October 2006 Archives

The stakes of the outcome of the elections are becoming clearer by the day. Yesterday down in Texas, President Bush offered the most short-hand version of his views on the choices that voters face:

"However they put it, the Democrat approach in Iraq comes down to this: The terrorists win and America loses."

For a guy who's usually fairly inarticulate, that's a pretty good 16-word summary of his view of the world.

But there's still a certain trace of ambiguity in the "win/lose" metaphor. There's lots of ways of winning, and lots of ways of losing. And as Green Bay Packers (and Washingtion Redskins) coach Vince Lombardi said, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." But Lombardi didn't endorse killing members of the opposing team in order to win. Even football has its "Geneva conventions," like not using your helmet as a spear.

I would not be surprised to see Cheney step up in the next couple of years and in his shoot-first, don't bother to aim style say what Bush really wants to say: if you vote for the Democrats, the terrorist will kill Y-O-U. Not much ambiguity here.

Isn't Vote Democrat and die more straight-foward than win-lose? I hate all this beating around the Bush. (great ad, wasn't it?)

As Orwell wrote,

"In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." ("Politics of the English Language")

Helen Thomas is a pretty iconic kind of gal. When we got to Mimi's Bistro (another Andy Shallal restaurant) today, she was sitting along the wall, looking, well, like Helen.

Gael Murphy was singing her praises; not that we needed the background info. She has been a voice of sanity amidst the sideshow freaks of the White House Press Corps for years. I took Larry over to meet her; sharing with her that he is an aspiring writer. "Are you interested in journalism?" she asked. "Not sure," he answered. "Oh," she said. "You want to write sex novels then."

After that, he was smitten. Gael brought Helen up to the microphone and placed a Pink Badge of Honor around her neck. Helen pointed out that Code Pink were the heroes, to her, because "You saw the coming debacle and you asked the obvious question: WHY?"

She went on to speak about the constant changing of the rationales: oil? regime change? upstaging Daddy? All of this would be a joke if it wasn't a tragedy, she said.

"Back when I began, credibility was everything," she went on. "Both Johnson and Nixon went down because of a lack of credibility. Not so, anymore. The fear card gets played instead."

She went on to remind us about John F. Kennedy apeaking at American University after the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty:

In a series of private letters, Khrushchev and Kennedy reopened a dialogue on banning nuclear testing. At his commencement address at American University on June 10, 1963, Kennedy announced a new round of high-level arms negotiations with the Russians. He boldly called for an end to the Cold War. “If we cannot end our differences,” he said, “at least we can help make the world a safe place for diversity.” The Soviet government broadcast a translation of the entire speech, and allowed it to be reprinted in the controlled Soviet press.

"You just never even hear the word 'peace' anymore," she said. But she feels people are waking up; even her colleagues. From the sound of it, she harangues them regularly.

After her talk, she signed books, including one for the rapt Larry:

Our friend, Sonia, ran the event for Code Pink. Sonia came to us through Camp Democracy and she also represents the best of the next generation of peace activists: informed, engaged, and committed to change.

And so, with the history and the future in hand, we are ready to engage once again in the fight for democracy and peace. Ten days to go, folks. Let's be careful out there...

DON'T go to YouTube and watch this video!

DON'T look at the faces of the people in this video!

DON'T pay attention to the message at the end of this video!

DON'T send emails to your friends telling them to watch this video!

DON'T come back to the DCP blog and post your reactions to this video!

DO vote for every Republican candidate running in your district on November 7!




(Okay, so we were only kidding about that last part.)

I was reading along in the jump of a front page story ("War Now Works Against GOP") in today's Washington Post, when one sentence leaped out and grabbed me by the throat:

"Voter dissatisfaction with Iraq has taken years to build, not least because few Americans fear a draft, unlike the Vietnam era." (My italics--and this is not a quote from any person, it's just the reporters, Peter Slevin and Michael Powell, writing their story).

Once again, I was reminded of one of the most insidious lessons which the Pentagon learned from the Vietnam War. No draft. And one of the biggest political mistakes that progressives have made since the Vietnam War ended. No draft.

Isn't it funny, how if the government announces that it intends to put you into position to die, people suddenly get more interested in what the government is doing? Lots of people. The potential draftees, and their parents and grandparents and siblings and lovers, and friends. Turned out to be a real drag for Presidents Johnson and Nixon.

The all-volunteer army. Sounds so nice. Especially nice in the quiet of the Oval Office. No nasty draftees to deal with, no one spilling blood over files in draft boards, no crowds chanting in Lafayette Park and interrupting a good afternoon of Sunday football, no one lying on the tracks to block troop trains and losing his legs....

