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The Blinkie Drinkie Game
The latest in our series to heal the lumpen masses. And they are lumpen. Really…
Dear Polly:
I’m starting to lose track of the scandals that plague the Bush administration, but the thing that’s making me really crazy is the constant media reference to Bush’s public relations tours.
When did it become okay for a President to devote most of his time to public relations, and no time to governing the country? Between riding his bike, cutting shrubbery in Texas, and exercising 58 times a week, when is this guy actually thinking about the country? And to add insult to injury, these tours are paid for with our tax dollars. Why don’t members of the media talk about this?
Now this week, we’re going to have to watch the uber spinfest that the State of the Union has become. Frankly, I just don’t think I can take it. I’m so disgusted, I think I’ll rent a movie that night. I can’t sit still for any more spin, any more hollow talking points, any more of the fear-peddling that is the hallmark of George Bush’s presidency.
In short, I give up. Apparently, Americans have gotten so lazy and self-absorbed that they don’t care about the country or the damage being done to it.
I’ve had it. Not only am I skipping the State of the Union, I think I’m done with politics completely. Nobody cares anymore.
Sincerely,
Mad At Misguided Americans
Dear MAMA:
I feel your pain. Really, I do. I'm special that way.
But here’s my point. Please don’t give up. We need you. Your country needs you. And in case you think you’re the only one who is disgusted with this President and his croney-riddled administration, you might want to take a look at these poll results:
Poll: Majority Think Bush is Failing
It would appear that a majority of Americans view this President as a failure. Yeah. They don’t view him as ‘okay,’ they don’t view him as ‘could be better.’ They view him as a failure. And as you rightly pointed out, this does not result in a review of policy, an effort to change failure to success, or an honest assessment of the state of our nation. It results in a tax-payer funded publicity tour wherein George Bush will try to convince us that what we’re seeing every day isn’t really happening.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
But, finally, members of the President’s own party are starting to stand up to the reckless policies and brazen disregard for the law that characterizes this administration. They are starting to demand answers to some very important questions.
GOP Asks Bush to Disclose White House Contacts with Jack Abramoff
So, MAMA, the bottom line here is that people are waking up. People are getting worried enough about the direction we’re going that they are starting to ask questions. And once that happens, there will be more questions and more questions and more questions. Who knows? Some of those questions may even be asked by members of the press at some point. It could happen.
So please, don’t give up on your country. And even if it is an insult to your intelligence, as it is to all of us, please make yourself watch the State of the Union address. Think of it as the price we pay to stay informed. And it is a stiff price, no doubt.
As always, I also recommend that you drink heavily while watching George Bush blink and stutter his way through his talking points. In fact, I’m having some friends over, and we like to serve pretzels and play a little drinking game called “Blinkie Drinkie.”
Every time George blinks (which is often), you take a drink. Trust me. By the end of the evening, you’ll be ready to charge back to the front lines of political activism.
Stay with us, MAMA. We need you.
Your friend,
Polly
This just in from ONCALL, and I hope people will take note, and share it around the blogs:
Several weeks ago Karen posted that she needed some financial contributions in order to buy food for young protesters. These people are actively participating in The World Can’t Wait activities. They are staying at people’s homes in Washington, but they need to eat as well. These protesters are willing to do what most of us really don’t have the time for: Stand up and be counted. Isn’t that sad? Our lives have gotten so hectic with our other responsibilities we (or maybe I should just say, I) don’t have the opportunity to do what we know in our heart is the right thing to do. Emotionally it causes us to wonder if we have our priorities in the right order. But, when we rationalize our decisions, we can say that “I just don’t have the time because …….”
I know that for myself I would rather be in Washington and at other rallies across America lending my voice to our cause for honesty and truthfulness in our government. I know that I would rather be visiting elected representatives to let them know how I really feel what has happened to this country. I know that I would rather be going from door to door talking to anybody who is willing to listen about how our nation’s media doesn’t report the complete story. I know that I would rather be actively working with many of the groups that have contributed so much to help deliver America from the grips of George Bush and his puppet masters. Yet, I can’t personally participate in these efforts for a multitude of acceptable reasons. Still there is something that I can do so that my voice can be heard. I can contribute money so that people who are able to take time out of their lives to protest on my behalf can get some food.
Just as I devote as much time as I can to various activities, I financially contribute what I can afford. Some may say that I am buying my way out of doing the heavy lifting. The way I see it, I am not shirking my responsibility to our efforts for a more honest America, I am helping those who truly can give of themselves, but need some help from the rest of us. Please contribute what you can to help the people who are willing to put their lives on hold so that America can be a better place. All of us really are in this together, and just when we think we can’t do anymore, we can dig down into our pockets and give what we can afford to help those who need our support as well.
