That old black magic...

Yahoo News

BOGOR, Indonesia - A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

Ki Gendeng Pamungkas slit the throat of a goat, a small snake and stabbed a black crow in the chest, stirred their blood with spice and broccoli before drank the "potion" and smeared some on his face.

I have to disguise broccoli too, but I usually do it with cheese sauce.

"I am doing voodoo, because other ritual would not work," he told reporters after he conducted the gory ritual about 1 kilometers from the palace.

Good luck, Mr. Pamungkas. I've worn out six Ken dolls* and used up eighteen boxes of hat pins.

*Closest thing I could find to Bush. No balls. I damn sure wasn't gonna use a G.I. Joe.

Dems are screwing up already

David Sirota

I thought when the campaign ended, we would all get a break from people lying about the Iraq War - and especially from faux "centrist" Democrats lying to us. I thought the strong anti-Iraq-War mandate of the election would shock the system into at least a brief few weeks of clarity and honesty.

I was wrong.

It seems that the "Yay Iraq War! Oops, Let's Now Pretend We Were Always Against the War" wing of the Democratic Party is trying to nationalize Lieberman's Nixonian model and apply it elsewhere. To understand what I mean, just take a quick look at what's going on in the race for House Majority Leader between anti-Iraq-War leader Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) and recently-reconstructed pro-war mouthpiece Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD).

Apparently, the DLC, Tauscher and Hoyer himself believe that the Members of Congress who will be voting in the Majority Leader race are very, very stupid people who have no access to the Internet and have never heard of Google or Yahoo. They must believe this, because it takes about, oh, 10 seconds online to figure out that, in fact, Hoyer led the charge against Democrats taking a strong position on Iraq, publicly attacking the House Democratic leadership for having the guts to follow Murtha's lead and get up the guts to challenge Bush on the war.

All of this is happening at the same time Hoyer is trying to position himself as the ethics candidate in the race. Granted, Murtha is no saint - but Steny "I Have My Own K Street Project" Hoyer now billing himself as Congress's new Bill Proxmire is as credible as Mark Foley chairing Congress's Exploited Children Caucus. Oops, I forgot - that actually happened, so maybe we shouldn't be surprised after all that this kind of up-in-your-face chutzpah is very much alive and well in a congressional leadership race.

The race is over. Hoyer beat out Murtha in the "leadership" race.

Not a very good start, Dems.

Update:

Here's what Sirota said a month ago, and I agree:

I'm working as hard as I can to help get Democrats into the majority, but the Washington Monthly echoes what I've been saying for a long time about Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD): he's part of the problem. If Democrats take the majority, Hoyer will become a very serious obstacle to those Democratic lawmakers fighting back against the hostile takeover of our government. If Democrats lose, Hoyer will make a run for leader of the entire party - again, not a good thing.

We shall see.

International relations

Think Progress

Yesterday, the White House website featured a graphic with the flags of the three countries he's visiting on his trip - Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. One problem: instead of displaying the Vietnamese flag, the White House graphic featured the old flag of South Vietnam. That flag hasn't been the official flag of Vietnam since South Vietnam surrendered to North Vietnam in 1975.

What's next? The Confederate flag at Arlington?

Impending doom

You know, I get this feeling that something's gonna happen. I can't help thinking that the White House cabal has something up their sleeves they hope will neuter the Dem majority in Congress. I hear Harry Reid's name being mentioned in connection with Jack Abramoff's recent squealings. Will they jump on this to deflect investigation of their nefarious activites over the past 6 years? I don't know.

Will another front on the "War on Terra" be opened 'inadvertantly' or 'accidentally', an Iranian Tonkin if you will? Another attack on the U.S. perhaps? Don't know either.

It just seems to me that people who crave power for power's sake will not go quietly, just throw up their hands and say "it was fun while it lasted" and begin to bow to the will of Congress. We're dealing with cheaters here, folks, and cheaters don't change.

They are still at the controls, still have incredible power (and don't forget, the support of a third of Americans), and I don't think we can allow ourselves to believe all is fixed with a Dem majority on the Hill. I believe the shenanigans will increase as the WH tries to keep its 'mandate'.

A question

Would you go to a tobacco company for help to quit smoking, a beer company to keep your kids from drinking, or an oil company to help you conserve fuel? Just askin' because it sounds awful stupid in their commercials.

What a difference ...

Four years makes:

WASHINGTON - Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, ousted from the top Senate Republican leadership job four years ago because of remarks considered racially insensitive, won election to the No. 2 post Wednesday for the minority GOP in the next Congress.

