Photos from The DC Iraq Town Hall Meeting

Every wingnut I know claims that this administration is fighting for peace.

Get that?

FIGHTING... for PEACE.

Has anyone seen my peace anywhere, cuz I am fresh out. I've looked everywhere.

I almost crawled through the boob tube during last night's local news. A relative of someone killed in Iraq over the weekend was near sobbing, talking about the young man killed (nephew of the guy being interviewed, I think)... and then he added "fighting for our freedom." I didn't know whether to fight the desire to slap the poor fellow to get him out of his hysteria or hug him in sorrow for his loss... but I really wanted to do both.

I know these people are grieving and only repeating cliches, but when are they going to realize that (like Korea and Nam), these young people are NOT fighting and dying for *OUR FREEDOM*!!! They are dying for the sake of PNAC's plan to take over the world and for The Cretin and Chinkster's Halliburton and other oil interests to control the oil beneath the sands of Iraq. (I know when people grieve they grasp for any words for any kind of comfort - I do it, too, even as recently as last week after my last uncle died. But still, don't people losing family in Iraq really know, deep down, that the death was needless and pointless and only for the sake of the control of the flow of oil in the world for The Cretin's family and that of his cronies, and that the soldiers are NOT dying for the sake of *our* freedom?!?)

As MN Dem. State Senator Becky Lourey said just before she and Coleen Rowley headed for TX to join Cindy Sheehan last Aug. (her helicopter pilot son was killed in Iraq), "the military personnel are not responsible for the stupid decisions of politicians." (Paraphrasing - I had the exact quote which is close to that, but can't find it in my files this second). Lourey is adamantly against the war. I think Lourey is going to run for governor, too, so it sounds like she's someone I could support.

No one in Iraq (or Afghanistan, for that matter) is fighting or dying for *my* freedom, and I know it. It was Georgie, The Cretin, who ordered the illegal attack on Iraq, and the responsibility for all the death (including US military deaths) and mayhem sits entirely on his and his oil baron cronies' shoulders.

May The Cretin and his Criminal Cabal freeze in the underworld of the Norse Goddess Hel, and then go and roast in the Christian fires of Hell for the number of LIES they've told us that have led to so much misery for so many people....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sounds like you had an interesting meeting, Karen. I hope you got a lot of media publicity about it all! :-)

That drives me crazy Nonny, and it's a short drive.

Fighting for OUR freedom????

Newsflash... we, um, already were free before this war of choice got started... and we are a HELL of a lot less free here at home than we were just 5 years ago.

So riddle me this: EXACTLY which of OUR FREEDOMS are our troops fighting for?

marc:

That's not even a short drive, it's a two-foot putt.

gimme back my country dammit,
Otter

"No person in this country, no matter how high or powerful, is above the law, and no person in this country is beneath the law," Alito told the committee just before it adjourned for the day.
Posted by: marc trager at January 9, 2006 07:49 PM

Did you also stare with amazement like I did to hear such a smooth LIE come out of Alito's mouth?!? Something about his body language told me he was lying....

Now, if anyone believes what Alito said, I have this bridge to sell... fantastic historical provenance from London and all....

... and furthermore on this Alito thing...

I am SICK TO DEATH of hearing phrases like "a judges only obligation is the rule of law".

I keep hearing Shrub say it, I hear Alito say it, I heard Miers say it, I heard Roberts say it.

I keep hearing these soundbytes, and make no mistake, that's all they are... but WHO THE HELL believes that is actually the truth?

Oh yeah, I forgot, the electorate does.

Altered States of America

The things I consider part of my freedom are mostly things they don't want me doing.

Posted by: marc trager at January 10, 2006 09:10 AM

Good Question!!! I'd like the answers to that riddle, too!

Posted by: Otter at January 10, 2006 09:15 AM

I measure the drive in my itty bitty beaver paw foots....

I'm not kidding, I want that damn question ANSWERED already, or better yet, I'd like someone to actually ASK IT!

Which of OUR freedoms are the troops fighting AND DYING for?

The freedom of the government to spy on its own citizens?

The freedom to disenfranchise voters?

Feel free to list any more "freedoms" that leap to mind.

Thinking is rare, but still free as far as I can tell... but what do I know?

...and speaking of the electorate's density...

Alito not on public’s radar screen
Disconnect exists between activists’ zeal and public’s detachment

-snip-

But on this nomination, as with Roberts's, there has been a clear disconnect between the zeal of activists and the detachment of the general public. Tim Hibbits, an Oregon-based pollster, said the Alito nomination falls low on the public's list of priorities. "With the exception of highly energized base voters, it's not something that's engaged people," he said.

