Congress to White House: "Reality Bites"

press release:
Kerry Statement on Senate Democrats’ Iraq Exit Strategy

WASHINGTON D.C. – Senator John Kerry made the following statement today, following a 89-9 vote in the Senate in favor of beginning debate over a resolution that calls for a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

“In order to support the troops, we have to get the policy right. The American public is demanding a change in the direction of our efforts in Iraq. Today we’re here to try and make that happen. The strategy that gives us the best chance for a stable Iraq is one that rejects more of the same, sets a deadline for redeployment, and emphasizes a regional solution and a diplomatic solution to Iraq. As General Petraeus has said, there is no military solution to this civil war.

“The answer is a one year deadline to redeploy the majority of American troops. This one year deadline is anything but arbitrary: the Iraq Study Group endorsed it, General Casey said it, and even President Bush says that under his new strategy, responsibility for security will be transferred to Iraqis before the end of this year. We need a deadline to make that goal a reality. No wonder even Republicans say that the Administration is using the Baker-Hamilton report as a ‘book-end.’

“History shows that a deadline is necessary to force Iraqis to make tough political compromises. For four years, the Administration has been saying we’d stay as long as it takes – and the violence has only gotten worse. While Iraqi politicians fight for power among themselves, American soldiers are coming home maimed by IEDs.

“With each day, this Administration becomes more detached from the reality of what is happening in Iraq. This new ‘surge’ is just a second helping of the same old dish. There’s a word for this kind creeping escalation: Vietnam. This is exactly the kind of steady escalation that got tens of thousands of American soldiers killed for a policy that could not work. Yet still the Administration hides behind the rhetoric that dares to claim those who offer a new way forward are ‘undermining’ our troops. It is incomprehensible that an Administration that has so badly mistreated the brave men and women of our armed forces – from sending them into combat without adequate protection to providing a shameful lack of care when they return – would accuse anyone of undermining the troops.

“It’s time for this Senate to do what this Administration has stubbornly refused to do – to recognize that the best way to support the troops is to change a course that squanders their lives, dishonors their sacrifice, and does a disservice to our people and our principles.”

Video of The Tall Guy delivering that floor statement is up on his website (and it's well worth watching, to see his face and hear the steel in his voice): http://kerry.senate.gov/v3/press/video.html

House approves three open-government bills
Sunshine Week measures aim to push enforcement of FOIA provisions

Updated: 15 minutes ago
AP

WASHINGTON - The House Wednesday passed three bills to open government records to the public, brushing aside White House opposition, and in one case, a veto threat.

The measures, highlighting the media-led Sunshine Week, would force government to be more responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests, make contributions to presidential libraries public and overturn a 2001 presidential directive giving the president authority to keep his records from public view.

The White House issued a veto threat on the presidential records bill and voiced opposition to the FOIA legislation. It also said the president would veto a fourth bill the House is to debate later Wednesday on whistleblower protections. Democrats say the bills, several of which were also taken up in past Republican-led Congresses, were needed to shine light on what they say has been one of the most secretive administrations in decades.

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17612799/

Unsubstantiated breaking news (from another blog poster who was watching CNN live):

Leahy WILL subpoena Rove about the US attorney purge.

Here's what Think Progress had to say earlier today:
White House Signals It Will Fight To Block Rove Testimony
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/14/rove-attorneys-testify/

I am sitting in the latest of the Code Pink houses and listening to one of the women trying to get wireless service installed.

Back when I was in college, I participated in a number of psych experiments (yeah, I know that explains a lot!), one of which involved stress and drugs that relieve stress. The stimulus was film of dentists drilling. Supposedly that sent everyone's stress reactions through the roof.

But I have to say that listening to this poor woman talking to Verizon or whomever she is trying to get to turn on a service that should be simple, there is a higher threshold yet.

This is agony, mostly because I experience the same thing myself whenever I deal with wireless "service". Service being a euphemism for being f*****, of course.

I remember those college days and I am trying to remember what the drugs were that they gave us to relieve our agony...

Hmm... back when *you* were in college, Karen, I'm thinking maybe laudanum, or maybe paregoric...

:::ducking and running:::

I know I live in a cave when it comes to new movies & I've largely ignored reviews about box office hits (unless George Clooney/Johnny Depp/Paul Newman appear in them), but this review of "300" in Time from Tehran is really interesting.

300 Sparks an Outcry in Iran

--snip--
The timing of the computer-generated film, which depicts the ancient confrontation of Sparta and the Persian empire at the Battle of Thermopylae, is certainly inauspicious. It falls on the eve of Norouz, Persian new year, a time when Iranians typically gather in proud celebration, observing rites that date back over 3,000 years, way before Islam, to the age of Zoroastrianism, when their ancient land produced the world's first monotheistic religion. It is not a particularly welcome season to be portrayed as pillaging, deranged savages.