...

Republicans, same old song and dance.

No lefty, but Murtha's right

Robert Scheer

Nancy Pelosi is to be congratulated for her backing of John Murtha for the position of House majority leader. To be sure, this was partly payback to a political ally of the speaker-designate. Far more important, however, it was the first installment on a huge debt owed to the voters who swept the Democratic Party into control of both houses of Congress, based primarily on their frustration over the dismal war in Iraq.

Because of his credentials as a highly decorated Marine veteran and stalwart Pentagon supporter, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) was more effective than any other member of Congress in crystallizing the changing American position on Iraq when he dramatically wrote last year, "It is time to bring them home." Not intimidated by the president's "cut-and-run" smears, he said what most Americans have come to believe: The war is not "winnable" and it is time - now, not in 10 years - to let Iraqis make their own history and to get American troops out of the line of fire.

Go read the rest, including the part where Faux News accuses Murtha of being a "leftist" in the employ of MoveOn.org. Damn, the wingers are desperate! I love it!

Just how desperate? Well, Rep. Murtha is coming under fire for alleged ethics and contract misdeeds, including earmarks. How that will play out I have no idea, but it doesn't sound like he did anything that an awful lot of congresscritters on both sides of the aisle have done. Business as usual.

A little while ago, I saw Andrea Mitchell on MSGOP show a video in support of charges of ethical chicanery on Rep. Murtha's part. It was an FBI video, grainy black-and-white, showing an FBI agent trying to sting Rep. Murtha with a $50K bribe. Murtha turned down the bribe, although he left his options open to take it later, which to me sounded like a pretty good way to get the briber to leave. Republican operative Mitchell wondered if the offer to consider the bribe at a later time might hurt his chances of being Dem #2.

Oh yeah, the failed FBI sting was 26 years ago.

Let's see, the incident was in 1980, Murtha refused the bribe, no charges were brought, but somehow this is relevant today because Murtha said he might reconsider?

Desperate.

If it wasn't for Colonel Murtha USMC(ret.), questions about the viability of the Iraq war and failed occupation would not have been brought into the public consciousness like they have, and the recent elections might have gone the other way. In other words, if Rep. Murtha hadn't spoken out against this criminal president's criminal war, Bush might still be getting away with it with rubber-stamp Repuglicans still in control.

I am most definitely in favor of Rep. Murtha for the position of House majority leader. He has already demonstrated outstanding leadership against great odds.

Nancy: It's your duty to impeach Bush

Common Dreams

Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman is one wise legal thinker who says that, whether or not it would be a political liability for the Democrats, impeaching Bush is their constitutional duty. Holtzman served four terms in Congress, where she played a key role in House impeachment proceedings against President Richard Nixon.

Fresh from the Nixon impeachment, Ms. Holtzman is definitely on a roll. Listen to the voice of experience, you young whippersnappers!

Impeachment is an essential tool for preserving democracy. The framers of our Constitution, determined to provide protections against grave abuses of power by a president, created the impeachment process as a special procedure for citizens. Through their representatives, citizens would be able to remove a president run amok.

A president cannot be impeached lightly. The framers rejected the notion of presidential impeachment for "maladministration." The term was, at one point, inserted in the impeachment provision but then replaced by "high crimes and misdemeanors." The framers thought maladministration was too vague and worried that it might put the president at the mercy of an overreaching Congress.

What is expected is that the president will uphold the Constitution and the laws and fulfill the oath of office. Carefully applying the law is a requirement for holding office. The president may not avoid, subvert, or undermine the law. Nothing excuses the president from fulfilling his constitutional obligations, not incompetence or ignorance or lack of interest. The failure or the inability of a president to fulfill these obligations, for whatever reason, causes serious harm to democracy. Impeachment is the constitutional remedy to protect the future health of the nation.

She then goes on to list and explain a bare-bones list of five impeachable offenses that Bush has committed by way of subversion of the Constitution, rule of law, and some plain old crimes. Go see.

President Bush has committed a great many grave and dangerous offenses, and subverted the Constitution. The evidence is clear and strong. Congress cannot shirk its responsibility to protect the nation from tyranny. This is what the founders of this country intended when they added presidential impeachment to the Constitution.

Why?

Are we even discussing this, that's what I'd like to know:

...

There is no greater betrayal of the core principles of American political life than to have the federal government sweep people off the streets, throw them into a black hole with no contact with the outside world and no charges asserted of any kind, and simply keep them there for as long as the President desires -- in al-Marri's case, with respect to detention, now five years and counting.

