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The Charlotte Observer published the results of their analysis of a couple internal VA reports on the timeliness of care being offered to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans on 10-21-2007. Here are some of the highlights of the article about their analysis which is detailed in an interactive feature on their site:

The analysis of 283,000 recent outpatient appointments showed that the VA scheduled 93 percent within 30 days, a key measure of the agency's ability to meet demand. That left 20,500 waiting longer.

At issue: Patients needing critical care accounted for 10.5 percent of total appointments scheduled, but 20 percent of those with longer waits.

The Observer's findings could signal that the VA is struggling to care for the neediest of the new veterans.

...Most VA hospitals, including all six in the Carolinas, showed lags in delivering outpatient care for serious problems, according to the newspaper's analysis. For example:

• Twenty-four percent of appointments nationwide for traumatic brain injury care exceeded the 30-day mark this summer.

• At the Salisbury VA hospital, 61 percent of appointments for the seriously wounded were scheduled more than 30 days out this summer, one of the worst records nationwide.

• At the Charleston VA in South Carolina, 13 of 14 patients slated to be seen for brain injury waited more than a month. At 93 percent, that was the worst record nationwide.

TRUTH

As I was sitting in the Dirksen Hearing Room a few weeks ago, listening to the testimony of the folks from the GAO, I had one of those moments: you know…when you feel your head explode, or search for a nearby wall upon which to bang it??

Sen. Norm Coleman was asking the GAO guy why the numbers in his report about the success of the SURGE were different from what he had been seeing.

Oh, said Mr. Walker from the GAO. You saw the OFFICIAL numbers, My report is based on the UNofficial numbers.

OOHHHH, I thought to myself. There are TWO sets of numbers! At least! Holy Orwell! I wonder which ones are the ACTUAL numbers, as opposed to the FANTASY numbers?

No one else in the room, which was crowded, even blinked.

This past week, we were informed, by the New York Times, no less, that there were dueling memos about torture. Larry Craig said he was no longer guilty, while Marion Jones said she was no longer innocent.

I have tried to believe in at least two impossible things before breakfast, but it seems that even the impossible things I believe are, somehow, possible by the time the toast is burned…

But the most impossible thing that has become possible came with the death and story about Ciara Durkin, at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

CBS/AP) Exactly how Ciara Durkin died remains a mystery. The Army National Guard soldier from Massachusetts was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in Afghanistan last week, and now her family is demanding answers from the military. Initially the Pentagon reported that Durkin, part of a finance unit deployed to Afghanistan in November 2006, had been killed in action, but then revised its statement to read she had died of injuries “suffered from a non-combat related incident” at Bagram Airfield. The statement had no specifics and said the circumstances are under investigation. Durkin had a desk job doing payroll in an office about three miles inside the secure Bagram Air Base. About 90 minutes after she left work last Friday, her family says she was found dead near a chapel on the base with a single gunshot wound to the head.

The reason my head went a-spinnin’ at the news is that it sounded horribly familiar. Juan Torres’ son John was also shot in the head, at Bagram, and John was…part of a finance unit. Doing payroll.

Canavan told the Quincy, Mass. Patriot Ledger on Wednesday that when her sister was home three weeks ago, she told her about something she had come across that raised some concern with her: “She was in the finance unit and she said, ‘I discovered some things I don’t like and I made some enemies because of it.’” Canavan revealed that Durkin said if anything happened to her, to make sure it was investigated.

Rest of the story here.

John told his father the same thing, several hours before he was killed.

MichiganGirl at Kos has a story up speculating about the link.

OK, so we already know that we are dealing with a bunch of liars and that the core of our government is rotten, rotten. And we know about Pat Tillman, and Abu Ghraib, and torture at Guantanamo and secret prisons in faraway lands, and the cooking of the surge numbers, and the Downing Street minutes, and Colin Powell lying at the United Nations, and oh so many head-banging moments.

What is it going to take?? I am reminded of what our reporter says at the end of the play FEAR UP: Stories from Baghdad and Guantanamo:

Reporter: We all have the potential for the behavior we’ve seen in the war on terror and we’re all capable of more altruistic or cooperative behavior. And I believe that confronting these extreme situations is itself an act of hope because in doing that, we are saying that there’s an alternative. We can do better. I believe we’ve let them have their way without fierce enough protest. I only wish my pen was sharper and my words tougher.

People, we must get tougher. Our protests must be fiercer. Our future depends upon it.

What does it take to get you to pick up something off the sidewalk?

Money does it for me--I'll even go after that lucky penny. And I'll stop for any book that still has a cover on it and isn't completely water-logged from being out in the rain.

There's always a certain little burst of joy when I find something unclaimed on the ground, a little ray of fortune bursting through whatever clouds there might be that day.

Things are a little different in Iraq, according to a story in yesterday's Washington Post. On the streets of Iraq, if you happen to pick up the wrong thing lying on the ground, you get a little "kicker"--a high-powered sniper bullet in the head.

Blackwater has been in the news once again, this time because of questionable circumstances in an event which resulted in death and wounding of civilians. In more recent news, they are also suspected of arms smuggling, which they are denying. This story has grown astronomically over the weekend, to where it is looking more like a crisis situation between Iraq and the US. Perhaps now the public will take more notice of the whole concept of private security contracting and whether there is oversight.

I first heard of Blackwater, like many people, when four of their members were ambushed in Fallujah and their corpses were dragged through the streets, then hung from a bridge over the Euphrates. I had also heard about Dyncorp, with members alleged to have been involved in rapes in Kosovo with no legal way to prosecute them, and that they were from Texas with conservative government ties. Prior to that, I had known about "mercenaries" or "soldiers of fortune" and generally thought of them as macho rightwing adventures with a thirst for blood. They are also known as "cowboys" or "hired guns."

More curious than ever, knowing that these contractors remain in Iraq in huge numbers yet are seldom mentioned when there is talk of a drawdown in forces in Iraq, I solicited questions from friends via email, and we came up with some basics. The links we collected are at the bottom of the thread and there will be many more by the time this is published.

Who are Blackwater?
They are the world's most powerful mercenary firm, and growing fast. They are a private army, a private military company, called "mercenaries" by some. They are paid for with tax dollars. On their website, their Vision is: To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.

Who founded Blackwater?
Blackwater was founded by an extreme right-wing fundamentalist megamillionaire ex-Navy SEAL named Erik Prince. He is hereditarily wealthy and his family bankrolls right-wing causes. They are based in the wilderness of North Carolina, named Blackwater because of the region they are based in.

(keep reading for more)

The American store is being quietly robbed by a bunch of slick, pinky-ring wearing lobbyists and corporate hacks, and Congress doesn't give a damn. In fact, they're holding the door open and driving the getaway car.

Glenn Greenwald has written a great article for Salon on the proposed legislation that will wipe the slate clean for any telecom companies that helped the government spy illegally on U.S. citizens. Newsweek also reported on this pending legislation.

If you've got a strong stomach, you can read the Salon article here:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/22/telecom_immunity/index.html

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
William O. Douglas

[The above was the opening of FEAR UP: Stories from Baghdad and Guanatanamo.]

When George Bush was elected in 2000, who among us would have said that seven years hence that we would be looking at the loss of civil liberties and a terrible war? Who would have predicted that the Congress would have given him the same power Adolf Hitler had: to round up "enemy combatants", as defined by him?

So often, people say "Well, I knew." But, of course no one did. All we can do is look at historical patterns and project ahead based on past experiences.

My friend Linda and I have played a kind of game over the past year: What year are we in? Is it 1932? 1933? The other night we decided it is 1935, the year the Nuremberg Laws were passed. Perhaps this is hyperbole, but how will we know, except when we look back?

This led to a discussion about whether or people in 1935 understood that 1936 was coming. The Berlin Olympics' focus on Hitler and German glory may have been hoped for, but did anyone understand what the price of German glory might be? They could not have predicted Kristallnacht, in 1938, surely.

[Image of Dr. Martin Luther King]

Here's a link to CNN's fairly extensive coverage of the protest march in Jena, Louisiana today.

I met one of the attorneys for the Jena 6 at Yearly Kos. She was part of a panel called Rebuilding New Orleans, but she wanted to speak about the Jena 6, and we were grateful she did. She paid her own way to come and speak to us and ask for our help in getting this story out and pushing it to the media.

It's shocking to see the pockets of powerful and ugly bigotry that still exist in our country, and that they are still well supported by the structures of local law enforcement and government in areas like Jena, Louisiana.

When I was at Yearly Kos in the beginning of August, this story was far from well known. Now there's a huge protest going on there all day.

This story is another example of how the power of people and the blog community, can serve to shine a bright light on an injustice, and push the media to cover it.

First this:

Now this:

The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday.

Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."

The religious courses are led by Muslim clerics who "teach out of a moderate doctrine," Stone said, according to the transcript of a conference call he held from Baghdad with a group of defense bloggers. Such schooling "tears apart" the arguments of al-Qaeda, such as "Let's kill innocents," and helps to "bring some of the edge off" the detainees, he said.

[...]

Stone said his staff conducts polygraph tests for detainees who promise to change after undergoing the religious training program. "We were trying to figure out if they're messing with us. . . . You're not talking about radicals going to choirboys." But he also added that they're succeeding in countering extremists in the facilities. "We're busting them down, we're making whole moderate compounds that didn't exist before."

Stone described a sort of religious insurgency that occurred at one detention facility on Sept. 2. "We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake . . . extremists. It's never happened before. Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin' beards off of them. . . . I mean, that is historic."

I see some people paid attention in Spanish History class.

I'm sure this will all work out really, really well this time.

There is a war going on my friends and it's not just the one in Iraq or Afghanistan. It is the war against 'We the People', the common folk, the middle class, and the poor.

Just because it's been happening under the radar doesn't mean it isn't important. For years we have watched as jobs were outsourced to slave labor overseas. For years we have watched as corporations and those in power tried to break up labor unions.

Since Reagan's time they have largely been successful in doing so.

But now, the latest assault is against American truckers and the American people and very few even knew it was coming.

I know I didn't!

But today, my brother called. He is a trucker, and a self-employed businessman, and he was telling me about the new border crossing plan that just took affect last week, and I didn't even know about it!

Last week unbeknownst to most of us, Bush started a program aimed at bringing in cheap truck drivers from Mexico and allowing them free access to roam far and wide across our country. (To be fair to President Bush, the law was actually passed in 2001 as part of NAFTA and he signed it into law.)

But let me tell you, this is a grave and dangerous mistake.

[Photo of Shirley Shor painting "Leaning, 2005", by Gallery Paul Anglim]

Self loathing is an ugly thing. The despair that it can cause in the human heart can wreak havoc on the world around. And this, sadly, is where Senator Larry Craig seems to be.

Last night, in what I can only think of as a sad and desperate act, Senator Craig (R-ID) indicated, through a spokesman and others, that he wanted to perhaps, rethink, his position on his resignation.

"It's not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign," Sidney Smith, Craig's spokesman in Idaho's capital, told The Associated Press.

"We're still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we're able to stay in the fight _ and stay in the Senate," Smith said.

Someone should tell him that the Republican leadership doesn't do takesies backsies, and that public life doesn't provide for do overs. Especially not when the news of your decision comes, not just from your spokesperson, but from the fact that you left a message, on stranger's phone machine, thinking it was your high-priced Washington lawyer's phone machine.

Clearly, stress is having an effect on Craig's judgement, and the pressure he is feeling is evident in his voice. The level of tension and his desperation to hold on to the fiction he has created for himself is tragic.

But the tragedy is compounded when one thinks of the effects of Craig's many votes during his 27-year Senate Career on GLTB issues.

I can only speculate that what is in Craig's mind, which is that he does not see himself as gay. He sees himself as having deviant urges that must, somehow, be suppressed, both in himself, and others. And when that twisted thinking is applied to his voting in the Senate, he turns the tragedy on everyone else.

How does this tragedy manifest itself on a daily basis? Here's one small example: Larry Craig married a woman with three small children. He subsequently adopted those children. To all observers, he has been a steadfast and loving parent to them. So much so, in fact, that one of them appeared on Good Morning America this morning to give public statements of support from himself and his two siblings. But that parental relationship never would have happened in a Larry Craig legislated world, because he opposed gay and lesbian adoption. And as a result, those children likely would have been deprived of the parent/child relationship that quite obviously developed to the benefit of all.

That is the tragedy of the closeted life expanded into a legislative life.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but maybe now Craig will understand that the legislature, be it state or federal, has no place in the bedrooms of consenting adults. And should this public fiasco result in him remaining in the Senate, one would hope that he would bring some newfound compassion for the persecution that homosexuals endure in our society, and reevaluate his Senate votes on these issues.

Of course, I won't be holding my breath, but I can always hold out hope that people will learn from their own personal tragedies.

Craig would say he supports freedom, but what freedom is there in constantly feeling as though you have to hide a most basic part of your self?

[Editor's Note: Link to Talking Points Memos Story added after initial posting of this story. Further note: changes made to correct grammatical and spelling error, incorrect links, and other coffee deprived errors. Apologies for the confusationess. ]

I approached the tower guard site, between 14th and 15th Sts. NW at Constitution (so ironic for the main thoroughfare from the White House to Congress, no?) from the southeast.

Coming closer, I could see that the setup was brilliant, set against the Washington Monument, or the Dept. of Commerce, the White House, or the Smithsonian Museum of American History, it is a small reminder that, in the midst of business-as-usual and self-congratulatory quotidian activities, greater concerns are at hand.

It can get pretty contentious in the peace and justice movement, and the same kinds of tensions exist on the ground and inside-the-beltway as exist within our small community here: incrementalism vs. revolution; support for what might happen vs. holding Members accountable; in-your-face actions that get you arrested and/or fined vs. calm discussions with the powerful wherein everyone is polite and not much changes.

But there is one part of the movement that gives me hope and I want to emphasize it to all of us who despair. That is the Iraq Vets themselves.

The veterans of this unholy war are speaking up and acting out. A few months ago, Geoff Millard and Garrett Repenhegan and a few others put on desert fatigues and took fake rifles and skulked around the Mall, acting out some of what they had done in Iraq. People knew it was theatre, but they made their points.

The effort is not new, as most of us know here, the Vietnam War was, in the end, brought to a halt not because of hippies in the streets, or students and professors on the campuses, or John and Yoko singing "All we are saying...", but because the soldiers began to refuse to fight poor villagers.

The film, Sir, No Sir, is a reminder of what DOES work. "We came to understand that the war would not end until soldiers put down their weapons and refused to fight", the narrator says. Watch the trailer, at least.

This week, on the National Mall, a young Iraq vet has constructed a tower, where he sits 24/7, in a vigil to bring attention to the Stop Loss program. He is garnering publicity and changing hearts and minds.

He even had the chance to speak directly to Alberto Gonzales as Gonzales announced his resignation. According to witnesses, Gonzales stood in front of Evan, while Evan recounted the horrors of the war and the torture program, with his hands folded and his head down.

We all have to listen now.

Can anyone stop Bush from going to war with Iran?

In anguish, I recommend Glen Greenwald's column in Salon today, in which he makes as clear a case as I have seen of how rapidly Bush is moving towards war with Iran. He was inspired by what he says "might actually be the most disturbing speech" of Bush's presidency.

Greenwald argues that Congress is incapable of stopping this next war. I wish I did not think he was right on this point, but unless there is bold, sustained leadership, it appears highly likely that Bush will launch a devastating air attack on Iran designed to literally "bomb them back into the Stone Ages."

Last week’s revelation that our Pentagon (it does belong to us, the taxpayers, after all), had paid two sisters in South Carolina $998,798 for shipping for shipping two 19-cent washers to Fort Bliss earlier this year has provoked the usual barrage of outraged clucking.

But before we get our moral outrage fully in gear, I’d like to propose a small toast to the creativity of the Corley sisters, wishing them well on their tour of the federal prison system. After all, what did they do that any red-blooded market fundamentalist might feel called upon to do, once they realized that the Pentagon had created an automated payment system for any shipments to combat areas or U.S. bases that were labeled “priority” ?

It’s as if the sisters watched the first half of Office Space, when our heroes cook up a scheme to skim the rounding errors off every transaction, a sum they are sure will never be noticed. But the Corleys apparently did not finish watching the movie. Unlike the cubicle stiffs in Office Space, they reportedly started very small, and when the Pentagon paid their early bills, they sent in bigger bills. As one federal agent put it, “As time went on they got more aggressive in the amounts they put in.''

[Photo credit: Denver Open Source]

Is it ever acceptable to politicize tragedy, such as the Minneapolis bridge collapse, or the cave-in at the Utah mine?

Hell, yes. And I'm not afraid to put it out there as just that. I am absolutely willing to discuss these events as part of politics.

Why? Because it was politics that, if it didn't downright cause these tragedies to happen, it certainly aided and abetted the degree to which these tragic events were magnified. And it is politics that bears at least some responsibility for the deadly consequences that may continue to arise from both of these examples.

Well, we've finally made it. Thanks to the sadistic leadership of the Bush administration, the United States has officially become a third world country - complete with a struggling, terrified public, a tyrannical hologram for a leader, and a crumbling infrastructure.

An infrastructure that began to officially crumble this week in Minnesota. And when I say "began," I mean we're just getting started.

Most of you know that occasionally I am asked to analyze the movement behavior of public figures for the mainstream media. I use something called Laban Movement Analysis. It is a nonjudgemental approach to analysis, although obviously interpretive conclusions can be drawn, mostly about how to improve communicative style or performance abilities.

So when Casey called me and asked me to take a look at Vice-President Dick Cheney on Larry King Live the other day, I was concerned about my abilities to overlook my judgments about his behavior and simply look at how he communicates.

[A couple of weeks ago, I posted a threader titled Two Funerals and A Waiting in which I quote four Erie Times-News reporters who filed some particularly well-written stories about fallen soldiers and their families in that small city on the edge of a great lake in what is sometimes referred to as "Flyover Country."

It takes a long time spent living lives of increasingly-unquiet desperation to finally make people from the silent majority stand up to be counted and to write letters like this one. That's why I think it's important to include it here as a followup to my earlier threader, because these are the people who we really need to listen to. These are the people who we really need to reach out and touch, if we're ever going to end this illegal, immoral war and depose the tyrants currently occupying the West Wing and the Pentagon...]

[Image credit: Wichita State College]

It seems that many a Republican presidential candidate are finding themselves with they YouTube jitters, and the CNN YouTube debate may not happen at all.

1. Why do you think the candidates are trying to avoid this format of debate?

2. What question would you ask a Republican candidate via You Tube that you think would have a hope in hell of getting through the selection process?

3. Do you agree that there should be, as some have suggested, an American Idol type call in voting immediately following the each of the future Democratic and Republican debates, to get people used to voting for political candidates and not just entertainment stars?

4. Did you think that question number three was a real question? It wasn't. I made up the whole thing, especially the "some people have suggested part". See how easy it is to be a journalist? All you have to do is add "some people" into any question, and it can make any idiotic assertion look like a plausible and reasonable question to ask. Right up there with asking Barack Obama if he's "black enough".

5. What the hell does "black enough" mean?

6. Anyone here think that Alberto is trying to get himself out of perjury charges by pretending to spill the beans on "other intelligence activities" as a cover?

7. And is it the height of incompetence to suggest that you have committed a lesser sin than perjury by admitting instead that you were talking about a whole other program of spying, so heinous in its illegality, that half of the Justice Department was ready to take a walk if they didn't knock it off?

8. Was the Hillary/Obama "fight", carried on thoughout last week to the interest of almost no one, utterly stupid and vapid?

9. Anyone know who did the John Edwards "hair video"? It's an education in itself how to react to this sort of absolutely idiotic nonsense, namely the hubub about his haircut. You respond with ridicule. If you missed it, it's here for viewing. And by viewing, I mean viewing in non-partisan terms, but as a piece of strategy and response in today's media culture. I don't endorse any candidate for office. I endorse solid political thinking.

10. Will Solicitor General Paul Clement appoint a special prosecutor to the DOJ USA firings investigation? The best I can come up with is, maybe. I am positive that if Ted Olsen were still the Solicitor General of the United States, he would and do so swiftly. As much as I dislike Olsen's stand on any number of social issues, I have always admired him as a good legal scholar who loves the law. Same goes for James Comey, and many, if not most of the employees at the justice department. So the question becomes, does Paul Clement love the law, or does he love some other ideology which ascends some folks above the reach of the Rule of Law for its namesake?

BONUS QUESTION: Now that Inslee is putting a Gonazales impeachment bill in the hopper, has Harry Reid thought about the problem of President Bush using the August recess to dump Gonzales and do a recess appointment of a new Attorney General without any Congressional oversight? Hmmm...

I have questions. You have answers. Pick a question or ten and let's get the discussion going.

[Image credit: Wichita State College]

It seems that many a Republican presidential candidate are finding themselves with they YouTube jitters, and the CNN YouTube debate may not happen at all.

1. Why do you think the candidates are trying to avoid this format of debate?

2. What question would you ask a Republican candidate via You Tube that you think would have a hope in hell of getting through the selection process?

3. Do you agree that there should be, as some have suggested, an American Idol type call in voting immediately following the each of the future Democratic and Republican debates, to get people used to voting for political candidates and not just entertainment stars?

4. Did you think that question number three was a real question? It wasn't. I made up the whole thing, especially the "some people have suggested part". See how easy it is to be a journalist? All you have to do is add "some people" into any question, and it can make any idiotic assertion look like a plausible and reasonable question to ask. Right up there with asking Barack Obama if he's "black enough".

5. What the hell does "black enough" mean?

6. Anyone here think that Alberto is trying to get himself out of perjury charges by pretending to spill the beans on "other intelligence activities" as a cover?

7. And is it the height of incompetence to suggest that you have committed a lesser sin than perjury by admitting instead that you were talking about a whole other program of spying, so heinous in its illegality, that half of the Justice Department was ready to take a walk if they didn't knock it off?

8. Was the Hillary/Obama "fight", carried on thoughout last week to the interest of almost no one, utterly stupid and vapid?

9. Anyone know who did the John Edwards "hair video"? It's an education in itself how to react to this sort of absolutely idiotic nonsense, namely the hubub about his haircut. You respond with ridicule. If you missed it, it's here for viewing. And by viewing, I mean viewing in non-partisan terms, but as a piece of strategy and response in today's media culture. I don't endorse any candidate for office. I endorse solid political thinking.

10. Will Solicitor General Paul Clement appoint a special prosecutor to the DOJ USA firings investigation? The best I can come up with is, maybe. I am positive that if Ted Olsen were still the Solicitor General of the United States, he would and do so swiftly. As much as I dislike Olsen's stand on any number of social issues, I have always admired him as a good legal scholar who loves the law. Same goes for James Comey, and many, if not most of the employees at the justice department. So the question becomes, does Paul Clement love the law, or does he love some other ideology which ascends some folks above the reach of the Rule of Law for its namesake?

BONUS QUESTION: Now that Inslee is putting a Gonazales impeachment bill in the hopper, has Harry Reid thought about the problem of President Bush using the August recess to dump Gonzales and do a recess appointment of a new Attorney General without any Congressional oversight? Hmmm...

I have questions. You have answers. Pick a question or ten and let's get the discussion going.

The widely read and often acerbic New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd -- who is particularly well-versed in the internal psychology of the extended Bush family dynasty, and who as a result of that knowledge is not exactly one of Bush 43's greatest fans in the mainstream media's polipunditbobbleheadosphere -- wrote a rather interesting column last week in which she shared her acutely non-progressive siblings' gradual changes of heart regarding the corrosive regime of our current Decider-In-Thief.

What MoDo had to say in that column is especially relevant to us here in the DCP community, since several of us have reported encountering similar situations in our own extended families over the past several years...

W.’s odyssey is one of the oddest in history, a black sheep who leapt above expectations and then crashed back down. It must be a crushing burden for President Bush to have wrought the opposite of what he intended in so many profound ways.

For me, one of the most amazing reversals brought about by W.’s reign of error is this: He may have turned my sister into a Democrat.

You knew this story was coming:

A turtle was happily swimming along a river when a scorpion hailed it from the shore.

"Dear friend turtle!" called the scorpion. "Please let me climb upon your back and swim me to the other side of the river!"

"No," replied the turtle, "for if I do, you shall sting me, and I shall die."

"Nonsense!" replied the scorpion. "If I kill you in the middle of the river, you shall sink, and I shall drown and die with you."

The turtle thought this over, and saw the truth of the scorpion's statement. He let it upon his back and began swimming towards the other side of the river. Halfway across, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck.

"Why have you stung me?!" cried the turtle as his body began to stiffen. "Now you shall die as well!"

"Because it is in my nature," replied the scorpion as the turtle sank beneath the waters.

****

Well, it is a cloudy and overly warm morning in America. The Republicans are behaving as the scorpions they are and the Democrats are trying to be wily turtles, as usual.

But let us deconstruct the tale:

(Times-News photo of Laura Buchan by Vivian Johnson)


Erie, Pennsylvania is a small city on the edge of a great lake. It is a quintessentially American community -- so much so, in fact, that it was designated an All-American City by Richard Nixon in 1972. Like many such cities, it has gone through some painful changes over the last few decades as its old industrial economy gradually gave way to a 21st-century technology/service/tourism economy instead. But Erie still typifies what most Americans look for in their home towns: wide streets, good schools, low crime rates, affordable housing, and a generally pleasant quality of life for its citizens.

And like the residents of most American home towns outside the Beltway and between the polarized left and right coast megalopolises, people in Erie are basically centrist by nature. They may differ widely on specific individual issues, but for the most part they share common values and common beliefs with each other and with the hundreds of millions of other Americans who live in what is sometimes referred to as "flyover country."

Politics is something that people do care about in Erie, at least when it impacts their daily lives in some particular way, but they don't obsess about it. They may lean left or right, but they do so with their feet planted firmly in the middle of the road. During the 2004 race, George Bush's single largest campaign-rally audience was in Erie. But in 2004, Erie voters chose John Kerry over George Bush by a solid margin. Professional pundits and politicians and prognosticators do well to pay attention to what happens in Erie, because it is and always has been a bellwether burg for how the American electorate looks at the world.

That's why today, while Senators on both sides of the aisle are busy debating and voting on the Levin-Reed Amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that would begin to put the brakes on the Bush administration's ongoing escalation of its dishonest war in Iraq, it's appropriate for us to look at the human costs of making war as seen through the eyes of quintessentially average Americans, as told in the words of four reporters for the award-winning Erie Times-News newspaper.

Two funerals in two weeks. Two flag-draped coffins. Two men who gave the last full measure of devotion for the country they chose to serve. And one mother of two sons in harm's way, waiting and hoping and praying that they come home alive this time.

Sorab Wadia is an actor who was in FEAR UP last summer. We had a lot of conversations about the level of humor that was appropriate for serious statements about war and torture. We agreed that finding a balance between "I Love Lucy" and Lenny Bruce is not easy and the context of the times needs consideration.