That could change, depending on how Alito conducts himself when the questioning begins today. But it is also possible that low-voltage confirmation hearings are becoming the norm, not the exception, despite the investment of activists to turn them into surrogate presidential campaigns. Former President Bill Clinton won overwhelming confirmation votes on his two nominees, and Roberts won 78 votes last fall when he was confirmed.

Because of the implications of President Bush's clear desire to move the court in a more conservative direction, many activists have predicted a clash this year akin to those that occurred over the nominations of Robert H. Bork and Clarence Thomas -- Bork's heavily freighted in ideology and Thomas's overwhelmed by accusations of sexual harassment.

It has not happened. One reason may be because the public considers these nominees differently than do the ideologues or both sides, looking at experience and demeanor more than at ideology. Or it may be because Alito's nomination has been overshadowed by more compelling issues, such as Iraq, the cost of home heating oil and natural gas or lobbyist Jack Abramoff's plea bargain. Whatever the reason, the public has been slow to engage.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10778482/

Well, now, let's see here... marc just asked us about what freedoms we really hold to be self-evident these days. The first thing that popped into my mind, me being a totally eidetic-cognative kind of otter and all, is a recollected mental image of Norman Rockwell's famous 'Four Freedoms' paintings.

But, like practically all of Rockwell's body of work, those weren't just stand-alone paintings; they were illustrations. And what they were illustrating were the four core points of Franklin Roosevelt's 1941 State of the Union Address.

As noted in the Wikipedia article on this topic -- which see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_freedoms for more detail -- in that speech, Roosevelt enumerated four points as being the fundamental freedoms that humans "everywhere in the world" ought to enjoy:

1. Freedom of speech
2. Freedom to worship
3. Freedom from want
4. Freedom from fear

As the Wikipedia article points out, his inclusion of the latter two freedoms went beyond the traditional American Constitutional values protected by the First Amendment, and endorsed a right to economic security and an internationalist view of foreign policy that have come to be central tenets of modern American liberalism.

More specifically, the speech delivered by President Roosevelt incorporated the following sections:

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called "new order" of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

That's no small order and no minor agenda there, fellow DCPeeps. It's a manifesto that echoed across the country and around the world when it was first announced back in 1941, and one that served as a call to action during the darkest days of World War II -- not just for Americans, but for freedom-loving people everywhere.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader as to whether or not the war of adventure that the Chensfeld-Rumsey-Shrubya axis of weasels forced us into three long years ago has anything remotely to do with serving and protecting any of those classic Four Freedoms.

In my own otteristic opinion, the most positive spin that I can possibly put on that question boils down to this:

Um... not so much.

'not so much' my otter asterisk -- try 'not at all' instead,
Otter

Posted by: marc trager at January 10, 2006 09:26 AM

Seriously, Marc, I know you want those questions (and more) answered... I do, too. My "freedom" does not depend on some kid dying in an illegal, unjustified, immoral, and unethical war of choice in Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor did my "freedom" depend on friends dying in Nam for no reason I can fathom (still, after all these years - but 40 years later that small community still misses those friends we went to high school with).

WHAT FREEDOM(S)? is right up there with WHAT NOBLE CAUSE?

Those are short questions. The answers should be short, too.

And, I don't want a five minute lying, polite and politically correct speech that says nothing....

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/10/politics/politicsspecial1/10legal.html
Focus of Hearings Quickly Turns to Limits of Presidential Power
Excerpt:
Most of the discussion of executive power on Monday came from Democratic senators. One Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, argued for an aggressive view of executive power.

"In a time of war," Mr. Graham said, "I want the executive branch to have the tools to protect me, my family and my country."

{{{ I have a question for Graham: Are you comfortable with having a LIAR "protect" you? A LIAR who will imprison you or your family without benefit of habeas corpus for as long as he wants if he thinks you might be a mere possible threat to the republic??? A LIAR who will tap your phones, spy into your internet communication and the history of your internet searches??? A LIAR who will start a real war by illegally invading another country based on LIES all for the sake of his real objective which was to control that country's oil???}}}

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito says he believes the U.S. Constitution protects the right to privacy and that the court in general should follow precedents from earlier decisions and not public opinion. "I think that the court and all the courts -- the Supreme Court, my court, all of the federal courts -- should be insulated from public opinion." Alito told the Senate Judiciary Committtee. "They should do what the law requires in all instances."

www.cnn.com

(more b.s. in my opinion... talk is cheap, soundbyte answers are effective as part of the marketing ploy... I've heard shrub say these very same things)

Alito makes absolutely no apologies for belonging to racist association Concerned Alumni of Princeton in answer to question by Senator Leahy. Oh he wasn't a founding member, wow Orin that impresses me.

