The Dems (except Feingold) are AWOL

By Don,
Thu Mar 30th, 2006 at 08:11:56 AM EDT
from The Nation blog





Russ Feingold's Legal Firepower

Congressional Democrats have pretty much abandoned their Constitutionally-mandated responsibility to check and balance the excesses to the executive branch -- so much so that the one Democrat who seeks to hold President Bush to account for ordering the warrantless wiretapping of American's telephone conversations accuses for party's leaders of "cowering."

So where is Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold finding support? Among Republicans. Or, more precisely, among prominent alumni of past Republican administrations.

When the Senate Judiciary Committee convenes as extraordinary session on Friday (tomorrow) to consider the Feingold's motion to censure the president for ordering federal agencies to engage in eavesdropping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's requirement that judicial approval be obtained for wiretaps of Americans in the United States, the dissenting senator will call two witnesses.

Making arguments about the extreme seriousness of the warrantless wiretapping issue -- and the need for a Congressional response -- will be noted constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, who served in President Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice as Deputy Attorney General, and author and legal commentator John Dean, who served at Richard Nixon's White House counsel before breaking with the president to reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Watergate era.

Fein has argued, with regard to this president's penchant for illegal spying schemes, that: "On its face, if President Bush is totally unapologetic and says I continue to maintain that as a war-time President I can do anything I want -- I don't need to consult any other branches' -- that is an impeachable offense. It's more dangerous than Clinton's lying under oath because it jeopardizes our democratic dispensation and civil liberties for the ages. It would set a precedent that ... would lie around like a loaded gun, able to be used indefinitely for any future occupant."

Dean has echoed those concerns, explaining that: "There can be no serious question that warrantless wiretapping, in violation of the law, is impeachable. After all, Nixon was charged in Article II of his bill of impeachment with illegal wiretapping for what he, too, claimed were national security reasons."

Dean does make a distinction between the misdeeds of the Nixon and Bush administration, however. He has argued for some time that the current administration's reckless disregard for the Constitution and the rule of law is "worse than Watergate."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=73080

Go here to urge your senators and representatives to support censure

http://political.moveon.org/censure/

How to Find Contact Info for your Senators & Representative

http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm

All you need is your zip+4 (and they have a link to figure it out if you don't know).

Please write, call or show up in person.

Letter 2

Dear senators Feinstein and Boxer and Representative Watson,

Everything else pales to insignificance compared to this single issue:

Question 1) Did the President break the law when he ordered warrantless eavesdropping on Americans?

Answer: …we don't know the scope and extent of the President's illegal eavesdropping, but we do know that the eavesdropping he ordered was illegal…

…Under FISA, it is a criminal offense to eavesdrop on Americans without the oversight and approval of the FISA court. Section 1809 of FISA expressly provides that "[a] person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally - (1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute. . . ." And Section 2511(2)(f) provides that FISA "shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance . . . may be conducted." Thus, a person has broken the law if -- as the President admits he did -- he orders eavesdropping on Americans without complying with the warrant requirements of the statute. Period.

…Here is Alberto Gonzales making this precise admission at his December 19, 2005 press briefing with Gen. Hayden:

"Now, in terms of legal authorities, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act provides -- requires a court order before engaging in this kind of surveillance that I've just discussed and the President announced on Saturday, unless there is somehow -- there is -- unless otherwise authorized by statute or by Congress. That's what the law requires. "

…By definition, there is no investigation needed to determine whether the Administration engaged in warrantless eavesdropping prohibited by FISA because that fact is not in dispute.

Question 2) What was the scope and extent of the President's secret eavesdropping? Did the warrantless eavesdropping include only international calls, as he claims, or purely domestic calls as well? Were only suspected Al Qaeda members eavesdropped, on as he claims, or did the eavesdropping extend beyond that? How was it determined who would be eavesdropped on? And what was done with the information?

Answer: It is unquestionably true that an investigation is needed - urgently needed - in order to learn the answers …We do not know the scope and extent of the President's warrantless eavesdropping precisely because he eavesdropped in secret in violation of the law, rather than with judicial oversight. That is why it is so inexcusable that all of the Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee voted against Sen. Rockefeller's motion to conduct an investigation to find out the answers to these questions.

From Unclaimed Territory – Glenn Greenwald
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/03/myth-making-and-excuse-making-on.html

I light of the above, I am compelled to ask you three questions:

1) Are you really backing the Republicans?
2) Are you really backing yourself?
3) Are you hopefully backing America?

Before this country has mutated into something we do not recognize, speak the hell up!

Thank you,

My Goal is to Write a Letter a Day: Letter 1

Dear senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Representative Watson,

Please act. As someone I voted for, I ask that you represent my interests here and--at the very least--support Feingold's censure motion. At the most, impeach the scoundrel.

From Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory:
Administration tells Congress (again) - We won't abide by your "laws"

The Republicans and Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee submitted detailed questions to the Bush Administration regarding the NSA program, and the Department of Justice's responses to both the Democrats' questions and its responses to the Republicans' are now available.

There are numerous noteworthy items, but the most significant, by far, is that the Department of Justice made clear to Congress that the President is bestowed by the Constitution with the unlimited and un-limitable power to do anything that he believes is necessary to "protect the nation." Thus, even if Congress passes laws which seek to limit that power in any way, and even if the President agrees to those restrictions and signs that bill into law, he still retains the power to violate it whenever he wants.

Thus, Sen. DeWine can pass his cute little bill purporting to require oversight, or Sen. Specter can pass his, or they can do nothing and leave FISA in place. None of that matters, because no matter what Congress or even the President does with regard to the law, the law does not restrict what the President can do in any way. They are telling the Congress to its face that all of the grand debates it is having and the negotiations it is conducting are all irrelevant farces, because no matter what happens, the President retains unlimited power and nothing that Congress does can affect that power in any way.

The reality is that the Administration has been making clear for quite some time that they have unlimited power and that nothing -- not even the law -- can restrict it. But here, they are specifically telling Congress that even if Congress amends FISA and the President agrees to abide by those amendments, they still have the power to break the law whenever they want. As I have documented more times than I can count, we have a President who has seized unlimited power, including the power to break the law, and the Administration -- somewhat commendably -- is quite candid and straightforward about that fact.

I believe that even people who are aware of these facts have not really ingested or accepted the reality that we have an Administration that has embraced this ideology of lawlessness. This is not theory. The Administration is not saying these things as a joke. We really do live in a country where we have a President who has seized the unlimited power to break the law. That's not hyperbole in any way. It is reality. And the Patriot Act signing statement only re-iterates that fact.

Put another way, the Administration has seized the power of Congress to make the laws, they have seized the power of the judiciary to interpret the laws, and they execute them as well. They have consolidated within themselves all of the powers of the government, particularly with regard to national security. This situation is, of course, exactly what Madison warned about in Federalist 47; it really is the very opposite of everything our Government is intended to be.