In 2003, Rep. Charles Rangel proposed bringing back the draft. His bill actually made it to the floor in 2004, where it was defeated. In 2005, Rangel filed his bill again.

Rangel attacked the fundamental unfairness of forcing those at the bottom of the economic ladder to shoulder the burden of defending the country:

"The American people lost confidence in this war long ago, and now that parents are discouraging their children from volunteering, we are faced with a situation in which the most disadvantaged young people from areas of high unemployment will be even more likely to carry the greatest share of the burden."

As many of you know, I just returned from a dance education and therapy conference in California. One of the attendees sent this along, and I thought it was something we all needed as we enter into the last two weeks of taking back our government for democracy:

Lessons Learned From Geese

As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the birds that follow.

By flying in a V formation, the flock adds 71% extra flying range.

People who share a sense of community can help each other get where they are going more easily....because they are traveling on the trust of one another.

When a goose falls out of formation, it feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It will quickly move back to take advantage of the lifting power of the birds in front.

If we have as much sense as geese, we stay in formation with others headed in the direction we want to go. We are willing to accept their help and offer our help in return.

When the lead goose tires, it drops back within the formation and another takes the lead position.

It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks.

We should recognize, respect and protect each other's unique arrangement of skills, capabilities, talents, and resources.

The geese flying in formation honk to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

We need to make sure our honking is supportive.

In groups where there is encouragement, production is greatly increased.

Individual empowerment results from quality honking.

When a goose gets sick, two geese drop out of the formation and follow it to help and protect it.

If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other in difficult times, as well as when we are strong.

(Last week an old friend I hadn't talked to in years popped up in my ICQ window. We spent a little while playing catch-up about various aspects of our lives -- she'd moved to Tasmania from the Australian mainland, among other things -- and when she asked me what I was up to these days I gave her links to several online communities I'm involved with, including this one. She's a grandmother from the other side of the planet, with plenty of things to keep her attention focused on there at home; but like most citizens of the world, she's fully aware of what's going on over here as well. Her reply is reproduced below, because it's always educational for us to see how America the Beautiful is perceived outside its own broad borders.)

Hello from below!

I've read some, not all, of the threads, blogs, sites and links you told me about, and I don't know whether I'm more depressed to have my opinions and fears confirmed, or whether I'm more hopeful that the masses will stir slowly and rise up eventually - hopefully before he's gone. I remember the smirking little weasel being asked how he thought history would judge him and he smirked some me and said, "It won't matter - I'll be dead."

I dislike him so much and I haven't heard him say one believable thing, that I have to hold the remote so that I don't have to hear him - or see him. I feel exactly the same about his Australian mongrel puppy, salivating all around him. Like Monkey said in one of the threads, how does he KNOW what the "terrorists" think and feel and believe and do??? It takes one to judge one!! He has killed more young Americans than died on 9/11.

Hello friends,

This is a missive from SoCal, where my sorry body has landed most recently. Today I present a session on advocacy, and by way of opening up the conversation, I plan to present:

(TA DAH!)

The Influency Continuum

As nonprofits, we can certainly begin at the far end of the Influency Continuum, at ADVOCACY. ADVOCACY: The act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy; active support. Aside from the notion of PLEADING for a cause (reminscent of the actual act of advocacy as it is), advocacy is a fairly straightforward and necessary act. I think of it as feeding ourselves and taking care of business. Anyone who has ever worked in a hierarchical workplace knows that ADVOCATING for the projects one is working on is essential.

LOBBYING is a little more complicated. Legally, nonprofits are to keep lobbying to a minimum, whereas large corporations and PACS spend an inordinate amount of money on LOBBYING.

To try to influence the thinking of legislators or other public officials for or against a specific cause: lobbying for stronger environmental safeguards; lobbied against the proliferation of nuclear arms.

To try to influence public officials on behalf of or against (proposed legislation, for example): lobbied the bill through Congress; lobbied the bill to a negative vote.
To try to influence (an official) to take a desired action.

Then we come to BRIBERY. n : the practice of offering something (usually money) in order to gain an illicit advantage. BRIBERY produces a high degree of influence, but nearly as much as:

BLACKMAIL. –noun 1. any payment extorted by intimidation, as by threats of injurious revelations or accusations. Obviously, blackmail can produce a tremendous amount of INFLUENCE.

So if increasing our influence over, say, our piss-poor government, is a goal, we can see that we need to move beyond mere advocacy and into something a little stronger. However, being the good citizens we are, we tend to cringe at the very thought of the illegal stuff.