Watch the above video. Sorab is in a new production called JIHAD THE MUSICAL. He plays a wannabe terrorist.

Here is the description of Jihad The Musical:

The Show

Featuring songs such as 'I wanna be like Osama' and the love ballad 'I Only See Your Eyes', JIHAD THE MUSICAL is a madcap gallop through the wacky world of international terrorism; one that puts the powers that be in their place, and that invokes the Blitz spirit that we must laugh at those who seek to intimidate us. Stand back! This is a high-kicking chorus line!

Hmmm. Much food for thought here. Is the darkness of the humor in some way a barometer for the depth of the problems? Are these actors simply oblivious to the degree of offensiveness in their work? IS it offensive? Are you amused? Are you more aware?

Can we make jokes about invading Saudi Arabia, or are we deep-down seriously pushing back at fear? Can Sorab, who is truly both Muslim and American, and politically aware, be allowed to make fun of his culture of origin? UPDATE: Sorab wrote to me and reminded me that he is actually NEITHER Mulsim nor American, but Zoroastrian by religion and Indian by citizenship. He is, however, applying for American citizenship, which led to my query: WHY?? I am sure he has good reasons. I am just feeling a tad negative about the direction this country is going in and concerned about adding more taxpayers to support the cabal...

[Photo credit of eggs frying on sidewalk: operapixels]

All the kids I know are asking if you can really do this...yes, you can, but it's disgusting. I give that answer alot these days.

[UPDATE: Harriet Miers blows off the subpoena. Conyers responds here. My response? Throw her ass in jail. Now. What's your response?]

Speaking of these days, you don't need me to tell you that it's summertime. The mercury is through the roof, and we're all seeking a little shelter. And while you seek that shelter, what are you talking about with your friends and neighbors? More important, what are you talking about with strangers? You know, the folks in line at the grocery store, or in my case, at the town pool.

I usually know what's on the minds of my close friends and neighbors, but I've found that what's on the minds of strangers usually provides the most insight as to what the country, as a whole, is talking about.

So here's what people are talking back about:

Ally and I get kind of esoteric in our blog discussions about exotic animals like Neoconservatives and Neoliberals. Then there are all the different stripes and colors of regular old Democrats and Republicans, as they evolve across time (assuming evolution exists). Then there is the third issue of whether "swing voters" are worth dealing with or should they just be ignored and they might go away.

We have the "fifty state plan" people vs those who would target "swing states" which presumably can go either way.

Who are these "swing voters" or Independents and why are they important?

In 2004, Bush and Kerry split the independent vote, but in 2006 independents swung toward Democratic House candidates by a wide margin. They are poised to play a decisive role in 2008.

The percentage identifying as Independent has risen from approximately 25% in the 1950s to almost 40% in 2004. Independents are less likely to vote than Democrats or Republicans. The number voting jumped from 19% of voters in 1972 to approximately 27% in the 2006 midterm election, and peaked in 1976 at 34%. Other surveys have identified 29% to 34% of voters as Independents.

While karen's down in Mobile dancing for peace where the ragman draws circles up and down the block, Americans everywhere are shouting out their windows that they're mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. William Rivers Pitt recently summed up both the dammed-up hope and the the pent-up rage that Americans are feeling so brilliantly in this Truthout essay that we felt it worth reposting at length as today's thread header here. Pitt's use of his friend Dan's small but serious gesture as a metaphor for what needs to be done and his description of the single thing that still unites our intensely fragmented American society are examples of political writing at its best, as is his echoing of a powerful quote by another one of America's great activists, Frederick Douglass:

"When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind."

A Time to Reap
by William Rivers Pitt

My friend Dan was on his way home the other day, and found an American flag crumpled in a gutter outside his apartment building. The flag, perhaps as big as the cover of a book, had been used as a decoration for some pre-Fourth of July party, but afterwards was merely thrown aside like litter for the street-sweepers to collect.

Dan gathered it up, smoothed the creases, and hung it from a nearby railing. The motivation for his actions was hard for him to explain, but it came down to this: Everything else in America is so screwed up, but this American thing before him would not be defiled within reach of his arm. My friend, surrounded by the chaos of a flailing nation and filled with the need to act, found some solace in the rescue of that flag.

He is not alone in his sentiments, not alone in his desire to make things right again within reach of his arm.

There is something happening today in America. With the right kind of ears, you can hear it in the sound of millions of brows slowly furrowing in anger and disgust. It feels like those tense moments just before the eruption of a summer thunderstorm, those moments when the air is electric, the ozone reek of spent lightning fills the world, and you know something very loud is about to happen.

[Ed's note: some comments, such as this one from the previous thread, just plain deserve to get promoted to blog threaders as well. And this is a Good Thing.]


Do you know that I am up 1-1/2 hour early because I could not sleep? In a way it was the cats, the crows, the Canadian geese, the cop cars and the cold, in exactly that order. It was also the thoughts running endlessly through my brain:

What if Gore had held out longer?
What if we had signed Kyoto?
What if we had anticipated and stopped 9/11? (Having just read a long article about George Tenet of the CIA last night in the New Yorker, I believe we could and should have been able to do this)
What if we hadn't gone into Iraq? Would the domes of the mosques still be standing? Would we have a trillion dollars to spend on alternative energies? Would we have really needed Homeland Security?
What if we had never gotten involved in the internal politics of Iran and Iraq back in the day?
What if we had never armed Iran or Iraq, either one?
What if we had left well enough alone?
What if we had bolstered the levies of New Orleans?
What if we had gone ahead with tsunami detection including in the Indonesia region - helped more with this?
What if we had helped more with actual impending humanitarian disasters like East Timor, Rwanda, Darfur?
What if we had put more into eradicating AIDS rather than promoting abstinence?
What if we promoted abstract reasoning in our young people?
What if we concentrated on meth labs instead of medical marijuana?
What if we joined the rest of the developed world and made it so that people here could have health care?
What if we tried to decrease our prison population?
What if people who worry about when life starts worried as much about preventing things like that creepo in England who was molesting children live on the internet, to requests or pregnant women from getting blown up in war?

I had to get up because I was making myself crazy and obviously couldn't sleep. The crows are making the exact pissed off sound that I would make if my vocal tract would allow it.

Posted by: not my president at June 20, 2007 08:13 AM

Last week karen presented us with a video she'd made in memory of liberal media activist Maria Leavey, in which she cited a number of other women who had the courage to speak out against war and injustice. As she noted in her intro to that video,

...in reading about Maria, I recognized aspects of so many of the women (and some men) who work day after day to make a difference, including the lack of resources and reduced circumstances under which they toil. So I made a video. It's called 'What Would Maria Do?' I made it because I want you to know about the women who create, write, speak, march, and who make a difference, no matter how small, and who inspire me to keep on keeping on.

I was reminded of that video when I read a recent dKos diary profiling another woman activist who's displaying uncommon courage, strength, and tenacity in the face of overwhelming odds. Her name is Doris Tennant, but she and her equally courageous partner Ellen Lubell are not marching in the street for the sake of justice -- they're carrying it with them right through the cold gray gates of Guantanamo Bay.

Here's what dKos diarist geomoo had to say about the two women's efforts to defend Gitmo detainees against their illegal detention:

My ex-wife, Doris Tennant-Moore, just returned from her second visit to Guantanamo, where she is representing Abdul Aziz Naji. To all appearances, he is one of the unluckiest of the unlucky, in contrast to his characterization by our government. It seems he was arbitrarily captured on the basis either of association with the wrong people or of being turned in for bounty. He claims never to have committed any kind of violence against any US citizen. I am writing this diary to inform, but also in hopes of attracting some emotional and financial support for Doris’ principled commitment to do all she can to represent one detainee and to fight our country's illegal and immoral conduct at Guantanamo.

...because what the hell comment could one possibly add to this, anyway?

http://icasualties.org/oif/

There's been an epidemic of mental failure in Congressional hearings lately. But unless you're addicted to watching C-SPAN (and you know who you are), you may have missed seeing the initial symptoms of the outbreak.

But with the internet and easy-to-use video editing tools available, user-generated content has stepped up to fill the gap between long & boring and short & entertaining.

Those suffering from the affliction have appeared in a number of Congressional hearings and can be identified by their heavy repetition of the phrases, "I don't remember" and "I don't recall".

Of the more recent outbreak, Kyle Sampson was the first notable case.

Then Kyle's boss caught it.

Today's threader was guest-written by our Australian friend Wendy Lohse, aka woz.

Frequently, I'm reminded of the huge range of people I come across on the DCP blog. I love the mix. I love the snippets from home that slide into posts every now and then. I love the range of personalities. And I love the examples of your energetic activism.

Events like the demonstrations that DiAnne reports on for the DCP provide creative inspiration to us here as well as to yourselves. Karen's continued perseverance and the actions of the Code Pink women also show that even small actions can provide the spark that will grow into a flame. Code Pink didn't begin big -- it has grown big. Code Pink is now a force to be reckoned with.

But while reading the blog this morning, I was jolted into reality when I came across this line from Indie Liberal:

"I bet Rove is just laughing his tail off at the way we continue to eat our own."

I say "jolted", because that's how it hit me. Smack! Right in the gut! We are heading for a continued catastrophe unless we are able to harness the criticisms of our own and turn them into positive, published, public awareness. While we "eat our own" we allow fear to escalate and translate into war. As yet we have no idea what the consequences will be.

We know the consequences of the Vietnam war. The consequences live in broken bodies and minds amongst us. They live in the deformed and damaged bodies and brains of Vietnam's population. What do we call American defoliants that rained down on our own soldiers and allies in Vietnam? Friendly fire? Defoliants that cause sickness and deformity through who knows how many generations? Friendly? Fire?

From across the world we look to America to never again let the United States' mainstream media take away from us the things we most value. Peace. Truth. Justice. Freedom.

Through this media the lies, trickery and criminal activity run rampant, unencumbered by facts. Fear sells. War sells. Peace is placid. It's time to engage Americans in a media investigation. I know that I see some horrifying things that are done in your name, but without your knowledge. I remember watching a documentary about 20 years ago, made by American journalists, about one of the South American nightmares. This documentary was banned in the US at the time. I have no link because I don't remember the country or the concerns raised. I remember it BECAUSE it was banned in the US.

I understand the problem of your mainstream media being used to manipulate people's thoughts and beliefs. It's the same here. I forget that because I never watch or read it. A friend asked me, "How do you know all that?" And then I realized why people vote, the way they vote. It's because of the information that seeps silently into their psyche. What can we do to protect ourselves against that?

People will never know how they really feel until we start using the mainstream media in the way the tricksters use it. Meet propaganda and lies head on. It takes money and that's the most unfortunate thing. But some people are getting the message out. Michael Moore has done a lot. Al Gore has done a lot. John and Teresa Kerry have tentacles reaching out into all kinds of multi-faceted spheres. And information is getting through. But we still need more. We need it everywhere. Otherwise the politicians who use fear as a weapon and lies as excuses will still have the upper hand.

First of all, watching this video *will* upset you. You have to log in and state that you are over 18 to see it, but even then, be prepared for some strong reactions:

Then read the comments posted below the video on the YouTube site, because the comments and the contents of that video pretty much define the range of what we, as responsible citizens, have to understand and reconcile.

The man on the video, Iraqi Member of Parliament Mohammed al-Dynee, shared his insights on the current situation with several DC-based activists and the women of Code Pink Monday evening last, at a dinner at the Code Pink house on Capitol Hill. Now, to disclaim, I have no idea if Mr. al-Dynee is a secret partisan or has a particular agenda at all. But he is a terribly serious man, and is someone who is thoughtful and generous, a humanist, if you will. At least that's the man I met at dinner.

The reason this blog thread header was held until now is that CBS News apparently had an exclusive hold on the story until Thursday. A quick Google search reveals nothing online as of Saturday morning. So either CBS decided the story did not hold water, or there is some obfuscation going on.

To those who ask: I found him credible and calm, but I have no way of evaluating his perspective. I am inclined to believe that his sense of what is happening in Iraq is more valid than, say, press releases from the White House. But I am learning, as all of us are, that there is still much that we do not know.

That is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

Impeachment is a serious thing.

It's not a thing to be taken lightly. It's not a thing to be undertaken without a lot of forethought, a preponderance of evidence, and a steadfast determination to see it through to its logical conclusion.

We have discussed impeachment in this space before. It's come up often, and it continues to come up often, in the course of comments posted on this blogsite. While the DCP as an entity does not advocate impeachment -- nor should it, given its status as a non-partisan not-for-profit organization dedicated to education and empowerment of citizen activists -- many members of the DCP community can, and frequently have, called for impeachment on their own.

Even when the words in question have had 40 years' worth of sacred, timeless truth seeping into each and every one of them.

You know, it's not every day that a guy gets to start off a blog entry by saying, "Well, so I just got off the phone with John and Teresa Kerry, and this is what they said to tell you..."

But I did in fact just get off the phone with John and Teresa Kerry, and this is what they said to tell you (paraphrased into my own words, of course, I can only scribble notes with a phone held to my ear so fast...)

(Our friend Lori Perdue was arrested on Friday for disrupting Congress. She wrote this explanation/description/analysis of the day and we publish it here in order to have a dialogue about such actions.)

I am, in general, a law-abiding citizen. I pay my taxes. I use my turn signals. I show respect for law enforcement officers, too much sometimes, according to Medea (Benjamin). I am a realistic person and an idealistic soul. The combination makes for an interesting perspective while working on the Hill.

I have been in many, many congressional hearings in the past several months. And yes, I have acted up, spoken up, been moved to stand up in protest, been removed and threatened with arrest.

Lori, after the Code Pink Slip action at the Mayflower Hotel last month

I have confronted legislators in hallways, following press conferences, in their offices, at events and on the streets of D.C. I have lobbied, monitored, and marched into the teeth of opposition. It is true, I have pushed the envelope and been pushed across the line and onto the floors of the House office buildings. That must be expected when one is working with likes of revolutionaries Medea Benjamin and Gael Murphy. I have not, however, been arrested… before Friday, March 23.

Civil disobedience has been something I have supported, and advocated. It is a valuable tool for change in our society, a vital part of Democracy. But I have made a point in many conversations to stress that it would take a very clear issue to motivate me to join the ranks of the activists who so willingly lay their bodies, records and pocketbooks on the line to emphasize a point to their government. Last week, I proudly, but with an overwhelming sadness, added my name to the list of those whose life stories include defying rules and laws to shed light on injustice and express dissent.

Lori, before going into the House chambers, photo: Tyler Westbrook

I spent early Friday morning on the sidewalk between the House office buildings and the Capitol lobbying Members going to and from the Democratic Caucus meeting, stressing that if they buy this war, by funding it, they will own it and will be held responsible for the outcome. I won’t say the effort was wasted, because the experience hardened my resolve. When Members who greeted me on their way to the Caucus meeting wouldn’t look me in the eye upon their return, I understood that our battle for de-funding was facing defeat at the hands of the Democratic leadership. The reality of the betrayal was stark, but not startling.

Move On had ensured that the staunch attitude of “No more money for War” from the Peace Movement contingent was muddled with an invalid poll and millions of dollars applied to pushing Dems to vote for the Supplemental and its millions for programs unrelated to ending the war. The tears started to flow freely when a Democrat finally looked at me, standing on the sidewalk with a poster of an American soldier carrying a dead Iraqi child, and said, “There’s nothing we can do about it. They are going to get their votes. Thank you for trying. Don’t stop.”

After working so hard, for so many weeks, with so many people, to pressure Congressional Democrats to vote “NO” on the Iraq War Supplemental, or for Democrats of principal to support the Lee Amendment that would fund only the safe and orderly withdrawal of troops, I felt I had no choice but to ensure that a voice of dissent was heard in the House.

I entered the Capitol building with Marine Mom Tina Richards, Military Families Speak Out co-founder Nancy Lessin, and two other members of MFSO. I was wearing black, clearly marked with Code Pink – Women for Peace, with stage blood on my hands and face. We waited in line, passed through security, waited inside the Capitol and were finally admitted to the House Gallery. Tina and I were seated in the front row, along the rail, directly behind the Democrats. As Speaker Pelosi addressed Congress Tina produced a photo of her Son, Cloy, bravely held it in front of her face and refused to put it away. She wanted to remind Congress, many of whom had met with her in the previous weeks, that her son could be recalled to active duty and deployed to Iraq, for the third time, if they funded the Supplemental. She was escorted out of the gallery by four plain clothes Capitol Police officers and removed from the building. They did not want to arrest her, told her so, and showed regret at her plight and were kind to her as they ejected her.

As the Speaker wrapped up her address by twisting the Peace Movement’s talking points to her purpose, making it seem as if the interests of American and International Peace Groups were truly being served by the passing of this bill, I felt physically ill. Pelosi was co-opting our truth and besmirching it with her partisan spin. The feeling of betrayal was overwhelming and my heart started to pound with an outrage that rivaled that of the dismay and anger I felt over “Shock and Awe”.

Congress quickly moved for a voice vote on the bill. When the applause faded and legislators moved to cast their electronic votes for the record I recognized that my time had arrived. I quickly stood, held my bloody hands in the air and shouted, “Don’t buy this war.” I was grabbed by the Capitol Officer who had stationed himself next to me, expecting just this type of disturbance, and pulled into the aisle. I continued, “You’re buying it and you own it!” Four more officers surrounded me and lifted me by my elbows up the stairs as I shouted, “Troops Home Now! Troops Home Now! Troops Home Now!” as they carried me from the Gallery. Another Activist, Tighe Barry, picked up the cry from another area in the Gallery as they dragged me out, sustaining the dissent for a few more moments. We were both arrested, searched, cuffed and taken away by police quite efficiently and without violence.

Looking back, I realize that our actions did not change the way the votes fell, but the spirit of true change was recognized in the Capitol. Pelosi and the Blue Dogs got what they wanted legislatively. They got their money, but they also got the message that the cost was much greater than 100 billion dollars. The true cost will be paid in blood and tears. They did not, however, get it quietly, floating their political maneuvering under the radar. Tighe and I made sure they and everyone in the Gallery and maybe those watching at home on C-Span realized that there are those in the public who disagree, that there are Americans that don’t believe that more money for war is supporting the troops. I truly hope that all members of Congress understand that we will continue to mourn and dissent even in the House Chambers, and now in the Senate, until they act responsibly to Bring our Troops Home Now.

Lori Perdue is a native of Indiana, mother of two teenagers, a United States Air Force Veteran and is officially affiliated with Code Pink – Women for Peace, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out. She has been a full-time Peace Activist for two years.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
- Thomas Paine

From Eric Zorn's weblog on the Chicago Tribune website comes this poignant reminder of the human cost of the neocons' illegal and immoral war for oil in the Middle East:

Soldier's dad tells Bush, 'This war is wrong'

The two-page letter is signed from the “proud father of a fallen soldier.”

A little more than six weeks ago, his soul a cauldron of grief and rage, Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton addressed and mailed it to President Bush.

And since he’s yet to receive an acknowledgment or reply, he asked me if I’d help get his message out.

“My voice, and that of many other frustrated Americans is not being heard,” he said.

It’s the least I can do, I replied.

“My son was killed in Iraq on February 2, 2007,” says the letter. “His name is Captain Kevin Landeck….

“He was killed while riding in a Humvee by a roadside bomb just south of Baghdad. He has a loving mother, a loving father and loving sister. You took him away from us.”

The letter adds that Kevin Landeck, 26, a Wheaton Warrenville South High School and Purdue University graduate, had been married for 17 months and was very proud to be serving his country.

But “the message he continued to send to me was that of incompetence,” Landeck’s letter says. “Incompetence by you, (Vice President Richard) Cheney and (former defense secretary Donald) Rumsfeld. Incompetence by some of his commanders as well as the overall strategy of your decisions.

“When I asked him about what he thought about your decision to `surge’ more troops to Baghdad, he told me, `until the Iraqis pick up the ball we are going to get cut to shreds. It doesn’t matter how many troops Bush sends, nothing has been addressed to solve the problem he started,’” says Landeck’s letter.

This is a reasonably close paraphrase of an e-mail Kevin Landeck sent to his parents on Jan. 19, a short note signed “live from the (excrement) show” that referred to the war strategy as “senseless.”

[...]

Richard Landeck and his wife Vicki have never been active in politics, they told me as I sat with them around their kitchen table Sunday night in the Stonehedge subdivision in the heart of DuPage County. He’s a sales rep. She’s a dental hygienist. Their other child, Jennifer, 23, is an actress who also works part-time at the nearby golf course.

As the war in Iraq enters its 5th year, look for families like the Landecks to become the face of the anti-war movement: Archtypal middle Americans who can no longer respond with platitudinous faith in our leaders to the persistent waste –-- a word Richard Landeck does not shy from –- of the lives of our young men and women in Iraq.

Saturday, they went to nearby Bloomingdale to join in a peace rally, their first.

What Eric Zorn did with his Chicago Tribune column, we can all do with this and the other blogs we participate in. Let's make sure the word gets out about Richard Landeck's letter to President Bush -- because, sadly, there are a lot more grieving families like the Landecks out there, and more are being added every day we let the White House keep on making brave men and women die for a lie in Iraq.

The full text of Mr. Landeck's letter follows; a memorial guestbook for his fallen son Captain Kevin Landeck has also been set up on the Chicago Tribune's site here if you would like to add your voice to those sharing in his family's loss.

From the online Iranian news and culture reporting website Persian Journal:

Iranian defector may hold catalyst for war
Mar 11, 2007

An Iranian defense official who reportedly defected to the West last week may be in possession of evidence that could be used justify military action against Iran.

Former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Rez Asgari was secreted away from Turkey to an undisclosed location in Europe by Western officials.

This after he informed American officials several weeks earlier that he wished to defect and provide assistance in bringing down those running his country.

According to a London-based Arabic newspaper, Asgari was in possession of documents definitively linking the Iranian regime to the actions of Lebanon's Hizb'allah, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the two main insurgency forces in Iraq -- the Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps.

Asgari was also well acquainted with Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, as well as Tehran's preparations for possible military conflict with the US.

If the evidence -- particularly regarding Iran's role in Iraq's instability -- is verifiable, it could be enough to prompt Washington to begin putting war preparations in motion.

The room filled early last night at Politics and Prose. I had to fight off several elderly people to keep the seat open for Richard, who had decided to drive to meet me via West Virginia. He missed most of the talk.

Joe began by talking about the "carefully calibrated campaign" that the neo-cons have been working on for thirty years. He told us that his publisher and he had been discussing the Bush administration, and the publisher told him to take a new look at Sinclair Lewis' quickly executed book, It Can't Happen Here.

Joe did, and found it "eerie". Lewis wrote the book in four months, while he was drinking heavily, and at the behest of his wife, the journalist Dorothy Thompson, who had just been kicked out of Nazi Germany for championing the defense of a young Jew accused of assassinating a diplomat. The book sold over 200,000 copies and was turned into a play under the auspices of the WPA. Lewis even played the role of the Editor-Hero, Doremus Jessup, a few times. The book was almost made into a movie, but Italy and Germany threatened to ban all US-made films if it was made. Surprisingly, (hahaha) Hollywood folded.

Why did the book resonate with people at the time? Joe said people were concerned about fascism. Lewis also wanted to influence the 1936 elections; he was concerned that Huey Long was the type of character who would diminish democracy in the service of the powerful. Long was assassinated before the election, but readers got the comparison anyway.

In his book, Conason draws the comparisons between recent history and the events in the Lewis book, but it's not a literary treatise. Joe stands in a long tradition of muckrakers.

We Americans need to address some history that should probably have been more prevalent in news media coverage and analysis in 2002 and 2003 -- as discussed in a book by Vali Nasr, titled "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future".

In the preface to his book, Mr. Nasr recounts an incident that he observed, which I recall as well, observed through the global eye of television. I interpreted it much differently than he did. Unfortunately for our soldiers, our government did not understand the significance of such an event either.

I was on a research trip in Pakistan in April 2003 when two million Shias gathered in the Iraqi city of Karbala to mark the Arbaeen, the commemoration of the fortieth day after the martyrdom of the Shia saint Imam Husayn [Hussein] at Karbala in 680 C.E. ... On that particular "fortieth day," so soon after the one on which U.S. Marines and jubilant Iraqis had pulled down Saddam's hollow image in Baghdad's Firdous Square, I happened to be on the outskirts of Lahore, visiting the headquarters of a Sunni fundamentalist political group known as the Jamaat-e Islami (Islamic Party). The office television set was tuned to CNN, as everyone was following the news from Iraq. The coverage turned to scenes of young Shia men standing densely packed in the shadow of the golden dome of Imam Husayn's shrine at Karbala. They all wore black shirts and had scarves of green (the universal color of Islam) wrapped around their heads. They chanted a threnody in Arabic for their beloved saint as they raised their empty hands as if in prayer toward heaven and in unison brought them down to thump on their chests in a rhythmic gesture of mourning, solidarity, and mortification. The image was magnetic, at once jubilant and defiant. The Shia were in the streets and they were holding their faith and their identity high for all to see. We stared at the television screen. My Sunni hosts were aghast at what they were seeing. A pall descended on the room.

...The CNN commentator was gleefully boasting that the Iraqis were free at last--they were performing a ritual that the audience in the West did not understand but that had been forbidden to the Shia for decades. What Americans saw as Iraqi freedom, my hosts saw as blatant display of heretical rites that are anathema to orthodox Sunnis. ... "These actions are not right," said one of my hosts. Iraqis--by which he meant the Shia -- "do not know the proper practice of Islam." The Shia-Sunni debates over the truth of the Islamic message and how to practice it would continue, he added, not just peacefully and symbolically but with bombs and bullets. He was talking not about Iraq but about Pakistan.

So what are these differences between Shia and Sunni and how have they evolved? That's not something that I can adequately cover here but I can point you toward a few resources that will start you on a journey of understanding that we all should have taken 5 years ago.

Liam Madden is a 22 year old who grew up in Vermont. He joined the Marines six months after high school. He is sweet-looking, polite, just the kind of young man any country would be proud of.

Liam in front

His most recent project is to appeal Congress for redress; for a withdrawal of the troops and an end to the war. The statement, now signed by over 1200 military, reads as follows:

As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq. Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home.

Liam is on a national tour to speak to students about the war and his efforts to end it.

We spoke with Liam about patriotism and bravery. What does it mean to speak out against the war? He is still learning, but it is something worth taking seriously and to heart, and his heart is right there, for all to see and feel.

Garrett Reppenhagen is a member of Iraq Vets Against the War and Veterans for America (formerly Vietnam Veterans Against the War). He is working on several fronts, but one of the most important is the work he is doing to find a retreat and treatment center for homeless vets. He is seeking federal and state funds to build the center. Sitting around the table and talking with Lori, Tina Richards, Liam, and Richard and me, Garrett pointed out, "The soldier is only the bullet. It's the American people who pull the trigger."