"There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates," or, "if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers. [W]here the whole power of one department is exercised by the same hands which possess the whole power of another department, the fundamental principles of a free constitution are subverted.”

As usual, the most amazing aspect of all of this is not that the Administration is claiming these powers. It is that even as it claims them as expressly and clearly as can be, the Congress continues to ignore it and pretend that it still retains power to restrict the Administration by the laws it passes. And the media continues to fail in its duty to inform the country about the powers the Administration has seized, likely because they are so extreme that people still do not really believe that the Administration means what they are saying. What else do they need to do in order to demonstrate their sincerity?

Read the rest at: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/03/administration-tells-congress-again-we.html

My 10 Days that Changed America

My 10 Days that Changed America

April 19, 1775 Battles of Lexington and Concord – opening shots of the War for Independence

May 25, 1787 Constitutional convention convened in Philadelphia

January 24, 1848 James Marshall discovers a �bright speck’ that starts the California Gold Rush – begins the US perception of �Divine Right’ and beginning of the move West

April 12, 1861 Confederate soldiers fired upon the Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter – opening shots of the Civil War began the fight to determine power of federal vs. state / slavery abolished

April 14, 1865 Lincoln’s assassination – weathered the test of orderly succession and loyal opposition

December 7, 1941 Bombing of Pearl Harbor begins US involvement in WWII – world power reorganization and the industrialization of the US

September 9, 1971: Watergate break in – began orderly (almost) impeachment of a sitting president / the �rule of law’ applies to all

October 17, 1973 OPEC oil embargo begins – turning point in US perception of oil as a vital interest

November 9, 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall – world power reorganization / US dominance

September 11, 2001 World Trade Center destroyed – begins the �war on terror’ and the erosion (demise?) of �government by law’

10 Days That Changed America

Do you agree with their 10?
My thoughts in my next post...

History Channel series to feature 10 Days That Changed America
Source: Press Release -- History Channel (3-17-06)

Each of the 10 films has been created by a different award-winning documentary filmmaker or filmmaking team and spotlights an event that triggered a seismic shift in America's political, cultural or social landscape. Using a range of storytelling techniques including recreations and even animation as well as interviews, archival footage and historical artifacts, the series offers viewers a fresh perspective on well-known historical incidents while also shining a light on the tremendous impact of less frequently cited events.

Massacre at Mystic - The first time the English settlers engaged in the slaughter of Native Americans after years of relative peaceful coexistence. Known as the Pequot War, this massacre in Mystic, Connecticut set the pattern of the taking of Indian land throughout the country.

Shays' Rebellion: America's First Civil War - A violent protest against debt collection and taxation practices motivated George Washington to come out of retirement to help strengthen the fragile new nation. This was the spark that led to the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Gold Rush - The explosive effects of gold being discovered spurred tremendous financial and physical growth throughout the West. For the first time in history, individuals - not kings or sultans - could have gold for the taking, spurring tens of thousands of immigrants to make the arduous journey West.

Antietam - The bloodiest day in American history, both sides paid a terrible price during this Civil War battle that resulted in 23,000 casualties. President Abraham Lincoln needed this victory to insure that no foreign country would support the Confederates, and issue the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Homestead Strike - Harsh working conditions and long hours In Carnegie's Homestead steel mill led to a union strike. The battle fought between management and labor signaled an end to workers believing they had an ownership stake in their jobs, and widen the divide between management and labor.

Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of William McKinley -- Set against the backdrop of the 1901 World's Fair and the dawning of the new century, the assassination of President William McKinley ushered in a new Progressive Era under the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt.

Scopes: The Battle Over America's Soul -- The sensational courtroom battle between two giants - three-time presidential candidate and populist William Jennings Bryan and big city criminal defense lawyer Clarence Darrow - over the teaching of evolution in a small Tennessee town. The trial underscored a deep schism within the American psyche -- religion versus science, church and state, elitism versus populism.

Einstein's Letter - Albert Einstein's letter to FDR that launched the development of the atomic bomb. The result, known as the Manhattan Project, brought government and science together in a project to build the bomb and change the world forever.

When America Was Rocked -- Elvis Presley's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9, 1956, signified a whole new culture that involved teenage independence, sexuality, race relations and a new form of music.

Freedom Summer -- There was a time when trying to register to vote in Mississippi could get one killed. When two white and one black Civil Rights workers went missing, national attention turned to the violence in Mississippi, which eventually led to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Quote of the Day

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

from Word of the Day

Schlepping Toward Dictatorship...

Republican Congressman Predicts Bush Impeachment
Says US close to dictatorship

Republican Congressman Ron Paul has gone on record with his prediction that the impeachment of George W. Bush is right around the corner but warned that in the meantime the US was slipping perilously close to a dictatorship.

Appearing on the Alex Jones Show and addressing the port sell-out, Paul stated that, "it probably will contribute to the Republican's failure in the next election."

Asked if the Democrats would use gains in the mid-term elections to set in motion impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush, Paul responded,

"I predict that would happen."

"I think he (Bush) has numerous things that the Democrats if they get a chance, not only will they be after him for that but it will be payback for the Clinton impeachment."

Paul was inclined to believe that the port sales would go ahead anyway but took a positive perspective in pointing out that it again highlighted George W. Bush's complete abandonment of conservative principles.

"At least this has awakened a lot of people and I think this is going to serve as a benefit," said Paul. "They're likely to pull this deal off but the American people are awakening now and I think there's going to be a payback period in the election."

The Congressman expressed his resignation at the passage of the Patriot Act and how it again underscores Bush's unchecked powers.

"They had a few token changes which mean nothing and under the present system he (President Bush) just ignores what he doesn't like anyway."

Asked if the US was heading into a dictatorship, Paul responded, "It's getting close to it, it's called usurpation of power and it's done in many ways with Congress just going along because they're sound asleep and this certainly is an attack on our Constitution and on our freedoms."

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com March 3 2006

Here's my husband's take on these comments: "There is no doubt in my mind that, unless something unexpected happens, like impeachment and/or democrats retaking congress in November, we will be effectively a one-party system, like Mexico was for 60 years, or like the Philippines under Marcos, or like post-war Japan. And it may be less benign than those examples because of the militaristic component.

Unfortunate in the extreme."

And, ya know, I think he's right.

