"[T]here is no 'third way' or 'consensus' way out of many of our most pressing problems"

no, there isn't, and that is why moderation and bipartisanship is proving to be such a dismal failure... there is no reasoning with those who will take a country to war illegally, and sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives so that they can retain power and continue to have money flowing into their pockets in rivers...

sirota writing at daily kos...

...it became obvious that this [Barack Obama] is a person who wants to do the right thing and has genuinely strong convictions. But he also seems to believe that the reason our country has such challenges is because all sides of every issue have not come together in unity...

[...]

The problem with this outlook is that it fundamentally misunderstands why we are at this moment in history.

[...]

[T]here is no "third way" or "consensus" way out of many of our most pressing problems, as Obama seems to believe. Why? Because many of our most pressing problems are zero-sum: someone is benefiting from the status quo, and to change the status quo means someone may lose something.

my jury is still out on obama as it is on edwards, and, if al changes his mind, on gore as well... my verdict was handed up long ago on hillary and biden, and i simply refuse to hear the cases of the candidates on the other side... keep talking, barack... i'll listen, but, unlike sirota, i'm much too cynical at this point to say i even WANT to believe...

[Obama] will have to decide whether he wants to offer up poll-tested platitudes about nebulous "hope" and run for President, or whether he wants to really challenge the status quo and actually BE ELECTED President. And as I said at the beginning, I want to believe he will make the right choice.

if he does, fine... i will be more than happy to jump on board...

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Environmental damage as a crime against human rights

and, if anybody would be impacted by the u.s.-led worship of materialism and arrogant disregard for the environment, it would be the inuit...

A delegation of Inuit is to travel to Washington DC to provide first-hand testimony of how global warming is destroying their way of life and to accuse the Bush administration of undermining their human rights.

The delegation, representing Inuit peoples from the US, Canada, Russia and Greenland, will argue that the US's energy policies and its position as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases is having a devastating effect on their communities. Melting sea ice, rising seas and the impact on the animals they rely on for food threatens their existence.

The Inuit's efforts to force the US to act are part of an unprecedented attempt to link climate change to international human rights laws. They will argue before the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (ICHR) that the US's behaviour puts it in breach of its obligations. "The impacts of climate change, caused by acts and omissions by the US, violate the Inuit's fundamental human rights protected by the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and other international instruments," the Inuit argued in a letter to the ICHR. "Because Inuit culture is inseparable from the condition of their physical surroundings, the widespread environmental upheaval resulting from climate change violates the Inuit's right to practice and enjoy the benefits of their culture."

more power to 'em...

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The 2008 election: "And awa-aa-ay we go!"

thanks to jackie gleason (may he rest in peace), crooks and liars, and tom tomorrow...

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Save NPR and PBS once and for all

i'm so sick of bushco crap... we shouldn't have to be doing this, YET AGAIN, but, as ought to be perfectly obvious, bushco never, EVER, EVER gives up in their crusade to destroy our country...

moveon is on top of things, as usual...

Hi,

President Bush just proposed drastic cuts to NPR and PBS. We've stopped similar cuts in the past, but enough is enough: With the new Congress, we can make sure this never happens again.

We need Congress to save NPR and PBS once and for all.

Can you help out by signing this petition to Congress? It's really easy—just click the link below:

Sign the petition here!

Thanks!

(thanks to skadi...!)

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An impassioned plea to remove George and Dick

when you've got a bad case of iraq deja-vu going on...

craig unger in vanity fair...

Whatever the administration's master plan may be, parts of it are already under way. In mid-January, the U.S. sent a second aircraft-carrier strike group to the Persian Gulf. According to Gardiner, by the end of February the United States will have enough forces in place to mount an assault on Iran. That, in the words of former national-security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, would be "an act of political folly" so severe that "the era of American preponderance could come to a premature end."

The Bush White House has already built the fire. Whether it will light the match remains to be seen.

and congress is debating less critical issues as the u.s. swirls the drain...

kidneystones in daily kos...