--snip--
While the hullabaloo over 300 may dampen Iranians' holiday spirits, it offers common cause between people and their estranged government. Top officials and parliament have scorned the film as though it were a matter of state, and for the first time in a long while, taxi drivers are shaking their fists in agreement when the state news comes on. Agreeing that 300 is egregious drivel is fairly easy. I'm relatively mellow as Iranian nationalists go, and even I found myself applauding when the government spokesman described the film as fabrication and insult. Iranians view the Achaemenid empire as a particularly noble page in their history and cannot understand why it has been singled out for such shoddy cinematic treatment, as the populace here perceives it, with the Persians in rags and its Great King practically naked. The Achaemenid kings, who built their majestic capital at Persepolis, were exceptionally munificent for their time. They wrote the world's earliest recorded human rights declaration, and were opposed to slavery. Cuneiform plates show that Persepolis was built by paid staff rather than slaves And any Iranian child who has visited Persepolis can tell you that its preserved reliefs depict court dress of velvet robes, and that if anyone was wearing rags around 500 B.C., it wasn't the Persians.

It is going to take an act of foolhardy courage to distribute that film in Iran. It will truly be 70 million against 300.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1598886,00.html?cnn=yes

My husband saw that movie 300 and said it was exceedingly violent and disturbing - impressive nerdly special effects notwithstanding. He said he regretted giving money to the makers. It wasn't because of how a particular side was portrayed. He just found it to be gratuitously violent and needlessly so, even given the plot, like people nowdays get off on the violence. Glad I didn't go.

I also wonder if US isn't getting to be like Sparta, with sports worship and glorification of war. I have thought that ever since high school, when sports always trumped art, music and culture and when we were sunken into the quagmire of Vietnam.

nmp:

Bread and circuses.

when in rome,
Otter

Hell freezes over. Pentagon admits Iraq in some ways resembles a civil war.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N14268011.htm

How about two resignations soon:

Gen. Peter Pace

and "Gonzo Torquemada" Gonzales...

"Investigate. Indict. Impeach. Imprison."

Any questions?

@@@@@@@@@@@

I was rather taken aback at the DOJ purge plot by Harriet Meirs, Karl Rove and Gonzo, so I called fellow Michiganian Rep. John Conyers offices to raise the question of impeachment. I expected reluctance and dismissness of the idea as was the case the last time I called.

Amazingly the person answering the phone listened to what I had to say!!! Usually phone-answerers are instructed to say nothing substantive and give the standard "I'll pass your comments on to the...." This person, however, told me that Schumer called for Gonzo's resignation and that Rove had been subpoenaed to testify. She also said that obscure provision in the Patriot Act which allows Prez to go around Congress to appoint U.S. attorneys will be taken out....

Got THK?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/14/95334/9239

FOX is having a heyday with the new bogieman at Gitmo, plastering the disheveled picture huge on their website - can just imagine their tv. The guy is horrific, no doubt, but he's claiming to be behind so many attacks that some of it could be attention-getting, like that fake Jon Benet killer. He's going to die anyway. I mean, assassinating the Pope, Clinton, Carter on top of 28 or so terror attacks? maybe, maybe not

Received from a U.S. Marine:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1op8vwF5UA

(Senator with alot to say in 6 minutes!)

Posted by: Otter at March 14, 2007 05:47 PM

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

I really needed that!

FOX is having a heyday with the new bogieman at Gitmo, plastering the disheveled picture huge on their website - can just imagine their tv. The guy is horrific, no doubt, but he's claiming to be behind so many attacks that some of it could be attention-getting, like that fake Jon Benet killer. He's going to die anyway. I mean, assassinating the Pope, Clinton, Carter on top of 28 or so terror attacks? maybe, maybe not

Posted by: not my president

@@@@@@@

Sounds like Roveian timing and orchestration:

THE ADMINISTRATION NEEDS !!!! SOME !!! GOOD NEWS.. TO TAKE PEOPLE'S MINDS OF ALL THE REALLY BAD STUFF...

Off-topic but need to share anyway:

A Baptist now wants to play Joseph Mengele on the gay fetuses.

So much for the culture of life.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17615602/?GT1=9145

BTW:

The attorney purge looks like ethics and perhaps obstruction of justice might be brought against Sen. Pete Domenici and Rep. Heather Wilson. One also wonders - it doesn't take much imagination - that this (the phone calls and veiled threats) was coordinated by the White House. I.E. Domenici and Wilson were told to put pressure on the attorney (Iglesias). If Iglesias didn't comply, Bush would fire him...

DRIP, DRIP, DRIP,

POSTIVELY NIXONIAN

The guy is horrific, no doubt, but he's claiming to be behind so many attacks that some of it could be attention-getting, like that fake Jon Benet killer. He's going to die anyway. I mean, assassinating the Pope, Clinton, Carter on top of 28 or so terror attacks? maybe, maybe not

Posted by: not my president at March 14, 2007 09:40 PM

Don't forget NMP - at his trial, hearsay and evidence gleaned from torture are acceptable from the prosecution; defence is forbidden since he's not to know what the evidence against him is.

Could be boasting. Could be manufactured. Either way, the administration requires that he's guilty.

Posted by: Ralpheh at March 14, 2007 08:58 PM

Congrats! Glad they listened to you, and gave you some positive feedback.