Black Death caused �Ice Age’ in centuries that followed

Researchers from Utrecht University believe the medieval great plague caused Europe’s temperatures to fall, making humanity’s impact on climate change earlier than previously thought. The team from the Netherlands estimated land use changed around 1347, when the Black Death arrived, which would have caused an agricultural crisis; trees then flourished on land no longer being cultivated. Tests on pollen and leaves in the southeast Netherlands suggest these millions of trees would have absorbed carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, producing a cooling effect in the next few centuries. This minor �Ice Age’ in European history lasted for around 300 years from 1500. The scientists included Dr Thomas van Hoof, who stated: �Between AD 1200 to 1300, we see a decrease in stomata and a sharp rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to deforestation we think.’ The research is published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology; other scientists suggest oceanic, solar, or volcanic reasons for the lower average temperatures. (February 28th)

See the History Today articles The Black Death: The Greatest Catastrophe Ever (March 2005).

Bush admin uses war on terror to justify war on journalists

That's what former presidential adviser David Gergen (adviser to four Presidents: Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton) says. "This administration has engaged in secrecy at a level we have not seen in over 30 years," he tells Howard Kurtz. "Unfortunately, I have to bring up the name of Richard Nixon, because we haven't seen it since the days of Nixon. And now what they're doing -- and they're using the war on terror to justify -- is they're starting to target journalists who try to pierce the veil of secrecy and find things and put them in the newspapers. ... This is the first administration that I can remember, including Nixon's, that said ... that we need to think about a law that would put journalists who print national security things to bring them up in front of grand juries and put them in jail if they don't -- in effect, if they don't reveal their sources."

Source: Romanesko (3-6-06)
Posted on Monday, March 6, 2006 at 9:46 PM

Pulling no punches...

Sleepwalking to Fallujah
by Joseph Bageant
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 29, 2004

Each workday I commute toward Washington, D.C. along Route 7, where patriotic war slogans are spray painted on the overpasses, and homemade signs jut from the median in support of our "boys in Iraq." Mud-splattered construction trucks rip by with frayed flags popping in the wind, loaded with burly bearded men and looking very much like the footage of Afghanistan or Angola, minus the 50 caliber gun mounts. Yesterday I saw my first stretch Hummer, painted in desert tan and carrying half a dozen soccer mom types, which rather sums up the point I am trying to make here. There is a distinct martial ethos, the tang of steel and the smell of gun oil in the air around Washington these days, I swear it.

Only a blind microcephalic could fail to notice this systemic militarization of the American culture, and the media's hyper-escalation of warrior worship. Reputedly, our national character is supposed to be improved by all this. But I was in the military for a time -- a "young warrior" in Fox Network parlance -- and I can confidently say I was not improved one bit by the experience. (Although I did learn to cuss properly, if a bit too much.) That was 35 years ago, back when there was little, if any, mythologizing of Vietnam's warriors, much less patriotic news spasms ejaculated by embedded reporters between the commercials. News was duller then. Certainly not as entertaining as the Jessica Lynch story of a fetching, innocent young blonde wounded while supposedly blazing away at the face of evil itself, only to suffer multiple wounds, then be rescued from some fly-ridden Iraqi hospital (more radio crackling and gunfire please) by her comrades in arms. After this stirring rescue we were served the titillating dessert of the subsequent doctor's report: She was sodomized by the sweaty stinking bastards! In the television news business it just does not get any better than that. Pass the corn chips, please.

With television news like that, who needs a rational explanation as to why we are at war? The entertainment value alone is worth it. And therein lies the problem for those of us in that last generation of people who gained most of what they know from reading: We need a tangible explanation why we are spilling so much blood and bullion in that god forsaken desert pisshole. Still no answer. Or no new one at least. Oh, there is the standard line that goes, "We are defending democracy and liberating a people from oppression." That old saw was getting mighty dull even back in my day, when it was used to explain Vietnam.

I cannot remember a time when the American public ever asked any important questions of its national leadership. In the American scheme of things, that is the media's job, media frames the question and the public asks it, after having been appropriately bludgeoned over the head with it. That's our system by damned, we love it, and it has even been known to work on occasion. Which would be fine, except that Edward R. Murrow has been dead a long time. Since then, the American psyche has been hardwired into a new world communications order, one in which global corporations now pay the freight for national television. Halliburton, Boeing and Sprint ain't Geritol and this ain't Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour. Content with selling us chewing gum or Chesterfields, early television sponsors were not players in the Pentagon defense contract game and never slept with the government to obtain more bandwidth.

It is tragic that such a promising instrument as television had to grow up at the end of the Age of Enlightenment -- just in time to ignite an unholy fission/fusion, a synthesis of mammon and politics amid a culture out of philosophical and spiritual gas. Just when America needed to explain itself to itself, if it were ever to redefine its higher goals and ideas. But television is about emotion, not explanation. It has no patience for ideas (not that we've seen a real idea in 30 years). Ideas? Who gives a fuck? Let's go shopping. The result has been a nation of sleepwalkers, an all-but-expired republic reduced to pure consumption and little else (a fact not unnoticed by the Muslim world.) Hell, even flatworms consume, and sheer quantity is no substitute for a national soul. It took a couple of generations, but here we are now plugged in at the brainstem, just as McLuhan predicted, to television's virtual cathedral of commerce where the devoted receive the sacrament in a straight shot to the cortex. Too tired from overwork, or poor, or old, or young, or just plain lazy to feel anything else, the tribal war drumbeat called news and the reality shows that pass for experiencing the world beyond work and consumption, as McCluhan's electronic hearth casts shadows on the walls of a withdrawn and slowly rotting republic.

We had warning from poets, writers and grim futurists, but who would have guessed it would come to this so soon? That we would become so perfectly attuned to capitalist state television, ever trolling for more business, dragging its nets baited with new cars, Disney character imprinted cell phones, and buckets of fried chicken through a sea of somnambulates. Yet, the sleepwalkers all share but one eye, that of the camera, which, as Lewis Lapham put it, " . . . doesn't make distinctions between treason and fellatio . . . between an important senator and an important ape." So images of the grisly specter in Fallujah and Janet Jackson's boob draw the same numb respect. Stop and consider that most Americans get their "knowledge" of the outside world from this medium, then consider that most of the Muslim world gets its notion of America from Baywatch. If that does not throw any thinking person into the grip of a Prozac-proof depression, nothing will. And what about these so-called thinking persons? Where is the voice of their dissent? Well, they are naturally unhappy and making the best noise they can -- all two dozen of them.

Despite that brief and fabled moment during the 1960s, the U.S. is not a nation comfortable with dissent. We have never spawned a nationally integrated left-wing opposition in the European sense. A well-behaved people when it comes to public debate, when told by the president on TV that we are at war with terrorism, the overwhelming majority of us line up and salute the flag. More importantly, we do not ask questions. So the question of why a hundred million dollar agency dedicates its resources to swabbing the anuses of farting toy dogs never gets asked, just smiled at. And whether we are willing to sustain, say, 25,000 dead American kids in Iraq never comes up, much less debated. It is equally unlikely the public will inquire specifically who is best served by the caskets being unloaded daily at Dover, Delaware. By state decree, we are not even allowed to see them. And let us not even begin to ask that greatest of all American spiritual questions: "Who is getting rich from it?" In a society whose business is business, where whoever raises the most money to buy TV time elects the next president, that question is not likely to get answered either. Not by the Bush administration, nor by the media it sponsors through government license handouts, tax breaks and regulation-or the lack of it.