Bush predicting more testing, sacrifice in Iraq
Latest in series of appearances aimed at greater openness about war

-snip-

“2006 will be a time of more testing and sacrifice,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. “The terrorists and Saddam loyalists want to continue to try to derail the transition to democracy.”

Still, the president planned to highlight progress in fashioning a democracy in Iraq, rebuilding the economy and training Iraqi forces to take over responsibility for the country’s security from American military personnel.

“He will talk about how in each of these areas we have learned from experience,” McClellan said. “We’re fixing what’s not working and we’re adapting as necessary to complete the mission.”

Bush was to press the number of foreign governments who have not yet followed through on their financial pledges to Iraq’s reconstruction to do so quickly, McClellan said.

“They need to be fulfilled to help the Iraqi people move forward,” he said.

The president also was taking on Democratic opponents of his approach in Iraq.

“There’s a difference between loyal opposition that has a different view, and those who are advocating a defeatist approach that sends the wrong message to our troops and the enemy,” McClellan said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10784474/from/RS.1/

Not surprising that Orin and the Republicans are not asking Alito anything but leading questions and making speeches. Why bother.

Ira... Exactly. Why bother has been my feeling all along.

There will be NO resistance to this confirmation, and I see it as a foregone conclusion, with the so-called "confirmation hearing" a mere formality.

Sometimes I think we are the only one's who give a sh*t.

Anyone think Alito WON'T be confirmed?

Ben Dover

'If' you belonged. Does that mean that Alito lied in his 1985 application with President Reagen.

" In closing, Leahy asked the unsmiling Alito how he could have joined Concerned Alumni of Princeton- a conservative group know to be opposed to increasing the number of women attending the Ivy league school. Alito said he no recollection of being a member of an organization that both Majority leader Bill Frist and former Sen. Bill Bradley condemned. Finding the answer incredulous, Leahy question how Alito could forget being a part of an organization he so prominently listed on a 1985 job applications.

Alito said that if he did belong to it, it was because Princeton had thrown the ROTC off campus, and spokes ill of the military."
ABC The Note

If Leahy still gives Alito a pass after getting back such a bogus series of lying and then waffling answers to what is a rather significant question that reflects directly upon honesty, integrity, and taking personal responsibility for own's actions and beliefs... then he deserves his own special reserved seat in hell also. And it's starting to look like it's gonna be standing-room-only down there at this rate.

call your senators (and theirs too) and tell 'em no, no, a thousand times no,
Otter

Alito said that if he did belong to it, it was because Princeton had thrown the ROTC off campus, and spokes ill of the military."

Sorry I lost the connection...

Table for two in hell... with a view...

“I want you to know that I will strongly defend your refusal to answer any question that you believe to be improper,” said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz, speaking ahead of Tuesday's hearing.

Others, like Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham, already are telegraphing their support. “It’s possible you could talk me out of voting for you, but I doubt it,” Graham, R-S.C., told the judge Monday. Added Hatch, R-Utah, to reporters: “As of right now, there’s no question that he’s going to have my vote.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10786631/page/2/

FOCUS | Jason Leopold: Fitzgerald Maintains Focus on Rove
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011006Z.shtml
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is said to have spent the past month preparing evidence he will present to a grand jury alleging that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove knowingly made false statements to FBI and Justice Department investigators and lied under oath while he was being questioned about his role in the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity more than two years ago, according to sources knowledgeable about the probe.

--I heard an interview with the UK Guardian reporter who was arrested by US military and they broke into his house in the middle of the night, busted things up, took his tapes and haven't returned him. They paid him off but they didn't pay the other neighbors, since they weren't reporters with foreign papers (they busted up several other houses in the neighborhood).

--& now an American reporter, a seasoned woman reporter, is kidnapped as well & there is so much lawlessness in Iraq that ordinary civilians are constantly kidnapped for ransom.

--Strange to read that Republicans feel Cheney is fit for office even if short of breath, bad heart (he has one?) and bad knees. Another fake poll? --Unfortunate & scary to hear that Iran has taken off their nuclear seals & El-Baradai is deeply concerned. --What of N Korea?

Marc T - I'll bet Alito will be confirmed

“Judge Alito’s assurances today provide scant comfort to those who want a mainstream judge and demand rigorous questions tomorrow,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said after the opening session.

