Maybe they heard us?

As you know, I've been bitching about the Dems, and their chronic condition of soft-spine and zero-nut, for the last couple days. It seems someone has heard me or the big shots are actually seeing the same thing after a bunch of miserable failures last week. John Kerry came out yesterday on Wolfie's show and backed up what Hillary and Al Gore said in the previous two days. Good for him.

Seems to be working too because the Republicans have their panties in a wad. After Al, Hil, and John (sounds like there's a song in there) spoke out, the pundits were yapping like underfed Yorkies. You know they're worried when, in response to truth, all they can say was Hillary's use of the word 'plantation' in that context was racist. The mock outrage was laughable. Seems that Al Sharpton and all the other brothers and sisters who came to see Hil speak in Harlem on MLK Day didn't have a problem with it, in fact they cheered heartily. So, are the Repubs saying Hil is biased against whites? Shut the fuck up.

Next I hear the Repubs are putting McCain out there to 'take the high ground' in this ethics mess. Note to the GOP and John McCain in particular. There is no high ground left for you people. You are a crooked, criminal organization and parading McCain's ass around will do nothing to change that opinion. Not when that fat little troll Denny Hastert comes out and says 'we have to adjust the rules'. Asshole. The GOP has been adjusting the rules to suit them for 5 years and throwing McCain out there won't change that. No adjustment necessary, guys, just follow the fucking rules and things will be just peachy.

Five years ago, there was a different public perception of McCain. Now we know he's just suffering from battered wife syndrome. Has to be the way the Chimp has disrespected him and he still comes back for more. Five years ago he would have found support among Dems. Today, he's nothing but a White House fluffer. Time for the people of AZ wise up and send him to his retirement house in Sedona.

Ladies and gentlemen, the high ground is closed to the GOP unless we surrender it to them. Don't be fooled by McCain's 'reaching across the aisle'. We know where 'bipartisansip' has gotten us. We don't need an 'ethics deal' right now, we can wait until next January for that. The Repubs are the ones who need it to give them political cover come November. Let them swing and don't give them a place to hide.

In this Congress, there are no ethical Republicans. By their deeds it should be obvious. By their unquestioning support of the Chimp it should be obvious. Do not give them sanctuary by allowing them to 'adjust the rules'. Remember that when you see the bullshit coming in like the high tide.

Jimmy's baack!

I think James Wolcott musta spilled some Viagra on his keyboard. Go read 'til your eyes hurt. Wonderful stuff.

The Ex Post Facto Constitution

Go read Main and Central.

Cronkite: Time for U.S. to Leave Iraq

OK, I'm showin' my age. Put a sock in it. Yahoo! News:

Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq.

"It's my belief that we should get out now," Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters.

Now 89, the television journalist once known as "the most trusted man in America" has been off the "CBS Evening News" for nearly a quarter-century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them.

Cronkite said one of his proudest moments came at the end of a 1968 documentary he made following a visit to Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Urged by his boss to briefly set aside his objectivity to give his view of the situation, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable and that the U.S. should exit.

Then-President Lyndon Johnson reportedly told a White House aide after that, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

In those days there were only three network anchors and none of them were blowing the president.

Today there are maybe fifty and not one of them is "the most trusted man in America". Instead, we have a bunch of corporate shills who are scared pissless of offending Bush and losing their cushy jobs.

24/7 "news" might sell a lot of Preparation H, but it doesn't seem to do much about the human hemorrhoids that run this country.

Use your own body armor, lose your life insurance

Remember when the military couldn't provide up-to-date body armor for the troops, so their moms had bake sales to buy 'em some? From Soldiers for the Truth:

Two deploying soldiers and a concerned mother reported Friday afternoon that the U.S. Army appears to be singling out soldiers who have purchased Pinnacle's Dragon Skin Body Armor for special treatment. The soldiers, who are currently staging for combat operations from a secret location, reported that their commander told them if they were wearing Pinnacle Dragon Skin and were killed their beneficiaries might not receive the death benefits from their $400,000 SGLI life insurance policies. The soldiers were ordered to leave their privately purchased body armor at home or face the possibility of both losing their life insurance benefit and facing disciplinary action.

According to the article, the troops have been ordered to quit using "all" non-issue gear, but Dragon Skin is the only thing mentioned by brand name.

One of the soldiers who lost his coveted Dragon Skin is a veteran operator. He reported that his commander expressed deep regret upon issuing his orders directing him to leave his Dragon Skin body armor behind. The commander reportedly told his subordinates that he "had no choice because the orders came from very high up" and had to be enforced, the soldier said.

