Father Knows Best

C-SPAN-2 (online): Senate session has started; the torture bill has been mentioned, that Specter has an amendment and other unnamed persons have amendments....

But they're not discussing the torture bill now. Susan Collins (ME) is speaking... something about Homeland Security, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the torture bill.

BUSH: INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES REPORT THAT IRAQ FUELS
TERROR SO WE HAVE TO STAY THE COURSE IN IRAQ
Post by Joshua Holland
The administration's latest feeble spin on a hopeless situation.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/themix/42205/

Wow... Chris Dodd blistered a few ears....

He mentioned his father worked for Justice Jackson who was one of the presiding judges at Nuremberg, which met 60 years ago Sat.

Chris Dodd just gave a really good speech on the floor. . good for him. Talk was based on what we did right in Nuremberg Trials, and wha't important about America. . talked about absurdity of "jurisprudence of pain"

Call your senators (again). Call Reid's office. Call!!!

Washington, DC
528 Hart Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3542
Fax: 202-224-7327
Toll Free for Nevadans:
1-866-SEN-REID (736-7343)

Reno
Bruce R. Thompson
Courthouse & Federal Bldg
400 S. Virginia St, Site 902
Reno, NV 89501
Phone: 775-686-5750
Fax: 775-686-5757

Las Vegas
Lloyd D. George Building
333 Las Vegas Boulevard
South, Suite 8016
Las Vegas, NV 89101
Phone: 702-388-5020
Fax: 702-388-5030

Carson City
600 East William St, #302
Carson City, NV 89701
Phone: 775-882-REID (7343)
Fax: 775-883-1980

Okay, they're dickering on who has how many minutes to speak on each side, but then they'll be debating amendments for S 3930....

Or EMAIL/FAX!!! Here's something from the NYTimes you can cut & paste & email/fax to your senators & Reid's office:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/28/opinion/28thu1.html
These are some of the bill’s biggest flaws:

Enemy Combatants: A dangerously broad definition of “illegal enemy combatant” in the bill could subject legal residents of the United States, as well as foreign citizens living in their own countries, to summary arrest and indefinite detention with no hope of appeal. The president could give the power to apply this label to anyone he wanted.

The Geneva Conventions: The bill would repudiate a half-century of international precedent by allowing Mr. Bush to decide on his own what abusive interrogation methods he considered permissible. And his decision could stay secret — there’s no requirement that this list be published.

Habeas Corpus: Detainees in U.S. military prisons would lose the basic right to challenge their imprisonment. These cases do not clog the courts, nor coddle terrorists. They simply give wrongly imprisoned people a chance to prove their innocence.

Judicial Review: The courts would have no power to review any aspect of this new system, except verdicts by military tribunals. The bill would limit appeals and bar legal actions based on the Geneva Conventions, directly or indirectly. All Mr. Bush would have to do to lock anyone up forever is to declare him an illegal combatant and not have a trial.

List of senators with phone numbers & webforms:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

NYTimes has a moment of truth. A brief millisecond of it.

QUESTION: And we – this paper has kept some of your secrets for you, too.

SECRETARY RICE: I understand that and I appreciate that. But I think that when it comes to – you know, I’m speaking to the leaks problem. I know this is a major, major issue in the journalistic community. But I can tell you from the point of view of somebody who has to (inaudible) security (inaudible), it’s a problem.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/73105.htm

Whoa.... Did you hear Kyl? Extending habeas corpus to citizens, but not to aliens... makes the point that as written, the whole thing is too vague, could mean for anyone... that kind of vagueness is what I was worried about....

Selective Intelligence
The National Intelligence Estimate doesn’t say what Bush says it does. How will he handle upcoming secret reports on Iran and Iraq?

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 2 hours, 3 minutes ago

Sept. 27, 2006 - The White House’s release of a dire National Intelligence Estimate on global terrorism has illustrated once again how easy it is to publicly misrepresent intelligence-community findings—especially when almost all of the key documents remained shrouded in secrecy.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15035936/site/newsweek/

p.s. It's The Electorate... Stupid.

Linda Enterkin, if you come by again here is a new book you might want to read about Florida:

How to Steal an Election: The Inside Story of How George Bush's Brother and FOX Network Miscalled the 2000 Election and Changed the Course of History (Paperback)
David W. Moore

Its really great to see Linda, aimzz and other original JK bloggers back here after a long absence. Hoepfully they will stay with us from November 8,2006-November 8, 2008, we need every voice.
Does anyone remember hardrain?

Ring, ring, ring. George, Ken, Karl this is Jack Abramoff calling from Federal prison. Can you help me please with bail? Didn't you like the wine, golf trips, hotel stays?
Jack its the Jewish New Year. Ken and I forgive you, hush money will be delivered to you in a brown paper bag. Don't you think we learned anything from Dick Nixon?

re NIE
It's similar to the budget. BushCo thinks they can squeak out of office before it blows up. Until them they will say what ever they want. If they Dems are in when it happens, they don't really mind...

Hmm.

Hmm, hmm, hmm.

..........

Please bear with me while I ramble on for an extended moment here, y'all. What started out as an wish to write about some things I feel conflicted over has somehow turned into an urge to post what keeps wanting to turn into a half-baked Otter Manifesto or something. But, well... so be it, then.

