corrente

how Iraq's oil money was essentially given to us to manage by the U.N.

Well, um, we screwed that up big time:

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the United States took control of all of the Iraqi government’s bank accounts, including the income from oil sales. The United Nations approved the financial takeover, and President Bush vowed to spend Iraq’s money wisely. But now critics are raising serious questions about how well the United States handled billions of dollars in Iraqi oil funds.

...

Now, Frank Willis, a former senior American official in Iraq, tells NBC News the United States failed to safeguard the oil money known as the Development Fund for Iraq.

...

In one example of insufficient controls, the United States stored hundreds of millions of oil dollars in a vault in a Baghdad palace. Government auditors found that the key to the vault was kept “unsecured” — in a U.S. official’s backpack.

Iraq’s U.S. administrator, Paul Bremer, pledged last year to hire a certified public accounting firm to ensure proper controls. But the United States gave the contract not to an accounting firm but to a tiny consulting company, Northstar — which NBC News found is headquartered at a private home near San Diego.

...

But NBC News has learned that a draft government audit faults the United States for “inadequate stewardship” of up to $8.8 billion in oil money, handed over to Iraq’s ministries but never fully accounted for.
(via MSNBC)

We apparently lost $8.8 B.

Holy cow.

Just who the heck works for North Star Consultants, Inc.? I've googled it and I can't find any info.

Can anybody help me out here?

Yawn. Snarfle. To sleep, perchance to dream....

But maybe that's only because Congress is out of session....

Of course, the "Bush mandate [1] is not a mandate [2]. It's a girly mandate [3].

#1 on Google [1] here, [2] here, and [3] here.

Heh.

Seems like Neal Stephensen, when he (as "Stephen Bury") wrote Interface, had the 2004 election all figured out. The reviews talk about Election 2000—but it was in 2004 that we saw a candidate running for President with a mysterious square box on this back.... I haven't finished it yet, so, Stephensen being Stephensen, I don't know whether it ends or just stops, but so far it's a gripping read.

Yawn.

But who will issue the extremely non-political terror alerts? Say, notice we haven't had any since the election? Not even on heavy travel holiday weekends?

NOTE RDF, I just published your post. I don't know which of the many aspects of blogger's massive suckitude prevented your post from showing up.

There’s a lot of talk about strategy lately. But it's so simple... really. Thom Hartmann thinks the key is organizing for 2006, starting like, ummm, yesterday. He notes that the GOPthugs are already organized and have learned well how to control elections...

The next national elections will be held in the United States in 2006, and there's a lesson for us in the 1972 midterm elections.

Although Richard Nixon won a landslide re-election that year, carrying every state except Massachusetts, he was out of office within 18 months because the House and Senate were in Democratic hands and Senator Sam Irvin was able to proceed with an investigation of Nixon's crimes while in office. Opposition control of Congress is about the only way to hold a president accountable: Republican control of Congress led to the impeachments of Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. (And when a President appoints his own attorney as the nation's head prosecutor - Attorney General - it becomes virtually impossible to prosecute the President outside of the House or Senate.)

Thus, the first key to returning America to multiparty rule and re-opening the political process will be in electing progressive Democrats (and Independents like Vermont's Bernie Sanders) to the US House and Senate in 2006.

But first we must prepare to take on a Republican machine that has already corrupted the electoral process in the past three elections, and knows how to "pull a Ukraine" in any state at any time with single a phone call to Jim Baker or Tom DeLay. How To Take Back A Stolen Election

Which I agree with, except he doesn’t explain how to take them on. Sure, we’ve got to fight electoral fraud with lawsuits and recounts and letters, but it seems to me that the real key is to organize for the 2006 election. How about this? Get real progressives, anti-war, anti-corporation, pro-justice people into positions of power in the local Dem parties, county by county, and begin mobilizing GOTV efforts around solid anti-Bush local candidates, from county commissioners up to senatorial candidates. Can we do this in time for 2006? Yeah, if everybody starts NOW. The GOTV needs to be built around these candidates by the end of 2005, no later. And prior to that, identifying the real liberals and getting them nominated and raising money. Ahhh, and money…

Kathy Kelly thinks we should stop supporting war and neo-imperialism by refusing to give them money…

Politically, progressives were defeated by a majority of Democrat voters even before the majority of American voters ratified imperialism. We're having limited results from time-honored ways of influencing our government - getting out and protesting, the signs, the candles, the education and legislative work that is still crucially important.

Bush promised that he would spend money for the amount of troops that he needs to recruit for ongoing wars. Most of us are not targeted by the recruiters. We're not listened to by our government, nor, in sufficient numbers, the American people. From most of us, what is required is not our bodies and not our consent - it's our money. This is what we have power over. What We Can Control

And again, I agree. She goes on to recommend not paying taxes. But not paying taxes would give them a great excuse to put a lot of folks in jail and most of us don’t have Emerson-types to bail us out. Better to just refuse to support the mega-corporations and their ilk. Buy local, and buy only what you need. Know where your money goes. And, as she rightly points out, the real liberals were defeated before the campaign even began. So again, I say it’s time NOW to organize locally, time to engage in “time-honored ways of influencing our government”—if in 2006 we want slates of real, fire-breathing Liberal candidates. This then would be a fine pool for 2008 and 2010, no matter what the mainstream Dems do. And it would make the spineless wake up and understand that the real liberals are taking over. I mean, what’s the other choice aside from taking over politically?

