate GOP leaders agreed yesterday to a five-year budget plan for cutting spending for Medicaid and other entitlement programs by $41.6 billion and a separate measure to open the Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling.

The authority to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration -- long sought by President Bush, energy companies and Republican leaders -- was attached to a separate fiscal 2006 defense spending bill that has widespread support in both parties because of its funding for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rushing to get out of town for the holidays, the House approved both bills in early morning votes Monday. The pre-dawn showdown hid the House votes from public view, a maneuver that leaders have used all year on difficult votes.

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Here at the DCP, it is never enough to merely recognize cowardice and narcissism and thievery and criminal irresponsibility and all the other vocabulary words that come to mind when we think about such ridiculously self-serving acts against the American people (not to mention the peoples of the world and the planet itself).

We must ACT.

We have joined in with a number of other organizations in an effort to educate ourselves and our legislators about how we wish to proceed in 2006. No matter what you think about the budget currently proposed for FY 2007, it is our responsibility to convey any and all concerns to those charged with representing our interests.

January 7, 2006 is a Saturday. Legislators will most likely be in the home districts. Many will be campaigning. They need to hear from the voters. If we do not share our concerns with them, they will be able to continue to represent the interests of the corporate and religious communities who have purchased their loyalty, without paying any heed to the needs of the poor, the under-employed, the children, the elderly, and the health of the community.

Town meetings are a way to begin to bring the message home to the Members of Congress that we are not going to tolerate their profligate attitudes, the cuts to Medicare, education loan programs, and environmental oversight, and that we are here to remind them that they work for US.

And we don't want no stinkin' wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, or torture. We would like them to read the Constitution. Perhaps one of the things we can do on January 7 is to read the Constitution to them.

The way to get involved is here. Let us keep discussing how your efforts are going, and what we can do to support your voicing of concerns to those with the power to act on those concerns.

Smoke 'em out. Give them their marching orders.

Andrea Mitchell last night (via Atrios):

MITCHELL: Well, a former intelligence official tells NBC News tonight that the people most likely to be swept up in this are listed in a Homeland Security database, Brian, called Muslims of America. But most people targeted are never charged with a crime. And one former official says this does amount to a giant electronic fishing expedition. Is it legal? The president says yes. Critics say no. Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter says his committee will hold hearings in the new year.

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From commenter In Vino Veritas:

DER SPIEGEL: Well, a former intelligence official tells Der Spiegel tonight that the people most likely to be swept up in this are listed in a SS database, Klaus, called Jews of Germany. But most people targeted are never charged with a crime. And one former official says this does amount to a giant electronic fishing expedition. Is it legal? Der Fuhrer says yes. Critics say no.

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From Me:

Most people at GITMO are never charged with a crime, either, Andrea. Do you think you could maybe do your job and connect the dots between suspension of habeas corpus and domestic spying?

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Your turn to comment...

The latest in our series to heal the stunned, tired and increasingly angry American soul…

Dear Polly:

Hopeful at Last

Former United States Senator William Proxmire died on Thursday, December 15, 2005, at a care facility in Maryland. He had Alzheimer's disease. He served in the United States Senate from 1957-1989. He was 90 years old.

How I Knew About William Proxmire

Growing up in a family where "spending money" was something other families had, I knew of Senator William Proxmire from the time I was a little girl.

While other people would joke that my Dad had eight children so he could have his own baseball team, and my sister swore it was so he could control a block of votes, I think we all really knew that it was so he could have an audience. Just about every night my father would use that audience, reading to us from the newspaper at the dinner table.

Each night, armed with knives and forks, all the kids would engage in the Darwinian-ritual of getting to the bowls of food for our rightful share before the contents disappeared. My father was stern and clear on the morality of each child's serving size- you were only entitled one-eighth of whatever was being served. But some people weren't very good at math, and it generally turned into something of a free-for-all. My mother would despair of the civility of her household, sigh and look to the heavens in an unspoken, and largely ungranted, appeal for help.

Once the food had been disbursed, my father would clear his throat loudly and announce in faux stentorian tones, "A Reading From The Newspaper." This was our cue to sit up a little straighter and fein rapt interest in whatever had interested my father that night. Except on the nights when he would read, "The Golden Fleece Award." On those nights, we were always quiet and paid attention, waiting for the punchline.

"The Golden Fleece Award" was started by Senator William Proxmire in 1975, to highlight "the biggest or most ridiculous or most ironic example of government waste." It came in the form of a speech on the Senate floor that was reprinted in newspapers across America.

I remember being amazed at ways that money could be so wasted by our government. I knew that we weren't the only family struggling. Everyone's Dad worked hard for thier families. Why was the government wasting money?

It's interesting to notice all of the little things that contribute to the adult you become. William Proxmire's consciousness-raising Golden Fleece Awards was one of the things that contributed to my lifelong fascination with how government spends the money we send it. I imagine it helped along my adult view that how our government chooses to spend our money, is actually a manifestation of the moral choices we make as a country.

William Proxmire did many things that helped shape the lives of both individuals and families in America.