Forget peace, international coalitions, global warming and universal healthcare. If Dems don't start screaming now about the need to remove Cheney from power now, it's going to be too late. In December, a few of us pooh-poohed all the cheering and predicted an Iran attack in March. Looks like Craig Unger and a few other folks figure March is about when it happens, too.

Cheney doesn't give a rat's ass about the law, the will of the American voters or any force of nature beyond his own rapacious greed and belief that he and only he understands what's right for America.

Cheney and his sock-puppet are moving all the pieces into place for an attack on Iran. Dems will not have much time to act, surely no more than 30 days.

what options do we have left...?

Will the IMPEACHMENT debate provide every Dem with the opportunity to speak up on another invasion, some feel is guaranteed to turn the world against America once and for all? Yes!

Will the IMPEACHMENT debate FOCUS America's attention on the illegal war on Iran just about everyone seems to believe is unfolding before our eyes?

Will Americans forgive Dems for doing nothing again to stop the attack, when folks come forward with Tehran and America's reputation in ashes with the sorry-ass excuse?

bush and his criminal posse have to go...

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"Such excuses no longer are good enough"

damn right, they're not... while i may be a democrat, i certainly don't think living in argentina qualifies as living in the heartland, but, i can tell you this... i'm pissed...

In Washington, Democrats are blaming Republicans for the Senate's failure so far to vote on a resolution opposing a troop increase in Iraq.

But in the heartland, some voters say such excuses no longer are good enough.

Having banked on the promise that Democrats would force a change of course in Iraq if they won control of Congress, some of the people who helped the Democrats get there are growing impatient.

They're frustrated that Democrats sank so much energy into a nonbinding resolution then dropped the bipartisan plan of Sens. John Warner, R-Va., and Carl Levin, D-Mich., like a hot potato when Republican leaders who support President Bush maneuvered them into a corner.

as i said above, i'm pissed, not impatient... and it's not only iraq i'm pissed about... it's the wholesale destruction of my country that has been taking place for over six years at the hands of the worst band of criminals in the nation's history...

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The NYT tells us what we already knew

and didn't need a pentagon report to confirm...

The Build-a-War Workshop

A report by the Pentagon inspector general has finally
confirmed that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's
intelligence office cooked up a link between Iraq and Al
Qaeda to help justify an unjustifiable war.

and, our esteemed congresspeople are going to do what, exactly...? < crickets chirping >

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Showcasing immigrant detention, but, no, you can't talk to the detainees

Japanese Internment Center, Jerome, Arkansas

welcome to the gulag...

Responding to complaints about conditions at the nation’s main family detention center for illegal immigrants, officials threw open the gates on Friday for a first news media tour.

[...]

Inside the fluorescent-lighted corridors, plastic plants had been hurriedly installed and some areas repainted, lawyers for some detainees said, and officials acknowledged that pizza was on the lunch menu for the first time. The detainees could not be interviewed.

[...]

“To call it a family residential center is to mask what’s going on,” said Vanita Gupta, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U. “They may be cleaning up conditions, but at the end of the day it still begs the question of why they are using such a Draconian system.”

Another A.C.L.U. lawyer, Lisa Graybill, legal director, said after visiting, “I can’t describe how depressed people are in there.”

[...]

The rooms are not locked at night, but a laser beam alerts guards if anyone leaves a room after bedtime — 9 p.m. for children and 10 for adults. The detainees wear outfits of green and blue, which Danny Coronado, a spokesman for the corrections company, likened to scrubs but critics described as prison garb.

tell me... after reading the above, what comes to mind...? would it have any relationship to this...?

According to a 1943 War Relocation Authority report, internees were housed in "tar paper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind." The spartan facilities met international laws, but still left much to be desired. Many camps were built quickly by civilian contractors during the summer of 1942 based on designs for military barracks, making the buildings poorly equipped for cramped family living.

what has happened to my country...?