As always, the most extraordinary and jarring aspect of cases like this one is that these principles -- which were once the undebatable, immovable bedrock of our political system -- are now openly debated and actively disputed by our own government. By itself it is astonishing -- and highly revealing about where we are as a country -- that such precepts even need to be defended at all.

I just can't wrap my head around the fact we are having the discussion, let alone putting it into law. This is America, dammit, and debating incarceration without charge in this country is as crazy as an Orthodox Jew debating whether to buy Virginia ham because it's on sale. The idea should be repellent and appalling to every American.

Committees

Bob Geiger has the committee assignments up for the new Senate.

Heh . . .

Me: Hey, the Chimp's going to Vietnam.

Mrs. F: Yeah, 40 years too late.

Quote of the Day 2

Steve Soto:

Only the Bush Administration could be lectured on war crimes by the Germans.

The Germans are going through with this and it looks like Rummy won't be heading overseas anytime soon. Heh ...

Ultimately, Republicans Will Force Bush/Cheney Resignation

Here's a fine idea from Rob Kall at OpEd News.

The democrats "have a constitutional duty," as Nancy Pelosi has said, to investigate--- criminal wrongs, offenses to the constitution...

Once the dirty truth comes out-- that Bush was a criminal and constitutional violator in SO many ways, the 31% rating for Bush that we see today will look huge. The American public will demand that something be done. They will insist upon the rescue of the constitution.

I believe that there will be more network anchors who, emboldened by the tough talk of first and foremost, Keith Olbermann, but also Jack Cafferty and Lou Dobbs. These gutsy media spokesman will rally the American people to demand that the perpetrators face justice, that the abuses to the constitution and the bill of rights be righted (or, with the current climate, "lefted.")

The Republican party will be faced with a disastrous 2008 election and they will have little choice but to cut the damage-- the slowly, but strongly growing media storm of outrage over the crimes and abuses of Bush, Cheney and their worst appointees, particularly Gonzalez.

The Republicans will be forced to take a walk to the white House-- at least 15 or 16 of them-- and they will tell Bush and Cheney, that they have to resign, because the Republican party will be obliterated if they don't clean up their own mess. And Bush and Cheney are their mess.

There are those who would imprison these criminals for life, and those who believe they deserve execution as mass murderers. The US should also allow the world court to try them, with Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Tommy Franks, and a number of the generals who allowed or even observed torture and other war crimes. The US owes the world access to the criminals who got out of control. We need to clear our Karma. Allowing justice to take its course-- true justice, not the perverted, despicable thing that Gonzalez, Yoo and company perpetrated upon this nation and this planet.

The American people will see the light and they will make at least most of these things come to pass. And it will be sweet to see Bush and Cheney and friends do the perp walks they so richly deserve.

This is far-fetched, even a little tinfoil-hattish, but I think all those perps might be easier to indict once they're out of power.

Whatever it takes.

From your lips to the Repubs', and the nation's, ears, Mr. Kall.

"We clap for fairies"

Will Durst, a Frisco resident, on Nancy Pelosi and Baghdad by the Bay.

For those of you who can't wait to get Nancy Pelosi down on the ground to shave her head and expose her horns, I regret to inform you, they aren't there. She's a kindly old grandma now, and although her smile does look like some fiend is twisting a knobby pole inserted up her butt, the ironic part is, in San Francisco, this supposedly frighteningly extreme liberal is considered a moderate often is protested by leftist factions for planting herself too deep in the mainstream and selling out. And yeah, some of those factions also believe the same is true of Fidel. The best way to analyze "The City," as we presumptively call ourselves, is to look to the movies. Like in "The Wizard of Oz," when Dorothy says, "we're not in Kansas anymore," that's our motto. Then, at the end of "Peter Pan," where Tinkerbell almost dies and the only thing that can save her is audience applause. Well, that's us too. We're not Kansas and we clap for fairies. So what? Big deal. Who cares?

San Francisco beliefs center on the rights of the individual. Our biggest moral flaw is we hate judgmental people, a bit of an internal fallacy, I'll admit. We go out of our way not to place restrictions on people or their actions or religions or appearances. When you think about it, what they're really afraid of is the freedoms the citizens of San Francisco enjoy. That's right, they hate us for our freedoms.

The fairies in EssEff even have their own building. They just can't spell for shit.