He was a Democratic fiscal hawk who thought that credit card companies should behave differently than loan sharks.

He stood in the well of the United States Senate over the course of his near 32-year career there and gave over three thousand speeches to support the ratification of an international treaty outlawing genocide before the US passed a bill in 1986.

He had run for office many times before he was elected in 1957.

He never forgot what it was like to lose and even ran on that as a platform, saying in one of his stump speeches, "My opponent doesn't know what it is to lose. I do. And I'll welcome the support of voters who do, too. I'll take the losers. I'll take the debtors. I'll take those who've lost in love, or baseball, or in business. I'll take the Milwaukee Braves."

He finally won in 1957 in a special election, held to fill the seat vacated by the death of a Wisconsin senator. The seat he took over when he was elected to the Senate, was Joe McCarthy's seat.

He thought government had a duty to equality, however that concept manifested itself. Moreover, he thought government had a duty to make sure everyone had an equal shot at the American dream.

William Proxmire, R.I.P. America sure misses you.

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How many members of the Bush administration and Congressional warhawks repeated the phrase, "Congress had the same intelligence information that the President had about Iraq..." or some version of that phrase since it became apparent that just about ALL of the reasons given for going to war in Iraq were fiction?

Senator DiAnne Feinstein asked the non-partisan Congressional Research Service to investigate that claim.

So, any guesses? Was the claim by the President and every member of his administration and most of the residents of Greater Wingnuttia true or false?

The report is in, and the claim is false.

Will it stop the administration from repeating claims that they know to be factually incorrect? I doubt it. All we need to do is look at Vice-President Cheney's continuing delusions about a connection between 9/11 and Iraq, despite a mountain of evidence showing otherwise, to see that this administration will say anything that they believe will advance their political causus belli.

Facts be damned.

Ed Note: The following photos are from Friday's Dem event in which the Republicans took a bashing. Our intrepid reporter, KarenDC, did not get to ask the questions on all of our minds: What about the war? Are you considering impeachment inquiries? Have you even READ the GAO Report? However, the group of Democratic legislators seemed determined and focused.

Sen. Harry Reid, Rep. Steny Hoyer, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi

The last flimsy fig leaf of respect for the Constitution was ripped away with today's reports that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency in 2002 to eavesdrop on US citizens and foreign nationals in the US.

The story ABOUT this story is equally horrifying. The New York Times knew about this NSA program and at the request of the government sat on the story for more than a year.

The timing suggests that this information could have been made public by the Times before the 2004 election. Such information would have roiled the waters. Through its complicity with the government, the Times may very well have altered the outcome of the election.

Whatever political credibility the Times may have had lies in ruins.

In a just world where people cared about the survival of freedom and liberty, the publisher of the Times should FIRE every single person who had any information about the Times' decision to sit on this story. And if the publisher knew, he should then resign in shame as well.

These reporters and editors are traitors in the deepest sense of the word. They have betrayed the American people and they have betrayed the dignity and integrity of every working journalist on the planet.

Given everything else that the Bush administration has done, it is no surprise to discover yet another area in which the President has led the charge into lawlessness. We have warned over and over again that Bush and his minions were power-mad. And having ceded them such unlimited powers, they have behaved as history tells us that tyrants and dictators always behave when they wield such unchecked powers.

Could you have imagined, ten years ago, that our country was:

*operating an international network of secret prisons.

*running a Justice Dept. headed by an Attorney General whose craven memos purported to allow US Government officials to engage in torture, and who was confirmed by the Senate even though the Senators knew about the torture memos.

*allowing the President on his own whim to arrest and imprison people for the rest of their natural lives without access to an attorney or even a court.

I could go on, but the point is clear. We are now living under the gravest threat that our country has ever faced. The men and women who are running the executive branch are sytematically destroying the constitutional foundations of our country. And the men and women in the Congress who are empowered by the Constitution to provide a check on the executive branch have utterly failed to carry out their own constitutional duties.

Every day that passes under the leadership of these people is another knife blow to the ribs of liberty. If freedom is to survive this unprecedented onslaught, the American people are going to have to go to the streets again and again and again until these evildoers are forced from office.

Yesterday I ran into the FEMA protest at the corner of Independence and 1st. Led by the Rev. Yearwood, the determined group headed down the street towards the House Office Buildings.

Several were Hurricane Katrina survivors and the Rev. gathered them around for a prayer once they arrived at the HOB.

He said, "FEMA has made a disaster of disaster relief. Don't turn the Gulf Coast into Disneyland. Fix the water, the lights, the hospitals."

He said, "Point relief, not fingers."

I have heard the Rev. Yearwood on a number of occasions lately, and he is a pretty powerful and impassioned speaker. Today it occurred to me just how committed he is. His voice can ring and it can chill. He is a poet and a soul catcher, a fighter and a minister of peace. Keep your eye (and ear) out for him; he will be traveling around the country soon.

The next meeting was a planning meeting with several groups for a mobilization in late April. Questions abound and are not answered yet: should there be one action in one place or in several places across the country? Should it be focused on the entire Bush administration, Congress, or one issue, or many issues, all of which are intertwined and inform each other?