For those who know any residents of Virginia, you may want to share this information with them.
There is some action on voter-verified voting machines going on that they may want to weigh in on.
details in this diary at dailykos...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/30/74839/6320
Polly...
This SOTU will be so chock full o' crap, I am in pre-drink. It's like the opposite of Happy Hour. I am not as think as you drunk I am.
Cry Me A Liver
This one's for you, monkeyman:
-----
the piano has been drinking
my necktie is asleep
and the combo went back to New York
the jukebox has to take a leak
and the carpet needs a haircut
and the spotlight looks like a prison break
cause the telephone's out of cigarettes
and the balcony's on the make
and the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking
and the menus are all freezing
and the lightman's blind in one eye
and he can't see out of the other
and the piano-tuner's got a hearing aid
and he showed up with his mother
and the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking
cause the bouncer is a Sumo wrestler
cream puff casper milquetoast
and the owner is a mental midget
with the I.Q. of a fencepost
cause the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking
and you can't find your waitress
with a Geiger counter
and she hates you and your friends
and you just can't get served without her
and the box-office is drooling
and the bar stools are on fire
and the newspapers were fooling
and the ash-trays have retired
the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking
the piano has been drinking
not me, not me, not me, not me, not me
-----
because tom waits for no man,
Otter
I received this e-mail today and want to share it with you:
Dear Friends and Activists
Over the weekend you generated a tsunami of phone calls supporting a filibuster of Alito. Today at 4:30 PM EST is the cloture vote on the Alito filibuster, and with your dedication we will generate two tsunamis.
We will win because we will hit them where they are weakest, their fear of not getting reelected. In your calls today we will arm you below with specifics about candidate registration deadlines for primary challenges so THEY know WE know where their election hopes live.
The bottom line is ANY senator who betrays the will of the people must be removed from the general election before they have a chance to lose yet another seat because of their cowardice, and be replaced with a stronger candidate who WILL fight for the people and win. Regardless of how this turns out, we will immediately and aggressively move in that direction.
Very simply, in your calls today ask for a commitment that they will either vote against cloture OR abstain (either is acceptable). If not tell them you will encourage a challenger to run in their own state and support them any way you can. Use the details below (like cutoff date for primary candidate filing) to let them know how very serious you are.
Tell them what state you are actually calling from if they ask. Please concentrate on your own senators and the ones listed below as the key ones to sway. All the toll free numbers to the Washington offices we have are 888-355-3588, 888-818-6641, 800-426-8073, 877-851-6427, 866-340-9279 and 866-340-9281. The master list of all direct dial phone and fax numbers for all senators state by state including all district offices is here:
http://www.nocrony.com/master_senate_phones.txt
UP FOR ELECTION IN 2006
Mary Landrieu [LA], currently has NO primary challenger but if she will not listen to the people we have until 8/11 to find an alternative to run against her.
Daniel Akaka [HI], already has two primary challengers, one of whom, Ed Case, is a former elected state representative and is polling well.
Joe Lieberman [CT], already has a primary challenge looming from Ned Lamont who has set up an exploratory site, and until 5/16 to make the decision to jump in. They last thing Joe needs is lots of more encouragement for Lamont.
Bill Nelson [FL], currently has NO primary challenger, with until 5/12 to find one.
Ben Nelson [NE], currently has NO primary challenger, but if there is a concerned citizen in Nebraska who wants to run they have until 3/1 to register as a candidate.
Jeff Bingaman [NM], currently has NO primary challenger but still two weeks remain until the deadline for filing of 2/14.
Carper [DE], currently has NO primary challenger and all the way until 7/28 to enter the primary against him.
Kohl [WI], currently has NO primary challenger. We have heard he plans on skipping the vote, which is the same thing as an abstain. The filing deadline in Wisconsin is 7/11.
Cantwell [WA], is being already challenged by a strong progressive candidate, Mark Wilson.
Byrd [WV], has no serious primary challenger we can confirm and the 1/28 deadline has just expired. Perhaps you can appeal to his professed love of the Constitution which Alito would gut.
Robert Menendez [NJ], was just appointed but has to run himself this year. If he drops the ball there are challengers waiting in the wings and until 4/10 to decide.
Lincoln Chafee [RI] is a Republican who professes to be pro-choice and not feeling very secure right now about her 2006 prospects. Perhaps he is a possibility for abstention on cloture.