I guess Cheney and Rumsfeld have a lot of Point Blank stock. That's Pinnacle's competitor who manufactures the issue gear. Maybe the SEC should look into this.

I hope their rifles still shoot...

LATimes

A Naval Academy tradition that lasted 155 years has come to an end.

The gates and crypts of Revolutionary War Capt. John Paul Jones at Annapolis have been guarded by Marine sentries since before the Civil War.

The military has now withdrawn Marines from that post and redeployed them to Iraq. The four dozen Marines will be replaced by Navy enlisted personnel.

When tradition in a tradition-bound service is thrown out the window, the jig is nearly up. If one platoon makes enough difference to justify that, my Marine Corps is in big trouble.

I guess I shoulda seen this coming: The cooks, bakers, and messmen have already been replaced with Halliburton, and the bandsmen and field musics are playing tunes on M-l6s and SAWs instead of instruments.

Jack who off?

Crooks and Liars

Clooney won a Golden Globe tonight for his performance as Best Supporting Actor in "Syriana," and thanked Jack Abramoff.

Clooney: I want to thank Jack Abramoff, you know, just because-I--I'm the first one out- lets get this thing rolling. I don't know why. Who would name their kid Jack with the last words "off" at the end of your last name? No wonder that guy is screwed up. Ahh-alright I just got bleeped. Thank you very much...

Well so much for the RNC keeping Jack's name quiet. I'm sure there will be many downloads tomorrow as people who don't know already-will say, Jack who?

Believe it or not, C&L has video!

1776

As Gord wrote below, Gore made an excellent speech yesterday and I caught the highlights last night. Hillary also came out forcefully too, I hope it rubs off on the rest of them.

Over the past few days, I've been going over (reading and watching) a lot of historical information about the time of our revolution. It seems to me, none of us are cut out of the cloth our Founding Fathers were, especially our elected representatives. Same for the press. The people I see coming closest are the progressive bloggers.

The conservatives of the time were motivated by the same things they are today, money and power. They wanted to preserve the status quo and their 'peculiar institutions'. Say what you will about them, they've stuck to their principles, regardless of what they call their party.

Where are the progressives today? On Benjamin Franklin's birthday, where are they? Where are the Franklins, the Jeffersons, and especially the Adams'? Where are the agitators who will stand up in front of Congress and speak the truth? Where are the ones who will stand up and dare King George to silence them? I want to know the answers to these questions because the times are similar.

I want representatives who would rather be 'hanging on some far off British hill' instead of covering their asses and being unwitting tools of the 'monarchy'. I want people like Tom Paine in the mainstream press who will write of the crimes committed by our boy King. Our population has increased a hundred-fold in 230 years, where are all these enlightened folks?

You'll find them in the progressive blogosphere, mostly. There are a couple in Congress, and a couple in the press, columnists mostly, but where are our icons? Where is the 'voice'? Where are the eloquent writings of Jefferson? Where are the policy gurus like Franklin? And especially, where are the agitators like Adams?

As John Adams sang in the musical 1776, where are those with commitment? "Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody see what I see?"

Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to cross the Rubicon and burn the bridges behind us. It is 1776 all over again and it's time to send our own King George back where he came from.

Band of Brothers

I just heard about Band of Brothers, an outfit formed to assist Veterans who are running for office in 2006. Their motto is "Veterans for a secure America".

Band of Brothers is a new political organization formed to assist Democratic veterans running for elected office. We've already identified more than three dozen fighting men and women who need our help to challenge the current administration on its failed policies at home and abroad.

They are all strong, principled citizens who have had enough of the current direction of our country, and are ready to fight - as Democrats have always fought - for solutions to the problems of security, health care, and corporate and political corruption. Some have served in the current war in Iraq, some have served our country at other times. But each candidate supported by Band of Brothers must in turn support Our Values.

Sounds good to me. Vets, and the rest of you, MOUNT UP*!

* For those of you unfamiliar with this dreaded phrase, it means get off yer dead ass and on yer dyin' feet, shoulder your pack and rifle and move out.

Dr. King's Day

In the spirit of Martin Luther King Day, I offer the following by Geov Parrish:

Real story of Dr. King could inspire action; instead, we hear feel-good whitewash

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be 77 on Sunday. He has been dead for 38 years. As his living memory fades, replaced by a feel-good "I have a dream" whitewash that ignores much of what he stood for and fought against, it's more important than ever to recapture the true history of Dr. King -- because much of what he fought against is resurfacing or still with us today.