What becomes clear to me as I attend and listen and share my own perspectives is that so many of us are aching for a solution. It is painful to see the loss of freedoms, the arrogance, the spin, and especially the lies that are told in support of a regime that seems to be doing its best to eliminate democracy. But it is heartening to hear that, even though we may not all be on the same page all the time, that tactics and strategies are only part of the picture. The picture also includes passion, attention, formidable knowledge, and a breadth of concerns. I was touched, as I listened to the discussions today, that so many of us care about so many of us.

The 2005 White House Conference on Aging was the fifth in history. It is held once in a decade. Its purpose was to make recommendations to the President and Congress to help guide national aging policies for the next ten years and beyond. The 2005 Conference focused on the aging population of today and tomorrow, including 78 million baby boomers who will begin to turn 60 in January 2006. It brought together more than a thousand specialists on aging. Everyone was thinking about Social Security and Medicare.

President Bush did not attend. He was the first President to skip out on this conference since its inception.

Instead, he limo'd 16 miles to Virginia, to speak at an upscale retirement complex for a photo op with hand-picked seniors supportive of his administration.

The crowd at the White House Conference was bipartisan and included some critics of the privatization of Social Security and the handling of Medicare by this Administration. Not surprisingly, some of the delegates to the White House Conference were left with the impression that the President isn't committed to problems of seniors.

“He didn’t come because he didn’t want to get embarrassed. He has some smart strategists,” said delegate Tony Fransetta, president of the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans. “We have been totally ignored.” Nancy Hall, who works with seniors in Winston-Salem, N.C., said, “People are very disappointed and puzzled, because a lot of the issues that are on the agenda here are issues that President Bush says he cares about. I think it sends a message that aging issues aren’t a priority for him at this point.”

Conference organizers said they received no explanation for Bush’s absence.

(sources: Washington Dateline Media Service, American Public Radio)

The Washington Post Ombudsman, Deborah Howell, opined Sunday about Dan Froomkin's column after giving a long scree on why the washingtonpost.com is not The Washington Post, even though the washingtonpost.com publishes many of the WaPo's stories. (washingtonpost.com is the product of a sister company called Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, WPNI for short).

Side comment: she also manages to slur the many non-local readers of the washingtonpost.com who are so foolish as to think that the 2 publications, one paper and one internet, are one and the same. Perhaps she didn't get the message from Washington Post chairman Don Graham "...that the future of news is on the Internet, not in print newspapers like the Washington Post."

At any rate, Ms. Howell said:

"Political reporters at The Post don't like WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing," which is highly opinionated and liberal. They're afraid that some readers think that Froomkin is a Post White House reporter.

She also points out that:

Some Post reporters don't appreciate that links are put on the Web site to what bloggers are saying about this or that story -- especially when the bloggers are highly negative.

< snark > And you'd prefer not to know what people outside the Beltway think of the reporting? And that is useful how, in developing washingtonpost.com as a 'must go to' web resource? < /snark >

She also mentions that though Dan Froomkin's White House Briefing is popular, the washingtonpost.com really should change the name of his column so he doesn't appear to be a real White House reporter and that washingtonpost.com should consider "supplementing [Froomkin's column] with a conservative blogger."

Ahhh, balance... otherwise known as pseudo-journalism.

But what really caught my eye about the whole affair is Dan Froomkin's response. He sounds like a real journalist. Not one of those "access journalist" types who spend time stroking egos over drinks at restaurants, receptions and parties and deciding what not to print because their access will otherwise be cut off.   [Emphasis below added by editor]

Okay, I'll admit it-I don't understand all of the jokes in the New Yorker magazine. I probably never will. I can live with that. But would someone please tell me what the heck is up with MSNBC's new BlogAds campaign?

It's beyond incomprehensible to me. I find it alternately weird, funny, hopelessly under-researched and ill-informed. Hey, that's the same as most of what you can find on MSNBC! OMG-could it be that they are dangerously clever and hip in doing this self-parody?

Oh wait, it's MSNBC. Nevermind.

Just go look for yourself over at Josh Marshall's top two ads and tell me what you think the message MSNBC is trying to convey.

"How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child", or in this case, a son who finds greater loyalty with political ideologues than in paternal fidelity. From the ultra right wing news distortionist, NewsMax via Americablog:

"Fox News Sunday" anchorman Chris Wallace says father Mike Wallace has "lost it" - after the legendary CBS newsman told the Boston Globe last week that the fact George Bush had been elected president shows America is "[expletive]-up."

"He's lost it. The man has lost it. What can I say," the younger Wallace lamented to WRKO Boston radio host Howie Carr on Friday.

"He's 87-years old and things have set in," the Fox anchor continued. "I mean, we're going to have a competence hearing pretty soon."

Wallace Jr. quickly dispelled any notion that he was joking. When Carr suggested that his comments were likely to be covered by NewsMax, he responded: "You know what? Fine. Go ahead. Call them. That's fine. I'll stand by that."

Returning to the topic of his father's competence, Wallace Jr. explained: "He's checked out. I don't understand it," beyond the fact that Wallace Sr. has "problems with the war."