Olympia Snowe [ME] is a another Republican who professes to be pro-choice who must face the electorate in 2006. She should also be encouraged to abstain on cloture.
OTHER POSSIBLE SWING SENATORS
Blanche Lambert Lincoln [AR], up for reelection in 2010
Mark Pryor [AR], up for reelection in 2008
Tom Harkin [IA], up for reelection in 2008
Evan Bayh [IN], up for reelection in 2010
Susan Collins [ME], up for reelection in 2008
Carl Levin [MI], up for reelection in 2008
Max Baucus [MT], up for reelection in 2008
Frank Lautenberg [NJ], up for reelection in 2008
Tim Johnson [SD], up for reelection in 2008
Patty Murray [WA], up for reelection in 2010
Just tell them that failure to support this filibuster will be a deal breaker as Alito starts to cast the votes that his reactionary supporters absolutely know he will.
If you can't get through any other way, or even if you can, also submit these two action pages too:
http://www.millionphonemarch.com/nuke_option.php
http://www.millionphonemarch.com/reid.php
Let us be able to look back and say we did everything we could have done to win this victory in spite of the corrupt media pundits who are working overtime to tell us what we cannot do. We are proving them wrong day by day. At the very worst we will establish once and for all who we can never trust with the public office ever again.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.
If you would like to get alerts like these, you can do so at http://www.usalone.com/in.htm
Or if you want to cease receiving our messages, just use the function at http://www.usalone.com/out.htm
Powered by The People's Email Network
Copyright 2005, Patent pending, All rights reserved
State of the Union to focus on energy
Bush to promote fuel-saving technologies in address
Monday, January 30, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Trying to calm anxieties about soaring energy costs, President Bush is using his State of the Union address this week to focus on a package of energy of proposals aimed at bringing fuel-saving technologies out of the lab and into use.
In Bush's vision, drivers will one day stop at hydrogen stations and fill their fuel-cell cars with the pollution-free fuel. Or they would power their engines with ethanol made from trash or corn. More Americans would run their lights at home on solar power.
Bush has been talking about these ideas since his first year in office. Proposals aimed at spreading the use of ethanol, hydrogen and renewable fuels all were part of the energy bill that he signed into law in August, but that hasn't eased Americans' worries about high fuel prices.
more... http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/29/bush.sotu.ap/index.html
p.s. He's been promoting these ideas since his first year in office? Did I miss that PDB? You have to read this entire article... CNN does a heck of a job editorializing for the chimp.
Something seems to be brewing in the media. Just this weekend, I found 3 scathing opinions/articles about how MSM has kow-towed to this regime. Interesting... Wonder if we might be on the brink of a breakthrough...
Ted Koppel: And Now, a Word for Our Demographic
--snip--
The accusation that television news has a political agenda misses the point. Right now, the main agenda is to give people what they want. It is not partisanship but profitability that shapes what you see.
--snip--
Now, television news should not become a sort of intellectual broccoli to be jammed down our viewers' unwilling throats. We are obliged to make our offerings as palatable as possible. But there are too many important things happening in the world today to allow the diet to be determined to such a degree by the popular tastes of a relatively narrow and apparently uninterested demographic.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/opinion/29koppel.html?8hpib=&pagewanted=print
Paul Krugman: A False Balance
Daily Kos Diary: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/30/51343/5489
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/opinion/30krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
----over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to the "Today" show's Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn't given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff's clients -- those Indian tribes -- gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he "directed" to Democrats.
But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while giving much more money to Republicans.
--snip--
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.
Editor & Publisher's article: Photogs Slam White House Use of Staged Pictures
NEW YORK-- White House photographers aren't looking for a handout these days. In fact, they've gotten far too many.
While the practice of providing news organizations with staged photos of events involving the president goes back decades, veteran shooters at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue say it has become almost a regular occurrence with the Bush Administration. A review of Associated Press archives found that during the entire eight years of the Clinton administration, only 100 handout photos of events were released to the press. During the first five years of Bush's presidency, more than 500 have been distributed.
The key is that each of these events were closed to news photographers.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001920440
And now a commercial break for one of my very favorite products...
Masters of Chocolate Look Abroad and See Something Even Richer
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/30/international/europe/30chocolate.html?emc=eta1
Chocolate: It's not just for breakfast anymore.
One of my favorite Monday morning activities: check out the top 10 Conservative Idiots of the Week at DU.