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100 inches of snow in 5 days

we lived for a while in syracuse, new york, a place that regularly gets more snow and less media attention than its neighbor city, buffalo, but, since buffalo is larger, i guess that's the way the cookie crumbles... the first month we lived in syracuse, the city received over 80 inches of snow which was mind-boggling to me... oswego, the city in this story, a mere 40 miles to the northwest, along the shores of lake ontario, always got hit even harder, but, good lord, 100 inches in FIVE DAYS...?

New York's governor has declared a state disaster emergency in Oswego County, where five straight days of lake-effect squalls have dumped nearly 100 inches of snow. Even more snow was forecast through the weekend.

i learned a lot of things about snow i didn't know when we lived there... for one thing, they have the equipment to handle it... even with massive amounts of snowfall, the plows were generally able to keep all the roads open, and life went on as usual... second, as in this picture, it was essential to keep too much snow from accumulating on your roof... obviously, there was the danger of collapse from the weight, but also, in the daily cycle of melt-freeze, ice dams would form at the edges of the roof, dramatically increasing the weight at the edges, and slowly destroying the eaves... many people installed electrical heat tape around the edges to prevent ice dams, and also to avoid the dangers of climbing around on a snow and ice-covered roof all winter... however, when the snow is too heavy, you can't avoid it, like the man in this photo... (note that the snow level is nearly up past his roofline...)



the other thing i learned while living in upstate new york is the real meaning of the seemingly innocuous term "lake effect snow..." storm fronts rotate counterclockwise... in that area of the country, storms often move up from the ohio valley, and the leading edge of the storm sweeps warmer air up from the south, which, when it hits the colder air up north, produces snow... the back end of the storm brings winds from the north and west, picking up moisture from the great lakes, producing even more snow, and that is what is called "lake effect..." what this one-two punch means, essentially, is that there are long periods of time when it never stops snowing... it was no oddity in syracuse to get three inches of snow a day for weeks at a time...

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No shame, no truth, no understanding, no nada....

the "big problem in the democratic party right now" is that there are too many who think they're democrats, too many who claim they're democrats, too many who want us to think they're democrats, that only care about holding on to their own power so that they can continue to set the agenda for the rest of us...

A consultant to Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) had harsh words for 2008 Democratic presidential contender John Edwards and members of his staff in an appearance on MSNBC today.

Bloggers in the Edwards camp are accused of making inflammatory postings, including comments deemed offensive by some ethnic and religious groups. Despite the backlash, Edwards has decided to retain the staffers.

"There's a big problem in the Democratic Party right now," says Dan Gerstein, political strategist and Lieberman's 2006 campaign spokesman. "I think for a lot of Democratic bloggers, there's extremism, there's an anger, and there's a lack of accountability for what people say and do."

Gerstein gained a measure of notoriety himself last year when, as Lieberman's spokesman, he accused challenger Ned Lamont's supporters of hacking Lieberman's campaign website, despite the lack of direct evidence.

dan gerstein and his ilk are so friggin' far from having a clue, it's pathetic... the "extremism" and the "anger" are completely understandable in the context of the reality that the bush administration successfully staged a quiet coup d'etat via the scotus decision of 12 december 2000, and has been systematically dismantling the very fabric of the united states since... both the extremism and the anger are exacerbated by the sad fact that, despite the grave damage to the republic that has already been done, serious steps to stop it are not being taken...

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Catholic League lies

(thanks to act up and atrios...)

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Conason wakes up to the coup d'etat

even though commenter johann tipped me off to specter's subversive staff action earlier, it went in one ear and out the other - until i read this...

A columnist at Salon has described Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sacking of United States Attorneys involved in controversial prosecutions as an act that amounts to a "coup d'etat."

Joe Conason highlights the removal from office of Carol Lam, Bud Cummings, and John McKay, U.S. Attorneys in San Diego, Little Rock, and Seattle respectively, whose prosecutions ran against the partisan interests of the Bush White House. These acts, Conason writes, suggest that "the White House and the Justice Department have been exposed in a secretive attempt to expand executive power for partisan purposes."

The ability of the White House to swap out U.S. Attorneys with partisan appointees resulted when the staff of Senator Arlen Specter inserted a measure in the renewal of the USA Patriot Act that "permitted the White House to place its own appointees in vacant U.S. attorney positions permanently and without Senate confirmation." According to Conason, Specter says he was not aware of the action by a member of his staff.

as johann quite rightly points out...