"I don't know why he said what he said," he added.

On Thursday, the elder Wallace told the Boston Globe that if he had the chance to interview President Bush, he'd ask:

"What in the world prepared you to be the commander in chief of the largest superpower in the world? In your background, Mr. President, you apparently were incurious. You didn't want to travel. You knew very little about the military. . . . The governor of Texas doesn't have the kind of power that some governors have. . . . Why do you think they nominated you? . . . Do you think that has anything to do with the fact that the country is so [expletive] up?"

Still, despite his criticism, Wallace Jr. seems to have inherited some of his father's shoot-from-the-lip-style.

Asked about DNC chair Howard Dean's recent prediction that the U.S. would lose the war in Iraq, Wallace told Carr:

"We are in a war. We do have 150,000-plus American soldiers over there. I mean, it's Tokyo Rose, for God sakes, going on radio saying we can't win the war."

Let's remind Chris Wallace what President Bush said to Matt Lauer in an August 30, 2004 interview:

During an interview conducted by NBC's Matt Lauer for The Today Show, President Bush, when asked if the United States could win the War On Terrorism, stated story he did not believe that the United States could win the "war".

So, in Chris Wallace's mind, was the President "losing it"? Is it time for a competency hearing for the President?

We don't know. Wallace didn't make any comments on the President's remarks (despite the fact that he was anchoring the Republican National Convention on the day the remarks were all over the news). He only find his jingoistic center of balance when it's his father he's criticizing.

The latest in our series to heal the politically lame…

Dear Polly:

Baffled

The ancients have used the longest night, the impending solstice, as a means to reflect, to gather family, to gather community, tell stories, and feast, to recall the awesome power of the sun, respect its absence, and re-kindle the hope for the light to come.

We came here to establish community, because I think we needed to stay connected after November of 2004. But we have grown beyond those days of darkness. Slowly, imperceptably, like how a normal year goes by, it's suddenly December. A year later. We have become a family, who are in each others' lives, and each others' hearts.

I think more and more, I find myself regarding this virtual family as a natural extension of my own extended local one, with a window to everyone vis a vis my DSL line. I want to take this time to add to what was begun over a year ago, when this community banded together to make a "quilt" to honor the memory of Angie, daughter of DCPer April.

To this quilt I add this custom, as practiced in my culture. We make a special small plate of food from the feast in which we all gather together to share, and set that plate aside with a candle lit in memory of those we've loved and lost.

Today, I invite all of us to share in the feast that is our community, and set aside this space as an offering in remembrance. As we approach the magical time of the longest night, remember that it's also the first few hours of what will be the longest day. Let us remember Angie, and all of those who we have lost. Let us take in their light, and share ours here today.

"Eugene McCarthy has just died at age 89"

I just saw this - a sendout from TruthOut, and I haven't read a story about it yet, as I sit down to write this. I don't need a news story, to remember Eugene McCarthy and note his passing, as his story has been a big part of the story of my own life.

When I was sixteen years old, I wandered into a doorway where I saw a sign having to do with stopping the war in Vietnam. It was on Main Street in Mitchell, South Dakota. I went up those wooden stairs and signed up for the campaign of Eugene McCarthy. My supervisor was 21 years old. His campaign, in 1968, was known as the "Children's Crusade." I always thought we were kind of precursors to the Dean campaign, even if we didn't have the internet in those days, because of our enthusiasm and grassroots activism. I had many 'deja vu' moments when people seemed to think something new had been invented in the last couple of years. It was more like a new twist on an old theme.

I remember clearly how we recruited a guy who was old enough to drive - a farm kid with no political affiliation. He had a big white van and we rode in the back with our rolls of paper, tape, flyers and bumper stickers. We made our own posters because McCarthy's campaign didn't have much money. We rolled into little towns like Stickney and Storla, SD - Republican towns - and tried to spread the word. We read slogans into a bullhorn as we drove through these towns (they all had a Main Street, sometimes the only street with a name).

Often we would find that the Robert Kennedy Jr. people had come in ahead of us and had a nice headquarters. They had a lot more money and their people got steaks; we got hamburgers. We were a little resentful, as people can be during primary campaigns, even on the same side. I also learned that we had one talk (when we canvassed door-to-door) for farm people, one for education-oriented people, one on health care etc. I also knew that McCarthy's political platform was very close to that of Robert Kennedy Jr., who really was my 2nd choice, and I had a feeling he'd win the nomination. Yet Eugene was a poet and a visionary, an intellectual, a man with conscience. He inspired us.

Then before long, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was assassinated and it was all over. Eugene McCarthy would not have gotten the nomination. When I think about it, he may have been more of a Dennis Kucinich than a Howard Dean, were I to make a comparison. It's the campaign enthusiasm of the young people that made me draw parallels to the Deaniacs.

& then Humphrey was the nominee, I watched that horrible DNC convention in Chicago - with Mayor Daley's cops beating not just on demonstrators but on delegates! & then there was Nixon. I would feel such disappointment again, with Reagan twice, with Bush Sr. and most of all, with Bush Jr. heading the country. Last year had to be the worst election night of my life, but second was no doubt the night McGovern lost and we were at the convention headquarters in Sioux Falls, SD, trying to drown our sorrows even though we weren't yet old enough to drink.