This week: Perfect Storm Edition
It's rough sailing on Our Great Leader's sea of lies and deception these days. The Bush Administration (1,8) is impeding the Hurricane Katrina investigation, while a recent report belies the claim that things are going well in Iraq. Meanwhile George W. Bush (2,3,4,5,9) is up to his neck in the Jack Abramoff scandal, finally remembers Osama bin Laden, gets confused by the Constitution, and gives us his used car salesman pitch on the economy. Elsewhere, The RNC (6) holds a masterclass on the fine art of political spin, and Ann Coulter regales us with some of her best analysis yet.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/06/230.html
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/30/198/83180
In this diary, Bert talks about how news coverage in Iraq is really done (or not) and relates it to the news anchor who recently had a serious head injury from an IED. Nice illustrative photos included. (Vote if you like it)
I also noticed a diary from Wild Salmon (posted on this site also last night, last thread) - interesting one with background on Abramoff/Bush etc.
Up for some freeway blogging this morning?
Rush hour traffic - go to an overpass or main thoroughfare with a sign such as "Filibuster Alito" or "Unitary Executive = dictator"
"Cry Me A Liver"
Posted by: monkey at January 30, 2006 08:54 AM
***********
Great line, Monkey... notice of intent to steal:)
For those who want the latest info on supporting the Alito filibuster, check out this diary at dailykos. Two posters joined forces to create this. Has a lot of good info and numbers.
They list the senators that Senator Kennedy recommended that callers/faxers focus on in particular.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/30/75418/0168
Yes Mr. Arbusto, please focus on energy during the SOTU...
Exxon Mobil 4th-Qtr Profit Climbs to Record $10.7 Bln
Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest oil company, said fourth-quarter profit rose 27 percent on surging energy prices to a record $10.7 billion, capping the most profitable year for any company in U.S. history.
Net income climbed to $1.71 a share from $8.42 billion, or $1.44 a share, a year earlier, the Irving, Texas-based company said today in a statement. Excluding a gain from a lawsuit, profit was $1.65 a share, 21 cents higher than the average estimate from 22 analysts in a Thomson Financial survey.
Revenue rose 20 percent to $99.7 billion as rising demand and hurricanes lifted prices for crude oil, natural gas and gasoline. The average U.S. profit on refining crude into gasoline and other fuels widened to a record of almost $11 per barrel processed, based on futures prices.
more... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=alkwRdmxtzsk&refer=us
I couldn't find a way to link to this, so I've reprinted this book excerpt... Not that we didn't know this is true, but what really steams the author is that the media is completely ignoring this story.
*********************************
January 19, 2006
Political Machines
Was the 2004 Election Fixed?
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
As coincidence would have it, Mark Crispin Miller's new book, "Fooled Again" (Basic Books), documenting the Republican theft of the 2004 presidential election, arrived in the same mail delivery with the January 12 edition of the Defuniak Springs Herald, the locally owned weekly newspaper in a Florida panhandle county seat.
The Florida panhandle is thorough-going Republican. Even Democrats run as Republicans. Nevertheless, the newspaper's editor, Ron Kelley, believes that American political life is measured by something larger than party affiliation. In his editorial, "The shepherds and the sheep," Kelley reports that two Florida counties have banned any further use of Diebold voting machines after witnessing a professional demonstration that the machines, contrary to Diebold's claim, are easily hacked to record votes differently from the way in which they are cast by voters.
The pre-election statement by Diebold's CEO that he would work to deliver the election to Bush was apparently no idle boast. In five states where the new "foolproof" electronic voting machines were used, the vote tallies differed substantially from the exit polls. Such a disparity is unusual. The chances of exit polls in five states being wrong are no more than one in one million.
Miller describes considerably more election fraud than voting machines programed to count a proportion of Kerry votes as Bush votes. Voters were disenfranchised in a number of ways. Miller reports incidences of intimidation of, and reduced voting opportunities for, poorer voters who tend to vote Democrat.
Some of Miller's evidence is circumstantial. However, he documents widespread Republican dirty tricks and foul play. The media's indifference to a stolen election burns Miller as much as the stolen election itself.
Miller is not alone in his concerns. The non-partisan US Government Accountability Office (GAO) in response to congressional request investigated a number of complaints regarding the electronic voting machines.
Here are some of the problems noted in the GAO's September 2005 report:
* Some voting machines did not encrypt cast ballots or system audit logs, and it was possible to alter both without being detected.
* It was possible to alter the machines so that a ballot cast for one candidate would be recorded for another.
* Vendors installed uncertified versions of voting system software at the local level.