Karen,

That laudanum is good stuff! Has kept us medicated for decades now! Now where did I put my bottle of it? (On days when the lights are on but nobody's home, or the elevator isn't going all the way to the top, I blame it on age....but maybe it ish the laudanum.) Had to hide it from the dam* husband, but it was worth it. Tee hee.

Ralpheh,

I just think the right is desperate to shore up its base because the rats are jumping ship and they are worried about '08, plus probably worried about alot of other crimes that are sure to be exposed in the next 18 months. It's time to pay the piper, baby.

I thought it was totally absurd to try to take the heat off the war and the awful news of the poor care the vets are getting along with the Walter Reed story by making a big stinky issue of homosexuals being prosecuted or expelled from the service if they are "caught" or outed. How hypocritical can they be? Don't you smell the desperation????

We waste billions of dollars, kill people, lie to our own and neglect them, and we don't like gays and don't want them to serve in our armed forces because they are immoral. What a bunch of crap.

Base, base, are you out there? We look really scummy and crooked and corrupt right now, but we aren't cuz you see we don't condone homosexuality.

DiAnne, I remember you or NonnyO saying that it's going to take more than Hillary saying nice words about jobs and health care.

It's also going to take more than the right singing their hate songs about gays to win some of their base back. Unless they are totally brain dead. Bait and switch. Bait and switch. I think that's what this whole firing of the judges is about too. "Vote Republican and you may be totally unaware that you are losing your freedom and rights, but you can show you don't like gays by casting your vote for us, therefore assuring yourself you are a moral person. Also, with the "liberal" judges gone, if you vote Republican we can appoint conservative judges and you still have a shot at overturning Roe vs. Wade." (My paraphrase.)

Jeez. They must think people are total idiots.
Are they????

(Senator with alot to say in 6 minutes!)

Posted by: not my president at March 14, 2007 09:55 PM

Best summary I've heard!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_terrorist_confession
9/11 mastermind confesses in Guantanamo
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who, besides me, doesn't believe a word of the alleged "confession" of so many plots, all obtained under torture and/or duress...? Or is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a braggart and wants to take credit for things he never did (and wasn't he allegedly only the driver for Osama bin Laden, or some other low-level functionary, so likely was not in on planning anything?), but he's bragging about things he wanted to happen? Didn't Zacharias Moussaoui already "confess" to some part in planning 9/11 and he was the one everyone was "blaming" for a while?

Like Moussaoui, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a good diversionary tactic for Lamestream Media to talk about to keep sheeple's minds on 9/11 and "the reason for the Iraq war to keep the war over there before it comes here." It keeps sheeple scared (and voting for the neoCons, whether they label themselves Republican or "moderate" or "centrist" Democrats - DINOs). IMHO.

IF Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the "mastermind" behind 9/11 (like it was implied and alleged about Moussaoui at one time)..., then WHY were we allegedly going after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan... before the detour to the illegal (war crime) invasion of Iraq...?!?!?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_go_co/congress_sunshine
Open government bills stir veto threats
Open-government bills sped to House passage Wednesday as Democrats pushed to make President Bush and his executive branch more forthcoming about their actions. The White House struck back with veto threats.

Aided by substantial Republican support, the Democrats approved legislation to force government agencies to be more responsive to the millions of Freedom of Information Act requests for public documents they receive every year.

The House also easily passed bills to require donors to presidential libraries to identify themselves — an issue as Bush prepares for his own library — and to reverse a 2001 Bush decision making it easier for presidents to keep their records from public scrutiny.

Finally, lawmakers approved a bill to strengthen protection for government whistle-blowers. They cited the failure to expose faulty intelligence about prewar Iraq in expanding protections for national security officials. Employees of federal contractors, airport screeners and government scientists facing retaliation for objecting to political influences are also covered.

Prospects are good for the FOIA bill in the Senate, where it has bipartisan support. The other bills also need Senate action before they can go to the president.

The White House, citing the Bush's constitutional prerogatives, warned that the presidential records bill would be vetoed if it reached his desk. The White House issued a second veto warning on the whistle-blower bill, saying it was unconstitutional and compromised national security.

The votes were 390-34 on the presidential library bill; 333-93 on the presidential records bill; 308-117 on the FOIA legislation and 331-94 on the whistle-blower bill.

All four are part of the media-led Sunshine Week. Democrats are using the annual event to highlight what they say is a disturbing level of secrecy in the Bush administration.
~~~~~
The 40-year-old FOIA law was a promise that people could find out what their government was doing "in all but a few kinds of highly sensitive or confidential matters," Curley said. "The law does back them. But in many cases the government doesn't back the law."
~~~~~
The presidential records measure would rescind Bush's 2001 executive order giving current and former presidents and vice presidents authority to withhold presidential records or delay their release indefinitely.