So I guess I’d better make time to get to the next Dem meeting—the topic will be candidates and funding. I have a couple of people in mind I’d like to talk to about accepting a nomination to run for local chair. And that happens in January, I’m told.

Here's the latest on their Google Desktop Search (GDS):

Google's tool downloads and installs itself in no time at all, and lets you generally select the types of files you want to include. GDS then sets out to build an index of your entire electronic existence.

GDS stores its painfully complete index in one convenient location on your hard drive with no encryption or password protection--a hacker's and worm writer's dream come true.

"[GDS] puts the index of your data in a well-known place on your hard drive," says Stephen Green, principal investigator of the Advanced Search Technologies Group at Sun Microsystems. "It's only a matter of time before there is a spyware application or a worm that sends your Google index to a site somewhere."
(via PC World)

I've got to use IE, so I'm already living one security nightmare. I certainly don't need another. What were these guys thinking. Were they thinking?

Nice slogan, eh? One that reform Democrats, as opposed to the gutless, feckless Beltway variety, would do well to adopt. Matt Singer is a Democrat from Montana and, believe it or not, Democrats can win there. Read his hopeful words:

Something that the DNC (and by DNC, I mean every person stuck in the Beltway mindset) needs to get through its head is that Dean was never running as a left-winger. He was never even running as a hardcore liberal. He was running as a centrist outraged over what was being done to his country.

And for a damn good reason, what is happening to our country is outrageous.

And the Democratic Party gets ready to act out its own death on stage again. We are a party of hypochondriacs. Every time we lose, we’re convinced we’re deathly ill. In Montana, in 2000, Democrats lost three big statewide offices. They lost the Governor’s race, the US House race, and a US Senate race. They thought the world had ended. We just bucked up and kept working. And in 2002, we won a US Senate race, more seats in the legislature, and control of the Public Service Commission.

This year, we took back the damn Governor’s office. And we didn’t do it with a namby-pamby-roll-over-and-keep-your-mouth-shut style. We did it by running a candidate with clear contrasts with the Republicans and by pointing out how we would make the state a better place.

And it is high damn time we did that for America. We can’t expect the press to show how we differ from the Republicans or even why one would want to differ from the Republicans. The press typically knows how to do its job about as well as the 15-year-old-with-acne flipping burgers at McDonald’s. The difference between the media and McDonald’s? The latter contains essential vitamins and minerals. The only way something worthwhile ends up in the paper is if we get it in there. The only way people find out the truth about the Bush White House is when people bring the truth up.

You’re actually going to have to work. You’re going to have to draw distinctions. You’re going to have to have a message. A clear message. A concise message (no rants like this one). A damn compelling message.

And if you can’t do that with a sandtrap in one hemisphere and a looming economic collapse in another, well, maybe you aren’t cut out for this line of work. And so when the usual suspect DC press corps types start portraying Howard Dean as “bash-Bush, man-the-barricades liberalism mixed with the latest in Internet-fueled fund-raising and organizing” I get a bit upset. Frankly, we can bash Bush. The man is not very popular. Bashing him is at least a strategy. And that seems to be more than anyone else has.

Dean was never that liberal. He was willing to get out there and fight. We need a fighter. The Democratic Party keeps expecting the referee to protect us and hit back for us. That isn’t going to happen. It is time to “declare the state of affairs unacceptable.” It is time to stand up for ourselves. It is time to fight. It is time to reform the Democratic Party and then to reform
America.

Draft Howard.
(via Matt Singer)

What Matt said.

A little over the top, maybe. But what other way is there to read this?

With the three Cabinet replacements Bush has announced so far for his second term, he kept his circle tight by dispatching White House staff members to take over the State, Justice and Education departments. Aides said many other such moves will be announced, because Bush and senior adviser Karl Rove are determined to "implant their DNA throughout the government," as one official put it.
(via WaPo)

Eew!

And worse. I mean, who do these guys think they are? Interahamwe?

And no amount of thorazine will stop this trip. Molly Ivins notes that

…Mental health experts say we face a crisis because one in six returning soldiers from Iraq is suffering from post-traumatic stress, and the number is expected to grow rapidly. You will not be amazed to learn that the Pentagon did not anticipate the problem, since it has yet to anticipate anything about Iraq correctly.