Those who read these pages regularly know that for most intents and purposes I am an ardent, outspoken proponent of peace and patience. I generally try to urge compromise where there is confrontation, seek understanding where there is antipathy, and honor the inner Ghandi in all of us more than the outer Gaddafi in some of us.

However...

By no means should that be taken to indicate that I am a wimp, a pushover, a quisling, or a cut-and-runner. Yes, I do counsel peace, whenever and wherever peace is possible.

But I am also what some of my friends have called a "Second Amendment Liberal" -- a bleeding-heart liberal peacenik with a concealed-carry permit and the skills to make full use of it when necessary.

Do you remember the incredibly turbulent years of 1968-1970, when bombs were blowing up buildings and people were getting shot down in the streets and civil rights were being trampled into the mud and civil war seemed just a short sharp heartbeat away, right here at home, in the good ol' U.S. of A., at the hands of none other than our own friends and/or countrymen?

I do. And those were ugly, *ugly* times.

I was a peacenik then, and I'm still a peacenik now. However...

Back then there was violence in the air and blood in the streets. People I respected were being assassinated regularly. People I knew were being beaten and tear-gassed regularly. And people just like me were getting shot down in cold blood every day -- not just in far-away Vietnam, but on nearby college campuses as well.

And yes, I counseled peace back then, too. Even when it was time to wipe away the blood and wash away the stink of tear gas, I counseled peace. But not just passive peace, oh, no. It was back then that I saw first-hand that peacemaking really is, of necessity, an active verb; that the simple act of making peace can be braver and more dangerous than the complex art of making war.

It was back then that I first took to heart the words of the Roman emperor Vegetius: "Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum" -- or, in its more oft-quoted shorter form, "Si vis pacem, para bellum." Ira speaks Latin, he can translate those words for you if necessary; but I believe, or at least I'd like to believe, that he doesn't have to.

And it was back then that I also came to understand that sometimes it actually "'tis nobler in the heart ... to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them." I saw that I might at some point have no choice but to bear arms, and so I consciously chose to learn how to use them efficiently and effectively should it ever come down to that.

And still, I counseled peace. I counseled peace back then, and I still do so today. I believe in it body and soul, and I practice its principles in all my affairs.

I was a peacenik then, and I'm still a peacenik now. However...

Vegetius knew that sometimes, the only ways to seek peace also involve having to prepare for war. This country's founders knew that sometimes the only way to prevent the security of a free state from being infringed is for its free citizens to keep and bear arms.

Yes, I counsel peace. But I also know how and why to keep and bear arms. In fact, as a matter of personal policy I believe in being prepared to do so on short notice should that become necessary.

No, I've never shot anybody. I've never had to. (Though on a couple of occasions that was by no means a foregone conclusion.) And no, I've never been shot either. Been shot at, yes. (But fortunately for all concerned, they missed.)

Yes, I was a peacenik then, and I’m still a peacenik now. However...

I am a bleeding-heart liberal peacenik. With a gun.

And until this morning, I have never felt so close to that being a necessary and potentially imminent part of my rights and obligations as a free citizen of these United States.

War has been declared, my friends, my foes -- war not just on outsiders and those who would do harm to ourselves and our families, but on our cherished institutions and on our shared moral commitments to the world.

War has been declared by those who would claim to standfor the causes of truth and righteousness. War has been declared upon the land of the free and the home of the brave by those who are neither free nor brave.

We have met the enemy, and they are us. We are at war with them, though that means being at with ourselves. And who better understood both the horrible cost and the terrible duty of being at war with ourselves than a man who was, ironically enough, a Republican back when that meant being someone who could still hold his head up high? Who could ever speak of such things in more poignant, powerful words than these?

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Vegetius knew. Lincoln knew. And I know. You know, too. We all do.

And may the Goddess forgive me for it, but I never *ever* thought I'd see the day when I would find myself speaking of these things in this way in a public forum such as this one -- and not just find myself speaking of them, but also feeling that I would be shirking my duty as a free citizen were I *not* to speak them in this place and at this time.

Maybe I'm amazed. Maybe I'm appalled. Maybe I'm concerned. Maybe I'm confused. Maybe I'm all of those things, and many other things as well.

I counseled peace then, and I still counsel peace now -- *especially* now. I still hold that truth to be self-evident, just as our founders held certain other truths to be self-evident also.

However...

"Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum."

I am a bleeding-heart liberal peacenik.

With a gun.

And it chills me to my core to feel as though that is such a critical, crucial distinction for me to be making here today.

But, well... so be it, then.

May Goddess have mercy on us all.

..........

a pax on all our houses,
Otter

Posted by: Otter at September 29, 2006 01:17 PM

I have toured the Battle Field at Gettysburg it is a trip I want to take my girls on, I saw a wax version of Lincoln so life like and listened to the address from it and felt as if I was there back then. You can literly feel the ghosts there of all those men who died. If is a haunting feeling calling all of us never ever to forget. To never ever be cowards when we know we are right.

Thanks Otter for reminding me why we do this, why we question and after all this why we still care.

Good insights on Diane Rehm News Roundup this morning. Comments on habeus corpus, NIE, Abrahamoff & other. They don't think Electronic Surveillance will be brought up for vote in this Congress.
The links for streaming audio are here:
http://www.wamu.org/programs/dr/