* Access was easily compromised and did not require a widespread conspiracy. A small handful of people is sufficient to steal an election.
Curiously, the media has shown no interest in the GAO report. In my opinion, a free press has proven to be inconsistent with the recently permitted highly concentrated corporate ownership of the US media.
The electronic voting machines leave virtually no paper trail and their use involves private potentially partisan corporations tabulating the votes with proprietary software that is not transparent.
A number of counties in various states have decided to return to paper ballots that can be verified and recounted. But now that Republicans have learned that they can use the electronic machines to control election outcomes, the disenfranchisement of Democrats is likely to be a permanent feature of American "democracy."
Other reports claim that the under-sampling by pollsters of Democratic voters creates a percentage bias that exaggerates the number of Republican voters by as much as 5 percent, thus providing cover for vote fraud. If hard-to-reach Democratic voters, such as the working poor, are less likely to answer telephones, polls can create the illusion that there are more Republican voters than in fact exist. If the electronic voting machines are then rigged to shift 5 or 6 percent of the vote to the Republican candidate, the result is not at odds with the expected result and can be used as "evidence" to counter the divergence between exit polls and vote tally.
The outcome of the 2004 presidential election has always struck me as strange. Although Kerry was a poor candidate and evaded the issue most on the public's mind, by November of 2004 a majority of Americans were aware that Bush had led the country into a gratuitous war on the basis either of incompetence or deception. By November 2004 it was completely clear that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and that Bush had rushed to war. People were concerned by the changing rationales that Bush was offering for going to war. Moreover, the needless war was going badly and the results bore no relationship to the rosy scenario painted at the time of the invasion. It seems contrary to American common sense for voters to have reelected a president who had failed in such a dramatic way.
Miller directs our attention to Bush's high-handed treatment of dissenters. If electronic voting machines programmed by private Republican firms remain in our future, dissent will become pointless unless it boils over into revolution. Power-mad Republicans need to consider the result when democracy loses its legitimacy and only the rich have anything to lose.
Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
My short and sweet e-mail to Senator Landrieu. I called her Washington office and got a quick busy signal (good sign), I then called her Baton Rouge office and talked with a very nice receptionist who said she would share my views with the Senator. This is one Senator's vote I will be watching very closely. She is hanging on by a thread if you ask me. :
Dear Senator Landrieu,
Americans supported and continue to support Louisiana ever since Katrina hit. In return, I am asking you to support America by working with your Democratic colleagues and voting no on cloture to the Samuel Alito debate.
Here's the link for the article that Victoria posted:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts140.html
Hint: Google with the 2 authors' names in quotes does a great job of coming up with the reference
I called Dayton's office to follow up my call on Friday (Dayton's voting against Alito, hadn't then made up his mind on cloture), talked to a nice young man, asked if Dayton had made up his mind on cloture. Still hadn't made up his mind. I asked if Dayton would at least abstain if nothing else.... The young man was very pleasant, I thanked him... and now will email Dayton's office with the same request....
Thank you, Dwahzon, from your technically challenged buddy:)
Chuck in Doha with some Thoughts on Aritmatic:
So,
Mainstream Republicans: 51
Snowe, Collins, Chaffee: 03
Dems supporting Alito 04
SUBTOTAL: 58
Dems Supporting Cloture: 04
TOTAL: 62
CONCLUSION: If two of the Dems supporting cloture could have the party discipline to abstain, and if the rest of the Dems plus Jeffords are on board, that will force Snowe, Collins and Chaffee to vote for cloture, which can and should be used against them in the court of public opinion come election time.
ACTION ITEM: Sounds like a job for the minority leader.
Chuck in Doha
Thom Hartmann | Alito - It's the Constitution That's At Stake
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0129-26.htm
EXCELLENT article...!
In case you missed it, another EXCELLENT article:
Paul Savoy | Mr. Smith Comes to Washington: It Only Takes One Vote to Launch a Filibuster
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/01028-21.htm
Norman Solomon | Domestic Lying: The Question That Journalists Don't Ask Bush
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0129-27.htm
Oops, that top number should be 52 not 51, so we need three abstemious ones. Also, Arithmatic = Arithmetic
Chuck in Doha
Granted, this is from Raw Story, so take it for what it's worth, but...
Republican senator Lincoln Chafee says he will oppose Alito
Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R-RI) announced this morning in Providence that he will vote against the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court.
In a statement this morning, the Rhode Island senator said he was "greatly concerned" about some of Alito's philosophies, according to the Providence Journal. Chafee is the first Republican to announce a vote against Alito.