A study by the Walter Reed Army Institute found 15.6 percent of Marines and 17.1 percent of soldiers surveyed after tours in Iraq suffer from major depression, generalized anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can cause flashbacks, sleep disorders, violent outbursts, panic attacks, acute anxiety and emotional numbness. The numbers are expected to be higher among reservists than among career soldiers… via…Gee... thanks

And an astute student of cause and effect relationships would have no trouble understanding why PTSD might be a-coming again after reading Evan Wright’s piece in the Village Voice. A few highlights:

…In fact, commanders in the Marine Corps during the period I was embedded with them in the spring of 2003 repeatedly emphasized that the men's actions would not be questioned. As one of the officers in the unit I followed used to tell his men, "You will be held accountable for the facts not as they are in hindsight but as they appeared to you at the time. If, in your mind, you fire to protect yourself or your men, you are doing the right thing. It doesn't matter if later on we find out you wiped out a family of unarmed civilians."

…I was standing next to a 22-year-old Marine from the Humvee I rode in when he fired his machine gun prematurely at a civilian car approaching a roadblock, striking the driver, an unarmed man, in the eye. The unit was subsequently ordered to drive past the car without rendering aid. I sat next to the gunner as we crept past, listening to the dying man gasp for breath. The gunner didn't talk for the next three days. A few days earlier, the youngest Marine on the team had shot a 12-year-old boy four times in the chest with his machine gun, mistakenly thinking a stick the boy had been carrying was a weapon. When the mother and grandmother of the boy later dragged him to the Marines' lines seeking medical aid, the sergeant who led the team dropped down in front of the mother and cried.

…The Marines constantly debated the morality of what they were engaged in. A sergeant in the platoon told me he had consulted with his priest about killing. The priest had told him it was all right to kill for his government so long as he didn't enjoy it. By the time the unit reached the outskirts of Baghdad, this sergeant was certain he had already killed at least four men. When his battalion commander praised the unit for "slaying dragons" on the way to Baghdad, the sergeant later told his men, "If we did half the shit back home we've done here, we'd be in prison." By then, the sergeant told me, he'd reconsidered what his priest had told him about killing. "Where the fuck did Jesus say it's OK to kill people for your government? Any priest who tells me that has got no credibility."

He and several other Marines recently returned from Iraq (many from their second tours) whom I've talked to about the Falluja shooting say they are not sure they would have dead-checked the wounded man in the mosque had they been in the same position. Most say they probably would have, even though the mosque had already been cleared once. "What does the American public think happens when they tell us to assault a city?" one of them said. "Marines don't shoot rainbows out of our asses. We fucking kill people."

Another Marine in the unit I followed—a Democrat's dream, he returned home from fighting in Falluja in time to vote for Kerry—added, "Americans celebrate war in their movies. We like to see visions of evil being defeated by good. When the people at home glimpse the reality of war, that it's a bloodbath, they freak out. We are a subculture they created and programmed to fight their wars. You have to become a psycho to kill like we do. To most Marines that guy in the mosque was just someone who didn't get hit in the right place the first time we shot him. I probably would have put a bullet in his brain if I'd been there. If the American public doesn't like the violence of war, maybe before they start the next war they shouldn't rush so much." via Dead-check in Falluja

Read the whole thing. Then weep. For the Iraqis, for the soldiers, for the senseless slaughter, for the fact that the 51ers elected that smirking fool to four more years and we 49ers have to fight these demons all over again, and again, and again. For the fact that these people were lied into a war that need never have happened. For the lies yet to come. God-DAMN-it!

Rejoice citizen. I have killed the Devil. I just wanted all of you to be the first to hear that. The Devil is dead. Dead as a doormat. No more Devil. Pass it on.

On Friday afternoon, November 26th, in the year of our Great Dithering Godhead, I the farmer do hereby solemnly swear before man and beast and the four winds and the sixed winged Seraphim and the genii's from the fire - and whatever the hell else you'd like to invite to the occasion - that I smote the impish archfiend Old Scratch and thats the end of that. Hokay.

I have photos too. On Friday afternoon, the day after Thanksgiving, I went walking in the vast tangle of virgin forest near my home with my old trusty friend Pete the Deer. Many of you will fondly remember Pete and his girlfriend Kitty Deer from some of my earlier blog posts dating back ten or fifteen years. Or at least it seems like ten or fifteen years. Yes. But just in case you've forgotten about Pete (shame on you) here is a picture of Pete catching a frisbee at last summer's Reindeer games. Before I killed the Devil. Well actually both Pete and I killed the Devil but since Pete can't read I'm pretty much gonna take most of the credit myself.





Anyway, me and Pete were walking down a trail in the woods, looking for some sticks to poke at stuff with, when we came across the Devil himself, just a sitting on a rotten stump in a small clearing, sucking the bubbling marrow from a charred femur bone. The final remains of Reed Irvine. We watched and waited till he had finished. We didn't want to interrupt that effort. He finally finished lapping up the filling and tossed the whole nasty brittle thing into his mouth and chewed it up and washed it all back with a big crunchy grin and a gulp of hot steaming mucous.

Pete and I just looked at each other in silence. Then the Devil suddenly turned and looked straight in our direction and pointed right at us and started laughing a ghastly hellish devil laugh. Plus his breath stunk of rotten eggs which was very unpleasant as you might imagine.

