A Discourse on Energy and Politics

That's the theme of The Oil Drum. FYI.

It ain't just the rats...

I'm late for work, but I saw this over at the Palace:

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I've observed that the RNC is basically a creature of the Bush Administration at this time, i.e. we seem to be expected to sing from the same hymnal as the President on virtually every issue. While I hope it will prove "worth it", I don't think I'm alone in the major donor community feeling disappointed that Iraq took on such a singular priority on our watch to the near exclusion of other issues. And, I have never really gotten over the blow to my confidence caused by the nomination of Harriet Miers - I think the polls started dropping then since many likewise saw it as a case of inexplicably poor judgment, and wondered how that case might relate to decision-making in general.

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As much as I would like to continue supporting the Party at this level, I can't in good conscience write another $25,000 check at this time. So long as I have personal reservations, I can't be effective asking others for money, so I need to resign as one of the Eagles chairs. I hope the President will reconsider his position on immigration reform. I look forward to supporting only candidates who will stand up for American sovereignty, and I hope to support the national Republican Party again when it is no longer aligned with only one Republican's views. [my em]

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Go see the King. See ya's this afternoon.

The Belfast Cowboy

Ya gotta get out of the mountains more, pardner.

That was a comment from Fixer on my post about Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris' new album All the Roadrunning (review). Me 'n Mrs. G picked it up tonight, but haven't played it yet. Instead we watched Mr. Knopfler and Ms. Harris play songs from the CD and get interviewed for a whole hour on "Imus in the Morning" on tape. Awesome.

I've been an Emmylou fan for over thirty years. Now I'm a Mark Knopfler fan as well.

Fixer, buddy, pal, I gotta disagree with ya. Y'all gotta up to the mountains more often. Or at least out of the Big City and get somethin' on yer shoes that'll make ya cuss. That's where the music seems to be going. In proof, I offer the latest by the Irish Bluesman, Van Morrison's new album, Pay the Devil. I'm listening to it on the album link as we speak. I've been a fan of his for years and this is the first I've ever heard him do a treatment of traditional Country songs. Different. Really good.

Go listen, city slickers 'n dumb-ass country fucks like me both. All the rest of ya, too. Enjoy.

Ain't touchin' that

Where are all these 'moral values', 'pro-life' Jesus freaks and Rethug politicians now?

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Six days left.

No, she's not terminal, her family says and she's not brain dead. Her sisters say that she wants to live. The Houston hospital is going to unilaterally remove a woman from life support, apparently based on the decision of a lone physician even though her family wants her to continue to receive care.

The central issue in the Andrea Clark case is the same as that in the Terri Schindler Schiavo case, whether the state should be able to sanction the removal of a human being from life support.

What's even more significant in the Clark case is that the Texas bill that allows health care providers to end a human life despite the wishes of the patient and the patient's family was signed into law in 1999 by President George W. Bush as Texas Governor. However, in 2005, he rushed back to the White House from Easter vacation to sign a bill rushed through Congress which was designed to save the life of Terri Schiavo because of his "presumption in favor of life". [my em]

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Mr. Frist? Mr. DeLay? Preznit Pud Puller? Thought so. Hypocrites.

Great thanks to B@B.

The unending fight for humanity and equal justice for all...

Everything you ever wanted to know and then some about immigration and tyranny.

TODAY'S WAR ON IMMIGRANTS AND "TERRORISTS" WILL BE TOMORROW'S WAR AGAINST US ALL - IT'S ALREADY BEGUN

I've written now a number of times before that I believe the country is approaching a dangerous watershed. The scenario I paint is a gloomy one in which the situation is grave, the stakes are immense and the time is short. It's a battle to save the republic and our sacred Constitutional rights. I'm desperately trying to sound the alarm against an out-of-control imperial state engaged in a permanent war abroad for empire along with a "second front" at home against all working people (that's most everyone) and especially the ones most easily targeted who comprise the subject of this essay - vulnerable legal and undocumented immigrants. It's a life and death struggle to save us from descending into the hell of tyranny, the repressive police state being created to control it and an endless war on the world. That's not a world I want to live in or pass on to my children or grandchildren. I hope you feel as I do and are willing to do something about it. Unless you do and together we can find a way to reverse course and do it quickly, we'll awaken one day sooner than we may think and find out it's already too late, we've crossed "The Rubicon", and there's no way back. The sad lesson of history will have been repeated again, but this time to us. It can happen here, make no mistake. Will you now head out to the mall complacently with what's at stake? Will you let this happen without a fight? I won't. Are you with me?