L to R: Garrett, Sunsara Taylor, Liam

Garrett met with Sen. John Kerry, who told him "Look, I've had 500 people here in my office this week. The other 499 were here for other reasons than the war." Why is this? Why are there not 500 people in each office, demanding an end to this nightmare?

Tina Richards is a Mom from Missouri. Her son, Cloy, is 23; one year older than Liam. He's done two tours of duty in Iraq, has severe PTSD (although the Marines will not acknowledge that he is suicidal), and has just received notice that he can be deployed for a third tour. Tina is a bit upset about this, and she is here in DC to share her concerns with Congress, the American Enterprise Institute, and 36 legislative aides and Chiefs of Staffs and eight legislators, and peace and justice groups throughout DC.

Tina Richards

She has spent the past few years networking across the Midwest. The unions, peace and justice groups, military families all work together and support each and every action. But she has not found that same organization locally in DC and Maryland. So she has been encouraging local groups to coordinate and work together in her spare time.

She delivers letters to Members offices; 379 letters to Claire McCaskill alone. She met with Rep. John Murtha and delivered a note her son wrote to him:

We've been following the developments in the breaking-news accounts of the terrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for the last few days here, with our eyes wide in anger and our jaws clenched in horror. The biggest surprise isn't that it was ever allowed to happen -- it's that we should even be surprised to be told that it happened in the first place.

The original Washington Post story about the abuses at WRAMC and its equally-horrifying followup piece are just two more bricks in the wall when it comes to illustrating just how much of a huge steaming crock the the flag-wavers' strident shouts of "Support the Troops!" really are.

Sure, they support the troops -- as long as the troops are doing what they're told and are kept conveniently off-camera. Whatever else happens, don't you dare take pictures of flag-draped coffins. And don't you dare tell stories of brave men and women being given the shaft if they actually make it back home again.

Dana Priest, one of the two reporters who broke the WRAMC story for the WashPo this weekend, said that most of the bloodied but unbowed troops she spoke to in pursuit of her expose articles were afraid to speak out because they expected reprisals from an angry military hierarchy if they did.

That kind of reprisal is, of course, illegal. Priest has publicly promised to monitor their situations and report on any such abuses. That's great, and we give her full props for it. But the very fact that she had to make such a public promise just underscores how totally FUBAR things are at the WRAMC.

As noted in this space yesterday, while Democrats and Republicans play words games about what the meaningless resolutions of "doing nothing" and "doing nothing" are, this goes on a short distance down the road:

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is only part of the problem though. Here's the other part of the problem (emphasis mine):

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (AP) -- The Army opened a $50 million high-tech rehabilitation center Monday that is designed to serve the growing number of soldiers who return from war as amputees or with severe burns.

Of the roughly 20,000 soldiers injured since the start of the Iraq war, more than 500 have lost a limb -- many of them in roadside bombings.

The Center for the Intrepid, a privately funded facility, includes a rock-climbing wall, a wave pool and a virtual reality computer system.

Private funding is necessary for our troops to recover from their injuries -- while a Congress of Neros debates how long we should keep extending federal funding for fiddles.

While the politicians are pandering, and the spinbots are shouting, and every monkey in a red-white-and-blue suit is screeching "I support the troops! We support the troops!"... the torn and tattered veterans of the neocons' illegal and immoral war for conquest in the Middle East are being warehoused in Washington in conditions that most Americans would never even dream of letting their house pets live in, let alone their wounded warriors.

Behind the door of Army Spec. Jeremy Duncan's room, part of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When the wounded combat engineer stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.

This is the world of Building 18, not the kind of place where Duncan expected to recover when he was evacuated to Walter Reed Army Medical Center from Iraq last February with a broken neck and a shredded left ear, nearly dead from blood loss. But the old lodge, just outside the gates of the hospital and five miles up the road from the White House, has housed hundreds of maimed soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Climate report author Sir Nicholas Stern laid down the law at a U.S. Senate hearing: the costs of inaction on climate change will be far higher than the costs of acting today. No more excuses.

DCP co-founder Richard Bell wrote about Stern's appearance on Capitol Hill for the Global Public Media website. The following is a condensed version of his report.

Yesterday was another climate change trifecta at the U.S. Congress, with one hearing in the House on “Addressing Climate Change,” and two in the Senate, one on the "U.S. Climate Action Partnership Report,” and one featuring Sir Nicholas Stern, author of the last fall’s highly influential Stern Review of The Economics of Climate Change. All three hearings went off at 10 A.M.

I decided to bet on Sir Nicholas, and headed to the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, where Committee Chair Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) cited the trifecta as evidence that the “ground in the U.S. [on climate change] has shifted substantially… I believe there is an opportunity to move forward this year.”

Last night Richard, Marietta and I experienced one of the more disturbing evenings of our lives inside the beltway; the Council of Foreign Relations/HBO presentation of Rory Kennedy's documentary, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.

Rory opened the evening by talking about the balance between national security and the rule of law, and how fluid that line has become. The price we have paid is a commitment to human rights first. She would like to see the film raise questions that lead to a policy debate, and ultimately, a rethinking of what we are doing.

So would we.

At the reception prior to the film we had met and talked with Janice Karpinski. Marietta and I told her we used some of her story in Fear Up: Stories from Baghdad and Guantanamo and we thanked her for speaking out as she has been.

The film opens with a reminder about the experimental work of Dr. Stanley Milgrim In 1961 Milgram conducted experiments in obedience. What follows is a quote from a 1974 paper on those experiments:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

Sound bites followed from the young men and women who had been accused of the worst kind of torture at Abu Ghraib:

"That place turned me into a monster."

"You become like a robot."

"If you walk through all of that, when do you say 'It's enough'?"

"You'll go crazy if you don't adapt to it."

"After 9-11, I believed someone had to pay."

Here's something that we're witnessing way too much of these days, but one that we can take a proactively Position One stance on by empowering ourselves to take immediate action to resolve it.

The original story by Josh Nelson includes a number of useful live links and a truly impressive list of direct email contact addresses for members of the MSM, so we encourage you to go to The Seminal's article page and take advantage of their extra information to make your voices heard on this critical issue right away.

A bill introduced last week by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) is beginning to raise eyebrows.

[It] would require ISPs to record all users’ surfing activity, IM conversations and email traffic indefinitely. The bill, dubbed the Safety Act by sponsor Lamar Smith, a republican congressman from Texas, would impose fines and a prison term of one year on ISPs which failed to keep full records.

This is a terrifying development and it must be stopped before it gains any significant momentum.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

I spent part of the weekend figuring out taxes for the year. We are part of the squeezed middle class, and will have to send money in. It's fairly daunting, since some of our money will probably go to fund warfare, and less to health and education. I know that our country is responsible for a huge segment of the planet's military spending, that we lag for healthcare, and that when budget cuts occur under conservative administrations, social programs go onto the chopping block. So I went looking for some of the particulars, to see what Congress will be handed.

Last week, I reported on my journey investigating the health care industry due to trying to help my daughter get re-insured. This time, I will describe the recent events in her journey and relate them to the unsavory side of the industry.

You're already aware that her policy was dropped December 31, 2006. About a week after it expired, they sent out a certificate that showed she had had insurance previously; this is standard procedure. This certificate is suppose to prevent the insurance companies from uprating or excluding her for any pre-existing health conditions. However, the certificate does nothing if they simply deny coverage, period.

So you can imagine our reaction when one insurance company flat out denied her coverage at all.

photo credit: J Wooten

Today we need to be ringing the phones off the hook at Congress. Today we need to be messaging in like we've never messaged in before. Today is the day to remind the inside-the-beltway folks that we are NOT going to sit idly by while they destroy this country and half the middle east as well.

We need to be doing this on behalf of:

Lt. Ehren Watada
Helga and Augustin Aguayo and their daughters
Pat Tillman
Juan Torres, Cindy Sheehan, Carlos Arredondo and the thousands of other grieving parents
Riverbend
Riverbend's neighbors who were dragged off to Abu Ghraib for no reason
The Tipton Three
Amnesty International and the floating flotilla at GITMO
The Iraqi Women who came to the US (Code Pink just produced a new film, Iraqi Women Speak Out, co-produced with Deep Dish TV, featuring interviews with the Iraqi women's delegation)
Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Russ Feingold
HR 508 and the Out of Iraq Caucus in the House
The 3090 American soldiers (as of today) who have died in Iraq
The 600,000 plus Iraqis who have been killed
The detainees in Guantanamo, 95% of whom are innocent victims
The thousands of folks lobbying at the Senate and House today
All of you
Our children
Our future
PEACE.

Call Congress TODAY. Find your Representative. CALL 202-224-3121.

photo credit: J Wooten

Welcome to the first in my series about the health insurance industry in the United States of America.

As I write throughout this series, I hope to hear about your experiences too.

I've been on a quest to re-insure my daughter and as a result I have seen the state of our health insurance industry from a new and enlightened view. It's not a pretty sight. In fact, it's damn scary and absolutely disgusting! I now understand better than I did before why America has a health care crisis and why we must demand better from our government!

I'll give you the reader's digest version of my story...

From our friend John Pike's website, globalsecurity.org

The year 2007 begins to mark the closing of the window of opportunity for military strikes against Iran.

CBS News reported on 18 December 2006 that the Bush administration has decided to ramp up the naval presence in the Persian Gulf to send a message to Tehran. CBS reported that an additional aircraft carrier would be added to the Gulf contingent in January 2007, arriving on station around 01 February 2007. The New York Times reported 20 December 2006 that the Bremerton-based aircraft carrier CVN-74 John C. Stennis and its strike group could leave weeks earlier than planned as part of a move to increase the U.S. military presence in and around the Middle East. Moving up the Stennis’ departure date in January 2006 allows a longer overlap with USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, the carrier currently in the Persian Gulf. Eisenhower deployed 01 October 2006, and could remain on station into March 2007. It is difficult for one Carrier Air Wing [CVW] to conduct flight operations for much more than about 12 hours before having to stop. However, with the combined striking power of two CVWs, the Carrier Task Force (CTF) is able to conduct air operations over a continuous 24-hour cycle.

If the White House is politically risk averse with reference to striking Iran, striking Iran in early February 2007 would allow the maximum time between the strikes and the 2008 Presidential election.

OK, deep breath here. As the 2008 bandwagon piles up, is anyone concerned about the devastating effects of such an action? Or are we so deeply involved with the cult of personality that we can fail to act in regard to the next unfolding horror?

We are entering a dangerous world of military speculation.

What is the meaning of this attack? Why now?

Then there's this:

FROM JUAN COLE AT "INFORMED COMMENT":

US Forces Storm Iranian Consulate in Irbil

The US military stormed the Iranian consulate in the northern Iraq Kurdistan city of Irbil (Erbil) on Thursday.

Irbil is the fief of Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. The Kurdistan Regional Government, which he leads, is semi-autonomous and maintains a regional army, the Peshmerga, of 60,000 men. Kurdistan authorities say that no federal Iraqi army troops may set foot in Kurdistan.

Kurdistan is eager to retain its semi-autonomy, and hopes ultimately for independence. It cannot expect the Baghdad government to fund its military. Sunni guerrillas have sabotaged oil exports from Kirkuk.

[snip]

Although Bush keeps implying that Iran is supplying weapons and aid to US enemies in Iraq, the circumstantial evidence is that it was helping the two main US allies in Iraq with their paramilitary capabilities-- Kurdistan and SCIRI. But it is likely that the money and weapons do bleed over into insurgent groups and have a destabilizing effect.

For the complete article, read here.

[This difficult but important essay comes to the DCP from the pen of Charles E. Anderson, who served in Iraq with the Marine Corps' Second Tank Battalion during the invasion of Iraq. During his nine-year career in the military Anderson served in infantry, armor, and medical units; he currently resides in Hampton, Virginia, and is an active and outspoken critic of the failed policies and procedures that have needlessly claimed the lives of so many thousands of soldiers and citizens in Iraq.]

On November 19, 2005 a roadside bomb took the life of a Marine outside the Iraqi town of Haditha. What followed by all accounts was a blood bath. A squad of Marines moved into the town of Haditha and opened fire. Eighteen Iraqi civilians, including small children, were killed, some in their homes.

Whether the incident was instigated by Iraqi insurgents or Marine leaders is unclear. What is clear is that at least eighteen innocent civilians lost their lives and the lives of all involved, Iraqis and Americans, will never be the same. On December 20, 2006, four of the Marines were were officially charged with murder and four officers were charged with failures in investigating and reporting the incident.

I've got a confession to make here.

This is not the thread header that I originally set out to write.

My intention was to produce an objective, informational essay for the Democracy Cell Project blog that would sum up the latest news stories about President Bush's intentions to sharply increase the number of troops on the ground in Iraq in a last-ditch effort to salvage his so-called legacy as a bold, decisive leader in times of war.

My intention was to reference a number of articles, opinions, and interviews by a wide range of individuals, ranging from Middle East-traveling Senators John Kerry, Christopher Dodd, and Bill Nelson, to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and retired General Wesley Clark and current General John Abizaid, to commentators Eugene Robinson, Lawrence O'Donnell, Sidney Blumenthal and a whole host of others, all of whom have made it quite clear that sending even more troops into Iraq in support of a hopelessly botched war is nothing more than sheer egotistical insanity on the part of the White House.

My intention was to produce a rational, reasonable omnibus thread header essay that would do a nice and tidy job of wrapping up and presenting for your perusal a panoply of words from a plethora of sources that would, in a nutshell, really do nothing more than tell you what you already know to be so.

But I find that I can't do that. Not here, not today.

First of all, thanks to all of you at the DCP who work so hard and who are part of the sea change that is going on right now in this country. We have lots more work to do to assure the restoration of "government by the people and for the people", but it is happening.

However, as we gather with loved ones for recuperation, let's think about what we can do to ease the pain of those this country has cruelly hurt:

Agustin Aguayo's case was heard in the D.C Circuit Court yesterday, but no judgement was made. And so, Agustin, whose case for conscientious objector status has resonated globally, sits in a jail cell in Germany, unsure of whether or not he will remain in that cell or, even worse, be sent back to Iraq to fight and kill.

We can help.

So Donald Rumsfeld is R.I.P., and we're launched into a new age of what the president repeatedly called "bipartisanship" at his news conference today.

Might we be a little skeptical of this sudden enthusiasm for bipartisanship, coming from a man who is arguably the most divisely partisan presidents in the country's history?

Even in fairy-tales, the leopard struggles with the spot-changing problem. As for a spot-changing White House, Time Magazine reports on thinking within the White House in recent weeks, when an unnamed "strategist" said that the Bush team was planning:

"a cataclysmic fight to the death" over the balance between Congress and the White House if confronted with congressional subpoenas it deems inappropriate. The strategist says the Bush team is "going to assert that power, and they're going to fight it all the way to the Supreme Court on every issue, every time, no compromise, no discussion, no negotiation."

That sounds like fun doesn't it?

--That's the attitude that Bush unveiled in November of 2000 in Florida, and it's the attitude that has carried him through the first 6 years of his presidency.

--It's the attitude that paid for the airline tickets for Republican staff thugs from the Congress to fly down to Florida and stage a Brown Shirt assault to stop the vote counting.

--It's the attitude of a "torture first, write legal fig leaves afterwards" administration. It's the attitude of keeping a House vote open for three hours while threatening one retiring congressman with cutting off the funds for his son's campaign to succeed him.

--It's the attitude of a party that paid for thousands of phone calls threatening voters with imprisonment if they showed up at the polls to vote.

Under our system of government, the presidency has aggrandized an ever-more powerful arsenal with which to fight the restraints of the legislative and judicial branches.

So while the voters have voted in the most unmistakable way against the president's leadership, and have specifically repudiated the president's policy on Iraq, there is no reason to believe that anything will change without the most unrelenting pressure.

Changing control of the Congress was necessary. But the election was only the first step in a continuing process that will require an even greater level of mobilization over the coming years to succeed.

The other night, at a 30-year retrospective for the Liz Lerman Dance Company, Peter DiMuro, her Artistic Director, stepped forward and led the audience through a movement exploration around the issue of genocide. The last gesture in the series we came up with was one in which we wrote the initials of someone who had stood up for us on our palms.

Then we took the initials and gave the hand gesture to the rest of the audience. It was moving and lovely and I had no trouble thinking of whose initials belonged inside that movement.

And tonight I went to the Vietnam Memorial to meet up with Cindy Sheehan and Ann Wright and others for a vigil. Cindy spoke about the hope we all have for tomorrow and for the end of this war, hopefully before the number of names surpass those on that wall.

She also pointed out that if we added the Iraqi names of those killed, the wall would be twelve times the size it is, and if we added the names of the Vietnamese killed, it would be double that.

Who stands up to genocide? Who speaks for those ghosts?

Tomorrow we vote, and it is a most important election, because it is surely our last chance to end this particular genocide. It may be the last chance to end the genocide of the planet.

And I know you all understand this and have already worked blessedly hard to get out the vote. But after you vote yourself, please take a moment to think about those who have lost lives for profiteering, those who have suffered under this administration, and vow to prevent these criminals from continuing with their program of callousnes and callowness.

Write the initials of someone who has stood against them on your hand and say thank you. And then pick up the phone and call your local organization and ask what small thing you can do to make the difference between despair and hope.

Everything counts on this day. Everything.

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.)

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.

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.

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?

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 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:

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.

The more you know about the Mark Foley story, the more disgusted you will be.

As Josh Marshall points out in this quickly evolving news story, the Republican House leadership has known about alleged child sex predator, Rep. Mark Foley's (R-FL) activites, which include preying on underage pages using Congressional resources.

From Roll Call via Talking Points Memo:

Chairman of the House Page Board, Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) interviewed Foley last year about some of the contacts with the page. The House clerk, who is also a member of the Board, was also present. Speaker Hastert's office was informed of the interview, but according to GOP leadership sources who spoke to Roll Call, Hastert himself was not informed.

Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI), the only Democrat on the Board, was not informed of the interview, according to Roll Call.

Rep. Shimkus released the following statement ...

"As chairman of the bipartisan House Page Board in late 2005, I was notified by the then Clerk of the House, who manages the Page Program, that he had been told by Congressman Rodney Alexander about an email exchange between Congressman Foley and a former House Page. I took immediate action to investigate the matter.

“In that email exchange, Congressman Foley asked about the former Page’s well-being after Hurricane Katrina and requested a photograph. When asked about the email exchange, Congressman Foley said he expressed concern about the Page’s well-being and wanted a photo to see that the former Page was alright.

“Congressman Foley told the Clerk and me that he was simply acting as a mentor to this former House Page and that nothing inappropriate had occurred. Nevertheless, we ordered Congressman Foley to cease all contact with this former House Page to avoid even the appearance of impropriety. We also advised him to be especially mindful of his conduct with respect to current and former House Pages, and he assured us he would do so. I received no subsequent complaints about his behavior nor was I ever made aware of any additional emails.

“It has become clear to me today, based on information I only now have learned, that Congressman Foley was not honest about his conduct.

“As Chairman of the House Page Board, I am working with the Clerk to fully review this incident and determine what actions need to be taken.

“The House Page Program has been an integral part of the House of Representatives for many decades. Preserving the integrity of the House Page Program is of utmost importance to me and to the House of Representatives, and we intend to uphold and protect its values and traditions.”

The whole matter has been turned over to the House ethics committee.

What Josh's piece doesn't mention, is that now that an ethics committee investigation has been opened, the committee has ten days to issue a preliminary report that must include what Hastert and Boehner and others knew about this, and when they knew it. The press will likely beat them to that information.

Since Josh and team seem to have the best all around information and wrap around this story, I would suggest checking in there to keep updated.

My take on this? It becomes increasingly clear that the Republicans in office, from the White House to the House of Representatives cannot protect anyone or anything. Why would any American think that they can? Would you trsut your security to these buffons? Even after they have information about a child sex predator in their midst, they do nothing of use to protect the underage pages from coming in contact with him. It's all about politics with these guys and they will happily hand your child to a sicko, just as long as no one finds out so we don't mess up the elections.

So when you look at that picture above, remember that picture above, remember that there were some folks there who had at least an idea of what was going on. And were happy to be part of the photo op in order to advance their own political careers.

Hard to say which is sicker; the Congressman, or the ones that protected him for nearly a year.

Ahh..the campaign season. Funny how a few short years of memory lapse can create such marvelous moments:

For example, there's the resurrection of a classic idea of American diversity and inclusion.

There's lovely comments on immigration and fashion.

There's recognition of labor, here and elsewhere.

There's the enthusiasm of the crowds.

And of course, there's dedicated supporters and volunteers.

Its the fall election season, and campaigns are out motivating the "base".

Anyone want to venture what common denominator is the rallying cry for these individuals?

And who can forget who gets the rough end of the business in the process?

Greetings from Camp Democracy's main tent on the Mall in Washington, DC, 4 blocks down from the west front of the Capitol. This morning got off with a bang-up press conference featuring four Iraqi vets and one of their supporters were arrested at the Pentagon yesterday. Their crime? They went over to see the new 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon. In a chapel, they found Gideon New Testaments bound in camouflage, and a DVD on how to live in the military as a Christian. The vets were carrying a one page document on the health impact from the radioactive depleted uranium weapons which the U.S. is using in Iraq.

(Depleted uranium is a waste product from the production of uranium for nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons. The material is the densest naturally occurring mineral, a property which makes it the best available material for penetrating armor. A depleted uranium shell fired into a tank cuts through the armor and explodes inside the tank, with the uranium vaporizing and bursting into flame. Untold numbers of American troops and Iraqi civilians are being exposed to the resulting radioactive dust. The U.S. claims that depleted uranium is not dangerous. There are numerous reports from Iraq that areas heavily contaminated with depleted uranium also have much higher levels of unusual birth defects. And many Iraqi veterans suffering from a variety of ailments suspect that depleted uranium is responsible for many of their symptoms.

Officials at the Pentagon arrested the vets after they put some of this depleted uranium document next to the religious literature. At the press conference this morning, the arrested vets attacked their arrests as an attack on their 1st amendment rights, and promised to mount a strong attack on their arrests.

Yesterday's arrests were another sign of the military's efforts to prevent opponents of the war from distributing information at military installations that challenge the war on Iraq. Ann Wright, one of only three State Department officials who resigned in protest over the start of the Iraq War, spoke about her experience earlier this summer at Fort McNair, where she left some postcards about the movie "Sir, No Sir". She was detained, shackled to a chair, and then several weeks later got a letter from the commanding officer of Fort Myer and Fort McNair telling her she was banned from both bases for a year. She appealed this decision, and just got a letter rejecting her appeal last week.

For more information on Camp Democracy and the schedule of events and speakers over the next two weeks, go to the Camp Democracy web site.

I've been living in Washington, DC for 21 years. As a lover of all things outdoors, I started driving out into “the country” as soon as I got here. But in the last few years, I've noticed that I've had to drive further and further in any direction to escape the scourge of McMansions sprouting like mushrooms from the fields and forests I used to drive past. I'm not making that much more money, but somebody is buying up all these faux chateaux with their stripped- bare landscapes and their multi-car garages.

Now the Census Department tells us that people really have been getting richer in the suburbs around DC.

And where is the money coming from? Can you say “homeland security” and “Iraq”? Bush and the Congress have signed off on billions of dollars in new spending since September 11, 2001, and are piling hundreds of billions of more on top of that for the Iraq war.

Here are some of the statistics:

--Loudoun County,Virginia, is now the wealthiest jurisdiction in the United States, with a media household income of more than $98,000.

--Fairfax County, VA, and Howard County, MD, follow Loudoun in the list of highest incomes

--The Washington region has the 2nd highest income of any metro area in the country (only San Jose ranks higher)

--And the region also has the least poverty of any metro area in the country.

The Census Department also released figures which confirm claims by other economic analysts that the gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen, despite other economic indicators that show that the economy is doing relatively well, as long as you don't look at income distribution.

During the height of the dot.com boom, "go west young man/woman" was good advice. But Bush has reversed the flow. As long as the war grinds on and politicians are content to just throw money at “terrorism” with no strategic goals, “go East young man/woman” is good advice indeed.

Whenever anyone talks about the economy, I offer my brief history:

When Mr. Bush was selected in 2001, Linda was still able to work as a respiratory therapist and I finally got my AAS at age 44. We were middle class.

Fast forward to December, 2003 when Linda had to retire because she could no longer work an eight-hour day without supplemental oxygen. Ironic because she was a respiratory therapist doing tests on other folks yet she was the one who was now oxygen dependant. But now, Linda left the hospital where she had worked for over 23 years to assume the role of survivor. I was just over two years out of college but at least we could still pay the bills.

When Linda retired, we knew that Mr. Bush would starve us for six months of zero income before Linda could collect SSDI – Social Security Disability Insurance – the same insurance she had paid into for over 23 years. We struggled; we wound up charging our weekly groceries and medicines on our credit cards. We had no choice but to max out the balances. Finally, the SSDI checks started in but they were less than half of Linda’s old salary. So we struggled as most of us do but we made it.

In January, 2005 I was working for one of the three biggest law firms in Albuquerque. Suddenly, two of the attorneys leave New Mexico and I was the odd man out. I am now stuck with limited unemployment and no health insurance except COBRA. My only viable option at that time was to take a higher–paying but ueber-stressful job at a call center. At least I had health insurance until the spring of 2006 when the stress of the sales job started causing health problems for me and I had to the jettison that highlife.

I was fortunate enough to be offered a job working with the State of New Mexico TANF Program (welfare). I learned that there are countless folks who work in state government who have a real and aggressive desire to help the under privileged of this country. The pay was under $10/hour and Linda and I had to start charging medicine and our weekly groceries again. Unfortunately, the New Mexico Department of Labor was not chosen to continue this contract and again I again was left as the odd man out.

Luckily, in 1999 I was mentored by a tax litigation attorney with over 25 years experience in the Internal Revenue Service. She called me and I am now back working with her. Linda and I can now pay our bills – Linda refuses to tell me if we are in the red or the black.

The bottom line is that at age 50, I have no healthcare and Linda is on Medicare/Medicaid. We are not alone: 46 million Americans don’t have healthcare. I have to push my hybrid Toyota hybrid to 52 mpg so I spend about $35/month in fuel and I, like most Americans, are just trying to make ends meet. With Linda’s disability, we have not had a vacation in 4 years. We don’t give each other presents at Christmas anymore. And America no longer has what used to be a middle class.

What about you? How has the last six years impacted your wallet?

Happy Labor Day America and God Bless the Workin’ Man/Woman ! We are the Backbone of America ! High time we start to take our country back to rebuild the middle class.

Surprise, surprise...There's been a MAJOR ARREST of an Al Qaida member just in time for the kick off of the 2006 election season!