And yet, we can see how it works, can't we?

If the arguments MUST be won, if influencing the outcomes of judicial and legislative processes is absolutely essential to our cause, then the illegal means become an option all too easily. After all, look at us mere advocators; how effective are we, in the end?

My message of hope is this: Quality of argument counts. What legal influence requires of us, in addition to integrity and heart-filled honesty, is clarity of argument, sound support, data-driven and moral high ground arguments that hold water.

And so we must soldier on, citizen-journalists and protesters and advocates for democracy, and we must get ever better at what we do. We cannot wait for the mainstream media or even the constabulary forces to get around to unpacking the truth; we must hold the truth and speak the truth, and share the truth, and engage in questioning the truth.

Only then we will influence the course of history and prevail, on behalf of the truth.

photo courtesy of D.M.O.C.K.R.A.C.Y.NET

With just 19 days left, the political advertising in your area is bound to be cranked up to full tilt.

There are a number of very good ads out there, and I would love to have folks post in the comments a link or links to your favorite ad(s), followed by a comment on what you think makes them good.

Here's a link to one of my favorite ads. I like it because it pulls the viewer in, and the viewer knows the whole time that the topic they think they are talking about, isn't the topic they are talking about, and they are waiting for the punchline. It makes the viewer involved, and creates an effective intimacy and attention commitment.

You want the person to watch the ad until the end, then think about it and talk about it afterword, and then look forward to seeing it again. That's a might tall order, and this ad gets the job done.

So let's hear it. What do you like and why do you like it? Do you think others will, and if so, why?

[This is a real-world post and reply culled from the progressive blogosphere. If there's a thought-provoking exchange that you'd like us to revisit here, please send us an email with the posts and replies along with the original source URL.]

Dear Liberals,

The get-out-now protesters are simply wrong on Iraq. We can't just leave Iraq like that. It's not that simple. War is tough. Most Americans are now against the Iraq war but it has nothing to do with morality. The public is simply against it because currently we're not winning it. If Iraq was stabilizing and there was much less violence, then support for the war would go through the roof. We need to put even more troops in Iraq if necessary to help the Iraqi forces and defeat the insurgents. Nobody asked "When will our troops come home from Europe?" after we suffered heavy casualties on the beaches of Normandy.

signed,
R. Joe Voter


---------------------


Dear R. Joe,

Here are some points for you to ponder, then.

photo courtesy of AP

*Those are the words of Senator Russ Feingold in response to today's signing of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 by the President of the United States.

Remember this moment, remember this day. The day the President of the United States gutted the very basis of the Constitution he swore on a bible to uphold and defend.

Tell us what you think.

UPDATE: For more detailed information on the bill, check out the great information provided by wikipedia.

Some things really do deserve to be Quoted Without Comment.

Take for example this news update, from the Associated Press by way of CBSNews.com:

Woman Sues Over Anti-Bush Car Sticker

(AP) A woman who was ticketed for having an obscene anti-President George W. Bush bumper sticker filed a lawsuit in federal court Monday against a county in the state of Georgia and its officials.

Denise Grier, 47, of Athens, Georgia, got a $100 ticket in March after a police officer in DeKalb County, which is in the suburbs of Atlanta, spotted the bumper sticker, which read "I'm Tired Of All The BUSH--."

Although a DeKalb judge threw out the ticket in April because the state's lewd bumper sticker law that formed the basis for the ticket was ruled unconstitutional in 1990, Grier is seeking damages for "emotional distress" against the county, according to the lawsuit.

Way back in the deep dark days of the current political cycle -– you know, in those long-ago weeks and months before the Foleygate scandal changed everything, ahem -– there was a brief but intense flurry of outrage over the current administration’s reckless handling of such little legal niceties such as, oh, government-sanctioned torture, the Geneva Convention, habeas corpus, that sort of thing.

And brief it was, too. How could it not be, in comparison to the delightfully salacious stories dripping down from the Hill? There's nothing sexy about arbitrarily redefining the core tenets of common law. It's hard to get folks all worked up over the government's systematic dismantling of obscure Latin legalisms. Nobody can keep track of all those icky fine points of international law, after all. But oh, those pesky pages!

Yep. Sex sells, all right. And, more importantly, sex distracts. It’s a lot easier for plain folks to relate to predatory pedophiles in public office than to all that complicated legal stuff. (And that’s a pretty sad indictment of what’s wrong with this country right there… but we digress.)