Apparently these staffers are more influential than appears on the surface and are operating without oversight and without anyone in the press or the public being aware of who they are or the Senators they work for being aware of what they are doing.

A true shadow government.

it seems to me that this needs a LOT more investigation...

and, without trying to break my arm patting myself on the back, mr. conason, i have been calling bushco's twisted government a quiet coup d'etat for over three years now...

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Yet another shameful peformance for the U.S. on the international stage

i am living in a country where illegal detentions and disappearances devastated the social fabric for nearly ten years and the consequences are still playing out... that the u.s. could claim that the final document "did not meet our expectations" as a reason for not signing is a pathetic statement and a telling sign of what the u.s. has become - a pariah in the arena of human rights...

Nearly 60 countries signed a treaty on Tuesday that bans governments from holding people in secret detention, but the United States and some of its key European allies were not among them.

[...]

The convention defines forced disappearances as the arrest, detention, kidnapping or "any other form of deprivation of freedom" by state agents or affiliates, followed by denials or cover-ups about the detention and location of the person gone missing.

and, finally, the lame-ass u.s. spokesman...

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined comment except to say that the United States helped draft the treaty, but that the final text "did not meet our expectations."

so very sad...

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Let's celebrate the demise of the "old ways"

- QUOTATION OF THE DAY -

"This is all being made up as we go along. It is difficult to apply the old ways campaigns were run in late 20th century to this new wide-open citizen-led politics."

- SIMON ROSENBERG, of the New Democrat Network, on politicians' use of the Internet.

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Why is the WaPo defending George's budget?

hell if i know... as i noted in yesterday's post, why ANYONE would defend this budgetary abomination is beyond me...

The $481 billion proposal for fiscal 2008 reflects an 11 percent increase over this year; including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the $623 billion total is 60 percent larger than the defense budget that Mr. Bush inherited in 2001. Some analysts argue that the spending is historically outsized, pointing out that the total spent or requested for the two ongoing wars is greater than the cost incurred in Vietnam.

In fact there is some excess in the Pentagon's spending plan -- but many of the comparisons being drawn are deceiving. As a share of the U.S. economy, defense spending was at a near-historic low before Sept. 11, 2001, and even if Mr. Bush's new budget is fully funded, it will still be well below the average over the past century. Defense spending is now just under 4 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 9.5 percent during Vietnam; the Reagan-era buildup took a 50 percent larger piece of national output.

how disingenuous can you get...? of course, the wapo has a grand tradition of being disingenuous, but sometimes they are simply over the top, as in the neglecting of THIS inconvenient truth...

The United States' military budget is greater than that of the next 14 biggest military spenders combined. Even if not one additional dollar is allocated to the advanced weapons systems now in the works, there is not a nation on Earth that would dare challenge U.S. dominance in the air or on the seas for decades to come. The enormous imbalance in U.S. military spending is not about defense but rather profit.

isn't it time we stopped spending our money on DESTRUCTIVE capability and started spending it on CONSTRUCTIVE capability...? isn't it WAY PAST TIME...?

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Things like this make me proud to be a vet

as a vietnam vet, i take no pride in having served in a war... i was extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to participate in such an event and return in one piece (at least physically!)... i hold the greatest respect for those who have served their country and learned from it... not all vets learn from their experience, but those who do, watch out...! we have seen things from the inside and aren't about to swallow the usual load of shit... case in point...

VoteVets.org appears to be the most active group trying to influence the debate about the president's plan to send 21,500 more troops to Iraq.

[...]

The veterans are selling a blunt message: The Bush strategy in Iraq is a failure, and adding troops sends more young men and women to their deaths. If you care about the military, they told lawmakers, vote against the troop increase. Legislators who are stalling debate on the matter are "cowards," they said.