The Journal did not say whether the senator would back a filibuster. Liberal Democrats Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) are mounting an eleventh-hour bid to block the nominee.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Chafee_will_oppose_Alito_0130.html
This just in from democrats.com...
10:44 am: Ben Burch called from the on-air filibuster at The Young Turks to say Chafee's office told them Chafee will support the filibuster - Chafee's lines are busy - stay tuned!!!
http://www.democrats.com/alito-48
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/30/75418/0168
Posted by: dwahzon at January 30, 2006 09:51 AM
****************************
Within the kos diary post that Dwahzon referenced above is a form you can fill out to fax, email or send a printed letter to ALL the waivering Senators.
I urge you to do it today. The calls, letters, emails and faxes are starting to pay off. Lincoln Chafee has now said he will vote no on Alito.
Go here and write like your kids lives depend on it.
Free FAX & EMAIL to ALL the waivering Sentors here: http://capwiz.com/thedeanpeople/mail/...
U.S. Using Anti-Terror War to Gain World Oil Reserves — Soviet Intelligence Chief:
Using the anti-terrorist cause as a cover the United States has occupied Afghanistan, Iraq and will soon move to impose their “democratic order” on the Greater Middle East, Shebarshin said.
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/21/shebarsh.shtml
Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq and the Future of the Dollar:
Iran's plan to launch an energy trading exchange supports its desire to establish a geopolitical bloc with a Eurasian epicentre, anchored by Iran, China, Russia, and Europe, preferably including India (which is why America is bribing India with nuclear technology).
http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=235
Beating Around the Bush By the Bourse
By Ingmar Lee
Only the uninformed believed Bush when he said it was WMD's that made him attack, invade, occupy and massacre Iraq. Most of us thought it was to steal Iraq's oil, but we were only partly right. What totally terrorized the tyrranical Texan tycoon was when Saddam played the oil bourse card in November, 2000. When Saddam started selling Iraqi oil in euro's, he jeopardized the U.S. dollar's hegemony as the world's supreme foreign exchange transaction currency. - The oil grab is a sideshow. The main feature is the oil bourse.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11704.htm
Excerpt:
In this horrific context, it's not too difficult to understand why the Bush Neocon cabal is preparing to risk all to go on a global oil-stealing spree, and to attack Iran, perhaps even with nukes. It's also easy to understand the cringing wimp-ass non-response of the Democrats. There's no way America can win, and America's got everything to lose. As Gavin R. Putland puts it, "If this oil-currency-war theory is a delusion, the U.S. administration can easily discredit it -- by declaring that the USA has no objection if oil exports to the Euro Zone are denominated in euros." The crash of the USA economy will wreak global economic catastrophe. Paradoxically, that crash is this world's only hope for evading global ecological catastrophe. We should support Iran's oil bourse. Bring it on!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This one paragraph tells me that the Dems in Congress have known about this all along and it explains a LOT (to me) about why they've allowed The Cretin free reign in everything. If the Iranian Oil Bourse will cause the economic collapse of the US, the Dems are afraid of it, too. But, that is STILL not a good reason to go along with the LIES of The Cretin's administration and support his attack on Iraq with bandwagon patriotic crap about supporting troops when, in fact, all it does is get our people killed.... nor is it a good reason to let The Cretin open up detention camps, or approve of torture, or let The Cretin get by with LIES about what kind of "terrorist" threat Iran is - Iran is NOT a terrorist threat, but it is an economic threat to the US. Attacking Iran on false pretenses will make the US look like the biggest fools in the world, not to mention make this nation a dictatorship under the unitary executive theory if Alito gets approved (and if other justices like him and Roberts are packed in the Supreme Court), which will then hasten the tortured legal "opinions" that will put The Cretin in the role of a dictator who is allowed to keep sending our people to war for his and his family's and the fascist corporate cronies' financial gain.