King is not a legend because he believed in diversity trainings and civic ceremonies, or because he had a nice dream. He is remembered because he took serious risks and, as the Quakers say, spoke truth to power. King is also remembered because, among a number of brave and committed civil rights leaders and activists, he had a flair for self-promotion, a style that also appealed to white liberals, and the extraordinary social strength of the black Southern churches behind him. And because he died before he had a chance to be widely believed a relic or buffoon.

What little history TV will give us in the next few days is at least as much about forgetting as about remembering, as much about self-congratulatory patriotism that King was American as self-examination that American racism made him necessary and that government, at every level, sought to destroy him. We hear "I have a dream"; we don't hear his powerful indictments of poverty, the Vietnam War, and the military-industrial complex. We see Bull Connor in Birmingham; we don't see arrests for fighting segregated housing in Chicago, or the years of beatings and busts before he won the Nobel Peace Prize. We don't hear about the mainstream American contempt at the time for King, even after that Peace Prize, nor the FBI harassment or his reputation among conservatives as a Commie dupe.

And we forget that of those many dreams King had, only one -- equal access for non-whites -- is significantly realized today. A half-century after the Montgomery bus boycott catapulted a 26-year-old King into prominence, even that is only partly achieved. Blacks are being systematically disenfranchised in our presidential elections, and affirmative action and school desegregation are all but dead. Urban school districts across the country these days are as segregated and unequal as ever, and the imminent confirmation of Samuel Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court likely heralds a new era where employers and landlords can discriminate with near-impunity.

Opponents of affirmative action and racial equality can claim King's mantle and "if he were alive today" approval only because in 2006, pop culture's MLK has no politics. And, for that matter, no faith. For white America, King's soft-focus image often reinforces white supremacism. "See? We're not so bad. We honor him now. Why don't those black people just get over it, anyway? We did."

All that is a lie. Dr. King's vision is today as urgent as ever. While Jim Crow and the cruelties of overt segregation are now largely unimaginable, much remains to be done. And for those who carry King's banner, the challenges of apathy and official hostility remain the same: the FBI and NSA spying on peace groups, listening to phone calls, monitoring e-mails. An administration -- voted for by almost no African-Americans -- that reviles nonviolence and labels its critics as treasonous (rather than as communist dupes). And the moral outrage of Americans, that made King's work so politically effective? We don't do that any more. We can torture thousands of mostly innocent Iraqis and Afghans, in plain sight, and nobody is held accountable. It'd take a whole lot more than Bull Connor's police dogs to make the news today.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., nonviolent martyr to reconciliation and justice, has become a Hallmark Card, a warm, fuzzy, feel-good invocation of neighborliness, a file photo for sneakers or soda commercials, a reprieve for post-holiday shoppers, an excuse for a three-day weekend, a cardboard cutout used for photo ops by dissembling Cabinet members and ungrateful Supreme Court justices. Be sure to check out the Three-Day-Only White Sale at WalMart. Always lower prices. Always.

King deserves better. We all do.

Good rant. Saves me from having to do it. Read the rest.

Dr. King is gone, but a lot of what he tried to change is still here and still needs to be changed. Continue to speak truth to power.

Gore on C-Span

I just watched Al Gore give a speech on C-Span, sponsored by the Liberty Coalition, and I'm still awake!

The subject of said speech was the illegal wiretapping and the expansion and abuse of presidential power. Also the complicity of Congress in letting Bush do it, the culture of corruption, and the danger to the Constitution. He called for Congress to take back their equality as a branch of government.

It was a stirring speech. If he had spoken like that five years ago he'd be President today. I'm not particularly an Al Gore supporter, but it's obvious to me we'd be better off as a nation with him in the Oval Office. He dropped the ball big time in '00, but he seems to be getting a second wind.

It's too soon to get a link to this speech, but I'll keep my eyes open. You do the same.

Update:

Raw Story has the speech. Thanks, Sis.

Where are we?

This past week has made me sick. I'm sick of the Democrats. I thought the Repubs were inept. At least the Repubs can mount a propaganda offensive. In a week where opportunities abounded to kick the Repubs in the nuts repeatedly, what did the Dems do? They let every opportunity slip by. This is becoming a joke. I thought being a fan of the New York Mets was masochistic.

After the Dems' complete clusterfuck this week, it makes me want to pack it in. If it weren't for the fact the Repubs were so bad for this nation, I probably would. The Democratic Party is a captain-less, rudder-less ship, adrift and foundering because there is zero leadership, zero coordination. If we win back even one House of Congress in November, I'd be seriously surprised. Look:

Iraq
Katrina
The DeLay/Abramoff scandal
Illegal wiretaps
The economy

And the list goes on. It's like having a pile of ammo and rifles and they're still using a make-believe pistol with their thumb and forefingers.