Not so long ago, I came across an interview with Eugene McCarthy and he was still very coherent and wise. Today is an end of an era for me. For some people, it was the death of Paul Wellstone. This is similar. I will definitely need to find ways to keep the dream alive. We have to carry it on.

By now I have one response from a friend:

"Neat and clean for Gene." Wore a suit, cut my hair and canvassed all over the country. Junior delegate to the 1968 Chicago convention where I was beaten and arrested by the police. Gene loses the nomination to Humphrey, who lost to Nixon. Joined the SDS. Good times......

Dick tells a story about introducing Benjamin Spock to Helen Caldicott for the first time. Both were well-known anti-nuclear activists, but had never met before. Helen asked Ben whether he ever got depressed. He drew himself up to his full, not inconsiderable height, and looked down at her. "DEPRESSED?!? I don't get DEPRESSED! I get ANGRY!!!

Since I'm having a bit of both depression and anger these days, I thought I'd try to pull together some of my own coping skills, and share them with you, just in case you too, are riding the roller coaster of emotions that always seem to accompany the holidays under the shadow of fascism.

Let's start with tension. I have been thinking and writing a lot about tension (some of you know that I am also working on a book about Rudolf Laban, who derived a remarkable approach to understanding the components and resultant meanings of movement).

Laban on tension: "There exists no speech without bodily tension."

The most useful perspective on tension is the one that he writes about: the waxing and waning of tension as dynamism, as communication, as heightened expressivity, as life. The less useful perspective is the all-or-nothing pendulum swing between being bound up and immobilized versus completely and suddenly releasing all tension, the-people-in-the-room-be-damned.

We seem to be living in a bi-polar pendulum-swing world these days. Bush's numbers, for example. The GAO Report that sank without a trace. Support for the war. The Dems and what they stand for. The economy. The environmental news. Nuclear energy. The list goes on...

Are we at one extreme or the other of belief, of response, of concern?

Artists like to go to extremes to test the waters and bring audiences a little further away from the comfortable center. We also crave balance and recuperation. But these days, it seems, there is no simple place for balance and recuperation.

Yoga is a respite, a brief vacation, but I find it impossible to sit up from shivassana and maintain that sense of breath-in, breath-out for very long. As soon as my vision is opened again, I see. And I have to hold my breath, in horror and disbelief, or feel the grief and sob, or sigh so deeply that my children look up from their own lives and then look away again.

And so, I act. I write, I read, I call, I organize, I find that breath-in, breath-out rhythm can speed up, or slow down, or hold off for a second while I listen. The breath-in is inspiration; I can grow as I inhale to take in a wider view of the world. The breath-out is expression, colored by tensions, concerns, love, suggestions, intention.

I never really know what the next breath will bring.

There are the usual patterns of behavior to struggle with; we are nothing if not habitual, and even though each new breath is a potential break-through of those old tired patterns, they are remarkably tenacious. It is not always difficult to predict what is LIKELY to come next, from the vast repository of the functional and dsyfunctional well-practiced patterns bag. But lately, I find it helpful to try new ways of breathing in and out, to vary the typology.

And when I do, the terrain changes too. I find I am better prepared to respond consciously, to see the landscape as it is, and to find my opening, or to note that doors are closed right now, and I therefore have time for some mint tea.

You see, it is a dance, but not a pre-rehearsed statement or story. It is the art of the moment, informed by the past, and heading toward the future, with the constant give-and-take of the present. And by acting with such a full heart and an aware mind, with reference to and contained by the relationships we have contracted over time, we can, as Howard Zinn reminded us last week, "do, in order to predict."

And so to myself, this fine morning, and shared with all of you:

This is life. Show up. Pay attention. Don't forget to breathe and keep your knees loose. Color the world a little today.

Tensions in nature...

Yesterday, George Bush presented another stump speech about the Iraq occupation, complete with the usual slogans and inaccuracies. Yet, members of Congress are fighting to bring this regime's hidden plans to the surface, expose the details to the light of day, and allow the American people to see the truth about this administration's actions!

One of the people rebutting the spin and telling us the truth is Congressman Murtha who announced that the military intends to request another one hundred billion for the Iraq (occupation) next year.

Think Progress posted the details:

MURTHA: Twenty years it’s going to take to settle this thing. The American people... is not going to put up with it; can’t afford it. We have spent $277 billion. That’s what’s been appropriated for this operation. We have $50 billion sitting on the table right now in our supplemental, or bridge fund we call it, in the Appropriations Committee. They’re going to ask for another $100 billion next.

As the ranking member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, Congressman Murtha is definitely in a position to know; of course, so is the President. The President, however, chooses to continue to hide the facts from us. You can tell from his stump speeches that he really doesn't want us to see the writing on the wall.

Twenty five years ago today, many of us were stunned at the meaningless murder of John Lennon on that cold December night in New York -- even those of us old enough to remember John F. Kennedy’s assassination. History taught us that political leaders are vulnerable to political assassinations. But Rock ‘n Roll legends?