The habeas corpus thing is a particularly difficult one for Jane Q. Public to wrap her head around. Understand it? Heck, she can’t even pronounce it. Sure, the term comes up every now and again on the ubiquitous reruns of “Law and Order” that seem to clutter the airwaves like so much curbside litter after the annual zoo parade has passed.

But other than that, the whole concept of habeas corpus is so strange and remote from daily life that it’s much easier to shrug, sigh, and say “Yeah, okay, whatever. But it doesn’t have anything to do with me, right?”

Wrong. It has everything to do with you, Ms. Public, and with everyone around you. Oh, sure, it may not seem like that right now. But it will. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. And for the rest of your life.

Just ask Ali Partovi. As this little-noticed article from the weekend’s AP newswire points out... Ali Partovi knows.

photo courtesy of the Washington POst

I always look forward to the announcement of the Nobel Peace prize winners. Past year's recipients such as Jimmy Carter for his work in election monitoring across the globe, and Wangari Maathi for her work in Africa's Green Belt Project, planting trees to create to sustain, replenish and restore struggling village comunities. The awards are a lesson from the Nobel Committee's group of scholars and leaders of what is possible and what is WORKING in our world's constant struggle for peace.

Introducing Muhammad Yunus Bangladeshi economist, and "Banker to the Poor". This year's Nobel Peace Prize winner.

"There were enough good nominations in the area of conflict resolution in the strictest sense but the Nobel Committee is increasingly taking the fight to the fundamental reasons for which war is waged. "It is not enough to make peace, this peace must be a just peace and the causes of war, such as hunger and poverty, must be treated at their roots."

Over 30 years ago, Mr. Zunus had a novel idea. Make small loans to people, particularly women, to create businesses such as phone call services in rural areas, or purchasing livestock for farming, dairy and eggs. These businesses provide vital necessities for their struggling communities, ultimately creating keystones of stability, growth, prosperity, and of all things, peace. Because there's no want.

Congratulation Mr. Zunus. The world welcomes you into our awareness, and perhaps, to our embarassment, sees how a simple and straightfoward idea: taking care of others in our communities instead of taking advantage of them, can have such a profound effect on our world.

The American Generals are not the only ones calling for the troops to leave Iraq; the British Generals have officially joined in. The Generals from both sides of the pond who actually went to war and have witnessed Iraq's devastation even use parallel language.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, dropped a political bombshell Thursday night, saying that Britain must withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk serious consequences for Iraqi and British society.

In a blistering attack on Tony Blair's foreign policy, Gen. Dannatt said the continuing military presence in Iraq was jeopardising British security and interests around the world.

"I don't say that the difficulties we are experiencing round the world are caused by our presence in Iraq, but undoubtedly our presence in Iraq exacerbates them," he said in comments that met with admiration from anti-war campaigners and disbelief in some parts of Westminster.

In an interview with the [London] Daily Mail, Gen. Dannatt, who became chief of the general staff in August, said we should "get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems".

They are greeted in exactly the same way too.

Deaf ears...and attacks against their patriotism.

Yet, one is left wondering why anyone thinks it's patriotic to run a war campaign on propaganda and ignore the voices of your military leaders who keep telling their own Commander in Chief that his publicity campaign is hurting the troops. War is more than just words and it's time for a carefully planned exit strategy.

Max Cleland knows what he's talking about when he said:

CLELAND: Get out. Redeploy. Take care of our own troops. I think that's what we're talking about here. We do not have a plan to win. Stay the course is no strategy. It is no strategy to win, it is no strategy to exit. We're just getting kids blown up. We've lost 2,700 kids over there, we've got 20,000 wounded, 10,000 wounded for life, maimed for life, and it's time to end this thing. Now the Iraqis are going to settle their differences. One way or the other. They've been at this for 5,000 years. Let them have it. Iraq it is not our 51st state. We've got to take care of our country - we've got to bring the Guard and Reserve home to take care of our country, we've got to focus our active forces - active covertly and overtly, on killing or capturing Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist cadre. They are the real threats to America right now.

...CLELAND: If people don't understand that there's a civil war going on there, and more than 100 Iraqis die every day and that 3 out of 5 Iraqis want to kill Americans, then I can't make this point any more clearly. It is time to redeploy our forces from Iraq and bring them home and refocus on the real enemy.

In 2004, the electorate, like George Bush, was deaf to dissenters. Less than 25 days away from the 2006 elections, are our calls still falling on deaf ears? Are the voices of the Generals being heard yet?

What words and actions are you taking to pull the ear-plugs out and take off the blinders?

Greetings from Old Europe,

I finally have some time to share my experiences here with all of you. Today has been an amazing day in a series of amazing days.