Quote of the Day

Bob Cesca at HuffPo:

... Had the president been left to his own stubborn devices, I imagine he'd still be wandering the plains of Midland -- 60 years old and carrying a rotting box of Lunchables and a Trapper Keeper, wondering aloud when the short bus will finally arrive...

Bob goes on to document all the ways Poppy and his minions have bailed Chimpy out over the last 40 years.

"The adults are in charge," my ass. He was born a spoiled brat and will die that way.

About fucking time

Today was the first time I heard Dr. King described as an 'American Statesman' and it's been long overdue. It's about time they honored his memory.

Oh, please do

Rudy wants to run for Preznit:

(New York - WABC, November 13, 2006) - GOP officials say former Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken the initial step towards a 2008 White House bid.

Giuliani filed papers to create the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc. That process creates a panel allowing him to raise money for a potential run.

...

I would love it if Rudy on the Republican line and won their primary. We have more dirt on him here in NY that White House will be a Dem lock in '08.

Rudy, I got one word for ya: K-E-R-I-K

Please, please, please run.

Potemkin Iraq Study Group

Americablog

Regarding this Iraq Study Group, the Washington Post writes the following:

While [James] Baker has been testing the waters for some time to determine how much change in Iraq policy will be tolerated by the White House, [former Democratic Rep. Lee] Hamilton perhaps faces the now even-more-difficult challenge of cajoling Democrats such as former Clinton administration chief of staff Leon E. Panetta and power broker Vernon E. Jordan Jr. to sign on to a plan that falls short of a phased troop withdrawal, the position of many congressional Democrats.

This is a trap. Democrats cannot - can not - own the administration's current course in Iraq. If Democrats buy off on a policy that they know is not the right policy, then they will be buying off on future failure in Iraq. They will own Bush's bad policy. And that is insane. If the bipartisan group can't come up with a real plan, a good plan, the best plan, then let the Republicans in the group come up with their own wacky plan that will fail. The Democrats can issue a dissent that respectfully says they disagree, and why. And when all hell breaks loose over the next two years, the Dems can say "I told you so."

The last thing Democrats need is to hand George Bush some bipartisan approbation of his failed Iraq policy so that, in the future, he can say we all own Iraq, warts and all. We all don't own Iraq, it's his disaster, his failed state. And nothing we try is going to work because it's already too late - Iraq is lost. Bush had his chance, and he failed.

It's Terri Schiavo all over again. Sometimes the patient is just too far gone.

Oh yeah, one final rather important point. Check out the first line of that paragraph - James Baker is testing the waters as to how much change in Iraq policy the White House will tolerate. Excuse me? So, that means the guy running this panel isn't going to give his honest advice - he's only going to give the closest to honest the White House will let him give. That is totally messed up, incredibly dishonest, and it's the very reason we're in this predicament to start with. Generals being afraid of giving honest advice, top advisers to Bush being afraid to tell him the truth. It will be a total travesty if Baker only agrees to what the White House is willing to hear, and Lee Hamilton feels obliged to agree to whatever the Republicans want. Then what is the point of this entire exercise?

Less than honest? Repuglicans? Perish the thought!

I'm not saying I agree with this. We don't know what's in the report yet. Just something to keep in mind.

No ifs ands or buts

Elizabeth Holtzman

The framers of the constitution of the constitution knew that someday there was going to be a Richard Nixon who was president of the United States and someday there was going to be a George Bush who was going to be president of the United States, and they gave us the power of impeachment to revoke them.

They put in the impeachment clause because they said that we know that there will be presidents who will commit grave and dangerous offenses that would subvert the constitution. They knew that subverting that constitution was the greatest danger that could befall our country. So all of us here have to be soldiers in that cause.

Newsweek did a poll two weeks ago. It is a critical poll. It showed that a majority of Americans are open to the idea of impeaching George W. Bush.

What's amazing is that they got it even though there's no discussion of impeachment on the Today Show... , not even the other side. It's a nonentity, it doesn't exist. The mass media hasn't referred to it, except to say "It's a bad thing. It's the democrats." So there's no discussion of impeachment. Yet the American people get it, that this president has subverted the constitution and represents a threat to our democracy.

The constitution doesn't require the minimum. It requires the maximum. We can't have a president of the United States who puts himself above the rule of law if we want to continue with this democracy.That's it. No ifs ands or buts.

Ms. Holtzman is a leading voice in calling for Bush's impeachment. Here's her search on the Google to save you some time should you wish to do more research.

Ain't it the truth?