The act was passed after Watergate "to underscore the fact that presidential records belong to the American people, not to the president," Waxman said. The presidential directive, he said, "undermines the entire purpose" of the act.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Information on the House bills — H.R. 1309 (FOIA); H.R. 1254 (libraries); H.R. 1255 (presidential records); and H.R. 985 (whistle-blowers): http://tinyurl.com/2tx5g4

Information on the Senate bill, S. 849, can be found at http://thomas.loc.gov

{More on link. On the face of it, this sounds like good legislation to support.}

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20070314/cx_crwiz_uc/crwiz20070314
The Wizard of Id (LOL!)

http://news.yahoo.com/comics/uclickcomics/20070314/cx_nq_uc/nq20070314
Non Sequitur

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/14/biden-to-bush-youre-leading-us-off-a-cliff-stop/
Biden to Bush: “You’re leading us off a cliff. Stop!”
{Video}

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/14/watch-out-rove-leahy-promises-subpoenas/
Leahy Promises Subpoenas

Patrick Leahy: "... but those answers are going to be under oath or they're not acceptable to me."
{Video}

In case anyone missed it....

Tom Engelhardt | The Seymour Hersh Mystery
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031407A.shtml
"Let me see if I've got this straight...." Tom Engelhart begins in his urgent exploration of the recent investigative reporting on Iran war-planning by Seymour Hersh. Engelhardt describes the lack of attention: "A journalist essentially writing bloody murder in a giant media and governmental crowd. In this case, no one in the mainstream evidently cares - not yet anyway - to pay the slightest attention. It seems that there's a crime going on and no one gives a damn."

{In other words, Seymour Hersh seems to have figured out the Iran-Contra connection to what's happening nowadays and he seems to have some kind of proof. I was only connecting dots to long-ago events and wondered about the dots I was connecting, wondered if my memories were accurate; but I have no proof or research or sources, just observations.}

Robert Scheer | His Own Worst Enemy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031407D.shtml
Robert Scheer digs into the recent defensive rhetoric coming from the vice president: "The unctuous owl has hooted again. Only this time, Dick Cheney’s cave has been invaded by the sudden sunlight of judicial and Congressional revelations, making him appear more pathetic than intimidating as he once again charges critics of the Iraq war with giving aid and comfort to the enemy."

Senate Debates Troop Withdrawal Measure
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031407R.shtml
Breaking a parliamentary roadblock, the Senate on Wednesday began its first formal debate on the Iraq war since Democrats took control of Congress, taking up a measure calling for President Bush to withdraw combat troops by the end of next March. The White House swiftly issued a veto threat.

{Wording of the resolution is below the story.}

http://www.americanprogress.org/cartoons/2007/03/031407_iraq.html

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/14/damn_right_were_angry.php

Damn Right, We're Angry

We can’t deny it any longer. There’s no point in hiding it, no point in trying to explain it away. Yes, it’s true: We progressives are angry. And we no longer care if the centrist, moderate guardians of the establishment scold us for it.

Our anger is not just some vague feeling whose source we can’t put our finger on. It isn’t based on absurd conspiracy theories and it isn’t illogical.

We’re angry because of what has happened to our country, because of how we’ve been treated, and because of the innumerable crimes the conservatives have committed. We’re angry at the president, we’re angry at the Congress, we’re angry at the news media. And we have every right to be.

~~~~~

Those are a few of the things we’re angry about, and yes, that’s a lot of anger. But you know what? There’s nothing wrong with being angry. Anger is the appropriate reaction to moral outrages, to crimes against our common humanity, to the actions of those who would turn our country into something twisted and ugly.

{{{See link for the paragraphs written regarding a few of the things the author - and we - are all angry about....}}}

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aziz-huq/attorney-firings-what-th_b_43401.html
Attorney Firings: What the White House Wanted to do, But Didn't

Excerpts:
In the coming days, commentators will be scrambling for their thesauruses to find new ways to describe the mounting criticism of Attorney General Gonzales (try "calumny" or "obloquy" for starters). But it's worth lingering on one perhaps the most illuminating aspect of today's news: What the White House wanted to, but didn't, do.
~~~~~
Hard questions certainly need to be asked about how partisan politics entered into firing and replacement of prosecutors. But in addition, we need to ask to what extent was that process interwoven with the effort to secure increased presidential power over prosecutorial replacements? This is, as I have explained elsewhere, an executive cares deeply about executive prerogatives far beyond those that law or history would support.

{More on link. Lots of links to other info embedded in text.}

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/14/a_lifeline_out.php
A Lifeline Out
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
{{{Posting an excerpt would mean the whole thing is taken out of context. It needs to be read in its entirety for context.}}}
Signed by:
Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, MD
David C. MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

{{{Check out the description of Whack-A-Mole....}}}

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/impeachment-is-an-underbl_b_43400.html
Impeachment is an Underblown Personnel Matter
Excerpt:
Sooner or later, it will all come out -- not only this Gonzales/Rove/Miers sewer, but all the other depredations visited on us by the Bush Administration. We will run out of -gates to affix to their names long before we will run out of crimes. The cherry-picking of intelligence to drag us into pre-emptive war, the rendition and torture, the wiretapping, the no-bid billions, the rest: it will all, one day, be exposed. Reputations will surely die. How? In the book of the future, it is already written -- who by subpoena, and who by indictment; who by leak, and who by memoir; who by court, and who by committee; who by accusation, and who by confession; who by resignation, and who by impeachment.