This morning, my new friend Dave (a physics professor from Minnesota) and I went to see the Astronomical Clock. We got to see 10 am, and it was really wonderful to see the children and adults get so excited about the emergence of the saints. I love that religion is not something separate from play or joy here. I thought about the fact that people planned the Velvet Revolution in those churches, right off the street, while music and prayers were going on. I love the idea of people taking back their country together, while they sang and danced and honored their city.

It worries me. This Administration, whose militaristic bluster using war to ferret out WMDs in one of the three "Axis of Evil" countries, is now, four years later, fumbling in its response to the North Korea nuclear test this week.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo summarizes it this way:

On North Korea, needless to say, he fibbed about the basic issue, elided the key points. We'll see if the press teases out what he ignored and misstated. He let the Agreed Framework lapse. The excuse is alleged (and probably true) uranium enrichment research, which wouldn't have come to fruition for many, many years. The result was ramping back plutonium production which has now already created a bomb. The president's boast is that his failed negotiations have more participants around the table. Wow.

The current state of the Administration's foreign policy leaves one musing bitterly whether this new corner they have painted themselves into can be excused away by AGAIN blaming it on the Clinton Administration. The Bush White House has had five years doing everything possible to obviate Clinton's Agreed Framework, imposing its own brand of diplomacy to deter further development of a nuclear North Korea. And this week we face the results of their policy.

Arguing that the threat by an emerging nuclear North Korea is due to the Clinton Administration, like so many other threats to the world or domestic problems, is too-often repeated, dangerously childish and horribly tragic. This Administration needs to dance to the tune of its own making, face the reality of its actions, or as Joe Conason writes, let the adults take over and clean up this mess. And do it before its too late.

Feel safer now?

God help us.

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq's government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

This information is due to be published in the highly respected peer-reviwed medical Journal, Lancet, on Thursday.

Not surprisingly, US government officials are questioning the "timing" of the release of this report, saying that it is politically motivated. Equally unsurprising, the media reporting this spin from the government, has neglected to either ask, or receive, any explanation for the what the political motivation behind a British group releasing a study in a British medical journal might be. And again, no surprise here that US government officials making the accusation have not offered any proof whatsoever to validate their dubious assertion.

655,000 Iraqis dead who would otherwise be alive. God help us.

The Today show spent about 18 seconds on this story this morning. They then spent 2 minutes on a new "runaway bride" story.

First the tragedy of the Iraqi deaths, then the disgrace of American priorities on display.

What is being wrought in the name of our country is sickening.

[Note: If you are horrified by the photo accompanying this story, go here to see the one I wanted to use but couldn't resize properly, or go here for the other one I wanted to use. Both of them better demonstrate this story better than the one I used.]

Last Friday, incumbent Republican Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08) and two Iraq war veterans held a press conference for the seemingly sole purpose of attacking the Democratic challenger Patrick Murphy military service in Iraq. Service that resulted in Murphy being awarded the bronze star. To be fair, it should be noted that Congressman Fitzpatrick, age 41, has never spent a day wearing the uniform of his country.

Sound familiar? It should. This type of Vet against Vet with politician hiding behind the smears has been all too commonplace these days. John McCain, Max Cleland, John Kerry, in past elections have all been targets. This election season, they are targeting Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy, among others.

Much like terrorism is a tactic of certain wars, "swiftboating" is a tactic of certain camapigns. Both tactics use others to do the dirty work. Both tactics seek to gain and retain power.

Let's examine the use of this tactic and how the response to it has evolved...

Josh Marshall writes so I don't have to:

From the annals of catastrophic success. This graf from Glenn Kessler's piece in the Post tells the tale ...

Yet a number of senior U.S. officials have said privately that they would welcome a North Korean test, regarding it as a clarifying event that would forever end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's grip on power.

Translation: The Cheneyites have always wanted a policy of force and confrontation with the NK's. They deep-sixed the Agreed Framework (which kept the plutonium out of commission from 1994-2002). Now they feel confrontation is a fait accompli.

Remind you of anything?

Start praying, folks.

This is as best a moment of silence as I can deliver via the Internet.

Floating behind all the noise of the scandal in the halls of power, the ongoing insanity each day in the Middle East, is the story of the five little girls lost to violence last week in that small school in Nickel Mines, PA.

On Friday night, I found this diary by Noi5e15 at Daily Kos, and it's been haunting my weekend.

Before I left for rehearsal that evening, I called my niece, who was walking home from class. I found myself reveling in the sound of her voice. I just wanted to be near her, protect her, and give her strength. All she was worried about was her chemistry class. All I was worried about was her safety.