He was big too. Over nine feet tall I'd estimate. Had big black wings that jutted from between his shoulder blades and folded close to his back as he hunched on his rotten stump perch glaring in our direction. His skin was sickly pale, almost translucent, and glistened like a wet maggot. He smelled like rotten eggs and maggots. His eyes were, well, gone. The Devil had no eyes at all, only empty sockets where eyes should be, yet he was staring straight at us. Each of us at the same time. It was no fun.

And then he spoke to Pete and said "come to daddy my little furry Bambi." Well that fuckin' did it. Pete hates it when anyone calls him Bambi and I could tell all hell was about to break loose from his thicket. This is rutting season and Pete's balls are in an uproar as it is. This little furry Bambi crap was like waving a bloody hanky around in a lagoon full of piranah.

Next thing I know Pete comes roaring from the underbrush, head down, all eight points of grillwork lowered for the joust, snorting like a fat man on a mountain bike, a trail of snot streaming from his flaring nostrils, hairs along his spine bristling, standing on end, and every muscle in his body rippling to the charge. Scared the shit out of the Devil too. And the next thing I knew Pete had impaled his rack square into the chest of Satan himself.

I stood there at first, stunned, and slapped myself on the forehead and said to myself, Oh Holy Shit.

And then came the most unholy screech I have ever heard in my life. It sounded like a thousand cats fucking. The howl of human history's tortured and wronged lives. The sobbing of generations of innocents. But the spookiest thing of all was that it didn't make a sound. Not a sound in the usual sense anyway. But rather a vibration of sorts. A great soundless agonized echo. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life. And all the leaves that were left on the trees shook and the birds went screaming from the branches.

It was eerie.

But then the Devil attempted to stand and when he did he lifted Pete's front legs off the ground as well because Pete was still impaled in his bosom and his great black wings opened - the Devil wanted to fly! - and the roots from the forest floor began to swirl up around them in a cyclonic whirlwind and the leaves on the trees shook even more violently in the quake and the birds screamed higher into the firmament and I decided right then and there that I would never never never ever call Pete a Bambi during the rutting season as long as I lived. No way.

Uh, oh yeah!, and then I jumped to my feet and drew my 14 inch Jim Bowie sawmill steel blade - ground on a water cooled wheel - Enlightenment Homeland defense knife from its handmade scabbard and I rushed at the miserable Devil bastard myself. I leaped onto the foul things back between those wildly flapping black wings that stunk like maggots and sulphur and gagging ignorance itself and held on for everything I was worth. It was like wrestling a giant demon turkey. Which I kind of chuckled about at the time because it was like the day after Thanksgiving and kinda ironic and well, never mind....

I held on as that horrible thing thrashed and snarled and tried to shake free and its neck snaked up and down twisting like a viper and finally I took my knife and with all my strenght I jabbed the blade deep into the beasts throat and with all my body weight I leaned into the torque and tore with all my might through skin and bone and grissle and the thick dead scales of ages old mythology until that godamned marrow sucking knob dropped off and landed in a stinking stupid hissing heap right next to its own flapping headless winged body.

Pete pulled free and I slid from the back of the Devil and we both just stood there all sweaty and a lookin' at each other. Even Pete was sweaty. And Petes a deer. Hey, you try killing Satan and see if you don't sweat. But nevertheless we had killed the Devil and the leaves on the trees stopped shaking and we were really exhausted but in a manly action kind of ehausted way. Like after a full day of skiing or hours spent drowning Grover Norguist in a toilet bowl of his own vomit or something physically and spiritually envigorating like that.

So anyway, to make a long story longer, the Devil was still twitching around and gurgling and acting weird there on the ground so I went back to the house and got a chainsaw and some gasoline and some matches and a weedeater and some big plastic leaf bags and I came back and cut and hacked and mutilated the Devil up into little tiny deviled egg sized pieces and me and Pete piled em up and I poured the gasoline over the things and lit the whole stinkin' mess on fire.

And we watched Hell burn. Sitting right there in the piney woods on a sunny autumn afternoon, with the birds twittering in the trees, me and a frisbee catching deer named Pete watched Hell itself go up in smoke. Who woulda thunk it huh? Think about it. It's was a humbling experience.

And who would have thought killing the Devil would be so easy. All things considered that is. Afterall the guy did have quite a reputation. Well, anyway, me and Pete were impressed with ourselves.

I told Pete: Pete, I said, after we get done spreading these burnt remains around the parking lot at the WalMart I'm gonna call Jesus and tell him what we done.

Pete liked that idea because Pete hates the WalMart parking lot as much as I do and even though Pete is a Druid and still belives that story about Santa Claus and the flying reindeers and all that nonsense and doesn't even know who Jesus is Pete was all for callin' up Jesus and indicated that I should tell everyone else I knew about how we killed the Devil. Especially those morons who publish deer hunting magazines. Pete had an agenda. And I didn't blame him.

So later that night I called Jesus and I said Jesus, I killed the fucking Devil! Then I said sorry, I didn't mean to say 'fucking'. And Jesus said don't worry about it farmer, I've had guys hammer nails through my hands for Christ sake, do you really think 'fucking' bothers me?