Oh, wait. Impeachment is off the table -- I keep forgetting. Lying about a blowjob is a high crime, but lying about Iraq's nukes is merely high Kissinger. The daily actions of Bush, Cheney, Gonzales et al are the very dictionary definition of "impeachable," but because thirty percent of fundamentalists, and a hundred percent of Fox, would scream bloody murder, we will have to wait for this endless Administration to end, wait until after the pardons are inevitably issued, after the Freedom of Information requests are finally honored, after the manacles on the presidential archives are finally broken, after the press finally suffers stenographer's remorse, after the historians at last connect the dots, to learn how really bad it has been, how close we have danced to the brink of a de facto coup.

The other day, I heard Richard Land, the head of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and Tony Perkins from the Family Research Council, talking on a cable show about the '08 campaign. One of them, I forget which, said that the two biggest issues in the race were going to be the war in Iraq, and America's moral decline. Holy homo! From Dobson to Robertson, O'Reilly to D'Souza, we are being hectored about Good and Bad by an army of apologists for the most morally corrupt, ethically bankrupt, criminally culpable cohort in American history. Listening to these defenders of the faith rationalize the indefensible has long ceased being entertaining; if you have no spine, it is not much of a feat to be an epistemological contortionist.

The right loves to call its opponents "secular progressives," and "moral relativists." The truth is that there is no moral relativism more pernicious than the one -- theirs -- which will justify any abuse of power as a pursuit of divine ends. But as it turns out, our country was founded not on a Gospel, but on a Constitution, one that says that the president has a duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." That's the same Constitution, of course, that spells out the right to impeach public officials. Too bad that neither provision is much in use these days.

IF Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the "mastermind" behind 9/11 (like it was implied and alleged about Moussaoui at one time)..., then WHY were we allegedly going after Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan... before the detour to the illegal (war crime) invasion of Iraq...?!?!?
Posted by: NonnyO at March 15, 2007 03:09 AM

And another question to add to my outrage over a tortured, coerced confession: If the CIA (or whomever) thinks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed did commit the crimes he's "confessed" to, WHERE is the EVIDENCE to back up their assertions?

I'm a CSI type of person (and I used to work in law enforcement). EVIDENCE is the only thing that can legally stand up to scrutiny in a court of law (well, in a court of law as we understood it to be prior to December 2000 and the horrors unleased by the SCOTUS decision). A "confession" is worthless, even if it's a real confession and truthful, and not obtained under torture, coercion, or duress of any kind. EVIDENCE is all that matters in criminal cases.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-wardems15mar15,0,4382025.story
Liberal lawmakers may sway key vote on Iraq war

Reps. Waters, Woolsey and Lee, once on the fringe, are now being heard by Democratic colleagues.

WASHINGTON — Barbara Lee once called for a U.S. Department of Peace. Lynn Woolsey tried to revoke the Boy Scouts' federal charter because the group excludes gays. And Maxine Waters accused the CIA of helping import cocaine into South Los Angeles.

Their ideas made them folk heroes to the American left.

But like slightly eccentric relatives at a family reunion, Reps. Lee, Woolsey and Waters were rarely invited to sit at the head table in Washington.

Until now.

The three California Democrats — who have been waging a passionate, four-year campaign to end the war in Iraq — find themselves in the mainstream as Congress begins debate today on a crucial war spending bill. And the group they lead, the more than 80-member Out of Iraq Caucus, controls the fate of the most important war vote since the 2003 invasion.

Reporters seek out the three liberal lawmakers, recording their daily proclamations. Waters, the fiery chairwoman of the caucus, is a frequent guest on national news programs.

And as Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) labors to find the votes to pass the bill, she is seeking them out. Last week, she invited the three to her office to try to persuade them to support the measure, which would require the withdrawal of American combat forces from Iraq by no later than August 2008.

"They have really become the conscience of the caucus," said Tom Andrews, a former Democratic congressman who heads the national Win Without War coalition.

Andrews credits the three with forcing Pelosi to insist on a timeline for withdrawal.

Lee, Woolsey and Waters have reservations about Pelosi's bill. They are demanding the withdrawal of combat troops by the end of this year.

"We have no other choice but to act boldly," Woolsey said recently after defiant members of the Out of Iraq Caucus left a closed-door party meeting to talk to the media.

"It's time Congress caught up to the people we represent, people who recognized long ago that the Bush Iraq policy is a train wreck," Woolsey said.

Her district north of San Francisco was the site of an Iraq war protest featuring naked women spelling "peace" with their bodies.