It didn’t matter if you weren’t a Beatles fan; and if you were, it didn’t matter if John wasn’t your favorite. That night, we lost more than a musical icon. We lost someone who played a large role in starting the peace movement that helped end the Vietnam War. With music, bed-ins, and other creative means of political activism, John and Yoko helped make the world believe we needed to give peace a chance.

Now, a quarter of a century later, a sense of the profound loss and his sudden absence still remains. As we face being mired in another irrational war for who knows how long, we hope that we can draw on the lessons learned from those who experienced the Vietnam peace movement. We must make the world believe again that "war is over, if we want it."

John Lennon: songwriter, singer, poet, artist, husband, father, feminist, political activist, peace lover…

Imagine what the world would be like today if he had not died too young…

I was raised in a geeky family. In terms of popular culture, this meant that we eagerly awaited the announcement of the winners of the Nobel Prizes with the exact same eagerness as we watched the beautiful, the breathless and the tearful accept an Academy award or the Miss America crown.

As an adult, I still eagerly await the announcement of the Nobel Prize winners, but now I also eagerly await their Nobel lectures. I crave more insight into these exceptional minds. Sometimes, it's the first time we get such access, and often it is the only time.

So when Harold Pinter was selected earlier this year as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, I thought, "Well, that's going to be one damn interesting lecture." I thought that because I have long been a fan of Pinter's work. His literary work to be sure, but I mean his other work. His political work. I felt certain that this would be the thrust of his speech. And the man did not disappoint.

If you wish to hear the lecture for yourself, click here, and follow the link for high or low band-width. You will need RealPlayer. If you wish to read the text, click here.

For those that wish to do neither, I will hit a few of the highlights below of his lecture, titled, "Art, Truth, and Politics".

When I first read this item on Media Matters, I thought this was a parody. I should have known better.

This is Bill O'Reilly's latest salvo in his imaginary "War On Christmas".

On the December 2 broadcast of Fox News' The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, host Bill O'Reilly stated that he would "use all the power that I have on radio and television to bring horror into the world of people" who "diminish and denigrate the [Christmas] holiday." O'Reilly singled out "oppressive, totalitarian, anti-Christian forces in this country" as those who seek to undermine Christmas, asserting that these "forces" are "on the run, because I will put their face and their name on television and I will talk about them on the radio if they do it." He later added: "There is no reason on this earth that all of us can not celebrate a public holiday devoted to generosity, peace, and love together," cautioning that "anyone who tries to stop us from doing it is gonna face me."

Ya got that? Peace and love, or Bill O'Reilly's gonna beat the crap outta you.

From Think Progress:

Murtha responds to Lieberman.

Lieberman yesterday: “It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.”

Murtha today: “Undermining his credibility? What has he said that would give him credibility?”

Judges noted Murtha's lightning quick use of the facts to score a clear knockdown of Lieberman's shaky stance.

Round One to Murtha.

[Editor's Note: Calls to Lieberman's office for comment, have gone unreturned for the last three days. We will include their remarks when, and if, they ever return our calls.]

Last Friday, Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) made this claim to his local newspaper (hat tip to Josh Marshall):

"I wouldn't know Jack Abramoff if he walked in the room," Burns told reporters after Friday's field hearing.

Yesterday's Washington Post article begs to differ, Senator Burns:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Conrad Burns and his staff met Jack Abramoff's lobbying team on at least eight occasions and collected $12,000 in donations around the time that the lawmaker took legislative action favorable to Abramoff's clients in the Northern Mariana Islands, records show.

Memory lapse, or dirty rotten liar?

Last weekend, thousands of people in 32 countries demonstrated in favor of programs to limit global warming. 189 countries met in Montreal to set environmental policy starting in 2012 when the Kyoto Accord expires. As we know, the Bush administration has been a thorn in the side of this effort, refusing to participate in a meaningful way or to show a positive intent to comply. They have used the excuse that curbing greenhouse gas emissions would slow growth and hurt our economy.

It is gratifying to see a local and elective effort to keep our global environment healthy. My city, Seattle, is a leader, but many others are uniting with us. It will be with pleasure that I take my car in for its emissions check, reduce my commute from 5 days to 4 and increase types of materials recycled. It is gratifying to read that our Mayor has helped persuade 192 other cities to agree to cut emissions 7 percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

Mayor Nickels said "We reject the idea that is put forward by our national leaders in the United States that we have a choice to save the environment or save the economy," Nickels said on Tuesday on the sidelines of the 189-nation United Nations conference on climate change. Mayor Nickels hopes results on the local and state levels will eventually lead the United States back into the Kyoto protocol for post-2012. "It is inevitable that after the cities and states show it is safe, the politicians in Washington, D.C. will join and again the United States will take its moral responsibility," he said.

At least 40 million Americans will join us to voluntarily curb their own greenhouse gas emissions! This is a bipartisan effort! The cities will join several states such as California and New York, as well as selected corporations have been following the Kyoto lead, showing that they can be more proactive than our government. Cities and individuals are pledging to use renewable energy and alternative fuels, build green buildings and cooperate with auto emission reduction efforts.