Agree with the guy or don't, but he's definitely got his shit in one bag.

Under your nose

While you weren't looking:

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After weeks of lobbying by retail and shipping industry interests, and at a time when the House GOP leadership is trying to force through a watered-down lobbying "reform" measure, when no one was looking today these same House GOP members voted against requiring all containers to be screened. But they did manage to pocket the campaign contributions from the industry though. [my em]

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Aren't the Rethugs the 'party of national security'? Mercenary cocksuckers.

Snow Man

Go see what Bush's new Press Mouthpiece has to say on a few issues. Some of that shit's liable to come back and bite him on the ass. Heh. The rest is just wingnut bullshit.

This guy's twice the huckster Snotty was. I betcha he gets a bonus from Murdoch for landin' this gig. Faux News, faux president, all merged now.

No, dickhead Part 2

Froggy left a link in comments on my earlier post about the Rethugs blaming the tree-huggers for the gas prices. He also posted about it at Skippy's so I'll send you there.

Hello

To all the folks arriving from The Daou Report.

Section 603, part 3

Hey, it's a movement (to para-quote some old song or 'nother)! AlterNet:

On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Dave Zuckerman (Prog.-VT) dropped the third of three nearly unreported bombshells on the Bush administration. Zuckerman, along with 12 fellow lawmakers, introduced a formal resolution for the Vermont state legislature to call on the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush.

With this resolution, Vermont joined the California and Illinois state legislatures, already embroiled in impeachment debates of their own.

Enter the blogs (my em). On Jan. 24, well before the Illinois legislator Karen Yarbrough stumbled over this state legislature loophole, blogger arbortender of DailyKos had unearthed the rule that another writer dubbed "Jefferson's Revenge". Fellow blogger Kagro X took the baton, and the blogs have been pushing the story and building the momentum ever since, from Vermont's various town- and countywide resolutions to the Illinois bombshell, through California's and now Vermont's state-level proposals. According to Steve Leser, Democratic state legislators in Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada and North Carolina are also considering either impeachment or censure proposals.

In any case, the three states already debating impeachment represent nearly 50 million Americans, or roughly 16 percent of the total U.S. population.

That's why they're trying to suppress us (see previous post).

Profit and Censorship are the Goals

I know you're interested and alarmed that Congress is fixin' to give away the Internets to their biggest contributors. They all want Left Blogtopia (y!sctp) to go away and for the Net to look like F** News. The Raw Story has a good post on this with many links leading to sites that can show you how to help.

Also keep in mind that the folks who own the pipes are generally either (a) broadcasters, who are extremely jealous and suspicious of anyone else who figures out how to find the narrow end of their megaphone, or (b) telephone companies, which are happy to let millions of us talk -- so long as our conversations are all one to one. In both cases the democratizing element of the Internet is foreign and frightening to them.

How scared are they? Every bit as scared as their counterparts in the newspaper business, who lash out with hatchet jobs like the one that appeared in the Washington Post, "The Left, Online and Outraged." As scared as the executive editor of the New York Times, who called us "harebrained" "grassy knoll conspiracy" theorists.

That fear is a backhanded compliment. The powerful do not attack the inconsequential.

Their reaction is two pronged and self-contradictory. They try to persuade others (and perhaps themselves) that we are trivial, hysterical, unworthy of attention or rebuttal. And at the same time they are so concerned that they scheme behind closed doors to wall us off in some digital ghetto, or even silence us.

The government in general, and this administration in particular, are scared shitless of us. The big telecom companies want to own the Net for gain, and are perfectly willing to silence the opinions, facts, and truth their congressional lapdogs are so scared of in return for the gift.

You know what to do.

No, dickhead

So now we're hearing these high gas and home heating oil prices are the Democrats' fault because they're too environmentally conscious. All that damn tree-hugging prevented the oil companies from drilling new wells (ANWR) and building new refineries. Um, no, dickface.