Hard to believe that not long ago we were asking how we were going to spend the projected $400 billion "peace dividend" that came with the end of the Cold War. That question has now been answered. Thank you and sit down. So who does get rich? As if we didn't know. Of course there is the Pentagon's coalition of vested interests, which is just about every material and service provider imaginable from Sprint to SpaghettiOs. But in the end it winds up in vastly disproportionate amounts in the hands of the already-rich. Those uneasy oligarchs who, since the first Neolithic thug stole all the grain in the village, have lived in fear of losing their advantage.

In this country the rich have been uneasy from the beginning, and have long thought that perhaps the democratic experiment has gone just about far enough. Their grumbling, political scheming and sometimes-outright assaults on the common decency of the republic date back to the American Revolution. But now is their hour, thanks to George Bush. George Bush did not invent their fear. He merely rode it into the White House. And as their chosen commander-in-chief, he has certainly handed them, with some preliminary help from his predecessor Bill Clinton, the promise of ultimate victory in the real war taking place, the ongoing war of which America has ever been in denial-the class war. This time the already-rich are girded for victory, prepared like never before.

As an outer defensive perimeter they have deployed a far-flung and invincible army. Within the nation has been established a pervasive and relentless Homeland Security Department. All accomplished adroitly at public expense. And with Bush's gift of escape from equitable taxation, they have set about intensifying their real work at hand, protecting themselves with such steep income differences that they will be forever safe-safety to an oligarch being ever rowing the societal boat backward into the past. Thus, if there is any way to return to the uncomplicated world of 1952 Middleburg or Grosse Pointe with enough money to keep their descendants farting through silk for the next 20 generations, these people are going to do it, with the thuggish help of a leering dry drunk and a secretive gang operating from an undisclosed location.

Nobody in their right mind would take them on because American history has taught us one thing, if nothing else: Rich white people with guns will kill everybody in sight if they get spooked. One need only look back at the Ludlow mining massacre, or ask any urban African-American. Better for us to accept the scraps of the roast goat flung to the populi by the government of the feasting rich, and enjoy the meaningless spectacle of the Martha Stewart show trial. Watch the poised and telegenic Condoleezza Rice testify before a stacked 9/11 commission not even allowed to quote the key suspects in its final report; or jeer at the arrogant and thoroughly unlikable Andrew Fastow running laps around Houston before those appointed to administer his very public tar and feathering. Then catch Jay Leno's monologue for deep analysis of both.

So here we are, sleepwalkers in the intellectual and spiritual desert of America, 2004 at the end of the Enlightenment. We are literally dying for the lack of a new idea to animate our culture, government and the national mind. If the American mind is an ecosystem, we have fed it toxic waste.

Instead of news we clamor for bread and circuses, gladiators in the Coliseum of the Middle East. Instead of ideas we get data-the jargon of weapons specialists, political power pundits and stock brokers who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Every night I listen to numbly to the litany of numbers recited by this priest craft of pundits, all sorts of numbers-jobless numbers, economic indexes, and balance of trade figures . . . And I try to pinpoint the time when the corporate economy, the well-being of faceless monoliths, became our national religion, remembering back to the days when one had to go to the financial pages to find these things out. Now they are inescapable, these somber minute-by-minute reports on the condition and mood of Moloch, whose heart we are told by poets is a cannibal dynamo and whose breath reeks of the stench of war. How many of our jobs did Moloch eat today? How many did Moloch puke back up in Asia? These job numbers, and the number of Americans killed in Iraq, slosh against the beaches of awareness alongside the basketball scores and the number of cockroaches swallowed by a busty blonde on Fear Factor. The American dream of wealth and invincibility has taken on a life of its own, and now dreams us into being. And off on the horizon to the east, the sirens and the wailing never cease, for we have bestowed shock and awe upon Babylon.

Joe Bageant is a senior editor with the Primedia History Magazine Group. Copyright © 2004 Joe Bageant.

Great poster...that shouldn't be necessary...

hat tip to Blue Girl in a Red State

Timely quote of the day...

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
James Madison (1751-1809)

Quote of the Day in Consideration of Our Current World Actions

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

...all in the name of fighting Al Qaeda...

“ . . . what is far more fundamental is the defining American precept that a strong nation affirms its core principles most vigorously precisely when it faces external threats. We are a strong nation because we have adhered to the rule of law and our founding principles even as we defeated enemies far more formidable and threatening than a ragtag group of Islamic fanatics. Of all the radical changes which this Administration is attempting to bring about, the most threatening and corrupt is the notion that we need to fundamentally transform not just our system of government, but also our national character, all in the name of fighting Al Qaeda.”

Read the rest here: http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/02/erasing-cold-war-from-history.html

Courtesy of my wonderful hubby...thanks, babe.

Cheney's Bad Day

Too much has been made of the Cheney story. But his statement to Brit Hume that Saturday was one of the worst days in his life--which he said with real feeling--is disturbing. Cheney has never made a similar statement about the war in Iraq, which he helped bring about. Did he not have sleepless nights after advising President Bush to go to war?

Perhaps he did and he has chosen not to talk about it on the assumption that it would be unmanly or a sign of weakness. But I suspect he did not have sleepless nights over Iraq. Like many policymakers he probably has trouble imagining the impact of his policies on real human beings. He has to physically pull the trigger on a gun and see someone fall for him to feel that he is responsible for an injury...

Rick Shenkman
POTUS from History News Network

Tuesday's sweet Valentine story

Couples really do look like each other:

Researchers set out to investigate why couples often tend to resemble one another. They asked 11 male and 11 female participants to judge the age, attractiveness and personality traits of 160 real-life married couples. Photographs of husbands and wives were viewed separately, so the participants didn't know who was married to whom.

The test participants rated men and woman who were actual couples as looking alike and having similar personalities. Also, the longer the couples had been together, the greater the perceived similarities.

The article attributes the similarity to similar experiences, facial expressions, and testosterone.
OK, that's not so romantic. Personally, I think it's 50 percent assortative mating, and 50 percent fat.

Posted at 14:16 on 02/14/2006 permanent link

does this mean I look like Art in drag??!!! Not good!