This week marked their third pilgrimage to the Capitol. They met privately with the staffs of 11 senators, mostly Republicans. They talked strategy behind closed doors with the Democrats who run the House and then held a media event with those leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who praised them for speaking out.

[...]

[Jon Soltz, co-founder of VoteVets] said the group is pro-military and not a front for the Democrats. "I'm a conservative," said Soltz, who volunteered on Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "I don't think 20,000 more troops is Democratic, I don't think 20,000 troops is Republican. I think it's stupid."

amen...

p.s. yes, i am a member of votevets... consider contributing... right now, i can't think of a more effective group on the national scene...

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Christian dominionism

we should never take our eyes off of THIS ball...

The Christian right has lured tens of millions of Americans, who rightly feel abandoned and betrayed by the political system, from the reality-based world to one of magic -- to fantastic visions of angels and miracles, to a childlike belief that God has a plan for them and Jesus will guide and protect them. This mythological worldview, one that has no use for science or dispassionate, honest intellectual inquiry, one that promises that the loss of jobs and health insurance does not matter, as long as you are right with Jesus, offers a lying world of consistency that addresses the emotional yearnings of desperate followers at the expense of reality. It creates a world where facts become interchangeable with opinions, where lies become true -- the very essence of the totalitarian state. It includes a dark license to kill, to obliterate all those who do not conform to this vision, from Muslims in the Middle East to those at home who refuse to submit to the movement. And it conveniently empowers a rapacious oligarchy whose god is maximum profit at the expense of citizens.

We now live in a nation where the top 1 percent control more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, where we have legalized torture and can lock up citizens without trial. Arthur Schlesinger, in "The Cycles of American History," wrote that "the great religious ages were notable for their indifference to human rights in the contemporary sense -- not only for their acquiescence in poverty, inequality and oppression, but for their enthusiastic justification of slavery, persecution, torture and genocide."

they're out there, still working hard, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out what audience the likes of mccain, romney, and brownback are playing to...

This movement -- the most dangerous mass movement in American history -- will not be blunted until the growing social and economic inequities that blight this nation are addressed, until tens of millions of Americans, now locked in hermetic systems of indoctrination through Christian television and radio, as well as Christian schools, are reincorporated into American society and given a future, one with hope, adequate wages, job security and generous federal and state assistance.

The unchecked rape of America, which continues with the blessing of both political parties, heralds not only the empowerment of this American oligarchy but the eventual death of the democratic state and birth of American fascism.

it's a pretty good analysis... i suggest you read it all here...

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Using the budget to create endless war and to continue destroying the social contract

buchco rolls merrily along with their plan to perpetuate our endless war, keep the rivers of cash flowing into already super-rich pockets, eliminate any traces of a social contract, and turn the united states into an authoritarian dictatorship...

the nyt...

The budget is based on a series of improbable, if not dishonest, assumptions. To make it appear as if the tax cuts are affordable in the near term, it assumes that the Pentagon will not spend a single penny on Iraq or Afghanistan after 2009. It also assumes there will be no costs for fixing the alternative minimum tax after this year, even though Mr. Bush and virtually every politician in America is committed to such relief.

The new budget would also slash key entitlement programs and punish many of the country’s most vulnerable citizens. Sharp reductions are envisioned for Medicare, with cuts of $66 billion over five years, and Medicaid, down approximately $11 billion. Some of the Medicare proposals could serve as useful starting points for a debate on controlling costs through such steps as raising premiums for high-income beneficiaries. But the Medicaid cuts would be largely counterproductive. At a time when the number of uninsured children is rising, the cuts would force many states to reduce their Medicaid rolls.

Mr. Bush’s budget would also take an ax to most other domestic spending. One program that would be gone entirely in 2008 provides monthly bags of groceries, each worth less than $20, to 440,000 needy elderly people. The $99 million block grant to states to help pay for preventive health care would also be eliminated. Other cuts — in Head Start, veterans’ health care, environmental protection, scientific research, low-income housing and heating assistance, to name a few — would start in 2008 and grow, totaling $114 billion over five years. Such cuts would be shortsighted and cruel. They would also be politically impossible to enact — further exposing Mr. Bush’s budget as the sham it is.

yes, it's a sham... yes, it's unconscionable... but, what will we do about it...?

ari berman at the nation via alternet...