I could see his point of course. Jesus is not some limped dicked oped-columnist from TownHall.com or the National Review or one of those fainting rooms - afterall. Then Jesus asked me to tell him all about how we killed the Devil. And so I told him all about how me and Pete killed the Devil and he said, good job mates!, thanked us for saving America and western civilization and Kansas and some other places too and then he told me that becaus of what Pete and I had done he could get back to some regular yard work.

Whatever that means.

Finally Jesus asked me if there was anything he could do to repay Pete and I for taking the Devil off his hands. So I asked him if he would visit D. James Kennedy at the Coral Ridge Ministry in Fort Lauderdale Florida and kick the little jerk in the nuts for us. Just for the hell of it. And Jesus laughed and said he'd been meaning to get around to kicking that jerk in the nuts for a long time but would certainly take additional pleasure in the chore now that me and Pete had killed the Devil. Ha, that Jesus, what a cut-up!

He even told me he'd make Jerry Falwell's penis shrivel up like a little dried mealy worm and poison Tim LaHayes food with polio but then I cut him off, although I was grateful, these Biblical guys can go on and on with the horrors, ya know, and because I also wanted to ask Jesus if he could make reindeers fly over my house at least once this Winter on Petes behalf. He told me Pete could count on it because he knew many Druids personally and the next time he had dinner on the heathered moors during the solstice festivus he'd make sure Pete got his honorary flyover.

I thanked Jesus and hung up before he finished telling me all the horible things he had in mind for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld.

In any case. The Devil is dead. Ok. So all the fundamentalist Christians can relax and just knock off the hysterical bullshit. You no longer have a monsters lap to heave your bogeymen into. The end times have been terminated. There isn't going to be an end times any more you stupid assholes because the Devil is dead. Ha ha. Dead! Hell has been liberated and Heaven reserved for scary Jewish comedians and blah blah blah.... And Jesus has been notified and the real Enlightenment is back on schedule. Unless you're fat Jerry Falwell's tiny twitching dried up penis in which case, uh, oh well... you got what was a comin' to ya. Heh heh, amen.

And thats my story. So decreed by the newly appointed honorary Seraphim of the first circle of the heavenly heirarchy "the farmer" and "Pete the Deer".

So don't press your luck Jeebofascists. Me and Pete killed the Devil. We can take you out like a cheap lightbulb.

pro bono publico

*

This woman is a patriot, a heroine who loves her country and the truth. And she is braver than I would be if I lived to be a thousand.


(via NYT)

Last Thursday morning, Natalia Dimitruk, an interpreter for the deaf on the Ukraine's official state UT-1 television, disregarded the anchor's report on Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich's "victory" and, in her small inset on the screen, began to sign something else altogether.

"The results announced by the Central Electoral Commission are rigged," she said in the sign language used in the former Soviet states. "Do not believe them."

She went on to declare that Viktor A. Yushchenko, the opposition leader, was the country's new president. "I am very disappointed by the fact that I had to interpret lies," she went on. "I will not do it any more. I do not know if you will see me again."

Ms. Dimitruk's act of defiance, which she described in an interview on Sunday as an agonized one, became part of a growing revolt by a source of [President Leonid D.] Kuchma's political power as important as any other: state television.

In Ukraine, as in Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, state ownership or control over the media, especially television, exerts immense control over political debate, shoring up public attitudes not only about the state, but also about the opposition. The state's manipulation of coverage was among the reasons that observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called the Nov. 21 vote fundamentally unfair.
More than 200 journalists at UT-1 went on strike Thursday to demand the right to present an objective account of the extraordinary events that have unfolded since the vote, forcing the channel to broadcast a feed from another network before capitulating. Ms. Dimitruk walked out of the studio and joined them, protesting coverage that was skewed almost entirely on behalf of Mr. Yanukovich's campaign before and after the runoff election.

Any of this sound at all familiar? Especially that part about "control over the media" and "public attitudes"?

Remember Natalia Dimitruk's name. Cite it every time you write some representative of the sniveling excuse for a media we have in this country, who whine that they dare not ask impolite questions or tell the truths they know "because they might deny us access, and then we couldn't do our jobs boo hoo, boo hoo."

You ain't doing your jobs NOW, you blow-dried, sparkle-toothed, award-festooned, party-going, co-opted bunch of hacks!

After a long, long day of travel—time to slide the suitcase under my tiny bed in the room under the stairs at The Mighty Corrente Building; I'll deal with unpacking, and the laundry that comes from unpacking, later. Like maybe just before my next trip....

And tomorrow I'll catch up, I swear. Especially on the vegetables thing.

Down in comments on the story about the Pope Foundation and its ilk and UNC, I mentioned that I was keeping a little list of the circle-jerk which is the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. This caused Esteemed Reader Granny Insanity to ask:

Xan, is your list of groups posted anywhere? It would be very useful to know.

I know that Dave Johnson has a lot of info on the right posted at his site, but we need a site that just identifies everyone and their financial connections.