Nude peaceniks and other early war opponents now have a lot more company.
~~~~~
Pelosi's concessions may not be enough to win the support of Lee, Woolsey and Waters, who continue to insist that Congress should demand withdrawal by the end of this year.

But California's leading antiwar lawmakers admit to some satisfaction that their proposals — once mocked as far-out schemes from the nation's left coast — have become the mainstream.

"Our district may be further ahead of the country," Lee said last week. "But eventually the country catches up."

{{{More on link. May Lee, Waters, and Woolsey be successful in getting Pelosi to listen to the American people who want the troops out of Iraq NOW.... More people die for lies and oil the longer Pelosi and others delay setting a deadline or a timeline for withdrawal. There's no "victory" to be had in the commission of a war crime and it's time for Congress Critters to stop prolonging the agony which will just add to the death toll....}}}

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, admitted to planning those attacks and others during a U.S. military hearing on Saturday, according to an edited transcript released by the Pentagon. In a statement from him, read by a U.S. military representative, he said, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z."

Had a gig last nite, so missed this, but ANYONE ELSE CALLING BULLSH*T ON THIS LATEST FEED THE SHEEP CAMPAIGN?

Man, V for Vendetta indeed.

Why I have a loathe/hate relationship w/ fundies, specially the popular ones...

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) -- A sharp difference of opinion over which issues ought to top the political agenda of Christian conservatives spilled out into the open at this week's meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The group rebuffed complaints from some of the religious right's leading lights about the organization's newfound focus on global warming.

The group, which represents 45,000 churches and more than 60 evangelical denominations, took no action on a letter sent by 25 conservative Christian leaders demanding that the organization restrain its Washington policy director, the Rev. Richard Cizik, from putting forward his views on global warming.

"We have observed that Cizik and others are using the global warming controversy to shift the emphasis away from the great moral issues of our time, notably the sanctity of human life, the integrity of marriage and the teaching of sexual abstinence and morality to our children," said the letter, which was signed by prominent religious conservatives such as James Dobson, Don Wildmon, Paul Weyrich and Gary Bauer.

Cizik has been outspoken on the global warming issue, saying in a recent documentary that "to harm this world by environmental degradation is an offense against God."

But Dobson and the other signatories of the letter to the National Association of Evangelicals board said evidence supporting global warming was not conclusive and that the organization "lacks the expertise to settle the controversy."

"The issue should be addressed scientifically and not theologically," they said, calling on the group's board to either rein in Cizik or encourage him to resign.

One of the men who signed the letter, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, said global warming was part of a leftist agenda that threatened evangelical unity.

"We're not going to allow third parties to divide evangelicals, and I think that is what is happening in part with the global warming issue," Perkins said.

However, the association board not only stood behind Cizik, but also further broadened the group's agenda with a statement condemning torture, which charged that in pursuing the war on terror, the United States had crossed "boundaries of what is legally and morally permissible."

But one of the board members, the Rev. Paul de Vries, said, "It ought to be God's agenda, not the Republican Party's agenda, that drives us.

"We're actually tired of being represented by people with a very narrow focus," he said. "We want to have a focus as big as God's focus."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/14/evangelical.rift/index.html

Good stewards, my ascot.

Posted by: monkey at March 15, 2007 08:29 AM

Funny how whenever there's news about Republic Party/Little George's administration scandals, news about 9/11 comes out...

And since this guy is the 9/11 suspected mastermind, guess we can call the dogs off of OBL.

Absolute bush*t. Again.

Clinton and Obama are apparently in hot water for refusing to take a stand, and defend homosexuality. There's an interesting blog on this subject over at the Times "The Caucus" page:

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/

Here's what I had to say on the subject:

The prejudices of the ancient world towards homosexuality should be having little, if any, impact on contemporary society. Thomas Jefferson's views on the credibility of scripture should be required reading for every American. We call our system of government Jeffersonian Democracy, not Christian Democracy, for a reason. America was an Enlightenment era experiment, and it is high time that politicians and clergy owned up to that indisputable fact, and challenged their constituents/parishioners to open their minds, and let the light in. Intellectual honesty is the soul of authentic spiritual inquiry. If a candidate for President lacks the courage to lead Americans towards the light, then he or she must be considered spectacularly unqualified to lead this nation in the twenty-first century. If we can take any lesson from the ashes of this woeful Administration, it should be that one.

Posted by: madame defarge at March 15, 2007 08:37 AM

Wait, we have dogs looking for OBL? And here I thought we had nothing.

Canine in a Coalmine

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at March 15, 2007 08:40 AM

I recently sat through a sermon that absolutely slammed the Age of Enlightenment, basically blaming it for all the modern worlds woes.

At the same time, I begin to hear SOME people on the right saying things (albeit reluctantly) like "we need to be more tolerant", or "we need to be more open-minded".

It's insincere. It's not in them. It's like dragging them with their fingernails in the floor.

And yet the message seems so simple to me... I can't fathom how they can twist it the way they have and view it as God-pleasing behavior.

Eh, I could go on and on.