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's national security adviser on Sunday announced the arrest of the second most senior figure in al-Qaida in Iraq.

Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, known as Abu Humam or Abu Rana, was arrested a few days ago, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie said.

"We believe that al-Qaida in Iraq suffers from a serious leadership crisis. Our troops have dealt fatal and painful blows to this organization," he said.

Wow, can you imagine how many Al-Qaida number two men we could catch if we had election in the US, say every sixty days? Dozens, I'm sure.

Can some enterprising reporter ask President Bush this question for me: Now that we've hopelessly crippled Al Qaida over there, so they can't follow us back here, even though they were never there in the first place to even follow us here, can we declare victory and leave?

[Editor's Note: If you haven't visited the thread below and added your thoughts and ideas, please do so. Thanks.]

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece resumes, re-edited by its author.]

One year later after the Katrina disaster, we reviewed how we raged, hoped and prayed that somehow, there would be enough awareness and political will to summon what is necessary to bring a great city back to life. For the last year we've heard and read the reports of incompetence, the finger-pointing, the corruption and misappropriation. A year later, this is where we're at:

Federal Disaster Relief
From all accounts, its a mixed report card on progress by FEMA, which has shown some improvement in providing loans, emergency aid, supply logistics, communication, and goods procurement. More work needs to be done to improve access to temporary housing and evacuation. Leadership has a long row to hoe.

Reconstruction Progress
In July 2006, the City of New Orleans published its report on infrastructure restoration by zip code. As of July 2006, the last area awaiting complete restoral of basic services is the Lower Ninth ward.

Political Will
Over the last year, Congress has enacted legislation to provide help to victims of Katrina's devastation. This report provides, in plain English a descriptive list of what Congress has done to date.

The Human Face
"The Lost Year" provides an overview account from a year later on the events of the storm and its political aftermath on a local, state and federal level. The personal stories--the human face of the disaster, are devastating.

The best posts on blogs aren't usually the funniest ones, or the most clever. They are often the ones that put the human face on the abstract idea of a "political issue". Tutterfly's posts on Terri Schiavo come to mind.

As politicals often seeks to remove us from the emotions of our higher selves, there are the very real consequences of the moral choices we face when we vote, when we act, or when we choose not to act.

Last night TRex wrote an amazing post over at Firedoglake that I think everyone should go and read. It speaks to this point better and more eloquently that i ever could.

TRex relates his personal experience coming back from the Lamont victory on the plane, and first hand witness of a family's grief at being told of their loved one's life-threatening injuries sustained in Iraq. You must read this very moving story yourself.

It's more than a story. It's a tale of a chain of events that happens as a result of action and choices. It's about the relevance of being a fully participating citizen of our democracy. And it's a tale worth telling to any one who can hear it.

Read it here. Then come back and discuss.

I'm up awfully early for a Sunday morning. I went to the dentist last Thursday and I think they broke my jaw. Or maybe they just punched me in the jaw while I wasn't paying attention. Either way, it woke me up enough to take some Alieve.

And not wanting to add misery to pain, I decided it's too damn early to write about politics. I'll get to that later after I have some coffee and write some e-mails asking for support and volunteers to phone bank for our candidate for Congress.

In the meantime, today is our son's fifth birthday.

Congratulations to him for surviving the newbie parents.

We got him a new bike (his legs were hitting the handlebars of his beloved tricycle). It's a two wheeler with training wheels. Get this: the owner's manual that comes with it is how many pages long?

112 pages. That's right. 112 pages for a bike for a five year old.

And let me tell you, it's not a nuclear powered, remote controlled, digitally mastered and remixed push button operated fully loaded six CD changer bose speakers ipod connected master cylinder made in Italy country touring roadster. It's two rubber wheels and handlebars.

112 pages. God help us.

He climbed into bed with us in the middle of the night last night. When I got out of bed this morning and looked down on his sleeping babyish boyface with the impossibly long eyelashes and lips straight out of a Raphael painting, a few things struck me.

First, how did he get so big, so long and so old? Memo to self: No more Wheaties for this kid.

Second, is this beautiful, clean, and sleeping angel the same child that comes in the house with an inch of mud and grease on him every night? Yes. Thank God he has two parents. One that provides the grease and mud. One that provides the soap and water. You can guess which one I am...

Third, this is what I fight for. Every day. My heart breaks for the parents of the children of the wars. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and Lebanon and Israel and Darfur and Central Africa. The parents of the soldiers, too, because they were once someone's five year old, sleeping in beds, and having faces with impossibly long eyelashes, children full of hope and promise.

God help us all.

I'm going back to bed. To cuddle with the birthday boy, the birthday Dad and say a few prayers of gratitude, thanking God for both of them.

Maybe the next generation will find a way to end the wars that our generation started, and succeed where we have thus far failed. I hope so. Right now, we are doing what we can today.

Today, we are phone banking and learning to ride a bike.

You have to start somewhere.

What is still the matter with Kansas? A complete and utter lack of understanding of the difference between a scientific theory and a belief, that's what.

TOPEKA, Kan., Aug. 1 -- . A member of the state Board of Education who approved new classroom standards that call evolution into question held onto his seat Tuesday, turning back a challenge from two defenders of Darwin.

John Bacon won his primary with 49 percent of the vote. Two pro-evolution challengers split the remaining vote, including one who had been a leading critic of the anti-evolution standard.

Five of the 10 seats on the board were up for election in the primary, the latest skirmish in a seesawing battle between faith and science that has opened Kansas up to international ridicule.

Let's just be clear here: Creationism is not a scientific theory, nor is intelligent design. Evolution is, in fact, a scientific theory.

In order for something to be a theory, you must be able to prove or disprove the wrongness of the theory put forth. In other words, a scientific theory must be falsifiable, able to be tested. Creationism and Intelligent Design can never be theories, because you could never prove the non-existence, or existence, of God. You can't test for God in the lab. God is a belief.

It's one thing to hold your private beliefs about God. It's quite another to insist that your beliefs are scientific fact, or even scientific theory.

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

What on earth is so complicated about that?

[graphic/picture credit to Dan Kurtzman]

UPDATE: As several people have noted in the comments, and I was aware at the time of posting, the overall power of the Topeka Board of Education has swung to the "pro-evolution" forces. Obviously, we now know what's getting better in Kansas. I had seen both articles in the Post (odd that there wasn't one story instead of two). I chose to write about the anti-evolution person who retained his board seat because I wanted to write about the persistence of the the anti-science forces, despite a full airing and questioning of the so-called 'facts' behind the creationist or intelligent design beliefs. I regret any confusion I may have caused by not pointing to at least the existence of the other article. CLM.

Famed for his response to the attacks on 9-11, Rudy Giuliani became America's mayor, not just New York City's mayor. August 30, 2004, Former NY Mayor Rudy Guiliani addressed the Republican National Convention. Who can ever forget these words:

There are times when leadership is the most important.

On September 11, this city and our nation faced the worst attack in our history. On that day, we had to confront reality.

For me, when I arrived there and I stood below the north tower and I looked up, and seeing the flames of hell emanating from those buildings, and realizing that what I was actually seeing was a human being on the 101st, 102nd floor, that was jumping out of the building, I stood there, it probably took five or six seconds, it seemed to me that it took 20 or 30 minutes, and I was stunned.

And I realized, in that moment, in that instant, I realized we were facing something that we have never, ever faced before.

We had never been confronted with anything like this before. We had to concentrate all of our energy and our faith and our hope to get through those first hours and days. And we needed all the help that we could get and all the support that we could get.

And I will always remember that moment as we escaped the building that we were trapped in at 75 Barclay Street, and I realized that things outside might actually be worse than inside the building.

We did the best we could to communicate a message of calm and hope, as we stood on the pavement watching a cloud come through the cavernous streets of lower Manhattan.

Our people were so brave in their response.

At the time, we believed that we would be attacked many more times that day and in the days that followed. Without really thinking, based on just emotion, spontaneous, I grabbed the arm of then-Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, and I said to him, "Bernie, thank God George Bush is our president."

I say it again tonight. I say it again tonight:

Thank God that George Bush is our president, and thank God that Dick Cheney, a man with his experience and his knowledge and his strength and his background, is our vice president

That was 2004...What happened in 2005?

Spinning out of control...

Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race.

Satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site show what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year, a 20-fold increase from Pakistan's current capabilities, according to a technical assessment by Washington-based nuclear experts.

IMHO, the most bizarre sentence in the story has to be this, from a senior Pakistani official:

"Pakistan's nuclear program has matured.[...]"

It's a frightening society which thinks that the words "nuclear weapons program" and "matured" belong in the same sentence, especially when discussing the expansion of that program.

Seriously, now, if this were Bill Clinton in this picture and not George Bush, wouldn't we be hearing from the gasbag punditry non-stop about this behavior as sleazy, sexually abusive, reprehensible (fill in your own gasbag adjective here) behavior?

Really, it's still all about the narrative.

(pictures lifted from Josh Marshall)

I have a new game that I play with my friend Bill in New York. It started last January over dinner, when I asked him - when will the New Enlightenment come?

He thought about it and then answered: "It has to get pretty dark before it happens."

Every so often these last seven months, I check in with Bill, usually around the time my tolerance threshhold has been breached by yet another in the latest of the administration's dismal environmental policies, the congressional majority's utter lack of productivity, the onging problems with Katrina relief.

And of course, Iraq.

Each and every time, I e-mail Bill with my grocery list of grievances asking: Is it dark enough yet?

Witness this blog entry by Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic. Here's an excerpt:

Even by the degraded standards of everyday life in Baghdad, this report from CNN's Nic Robertson comes as a shock:

One international official told me of reports among his staff that a 15-year-old girl had been beheaded and a dog's head sewn on her body in its place; and of a young child who had had his hands drilled and bolted together before being killed.

...Robertson's dispatch points to a revolting truth about the war in Iraq--one that American officers discovered long ago, but which has yet to penetrate fully the imaginations of theoreticians writing from a distant remove. The fact is, there is very little that we can do to dampen the sectarian rage and pathologies tearing Iraq apart at the seams. Did the Army make a mistake when it banished "counterinsurgency" from the lexicon of military affairs? Absolutely. Does it matter in Iraq? Probably not. How can you win over the heart and mind of someone who sews a dog's head on a girl? Would more U.S. troops alter Iraq's homicidal dynamic? Not really, given that, on the question of sectarian rage, America is now largely beside the point.

This is Josh Marshall's commentary yesterday in Talking Points Memo:

Kaplan's one of the smartest and most candid of the neocons (not much of a compliment in itself, I grant you, but deserved in a fuller sense in his case). But here you have the final come-down. Not an admission of error here or there or in execution, but total -- that the whole idea and concept and program was upside-down-wrong in its essence.

Mark the moment -- that's the ghost given up.

Iraq's internal violence has so escalated that even the neocon press are beginning to admit our military presence DOESN'T EVEN MATTER. Yet by pure stubborness, pride, face or job-saving that needs to be done, the message still seems to be STAY THE COURSE. I don't know which is darker--is it the violence itself or the need to be right regardless of the reality?

The last time I emailed Bill, he said, "Any one of the issues that you mention should be enough to stop business as usual here in this country if we were really there yet!"

The question is how much darker do we need to go before we begin to see light? Are we really there yet to finally admit that its gotten dark enough?

President Bush has decided to travel the country to find out what's on people's minds. From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON -President Bush will hold a news conference Friday in Chicago as the White House explores new venues for putting the president before the public.

It will be his first full scale news conference since June 14 in the Rose Garden on his return from a surprise visit to Iraq.

[...]

Bartlett said the Chicago trip was the beginning of occasional presidential trips around the country to learn what's on Americans' minds.

How nice. He want to know what's on Americans minds. Occasionally. But I think we all realize that the President could figure out what's on people minds from, oh, say, reading the damn newspaper like the rest of us.

Or I could just save him the trip and send him this birthday post, courtesy of the powerful photo essay blogging of Hecate.

But before we jump to any conclusions such as, Bush will be meeting the ordinary townsfolk (you know, the ones that do the living and fighting and working and dying that the Bush policies have forced on them) I think we need to ask, is this another Bamboozlepalooza Tour?

Is this just going to be another series of staged events wherein the President speaks to worshipful hand-picked audiences and the press remains somnambulent and silent about this massive fraud at taxpayer expense? And isn't the "adoring fans only" ticketing policy perhaps part of the reason why the President remains isolated and clueless as to what Americans are thinking? And doesn't that same policy perhaps explain Mrs. Bush's oddly delusional view of reality, as evidenced by this excerpt from the Bush's appearance on Larry King Live last night? (emphasis added)

KING: Doesn't it hurt to say more people are -- don't like what I'm doing than like what I'm doing?

G. BUSH: Well...

KING: Does it bother you?

L. BUSH: Not really. I mean, the polls are just...

KING: But it's a sign.

L. BUSH: It's a sign, but it's not necessarily really what we see. I mean, when we travel around the country, when we visit with people, that's not what we hear all the time.

Really, isn't this just a way to get Bush around the country at taxpayer expense to fundraise for beleagured Republicans candidates?

Is anyone in the press corpse going to ask this question?

Let's see if any of them notice this part as a feature of the kick-off event for the "Find Out What's On American's Minds Tour":

Friday's session, around 11 a.m. EDT, is expected to run about an hour and be open to Chicago-area press as well as the White House press corps that accompanies the president, said Dan Bartlett, the president's counselor.

Somebody want to explain to me how the President will be finding out what on American's minds when the event is only open to the press?

This afternoon, an Indian gentleman stopped by the place at the White House where we have been talking with visitors about the Troops Home Fast. He listened as John Pope explained why we were there. Then he looked at all of us and said, in a strong calm voice, "Hunger is powerful."

It is such encounters that keep me going. Yesterday two soldiers stopped by and thanked us. We have spoken with families from Australia, New York City, Canada, California, Arizona--almost all were supportive. Those who are not tend to yell at us.

The Indian man told us that he met Mohandas Gandhi. It seems Gandhi devoted fifteen minutes every day to playing with children. When this man was 1 year old, his father (a freedom fighter) took him to meet the great leader.

Several of us moved into the shade to hear more. The man spoke about asking his father for the money to attend university, which his father refused. He told his son that he did not want the bad karma associated with progress; progress that threatened the livelihood of farmers and weavers.

Diane Wilson listens to the discussion of progress

Father Louis Vitale spoke about being in Bangalore and hearing the workers speak of Gandhi as too regressive. Father Vitale is a veteran of many fasts, and has been jailed often for his actions, particularly at the School of the Americas. He lives in San Francisco and works with the poor and homeless in the Tenderloin district.

Father Vitale saying goodbye to the Indian man

Father Vitale and Diane Wilson are both here for the duration -- until the troops come home. Dick Gregory stopped by for a while today and he inspired us anew.

I have to share that this is a pretty incredible experience for me. I do not have half the conviction of the people I am with; it is day by day for me. But to hear Diane talk about how effective she has been--well, you can see it in her.

As the PM of Canada was leaving today, the police told us we had to clear the park. They said that radiation had been detected. Diane did not leave. Raed (who is Iraqi) stayed as well, and he was incensed that the same tactics that Saddam used on his people were being used on us. He may sue.

I will add that we thought that it was not very nice of the police to clear us out, away from the dangerous radiation, while they themselves had little or no protection. We did point out our concern, but they seemed unworried.

It is President Bush's birthday today and we have made a big birthday card, which I will put up later. Feel free to leave your own wishes for his special day here.

As Editor and Publisher reports, the Republican Congressman from my birthplace, Peter King (R-NY), has labeled the actions of anyone who discloses classified information during wartime "treasonous". (emphasis mine)

WASHINGTON The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Bush administration Sunday to seek criminal charges against The New York Times for reporting on a secret financial-monitoring program used to trace terrorists.

Rep. Peter King blasted the newspaper's decision last week to report that the Treasury Department was working with the CIA to examine messages within a massive international database of money-transfer records.

"I am asking the Attorney General to begin an investigation and prosecution of The New York Times -- the reporters, the editors and the publisher," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y. "We're at war, and for the Times to release information about secret operations and methods is treasonous."

While King was referring to the NY Times' reports of US Treasury Department's massive mining of financial database records, I am sure that in his quest to be the uber-patriot, he would include anyone who leaked such information during wartime.

As such, I am sure he is extremely concerned about Scooter Libby's role in the leaking of Valerie Plame's name to the press, and will be asking for Karl Rove to step down.

Or will he? Regardless of whether the courts ever pass judgement of the actions of the New York Times, does Congressman King also believe that Scooter Libby should also be charged with treason?

Enquiring minds want to know. And those enquiring minds can reach Congressman King's office to ask those question at 202-225-7896.

Please let us know if Congressman King supports the troops by removing traitors in his midst.

Anyone feel like it's August 2004 again?

I do. The media is suckling at the Republican narrative "Dems are divided...Dems are weak on National Security..." teat and what are the Democrats doing? I mean, what are the Democrats doing?

Moreover, what should they be doing?

Here's some advice from TRex over at FDL and I'd like to know what people think of this:

Which brings me to tonight’s topic. As netroots activists, we hear a lot of talk about the importance of "reframing the arguments", and I couldn’t agree more. But so few of our advocates in the public sphere seem to be taking that advice to heart. The whole "Lie and Die" thing is a nice try, Mr. Kerry, it’s short and it rhymes, sure, but it is still a response to the GOP’s charges of us being "cut and run" liberals. It still places us in the argument in a defensive crouch.

As long as we continue to form our strategies and sound bites around defending ourselves, the GOP will always win. They have consistently set the tone for every debate from gay marriage to the War in Iraq by arriving there first, seizing the moral high ground, and hurling accusations, which the vichy Dems seem more than willing to waste their time parrying, ducking and weaving around in a doomed effort to justify themselves to the electorate, no matter how absurd and disingenuous the accusations are. We always enter the debate on terms set by the Republicans. If we continue to do that, we will always, always lose.

Listen to me, Democrats! Never defend. Never explain. Attack, attack, attack! When a right-winger accuses you of something, back up, reframe, ignore the charges, just ATTACK. How hard can this be? Ann Coulter doesn’t waste her time defending herself against our accusations. Neither does Rush Limbaugh. They launch their attacks and the terms of the debate are set from there, and once again, as liberals, we are bringing knives to a gun fight.

To whit:

A Republican says, "All you liberals are cut-and-run traitors! You don’t support the troops!"

Instead of frantically beginning to tap dance and show that you’re not a traitor and that you do support the troops, you fire back, "Why are you Republicans such cowards? Your leaders are all draft-dodgers who’ve never fired a shot at anything but a bunch of canned quails and old lawyers. You’re using the troops as human shields against the midterm elections! Do you like seeing our brave men and women in uniform slaughtered and killed? Or are you just too much of a coward to face the consequences of your failed policies in Iraq? Which is it? Do you just hate the soldiers or do you hate your constituents?"

There. You have just put the burden of proof on the Repugnican that he/she isn’t a coward and that they don’t hate the troops. Then you set up a false dichotomy that they can’t answer without looking like a fool.

The rest of the entry is here. I'd like to know what people think of this approach. Please comment.

There are a couple of other strategies being floated out there and I will post on them later today for discussion.

I am posting these, because, as I have written on before, the Democrats will not be in charge of the narrative, because they are not in charge of the media. The only topics that will be covered in the media wil be Iraq, Immigration, fear and loathing. And it's up to the Democrats to deal with it. So the DCP will be posting several options, and we would appreciate your feedback.

At the first event of the 2nd day of the Take Back America conference, Hillary Clinton threw plenty or red meat to the crowd. She started with what she called “the overwhelming need to return integrity to our voting system,” calling on the crowd to spend the next few months going to local and state election officials to do everything possible to make sure every vote counts: “To take back America, we have to take back our electoral system.”

She hailed Democratic victories at stopping the worst excesses of the Bush administration, from the gay marriage amendment to the estate tax, despite the party's minority status.

But in a theme she returned to several times, she emphasized the importance of throwing the Republicans out of Congress in November.

The only sour note came when she started to talk about the war. There were scattered boos as she started in, with some people shouting out “Stop the War.” Clinton was unflustered, and powered on through the rest of her speech, to a largely standing ovation, and a rush of well-wishers as she left the stage.

Anyone who's hung around national politics for a few election cycles can tell you that the process is enough to make almost anyone temporarily crazy, if not push you completely into the deep end.

Third-party notions are especially likely to induce flights of fancy uninformed by more than a century of sad results, at least from the perspective of those who believed that a third party might actually replace the Ds or the Rs.

Now comes Unity08, one of the stranger manifestations of the third-party illusion, with a whole gang of illustrious advisors from both parties, mixed in with a bunch of current college students.

With a pox on both Ds and Rs, Unity08 envisions a 2008 ticket with a D president, R vice-president, or vice-versa. The implication appears to be that both parties are equally responsible for the various messes our country is in today.

This conclusion itself raises some profound concerns about the sanity of the entire Unity08 venture: who do the founders of Unity08 think is in charge of the federal government these days anyway? Both parties? I don't think so. If one party controls the House and the Senate and the White House, wouldn't it be logical to conclude that that party was largely responsible for the state of government today?

If you think you can explain any internal coherency in the Unity08 strategy, please feel free to share your analysis here.

I see that the next stop on the Republican's campaign swing through the Senate legislative agenda is the Flag Burning Amendment.

The Flag Burning Amendment is a cheap and embarrassingly transparent cheap political ploy by Republicans. They are attempting to make anyone who has the good sense to oppose this amendment, usually Democrats, appear unpatriotic.

The message is simple--anyone who desecrates even so much as a symbol of our country's freedom clearly hates America and that for which it stands.

Maybe one of the good Senators who support this amendment can answer this question for me: How come burning the flag is wrong, but using the US Constitution for cheap political gain is perfectly okay?

I was only seven years old, but I remember the news reports of the My Lai Massacre.

I remember sitting in the late night glow of the black and white television with my father, watching Tom Snyder on Tomorrow, conduct groundbreaking interviews about the massacre. I remember the public sadness and outrage. It was real. It was palpable.

It was on the Nightly News.

And now we have Haditha. And what is likely the Haditha cover-up. I know that I feel sadness and outrage, and I suspect that all of you reading this post feel that, too, but where is the public sense of right and wrong on this issue?

People I have spoken with either don't know, or don't really "get" the importance of Haditha. I understand the lack of shock. But I don't understand the seeming lack of emotional reaction.

Is it me, or is the public yawning at yet another atrocity commited in the name of democracy?

[UPDATED at 10:40 AM (EST): More from the BBC here, and Iraq Prime Minister statement that US forces are committing violence against Iraqi on a daily basis (registration required for NYT article). Hattip to Aravosis for additional stories. Will this be the tipping point for American outrage? If not, what will?]

The so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who mounted the lying attacks on John Kerry's military record are still at it, according to a frontpage story in today's New York Times. The story shows that every new fact that has emerged since the election gives the lie to the SBVT's claims.

Yet the paper is still pulling its punches, as if despite the new evidence, we should all still be treating this pack of lies as if there must have been some factual foundation in there somewhere.

What will it take for a major news outlet like the New York Times to finally denounce the SBVT's role in the 2004 election, and show us the web of money and connections that linked its work to the Bush campaign? Or even easier, perhaps someone at the NSA could simply leak a few phone conversations as the arrangements were being made?

Part of the mystery is why the SBVT claims took hold in August, when they'd apppeared before. I first saw the SBVT claims as the blogmaster for the Kerry campaign in the fall of 2003, when they began to pop up on the blog, although they did not appear to be part of an organized campaign at the time. The bloggers responded quickly with the facts and the attacks ended rather quickly.

Then there was an organized effort in the spring of 2004, but it didn't gain any traction in the mainstream media. There was a lot more material out there on the Kerry blog and all the other blogs supporting the campaign about John's military record, but there was no major stir on the blogosphere either.

The Convention showcased John Kerry's military heroism. It may be that we thought the most challenging record we needed to be defending was John Kerry's outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War once he came back home, and that was the characterization that needed the most counterbalancing. Instead, the image of Kerry in navy whites, the salutes, the "reporting for duty" became the perfect opportunity to give the SBVT the spotlight and to take JK down a notch.

Something happened after the convention. Instead of ignoring or going lightly over the new SVBT allegations and moving on, all of a sudden there was wall-to-wall coverage, with the totally undocumented claims of the SBVT being treated as if they were on the same level of credibility as all of Kerry's military records. All of this clamor occurred without a single shred of documentary evidence to back up the SBVT's claims.

Would I have liked the campaign to have counter-attacked earlier? Yes. But we should not be under any illusions about whether such a counter-attack would have succeeded in the poisonous atmosphere that the media created.

As Bob Somerby has shown so clearly at The Daily Howler in his analysis of how the media croaked Al Gore in 2000, if the national media are collectively framing a candidate in an unquestioned negative way, it is very difficult for a campaign to overcome this negative frame.

I remember hoping after Nixon's 2nd victory that I would live long enough to see him disgraced. I find myself having the same feeling now about the media's handling of the SBVT. The media's failure to treat the SBVT in 2004 as a bunch of right-wing funded liars, has gone a long way towards keeping America safe for corporate profiteerism and the realm of our 21st century robber barons.

For a political party whose "strict constructionists" claim to value the "original intent" of the Framers above all else, the Republicans are not getting their money's worth from Attorney General Gonzales.

Take Gonzales' appearance Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Gonzales once again raised the option of prosecuting journalists for published leaked classified information under the creaky 1917 Espionage Act (a wonderful bill that was passed in an earlier frenzy of domestic oppression against critics of President Wilson's devious maneuvering to get the U.S. involved in World War I.)

Gonzales said that he understood "very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to promote and respect...but it can't be the case that that right [1st amendment] trumps over the right [sic] that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity."

Very smooth. One "right" trumps another right. Except that there is no alleged "right" in the Constitution that guarantees "the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity."

Now we have been learning that President Bush and his minions must believe in this unfettered "right...to go after criminal activity." They've thrown so many Constitutional rights out the window, some of which have been around for hundreds of years (habeus caucus for example), all in the name of pursuing terrorists.

But as Larry Beinhart puts so succinctly over at Huffington Post,
"With all this horseshit," where are the ponies?
(For those of you too young to remember President Ronald Reagan, one of his most well-known avuncular stories was about a boy digging in a pile of horseshit who said that with all this horseshit around, there must be a pony in there somewhere.)

Beinhart's point is a great one which Democrats ought to pick up on. After all the time and money and shredding of one Constitutional right after another, what has Bush got to show?

In a great comment on Beinhart's piece, Roddy McCorley reminds us that comparing the "war on terror" to the World War II doesn't hold up very well for Bush:

"Tell us how you've located Osama bin Laden. It's been over four and a half years."