Note to Dems: You're the only ones in a position to do something about the Repubs. If you don't want to fight for our country, just let us know. I'll put my house up for sale now and head off to Europe. I might be willing to fight to the death for this nation, but I'm not willing to commit suicide for it. I'm tired of being your cannon fodder when you won't even give us close air support, let alone covering artillery. I'm sure I speak for a lot of progressive bloggers who have just about had it with you.

Update:

And just so nobody gets the wrong idea, I ain't nowhere near ready to give up. There's a lot of fight left in me. If the Dems can't do it, we'll find somebody else, maybe take a page from Sharon's book and form a new party. I'm pissed at the Dems but for now they are our only hope.

Is Abramoff the New Monica?

Frank Rich explains the Abramoff/Bush/DeLay/Republican Culture of Corruption very succinctly. At The Era via Tennessee Guerilla Women.

THERE'S nothing this White House loves more than pictures that tell a story - a fictional story. And so another mission was accomplished when President Bush posed with the 13 past secretaries of state and defense he hustled into the Oval Office 10 days ago: he could pretend to consult on Iraq with sages of all political stripes - Madeleine Albright, yet - even if the actual give-and-take, all 5 to 10 minutes of it, was as substantive as the scripted "Ask the President" town hall meetings of the 2004 campaign.

But this White House, cunning as it is, can't control all the pictures all the time. That photo op was quickly followed by Time's Jack Abramoff cover and its specter of other images more inopportune than op. Mr. Bush's aides, the magazine reported, were busy "trying to identify all the photos that may exist of the two men together." Translation: Could a Bush-Abramoff money shot as iconic as Monica on the rope line be lurking somewhere for a Time cover still to come?

But it's not only the genealogy of the Abramoff scandal that separates it from its predecessors. So does the distinctive odor of its possible criminality. In its financial shenanigans and some of its personnel, the Abramoff affair doesn't so much echo Teapot Dome as the business scandal that engulfed Mr. Bush's former No. 1 corporate patron, Enron, in our new century. The Abramoff scandal's pious trappings are sui generis as well. They adhere to the Karl Rove playbook that wraps every hardball White House tactic in godliness and exploits "faith based" organizations as political machines to deliver the G.O.P.'s religious right base.

Read it. That's our Pop*!

*According to That Colored Fella (no link, site is down today), anyway. Our Mom is Randi Rhodes. They're not married. At least to each other. That makes us their high-volume way vociferous really smart illegitimate offspring.

Polls

Zogby via Atrios.

By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

...

Why is it the press gets all orgasmic when the Chimp's approval rating goes up a point, yet haven't said a word about this? Ya think maybe all of 'em are in the Republicans' pocket?

Chinese Herbs and Clampers

The news today is mostly folks lamenting the poor performance of the Demowussies at the confirmation hearings for Bush's judge, and rightly so, but it's boring. I think it's a done deal, a dirty deed done dirt cheap, so while I'm waiting for another shoe to drop I'll post something light for your Saturday amusement.

Me 'n the Mrs. just went to the P.O. to collect our mail. It's a whole mile away. On the way we passed our town's freshly remodelled old Chinese Herb Shop, the only remnant of the Chinese population that built the transcontinental railroad that Whitey didn't burn down in retaliation for 19th-century outsourcing.

On the way back, we passed a whole bunch of Clampers, easily identifiable by their red shirts and black hats and vests, on their way to today's civic dedication of the old landmark as retail space. These guys are kind of an institution around here. They like to drink and put up plaques at historical sites.

Just read the links for fun. Later.

Alone

Via Maru, an excellent post by Peter Daou:

...

This, then, is the reality: progressive bloggers and online activists - positioned on the front lines of a cold civil war - face a thankless and daunting task: battle the Bush administration and its legions of online and offline apologists, battle the so-called "liberal" media and its tireless weaving of pro-GOP narratives, battle the ineffectual Democratic leadership, and battle the demoralization and frustration that comes with a long, steep uphill struggle.

...

What did you expect?

LONGWOOD, Fla. Jan 13, 2006 - An eighth-grader was shot and wounded by a SWAT team officer in a school bathroom Friday after he pulled out a pellet gun that resembled a real weapon, authorities said.

He was shot after raising the gun at deputies. [my emphasis - Link via Skippy]

...