Live and let live.

The Pentagon released a 26-page transcript of the closed-door proceedings on Wednesday night. Some material was omitted.

Mohammed, known as KSM among government officials, was last seen haggard after his capture in March 2003, when he was photographed in a dingy white T-shirt with an over-stretched neck. He disappeared for more than three years into a secret detention system run by the CIA.

He now makes a good bogeyman for Fox News.

Enlightenment is a sin. Or didn't you know that yet? Never mind, you'll figure it out when the Rapture happens.

The whole thing about views on homosexuality - people who ask all these questions and those who won't answer them are interfering in the business of other people. It should make no difference. People are people. It shouldn't be an issue.

Being Raptured up to join the likes of the fundies would be my idea of Hell. I suppose they'd play "religious rock" too.

Posted by: not my president at March 15, 2007 09:06 AM

Yeah, the house band is "Moses & the 10 Commandments"

Take 2 tablets and call me in the mourning.

PLEASE HELP BLOGSWARM THIS:

Folks,

A colleague had a brief interchange with Rep. Barbara Lee this morning as she went
into the Approps Cmte mtg, and she said it looks like she will not be allowed to
offer her amendment to withdraw US troops by the end of the year. My guess is the
"leadership's" calculation is they are ticked off at progressives ignoring their
arm-twisting to vote in favor of the supplemental, so they are stiffing Lee,
Waters, Woolsey et al (big surprise, eh?)

This is outrageous and unacceptable! Please call (and generate calls from your
members) to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's ofc, and if you can make more calls, to Rep.
David Obey (Approps Cmte chair) and Rep. Louis Slaughter (Rules Cmte chair):

Pelosi - 202-225-4965
Obey - 202-225-365
Slaughter - 202-225-3615

Also, if your Rep. is a progressive, call and tell her/him to demand that the
leadership allow a vote on the Lee amendment.

Light up their switchboards and demand a vote on the Lee amendment to withdraw US
troops from Iraq by the end of the year!

Kevin Martin
Executive Director
Peace Action

Jenna Bush is getting engaged to a Rove intern.
Please God, let her be sterile!

Posted by: not my president at March 15, 2007 09:21 AM

Beware The Ides of March

Check out this absolutely great political cartoon from Tom Toles RE: Pace & his morality play...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x415598

Posted by: monkey at March 15, 2007 08:51 AM

The Enlightenment certainly had its dark side - but so did the eras where "faith" predominates. And the inescapable fact is that Enlightenment-inspired ideas shaped the Founders and Framers. Even the Christians among them were heavily influenced by Enlightenment ideals. You just have to read them to understand this.

I personally believe that reason and intuition both have a place, but that human beings' intellectual faculties are quite limited at this point in our development as a species - and hence, our ability to get a handle on notions as gigantic as cosmic intention is near impossible. And all the evidence tells me that, as a species, we are, in fact, evolving – perhaps over tens of thousands of years, but evolving nonetheless. Evolution and spiritual growth may go hand in hand, in ways that the faith-bound cannot possibly appreciate.

In our era of Muslim suicide bombers who would die to destroy the State of Israel, and Christians Evangelicals and Fundamentalists who defend Israel in order to set in motion an end-times scenario, it strikes me that the circle of faith has a circumference. Stay within that circumference, through the cultivation of authentic humility, and selves can be transformed, enlivened, resurrected; go beyond it, and there is only hubris and death.

I was listening to NPR's version of the story about the #3 Al Quaida guy who claims to have been responsible for so many assassination and terror plots. The reporter had access to transcripts of the written 2 page and oral 4 page single-space transcripts - they were not taken under oath. When the topic gets to whether information was elicited under torture in CIA secret prisons before he was taken to Guantanamo, the next section is blacked out. That undermines the credibility of the information.

Check out this absolutely great political cartoon from Tom Toles RE: Pace & his morality play...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x415598

Posted by: madame defarge at March 15, 2007 09:47 AM

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

Yes. Check out the cartoon, and do follow the link in the post presenting to understand the backstory behind the cartoon, and then be sure to recommend the post so that it makes the top page because what Toles says truly deserves as wide an audience as possible.

How about a silly-named appropriations bill like "The Find Osama Bin Laden Soon and Stop Al Qaeda Emergency Supplemental"....????

This is technically off-topic, since on the face of it the post & thread in question aren't discussing issues of politics (though in the broader sense, of course, they actually are)... but because we are all humans (with the possible exception of certain monkeys and otters that is), it deserves your attention in any case:

http://tinyurl.com/2s49rz

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-harris15mar15,0,5899452.story
God's dupes
Moderate believers give cover to religious fanatics -- and are every bit as delusional.
Excerpt:
The problem is that wherever one stands on this continuum, one inadvertently shelters those who are more fanatical than oneself from criticism. Ordinary fundamentalist Christians, by maintaining that the Bible is the perfect word of God, inadvertently support the Dominionists — men and women who, by the millions, are quietly working to turn our country into a totalitarian theocracy reminiscent of John Calvin's Geneva. Christian moderates, by their lingering attachment to the unique divinity of Jesus, protect the faith of fundamentalists from public scorn. Christian liberals — who aren't sure what they believe but just love the experience of going to church occasionally — deny the moderates a proper collision with scientific rationality. And in this way centuries have come and gone without an honest word being spoken about God in our society.
~~~~~