I have only been at this for a couple of years, and although I stumble upon things from time to time, I don't know how to do the footwork on my own.

How about giving a tutorial, or mentoring those of us that want to do more but just don't know how? Please?
grannyinsanity

Us grannies have to stick together, so by gum, let's start with the list. It was compiled by the scientific method, viz, every time I saw an Expert on TV, whose expertitude was established by his or her connection to a particular institution, and the said Expert used the air time to justify, support, or lend credence to the Bush Administration--a note would be made. It is in no particular order after the first Note of Ignominy:

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI). I mean, duh--the Fountainhead of Fog, is it not? At least some media are starting to identify them as "the conservative-leaning" AEI, which is like saying "the slightly moist Pacific Ocean."

The Heritage Foundation. They fund and publish Townhall, need I say more? Not to be confused with the National Heritage Foundation which is an admirable group which tries to preserve old buildings and such. In fact a Google of their name is not much help because there are so damn many other groups with "Heritage" in their names. This is, btw, the common theme you will see through these groups: their names always sound bland, vanilla, pro-fuzzy-puppies, and generally Virtuous. Be not fooled.

Club For Growth. Not sure whether they should be confused with THIS Club For Growth (the first is a .org and the second is a .com) but from what Google shows they're either one and the same or a bicephalic circus freak. (No offense to real circus freaks intended, the carnie life is a clean and honorable one compared to these folks.) Google has more.

The Claremont Institute. Don't know much about these flakes except they have the attitude towards war that I have towards chocolate: Ain't No Such Thing As Too Much. Here's what Google says.

The Federalist Society. These guys really baffle me, they are judges and other legalistas who do for the rights of an independent, strong judiciary what Phyllis Schlafley does for women's equality: undercut and oppose it at every turn. Bush loves these judges and they love him back. The google on their name will give you more.

The Future of Freedom Foundation. They claim to be so libertarian they think Ayn Rand was a suspicious character, but somehow every time one of their people gets on TV he loves everything Bush is doing. (Um, guys, you want to rethink that "limited government" idea and get back to me?) Smells like a front group IMHO. But Google for yourself to decide.

Competitive Enterprise Institute. Per the Google, it seems these guys are trying to do for the environmental movement what the Federalist Society does for the judiciary: cut its guts out and leave them steaming on the asphalt. "Called "the best environmental think tank in the country" by The Wall Street Journal" which should tell you something.

The Free Market Foundation does things like " Free Market Foundation Co-Sponsored a Conference to Stop Misuse of International
Law in US Courts 27 Oct 2004". As this Google indicates there is another organization with the same name, based in--you ready?--South Africa. Permission for eye-rolling granted.

***

This is a very preliminary gathering. I am far from the first person to have this idea, and those who have been at it longer include MediaTransparency.org, the Disinfopedia wiki on the subject, and any number of others.

What I would like folks to do is look for outfits like the Pope Foundation. These weasels have dens all OVER the damn place and it is our mission to find and mark them.

I am not advocating that these establishments be put out of business, persecuted, boycotted, repressed, depressed, suppressed, or anything else. I just want them identified for the right-wing nutsos that they are. NOT as unbiased, objective commentators, whatever the issue and whatever the medium in which they are given a forum to speak.

Should any of our readers know the arcane art of grant-proposal-writing, or have connections with the MacArthur Foundation folks who hand out the Genius Grants, or a knack for picking good lottery tickets for that matter, let's see what we can do to start our Progressive organizations to match each and every one of them.

If you run across a Weasel-y appearing group in your reading, or know of one in your area, or that has tried to meddle in your school, your church, your college, your business, your profession, hell, your bowling league:--drop a note in "Comments." When this one scrolls out of range just note it "OT" (off topic) and drop in any thread.

Just please don't use the "email us" box on this page if you can help it, that goes to a Yahoo address that nobody checks but Farmer 'cuz none of the rest of us can remember the passwords.

Not everybody who wants to give you money is your friend.

(via NC News&Observer)

CHAPEL HILL -- "Canine Cultural Studies" at UNC-Chapel Hill was named Course of the Month, but that was no great honor.

The freshman seminar got the title -- and a public skewering -- this year on the Web site of the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

Professor Alice Kuzniar was shocked to be lampooned by the conservative think tank.

"I feel it's such an incredible misrepresentation of what we're doing in the classroom," she said. "We're reading Virginia Woolf. We're reading Franz Kafka."

Emotions are so strong that some want the university to refuse a potential multimillion-dollar grant by the related John William Pope Foundation.

The money would finance a minor in Western culture studies. The plan was developed by a faculty committee after the university approached the Pope family for a large donation. The foundation gave $25,000 to plan the program.

The Popes, of Raleigh, are one of the Triangle's richest families, and they've given generously to conservative causes and universities. Their foundation is named for John Pope, a former UNC-CH trustee. It is run by his son, Art Pope, a UNC-CH alumnus and former Republican state legislator.