Please, please, please, no one yell 'police brutality'. One of the first things I learned about weapons is don't take it out unless you plan to use it. Don't point a pistol at someone unless you plan to kill them. Did you see the pellet gun the kid had? I dare anyone to tell it from the genuine article in the same situation. If I were the cop, the results would have been the same. He should be glad they didn't kill him.

Who cares?

------------------------------------------------------
MSNBC Breaking News
------------------------------------------------------

NBC: U.S. missiles target al-Qaida's No. 2 officer in Pakistan, sources say -
U.S. officials told NBC News on Friday that American airstrikes in Pakistan overnight Thursday were aimed at the No. 2 man in the al-Qaida terror organization - Ayman al Zawahri.

Okay, so? Do they really think this is gonna do something to the big picture? That's if it proves to be true. I mean, how many #3 guys have we killed? Look, kiddies, shiny things! Forget about all those scandals, look at this. When it comes to this administration, I believe nothing I hear and only half of what I see.

Update:

CNN is already backpedaling.

The Year of Living Dangerously

Somewhat related to my previous post, TomDispatch weighs in with a seven-course Tomgram.

War, Trials, Leakers, Investigations, Packed Courts, and a Constitutional Crisis

2006 is sure to be the year of living dangerously -- for the Bush administration and for the rest of us. In the wake of revelations of warrantless spying by the National Security Agency, we have already embarked on what looks distinctly like a constitutional crisis (which may not come to a full boil until 2007). In the meantime, the President, Vice President, Secretaries of Defense and State, various lesser officials, crony appointees, acolytes, legal advisors, leftover neocons, spy-masters, strategists, spin doctors, ideologues, lobbyists, Republican Party officials, and congressional backers are intent on packing the Supreme Court with supporters of an "obscure philosophy" of unfettered Presidential power called "the unitary executive theory" and then foisting a virtual cult of the imperial presidency on the country.

On the other hand, determined as this administration has been to impose its version of reality on us, the President faces a traffic jam of reality piling up in the environs of the White House. The question is: How long will the omniscient and dominatrix-style fantasies of Bushworld, ranging from "complete victory" in Iraq to non-existent constitutional powers to ignore Congress, the courts, and treaties of every sort, triumph over the realities of the world the rest of humanity inhabits. Will an unconstrained presidency continue to grow -- or not?

Here are just a few of the explosive areas where Bush v. Reality is likely to play out, generating roiling crises which could chase the President through the rest of this year. Keep in mind, this just accounts for the modestly predictable, not for the element of surprise which -- as with Ariel Sharon's recent stroke -- remains ever present.

Fat chance! Fixer'd kill me. Go read.

The Bush Who Cried Wolf

Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine:

The deteriorating international crisis over Iran is a direct result of the Bush's administration's ham-handed and mendacious Iraq policy.

Under normal circumstances - that is, under any previous U.S. administration - the battle over Iran's pugnacious effort in pursuit of nuclear technology would be amenable to a diplomatic solution. But, by insisting on a national security strategy of pre-emptive war, by illegally and unilaterally invading Iraq on false pretenses, and by hinting that the White House would tolerate an Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear plants, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have made a successful diplomatic resolution of the Iran crisis nearly impossible.

But the international community's justified fear that the United States is controlled by a war party seeking to attack Iran (my em) makes other states' diplomacy even harder.

Some Democrats - and even a fair number of moderate and libertarian Republicans - expect the November 2006 elections to take place against the backdrop of a failed occupation of Iraq. Instead, those same elections might take place in the midst of yet another crisis manufactured by the Bush administration.

Read it.

Bush and the Republicans have screwed the pooch so badly that the only way for them to stay in power is to manufacture even more fear in the electorate and then continue to lie at them, "The sky is falling! We're the only ones who can protect you!".

It may not work, but Bush is betting that since he's already successfully pussified a majority of American voters, it just might. The corruption, anti-civil-rights scandals, and the emerging knowledge of the constant abuse of presidential power have to be overshadowed by fear to take advantage of Americans' ADD. It's their only chance.

The Republicans should change their name to "The Permanent War Party".

A word of caution to Bush&Co: You've screwed the military up so bad, you'd better think twice before going to war with Iran. They're just liable to be able to kick our ass. You'll end up having to nuke 'em and that'll be the end of the world as we know it. I know you don't care: the rest of us will have to live with it but you'll be nice and safe.

A word of caution to Congress: If you let him get away with stealing your Constitutional authority to declare an illegal war again, you're even more cowardly than we think you are. Somebody has to rein Bush in quick while there's still a chance to save our nation and, short of a coup d'etat, you guys are it, God help us.