Compassion is deeper than religion. As is ecstasy. It is time that we acknowledge that human beings can be profoundly ethical — and even spiritual — without pretending to know things they do not know.
~~~~~
Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music.

I love Sen. Leahy!

Subpoenas target Justice; White House could be next

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said he doesn't care what the White House and Justice Department think of his subpoenas -- he wants answers.

The committee Thursday authorized the use of subpoenas to five Justice Department officials in the investigation into the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys.

It postponed a vote on the authorization to use subpoenas to compel White House officials to testify, including President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and former White House counsel Harriet Miers.

Most of the federal prosecutors claim they were the political casualties of rankling the White House, and some say they were pressured by members of Congress to expedite politically charged cases.

Justice Department officials initially told Congress the removals were performance-related, which prompted an outcry from the fired lawyers.

The administration later admitted one of the fired prosecutors had been removed to make way for a former aide to Rove but said the remainder were fired over management concerns and policy disagreements.

"I'm surprised that they're saying that there's no politics involved, and we're still 2½ weeks away from April Fool's Day," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-New Hampshire, chairman of the Senate panel. "How can they possibly stand there with a straight face and say that's not politics? Of course it's politics."
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/15/fired.attorneys/index.html

I also love the liberal sense of humor.

The news about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's confessions to all things related to 9/11 has the internets on fire with all the other things he's responsible for, including:

- global warming
- the DA firings
- outing Valerie Plame
- approving all sub-prime mortgages since 2001
- being the mastermind behind Milli Vanilli lip sync scandal (Girl, you know it's true!)
- the breakup of the Beatles
- shooting JFK, RFK, MLK, & JR
- being the father of Anna Nicole's baby
- letting the dogs out
- early menopause
- the heartbreak of psoriasis
- the faked lunar landing (I always knew it was faked!!!)
- disco (and its death)
- putting the "bop" in the "bop sho bop bop" and the "ram" in the "ramalama ding dong"

..and so on, but only because Clinton told him to.

Also, some people are wondering if one of the "techniques" used in his "interrogations" was full body waxing...

So ends the war on terror.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at March 15, 2007 08:40 AM

My two cents worth.

They have to be politically savy. They are not running from the far left.

They want to win, and to win they NEED indy and mod votes. A few from the right wouldn't hurt, either.

I think we should cut them some slack. Those two issues are explosive issues, and as I have said before and will continue to say, I think at least the anti-choice issue wins/loses elections.

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at March 15, 2007 08:40 AM

Also, Matthew, no disrespect intended toward other views, and you Matthew have taught me so much.

But those are mine.

I want so badly to get rid of the corruption in leadership. At times I wonder if it is even possible.

I really feel that that one wedge issue decides elections. (RvW) It shouldn't, but I think when the rubber meets the road it does, and might very well continue to.

I like Obama, and why shouldn't he be given as much respect for his opinions as anyone else wants and deserves for theirs? He isn't trying to cram his down anyone elses throat or make laws out of his ideology. He is trying to make a difference, and not rattle cages. Maybe even run as a moderate Dem. The same is what got Bill Clinton elected.

My thinking is that at times it is better to lose a battle in order to win the war.

Truth, I completely understand that point of view.

But I've had it with politicans who are going to enable retrograde thinking in order to court votes. Bill Clinton won an election, but lost a war of ideas. The most reactionary voices in America only became stronger during his tenure. They specifically exploited his failures as a leader, and his refusual to be candid about the essential nature of his marriage, whatever it is.

Moreover, I may be a bit different than some of you, in that I live in a major metropolitian area, and I know many gay people. They are my friends, and they are not expendable. I care as much for the Bible's view on homosexuality as I do its views on the creation of the world, or eating shellfish, or tossing a pigskin on the Sabbath.

It is time that we fought a war of ideas, first here in America, and then around the world. We began as an experiment in Enlightenment. It is time that we returned the light to America.

Speaking of Enlightenment, and an appreciation of the human condition framed within the history of ideas, I enthusiastically recommend the lectures of Daniel N. Robinson, for the Teaching Company. You can read his formal bio at the Teaching Company website:

http://www.teach12.com/store/professor.asp?ID=17

Posted by: Matthew Carnicelli at March 15, 2007 08:40 AM

Clinton, Obama: Homosexuality 'Not Immoral'
By Randy Hall
CNSNews.com Staff Writer/Editor
March 16, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) responded on Thursday to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace's comments that homosexual behavior is "immoral," but only after they were criticized for failing to do so by a homosexual advocacy group.

"Well, I've heard from a number of my friends, and I've certainly clarified with them any misunderstanding that anyone had, because I disagree with General Pace completely," Clinton told Bloomberg News. "I do not think homosexuality is immoral."

Also on Thursday, Obama released a statement on the issue. "I do not agree with General Pace that homosexuality is immoral," the Illinois Democrat noted. "Attempts to divide people like this have consumed too much of our politics over the past six years."

The remarks by the 2008 presidential candidates differed dramatically from their comments on the issue made earlier in the week.

http://tinyurl.com/229h3n