I'd like to offer a bit of historical contrast, if I may: It took us less than four years to smash the Nazi war machine and defeat the Empire of Japan, either of which presented a more formidable challenge than al Qaeda. Somehow we liberated Europe without creating a tenacious pro-Nazi insurgency. If we haven't found Osama yet, it's because somebody very high up does not want to.

Could the Democrats bring themselves to use a commonsense argument like this one? Every day the pile of horseshit gets higher and deeper.

From AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Senate committee approved a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage Thursday, after a shouting match that ended when one Democrat strode out and the Republican chairman bid him "good riddance."

"I don't need to be lectured by you. You are no more a protector of the Constitution than am I," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) shouted after Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) declared his opposition to the amendment, his affinity for the Constitution and his intention to leave the meeting.

"If you want to leave, good riddance," Specter finished.

"I've enjoyed your lecture, too, Mr. Chairman," replied Feingold, who is considering a run for president in 2008. "See ya."

Well, I think the real debate in the above passage is whether Arlen Spector is ANY sort of protector of the Constitution, let alone as good as Feingold.

But here's a clue, Arlen: Foregoing endless opportunities to stop bigotry against homosexuals does not make you a defender of the Constitution. Foregoing endless opportunities to shutdown NSA activities that are clearly in violation of Congressionally-enacted statues, does not make you a defender of the Constitution. Raising a judge to the highest court in the land for a lifetime appointment, when said judge has clearly lied to Congress does not make you a defender of the Constitution.

You know what makes someone a defender of the Constitution? Actually standing up and defending the Constitution. For example: Walking out and refusing to participate in a group that would promulgate bigotry for the sake of giving bigotry a "full debate in the Senate". Taking a stand against those who say (yeah, I'm looking at you, Arlen, and you too, Pat Roberts) they defend the Constitution, and then turn Article I of the Constitution into nothing more than a dog and pony show. Voting against election year legislation that panders to homophobes and bigots. These are things that make you a defender of the Constitution.

Defending the Constitution is more than lip service. It require real public service. It requires action, and sometimes those actions require courage.

When it comes to action and courage necessary for defending the Constitution, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Spector, is no Russ Feingold.

And that's a damn shame.

Good political writing occurs in many places; here is one item we wanted to share with the DCP readers.

Nancy Greggs, a member of the Democratic Underground blog, wrote this very poignant & profound open letter to Republican representatives in Congress. With her permission, we have provided it here in its entirety.

Nancy has also given open permission for her letter to be widely distributed to other blogs, newspaper editorial boards, representatives in Congress, etc. She only asks that we give her attribution as the author and a plug for Democratic Underground (when possible) as the original publisher.

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

George Orwell, 1984 (1948)

Just in case there was anyone out there left who thought that there was any personal privacy remaining, this ought to put that fantasy to rest:

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY.

The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren't suspected of any crime. This program does not involve the NSA listening to or recording conversations. But the spy agency is using the data to analyze calling patterns in an effort to detect terrorist activity, sources said in separate interviews.

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

For the customers of these companies, it means that the government has detailed records of calls they made — across town or across the country — to family members, co-workers, business contacts and others.

B-b-but, but, but I thought they were only spying on people talking to Al Qaeda? You mean they are keeping records of every phone call we make without a court order?

Yes, Virginia, they are. First they spy. Then they lie. The Fourth Amendment?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It's in the shredder.

If I were on the Intelligence Committee, I would raise hell until I got a list of people who have access to this information, and people who have accessed this information in the past.

Here's the list of the members of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. Feel free to give them a phone call to voice your concern over this illegal program.

Here's what I will be asking when I call:

I understand that the NSA is amassing the largest database of phone records in history, and those phone records are of ordinary citizens, most of whom have no ties to terrorists, could you tell me what the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution says? And how is this program legal under the Fourth Amendment? And what does Member/Senator X plan to do about it? How do I find out if my phone records have been illegally appropriated?

What will you be asking?

In any parliamentary democracy, George Bush would already be long gone. Defenders of the American system like to point out that having a fixed four-year term for the president guarantees us more stability than countries like Italy. But if stability is based on stupidity, or worse, then the "vote of no confidence" test in parliamentary systems begins to look more interesting.

If the Democrats in the Senate had even a smidgen of courage, they would invent an American version of a vote of no confidence in the Bush regime. Here we have an administration which only one-third of the country now supports, but Bush continues onward as if he were entitled to govern no matter how many people reject him.

It's Tuesday morning, and I am swamped with the sheer number of criminal stories there are about our members of government and thier cronies.

On the list of those identified as Representative/Person A are Bob Ney, Karl Rove, and William Jefferson.

Then we have the ongoing spectacle of Katherine Harris, who received $4000 in campaign contributions from MZM buddies, and will soon be wearing the "Hi, my name is Representative A" nametag as part of the MZM probe, and there's Dusty Foggo.

Leading the Republican Culture of Corruption, there's former house Majority Leader Tom DeLay, under indictment, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, under SEC investigation for insider trading, and soon to be under investigation for his dealings with Big Pharma. And they are led by a President who doesn't view his actions as criminal because he holds himself above the law.

Nice.

It's crooks, cronies and a dictator. Which ones are you talking about today?

Post your thoughts and stories on this subject here, and let's discuss it.

[UPDATE 10:00 AM, EST: Since this story was written earlier this morning, Bush has nominated Hayden to be Director of the CIA. Go figure.]

When my son is attempting the tall tale in defense of his latest behavior, or in advance set-up of one to come, my husband and I warn him that our "malarkey detector" is about to explode, going to Code Red, making all sorts of loud beeps and sounds.

Which brings me to the Republican "outcry" against Michael Hayden becoming the next director of the CIA. My malarkey detector is about to go to Code Red.

From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, May 7 — Senior Republican lawmakers on Sunday criticized the probable choice of Gen. Michael V. Hayden to lead the Central Intelligence Agency, voicing concerns about his ties to a controversial eavesdropping program and about the wisdom of installing a military officer at the civilian spy agency.

In a possible preview of the difficulties that would await General Hayden on Capitol Hill, several Republicans, including some with close ties to the White House, said President Bush should find someone else to run the embattled agency.

"I do believe he is the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time," Representative Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday."

"We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time," Mr. Hoekstra said.

Several military officers have led the C.I.A., but Mr. Hoekstra said it would be wrong to install one when the agency was fending off efforts by the Pentagon to expand its own spying operations.

After spending the weekend hearing the media adopt the first Snow-job about Porter Goss' abrupt exit from the CIA, I can smell the next one coming.

Here's how it goes: First the Republicans say they are going to nominate person X. Then some high profile Republicans pretend to whine about X without actually saying they will oppose him. Then X goes to confirmation hearings and all Republicans unite and say, "Well, he answered all of my questions", and by answering questions, they mean, "He tied his tie right, didn't he?" Then all the Republicans vote to confirm and the Democrats get hoodwinked again by thinking that Republicans care about bipartisanship.

Charlie Brown and football, meet Lucy. Again.

Here's the most important part of the NY Times story:

None of the Republican or Democratic lawmakers who appeared on television on Sunday or who were interviewed separately said directly that they would vote against General Hayden's nomination.

Of course they didn't, and anyone who thinks that there's a snowball's chance in hell that Senator John Cornyn is going to vote against Michael Hayden, is seriously delusional.

Then there's this:

Mr. Hoekstra would not directly participate in a debate over General Hayden, because the Senate, not the House, is responsible for confirming the president's nominee.

So basically The NY Times is wrapping an entire story around a Republican who will never have to put the courage of his convictions on the line. Instead of the conversation being about Hayden's unfitness for the post due to the fact that he instituted and directed an illegal domestic spying operation at the NSA, the conversation is about whether or not the guy is in uniform.

The media as tool one more time.

Oh yeah, my malarkey alert is about to explode.

A number of people have written to me to tell their story of Ambien, and I hope that people will be kind enough to share their experiences on this thread in an effort to get more information about this medication out.

I'll go first. This is my experience with Ambien.

Not too long after my parents died, I was having some trouble sleeping. My doctor prescribed Ambien. I was also on an anti-spasm (not a muscle relaxer, and anti-spasm) medication for a problem arising from arthritis in my neck. Same doctor. I asked about drug interaction. None listed. Okay, well, I am not exactly a trusting soul, so I called the pharmacy and spoke to the pharmacist who had helped me get my terminally ill mother adequate pain medication before she died (the OTHER side of the problem with prescription drugs in America). Again, no known interaction.

At about two o'clock in the morning, I woke up out of a sound sleep, got some cheese tortellini from the freezer, put it in a dish and put it in the oven and turned the broiler on high.

Fortunately, my husband heard me get up and came downstairs in time just as the tortillini was beginning to burn and smoke. Thank God. I could have burned down the house, killing us all.

And here's the other thing that was really scary: I have NO recollection of it whatsoever. My doctor didn't warn me of any drug interactions, because only now is the word starting to get out. This is happening all over. And amnesia is FAR from unheard of when it comes to Ambien behavior.

Frankly, what happened to Congressman Kennedy makes PERFECT sense to me.

In my opinion, this medication should be pulled from the marketplace, or at the very least, carrying a stronger warning and fuller disclosure of its reported side effects. But that my lay opinion. I would be interested to hear what Oncall and Zennurse and other medical or medical related professioals have to say about their experiences.

I also want this to be an open thread to discuss people experiences with Ambien, articles on it, the coverage of Congressman Kennedy's car accident, his subsequent entrance into rehab, and perhaps even the whole damn problem with Big Pharma in America.

Thread away.

As a child growing up in the 1950s in southern Virginia, I knew that there was something special about New York City. My best friend's parents grew up in New York, and their house had an air of mystery and intellectual excitement which I attributed to their exotic lives in New York before they moved south.

Then there's that Beacon of Liberty stuff. The Statue of Liberty is always inspirational, but the whole city is a beacon of liberty for America and the world. It's no wonder that mention of the city strikes fear in the hearts of people who distrust the chaos of democracy in American's most small-d democratic city.

In his always useful column about civil liberties, Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff hails New York for doing the best job in the country at teaching kids the American history they need to know to become defenders of freedom.

Writing about the American history materials available on the NYC Department of Education's Social Studies website, Hentoff says:

“I doubt—and wait to be corrected—that any other public school system in the country provides students with as wide-ranging an arsenal of knowledge to fulfill the foresight of Thomas Jefferson: "Our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves."

What are kids in your city learning? The popularity of Howard Zinn's Peoples' History of the United States is an unfortunate tribute to the poor job most schools do in imparting the history we need to know to be activists. I don't remember learning about any of the material in Zinn's book in my long-ago civics classes.

If you want to help your kids (or yourself) understand the promise of the Constitution and the threats to our liberties we face today, Hentoff gives a rave review to Linda Monk's The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution (Hyperion):

“...nothing equals the clarity of the writing and exciting research in this illustrated (photographs, prints, original documents) adventure of who we are—and how to stay a free people.”

Having already filled every square inch of bookshelf space in my house, I've cut back on my book-buying. But with a recommendation like this one, I can feel my “no more books for a while” resolve slipping away. My wife will kill me.

In breaking news: After deliberating for over 40 hours, the jury in the trial of the so-called 20th 9-11 highjacker, Zacharias Moussaoui, has voted for a penalty of life imprisonment, without the possibility of parole. You can read the verdict for yourself here.

Any thoughts on this? Let's hear it.

In other news, Chris Cileeza provides a little wrap up of yesterday primaries, including Ken Blackwell winning his primary in Ohio.

Any thoughts on this? Let's hear it.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the pain I felt when I first heard about polar bears drowning because global warming has forced them to swim increasingly long distances between ice flows.

Well, now it's official: the World Conservation Union (IUCN) just released the 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, a.k.a. The Red List, and polar bears have moved from being a conservation dependent species, into Vulnerable in the threatened species categories.

The Red List pains a grim picture: the number of species facing the threat of extinction has reached 16,119. Here's how the head of the WCU, Achim Steiner, sums things up:

“The 2006 IUCN Red List shows a clear trend: biodiversity loss is increasing, not slowing down. The implications of this trend for the productivity and resilience of ecosystems and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people who depend on them are far-reaching. Reversing this trend is possible, as numerous conservation success stories have proven. To succeed on a global scale, we need new alliances across all sectors of society. Biodiversity cannot be saved by environmentalists alone – it must become the responsibility of everyone with the power and resources to act.”

The IUCN website has wonderful resources about the endangered plants and animals on this year's Red List. There is also a large gallery of photos, plus a link to one of the best nature photography sites on the web, Arkive.

The species extinction business is not one of humanity's pretty sights. There's no doubt that human beings are primarily responsible for the hugely accelerated rate of extinction, whether it's from global warming or simple hunting. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, there were 30,000 hippos as recently as 1994. In an area wracked by civil conflicts, people have killed 95% of the Congo's hippos, for meat and for the ivory in their teeth.

Check out the IUCN's pictures, and look at all the different kinds of plants and animals that we are pushing into extinction. Groups like IUCN and Conservation International are pushing back as best they can, but as this year's Red List shows, it's not enough. What do you think? Can you think of one thing you did today that might give a toad, or a deep-water shark, or a desert flower, a slightly better chance of surviving for another year?

As our globalizing civilization accelerates the destruction of the planet, it’s easy to get innured to one disaster story after another. How much worse is more coral bleaching, or tree-eating bugs spreading north, or tree-frogs going extinct because their cloud forests are drying out?

It takes a strong stomach to stay at the business of trying to protect the natural world, and it grinds away at even the most dedicated. Yet you can’t walk around in a state of fury, or depression, and expect to have a chance of accomplishing anything.

But I’m finding lately that there are stories, and images, breaking through the defenses, that chill my bones, that I can feel tearing away a chunk of my heart that I will never get back.

People around the world are commemorating the 20th anniversary of the worst nuclear power accident in history at the Chernobyl reactor in the then-Soviet Union. The accident released many times as much radioactivity into the air as the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, produced immediate casualties from intense radiation exposure, and will continue causing elevated cancer rates for decades to come. There are several usual links at the bottom of this post.

I've been thinking a lot about nuclear power lately because of two events: reports that the Bush administration is considering using nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear laboratories; and the huge push the nuclear power industry has launched worldwide to resurrect the industry by claiming that nuclear energy is the solution to global warming. Since I started fighting nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the mid-1970s with New England's Clamshell Alliance, I've always thought that the single gravest danger of spreading nuclear power plants around the globe was that we were simultaneously spreading the knowledge and materials for building nuclear weapons. Iran and North Korea are only the latest examples of this terrible folly.

There is an important piece of legislation before the Commerce Committee in Congress this week and everyone who reads this should get involved.

The Democracy Cell Project, as a 501(c)(3) will not argue one way or another on this piece of legislation, except to point out that we think neutrality of access on the net is a principle of democracy, part and parcel of freedom of speech, or in this case, freedom to be heard.

One commentor, as noted over at Eschaton this morning, called this legislation, Medicare Part D for the internet. Kevin Drum doesn't understand it, or why people think it's so bad. You see the problem.

Fortunately, there are MANY MANY posts on blogs about this issue that will help you to understand the fate of the internet is this legislation passes.

Please get involved. Here's a short list of blogs that are posting on this matter with links to the issue. There are also several blogs that have been started to deal specifically with this issue.

My DD - Has a good round-up on the issue

Taylor Marsh guest posting over at FireDogLake with a more in-depth essay and great links

You Tube - This short video explains the issue.

SaveTheInternet.com - The name says it all

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo - Josh gives the crisp explanation

Political Animal - Comment section helps to answers the questions on the issue that Kevin poses that you may share.

Get involved now. The vote could come as soon as tomorrow. The National Journal reports that the raised profile of this issue is making a difference. Be part of that difference.

Go visit the links and make your voice heard today on this important issue.

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Elie Wiesel

London is a busy city, a place crowded with people from all over the world. English may be heard, but also Arabic, Farsi, Swahili, Japanese, French, German... As we wandered the city last week, we became aware of the constant presence of the world as it is. You cannot move around the city and not be confronted with what is happening globally.

Brian Haw has been in front of the Houses of Parliament for almost five years. When we came across him last week, he was in his chair, and ready to talk about torture, and war and the deaths of children.

Senator Russ Feingold didn't waste any time endorsing his fellow Senator John Kerry's call for pulling out of Iraq on a firm timeline. There is the usual grumping around the blogosphere about who went first, etc. People need to lift up their eyes unto the hills: something is happening in the House and the Senate, and instead of gimlet-eyed examination of "who's on first," we should be excited to see Murtha and Kerry and Feingold all lining up in the same direction: it's time to get out of Iraq. Senator Feingold's quick statement in support of Kerry (see below) is a tribute to Feingold's selflessness in pursuing this goal.

Could there be any doubt that the millions of people who've been working to end the war are seeing some results for all their hard work? It wasn't the DNC that sent Murtha and Feingold and Kerry out there to take these positions. It was us. We're not sitting in the water anymore, with no one to champion our cause inside the Capitol. Now we have to get more Senators and Reps to get off their butts and sign on ASAP. One of the basic rules in politics is that if your opponent is down, whether he/she slipped or you put him/her there, so you want to get your foot on his/her neck and never let up on the pressure.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece was written by Dick Bell, who teamed with Karen to liveblog today's Senate Censure hearing.]

The immediate scrums after the hearing broke up centered on Sen. Feingold. There were questions about why there weren't more Democratic Senators present; Feingold said Leahy's opening statement was the strongest statement Leahy has made to date, that they rarely hold hearings on Friday, and that he's seen fewer Senators in the middle of the week [all of which your correspondent can testify is true.]

In his post-hearing remarks, Feingold emphasized that his principle reason for seeking censure had little to do with the NSA spying itself, and that focusing on the narrow issue of the NSA actually helped the White House by taking attention away from the pattern of Bush's power grabs. He joked that being attacked by the New York Times "probably helps me."

Feingold said afterwards that he had chosen censure in order to avoid the wrenching impeachment process. He pointed out that while the Republicans predicted Bush's polls would shoot up in response to Feingold's censure resolution (the RNC is running an ad conflating censure and impeachment), nothing of the sort has taken place.

He told a questioner that he felt he had no choice but to bring this resolution in order to defend the rule of law: "A Democratic Party that doesn't stand up for the rule of law is not the Democratic Party I want."

What was really extraordinary was that this hearing took place at all. While the formality of the hearing restrains the intensity of debate, this hearing room is also a very long way from the back rooms of the blgosphere. Feingold, and the grassroots support of his work, was able to force onto the public record very clear statements about the dangers of the course that Bush has put us on.

In that respect, John Dean was perhaps the most on message speaker. His argument about Bush seeking more power for the sake of gathering more power, unlike most of the earlier presidents whose power-grabbing was in the interest of some program or project.

The effectiveness of Dean's arguement lit a fuse under Sen. Graham, who spent a good deal of his time bullying Dean about events during Watergate, while completely ignored the substance of Dean's critique.

Late in the hearings, Graham left the room for an extended period, but when Feingold started really unloading on Bush, Graham came hustling back into the room, ready to start baiting Dean once again. Note that Graham also spent some time presenting himself as the guy who wants to find "a middle ground," and that he said he thought there were places where Bush had gone too far. Graham has 2008 presidential ambitions, and they were on display today.

There's nobody left now but interns cleaning up the mess, disconnected the mikes, and gathering up the nameplaces.

Keep up the pressure.

DUE TO SOME TECHIE DIFFICULTIES, WE ARE USING THE COMMENTS OF THIS THREAD TO LIVE BLOG THE CENSURE HEARINGS. DICK IS LIVE BLOGGING UNDER KAREN'S HANDLE.

PLEASE JOIN US. THE MORE THE MERRIER.

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This week, I spent one afternoon at a Progressive Caucus event (more on that as we unroll the results of the inside-outside discussions) and one afternoon at the Department of Motor Vehicles for the District of Columbia.

The contrast between "Washington" and "DC" could not have been clearer. The first was a lively exchange of ideas, with lots of frank information sharing; a mutually educational environment.

The second was a dreary waiting room, where people sat, for hours, and waited for their number to be called, so they could fork over lots of money and drive a car legally in the District.

There was a lot of paper at the first event; reports, talking points, action plans. People were passionate and informed.

There was a lot of paper at the second event as well; forms filled out and checks to process. People were alternately irritated and passively defeated.

There was multimedia at the first event: powerpoint, and creative illustrations of bad policy effects.

There was only one medium at the second: a television set, turned to Judge Alex and a show about how people screw each other over and over again until one gets mad and sues the other. The ads were for depression intervention. I could understand why.

Today I am going over to the Senate Office Buildings to see about this censure hearing. I think it will be interesting to note whether it falls into the passive pass-the-Lexapro, we're-all-victims here side of the current mileu or an energetic creative discussion of what is possible.

hmmm.

Watch this space...

I can’t speak for all immigrants and their experience. I can only speak for mine. I am a child of immigrants. Our family was part of the second wave of immigrants from the Philippines started when America first colonized it in the early 20th century. My father was made a citizen in Hawaii shortly after its statehood, my mother a legal alien in the US for most of her life.

In the 1950’s the American zeitgeist for immigrants was to be as AMERICAN (meaning white and speaking English-only) as possible. And though one of these self-imposed requirements was physically impossible, the other one was exploited to the best of our ability. It got me and my sister a good education, good jobs, social acceptability. It also put a permanent glass wall between us and our parent’s culture--which I still mourn to this day. But that was the price of assimilation in those days.

I walked into the bank yesterday to make one of those long, tiresome and takes-forever-because-we-have-to-count-out-tons-of-change kind of deposits.

Fortunately, they have a good "kids corner" there, so I knew it would be okay to bring my four year old without wreaking havoc on the bank for the 20+ minutes we would be there. In case you haven't noticed, most banks are now quieter than most libraries.

Except my bank.

Since you may have to wait in line, they have thoughtfully installed a television up on the wall for your viewing pleasure while you wait. Nice. Except for one thing. It's always tuned to Fox. Always. I had marked this fact before mentally, but it wasn't until today as I thought back on it, and confirmed in my memory that it really is tuned to Fox every single time I come into the bank.

Worse still, the President was on the television, speaking to a crowd in West Virginia, informing us how brave the people from the Sago Mine tragedy are, and how we have to pray for them. He didn't mention that we need to pray especially hard for them because he and the Republican-led Congress removed the protection for miners and removed funding for enforcement of MSHA violations.

He then continued with a bit about how we need to understand what the soldiers in Eye-Rack are facing.

It's hard work you know.

As I stood in line, I thought, "That's enough."

In a fairly loud voice, I called over to the lovely teller Michelle, "Excuse me, Michelle? Can we please change the station here? I find this offensive." She nicely replied that she didn't have the remote, but she would call her manager, which she promptly did.

The manager came out of his office and over to me in line right away. He said in a fairly startled voice, " Hi. You are offended by the news?"

"No, I'm not offended by the news, " I replied. "I am offended by Fox News, which pretends to be the news, but reports things that are demonstrably false. I am offended by any news outlet which sees its job as being a cheerleader for the President instead of a cheerleader for the truth. But mostly I am offended having to listen to the President tell us how we need to understand what the troops are facing in Eye-Rack. I don't need to be lectured to about understanding what the troops face by a guy who spent Vietnam dodging the draft while other people died. You know, my child is here, and I don't want him listening to this [pointing to President Bush speaking on the television]. And I don't want to be forced to listen to this while I am standing in line. So, could you please change the channel?"

You can imagine my shock when four other people in line started applauding my mini-rant.

As the bank manager looked at us, you could see the mild surprise and acquiescence cross his face.

"Okay, well, I will go get the remote and change it. What do you want on?", he asked.

"How about the weather channel?" I said, looking at my line standing compatriots. Everyone nodded and the channel was changed.

As I look back, I hadn't noticed that when the manager came out, he hadn't intended to have to change the channel. He didn't bring the remote with him. He left it in his office. Interesting.

The real point to the story is obvious though. We don't have to take it. We don't have to tolerate propaganda in public places.

Our democracy didn't slip away in 2000 with a Supreme Court decided election, and it didn't get overthrown in 2004 either.

It's been eroded and deteriorated and desecrated, day by day, in many ways, both large and small.

It will take many actions, both large and small, on the part of all over us, to get it back. To take it back.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," said Thomas Jefferson.

Eternal vigilance everywhere. Even in line at the bank.

When I started to even THINK about writing letters to the editor, Gore had lost the recount and Bush was installed. I thought, but I didn't do anything.

Eight months later I had a baby, and six weeks after that I was nursing my baby at about nine in the morning and watching the Today Show. The date was September 11, 2001.

A week later, as I watched the manipulation of fear turn into a grab for what would eventually look an awful lot like a fascist government in our midst, I knew I needed to DO something.

I was a political and media professional. I had skills and experience. How could I stand by and do nothing?

I began to feel real terror, but not from the terrorists who attacked us in New York. I felt terror at watching the freedoms and liberties I was raised to fight for, be traded off like the cheap items and a silent auction. A very silent auction.

But I had a big problem. I had a new baby.

What if Mommy says a word that the government doesn't like and they drag Mommy off to jail? Shortly after 9-11 the Congress gave the President the power to determine who is an enemy, and then pick them up, never to be seen again.

Of course, we come to find out five years later that both Congress and the Courts are just an irritating formality to the Executive. The President did not need Congress to pass legislation approving that. He would have done it anyway. And that is what I suspected in the first place.

If I had been single and childless, it would have been much easier, but now I had a baby to consider.

I called my sister (not the Bush supporter, the one who believes in the Constitution), to complain about the government. I call her everyday with a "Daily Disgrace" political report. She had been already getting these calls for sometime, when finally one day in October she asked me pointedly, "Look, when are you going to do what you know you should be doing about this? When are you going to get involved and start writing and going public with all of this stuff?"

I said, "I can't. I'm afraid. What if they don't like what I am saying? These are some seriously scary people."

I still remember the tone of her voice when she said to me, "That's why you have to do it. Because these are very scary people."

I looked at her hard. "Hey, I'm not kidding. These are scary people and they are NOT going to like what I am saying."

She put her coffee cup down, and as she stood and turned to put on her coat to leave she looked down at the baby and said, "Well then, you better be sure that whatever you have to say, you shout from the rooftops so as many people hear as possible. The more people that know what's going on, the safer we'll all be. Really, it's our only hope."

And she was right. She still is.

One foot in front of the other. Keep moving, keep going. Each thing builds on the next.

Hope conquers despair, and action vanquishes fear.

The first time I heard the term FEAR UP was last summer, when I was working on the theatre piece that eventually acquired that title. It described perfectly the visceral experience of hearing true stories from Guantanamo and Baghdad.

We found the description of the torture technique in the The U.S. Army’s manual on interrogation, FM 34-52: “The fear-up approach is the exploitation of a source’s pre-existing fear during the period of capture and interrogation…. This approach has the greatest potential to violate the law of war.”