Four defense analysts at the Security Policy Working Group recently awarded the government low or failing grades on virtually every aspect of the budget -- use of nation's resources (D), affordability (D), realism (D) and transparency (F). On only one criteria, advertising, did they award at A+, "for the Pentagon managing to convince Congress that the world's largest defense budget is too small."

The question now is whether this Congress will take the bait?

will they take the bait...? oh, c'mon... get real... of COURSE they will take the bait... they can't even manage to get a debate going on iraq, the most disastrous misadventure in u.s. history... do you honestly think they aren't going to pass a budget...?

robert scheer writing at alternet...

So the test for the recently victorious congressional Democrats will be to resist the temptation to go along with a patriotic-sounding military budget that may produce jobs in their districts and campaign contributions in '08 but that has nothing to do with fighting terrorism.

If they go the craven route, they will once again join this president in wasting our nation's resources by pretending to fight a world war against a militarily sophisticated enemy that exists only as a contrivance of his speechwriters' rhetoric.

"if they go the craven route...?" "IF...???" (see above comment...)

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Robert Parry wonders about the Dems desire to get serious

as do i...

The Republicans scored a political victory of sorts by thwarting a non-binding Senate resolution that would have expressed mild disapproval of George W. Bush’s military escalation in Iraq. When the resolution was blocked, White House officials reportedly gave each other high-fives.

The GOP’s use of parliamentary procedures to prevent a floor debate was another sharp elbow in the ribs of the new Democratic congressional majority, which has been trying since November to behave in a bipartisan way on foreign policy, graciously approving Bush’s new war council with nary a tough question.

[...]

Despite the Republican defeat in November, the Bush administration has left no doubt it intends to continue playing political hardball. The question before the congressional Democrats is whether they will play that way, too.

if six years of watching the bush administration trash everything the united states stands for hasn't led to serious opposition to the bush administration, do i think congressional dems are suddenly going to grow a spine after being rebuffed on the iraq debate...? uhhhhhhhhh... < scratches chin, looks at ceiling, pulls at ear lobe > frankly, no, i don't...

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May the Schwarz be with you - questioning the divine right of kings

yes, yes, yes... a thousand times, yes...

The chief counsel to the committee that investigated abuses of power by President Richard Nixon [Frederick A.O. Schwarz, who presently works as Senior Counsel at the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Social Justice, served as chief counsel to the Church Committee from 1975-1976] in the 1970s tells RAW STORY he’d like to see a similar inquiry into clandestine intelligence operations under President George W. Bush.

[...]

“One thing that needs to be looked at is the conduct of the intelligence agencies on subjects like warrantless wiretapping and ‘rendition’ for torture,” he said. “One important issue is the actual conduct of the agencies, and the other is the ‘command and control’ questions – how were they authorized, or were they authorized? And if so, who were their bosses, the Department of Defense, or the White House?” he added.

Schwarz also believes Congress should tackle the concept of presidential power espoused by the Bush White House.

“Another thing that needs to be looked at is the theory that the Bush administration has that the president is entitled to break the law,” he said. “Because if that’s right, then much of what they've done with respect to warrantless wiretapping and torture, he's like a king, and he has the right, so you must take on that third subject to have a good investigation.”

he's got to be stopped and i'm not picky about how we do it...

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An intolerant, homophobic bigot who lives in a glass house, decides to throw stones

born, raised, and educated as a catholic, i spent a fair chunk of my earlier life putting it behind me... there are some good things about catholicism, just as there are good things about many religions, but bill donohue, president of the catholic league, is, to put it mildly, a creep, who, if it wasn't for his catholicism, would be keeping company with james dobson and focus on the family... scratch that... he probably IS keeping company with james dobson and focus on the family...

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said in a statement on Tuesday, “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots.”

[...]

The two women brought to the Edwards campaign long cyber trails in the incendiary language of the blogosphere. Other campaigns are likely to face similar controversies as they try to court voters using the latest techniques of online communication.