Some faculty members and students fear the proposed UNC-CH program could threaten academic freedom and usurp the faculty's authority to set curriculum. A graduate student association has opposed it, professors spoke against it last week, and the undergraduate Student Congress could take up a resolution against it in January.

Art Pope said the foundation would decide on the grant in December or January. The program would cost $600,000 or $700,000 a year for five years, after which the foundation would decide whether to set up a permanent endowment. That would be about $12 million.

"A protest by a few is not going to prevent us from funding programs available to all students at Chapel Hill," he said.

The Pope Foundation has supported a number of schools. This year, it gave N.C. State University $511,500 to develop courses that explore relationships between economics and politics in free societies.

The foundation also supports conservative groups, including giving more than $26,000 to the Committee for a Better Carolina. That UNC-CH student group bought newspaper ads last year criticizing the university's freshman reading assignment, "Nickel and Dimed," as a liberal rant.

The center was founded in 1996 as a branch of the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank. Besides the Course of the Month selections on its Web site, the center conducts policy studies on issues such as affirmative action, faculty salaries, tuition and higher education financing.

THE JOHN WILLIAM POPE FOUNDATION

The foundation is named for John William Pope, a former UNC-Chapel Hill trustee. His son, Art Pope, a former state legislator, is president of the family philanthropic organization. The Popes made a fortune from the family business, Variety Wholesalers Inc. of Raleigh, which operates more than 500 stores in 14 states, including chains such as Roses, Maxway, Super 10 and Bargain Town.

The foundation is the major backer behind the John Locke Foundation, the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law. It also gave the state Republican Party $500,000 for its Raleigh headquarters, which is named for the Popes.

THE JOHN WILLIAM POPE CENTER FOR HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY

Founded in 1996 as a project of the John Locke Foundation. It is now an independent organization with six employees and offices in Raleigh and Chapel Hill. It is primarily financed by the John William Pope Foundation. Art Pope serves on the board of directors.

The center issues policy reports and hires consultants to conduct studies of curriculum, college rankings, higher education spending, affirmative action and faculty compensation. It is currently looking into women's studies programs at UNC-CH, NCSU, UNC-Greensboro, UNC-Charlotte and East Carolina University.

This is how the VRWC works. One "foundation" spins off another "center" and pretty soon you're into "policy" and CNN producers know your people are reliable talking heads available at a moment's notice to analyze things.

I've started keeping a list of these groups. It isn't all funded by Scaife and it goes way beyond AEI. When a university starts talking about turning down a $12 million "donation" you know they know what these guys are really up to: no good.

An answer for which there just is no question:

(via Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Trisha Conlin doesn't hesitate to call herself "the mouth of the South" when it comes to telling people about American Heritage Girls. However, she also says the organization pretty much sells itself.

AHG was begun in 1995 by a group of parents unhappy with changes being made in the Girl Scouts of America. AHG national director Patti Garibay had been a Girl Scout leader for 13 years and became concerned in 1993 when the organization changed the Girl Scout promise to make God optional in the oath.

Aside from not requiring a belief in God, the organization also refused to take a stand on the issue of alternative lifestyles. These were strong concerns for some Christians in the organization.

"The final straw as a Christian and as a [Girl Scout] leader was when I was told that my troop couldn't sing Christmas carols," Garibay said. "If I can't share my Christian witness any longer in the Girl Scouts, what good was I doing?"

Well, duh! If a bunch of silly rules about "acceptance" means you can't explain to a growing girl that God makes lesbians just so He can send them to Hell, what's the point of much of anything? It all comes of allowing that "free thinking" shit, dag nabbit. Next thing you know some girl will be thinking she's the next Thomas Jefferson or something, we can't have that.

Even those who have something to lose. Of course Helen Woodson wasn't so old when she started trying to save us from ourselves:

(via KC Star)

A 61-year-old peace activist was sentenced to 51 months in prison Wednesday for threatening federal officials and pouring red paint and cranberry juice on a federal courthouse security station.

Helen Woodson previously served 20 years in federal prison for a 1984 incident in which she and three others used a jackhammer to chip the concrete cover of a nuclear missile silo near Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster.

Before hearing her new sentence, Woodson told Chief U.S. District Judge Dean Whipple that she would stage another symbolic protest immediately after serving whatever term he imposed.

“What you will be doing today is setting the date for my next action, and I invite you to be there that day,” Woodson said.

Whipple responded by calling her a “freeloader” who had depended on her friends and taxpayers to care for children that she adopted before going to prison after the Whiteman protest.

Woodson was detained by deputy U.S. marshals on March 10 after she threw a mixture of red paint and cranberry juice, which resembled blood, on a security desk and screening device at the U.S. District Courthouse.

The day before, she had mailed threatening letters to judges and the commander at Whiteman. She followed those the next morning with similar letters titled “Second Warning.” And before coming to the courthouse on March 10, she made a threatening phone call to a courthouse employee, saying there was a weapon of mass destruction in the building.

Addressing Whipple before sentencing, Woodson explained her protest in March. She contended that much evil in society — including nuclear weapons, toxic chemicals, abortion and capital punishment — is legal.