Tonight at rehearsal we talked about how women are regarded in popular culture. How disposably women are treated. And how strong women are often vilified. I think about that one little girl in that classroom in Lancaster County, who stood before that gunman, putting her life on the line for others.

It made me wonder aloud, does this world deserve our little girls?

Today, for the first time in a long time, I am kneeling down and praying. Praying for the lives of girls and women in our country and across the world. I pray for their parents. I pray for those whose lives were lost to violence in our country, in Iraq, and for those who miss them. I pray for the continued safety of my niece, my sister, and for all the parents in our DCP community. Most of all, I pray that one day we can look across the gender divide that does not see a divide, does not see an enemy, a victim, a perpetrator, or an object, but a unity of spirit, community, love and respect.

I would think that's what those little girls had hoped for their own lives.

Why do I think Republicans will lose the mid-terms?

It's pretty simple. I hang out with all kinds of Moms, especially that elusive political unicorn of Moms, the "security/soccer" Mom.

While I am clearly liberal, some of the group are Democrats, some are Republicans, some are Bush supporters, but most are self-identified independents.

I had coffee with "The Moms" yesterday. In my memory, all of the moms have never agreed upon anything politically with one unanimous voice, except for this: We all think pedophiles should be put up against a wall and shot. Period.

Now that's a strange thing for me to say, because I am against the death penalty, as are others in the group. And I understand the the psychological history that is generally part of pedophiles. But I don't care. Personally, I would want to kill anyone who harmed any member of my family in any way, shape or form. But, that's why we have laws. To keep a civilized society.

Nonetheless, there you have it. A group of fifteen women who agree that pedophiles are scum, and the only thing worse than a pedophile is someone who covers up for pedophiles. And the only thing worse than that, is someone who does it for personal/political gain. They all believe that every Republican Congressman in a position of leadership knew about it. And every one of these women is ready to exact a measure of punishment at the polls for Predatorgate.

So unless many things change between now and then, the Republicans are finished.

But this is just my opinion. Let's hear what you think.

File this one under the department of "You Can't Make This Stuff Up":

That Grand Old Partier, Republican Congressman John Sweeney (R-NY) formed a fundraising committee less than three weeks ago with sexual predator ex-Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL). The unfortunate name of their new Republican fundraising venture? It's called PROM.

That's right, it's called PROM. Seriously, I can't make this stuff up. It stands for Physicians to Retain Our Majority.

This comes to us from Liz Benjamin's NY political blog, Capitol Confidential at The Albany Times Union (via Roll Call):

Roll Call today has a report about a new joint fundraising committee created by ex-U.S. Rep. Mark Foley and a number of his former Republican congressional colleagues that goes by the (in light of recent events) unfortunate name of PROM - Physicians to Retain Our Majority.

(Sorry, Roll Call is subscription only, general link is best I could do).

Members of the committee, include two New Yorkers - John Sweeney (20th CD) and Sue Kelly (19th CD) - as well as Shelley Moore Capito, of West Virginia, who is a member of the House Page Board and was not told of the Foley emails when the issue came up earlier this year.

Evidently, the committee had an event last month, according to the NRCC Web site:

Event: You are cordially invited to P.R.O.M. Night: Physicians to Retain our Majority With Honorary Chairman of the Red Rooster Leadership PAC Nathan Deal

Time: 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Location: B. Smiths Restaurant 50 Massachusetts Ave., NE Washington, DC

Details: RSVP to Tom Hammond or Jill Pasqualetto Hammond & Associates P. 703-548.6916 F. 703.548.5048

The name of this committee, which helps candidates tap new donor bases, is doubly unfortuate when you consider this passage from an Oct. 3 LA Times story:

“The pages did, however, receive a lot of attention from Foley. He attended one of their parties in a tuxedo. He donated to the fundraiser that helps pay for their prom and spoke admiringly about them in floor speeches.”

This is the second joint fundraising committee Sweeney has helped form. The first was BOMP - Bowling for Our Majority Party - of which Foley is not a member.

[...]

A reader pointed out the odd timing of all of this:

Papers to create PROM were filed with the FEC Sept. 19. (The statement of organization form was dated Sept. 18). Sweeney filed notice of his involvement with PROM on Sept. 26 - the same day as the PROM event. Foley resigned Sep. 29.

I wonder what he’s going to do with that PROM cash…

Drip, drip, drip.

Let's hear what you are doing politically this weekend.

May I suggest registering voters?

My husband and I are making a committment to register ten voters each this weekend. Since a number of states have their registration period closing, you may want to check the deadline for your state and do the same.