Cheney's idea of a sporting chance...

courtesy of Wilson's Almanac

Cheney's Canned Kill, and Other Hunting Excesses of the Bush Administration

Vice President Dick Cheney went pheasant shooting in Pennsylvania in December 2003, but unlike most of his fellow hunters across America, he didn't have to spend hours or even days tramping the fields and hedgerows in hopes of bagging a brace of birds for the dinner table.
Upon his arrival at the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township, gamekeepers released 500 pen-raised pheasants from nets for the benefit of him and his party. In a blaze of gunfire, the group—which included legendary Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach and U.S. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), along with major fundraisers for Republican candidates—killed at least 417 of the birds.

According to one gamekeeper who spoke to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cheney was credited with shooting more than 70 of the pen-reared fowl.
After lunch, the group shot flocks of mallard ducks, also reared in pens and shot like so many live skeet. There's been no report on the number of mallards the hunting party killed, but it's likely that hundreds fell.

Rolling Rock is an exclusive private club for the wealthy with a world-class golf course and a closed membership list. It is also a "canned hunting" operation—a place where fee-paying hunters blast away at released animals, whether birds or mammals, who often have no reasonable chance to escape. Most are "no kill, no pay" operations where patrons only shells out funds for the animals they kill.

Bird-shooting operations offer pheasants, quail, partridges, and mallard ducks, often dizzying the birds and planting them in front of hunters or tossing them from towers toward waiting shotguns. There are, perhaps, more than 3,000 such operations in the United States, according to outdoor writer Ted Williams.

For canned hunts involving mammals, hunters can shoot animals native to given continents—everything from Addax to Zebra—within the confines of a fenced area, assuring the animals have no opportunity to escape. Time magazine estimates that 2,000 facilities offer native or exotic mammals for shooting within fenced enclosures.

The HSUS worked hard to expose Cheney's shooting spree, and we were fortunate in persuading The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and other media outlets to cover the events of that day and our subsequent criticism.

Our criticism is simple to understand: Farm-raised pheasants are about as wary as urban pigeons and shooting them is nothing more than live target practice, especially when they are released from a hill in front of 10 gunners hidden below in blinds—as Cheney and his party were. Such hunting makes a mockery of basic principles of fair play and humane treatment, and the vice president should not associate himself with such conduct.

The private excesses of Cheney are bad enough, and worthy of The HSUS's rebuke. But it's the public policy excesses that are of even greater concern to me. Cheney's hunting trip strikes me as emblematic of the Bush Administration's callousness towards the earth's animals.

The administration's most outrageous proposal is its plan to allow trophy hunters to shoot endangered species in other countries and import the trophies and hides into the United States. The administration first floated the proposal a few months ago, with formal proposals subsequently published in the Federal Register, and President Bush is expected to make a final decision soon on the plan, which originated with his U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For 30 years, the Endangered Species Act has provided critical protections for species near extinction in the United States. The act also protects species in foreign nations, by barring pet traders, circuses, trophy hunters, and others from importing live or dead endangered species. While we can't prevent the shooting or capture of endangered species overseas, we can prevent imports—thus eliminating the incentive for American hunters and others to shoot or trap the animals in the first place.

But with this plan the administration is seeking to punch gaping holes in the prohibitions, under the assumption that generating revenue through the sale of hunting licenses will aid on-the-ground conservation in foreign lands.
The plan is transparent on its face. It's not aimed to help species, but to aid special interests who want to profit from the exploitation of wildlife. No group is more centrally involved in this miserable plan than Safari Club International, the world's leading trophy hunting organization and an entity with close ties to the Bush Administration.

The 40,000 member organization of rich trophy collectors has doled out close to $600,000 in campaign contributions among GOP candidates in the past six years. President Bush appointed a former top lobbyist of the Safari Club to be the deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—again, the very agency promoting the plan to allow the selling off of endangered species to private interests.

The HSUS is not a pro-hunting organization. That said, we view certain types of hunting as worse than others. It crosses any reasonable line to support the shooting of some of the rarest and most endangered animals in the world. And it is beyond the pale to advocate for or participate in the shooting of animals in canned hunts—for birds or mammals.

President Bush met with leaders of 19 hunting organizations on December 12. While we expect him to endorse certain forms of hunting, he should in no way countenance the shooting of endangered species or the hunting of captive or pen-reared animals. If that's where these hunting groups want to lead him, he needs to resist their entreaties. He needs to stand up to these special interest groups and draw a bright line between certain types of hunting conduct.

Americans don't support this nonsense, and the president shouldn't either.

from an HSUS article
By Wayne Pacelle

New species found in Papua 'Eden'

The research group - from the US, Indonesia and Australia - trekked through an area in the mist-shrouded Foja Mountains, located just north of the vast Mamberamo Basin of north-western (Indonesian) New Guinea.
The team gathered the first photographic record of the Berlepsch's six-wired "lost" bird of paradise (Image: Bruce Beehler)

The researchers spent nearly a month in the locality, detailing the wildlife and plantlife from the lower hills to near the summit of the Foja range, which reaches more than 2,000m in elevation.

"It's beautiful, untouched, unpopulated forest; there's no evidence of human impact or presence up in these mountains," Dr Beehler told the BBC News website.

One of the team's most remarkable discoveries was a honeyeater bird with a bright orange patch on its face - the first new bird species to be sighted on the island of New Guinea in more than 60 years.

The researchers also solved a major ornithological mystery - the location of the homeland of Berlepsch's six-wired bird of paradise.

First described in the late 19th century through specimens collected by indigenous hunters from an unknown location on New Guinea, the species had been the focus of several subsequent expeditions that failed to find it.

On only the second day of the team's expedition, the amazed scientists watched as a male Berlepsch's bird of paradise performed a mating dance for an attending female in the field camp.
It was the first time a live male of the species had been observed by Western scientists, and proved that the Foja Mountains was the species' true home.

"This bird had been filed away and forgotten; it had been lost. To rediscover it was, for me, in some ways, more exciting than finding the honeyeater. I spent 20 years working on birds of paradise; they're pretty darn sexy beasts," Dr Beehler enthused.

The team also recorded a golden-mantled tree kangaroo, which was previously thought to have been hunted to near-extinction.

Some of the creatures the scientists came into contact with were remarkably unafraid of humans. Long-beaked echidnas, primitive egg-laying mammals, were happy to be picked up. (Image: Stephen Richards)

from a BBC News article

Levity, Levity

Maybe I should start focusing on being decorative. Useful isn’t working out for me.
~Whoopla

http://whoopingchickens.blogspot.com/

A Woman from the Inside Out

Amazing!

http://www.pelourinho.com/movies/c003702/

Don'tcha just hate talented people!?

Laura Bush's Talking Head

Bush Rules Out Senate Run for First Lady

STERLING, Va. - The Senate may be the place for some former first ladies, but President Bush on Thursday categorically ruled out a run for office by his wife, Laura Bush.

"She's not interested in running for office. She's interested in literacy," Bush said during an appearance at JK Moving & Storage.