I couldn't stop thinking about such a strange little phrase: A verb (or a noun), and a preposition--a direction, something your sixth grade English teacher would immediately reject.

Fear. Everywhere I go, every conversation I have about where George W. Bush is leading our country; sooner or later, and most often, sooner, people bring up fear.

Last Friday on this blog, there was an interesting and mostly very respectful discussion of racism. The conversation centered mostly on issues of assimilation of immigrants, and somewhat more specifically, the assimilation of African immigrants into France.

Since France has both the largest population of Jews and the largest population of Muslims in Europe, it would seem France has a lot to discuss these days.

It cannot help when horrors like this occur:

BAGNEUX, France, March 3 — Two strips of red-and-white police tape bar the entrance to the low-ceilinged pump room where a young Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, spent the last weeks of his life, tormented and tortured by his captors and eventually splashed with acid in an attempt to erase any traces of their DNA.

If you have any doubt as to the importance of a free and independent press in a democracy, all you have to do is look at the lengths some will go to shut it down.

Yesterday, in predawn raids, armed and masked government troops stormed the offices of Kenya's largest newspaper, The Standard, and held employees at gunpoint while they destroyed computers, and damaged printing presses.

The Standard has written articles in recent weeks critical of President Mwai Kibaki and calling for independent investigation into government corruption at the highest levels.

In a simultaneous raid across town, gunman entered the studio of The Standard's sister television station, destroying its offices, equipment and taking it off the air.

While this move has split the cabinet, the reaction of the internal security minister, in statements to the press Thursday, claimed the raid was designed to protect state security, but neglected to elaborate on exactly what threat to state security the newspaper and television station posed.

"If you rattle a snake, you must be prepared to be bitten by it," Internal Minister John Michuki told reporters on Thursday.

When I saw this story I thought of the actions our country took to shut the press in Iraq, while simultaneously claiming it was spreading freedom and democracy there.

From Reuters, March 2004

BAGHDAD - Iraq's U.S.-led administration Sunday shut down a newspaper that is a mouthpiece for Shi'ite cleric Moqtada Sadr, accusing it of publishing articles that incite violence against American troops.

Ali Yasseri, editor of the weekly al-Hawza newspaper, said dozens of U.S. troops padlocked the newspaper's offices after ordering staff to leave.

"They told us they would arrest us if we did not leave. They said our articles incite people against America," Yasseri told Reuters outside the newspaper offices.

Last July, the U.S.-led administration closed down another newspaper for inciting violence. The Arabic-language satellite television news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have also faced sanctions from the administration and the Iraqi Governing Council for allegedly violating the law.

The "law" in question was actually a "law" made up by the Coalition Provisional Authority which prohibits newspapers from creating instability through inciting violence against the coalition forces. In July 2003, the U.S.-led administration closed down another newspaper for inciting violence.

The Arabic-language satellite television news channels Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have also faced sanctions from the administration and the Iraqi Governing Council for allegedly violating the law.

Referring to the shutdown of Sadr’s newspaper, freelance Iraqi journalist Omar Jassem told the Washington Post: “I guess this is the Bush edition of democracy.”

This is not a defense of the newspapers or the television stations in question, nor is it a statement about the authenticity of what was published or reported. This is a defense of the importance of a free press in a democracy.

In a democracy, a government should be open and transparent enough to endure criticism and investigation. And that's any democracy, whether it's Kenya, Iraq, or the United States.

It quite simply impossible to have a democracy without a free press. i don't know what you would call such form of government, but it's not a democracy.

In response to the Kenya's Internal Minister John Michuki's remark about rattlesnakes, a commentor from Kisima (Kenya) had this advice for the Kenya government:

This government of self-declared snakes better beware. There is an electorate of mongooses waiting to remove you.

Kisima, Kenya

Other governments who would try to restrain or silence a free press would be wise to take heed of that advice as well.

William F. Buckley, America's leading conservative and founder of the National Review Magazine (and NRO) penned a column last week, declaring the Iraq War Is Lost.

Bill Buckley has never been what anyone would characterize as a cheerleader of the Iraq War, either before or during what has now become a barely organized carnage-in-the-sand/civil war. However as a well-mannered conservative, he was willing to stand by and watch uncritically as the Bush Administration proceeded to destabilize the entire Middle East, throwing the hope of peace in that troubled region, in our time, or our children's time, out the window.

All of that has now officially changed. He has now declared the war lost. Ya think, Bill?

I'd be fascinated to know upon which particular disaster he has based his pronouncement. Is it one incompetent choice, or the sum of the incompetent parts that has caused the clouds to lift and Buckley to have a clear view of what has been obvious to over 60% of Americans for some time now (despite the media ignoring that fact). Among the bare points he makes against the administration his arguments run mostly towards the Iraqi blaming front: America gave Iraq a great chance at democracy-too bad they just weren't up to the magnificent opportunity we blessed them with. Or a hearty, "Hey, we gave it our best shot," as if the politics-first decision making over the policy-last decision making had no influence whatsoever on how the war was lost. As such, while Buckley's made a step in turning his face toward the reality in Mecca, his body politic has not yet followed.

Even this much though, is enough to blow the burnt embers of free thought on right into Buckley effigy-burning flames of indignation.

To be sure, there has been a clash of reaction among the third-rate fifth columnists of the fourth estate to Buckley's about-face in facing reality. I generally don't have either the time or the stomach to read them all.

Yet, there has been one standout among the Buckley opinionists, Jeff Goldstein.

Goldstein has only dim view of Buckley's enlightenment. He seems to think that since Buckley is a conservative purist, the fact that he has prounounced the war is lost, doesn't really count against him, you know, the way it would if he were on the political left, which has always seen the war as a losing proposition.

That is just a bizarre accounting of responsibility, no matter how you look at it.

No, Goldstein contends that is wasn't the Bush Administration mismanagement of the war that has caused this result, but rather the failure of those opposed to the war before its beginning, to then fall in line and goose-step our way to a cheery victory. If only we hadn't noticed that the war wasn't going well and said something critical about the poor decisions being made, it would all be different. Bill Buckley is not included among the non-marchers who have caused this sad result. He is excluded by virtue of the fact that even though he knew better, and believed the war was wrong, he did nothing to dissent.

I see. To stand and watch massacre and do nothing is now a virtue.

Well, there have been a number of reactions to Goldstein's idiotic contention, many snarky and witty, but amongst them there was this gem of an interesting point that is important and not snarky, from Sifu Tweety at The Poorman Institute:

Got that? He accepts complete responsibility for his continuing support of the war, because it’s totally going awesome and will work out great. Unless it doesn’t turn out great, in which case liberal critics of the war need to understand their grave responsibility for pointing out from the very beginning how not-great it would, in fact, turn out to be.

Here’s my little translator’s key to this emerging talking point: Republicans attach incredible importance to media criticism of the war, because they genuinely believe that the war is won and lost IN THE MEDIA. The American media, that is. Their partisan selves are so thoroughly embedded in the culture-jamming electioneering of the Rovist personality cult the GOP has become that they genuinely don’t recognize the difference between actually achieving peace and a non-doomed secular democracy in Iraq, and just being able to plausibly claim that peace on American TV.

Such is the state of the American media. Such is the power that the consolidation of the media into the voice of corporatism, instead of voice of the people, wields. The power to wage war, or at the very least, the power to sharply and decidedly influence the conduct and outcome of a war.

So the new reality is now the war is all the media's fault. And when it's not the media's fault, it's the Iraqis fault, for not being responsible enough to handle democracy. And when it's not the Iraqis fault, it's the political left's fault for not clapping harder for Peter Pan.

I wonder how long it will be until the pro war gang blame the left for the United States going to war in the first place.

Sadly, I doubt it will be very long. It seems that blame-shifting is the new black.

[Editor's note: The version of this article that was first published was a draft, and not the final product (such as it is) as is seen here. Blog software, user error, argghhh, blah, blah, blah. You've heard it all before. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused. Thanks for understanding.]

I see that Senator John McCain has come out in favor of the Dubai deal, in part, because we need to "trust the President". The other part of the rationale goes something like this: We need Dubai militarily, because we move military equipment and personnel through their ports to continue the War on Terror. You know what that means...the Commander-in-Chief has inherent authority under the Constitution to do whatever he wants and Congress can't stop him.

And Congressional Republicans are, shocked to discover that the White House considers them an annoying appendage that could just as well be chopped off.

REP. CURT WELDON (R), PENNSYLVANIA: It almost smacks of an arrogance, like it doesn't matter what the Congress says.

Ya think?

Of course, the mystery for me is WHY are the Congressional Republicans shocked that the President has just informed them he can do anything he likes?

Why are all of the Republicans that just voted for Alito (and therefore John Yoo) whining about the very thing they just spent the last month defending?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, paper, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath of affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Article IV of the Bill of Rights

I don't know about you, but I find the layers of secrecy this administration dances through simply dizzying. On one level, I would marvel at their agility, except for the regular stumbling akin to the long-program figure skating last night. On another level, it is clear we (sort-of) elected a bunch of incompetents; clearly not ready for the big events.

Aside from the obvious fact that the actions of the Bush Administration in circumventing FISA (layers of secrecy upon layers), I have been thinking lately about the whole cabal of criminals. GITMO, FISA, and the entire program that oversteps the Constitution and the Bill of Rights--the Big Brother/Hitler comparisons come along easily, but don't always feel quite right to me.

Hell in Iraq just became one giant step closer to Hell in America.

As a result, there will be Hell to pay.

If you've been watching the television news, or reading the newspaper, or monitoring things from your state of the art productions studio like Osama does, then it would be difficult to near impossible to have missed these important stories: Vice-President Dick Cheney shoots hunting partner 78 year old lawyer Harry Whittington in the face; the President okays a deal to have the govenment of Dubai assume control of US ports; and kicking off his new energy policy this week, the President visits an alternative energy research company, only to find that 32 people were to have been laid off due to government financing cutbacks.

Let's take these one by one.

What is it about energy independence that's so difficult to get? For those of you tough enough to listen to the State of the Union in its entirety, you could be forgiven for yelling, like Yossarian's dying hospital mate Guisippe in Catch-22, "I see everything twice!"

A tip of the hat to Al Thompkins daily update for reporters, "Al,'s Morning Meeting," on the Poynter Institute's great press site. Thompkins provides us with links to similiar comments by other presidents, with Richard Nixon's "energy independence" kick-off all the way back in 1974.

President Bush said similar things in 2003

Bill Clinton urged fuel-efficient homes, cars and renewable fuel development (as he closed his speech) in 1998

Jimmy Carter noted the need to get oil independent in 1980 (Boy -- if you want to read an intense State of the Union speech, read this one!)

Gerald Ford talked about energy independence in 1975

Richard Nixon promised energy independence in 1974

[Editor's Note: Ladytechie, madame defarge and dwahzon collaborated on putting this item together in the IRC.]

With a hattip and thanks to Martin in MD at dailykos for bringing this to our attention. We think it's far too important to allow it to remain buried.

West Point to Bush: Your War Is A Failure [Was This the Best-Kept Secret of the Week?]

What could have been a bombshell story this past week seems to have been snowed under by all the newsprint given over to Mr. Cheney's "accident". The entire rationale for the on-going carnage in Iraq was seriously called into question on Tuesday ... and despite this very large tree falling in the forest, it apparently made no sound. I've seen virtually no coverage of this story at all, despite the fact that the people pointing the finger are not Quakers or members of Greenpeace or even of the Democratic Party, but rather spokesmen for the United States Army.

The current [U.S.] military strategy [in Iraq] is only helping radical Muslims, according to a West Point critique of U.S. terrorism policy," begins a story by John Diamond that was published in USA TODAY on Tuesday, and re-printed in the Detroit Free Press on Wednesday. Quoting directly from the report by the Combatting Terrorism Center at the U.S. military academy. Mr. Diamond writes, "Direct engagement with the United States has been good for the jihad movement." The report goes on to say that the U.S. needs to emphasize indirect action -- propaganda and the use of allies in the Middle East -- more skillfully and extensively."

The report also declares that military action "rallies the locals behind the [jihad] movement, drains the United States of resources, and puts pressure" on U.S.-backed regimes. And what is the report's title? "Stealing Al Qaeda's Playbook".

In other words, here is the U.S. Army -- again, not some "peace outfit" -- declaring that the "war in Iraq" is a failure when it comes to dealing with the threat of terrorism. And not only a failure, it is actually contributing to the success of the terrorism movement.

This report effectively cuts the legs out from under George W. Bush's repeated claims that "the war in Iraq is a central front of the War on Terror." Actually, Mr. President, your war is doing more harm than good. And all of those "brave young men and women" who are dying and losing limbs in Iraq? Painful as it is to confront it, the truth is that they are not "sacrificing for freedom" but instead losing their lives and legs and sanity in the service of an operation that is helping to fuel the very menace they are supposedly fighting.

Again, this to me is a blockbuster story. And yet, where was it this past week? I saw no mention of it in the Washington Post, which is my daily read. I saw no mention of it here on DK, nor on any of the other blogs I frequent. Did I miss it? Or was it conveniently covered up by L'Affaire Cheney?

And here's a link to the West Point report. It's a pdf titled CTC Report "Stealing Al-Qa'ida's Playbook". CTC stands for the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point.

We think that this needs some attention and wider distribution. Our brainstorming in the IRC: Letters to the editors, calls to your local news stations, emails to your congresspersons, media representatives, and whatever creative possibilities you can come up with.

And do ask: Why isn't the administration listening to this? This isn't just another peace group. A good leader seeks advice from experts to solve problems and one should certainly consider the staff at West Point experts in this area.

In the end, it appears that this administration feels that it knows better because after all this war is just a business to them. Which brings to mind one of Calvin Coolidge's remark, "What's good for business is good for America".

Only this time -- it isn't.

Editor's Note: No, this is not a mistake that this post is still up. We made an editorial decision that this post will remain up for two days in order to give as wide an audience time to see it as possible, and to post about it here and everywhere else you can. This story is being largely ignored by the traditional media, and not just because Dick Cheney shot someone in the face. It's being ignored because the images are disturbing, and nobody wants to think that Americans do that to people.

Well, here's the news. Americans DO THAT to other people. And the media reaction of, "Oh, this is more of the photos from Abu Ghraib, and those people were already tried. Let's move on," just doesn't cut it. These photos represent the cover up of torture of prisoners, sexual abuse, and flagrant violations of the Geneva Conventions.

And it wasn't just some 11 "bad actors", as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was fond of saying when photos first surfaced. It was most likely people hired by the US government, in addition to US military personnel, who were carrying out instructions to torture people at Abu Ghraib. After all, I don't imagine Lynndie England got the studded dog collar, leather helmut and leash in a care package from her family back in West Virginia. I don't think there has ever been a satisfactory explanation for how the chain of command of torture worked. It's past time that there was.

So I would ask that you pass this link around to everyone you know. Put pressure on the traditional media to cover the story, and abandon their heretofore attitude of "torture is icky", in favor of a more dignified approach, like a commitment to finding out and reporting the truth.

For years, the Bush Administration has been trying to prevent the release of photos that finally saw the light of day in media outlets from Australia.

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Tonight the SBS Dateline program plans to broadcast around 60 previously unpublished photographs that the US Government has been fighting to keep secret in a court case with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Although a US judge last year granted the union access to the photographs following a freedom-of-information request, the US Administration has appealed against the decision on the grounds their release would fuel anti-American sentiment.

Some of the photos are similar to those published in 2004, others are different. They include photographs of six corpses, although the circumstances of their deaths are not clear. There are also pictures of what appear to be burns and wounds from shotgun pellets.

After having seen the photos, I can certainly understand why the Pentagon is concerned these will fuel anti-American sentiment. These images and actions of torture from American or American directed armed personnel, upon Iraqis, are beyond inhumane. If cartoons depicting images of the prophet Mohammed spurred the outrage we are seeing throughout both the Middle East, Asia and Europe are any sign, they going to be some serious hell to pay over these photos.

If you wish to view these photos, you can see them on Kos at Waitingtoderail's diary. They are sick and sickening.

I seriously doubt that the prosecution and convictions of a handful of "bad actors" will do anything whatsoever to mitigate the situation, and I suspect the White House will continue to do everything in its power to shoo this story down the memory hole, just like last time.

But isn't it time for America to demand a little bit more from its leadership?

Isn't it time that the moral outrage in America over what is being done in our name to innocent Iraq civilians, matches the moral outrage of some of the Iraqis?

This is what is being done in your name, America. Shouldn't those responsible be made to take responsibility for their complicity in war crimes?

Isn't it past time for Donald Rumsfeld, the most incompetent Defense Secretary in history, to resign?

If the United States citizens allow Rumsfeld to continue to serve, it does so at the risk of putting its stamp of approval on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. And God help us all if that happens.

[Editor's note: This essay is from DCP blogger oncall and it reminds us of key points that are central to events of the last several weeks.]

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Another early morning discussion with Dick; this one as he got ready to fly off to the west coast for a discussion of peak oil and what can be done about it.

What can be done about ANY of the truly formidable challenges we face right now? We have a corrupt government, full of selfish spoiled people who think they are clever, but whose arrogance may take us all down yet; we have abandoned the least among us, we have a cynical and irrelevant press, and broadcast news personalities who know the price of everything but the value of nothing, and we have only a mere shell of our constitutional democracy.

As we talked, we went back to something we had begun talking about earlier. Dick found this article from Germany yesterday:

One thing is certain: the way humanity has organized itself – "capitalism", "competition", "empire", "globalization" – not only does the number of losers increase every day, but as in any large group, fragmentation soon sets in. In a chaotic, unfathomable process, the cohorts of the inferior, the defeated, the victims separate out. The loser may accept his fate and resign himself; the victim may demand satisfaction; the defeated may begin preparing for the next round. But the radical loser isolates himself, becomes invisible, guards his delusion, saves his energy, and waits for his hour to come.

I found that passage chilling and true. But not quite as chilling as the following:

UPDATE: Well, there you have it. The Attorney General just told Senator Biden that we will be at war forever, as long as there is one person alive that could possibly be considered a threat to the United States or its interests. Any questions?

Glenn Greenwald will be doing much of the legal-blogging coverage, as he's both a lawyer and an expert on these issues.

And if you are up, Glenn will be on C-SPAN's Washington Journal tomorrow morning from 7:45-8:30 a.m EST debating the NSA scandal with University of Virginia Professor Robert Turner.

Glenn sez:

This clip of George Bush should be talked about all week -- why, if the Administration had all the legal authority in the world to eavesdrop without warrants and outside of FISA did it repeatedly make false statements to the public and to the Congress assuring us all that it was eavesdropping only in accordance with FISA? Parties make false statements in order to conceal their behavior only when their behavior is improper and wrong, not when it is justified and legal. And deliberately false statements of that sort from our government officials happen to be unacceptable and wrong, and really constitute a scandal unto itself.

Or at least they should constitute a scandal in and of themselves.

Glenn also has the inside scoop on Ted Kennedy's line of questioning and you can read about that here.

While Senator Kennedy's line of approach may be unexpected, it shouldn't be. There are only two real ways to win this fight, and one of them is already been somewhat lost. The first way, would have been to control the conversation. The White House wanted the coversation to be about National Security, while the rest of the folks who have read the Constitution, want it to be about The Constitution. That point has been lost, I fear.

So Senator Kennedy has done what I think is a wise move, which it appears would be to pivot, to cede nothing to the administration or Gonzales on National Security, but rather make them prove that this program actually worked, and worked so damn well, that it was worth breaking the law, et cetera.

Of course, having seen this committee at work during the Alito hearings, I kicked my expectations to the curb last week for any democratic coordination or effectiveness during this set of hearings.

I'm with Dr. Greenwald on this one - we'll all wait and see.

Consider this an open thread on the NSA hearings.

I woke up today thinking about the State of the Union/State of Emergency event last night, Cindy Sheehan, and all of us who stand with her, wherever and whenever. I was sad; sad for our country, for her, and for all of us.

Dick said to me: "But, people were so happy last night". I said, "Why were they so happy?"

So we talked about screaming. Everytime we pick up the paper or listen to the news, and hear another horror story, whether it's the war or New Orleans, or Medicare Part D, you want to scream. But we can't go around screaming all the time, we understand.

Here is what he said to me:

What was powerful last night was that people had a total body experience of coming together to express a collective scream. The experience was through-the-black-hole of the market-driven, capitalist, globalized atomization of community to a fully realized reality of people acting together.

We are living in a world where the structure of our society is designed to reduce each and every one of us to nothing more than a quivering blob, sitting dimly in front of our tvs and computers, or wandering the streets with our little buds in our ears, clutching our credit cards in our hands, and ordering stuff from China, from India, from wherever.

The fierceness of the joy that seized people's hearts at this demonstration came from seeing and hearing what was possible when people stepped out of the consumerist nightmare and showed each other how much they cared about what George Bush is doing to the lives of every single person on this planet.

The tools we used were simple; they are the tools that human beings have used for hundreds of thousands of years: rhythm, music, movement, dance, and the ineffable drive of poetry. Coming home, in casual talk, someone said to Dick what we really needed for the event to have been complete was a fire. Exactly.

From a distance, as he walked toward the event it did appear that our tribe had gathered at a fire in front of the Capitol. A burning spot of light lit up the darkness against the cold and choppy waters of the reflecting pool. Across the freezing wind, he could hear the drums and the pots and the pans, sounds rarely heard in such an august setting.

In the darkness which George Bush has led our country into, it is all too easy for people to yield to the siren song of despair and hopelessness. It does not help when someone says to you that you should not despair, that you should remain hopeful. What was powerful last night was not someone telling us to be hopeful; every person there could FEEL what it felt like to BE hopeful, to come together, to sing the praises of hope against the darkness, standing there bravely in front of the belly of the beast, mere dozens of yards away from the unspeakable foulness of the theatre taking place in the House of Representatives.

Without hope, we have nothing. With hope, we can change the world.

cross-posted at dailykos

The Democracy Cell Project is reporting live from the Capitol, and will be doing so all evening.

WASHINGTON D.C.-Live Blogging the SOTU, and the Alternative SOTU happenings around Washington DC from today's activities and the plans for the evening events.

Karen is reporting in to us right now.

She is standing directly front of the Capitol. A cold wind is blowing in Washington tonight. Interestingly enough, there are about 14 FEMA trucks between the protesters and the Capitol itself. It's possible, though hard to believe, that these trucks somehow got lost on their way to provide relief in Louisiana, for what other purpose could they be here, when help is still so desperately needed there?

It's sadly heartwarming to see that flags are flying at half-mast in observance of the death of civil rights icon Coretta Scott King. To the program tonight for the Alternative SOTU, we have added a bagpiper who will be playing Amazing Grace at the beginning of the event, to honor Mrs. King's memory.

Right now nationally known performers Chris Chandler and David Roe are setting up the and sound checking their instruments. They will be contributing spoken word and musical performances this evening, along with geurilla poets, jazz musicians, folk musicians, a few tap dancers (and you thought they were all tap dancers in Washington were members of Congress, busily answering corruption charges), along with The Rhythm Workers Union, who will be bringing in the "mother drum ship". We're not quite sure what a "mother drum ship is", but it is certain to be more interesting than watching Mrs.Sob Sister Alito in the gallery sitting with the self-styled Laura "I AM a Desperate Housewife" Bush.

Earlier today, Karen wandered through many alternatives to the State of the Union. One highlight of the afternoon was the large "Impeach Bush" sign being driven around the neighborhood, courtesy of The Velvet Revolution.

Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan is doing many events today and Karen has run into her several times, and can report that it's much warmer in Venezuela than Washington, in more ways than one.

As the day wore on, it became clear that more people than ever before, are coming out of their homes and into the street to protest this president's policies and the lies and deceptions he and his administration have used to sell them to an unwitting, and sadly, and unquestioning public. But the public of years before, is not the public this administration will be facing this evening. The public is sending this President a message-his popularity is at 39% for a reason. People are angry, dissatisfied, and remember the sixteen words from the State of the Union of two years ago. And they remember that they were lied to. And the anger and the questions have just begun.

The limosines are beginning to arrive, carrying the scions of political power once more behind the gates, and away from We the People. But not for long.

Evening has fallen in Washington, and the perfume of dissent is sweeping briskly through the air.

Written and reported by Karen B. and Casey Morris, The Democracy Cell Project

[Editors Note: Cross-posted at The Daily Kos. There will be live blogging of the SOTU this evening beginning at 8:45 here on The Democracy Cell Project Blog, and in the IRC Chat Room. Please come join us.]

In today's Washington Post, the battle against the continuing enclosure of public space and minds continues.

For the record, we have a permit for January 31. And the U.S Park Police have been, if not apologetic, at least concerned about the blowback from denying the original site offered.

Here is an excerpt from the Washington Post article this morning:

Demonstrators have been told to confine their gathering to the gravel walkways on the Mall between Third and Fourth streets, farther from the Capitol. The grassy areas are fenced off because they are being resodded.

Travis Morales, one of the organizers of the demonstration, said the restrictions effectively deny the protesters a meaningful public space to gather as a group. The nearest place to meet together, he said, is Seventh Street, about a mile from the Capitol.

"We are being told that turf renovation and security trump our First Amendment right to protest," he said.

The World Can't Wait is filing a lawsuit, protesting the ever-changing 'laws' that protect President Bush from hearing or seeing the dissent of the people.

Here's where you can help

They have asked us (please share among the blogosphere) to help their case by researching all known and publicized incidents where the people were prevented from protesting near the President in the past five years.

They need this information this morning.

Meanwhile, our plans continue for the DC event, wherever it will be held (it will definitely be on the west side of the Capitol somewhere).

Here is a description:

We will be on the west side of the Capitol, around and in front of the reflecting pool. The Press will be parked along 3rd Street and along the South Side of the Capitol (Independence). Cindy Sheehan and Ann Wright will speak to us (and them) at 8 pm; they will be followed by other speakers (the Rev. Yearwood and Doug Nelson, an Vietnam War vet) and then at 9, the main event will begin:

Picture a marching band/brass ensemble, a drum circle, a choir, tap dancers, a rock ensemble, hip-hop poetry, other spoken word, hootenanny, African, Asian, Irish glorious soaring rhythmic, each beginning and doing a few minutes in sequence, followed by overlapping moments, followed by at least 30 minutes of jazz-like improv, call and response, followed by one fully stunning long-held harmonious wall of sound that rises to the heavens. The whole main event will last 50 minutes, from 9-9:50. It’s possible the media might be roused from their hypnotic stance to report on it.

Thanks for helping to get the word out.

As for the larger message here, it has been appalling to note the slow seeping removal of access to public buildings and spaces here in DC, all in the name of *national security*. The message could not be clearer -- the people no longer have agency or say in how the government is run. We no longer have access to the buildings our tax dollars build and maintain. We no longer have access to dissent. We are enclosed from even the critical thoughts within our own minds by the steady stream of MSM BS.