For all the information you need on registering voters in any state, click here to link to Project Vote-Smart.

Let's take a brief interlude from glee and jaw-dropping awe as the Republicans take turns shooting each other and return to an event of two months ago--updated:

Remember when Raed Jarrar tried to fly home after speaking at the opening night talk-back for Fear Up: Stories from Baghdad and Guantanamo? He wore a t-shirt and someone complained about it. The t-shirt had this on it:

There's something very sad and world-wearying about the Foleygate scandal, which seems to keep bleeding, and bleeding, and bleeding.

We're not immune to political scandals--in either party. But the partisanship by which we regard this current scandal hits me with a feeling of unease. Are we any better because its THEM that its happening to, not us? Do we feel morally superior to them right now because now its THEIR turn on the wheel of karmic justice? Given everything we've been dealt BECAUSE of the Lewinsky scandal the past seven years--are we not finally vindicated?

Well, yes and no.

There still remains the bigger picture under which all of these scandals happen. The root of it comes from the abuse of power: being too long in the position of privilege, blinded by all the accompanying temptations accorded to that position of power, becoming heedless and numb to the original intent of one's leadership--serving the people who worked hard for you and voted for you to get there.

Last night I watched, grimacing, the inexorably vigilant Nancy Grace ratcheting up public disgust with her normal vehemence, milking the show's phone hotline, allowing the vox populi to vent on the Mark Foley scandal. As much as I wished that would happen in the early hours of the Foley scandal as I watched, I took no pleasure from it. All she was doing was filling the need created by this scandal-addicted, junk-news fed American electorate.

But before I venture further down the road of blaming mainstream media for catering to the need for intellectually nutrition-free information I want to throw my energy down a different path.

Why can't Congress take this opportunity to come to grips with idealism again? Why can't it start to grab hold of vision, imagination, productivity, and peace? Why not use this opportunity to truly clean house and give people confidence in leadership again? Why can't we have people we trust in positions of power once more?

The vision of this Congress as it stands right now reminds me of a fine old club, once venerable and respected, now shoddy, unkempt and devoid of substance, meaning, and purpose. In my mind, this Congress looks to me a seedy mess, which, like public buildings long overdue their maintenance and repair, needs to be shut down and remodeled.

For all intents and purposes, Club Congress, devoid of both leadership AND decency, needs to be closed for renovations.

Winston stroked his nose gently with a paper-clip. In the cubicle across the way Comrade Tillotson was still crouching secretively over his speakwrite. He raised his head for a moment: again the hostile spectacle-flash. Winston wondered whether Comrade Tillotson was engaged on the same job as himself. It was perfectly possible. So tricky a piece of work would never be entrusted to a single person: on the other hand, to turn it over to a committee would be to admit openly that an act of fabrication was taking place. Very likely as many as a dozen people were now working away on rival versions of what Big Brother had actually said. And presently some master brain in the Inner Party would select this version or that, would re-edit it and set in motion the complex processes of cross-referencing that would be required, and then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth.

1984, George Orwell

Is there anything about which this administration doesn't lie?

I must admit, the line from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to the effect that she couldn't imagine herself not remembering the briefing that DCI Tenet gave her on July 10, 2001 is right up there with her line about the name of the August 6, 2001 PDB, wherein she tried to use her best and breeziest tone as she vaguely recalled the name of the briefing, "bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside The United States".

Clearly, they have lied so often, they can't remember the truth. So let's try this one more time (from McClatchey):

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and former Attorney General John Ashcroft received the same CIA briefing about an imminent al-Qaida strike on an American target that was given to the White House two months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The State Department's disclosure Monday that the pair was briefed within a week after then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was told about the threat on July 10, 2001, raised new questions about what the Bush administration did in response, and about why so many officials have claimed they never received or don't remember the warning.

One official who helped to prepare the briefing, which included a PowerPoint presentation, described it as a "10 on a scale of 1 to 10" that "connected the dots" in earlier intelligence reports to present a stark warning that al-Qaida, which had already killed Americans in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and East Africa, was poised to strike again.

Former CIA Director George Tenet gave the independent Sept. 11, 2001, commission the same briefing on Jan. 28, 2004, but the commission made no mention of the warning in its 428-page final report. According to three former senior intelligence officials, Tenet testified to commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste and to Philip Zelikow, the panel's executive director and the principal author of its report, who's now Rice's top adviser.

Leaving aside the fact that this briefing got somehow negotiated out of the 9-11 Commission Report (and apparently that really, really neat movie, "The Path to 9-11...or whatever crap we decide to make up") let's just focus on Condi Rice's swiss cheese memory function.