The reason the price of gas is rocketing skyward is because of corporate greed by 'Big Oil', getting what they can while the Chimp and Cheney are in office. You know that if we get a Dem majority in Congress this November, that trough is gonna go dry. Expect prices to go higher (much...you really don't believe this Rethug Congress will actually investigate price gouging, do you?) before leveling out by Labor Day.

We knew prices like this were coming since 1973. The answer would have been developing an alternative energy source over the past three decades, but you see the power and influence the big oil companies have over our government. Time for that to end and I expect our candidates to acknowlege that instead of taking 'Big Oil's' dirty money.

[cough, cough] Yeah [cough, cough]

I loved Cheech and Chong long before I realized their humor was actually social and political commentary. Brought a smile to my face when I saw this at Sumo's place:

SAN FRANCISCO -- Actor and comedian Tommy Chong entertained more than 500 National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws conference-goers Friday.

"If more people were stoned there would be less violence in the world," Chong said.

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He insinuated that President Bush was on methamphetamines.

"The dangerous thing about tweakers is they can take things apart but they can't put them back together again," Chong said. "That's what George Bush has done to this country."

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The Chimp is on something that's for sure.

Look, I been smoking reefer for 35 years. I've never seen anybody overdose (smoke too much weed, fall asleep), wreck a car, or pick a fight after smoking pot. It's much less dangerous and habit-forming than alcohol. It's also good for the economy, the snack food industry in particular, the fact most of the marijuana consumed in this country is grown in this country. Don't they always say, "buy American"?

Never mind...

Sorry about the last 5 years of your life that you'll never get back:

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL STATION, Cuba -- The Pentagon plans to release nearly a third of those held at the jail for terror suspects here because they pose no threat to U.S. security, an official of the war crimes tribunal said Monday.

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We've held these people for five years, without charge, for nothing. How do we, as Americans, justify this?

Thanks: Athenae

Feingold v. Kerry

This is what I meant the other day, the difference between a guy like Feingold and a guy like Kerry:

...The Swift Boat attacks in the 2004 election were so effective mostly because they provoked no reaction from Kerry -- no fury, no aggression, no unrestrained human conviction. When a response finally did come, it was pre-scripted, contrived and transparently empty, and that became the hallmark of the campaign.

Feingold's Censure Resolution had such resonance because it was something which came -- finally -- from conviction, from principle, from a political soul. Here is how Feingold described it, as summarized by Friedman:

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It has to do with leadership. Russ did what he knew to be the right thing. Kerry did what other people told him was the right thing.

You're kidding, right?

I know I nearly peed myself laughing when I saw this headline:

Bush takes aim at rising gasoline prices

This day in history

From Geov Parrish at Working for Change.

4/25/1846: Mexican forces obligingly attack a U.S. 'scouting party' sent by President James K. Polk into disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers in hopes of provoking just such a skirmish. The incident was used by the expansionist Congress as an excuse to start the Mexican-American War, during which the U.S. seized California and the Southwest.

These days, it wouldn't be necessary to send out the 'scouting party'. Bush would just say that if he sent one, intel says it would be attacked, so why bother? Just get the war on.

Stooge

Animated video about Snott McClellan. Heh.

Revolt of the Generals, #8

Another retired Jarhead, LtGen Paul Van Riper, has called for Rumsfeld's ouster. Crooks and Liars has video.

Section 603, part 2

OpEd News

Joining Illinois, California has become the second state in which a proposal to impeach President Bush has been introduced in the state legislature. And this one includes Cheney as well.

California Assemblyman Paul Koretz of Los Angeles (where the LA Times has now called for Cheney's resignation) has submitted amendments to Assembly Joint Resolution No. 39, calling for the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney. The amendments reference Section 603 of Jefferson's Manual of the Rules of the United States House of Representatives, which allows federal impeachment proceedings to be initiated by joint resolution of a state legislature.

"At both the state and national levels," Koretz said, "we will be paying for the Bush Administration's illegal actions and terrible lack of judgment and competence for decades - not only in the billions of dollars wasted on the war and welfare for the rich, but in the worldwide loss of respect for America and Americans. Bush and Cheney must be impeached and removed from office before they undertake even deadlier misdeeds, such as the use of nuclear weapons. There are no bounds to their willingness to ignore the Constitution and world opinion - we can't afford to wait for the next disaster and hope that we can survive it."

48 to go. Note to states: work faster.