As Travis Morales points out in today's Washington Post article:

"...the Bush administration 'is trying to push us so far away that we can't be seen or heard. . . . A protest not seen and a protest not heard is not a protest.' "

My name is John McCain, and I hope you caught my stellar appearance on the Today Show this morning... During a biting, in-depth interview with Matt Lauer, I was asked whether I thought George Bush's domestic spying program was illegal.

Well, it depends on what your definition of 'illegal' is. As in when you might run for President, and having an actual opinion can put a fella in a very lonely place. Heh Heh. But I did go out on a limb and call for Congressional hearings on this subject. This could be serious. Or not. We don't know. Any of me. We could look into it. But I must bear in mind my impending re-evisceration in 2008 at the hands of the far right. I love you. I hate you. I love you... sorry. Heh Heh. Anyway, today I also casually mentioned in passing that the Iraq War Resolution, oft cited by the Shrubmeister (heh heh), didn't actually reference domestic spying. Fortunately, this factette escaped the keen journalistic instinct of Mr. Lauer. Right across the bow, and not even a blink. Heh heh.

I was particularly clever at the close of our segment when I informed Mr. Lauer that I am older than dirt. Heh heh. Americans like a witty man. Oops. I think I just tinkled a little...

Heh Heh.

Sigh.

Jack came to Washington for the first demonstration against the war, in 2003--the one that was so huge and so clear that we just knew we could stop the invasion...three years later, Jack is back, age 22, having taken a leave from college, to work on The World Can't Wait events. He has been in NYC, assisting local chapters across the country, and after traveling across the country a few times, now he is here, helping to organize the DC events.

Eliska also left college, graduate school, to be exact, where she was studying to be a social worker. She came to DC to organize, manage, and run the office, which she has done with far more skill and foresight than most 24-year olds, or most 50-year olds.

They came to help, and they are busier than most their age. They are up early and working late. They are reliable and committed.

They left their lives behind on trust that they could be housed and fed without having to think too much about it as they work. And they are housed, but the feeding issue is more challenging.

They and the 15-16 other young volunteers are committed and tenacious. They do not stop to grab a bite in a restaurant, nor do they have money to do so. There is a small kitchen at the office hq, but little time to go shopping or cook.

And so, the DCP is launching a Feed the Activists fundraising campaign. If you click on our DONATE button to the left, you can go to our paypal account and contribute a small or a large amount. Our goal is $3000.

Every dollar will go to feed these wonderful kids for the next two-plus weeks. We will even do the shopping.

Thank you.

(We have already raised $375 towards our goal! Thanks!)

[Editor's Note: I opened my mail this morning and it was full of requests to post on Alito. The first post is a call to action from DCP member Rick Albertson. The second post comes to us from DCP member Barry Schwartz. As some of you may know, Senate Majority Leader Frist has refused Senators time to speak on the floor of the Senate about Alito until January 25 (the day after the scheduled committee vote). In response, Senators are fanning out across America to give speeches urging action against the Alito confirmation. I will reprint a short portion of Senator Edward Kennedy's (D-MA) speech with a link to the full text. The upshot of these posts is clear. ACT NOW.]

CALL NOW

From Rick:

This news alert slash call to action comes direct to you from the fine folks over at Political Cortex. We're reproducing it here body and soul because goshdarnit, fellow DCPeople, this is important stuff and we all need to get on the horn and on the keyboard and make your feelings known before it's too late!

Via Political Cortex
[gently edited to comply with DCP's federal regulations]

Alito's not a done deal!

Over at Daily Kos they estimate he no longer has 60 votes!

Let's make sure thatwe are heard: CLICK HERE TO CALL YOUR SENATORS

John Edwards has endorsed this petition for FILIBUSTER

Phone, fax, and email addresses for the Judiciary Committee

People for the American Way has collected over 60,000 signatures to send to the Senate, please add yours: Save the Court Petition

MoveOn.Org's Stop Alito Petition

Democratic Party's Reject Alito Petition

Stop the NRA's Oppose Alito Petition

And while you're at it, sign: Planned Parenthood Petition

NARAL Say "No" On Judge Alito

Brady Campaign

Human Rights Campaign

National Abortion Federation

National Council of Jewish Women

National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association

National Organization for Women

National Partnership for Women and Families

National Women's Law Center

Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice

US Action

From Barry, via WaPo:

It's all in the record.

Law professors at Judge Alito's alma mater, Yale Law School, analyzed more than 400 of his published opinions and concluded: "In the area of civil rights law, Judge Alito consistently has used procedural and evidentiary standards to rule against female, minority, age and disability claimants..."

"In the context of these civil rights cases, Judge Alito seems relatively willing to defer to the claims of employers, the government, over the individuals advancing civil rights claims."

KENNEDY: And other objective observers who have examined Judge Alito's record have reached a similar conclusion. According to an analysis by the respected University of Chicago law professor, Cass Sunstein, said, "when there is a conflict between institutions and individual rights, Judge Alito's dissenting opinions argued against individual rights 84 percent of the time. In almost all of the cases in which Judge Alito dissented in order to reject an individual rights claim, he was sitting on a court with a majority of Republican appointees."

A comprehensive review of Judge Alito's published opinions by Knight-Ridder similarly found that Judge Alito has "seldom sided" with "an employee alleging discrimination" and "almost never found a government search unconstitutional..."

An analysis published by The Washington Post found that "routinely, he defers to government officials and others in positions of authority" and has "very little sympathy for those asserting rights against the government."

In sum, in case after case, Judge Alito's decisions demonstrate a systematic tilt toward the powerful institutions and against individuals attempting to vindicate their rights. He cites a few instances in which he has decided for the little guy, but they are few and far between.

Justice Lewis Powell captured the spirit of America best when he said: "Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building. It is perhaps the most inspiring idea of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists."

In evaluating Supreme Court nominees, there are no more important questions than whether they are dedicated to equal justice under law. Judge Alito is a highly intelligent man, but his record does not show a judge who is willing to enforce the constitutional limitations on executive power when government officials intrude on individual rights.

His record does not show a judge who is open to the claims of vulnerable individuals asking only justice against powerful institutions. His record does not show a judge who upholds the liberty and privacy of citizens seeking to protect their fundamental rights.

His record just does not show a judge who is committed to equal justice under law.

Full text of Senator Kennedy's speech can be found here.

It's clear. The time to act is now.

Blog entry written by Rick Alberson and Barry Schwartz, with contributions by Casey Morris and Suz Krueger.

I just don't understand and maybe someone can help me.

Say, for example, I am the leader of the reconstruction effort in Iraq for 18 months, and during those 18 months, I repeatedly lie about any number of things, including the state of the reconstruction, the state of the war there, the cost of the reconstruction. And not only do I lie, I lie about it on camera, repeatedly, and often, during many, many interviews with journalists covering the war.

Fast forward to a year later. I have now left the job and written a book about it. And almost everything I have to say in the book is in direct opposition to what I claimed was the truth only a year ago when I made statements to the reporters in Iraq.

Moving along, I begin to go on my book promotion tour and, lo and behold, a journalist has some minimum wage staffer pull up the video tape of me lying on camera and shows it to me during our interview and asks the inevitable questions about the discrepencies.

Here's the question, why am I shocked at this? If you had behaved that way, would you be shocked?

So why was former Ambassador-cum-Reconstruction Czar in Iraq, shocked and maybe a teeny bit irritated when Wolf Blitzer did just that? From CNN transcripts:

Remarks at the White House 1-10-06

My name is Mike Hersh. I'm here representing Progressive Democrats of America, Convict Bush Cheney dot Org, and After Downing Street dot Org. I've been working to impeach Bush and Cheney since 2000, even before they took the oath of office, on the theory that if fibbing about a blow job is sufficient reason for impeachment, then cheating in the elections, losing, and having your friends on the Supreme Court throw out the votes to put you into office is grounds for impeachment and removal from office.

Apparently this attracted notice, because I was visited by Secret Service agents in early January 2001. They were investigating the "threat" I posed to the incoming Bush Administration because of a protest website a friend and I set up in late 2000: bushoccupation.com which is still up today. So this domestic spying issue is very personal to me. I believe this visit was intended to intimidate me. It didn't.

Immediately after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, a Mrs. Powel asked Benjamin Franklin: "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" He replied, "A republic" but added, "If you can keep it." Today more than ever before that question challenges us: Can we keep it? Can we keep our republic? That was 1787.

That landmark convention enshrined the primacy of the people over their government. It crowned the work begun in 1776 when brave Patriots rose up opposing a crazy King George. The more things change.... We're here today speaking out against another crazy George who thinks he's a king.

This from Time magazine (via Atrios);

Washington's power players have always bragged about being well-wired, but for disgraced former congressman Duke Cunningham, "wired" wasn't just a figure of speech. In a week when legislators are focused on the question of who else might be brought down by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s cooperation with prosecutors as he seeks lenient sentencing over his two federal guilty pleas this week, sources tell TIME that in a separate investigation, ex-Rep. Cunningham wore a wire to help investigators gather evidence against others just before copping his own plea.

Sources familiar with the situation say Cunningham, a California Republican who pleaded guilty Nov. 28 to taking $2.4 million in bribes — including a yacht, a Rolls Royce and a 19th Century Louis-Philippe commode — from a defense contractor, wore a wire at some point during the short interval between the moment he began cooperating with the feds and the announcement of his guilty plea on Nov. 28.

The identity of those with whom the San Diego congressman met while wearing the wire remains unclear, and is the source of furious — and nervous — speculation by congressional Republicans. A Cunningham lawyer, K. Lee Blalack, refused to confirm or deny the story, and wouldn't say whether Cunningham will implicate any other members of Congress. The FBI is believed to be continuing its probe of defense contractors involved in the Cunningham case. An FBI spokesman declined comment. Asked whether Cunningham, an ace Navy fighter pilot decorated for his service in Vietnam, had worn a wire, the spokesman said the response from a higher-up was, "Like I'd tell you."

Let's recap: Congressional Republicans are "furious" because someone may have been listening in on what they thought were private conversations without their consent or a court warrant.

Amazing. It's like some people in Congress got their copy of the Constitution printed on paper, and others got their copy printed on Jello shots.

People can say what they will about the Sago mining tragedy in WV, made even more tragic by what appears to be the company's heartbreaking mishandling of information, but a couple of things seem fairly clear at this point:

Families and miners had complained about the unsafe working conditions at the mine for months. Just completed inspection at the mine revealed over 200 violations, some serious, and many ongoing, with only paltry fines issued. But one fact stands out to me above all others. How is it that David G. Dye is qualified to be in charge of MSHA, even on a temporary basis, as he has been for the last 18 months?

Here's his resume, and I don't see any experience specific to Mines, Safety or Health there.

He's a lawyer. And while folks may quibble over whether his policy wonkiness qualifies him, it seems to me that the fact that MSHA is a separate and distinct division from OSHA itself, created by Congressional statute, the intent was to have this run by someone with experience specific to mine safety and health.

Is this just another crony? I sincerely hope not, but my guess is that the Governor (as commented upon by blogger Truth Will Prevail in the last thread), will waste no time in discovering if this is the case.

{Editor's Note: Yesterday, Karen gave us all something to talk about. Today, as we ready ourselves to dive into 2006, DCP member Barry gives us all something to think about.]

New Year’s Eve was a great night for Merle and me. We’ve been through one tough period—my diagnosis of a brain tumor, successful surgery and recuperation period. So, out to dinner, just the two of us went. Had a wonderful meal. Thai! The end of 2005 was a time for much reflection. 2005, for the world was not nice. The aftermath of the Tsunami, Katrina, Iraq, Bush, deficits, deceit. But, I do have to say, for Merle and me, we’re happy. A wonderful family—three great kids, a new daughter-in-law. I have my family. I have my health. My doctor said to take time to rest. So, I am rested. It’s 2 AM on New Year’s Day that is how rested I am.

My message is this, and it is simple. At the start of the New Year, take time to take time. Enjoy the simple things in life. Try to take control of your personal calendar back from corporate greed.

Merle and I stopped on the way home from dinner for some chocolate to consume while watching the ball drop, at the local CVS. Guess what? All the Christmas decorations were gone. Valentine’s Day is marching right down the seasonal aisle. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

The 2006 elections will be coursing through the media soon enough. The Bush administration fraud will be paraded through Congress as Congress will not be fooled by the feint of the “leak” hunt of the disclosed NSA and other wiretaps. There will be time for that. For now, enjoy the New Year. Make some resolutions. I’m going to try to lose some weight. The surgery got me on my way. I’m going to try to eat healthier too! We’ll see how long these go on. I am determined to be healthier, for my family. Maybe these resolutions will stick this year. I hope so. Make your own. It’s good to take time for your self. Be mellow. Maybe you can make it for a day, an hour. Try it.

Happy New Year!

A week ago, I discovered that I was Rip Van Winkle and had slept through 2002, figuratively speaking that is. I discovered my kinship with old Rip during an adventure I had with Aaron, Representative Schwartz's legislative aide. Most of you are familiar with that story.

But bear with me while I retell just a little for any of our kind lurkers out there.

During a conversation with Aaron, he mentioned a court behind the Supreme Court. I thought he was nuts! What kind of secret court is there behind the Supreme Court? I was positive that statement alone was blatantly false.

Bush's policy of allowing illegal wire taps is nearing the final throes of crashing and burning.

I imagine this story will surprise no one here, but disturbing, nonetheless. From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 - The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system's main arteries, they said.

As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

Since 9/11, my assumtion has been that anytime I used the word "nuclear" or "bomb" in a sentence, my conversation would be picked up and data mined by the NSA. I'm not sure why this was my assumption, but it was.

Did any of you have any similar assumptions about what kind of monitoring activities have been taking place?

[Editors note: Sometimes our writers at the DCP craft a piece and it doesn't get posted immediately because events of the day are overtaking the discussion. This is one of those pieces. Suz originally wrote this blogpost months ago. Amazingly, it is as, if not more, timely and topical than ever.]

President Bush and his administration clearly must have loved playing the game "Hide and Seek" when they were kids, because they've now brought their expertise to their offices; they are officially the most secretive administration ever.

Why is this important? Why should this concern us?

It's important and should concern us because it clearly concerned our Founding Fathers. Our founders declared upon their separation from the corrupt King George III that, "NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW." Therefore, when they created our constitution, they made the three powers of government: the Executive branch, the Congressional branch, and the Judiciary branch. But in their eyes, that wasn't quite enough to make sure that each office holder would be held accountable for their actions; therefore, they created a fourth arm of democracy: the freedom of the press (media) and the idea that all of the government's actions would be open for the citizens to see.

The idea of watching for corruption was a mainstay of our constitution and in that light, other laws were passed to aid in this idea. One key idea in preventing corruption of our Public Servants is to make sure there is transparency and accountability.

However according to Yahoo News,

"The federal government is keeping more secrets than usual — and keeping most of them under wraps far longer. The Information Security Oversight Office, a government agency that reviews security classification programs, says federal employees issued a record 15.6 million decisions to classify information last year, a 10 percent increase from 2003. An advocacy group, OpenTheGovernment.org, said in a statement many months ago that the statistics 'show that Congress and the executive branch have failed thus far to set adequate checks and balances on secrecy in the federal government.'"

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas was one of the greatest defenders of freedom in America in the 20th century. Douglas is the author of a beautiful but frightening metaphor about the subtleness with which our freedoms can slip away:

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such a twilight that we must be aware of the change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

President Bush long ago took us into the twilight. But too many of us were blind to the dying of the light. We did not rage when the President asserted in the Padillo case that as commander in chief, he was not bound to observe the Constitution. In the deepening twilight, unconstitutional abuses of someone like Padillo remain in the shadows, of concern only to a few who can still see where such assertions of unbridled power inevitably lead.

But now the President has stuck his sticky fingers into the lives of every single American with access to a phone or email. The revelation of the NSA’s secret spying has created more than a slight “change in the air.”

Far more people now see the darkness that lies at the end of Bush’s tunnel, and they are afraid. Oppression is no longer far away in some secret CIA torture chamber; oppression is at our ear, every time we pick up a phone; oppression is at our fingertips, every time we launch an email into the now NSA-surveilled void.

There are no more excuses left.

Douglas called for us to be aware, “lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.” The darkness is here—but are our wits about us?

Today felt like the calm before the beginning of a struggle for the soul of our nation. We are long past the time when we could look to the courts for surcease: the wheels of the courts grind far too slowly to catch up with the accelerating tyrannous pace of the Bush regime.

And so today we waited: would anyone in Congress be willing to act? After the 2000 election, we were shamed when not even one Democratic Senator was willing to stand up with the brave Democratic members of the House and challenge the blatant illegitimacy of that election. In 2004, there was one Democratic Senator, Barbara Boxer, who stood up alone and forced a historical but token debate within the Congress about the latest set of electoral subversions.

We wait tonight: is the Congress prepared to impeach George Bush? It is extremely rare that you will lose money betting against the cravenness of members of Congress, especially members of a party whose grip on power is becoming more slippery every day.

We wait, we hope. There must be members of Congress who are willing to step forward and live up to their promises to uphold the Constitution. This fight has long since passed from being a partisan fight. The lies that Bush told to take the country to war were only the beginning of his assault on our freedom. It is lies that take you from the daylight, lies that take you into the twilight, lies that take you finally into the darkness.

There is only one way to end the lies: impeach George Bush. And if Dick Cheney does not resign quickly, impeach him too. Congress, acting on behalf of all of us, needs to lance this terrible abscess and flush out all of those who played a role in this shameful episode of American history.

So tonight we wait. The filing of articles of impeachment could not come too soon. Then the really hard work of taking back our country will begin.

As the days spin towards the holidays, the sense of frenzy coming out of the Capitol increases. They must get something together, budget-wise, before they can go back to their own privileged lives.

This morning's Washington Post updates us on the process:

GOP Leaders Agree to $41.6 Billion Spending Cut

By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 19, 2005; 7:00 AM

House and Senate GOP leaders agreed yesterday to a five-year budget plan for cutting spending for Medicaid and other entitlement programs by $41.6 billion and a separate measure to open the Alaskan wilderness to oil drilling.

The authority to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration -- long sought by President Bush, energy companies and Republican leaders -- was attached to a separate fiscal 2006 defense spending bill that has widespread support in both parties because of its funding for fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rushing to get out of town for the holidays, the House approved both bills in early morning votes Monday. The pre-dawn showdown hid the House votes from public view, a maneuver that leaders have used all year on difficult votes.

*******

Here at the DCP, it is never enough to merely recognize cowardice and narcissism and thievery and criminal irresponsibility and all the other vocabulary words that come to mind when we think about such ridiculously self-serving acts against the American people (not to mention the peoples of the world and the planet itself).

We must ACT.

We have joined in with a number of other organizations in an effort to educate ourselves and our legislators about how we wish to proceed in 2006. No matter what you think about the budget currently proposed for FY 2007, it is our responsibility to convey any and all concerns to those charged with representing our interests.

January 7, 2006 is a Saturday. Legislators will most likely be in the home districts. Many will be campaigning. They need to hear from the voters. If we do not share our concerns with them, they will be able to continue to represent the interests of the corporate and religious communities who have purchased their loyalty, without paying any heed to the needs of the poor, the under-employed, the children, the elderly, and the health of the community.

Town meetings are a way to begin to bring the message home to the Members of Congress that we are not going to tolerate their profligate attitudes, the cuts to Medicare, education loan programs, and environmental oversight, and that we are here to remind them that they work for US.

And we don't want no stinkin' wars, tax cuts for the wealthy, or torture. We would like them to read the Constitution. Perhaps one of the things we can do on January 7 is to read the Constitution to them.

The way to get involved is here. Let us keep discussing how your efforts are going, and what we can do to support your voicing of concerns to those with the power to act on those concerns.

Smoke 'em out. Give them their marching orders.

The last flimsy fig leaf of respect for the Constitution was ripped away with today's reports that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency in 2002 to eavesdrop on US citizens and foreign nationals in the US.

The story ABOUT this story is equally horrifying. The New York Times knew about this NSA program and at the request of the government sat on the story for more than a year.

The timing suggests that this information could have been made public by the Times before the 2004 election. Such information would have roiled the waters. Through its complicity with the government, the Times may very well have altered the outcome of the election.

Whatever political credibility the Times may have had lies in ruins.

In a just world where people cared about the survival of freedom and liberty, the publisher of the Times should FIRE every single person who had any information about the Times' decision to sit on this story. And if the publisher knew, he should then resign in shame as well.

These reporters and editors are traitors in the deepest sense of the word. They have betrayed the American people and they have betrayed the dignity and integrity of every working journalist on the planet.

Given everything else that the Bush administration has done, it is no surprise to discover yet another area in which the President has led the charge into lawlessness. We have warned over and over again that Bush and his minions were power-mad. And having ceded them such unlimited powers, they have behaved as history tells us that tyrants and dictators always behave when they wield such unchecked powers.

Could you have imagined, ten years ago, that our country was:

*operating an international network of secret prisons.

*running a Justice Dept. headed by an Attorney General whose craven memos purported to allow US Government officials to engage in torture, and who was confirmed by the Senate even though the Senators knew about the torture memos.

*allowing the President on his own whim to arrest and imprison people for the rest of their natural lives without access to an attorney or even a court.

I could go on, but the point is clear. We are now living under the gravest threat that our country has ever faced. The men and women who are running the executive branch are sytematically destroying the constitutional foundations of our country. And the men and women in the Congress who are empowered by the Constitution to provide a check on the executive branch have utterly failed to carry out their own constitutional duties.

Every day that passes under the leadership of these people is another knife blow to the ribs of liberty. If freedom is to survive this unprecedented onslaught, the American people are going to have to go to the streets again and again and again until these evildoers are forced from office.

Last Friday, Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) made this claim to his local newspaper (hat tip to Josh Marshall):

"I wouldn't know Jack Abramoff if he walked in the room," Burns told reporters after Friday's field hearing.

Yesterday's Washington Post article begs to differ, Senator Burns:

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Conrad Burns and his staff met Jack Abramoff's lobbying team on at least eight occasions and collected $12,000 in donations around the time that the lawmaker took legislative action favorable to Abramoff's clients in the Northern Mariana Islands, records show.

Memory lapse, or dirty rotten liar?

My Day With Howard Zinn...

The man is the sweetest and most congenial teacher I have ever had. I wish I had his patience. Yet, I reminded him, he often pushed us--hard--to think about what we were willing to actually do to bring about awareness of the need for social change.

I remembered sitting in his office on a Monday evening, probably in 1972, right after the United States had placed mines in Haiphong harbor. He asked us if we might consider mining Boston harbor? When I reminded him of this moment yesterday, he looked at me and said "I doubt I suggested that!" I replied, "I think you were trying to make a point to us." He said, "Probably I suggested we do a MOCK mining." I said, "Well, the point is that I was 19 years old and I was scared. I had a hard time figuring out where I was in all this; how I felt about taking the kinds of actions (nonviolent as they seemed to be) we were talking about. It took me years to understand what that was all about for me."

And here is what I have come to, after all these years:

I found Mr. Pike’s article “The Truth about WP” interesting, and in general, I do agree that we need to hold the Bush administration responsible for its missteps and horrific results. But I also think Mr. Pike missed a golden opportunity to address legitimate concerns in his pronouncements in the LA Times and the New York Times.

A number of people have researched this area and cited their findings from US Government sources as well as other reliable sources. That information has been enlightening and identified some legitimate issues to be considered.

In the end, this can be said about white phosphorus: it is both incendiary and toxic. In its solid form it burns through skin to the bone and does not stop unless deprived of oxygen which it can obtain from the moisture in tissue. That is evidently considered to be an incendiary effect. The gas it produces attacks the mucous membranes, the eyes and the lungs. To the extent that it is used to disable humans where both incendiary and toxic effects occur, it is illegal because of its toxic effects according to protocols and treaties which the United States Government has signed (see 1925 Geneva Protocol and Chemical Weapon Convention references below).

If, in fact, it was used solely for its incendiary properties in Fallujah, is Mr. Pike saying that there is no other armament available that would have achieved the same result without the toxicity of WP on humans?

When Saddam Hussein used WP on Iraqi's, the US government called it a chemical weapon then. SO why is it NOT a chemical weapon when the US military uses it in Iraq just as Saddam did?

These are legitimate questions and Mr. Pike with all his supposed expertise (which was not identified in any way in the articles other than saying that he was an expert with a website), missed the opportunity to point out any fallacious reasoning or misunderstanding. I am sorry that he did so because it would have been a real contribution to the clarity of the discussion.

If Mr. Pike's real point in writing the article was to point out what a poor job the administration did in "managing" this story and the damage to the remaining tatters of the US reputation overseas, then he sabotaged himself by spending any vitriol on those he considers misguided and mistaken.

-----

Here are some of the documents, articles and diaries, etc. that I read. There's much more material to read if you follow the links and then follow the embedded links in those articles as well. Let me know what you think after reading them yourself.

Wow, just three years into the war, the President has a plan for victory. And it includes training Iraqis.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29 - President Bush on Wednesday will put forward for the first time a public version of what the White House calls a comprehensive strategy for victory in Iraq.

In a related effort to begin extricating American forces next year, military officials said Tuesday that they would seek billions of additional dollars to better train Iraqis to defend the country. The military officials in Iraq said they had requested $3.9 billion for next year to help train and equip Iraqi troops, build new police stations and outfit Iraqi soldiers with new uniforms.

I put this question forward on Sunday, as part of a group of 20 or so things to watch. Now I am asking it all by itself, in response to "The Bush Plan":

If the Army is willing to lower its standards to include 12% of the lowest scoring recruits (triple previous numbers), and train them up in thirty to ninety days, then ship them off to fight in Iraq, shouldn't we have, say about a gazillion Iraqis trained by now?

I think that before Congress accepts the newest version of Iraq 3.2 from the Bush administration, maybe they ought to ask what the hell they have been doing about training Iraqis before now?

And before they get another dime, I think Congress ought to be asking what the hell happened to the first 200 billion dollars that we were told was being spent on, among other things, training Iraqis?

And if Congress finds themselves in the mood to ask questions, here's a fine one to start with: Why the hell has it taken the Bush Administration three years, and over two thousand casualties, 22,000 wounded, for them to get off their asses and get out a plan for victory in Iraq?

And if it sounds like I am a little pissed off this morning in anticipation of the Bush speech, it's only because I am.

I am mad as hell that Bush has been flying all over the country using our soldiers as props to prop up his zeppelin-like approval ratings. And since that hasn't worked, I fully expect him to introduce some shell game speech about Iraq that is long on catch phrases, and short on ideas for how to protect our troops and help them to honestly fulfill a mission built on dishonesty.

And most of all, I expect the sickening political arm of this White House to continue to drive the policy in Iraq and elswhere in the world, as it has been all along. If our troops get to leave Iraq, it will be because of the 2006 elections.