IMHO, The Cretin underestimated the stupidity of the young people today. Did he think that after 9/11 they would line up to enlist in droves (like after Pearl Harbor) just because he and others spewed patriotic slogans and climbed on a patriotic bandwagon, as our legislators have also done without dealing with reality, and that he would have his miltary to order around to lead WWIII (per PNAC who wanted a disaster on the scale of Pearl Harbor so they could take over oil reserves in the world)? He was wrong. They didn't. The "we were attacked" (so now we have to have a war) phraseology didn't work, and nobody rallied around the flag long enough to enlist. True, young people likely didn't sign up because they don't want to die for lost causes, and don't really give a rip and are apathetic about politics anyway, but I suspect some glimmer of intelligence shows through, too, because they didn't go into a protracted state of grief, but went on with their lives, and on some level, they must know that 9/11 involved criminals who committed terrorist acts, but that there is no technical 'war on terrorism' - that "war" exists only in the minds of The Cretin and his Criminal Cabal who need a strong military to do their bidding (they lost on that gamble; but Halliburton gained because DynCorp and KBR, their subsidiaries, have hired mercenaries). That's a 'cold war' psy-ops ruse to set up an 'us vs. them' mentality on the part of The Cretin and his Criminal Cabal... and our Clueless Congress who have bought into that rhetoric - and likely have known about the potential for economic doom for this country all along and haven't seen fit to tell the American people any of the details that could allow us to make up our minds about who we want to govern this nation. An uninformed electorate can't possibly make wise decisions on election day, even in areas that still use paper ballots that can easily be recounted, when necessary, and don't use voting machines that can be hacked into to steal elections. The rest of us already know that, even if the sheeples who have imbibed too much kool-aid still spew bandwagon patriotic slogans and yammer on and on about all the distracting issues that don't have anything to do with politics and how this country is governed because their world view is too narrowly focused on nonsense.
No matter how this comes out, the people of this nation LOSE on multiple levels - politically and financially.
Oh geez, let me try that again:
Mainstream Republicans: 52
Snowe, Collins, Chaffee: 03
Dems supporting Alito: 04
SUBTOTAL: 59
Dems Supporting Cloture: 04
TOTAL: 63
CONCLUSION: If three of the Dems supporting cloture could have the party discipline to abstain, and if the rest of the Dems plus Jeffords are on board, that will force Snowe, Collins and Chaffee to vote for cloture, which can and should be used against them in the court of public opinion come election time. Or, if they vote the way their people want, Alito is not on the SCOTUS barring the nuclear option.
ACTION ITEM: Sounds like a job for the minority leader.
Chuck in Doha
Face to Faith : Not only defeated nations commit atrocities in war:
What the Turks did to Armenians in the first world war showed Hitler what could be done. Turkey is still largely in denial. Nations cover up their histories. Now in the global war on terror no holds are barred. The murderer and the torturer are back on the official payroll - both theirs and ours.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11700.htm
Help us pass the “Read the Bills Act” (RTBA):
Most Congressmen are lawyers, and many others are businessmen. They know what “fiduciary responsibility” is. For Members of Congress, fiduciary responsibility means reading each word of every bill before they vote.
http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml
{{{ I read this. No tortured and convoluted phrases.... It actually makes sense. That stupid Patriot Act passed because no one read it in advance. See what you think....}}}
{{{ Oooohhhh.... this isn't good. IMHO, funding faith-based charities is counter to the First Amendment and counters separation of church and state. Additionally, none of the heads of these charities touting abstinence remembers the biological imperative: as with every species on earth, at the very basic level of our existence we are here solely to reproduce our own kind, and sex trumps the unnatural state of celibacy. Not passing out condoms and promoting safe sex is a very prejudicial stance against the very people most prone to being victims of AIDS. It's the administration saying "Oh, what the heck, it's only 'those people' getting AIDS, and they're useless to us anyway." It's a passive form of genocide....}}}
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060130/ap_on_he_me/aids_prevention
Religious Groups Get Chunk of AIDS Money
Blair in Secret Plot with Bush to Dupe U.N.
By Simon Walters
A White House leak revealing astonishing details of how Tony Blair and George Bush lied about the Iraq war is set to cause a worldwide political storm. A new book exposes how the two men connived to dupe the United Nations and blows the lid off Mr. Blair's claim that he was a restraining influence on Mr. Bush.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11703.htm
Oh... Also, when I was speaking to that nice young man at Dayton's office, I asked if Dayton was going to support a nomination for Amy Klobuchar to replace him (since he's not running this fall). He hadn't made up his mind.
I then told him that people in blogland will be working against any Dem senators who vote for Alito or for cloture if they're up for re-election and ask for other Dems to be put in their place to run against them. "Maybe it's lucky the senator isn't up for re-election this fall. Some of the Democrats may not fare so well."
I "felt" his ears kind of prick up... maybe if Dayton has any behind-the-scenes influence (altho I doubt it), he can put a bug in the ear of other Dems who are up for re-election that if they don't vote with the will of the people on this issue, they may not be back next year....
I just read that Chafee (R-RI) is voting against Alito. That leaves Snowe (R-ME). Again, it would be nice to test their conviction by forcing them to either help by defeating cloture or backing down to their party leadership.