Ms. Marcotte wrote in December that the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of contraception forced women “to bear more tithing Catholics.” In another posting last year, she used vulgar language to describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Ms. McEwan referred in her blog to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” and repeatedly used profanity in demanding that religious conservatives stop meddling with women’s reproductive and sexual rights. Multiple postings use explicit and inflammatory language on a variety of issues.

crawl back under your rock, bill... edwards is fortunate to have those two fine women on his staff... if your virgin ears find them offensive, i suggest industrial strength earplugs...

(thanks to raw story...)

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Jones unstacks Haggard's pile o'shit

what haggard's statement says to me is that haggard and the fundamentalist christian right are so vehemently opposed to the mere thought of gay people even existing, that they will say or do anything, no matter how absurd, to excise "gayness" from their midst...

In response to Haggard's statement, Jones giggled and responded "Well, that's the quickest therapy I've ever heard of. It's hard for me to imagine someone who is performing oral sex and saying that he is 'straight.' That just doesn't jive." If you were to ask me 'Do I think is Ted haggard gay?' I would have to say 'yes'," he added.

In response to one of Haggard's counselor's claims that Haggard's activities were not a "constant thing," Jones explained that he could only speak to the time he spent with Haggard and that had an ongoing sexual relationship with the minister and that their time together "indicated a gay man to me." Jones also shared that he had heard from two other individuals that claimed they had encounters with Haggard. Those accusers, Jones asserted, have chosen to remain anonymous for fear of losing their jobs.

When asked why he decided to expose Haggard, Jones said he was "tormented" over the decision, but that the "hypocrisy was so strong and evident that I just could not sit by any longer."

there is absolutely nothing "wrong" with gay sex... where haggard is continuing to screw up, however, is that he's lying to himself and that's a real shame...

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A light posting day becuz...

i'm basically disgusted... strike that... i'm much more than basically disgusted... i'm beginning to wonder if there's anyone in my country that has the guts to stand up and be counted...

i had so hoped that handing congress over to the dems would make a difference... silly me... the r's continue to hold sway in congress while bush and his buds continue to eviscerate the constitution, while the iraq troop escalation moves full speed ahead, and while plans for invading iran are finalized... then we get to see the likes of hillary clinton channel joe lieberman, obama preen and posture and offer little else, edwards go weak in the knees, and a host of other cojones-challenged dems continue to mewl and piss on themselves rather than doing what needs to be done to get the country back on track...

there is only one thing that needs doing right now in the u.s., and that is figuring out the best way to get bushco the hell out of the white house... absolutely nothing else matters... until he and his gang are stopped, none of us are safe and the future of our country is at terrible risk... posting about anything else, imho, is a waste of time, and a demonstration of almost criminal negligence...

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How high can you stack shit...?

how tall is ted haggard...?

The Rev. Ted Haggard emerged from three weeks of intensive counseling convinced he is "completely heterosexual" and told an oversight board that his sexual contact with men was limited to his accuser.

uhhhhhhh... teddy, teddy, teddy... you may be sellin', but i ain't buyin...

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Another little-noticed amendment: handing over your DNA to the government

these "little-noticed amendments" are taking us rapidly down the road to a true police state...

The Justice Department is completing rules to allow the collection of DNA from most people arrested or detained by federal authorities, a vast expansion of DNA gathering that will include hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, by far the largest group affected.

The new forensic DNA sampling was authorized by Congress in a little-noticed amendment to a January 2006 renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which provides protections and assistance for victims of sexual crimes. The amendment permits DNA collecting from anyone under criminal arrest by federal authorities, and also from illegal immigrants detained by federal agents.

i can't wait for my next trip through customs coming back into the u.s... it can't be too long that we'll all probably be greeted with a tongue swab...

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OPOL: "We need drastic, radical change"

if you don't follow one pissed off liberal's diaries at kos, you should...