The topic came up as the president took questions from his audience after a speech on the economy. A woman asked if Mrs. Bush would ever run for Senate from the first couple's home state of Texas, and Bush responded "never" — twice.

He also declined the woman's plea that he at least ask Mrs. Bush if she might be willing.

She's a great lady," the president said. "She's not interested in running for office."

Mrs. Bush's popularity well exceeds her husband's, leading some to speculate that she might follow in the footsteps of her predecessor as first lady, now-Sen. Hillary Rodham, D-N.Y., and seek elected office. But, as the president dryly pointed out, his intensely private wife has never shown any interest in running for office.

"I'm pretty certain, when I married her she didn't like politics or politicians," Bush said.

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

from Yahoo News

Amazing!

Endangered Rabbit Reintroduced on Gallo Farm

Something nice and positive to share from California...

** Endangered Rabbit Reintroduced on Gallo Farm**

In early December, 30 one-pound brush rabbits were released in California's Central Valley on Faith Ranch, a property owned by the Gallo Family. The species is on both the Federal and State endangered list. The release is part of the Endangered Species Recovery Program which,according to experts, can only succeed with the cooperation of private landowners. To read the full story,please go to: http://tinyurl.com/aomrg

If you would like to send a note of thanks to the Gallo Family, please go to:http://www.ejgtwinvalley.com/contact.asp

Al Gore: On the Limits of Executive Power

"Once violated, the rule of law is in danger. Unless stopped, lawlessness grows. The greater the power of the executive grows, the more difficult it becomes for the other branches to perform their constitutional roles. As the executive acts outside its constitutionally prescribed role and is able to control access to information that would expose its actions, it becomes increasingly difficult for the other branches to police it. Once that ability is lost, democracy itself is threatened and we become a government of men and not laws."

Presentation to The American Constitution Society and the Liberty Coalition
By: Former Vice President Al Gore
excerpt from Yubanet.com

World War IV

If the "Great War" is coming, then it's because we have been set up for it.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8394
by Justin Raimondo

A worthy and dreadful read. I concur.

Katrina Rabbits

Here are pictures of 11 bunnies that lived through Katrina. They now need homes. Four of them are heading, a little at a time, from Baton Rouge, LA to Roseville, CA. But the others can come along and be adopted anywhere along the way. The Bunderground Railroad is providing volunteer transport through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California in early February. Really good indoor homes only. Thanks!

Contact: Melanie at Our House

oh, please, check it out...

2005 in Review
by the Vestal Vespa
http://vestalvespa.blogspot.com/2005/12/2005-in-review.html

Kudos.

So Quick Bright Things Come to Confusion

The Dream is Over: The Jaws of Darkness Do Devour It Up
by Steven Laffoley
Published on Saturday, December 31, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

"The dream," John Lennon once said of 60s idealism, "is over." These were the words that came to me late one evening, sitting at my desk, in the glow of a computer screen, a glass of red wine at one hand, a spiral ringed notebook and pen at the other.

I had been searching the web for more than an hour, looking through mainstream newspapers for a chorus of principled complaint against the presidential breach of constitutional rights. But, depressingly, I found little. And after a while, when it was clear my search was in vain, I thought for a long time about Lennon's words.

Of course, I wasn't thinking of the idealists' dreams of 60s peace and love (though those were nice dreams, too). No, I was thinking of a far older, far more noble, far more meaningful dream - the great American Dream: the truly enlightened dream of a nation of the people, for the people, and by the people; the Jeffersonian dream of a nation ruled by laws and not by men.

But sitting there, looking for hope against hope in the cold silence following the president's defiant admission of warrantless, unconstitutional wiretappings, I was more certain than I had been in five years: the dream was indeed over.

I considered that, perhaps, it was like that with such dreams, dreams born of wild idealism, dreamy experiments in the angels of our better nature. In the history of civilization, such dreams are brief, perhaps necessarily brief, and rounded on both sides by dark ages and nightmarish sleep.

Of such idealistic dreams, Shakespeare wrote: "Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream, Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion."

I then thought for a long while of Thomas Jefferson's dream that spoke of liberty, and of justice, and of domestic tranquility - his "quick bright things" - and how they had all now "come to confusion" in this Age of Unreason, where American democracy was just sideshow entertainment, an outrageous mockery of true public will.

And it struck me as a sad irony that Jefferson's America overthrew the tyranny of King George III, overthrew his oppressive society ruled by men and not by laws. But then, just 230 years later, another tyranny imperceptibly returns as another George dismisses Jefferson's grand Constitutional dream with a simple smirk - and in doing so declares himself King.

Certainly, I know that other presidents have tried and failed to kill the dream before. Just a generation earlier, Tricky Dick Nixon similarly wiretapped Americans without constitutionally required warrants. But back then the American press and Congress steadfastly believed in a nation of laws and moved to protect the American Dream, vigorously reporting on the president's treason and actively preparing articles of impeachment.

But that was then. And this is now. Tricky Dick was just a paranoid politician with a dark willingness to crush others for political gain. George W. is far more dangerous. He claims to be a savior, sent by God.

Throughout history, tyrants often claim to be saviors - and are well rewarded for their claims. Caesar was granted dictatorship over the Roman Republic for "saving" Rome from the democratic mob. And Napoleon was crowned Emperor for "saving" France from the republican rabble. They each claimed to save the ideal of their respective nations by becoming the ideal. They each claimed to save the law of their respective nations by becoming the law. And so it is with George W. Bush: he claims to be saving America and thus doesn't need constitutional approval for his actions. That is, he need not heed the constitution because he has become the constitution.

"The tree of liberty," insisted Thomas Jefferson, "must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." But, clearly, Americans have lost their ability to discern tyrants from patriots. Ironically, we hear the loudest support of the president's unconstitutional actions from those who passionately defend their constitutional right to own guns ("from my dead hand").

I would laugh, if I didn't feel like crying. So, I shut off my computer, raise my glass, and lament the death of a great and noble dream - the American Dream.

"And so dear friends," as John Lennon also said, "you'll just have to carry on. The Dream is over."

Steven Laffoley is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He is the author of Mr. Bush, Angus and Me: Notes of an American-Canadian in the Age of Unreason. E-mail: stevenlaffoley@yahoo.ca or steven_laffoley@yahoo.com.
__________________

What is left to say?

Under the influence of politicians, masses of people tend to ascribe the responsibility for wars to those who wield power at any given time. In World War I it was the munitions industrialists; in World War II it was the psychopathic generals who were said to be guilty. This is passing the buck. The responsibility for wars falls solely upon the shoulders of these same masses of people, for they have all the necessary means to avert war in their own hands. In part by their apathy, in part by their passivity, and in part actively, these same masses of people make possible the catastrophes under which they themselves suffer more than anyone else. To stress this guilt on the part of the masses of people,to hold them solely responsible, means to take them seriously. On the other hand, to commiserate masses of people as victims, means to treat them as small, helpless children. The former is the attitude held by genuine freedom fighters; the latter that attitude held by power-thirsty politicians.

~ Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Source: Information Clearing House

High Crimes & Misdemeanors

The I-Word is Gaining Ground
by Katrina vanden Heuvel
Published on Tuesday, December 27, 2005 by The Nation

…For those interested in some of the most compelling charges against the president, I offer a brief summary:

Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean argued in his aptly-named book Worse than Watergate that Bush's false statements about WMDs in Iraq--used to drum up support for an invasion--deceived the American people and Congress. This constituted "an impeachable offense," Dean told PBS' Bill Moyers in 2004. "I think the case is overwhelming that these people presented false information to the Congress and to the American people." Bush's actions were actually far worse than Watergate, Dean contends, because "no one died for Nixon's so-called Watergate abuses."

Lending credence to Dean's arguments, the Downing Street Memo revealed that Britain's MI-6 Director Richard Dearlove had told Tony Blair that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" by the Bush Administration. John Bonifaz, a Boston-based attorney and constitutional law expert, said that Bush seemingly "concealed important intelligence which he ought to have communicated," and "must certainly be punished for giving false information to the Senate." Bush deceived "the American people as to the basis for taking the nation into war against Iraq," Bonifaz argued--an impeachable offense.

Rep. John Conyers argued as well that the president committed impeachable offenses" because he and senior administration officials "countenanced torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment in Iraq" at Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere, including Guantanamo Bay and the now-notorious "black sites" around the world.

The most compelling evidence of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors is the revelation that he repeatedly authorized NSA spying on US citizens without obtaining the required warrants from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court. Constitutional experts, politicians and ex-intelligence experts agree that Bush "committed a federal crime by wiretapping Americans." Rep. John Lewis--"the first major House figure to suggest impeaching Bush," said the AP--argued that the president "deliberately, systematically violated the law" in authorizing the wiretapping. Lewis added: "He is not King, he is president."

Meanwhile, Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University School of Law--a specialist in surveillance law--told Knight Ridder that Bush's actions "violated federal law" and raised "serious constitutional questions of high crimes and misdemeanors." It is worth remembering that an abuse of power similar to Bush's NSA wiretapping decision was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974. [This comparison was brought home in the ACLU's powerful full page ad in the NYT of December 22nd.]

There are many reasons why it is crucial that the Democrats regain control of Congress in '06, but consider this one: If they do, there may be articles of impeachment introduced and the estimable John Conyers, who has led the fight to defend our constitution, would become Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. Wouldn't that be a truly just response to the real high crimes and misdemeanors that this lawbreaking president has so clearly committed?

Katrina vanden Heuvel is Editor of The Nation. © 2005 The Nation

Little Red Hen Meets a Really Stupid Cock

The following is a 'story' that was emailed to me. My heart hurt to think that people could be so judgmental and mean-spirited. They paint with an awfully broad brush. So, here is the story and below it, I have re-written it to reflect my particular judgmental and mean-spirited attitude. Here goes...

The Little Red Hen

Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered quite a few grains of wheat. She called all of her neighbors together and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"
"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. And so she did. The wheat grew very tall and ripened into golden grain.

"Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my seniority," said the cow.
"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen, and so she did unitl at last it came time to bake the bread.

"Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.
"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.
"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.
"Then I will do it by myself," said the little red hen. She baked five loaves and held them up for all of her neighbors to see. They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I shall eat all five loaves."

"Excess profits!" cried the cow.
"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.
"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose.
The pig just grunted in disdain.
And they all painted "Unfair!" picket signs and marched shouting obscenities around the little red hen.

Then Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and other liberal government agents came, and they said to the little red hen, "You must not be so greedy." "But I earned the bread," said the little red hen. "Exactly," said the agents. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide the fruits of their labor with those who are lazy and idle."

And they all lived happily ever after including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful, for now I truly understand," But her neighbors became quite disappointed in her. She never again baked bread because she joined the "party" and got her bread free. And all the Democrats smiled.

'Fairness' had been established. Individual initiative had died, but nobody noticed; and no one cared.....as long as there was free bread that "the rich" were paying for.
___________________________

And so Bill Clinton got $12 million for his memoirs. Hillary got $8 million for hers. That's $20 million for the memories of two people who for eight years repeatedly testified under oath that they couldn't remember anything.

IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY OR WHAT?

Next! The rewrite!

The Really Stupid Cock

Once upon a time, on a farm in Texas, there was a Really Stupid Cock who crowed about the barnyard until his pals found a way to use him.

He called all of his neighbors together and said, "If we invade Iraq, we shall be doing the Iraqis a big favor because they’re too stupid to figure out what they want on their own. Who will help me kill the sons-a-bitches?"

"I will," said the rich.
"I will," said the oil corporations.
"I will," said the religious bigots.
"I will," said the fascists in training.
"Then we will do it together," said the Really Stupid Cock. And so they did. The war on terror grew very deadly, all personal rights were vanquished and our constitution ripened into a piece of paper with no point.

"Who will help me reap more power?" asked the Really Stupid Cock.
"I will," smiled the rich.
"I must impose correct beliefs." said the religious bigots.
"I could make more profits," thought the oil corporations.
"I’d know who didn’t like me and I could kill the sons-a-bitches," said the fascists in training.
"Then we will do it together," said the Really Stupid Cock, and so at last it came time to rewrite the Bill of Rights.

"Who will help me give the world to big oil?" asked the Really Stupid Cock.
"That would mean a big raise for me," said the rich.
"I'd give lots of contracts to all my pals," said the oil corporations.
"I could impose my beliefs on everyone!" said the religious bigots.
"I’d be able to kill all the sons-a-bitches," said the fascists in training.
"Then we will do it together," said the Really Stupid Cock. He made our civil liberties a mockery and held them up for all of his cronies to ridicule in the name of national security. They clamored for more corporate control and, in fact, demanded that citizens believe they were right! And the Really Stupid Cock said, "Yes, we shall eat from the table of the little guy and kill the sons-a-bitches."

"More profits!" cried the rich.
"Bleeding hearts!" screamed the fascists in training.
"I demand that people follow my beliefs!" yelled the religious bigots.
The oil corporations just grunted and burped insider trading tips.
And they all painted "We love fascism!" picket signs and marched shouting, “Conservative values or kill the sons-a-bitches!” with the Really Stupid Cock.

Then Dick Cheney, Tom Delay and the other Real Americans came to the barnyard and said to the Really Stupid Cock, "You must be careful to instill more fear." "But I already got them to agree to give up their rights," said the Really Stupid Cock. "But we need more," said the agents. "That is what makes our free enterprise system so wonderful. Anyone in the barnyard can get �cocked’ as much as he wants. And under our current American Dream, all those productive workers give up their unique intelligence to the corporate good and, of course, to those who control the Really Stupid Cock. And we can do whatever we want."