Chuck in Doha
defarge: Chafee's vote against Alito, thanks to Byrd, Johnson, Salazar,Conrad and Landrieu,and for the filibuster is now a free pass. He has nothing to lose now, he can just announce after the vote that he knew his vote didn't mean anything. Hopefully we are not making this out to be an act of courage. When I called his office last week, his staff made it clear to me that he would be waiting until the very last moment, to decide when he would be sure that Alito would still get confirmed. Did anything change since last week? Hardly. An act of courage? Not.
Apparently, Biden (D-DE) and Pryor (D-AR)are also wobbly on the cloture. If only they could be persuaded to at least abstain for a few days. So we need five out of these six at least:
Chuck in Doha
What time is the Senate meeting?
Nothing on the internet version of C-SPAN going on in the Senate....
Ira:
That's my point exactly. If we can't beat off cloture at least for a little bit, Chafee and Snowe can come out looking OK, when in reality its thanks to people like them that the subpeona power in the Senate is exclusively in the hands of people that will never use it against this administration. Any Democratic not voting for ALito but voting for cloture right off the bat is handing Chafee and Snowe a big present.
Chuck in Doha
Thank you so much Polly for your as ever wise comments. I am concerned however about your drinking game. I would urge everyone to have a designated driver available if you wish to follow Polly's rules. Since George has a bad habit of blinking rapidly when toying with the truth, I do feel that a drink for each blink could lead to serious consequences.
For those wishing to drink at home. The IRC will be open and full of wise and witty people ready to share insights, and commentary. Come enjoy with us.
Ladietechie01 -
That is excellent advice... please do not drive your car or operate farm equipment if you are playing Blinkie Drinkie.
Also, stay away from those paper towel dispensers that can cause injury or death if used improperly.
Just for laughs:
A Lesson In Political Science
DEMOCRATIC
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
Barbara Streisand sings for you.
REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?
SOCIALIST
You have two cows.
The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.
COMMUNIST
You have two cows.
The government seizes both and provides you with milk.
You wait in line for hours to get it.
It is expensive and sour.
CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.
BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows.
Under the new farm program the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pours the milk down the drain.
AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead. You spin an announcement to the
analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses. Your stock goes up.
FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike because you want three cows.
You go to lunch and drink wine. Life is good.
JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains. Most are at the top of their class at cow school.
GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.
ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
While ambling around, you see a beautiful woman.
You break for lunch. Life is good.
RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You have some more vodka.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.
TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in Afghanistan, which are two. You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts.
You get a $40 million grant from the US government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.
IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows.
They go into hiding.
They send audio tapes of their mooing.
BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow.
The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish.
The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk. The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.
FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow.
Everyone votes for the best looking one.
Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one.
Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best-looking cow.
CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows.
They make real California cheese.
Only five speak English.
Most are illegal.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.
Lieberman and Chafee Cave on Cloture and Alito vote in one swell foop.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/1/30/123747/285
I am going to dedicate myself to seeing Joe Lieberman go down in flames.
Hmmmm...
Poster over at KOS says CNN reports about Lieberman working to block the filibuster are false... this poster claims to have talked to Lieberman's office.
Stay tuned....
Fat Lady Has Not Sung
Posted by: Polly Sigh at January 30, 2006 12:44 PM
Have everyone bring sleeping bags and invite them to sleep over.... Safety first! :-)
Victoria,
I called Lieberman's office about 10:30 / 11 am this morning. He is committed to voting against Alito but per the staff person, had not yet decided on how to vote on cloture. I asked what it would take to convince him on supporting the filibuster. She said more phone calls like the one I was making. I reiterated again that there were 4 Connecticut voters in our household who wanted him to vote no on cloture. She said she'd pass the message along right away.
She was very cheerful on the phone but did not give any clue as to how he was leaning.
Again, the burden is actually on Frist to come up with 60 yes votes for cloture in order to end a filibuster.
41 'no' or 'present' (which means abstain) votes will allow a filibuster to continue.
the fact that Connecticut voters have to beg Lieberman to vote no to cloture on as controversial nominee as Alito, dwahzon, speaks volumes. Can't we do better?
Just talked to the Washington office again. She said that he has not announced a decision but she thought he was leaning towards voting yes on the cloture. I asked how many Connecticut voters had to call to convince him that he had to vote no. She emphasized that she would deliver every message that she received concerning his vote.
So no announcement yet but it's not looking good.
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