(sources: Reuters, Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, National Public Radio)

There Ought To Be A Law:

Any politician who uses both Christmas and schoolkids to score political points, should be made to write on a blackboard one thousand times, "I am pond scum", and then be made to write a five thousand word essay on the concept, "teachable moment".

OKLAHOMA CITY - A Christmas tree that elementary school students decorated with discarded lottery tickets was removed from the state Capitol over the weekend after a lawmaker complained it was inappropriate.

Rep. Randy Terrill, who opposes the lottery, said he spotted the tree on Wednesday when it was erected as part of the governor's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony. The Republican lawmaker called the Westwood Elementary School principal, who apologized and asked the governor's office to remove the tree.

Sherry Fair, spokeswoman for Oklahoma City Public Schools, said the teachers and children did not intend to offend anyone. The teachers went to various convenience stores and got used lottery tickets, which were cut into various geometric shapes and placed on the tree.

"They had been studying about the lottery and understood that the lottery money benefits public schools," Fair said. "They came up with a theme about the gift of education."

Terrill said the principal had invited him to talk to students at the school.

Paul Sund, a spokesman for Gov. Brad Henry, said the governor's office had nothing to do with decorating the tree and referred questions to the school district. The office of the state school superintendent selects the schools that decorate the trees.

Let's think for a moment how many more constuctive ways this situation could have been handled. The children could have come away from this experience learning something positive and worthwhile about, say community values, or government responsibilities, or democracy in action.

Both parties had interesting points of view that could have been shared, or debated in the classroom with the legislator, or even left to respectfully coexist as free speech in the letters to the editor section of the local paper.

How many teachable moments are lost this way every day?

I wonder if the educational, community and government leaders involved have any idea of the cynical political lesson they just taught these kids that will stay with them for life?

There oughta be a law.

*bangs head on desk*

UPDATE: Let me make two things clear here. This is not a piece about lotteries, or lotteries and schools. Also, here is the website for the school in question. These people rock. As noted above, the principal tried for the teachable moment. Clearly, it was blocked.

My Day With Howard Zinn...

The man is the sweetest and most congenial teacher I have ever had. I wish I had his patience. Yet, I reminded him, he often pushed us--hard--to think about what we were willing to actually do to bring about awareness of the need for social change.

I remembered sitting in his office on a Monday evening, probably in 1972, right after the United States had placed mines in Haiphong harbor. He asked us if we might consider mining Boston harbor? When I reminded him of this moment yesterday, he looked at me and said "I doubt I suggested that!" I replied, "I think you were trying to make a point to us." He said, "Probably I suggested we do a MOCK mining." I said, "Well, the point is that I was 19 years old and I was scared. I had a hard time figuring out where I was in all this; how I felt about taking the kinds of actions (nonviolent as they seemed to be) we were talking about. It took me years to understand what that was all about for me."

And here is what I have come to, after all these years:

In order to understand this blog item, you need to go and read this top story at MSNBC.

Anything jump out at you?

For the benefit of the MSNBC news staff, who missed every single significant item of this story, I wil try to go through a few of the more interesting points about which, they forgot to ask any questions.

The "Duh" List

Let's begin with The Headline,

"Officials: CIA missile strike kills al-Qaida No. 3."

This headline is woefully incomplete. To be accurate, it should say, "...kills al-Qaida No. 3 for the 85,457th time."

More important though, is this part of the headline:

"CIA missile strike... "

CIA missile strike? The CIA owns and operates predator drones with laser-guided Hellfire missiles? And they operate them independently? Isn't that a Pentagon operation? Doesn't the use of this weapon require the President to sign off on it? Who signs off on an operation like this one? Who has the oversight responsibilities for a CIA with armed predator drones? BTW, the loss of this predator drone cost about $4.5 million dollars (not including the cost of the estimated six hellfire missiles used in the attack).

Moving on...

How about this part, found neatly in the caption:

Pakistani tribesmen are seen on Thursday displaying a piece of a U.S. made laser guided missile, found in the debris of a house which was destroyed after alleged American Predator aircraft, which flew from bordering Afghanistan, fired on the house, killing five people including a senior al-Qaida commander identified as Abu Hamza Rabia.

So, according to the caption, we flew in from Afghanistan, into Pakistan to conduct CIA assassination missions? Do the Paks look happy about that? To what extent is the Senate Foreign Relations Committee involved in these operations? Any oversight here, folks?

Moving on...

Musharraf said Saturday it was “200 percent confirmed” that Rabia was killed.

Nice to get that quote from Musharraf...who was not in Pakistan at the time that the US was conducting secret missile attacks there. He was actually in Kuwait. I keep hearing this ringing in my ears, "Cambodia, Cambodia...".

Moving on...

Here's my final question from the piece-it's the quote from Steven Hadley on this operation:

U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley declined to confirm that Rabia, said to be among al-Qaida’s top five leaders and responsible for planning overseas attacks, was dead or that the attack was carried out by a pilotless U.S. plane.