We all know it, and it's sick. Period.

So if it seems like I am a little pissed off this morning when I contemplate the newest set of lies to be fed to the American public for political gain at the price of American lives and American treasure, well, it's only because I am.

And I expect all of you are, too.

[Note: In the comments section, K. brought up a point about this piece as originally written being offensive to West Virginians, and a few other folks, which was extremely well taken. I have removed the offensive part, and changed the link to more accurately reflect my point. Thank you, K.]

Poor Karl Rove. In such a tough spot. Fortunately, he has Michael Isikoff ready and willing to try to humanize him whenever possible. This week for example, while the rest of the world is busily tying the Viveca Novak subpoena back to Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, Isikoff gives us this bit of tragic comedy about Rove's legal bills:

Deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove recently took out a $100,000 line of credit from Wells Fargo Bank, according to real-estate records obtained by NEWSWEEK. The loan is secured by Rove's vacation home in Rosemary Beach in the Florida Panhandle worth more than $1 million, according to his most recent financial disclosure. Rove signed the loan papers on Oct. 22—just nine days after he testified before the grand jury for the fourth time. A White House spokeswoman said Rove's new line of credit is "unrelated" to his legal expenses. But any Rove legal debts—which won't have to be publicly disclosed until next year—could bring attention to his relationship with Patton Boggs, the D.C. powerhouse lobbying firm, where his lawyer in the leak case, Robert Luskin, is a partner.

Boo hoo. But Isikoff is not able to let well enough alone. He further muddies the waters of just how powerful Rove's reach is, with this bit of foggier than necessary intrigue:

Lobbying records show Patton Boggs represents a battery of foreign governments, corporations and others with interests before the government. Rove has been involved in White House meetings involving at least one big Patton Boggs client: the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which paid the firm $400,000 earlier this year to lobby for a controversial native-Hawaiian recognition bill. Patton Boggs lawyer Ben Ginsberg, a Rove friend and big GOP lawyer who recommended he hire Luskin, is a principal on the case. The White House—which recently ordered all staffers to take an ethics training course—declined to say if there is any policy for Rove to recuse himself from issues involving Patton Boggs clients. "All ethical obligations are being met," said spokeswoman Nicole Wallace.

Everyone clear about that? No? Well, the short version is this: Rove's lawyer, Luskin, IS the law firm Patton Boggs. Rove has LOTS and LOTS of lobbying friends who use Patton Boggs. Anyone gonna bother to ask about the intersection of Rove's attorneys and Rove's political power? Is Rove going to stop meeting with clients of Patton Boggs that he shares a lawyer with?

Who knows? Mike is invoking a clear, "Don't ask, Don't tell" policy here. He just allows Nicolle Wallace to get in a pretty little quote about ethics to end the piece.

Pathetic.

Well, putting aside Mike's attempts to humanize Rove for a moment, here's my question for Nicolle: Nicolle, have you noticed that the people who are giving you assurances that their ethical obligations are being met, are the very same folks who lied to Scott McClellan and then put him out on the podium like a pasty faced pinata for the presscorps to daily bat around? Given that fact, why would anyone believe anything you have to say?

I know I don't.

A sign of the times...

A large chunk of the marble has fallen away from the facade of the United States Supreme Court building in Washington DC. The marble was right above the inscription near the top of the building saying, "Equal Justice under Law."

Insert your own remarks ________________ .

In watching this morning's Meet The Press, I am struck by a number of things:

1.) If the Republicans want people to believe that they know what they are doing in Iraq, they need to get a better spokesperson than Sen. John Warner(R-VA). Warner just admitted that: We cannot maintain forces in Iraq over the next two years without fundamental changes, he doesn't trust the Pentagon's information so he does his own independent analysis, in his private meetings with flag officers he was told that they do not have enough troops in Iraq now and never have had. Further, he stated that "We need to do everything we can to help troop morale", ipso facto, troop morale is bad. And this is what the supporters of the war are saying?

2.) Biden: "The administration did not get serious about training Iraqis until the last nine months."

3.) They can't put more troops in now, because there is a "Bush-fullfilling prophecy" of 'If we put in more troops, we look like an occupying force, but we need more troops to mount a counter-insurgency'. Once again, there is an emergency, and the White House dithers, Bush dithers, and people die.

4.) In the coming months, more and more members of Congress and the Washington punditry will be calling Cheney a liar, and saying that he duped Bush with shaped intelligence about Iraq.

5.) Has the word "nuclear" actually become "nukuler", among even the educated sycophants?

6.) Biden does a good job of destroying the pre-war "Saddam had nuclear weapons" argument, and the argument that "members of Congress had the same intelligence" as the Bush administration. The Democrats should put him in front on this issue.

7.) Cheney shouldn't expect any support from any member of Congress, based on John Warner's non-support of him. Cheney is so radioactive at this point, Warner wouldn't even say his name.

8.) Somebody needs to push this question: If the U.S. Army can get seventeen-year-olds from East Bumbledirt combat ready in thirty-to-ninety days, what the hell have they been doing with the training program for Iraqis for the last two years? Shouldn't they have, say, a gazillion Iraqis combat ready by now?

9.) I have watched Warner and Biden so you don't have to. I want appreciation and maybe some money for that.

10.) The Round Table this morning is: David Gregory, Eugene Robinson, David Broder, and Judy Woodruff. The presence of Robinson and Gregory gives us something of a break from the usual Washington in-bred cocktail party kool kidz of the beltway crowd. But not much of one.

As a woman in my 50s, I was seriously taken aback when I read this SLATE piece on Maureen Dowd's new book, "Are Men Necessary?".

Like the crude, sexist men she lampoons, Dowd is extremely fond of clever stereotyping. But this strategy is better-suited to satirizing a real person (say, President Bush) than it is to offering insights into the already cartoonish "war" between the sexes.

In Are Men Necessary?, she gravitates toward quotes like this: "Deep down all men want the same thing: a virgin in a gingham dress," or "if there's one thing men fear it's a woman who uses her critical faculties." To support these generalizations, Dowd relies on the faux journalism of women's magazines. She cobbles together anecdotal evidence from people she encounters. The formula is basically this: "Carrie, a 29-year-old publicist, says … " And from Carrie's experience she extrapolates to the universal. The problem with this approach is that one could go out and find a 29-year-old publicist who would say the opposite. It would be one thing if Dowd were writing pure, straightforward polemic, ranting against the people she feels the need to rant against. But Dowd is pretending to cover cultural trends with journalistic accuracy, and it is this pretense that gives her arguments a shoddy feel.

Too bad. But I HAD to check it out.

To be fair to Dowd, she goes on to explain in subsequent articles and interviews that she writes in complaint of younger generations of women who have seen the "overwhelm" of their mothers and aunts, (the kind of overwhelm that overtakes "Superwomen"), and they opt instead for a simpler model of existence in "post-feminist" America. Britney. Jessica. Brangelina. The idol worship of popular culture that does not respect YOUR ordinary life, making you feel desperate to "not to be voted off the island". In other words, more of the SOS feminists have been fighting over the last umpteen years.

I think the tempest about Maureen Dowd should really be a call to arms in the war between the sexes. But "Are Men Necessary?" isn't the war, its the skirmish. And a rather superficial skirmish. A Falklands War versus WW2.

The "war between the sexes" is really The War on Women. Because let's face it--WHOSE RULES of engagement do we live by?

Since last Friday when Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) made his historic call for redeployment of troops from Iraq, people have been wondering why his statement has garnered such attention.

Russ Feingold made a proposal earlier this year. Dennis Kucinich has been calling for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq since the beginning of the war.

Why is John Murtha different?

If you ask Congressman Murtha, he will tell you that even he doesn't know for sure, but he thinks that people know we are losing this war, and they are thirsting for a solution.

That may be close, but I don't think that is quite right.

I think John Murtha has become the tipping point for the moderate Republicans who supported Iraq War for the same reason that Cindy Sheehan became the tipping point for the centrist Democrats who supported the Iraq War. They both have absolute moral authority.

Cindy Sheehan's absolute moral authority arose from her's son Casey's death on April 4, 2004, moving her forever from motherhood to iconic peace activist. She became the voice of all parents in America who question the government's moral authority to send our children to war for a cause that cannot, to this day, be enunciated.

But something was still missing from the fight against the War In Iraq.

First he was under investigation and indicted:

(Jack Abramoff listens to his attorney)

And HE was under investigation and indicted:

(Tom Delay finds getting arrested the next best thing to Disneyland.)

Many people know I've been out canvassing and trying to educate people about a local ballot initiative here where I live. But sometimes you can learn deeper lessons from those you end up meeting on their front porch.

This conversation happened to me earlier last week but it's still holding a place in my heart. It's about the war in Iraq and about how we have to reconcile our feelings against the war with the respect that the soldiers serving there deserve for their dedication to democracy.

Below the fold, I will tell you the story of Eric.

As Iraq War hawk John Murtha spoke today, calling for the immediate scheduling of redeployment of US forces from Iraq, one could sense the shift in American attitude towards the War in Iraq.

The full text of the statement by the fifteen term veteran Democratic Congressman and 38-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps:

"The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region."

"General Casey said in a September 2005 hearing, "the perception of occupation in Iraq is a major driving force behind the insurgency." General Abizaid said on the same date, "Reducing the size and visibility of the coalition forces in Iraq is part of our counterinsurgency strategy."

"For 2 ½ years, I have been concerned about the U.S. policy and the plan in Iraq. I have addressed my concerns with the Administration and the Pentagon and have spoken out in public about my concerns. The main reason for going to war has been discredited. A few days before the start of the war I was in Kuwait - the military drew a red line around Baghdad and said when U.S. forces cross that line they will be attacked by the Iraqis with Weapons of Mass Destruction - but the US forces said they were prepared. They had well trained forces with the appropriate protective gear.

"We spend more money on Intelligence that all the countries in the world together, and more on Intelligence than most countries GDP. But the intelligence concerning Iraq was wrong. It is not a world intelligence failure. It is a U.S. intelligence failure and the way that intelligence was misused.

I have in hand the new Atlantic Monthly, with a long-awaited cover article by James Fallows. It has a long subtitle: Why Iraq Has No Army - we can't leave until the Iraqis have one, the Bush administration says - and they're not even close - so now what. Fallows also was interviewed on "Fresh Air" on Nov. 16, 2005.

This article comes at a time when we need to know more what is going on in Iraq. It comes a time when Bush has been bolstering his case for going into Iraq and once again, questioning the patriotism of those who dissent and even implying they play into the hands of the enemy. It also comes at a time when Bush has the lowest approval rating of his presidency and a majority of Americans say that he is not honest and disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the war on terrorism. A majority of Senators are asking this administration for quarterly reports, new evidence of torture in Iraq has emerged, and this week has seen unusually high casualties.

Given this framework, I read the article, then listened to the NPR special.

(Stephanie Allen is a young woman from Buffalo who came down to D.C. for the September 24 March and who decided to get arrested, along with Cindy Sheehan and others, in front of the White House on September 26. The group of over 300 protesters were engaged in peaceful civil disobedience. Their arrests were statements of protest against the war in Iraq, and the lies of the Bush Administration. Stephanie came back to D.C. to have her hearing today. It was also Cindy Sheehan's hearing. Here is Stephanie's report.)

Stephanie has returned from her day in court, which will continue tomorrow. Today was a long day of waiting and riding a roller coaster. No one was sentenced today; some of the cases were dismissed (the arresting officer did not show up) but everyone plans to show up tomorrow.

The defendants want to have their say. The group of 34 had requested that they be arraigned and tried together as a group. After opening arguments by Jon Norris and Mark Goldstone, the attorneys, it became clear that the judge and prosecuting attorney wanted to arraign and try each defendant separately, by arresting officer.

A two-hour recess ensued, while the group re-thought their strategies.

Upon returning to the courtroom, and after the chaos settled, the announcement was made that the group would be arraigned and tried together, but grouped by arresting officer.

It was around 2 pm by this time. This was as far as the trial had progressed in five hours...

Then the arresting officers were sworn in and gave testimony. All of them could identify at least some of the people they had arrested, but this task was made easier by the fact that the arrestees for each officer were lined up directly in front of them, neatly in a row.

One officer, in particular, seemed to be confused about what actions he had taken on September 26, and had difficulty defining what it meant to arrest someone. The testimony was jumbled and the details of the day eluded several of the officers.

By 6:30 p.m., the prosecution had one more witness and none of the protestors had made it to the stand. The judge said "We're almost done; the last witness will testify in the morning."

The group headed out for pizza, discussing the strategy for trying to get at least a little time on the stand for their own messages.

Stephanie has a good vibe about tomorrow. She does not think she will be convicted, nor will Cindy Sheehan. She hopes that regardless of the outcome, when they leave the courtroom, the media will hear from them.

Her energy is good. Should her instincts be incorrect, and a conviction results, she will appeal, "definitely."

This is her first glimpse into the vagaries of the judicial system. She said she never understood how easily you can tell what the judge is thinking. The politics of the process are quite clear too.

"We are very positive; thanks to all who are supporting us!"

UPDATE: Compromise reached.

A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise yesterday that would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorist suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights.

The compromise links legislation written by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), which would deny detainees broad access to federal courts, with a new measure authored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) that would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal to a federal appeals court. The deal will come to a vote today, and the authors say they are confident it will pass.

McCain's anti-torture amendment will likely be folded into this as part of the overall package.

Nice work on the phone calls everyone.

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

It's hard for me to believe that I have to sit down and write about why its important to preserve the writ of habeas corpus, not just constitutionally, but statutorily as well.

As I was explaining to someone last night, the United States was founded, and is an idea which is largely lived out through two documents; The Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.

The Declaration of Independence is meant to fire us up about why freedom and living by the Rule of Law are the only way for people to be truly free. The Constitution is the instruction manual for how to set up our government and laws in order to carry out that vision of freedom.

One of the cornerstones of that vision is the writ of habeas corpus.

Constitutionally, it means that the government cannot just go about rounding up citizens off the street, without being subject to judicial review for that action. Considering we were breaking away from an absolute monarchy, where the King's soldiers used to do that on a regular basis, one can easily see why this was so important to the founders and the framers.

But what about non-citizens? What rights, if any, should other people have when they are visiting our country?

Spill it here.

This is a really interesting piece from Chris Kulczycki in a diary over at Daily Kos, and something that the future leaders of the United States need to be thinking about now, not just when the problem begins to overwhelm the citizenry:

One of the more effective tools in the fight against poverty is renewable energy. Many of the world's poor live in rural areas not served by electricity or even telephone. Though we often think of renewable energy in terms of wind farms, biodiesel plants, or huge hydroelectric works, it is often simple, low cost energy technology that can provide connectivity, cooking fuel, and electricity for millions.

Some of you may have seen my diary about Kiva, a small non-profit providing peer-to-peer microcredit in Uganda. One of the reasons Kiva started their operation in Uganda is the high internet connectivity rate there. Another California-based organization, Inveneo, is furthering Ugandan connectivity by providing a low cost pedal and solar-powered PCs and communications systems. It provides remote villages access to computing, voice calling, e-mail and the Internet. Inoveo has begun installing the systems in a few villages in western Uganda where nothing resembling a telephone system has ever existed. Their software is all open-source and the web site provides info on building low powered rugged computers and a pedal powered generator.

This article also has great pictures, in addition to great information and ideas.

The CEO's of the five major oil firms will be coming to Capitol Hill this morning, ostensibly to answer questions from the Senate on the difference between record quarterly profits and price gouging. I, for one, will be glued to C-SPAN3 in the vain hopes of hearing anything close to an answer. Or the truth. Whichever gets mistakenly blurted out first.

The hearing begins at 9:30 AM, with C-SPAN3 carrying the live stream.

Just as a sidenote: I will be sending a DCP t-shirt to the first Senator who asks any CEO if there is a relationship between the price of gas dropping fifty-five cents in the last two weeks, and their appearance before Congress.

Yet another Bush appointee is under investigation, Kenneth Tomlinson, recently departed Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. From the NY Times:

Last July, the inspector general at the State Department opened an inquiry into Mr. Tomlinson's work at the board of governors after Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, and Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, forwarded accusations of misuse of money.

Kenneth Tomlinson is out at CPB:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Board of Directors said Thursday that embattled former board chairman Ken Tomlinson has resigned.

The board has been reviewing a CPB Inspector General's report--called for by a pair of congressmen--on Tomlinson's relationship with the board stemming from Tomlinson's attempts to add more conservative programming.

A little late, but nevertheless welcome, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has just released a report confirming that, surprise surprise, the paperless voting machines used in the 2004 elections are a disaster.

Of course, the mainstream media have not said word one about this report.

Here's a report from Bradblog, who has done so much to keep this issue alive:
Silence: Mainstream Media Completely Ignores GAO Report, Joint Congressional News Release on E-Voting!

Landmark Non-Partisan Report, Accompanying Bi-Partisan Press Release Confirming Lack of Security, Reliability in American Electoral System Wholly Unreported by Mainstream Corporate Media

It's been nearly a week and a half since the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released its 107-page report [PDF] confirming what many of us have been reporting for what seems like forever: That electronic voting machines are not secure, are hackable, and employ secret software that is frequently neither certified nor adequeately inspected.

[Click here for the rest of the article]

Yesterday, there was this tense and interesting exchange between reporters and Scott McClellan on the subject of his credibility, and his credibility at the podium:

Q Whether there's a question of legality, we know for a fact that there was involvement. We know that Karl Rove, based on what he and his lawyer have said, did have a conversation about somebody who Patrick Fitzgerald said was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. We know that Scooter Libby also had conversations.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don't think that's accurate.

Q So aside from the question of legality here, you were wrong, weren't you?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, David, if I were to get into commenting from this podium while this legal proceeding continues, I might be prejudicing the opportunity for there to be a fair and impartial trial. And I'm just not going to do that. I know very --

Well, folks, let's have at it. What are you discovering about Judge Alito?

Anything you want to share here about the man or his plan?

From Murray Waas of the National Journal (subscription):

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

Cheney had been the foremost administration advocate for war with Iraq, and Libby played a central staff role in coordinating the sale of the war to both the public and Congress.

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.

The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war.

You think now we can maybe have a real Congressional investigation?

Maybe a few Contempt of Congress citations?

Maybe a Congress that can do its damn job of asking questions and serving the function of being a check on the power of the Executive branch?

[Editor's note: Just a reminder that The Democracy Cell Project is non-partisan. The opinion of the blogworld expressed below is the opinion of the writer. Thank you.]

I try to read alot of blogs. I am always on the hunt for who's writing something interesting, and who's offering a different take on the day's news. For fans of the former, there's the blog firedoglake, and for fans of the latter, there's Paul Begala's entry at Josh Marshall's TPM Cafe. Here's a bit about each:

Over at TPM Cafe, former Clinton advisor Paul Begala has written a very interesting piece on what it's like to be working in a White House that is 'under siege'. Here's a snippet, but it's worth going over for the whole read.

...This I know first hand: when The Boss explodes like that, there are two kinds of aides -- those who fight and those who flee. When he came to Washington, Mr. Bush surrounded himself with tough-minded people who seemed not to be afraid to stand up to him. But now his team is loaded with weak-kneed toadies, and Mr. Bush is home alone. Karl Rove, of course, is fending off a potential indictment. His prodigious brain has not entertained another thought in months. (That's why, I suspect, some months back Rove popped off and said liberals wanted to give terrorists psychotherapy after 9/11. It was a loopy, stupid, and distinctly un-Rovian, meltdown - the first public sign that the pressure was causing Karl to crack.)

Go here to read the rest.

The other blog I have been reading is called Firedoglake. Primarily written by an attorney and a former federal prosecutor (Reddhedd and Jane Hamsher, respectively), Firedoglake provides insight and context to the legal proceedings surrounding the leak investigation. They research the news exhaustively and put the pieces together in a way that is extremely helpful and understandable while steadfastly refusing to condescend to their audience.

Also, they are witty and clever without being either cutesy or mean. A perfect example is this morning's post. Everyone knows that Fitzgerald's office is leakproof. The only comment they ever have is no comment. And yet, Jane manages to get a story anyway:

"The spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, Randall Sanborn, refused to comment." I can't tell you how many times I've read that line. Every time I open a paper, it seems. And I'm always thinking, I want this guy's job -- he could be phoning it in from the high Himalayas for all we know.

So when I called him up the other day I expected the same thing. Since I'm working on a post on Fitzgerald, I had to do the obligatory request for an interview, which I knew he'd turn down, which he did.

"One more thing," I said. "I'd like to know if you could confirm the Viagra pen story."

Welcome to another day in the miasma that is the Bush White House…

Not that we didn’t know it was coming, but this story in the New York Times clarifies what the more cynical among us have believed for many moons: that Vice President Dick Cheney did in fact discuss CIA agent Valerie Plame with his Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, weeks before her identity became public. This contradicts Libby’s testimony before a federal grand jury, in which he stated that he learned of Valerie Plame’s identity from reporters.

From CNN:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The war in Iraq saw two milestones Tuesday that reflect the country's path to democracy and its human toll as officials said the referendum on a draft constitution passed and the U.S. military's death toll reached 2,000.

CNN's count of U.S. fatalities reflects reports from military sources and includes deaths in Iraq, Kuwait and other units assigned to the Iraq campaign.

I don't know why we mark these things in nice round numbers. Somehow that seems just slightly obsene to me. I don't think the families of these people think of their loved ones in nice round numbers.

I don't think God works in base ten. I wonder, why do we?

Last night we found ourselves at a remarkable event: a planning session with Code Pink, Military Families Speak Out, United for Peace and Justice, DC Antiwar Network, the World Can't Wait's Travis Morales, Cindy Sheehan, Ann Wright, and others, all sitting around a big table at Busboys and Poets (currently THE social destination for the antiwar/peace movement in DC!).

Andy Shallal puts his head together with Cindy Sheehan

I'm not reporting on the meeting so much as sharing what we are all learning as we go along (for specifics on the outcome of the meeting, see the press advisory on the front page of this website).

It is never easy for organizations to work together, and each representative has to go back to the home organization for final approval of joint efforts. But the process was instructive and worth sharing.

Ann Wright and Travis Morales

We began (after introductions, and cheers for Ann Wright's shout-out from the Congressional gallery last week to Condileeza Rice) by setting the goals for the week: Cindy spoke eloquently about the meaning of the 2000th American death. Others brought up the Iraqi dead, the wounded, and the fact that George Bush would be having a session today with spouses and wives of dead soldiers; and that became the focus for today's actions.

We discussed the need for a beginning, middle, and end to each day and for the overall four day event.

The people present had tons of ideas about ways to drive home the messages; the challenge became to sequence those ideas in a way that amplified the messages and did not undercut them with clever but divergent concerns. It is so easy for progressives to be all-inclusive, but we need to adhere to the discipline of assuring that just the right messages get out and that messages are not stumbling over each other.

It felt rather like being in the room with a lot of artists--beginning with brainstorming all the images and ideas for a work, then the more difficult process of sequencing those ideas, losing some along the way that really belong in another work, adding new ones as the particular moments become clearer.

Over the years I have found collaborative work requires patience, perspective, clear guiding principles, and good souls. Last night we had all that, and it was good.

Christine and her brand-new Code Pink t-shirt

What is going on in your towns this week? How can you help to amplify and make visible the work that is going on in front of the White House?

[Editor's Note: This piece comes to us from Fe. I put it up ( in addition to the NYT obituary of Parks on the thread below) because it includes a personal remembrance of how Parks affected the life of its writer, who is a person of color.]

It was like any other day, in Montgomery, Alabama, when a white man approached a black woman who had taken a seat on the bus, asking her to move to the back. She refused.

"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.

"No," she answered.

"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.

"You may do that," she responded.

And they promptly arrested her.

That woman was Rosa Parks. By refusing to give up her seat, she became the catalyzing agent that set off the 381-day Montgomery Bus boycott, and the blossoming of the civil rights movement in America.

"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."

I was almost a year old when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat. Because of her, I grew up in a world where I never had to bow, scrape, or imagine myself less than. It was through people like Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and later, Cesar Chavez, Bobby Kennedy that an America that lived up to its highest, most fearless ideals came to full flower.

"I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom and peace."

For Rosa Parks, from all of us who work for justice and peace, we hold you in our hearts like a poem and a prayer.

From the New York Times:

Rosa Parks, a black seamstress whose refusal to relinquish her seat to a white man on a city bus in Montgomery, Ala., almost 50 years ago grew into a mythic event that helped touch off the civil rights movement of the 1950's and 1960's, died yesterday at her home in Detroit. She was 92 years old.

For her act of defiance, Mrs. Parks was arrested, convicted of violating the segregation laws and fined $10, plus $4 in court fees. In response, blacks in Montgomery boycotted the buses for nearly 13 months while mounting a successful Supreme Court challenge to the Jim Crow law that enforced their second-class status on the public bus system.

The events that began on that bus in the winter of 1955 captivated the nation and transformed a 26-year-old preacher named Martin Luther King Jr. into a major civil rights leader. It was Dr. King, the new pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, who was drafted to head the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization formed to direct the nascent civil rights struggle.

"Mrs. Parks's arrest was the precipitating factor rather than the cause of the protest," Dr. King wrote in his 1958 book, "Stride Toward Freedom. "The cause lay deep in the record of similar injustices."

Her act of civil disobedience, what seems a simple gesture of defiance so many years later, was in fact a dangerous, even reckless move in 1950's Alabama. In refusing to move, she risked legal sanction and perhaps even physical harm, but she also set into motion something far beyond the control of the city authorities. Mrs. Parks clarified for people far beyond Montgomery the cruelty and humiliation inherent in the laws and customs of segregation.

That moment on the Cleveland Avenue bus also turned a very private woman into a reluctant symbol and torchbearer in the quest for racial equality and of a movement that became increasingly organized and sophisticated in making demands and getting results.

"She sat down in order that we might stand up," the Rev. Jesse Jackson said yesterday in an interview from South Africa. "Paradoxically, her imprisonment opened the doors for our long journey to freedom."

Please take the time to go here and read the whole obituary.

God bless Rosa Parks, and may she rest in peace.

Once again, Karen Hughes just doesn't get it.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - U.S. goodwill envoy Karen Hughes got a earful from a group of mostly female Indonesian Muslim students on Friday, who expressed anger at the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and attacked Washington's foreign policies.

Tasked by U.S. President George W. Bush to polish America's image overseas, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy is in Jakarta to meet leading Muslim clerics and students during a tour of the world's most populous Muslim nation.

"Why does America always act as if they were the police of the world?," Barikatul Hikmah, a 20-year-old student at the Syarif Hidayatullah University asked Hughes.

Now there's a question we'd all like the answer to. But a better question might be, why does this administration want to act like the world's really bad parents?

Dear God, I hope Karen Hughes "listening tour" ends soon. I don't know how mu