And they all lived happily ever after including the Really Stupid Cock, who smiled and crowed, "I am really special, for I truly am king," And his corporate cronies became quite gleeful. He crowed his corporate party line and because he supported the party he got to make war anywhere he wanted. And all the Republicans smiled. 'Family values' had been established. Individual expression and thought had died, and nobody noticed, and no one cared.....as long as there were profits the oil corporations could harvest and everybody said exactly the same prayer to exactly the same god.

___________________________

And so, Dick Cheney fulfilled all of Halliburton’s dreams. Tom Delay and Bill Frist made freedom of religious belief against the law. That's 2,000 plus American dead (and countless Iraqis) for Real Americans who decided they could do anything and get away with it.

IS THIS A GREAT ADMINISTRATION OR WHAT?

Comparing our nation’s birth with Iraq’s doesn’t compute

President Bush's speech December 12 in Philadelphia: Comparing our nation’s birth with Iraq’s doesn’t compute, says Founding Father expert Willard Sterne Randall, historical scholar in residence at Champlain College.

As Iraq’s people prepare for upcoming elections, President Bush will give a speech today in Philadelphia comparing the situation in Iraq with America’s early attempts at democracy. Willard Sterne Randall, historical scholar in residence at Champlain College and the author of half a dozen separate biographies on the Founding Fathers, says that the two aren’t comparable: “We won the Revolution and weren't occupied by an invading imperial army when we held our first national elections.”

Additionally, January 17, 2006 will mark the 300th anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s birth. With President Bush’s approval rating at an all-time low, scholars and media alike have been left to wonder what our Founding Fathers would think of how America has fared in both domestic and foreign affairs in the past several years. Will this anniversary drive home the point that America has become increasingly alienated from the principles on which it was founded?

Randall says that “Benjamin Franklin was, first and foremost, a revolutionary. He would surely take issue with what the Bush Administration is doing, especially in foreign affairs but also day-to-day domestically. He would strenuously oppose faith-based initiatives, as he strongly believed in the separation of church and state. Most of all, he would oppose Bush’s spare-the-rich-and-soak-the-middle-classes agenda of tax cuts. In turn, the Administration would be threatened by him and probably have him trailed, wiretapped, and maybe even jailed under the Patriot Act.”

SOURCE: Willard Sterne Randall, six-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, historical scholar in residence at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt., and author of A Little Revenge: Benjamin Franklin and His Son.

http://www.willardsternerandall.com/

TV Free

* Research shows that most Australians [read: Americans] spend many, many hours a week watching television. Television erodes the following: consciousness (particularly the imagination); interpersonal interaction; connection between social groups; connection to Nature; reading and self-education; awareness of corporate manipulation; and self-esteem (by the constant presentation of unattainable ideals of humanity). Until the TV problem is tackled head-on, little or no headway will be made in combatting Australia's [the USA's] urban and rural malaise. Very few social commentators are themselves free of the TV virus, and the virulence of the illness is scarcely known in this country. Television is watching other people have lives. Turn off your TVs and live! *

Wilson's Blogmanac - http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/

I know how narrow minded I must sound, but I wonder whether, at some future point, we won't have AA for TV watching. I think it's as addicting as any other drug because it blunts conscious awareness.

Our 27 months of hell

Joe Wilson

October 29, 2005 latimes.com : Our 27 months of hellBy Joseph C. Wilson IV, JOSEPH C. WILSON IV was acting ambassador in Baghdad when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. He is the author of "The Politics of Truth" (Carroll & Graff, 2004). He was a diplomat for 23 years.

AFTER THE two-year smear campaign orchestrated by senior officials in the Bush White House against my wife and me, it is tempting to feel vindicated by Friday's indictment of the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Between us, Valerie and I have served the United States for nearly 43 years. I was President George H.W. Bush's acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, and I served as ambassador to two African nations for him and President Clinton. Valerie worked undercover for the CIA in several overseas assignments and in areas related to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

But on July 14, 2003, our lives were irrevocably changed. That was the day columnist Robert Novak identified Valerie as an operative, divulging a secret that had been known only to me, her parents and her brother.

Valerie told me later that it was like being hit in the stomach. Twenty years of service had gone down the drain. She immediately started jotting down a checklist of things she needed to do to limit the damage to people she knew and to projects she was working on. She wondered how her friends would feel when they learned that what they thought they knew about her was a lie.
It was payback — cheap political payback by the administration for an article I had written contradicting an assertion President Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union address. Payback not just to punish me but to intimidate other critics as well.

Why did I write the article? Because I believe that citizens in a democracy are responsible for what government does and says in their name. I knew that the statement in Bush's speech — that Iraq had attempted to purchase significant quantities of uranium in Africa — was not true. I knew it was false from my own investigative trip to Africa (at the request of the CIA) and from two other similar intelligence reports. And I knew that the White House knew it.

Going public was what was required to make them come clean. The day after I shared my conclusions in a New York Times opinion piece, the White House finally acknowledged that the now-infamous 16 words "did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address."
That should have been the end. But instead, the president's men — allegedly including Libby and at least one other (known only as "Official A") — were determined to defame and discredit Valerie and me.

They used eager allies in Congress and the conservative media, beginning with Novak. Perhaps the most egregious of the attacks was New York GOP Rep. Peter King's odious suggestion that Valerie "got what she deserved."

Valerie was an innocent in this whole affair. Although there were suggestions that she was behind the decision to send me to Niger, the CIA told Newsday just a week after the Novak article appeared that "she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment." The CIA repeated the same statement to every reporter thereafter.

The grand jury has now concluded that at least one of the president's men committed crimes. We are heartened that our system of justice is working and appreciative of the work done by our fellow citizens who devoted two years of their lives to grand jury duty.

The attacks on Valerie and me were upsetting, disruptive and vicious. They amounted to character assassination. Senior administration officials used the power of the White House to make our lives hell for the last 27 months.

But more important, they did it as part of a clear effort to cover up the lies and disinformation used to justify the invasion of Iraq. That is the ultimate crime.

The war in Iraq has claimed more than 17,000 dead and wounded American soldiers, many times more Iraqi casualties and close to $200 billion.

It has left our international reputation in tatters and our military broken. It has weakened the United States, increased hatred of us and made terrorist attacks against our interests more likely in the future.

It has been, as Gen. William Odom suggested, the greatest strategic blunder in the history of our country.

We anticipate no mea culpa from the president for what his senior aides have done to us. But he owes the nation both an explanation and an apology.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-wilson29oct29,1,5237501.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." ~Sun-tzu, The Art of War.