“At this point we are not in a position publicly to confirm that he is dead. But if he is, that is a good thing for the war on terror,” Hadley told “Fox News Sunday.”

[E]arlier, officials told NBC that Rabia was the operational commander of al-Qaida and possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization.

Good for the War on Terror? Don't we think it might have been better for the WoT if we could have captured and questioned the operations commander for al-Qaida?

Now, maybe folks did ask these questions, and people were not forthcoming, but I doubt it. I have been watching this story since 5 AM yesterday, and the only thing that has significantly changed in the last 24 hours, is the part they removed which had Musharraf contradicting himself about whether or not he knew anything about what had happened in his sovereign nation.

The only thing looking like it's in its last throes these days, in Iraq, is the attention span of the press corpse. Quick, somebody check for a pulse. I think they're dead again.

The latest in our series to heal the lumpen proletariat…
Dear Polly:

Senator and Patriot

It was a chilly but beautiful day and a good day to help save the environment.

My friend Bert has just put up a diary at Kos which shows people in Minneapolis braving the cold to do just that, at DailyKos.com. See here the global march organizer's site (UK). Karen has had this on the front of the DCP site, with local events: http://3dec2005.org/United-States. (See also Climate Change Protests Worldwide).

Protesters from 32 countries united for the first whole-earth demonstration to fight global warming. This protest coincided with the 10-day UN conference in Montreal, which will set the new plan once the Kyoto Treaty expires in 2012.

The march in downtown Montreal was the largest. The London protest passed the offices of Tony Blair, Exxon Mobil, to the American and Australian embassies and there was an address by George Monbiot. Similar protests were held from Helsinki to Seoul.

In US, fuel-efficient cars rallied round the White House. In New Orleans, there was a "Save New Orleans" street party in the French Quarter. Other US events were held from Boston to LA. 600,000 Americans signed a petition to urge the Bush Administratoin to help slow global warming.The Arctic Inuit demanded action to save their ice caps.

Other countries that participated:
Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Peru, Phillipines, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Turkey, Uganda, United States, Venezuela.

The Conference in Montreal has represntatives attending from 189 countries and much time will be spent trying to persuade America, a huge per capita polluter and consumer, to join up. The US did not ratify the Kyoto treaty, even though 35 industrialized nations did, and Britain has backslid on its commitments despite being a big industrial polluter, producing 25% of carbon emissions. Australia is another isolate nation who will not play along. By 2050, China and India are projected to be the biggest polluters, so the new plan needs to include them in a proactive way.

As the Independent reports, there is a long way to go.

"Even the original Kyoto agreement is failing to meet expectations. In 11 European Union countries emissions have grown, not shrunk. In Japan, emissions are nearly 18 per cent above target while in Canada - host of this week's meeting - the gap is almost 30 per cent."

"Despite hopes among the Canadian and EU delegations, led by the British presidency, that the Bush administration can still be coaxed into the talks process, Washington has already bluntly ruled out any new commitments - pointing instead to a voluntary undertaking to cut greenhouse emissions by 18 per cent by 2012."

"Instead the only proposal creating a buzz around the conference building this week was the idea, championed by Papua New Guinea, for wealthy countries to pay developing nations to preserve rainforests by not cutting down trees. The loss of tropical forest accounts for 20 per cent of carbon emissions by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide filtered from the air."

from TruthOut reprint:

"If he (Bush) thinks (Hurricane) Katrina was bad, there are a lot worse hurricanes on their way if he doesn't change his policy," Britain's former Environment Minister Michael Meacher told demonstrators outside the US embassy in London.

Health experts at the UN conference said Friday that global warming is responsible for as many as 150,000 deaths annually around the world.

In my own area (Pacific NW), global warming may be devastating, as we lose mountain snows that bring us water.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001857961_warming14m.html

Austin Chronicle

Earlier this year, I wrote about the Voting Rights Act and the implications of violations of it. Now, the redistricting plan that gave the Republicans in congress a huge majority and was created by Delay has been found to be a violation of the Voting Rights Act.

According to the Washington Post,

"Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

The memo, unanimously endorsed by six lawyers and two analysts in the department's voting section, said the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts. It also said the plan eliminated several other districts in which minorities had a substantial, though not necessarily decisive, influence in elections.

"The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect," the memo concluded."

I found Mr. Pike’s article “The Truth about WP” interesting, and in general, I do agree that we need to hold the Bush administration responsible for its missteps and horrific results. But I also think Mr. Pike missed a golden opportunity to address legitimate concerns in his pronouncements in the LA Times and the New York Times.

A number of people have researched this area and cited their findings from US Government sources as well as other reliable sources. That information has been enlightening and identified some legitimate issues to be considered.

In the end, this can be said about white phosphorus: it is both incendiary and toxic. In its solid form it burns through skin to the bone and does not stop unless deprived of oxygen which it can obtain from the moisture in tissue. That is evidently considered to be an incendiary effect. The gas it produces attacks the mucous membranes, the eyes and the lungs. To the extent that it is used to disable humans where both incendiary and toxic effects occur, it is illegal because of