It is my view that we need drastic, radical change. A lot of people are afraid of that word (among others). We had a related word back in the 60s – radicalized. It meant that something had happened to convert you from your moderation and transformed you into one who accepts the wisdom that radical problems require radical solutions. Whether it was the war, the assassination of someone you cared about or were in sympathy with, or if it were a personal experience with being brutally oppressed – the impact could be most powerful, profound even, and it happened to a lot of people.

If George W. Bush, the neocons and their viciously stupid actions have not radicalized you by now, then all I can say is that you must not have been paying attention.

We desperately need massive, fundamental and yes, radical change. No more band-aids on bullet wounds and no more pretense of change masking a continued commitment to the status quo. No more two-faced, sell-out, backstabbing politicians lining their own pockets at our expense. We need to get real serious real fast or we’re going to run out of time.

[...]

In conclusion, it’s time for a revolution in this country. I don’t mean a violent revolution, but I do mean a forceful one. We need to take our country back from the thieves, thugs and backstabbers who have taken it away from us. We need to demand action to stop the impending attack on Iran, and we need to demand strong and decisive action to save the planet from global warming – and we need to stop taking NO for an answer!

the number one priority in the u.s. is getting rid of george bush and his criminal band...

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Iraq vets say, if you support the escalation, you don't support the troops

now THAT'S the kind of verbal framing we need more of...!



as a vietnam vet, i don't support the escalation either...

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Note to Dems: While you're dickering

yeah, yeah, yeah... i'm still banging this drum... fortunately, there are people like maccabee at daily kos who tend to agree with me...

While you are dickering over whether to pass legislation with teeth or to pass legislation that won’t work at all, the United States is detaining and torturing thousands of people in gulags around the world

While we want you to shut down this kleptocracy, while we want you to change course in bankruptcy law and we want you to start fixing public education and while we want you to bring the troops home, keep something in mind.

There is something we cannot wait another two years for. It is the single biggest mistake we have ever made and if we cannot fix it, then this country doesn’t deserve to survive.

Stop.

The.

Torture.

As a matter of fact Congressmen, turn on your computer, click on Google. Then type into the little window "US + torture". You will get 22,100,000 entries.

There shouldn’t be even one of these.

While you’re out there in Beltway Land letting the Republicans filibuster you on every single item, US officials or surrogates are waterboarding people. We beating them. Keeping them from their families. Not allowing them to be represented or have a trial.

While you put all your attentions on stopping this madman, his henchmen are breaking every principle of civilization, every law in the Constitution and in fact, every law of God.

the occupants of the white house and many of the departments and agencies of the executive branch are criminals, criminals who are intent on destroying the very fabric of the united states, and they will continue to do so unless and until we band together and show them the door... of this you can be sure, it won't stop otherwise...

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31 Days in Iraq: 1,900 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed

a stunning, profoundly revealing, and deeply disturbing chart, chronicling violence and death during the month of january in iraq...



(click on chart for full-sized image...)

In January more than 1,900 people — soldiers, security officers and civilians — were killed in the insurgency in Iraq, up from 800 in January 2006. Many corpses showed signs of torture, meaning the victims were probably killed by religious and tribal death squads. This map, based on data from the American, British and Iraqi governments and from news reports, shows the dates, locations and circumstances of deaths for the first month of the year. Given the vast size of Iraq and the communications difficulties inherent in war, the information may be incomplete. Nonetheless, it is our effort to visually depict the continuing human cost of the Iraq war.

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Take care of your people, a great story about a social entrepreneur

from, of all places, the bastion of fundamentalist christian extremism, my disowned home town, colorado springs, a conservative, kita power-spot if there ever was one...

He created a system to help resolve the problems of the working poor who staffed his restaurants by pulling together or creating an array of services, from arranging day care to organizing transportation to making small emergency loans. The goal, he said, was to keep his employees on the job and focused on customers.

this is the kind of person and the kind of story i would like to see a hell of a lot more of... working stiffs and wage slaves are the fundamental ingredient of any organization, be it public or private, for-profit or nonprofit... there IS no product or service, no customers or clients, no cash flow, and no organization without the front-line employees there to deliver it...

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