If you are the National Security Adviser to the President, and you don't remember a power point presentation that the DCI gave you, in your office, after demanding an emergency meeting, than you are dangerously incompetent, and I wouldn't hire you as a hall monitor.

And just when I think it can't get any more disgusting, any more soulless, any more base, any more amoral in Republican-run government, it does.

It's all about the lies, the lying liars, and the lying liars who lie to protect their own political interests.(Hats off to Al Franken)

Really, it doesn't matter what the issue is. They will lie about it to protect their political power.

You don't matter. I don't matter. And whether it's sending them to Iraq to die for a lie, or sending them to Congress to be the sexual prey, our kids sure as hell don't matter.

We're all disposable, and our value is seemingly measured only in the usefulness to Dear Leader's government. That is, until Dear Leader's government is over.

EDITOR'S NOTE: We're all pretty dismayed by the detainee bill passed in Congress last week, and disgusted by the shocking revelations made on the heels of Rep. Mark Foley's resignation last Friday. The question in our minds is: "What are we going to do about it?"

We found Otter's post in one of the threads below. We think this will help.

We're only one month away from what may well turn out be the most watershed national elections of modern times.

Today we are at the height of -- and with luck and hard work, at the tail end of -- what Maureen Dowd recently referred to as "this chilling time when the Bush administration has Photoshopped the Constitution, portrayed critics as traitors, and spurred terrorism with a misconceived and mismanaged war in Iraq."

The presidential elections of 2008 are still far in the future. But the mid-term elections of 2006 are right around the corner. And this year's mid-term elections are, in many ways, far more significant than those that are still two years away.

What happens in a few short weeks will determine the makeup of Congress for years, even decades to come. What happens in a few short weeks will strongly influence what happens in the presidential elections of 2008. What happens in a few short weeks will make a major difference in your life, my life, and the lives of everyone around us.

What happens in a few short weeks matters, y'all. It matters a *lot*. In fact, it will probably matter more than anything like it in our lifetimes.

This is a watershed election year. So if you've been sitting back at your keyboard up to now, then it's not to late for you get up out of your chair and go put your boots on the ground where you live.

If you know people who are doing nothing, who are thinking nothing, who are planning to blow off these midterm elections this year (because after all no votes really matter except during presidential election years and even then they don't count anyway), then it's up to you to educate them and convince them otherwise.

If you know pro-war people who are having their strings pulled, their knees jerked, and are responding blindly to the bogus mind-control tactics of the professional spinmeisters on the reich-wing side, then it's up to you to make them wake up and smell the coffins.

If you know people who are still clinging desperately to old single-issue voting patterns, then it's up to you to make them see the big picture this time.

If you know people who are paying no attention to what's going on around them, then it's up to you to make them understand that attention *must* be paid.

If you know that every vote counts and every opinion matters -- and since you're here reading this on the DCP website, then it's safe to assume that you do -- then it's up to you to reach out to those around you and make sure that their votes count, too.

We're only one month away from what may well turn out be the most watershed national elections of modern times.

And what happens next month is up to you. And me. And all of us.

So don't just go out and vote next month -- get out the vote, every day from now till then.

Get out the vote as though your very lives depend on it this year.

Because, ultimately, they do.

A little less than a year ago, on November 16, 2005, the world became aware of Bob Woodward's duplicity in the White House's treasonous leaking of Valerie Plame's name to the press. The journalist most widely known for fighting corruption in the Nixon White House began his wild free fall in the public's eyes as they understood exactly how he had abused the trust we gave him. Arianna at Huffington Post had a summary of what the blogs were saying that day in "Woodward: From Watergate Hero to Plamegate Goat"

And I had asked at the time, "So...now that Bob Woodward has fallen, who will step up and save ethical journalism?"

Apparently Bob Woodward wants to.

He spent the last nine months writing a book that he believes will atone for his lack of integrity and credibility over the past five years.

Today is ironically the beginning of the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur- the day that Jews atone for their sins. Today, Bob Woodward is making the Sunday talking head circuit about his new book State of Denial" in which he discusses a myriad of the Bush administration failures that he witnessed over the last six years.

The right wing media is bellowing out, "'State of Denial' a Hatchet job?"

Is it a hatchet job? Or is it whistle blowing and truth telling?

Hatchet job or whistle blowing...good question.

When I ask myself those questions I can't help but remember what Karen Kwiatowski and Ray McGovern said about whistle blowing when I was at Camp Democracy--the session was called Whistleblowing 101.