After three hours of Democrats criticizing Alito, and Republicans alternating between praising the judge and condemning his detractors, Specter worried that decisions had already been made before the first question had been asked.

“That applies to a few of the senators on my side of the aisle, but many more among the Democrats,” Specter said.

(Okay, here we go with the mixing of religious ceremony and modern politics again. So indict me already.)

-----

Dona nobis pacem.
Lady of Peace, who hears the cries of the world,
Extend your power through me and with me.

Bless those in harm's way.
Bless those who are suffering.
Bless those who are dying.
Bless the lost unknowing dead.

Bless those who love.
Bless those who are helping.
Bless those who are scared.
Bless those who can do nothing but wait.

Bless those who are falsely suspected.
Bless those of limited understanding.
Bless those upholding civil liberties.
Bless those who, though well intentioned, do wrong.

Bless the Ancestors who love and hold us dear;
May we feel their comfort, too.
Bless those who work and pray for peace,
Throughout the good, green Mother Earth.

Bless us all, hold us safe within your embrace.
Dona nobis pacem; grant us peace.
So mote it be!

-----

may goddess save us from their sins,
Otter

Teddy came out swinging with the recusal issue. If only the rest of them would follow that lead!

And there's plenty more where that came from, too: see also http://www.thepeacebeads.com/prayers/world.htm to see how many different cultures and beliefs also seem to somehow end up sharing the same message.

And Shrubya, glaringly devout Christian that he proclaims himself to be, ought to pay more attention; because still seems to have forgotten all about St. Francis of Assisi, who among many other things left us with these words:

-----

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in forgiving that we are forgiven,
And it is in dying
That we are born to eternal life.

-----

stop the madnesses,
Otter

Okay, I now return you to your regularly-scheduled rants.

:0)

but don't forget to give pizza chance,
Otter

Let him have it, Teddy! Go, man, go!

Chuck Grassley to Alito:

Sic 'It's OK if you forget a promise that you made to this committee about recusing yourself from a conflict of interest case. We senators forget our promises all the time.'

NICE.

A rare moment of candor from the, er, Honorable Mr. Grassley. Mark his words.

and let's make sure he eats them later,
Otter

I wonder -- d'you think it's ever occurred to Paul Simon that he was somehow channeling the future way back in the day, when he wrote this stirring ode to the 43rd president?

-----

Through the corridors of sleep
Past the shadows dark and deep
My mind dances and leaps in confusion
I don’t know what is real
I can’t touch what I feel
And I hide behind the shield of my illusion

So I’ll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall

The mirror on my wall
Casts an image dark and small
But I’m not sure at all it’s my reflection
I am blinded by the light
Of God and truth and right
And I wander in the night without direction

So I’ll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall

It’s no matter if you’re born
To play the king or pawn
For the line is thinly drawn ’tween joy and sorrow
So my fantasy
Becomes reality
And I must be what I must be and face tomorrow

So I’ll continue to continue to pretend
My life will never end
And flowers never bend
With the rainfall

-----

sing a song of leaving... office,
Otter

WHAT FREEDOM(S)? is right up there with WHAT NOBLE CAUSE?

Posted by: NonnyO at January 10, 2006 09:58 AM

The Korean War (and Truman's firing of MacArthur) ensured that all Koreatowns across the US would end up being Republican enclaves.

The Vietnam War ensured that the same would be true of Little Saigons.

I think the Republicans are trying for a three-peat with the Iraqi community - by painting the Democrats as being against the "freedom" of Iraq. This is a very sick, expensive way to convert the immigrant community to Republicanism.

'not so much' my otter asterisk -- try 'not at all' instead,
Otter

Posted by: Otter at January 10, 2006 09:53 AM

Thanks for sharing FDR's four freedoms.

The W brand of "freedom" is all about surveillance and police state, as well as military misadventures, searching for an enemy whose threats are far less than W's own destruction of our freedoms is.

I wrote a somewhat long post last night about how much we need our Congress to stand up for the people. I have listened and read some of the transcripts from today's hearing. Simply put, if the Democrats don't filibuster this nominee to the Supreme Court-they don't deserve to be in the Congress.

Some may argue that making such statements on a single issue is irresposible, but given the number of issues that Alito will be involved in, this is hardly a single issue. My children will be effected by this man's decision and my kids deserve better than a judge who obfuscates, and IMHO lies.

"Simply put, if the Democrats don't filibuster this nominee to the Supreme Court-they don't deserve to be in the Congress."

ahmen

Thanks so much for leading on this event, Karen, and for blogging about it here for the great DCPeople.