“The laws of the United States, upheld by the federal courts, are thus themselves weapons of mass destruction,” Woodson said. “And so my warning was, and is, the truth.”

Four and a quarter years for red paint, cranberry juice, and a warning. Then the charge that wasn't on paper: First Degree Refusal to Knuckle Under, With Recidivism.

Back in the day, a theatrical producer who had a new playwright, or a show he wasn't sure would be a hit, would put everybody on the train to some little town and put the show on there, avoiding the expense and embarassment of a flop on Broadway. This was known as giving the concept "a tryout in the sticks."

(via NYT)

Invoking a global threat of terrorism, the British government announced plans on Tuesday to introduce national identity cards for the first time since the World War II era. An opposition legislator said the government wanted to create a "climate of fear" in advance of elections expected next year.

Speaking later, Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "With terrorism, illegal immigration and organized crime operating with so much greater sophistication, identity cards in my judgment are long overdue."

But opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats assailed the plan as an effort to raise levels of fear in Britain in the hope of winning votes in elections that could be held next May.

The government announced other security-related moves on Tuesday, including proposals for new counterterrorism legislation and for a new police unit akin to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Britain ceased issuing national identity documents to its citizens 52 years ago.

Identity cards are commonplace in many parts of Continental Europe. But in Britain, opponents argue that their use will infringe on civil rights because they will be accompanied by a national database. The cards are expected to include names, addresses and so-called biometrics, like computerized fingerprint records.

Previously announced plans called for the introduction of identity cards around 2008, when Britons applying for a new passport would be required to obtain an identity card at the same time. The government wants to make the cards compulsory at a later date.

I want desperately for BushCo to follow PM Poodle's lead on this ASAP. This will make the fundie's heads absolutely explode as it is clearly the Mark of the Beast.

(via NYT)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 - Two more senior officials of the Central Intelligence Agency's clandestine service are stepping down, intelligence officials said Wednesday, in the latest sign of upheaval in the agency under its new chief, Porter J. Goss.

As the chiefs of the Europe and Far East divisions, the two officials have headed spying operations in some of the most important regions of the world and were among a group known as the barons in the highest level of clandestine service, the Directorate of Operations.

A former intelligence official described the two as "very senior guys" who were stepping down because they did not feel comfortable with new management.

A backdrop to the tensions have been accusations from some Republicans that the agency sought over the summer to undermine Mr. Bush's re-election. [Sen. John McCain [R-BS], in suggesting that the agency had been disloyal, has singled out the disclosure of intelligence reports about Iraq whose conclusions were at odds with administration assertions about the war.

Still, the memorandum that Mr. Goss issued last week advised his employees that the agency's job was to "support the administration and its policies" and to do nothing to associate themselves with opposition to the administration.

Hmm, why don't they just put a notice at the bottom of their help-wanted ads reading "Members of the so-called "Reality-Based Community" need not apply?"

And they say we don't "profile" enough:

(via MN Star-Tribune)

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- A Florida woman arrested at Fort Lauderdale Airport with a gun in her carry-on bag says she ``wouldn't harm a soul.''

Margaret Anderson told deputies and reporters she forgot the pistol was in her tote bag. The single-shot Colt Derringer was in a gun case built to look like a hardcover book. The gun was unloaded but there were seven bullets in the case with it.

The 79-year-old woman was booked and freed on $1,000 bond. She could face up to five years in prison if convicted.

Same gun, but carried by someone of a different gender, different age. Or a darker skin color. What kind of bond would we be looking at?

Mix 'em, match 'em, share 'em with your friends! Here's a sample:

This book discusses heliocentrism, that the Earth orbits around a centrally located Sun. Because astronomers still disagree over the details of the heliocentric model, this material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.
(via Here)

For the SICs who are using our tax dollars to put stickers on textbooks saying that evolution is "just a theory" (as if science wasn't all about formulating and testing theories).

Seems like American Apparel is the kind of company that's doing some good. What a concept, T-shirts that aren't made in sweatshops. Granted, not everyone can afford them, but what's not to like about paying people a living wage?

Anyhow, I'm reading the local weekly in while vacationing in a foreign country that shall remain nameless (OK, Canada), and on the back cover of the local weekly I read an ad with the following headline:

The secret to American Apparel is that very few of us are actually American.

Seems like the "American" brand isn't what it used to be, all of a sudden. I wonder why?

Funding bills originate in the House. Henceforth, Democrats will have no voice in funding bills. QED.

Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.

Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them.
(via WaPo)

No point whining about unfairness. How to resist?

is for Google to start blocking ads from the good guys (Here. Yet another reason to exit the Google environment, besides the massive suckitude of their content management system.

... we're looking for tomatoes that taste good!

Who knew? The Feds are in cahoots with Big Food to force tomatoes that taste like cardboard down your throats:

The rule is this: No tomato destined for sale outside Florida shall cross the Suwannee River unless it is the right shape.

That's the way it's been since 1955, when a federal marketing order established the standards for what a Florida tomato is all about.

Joe Procacci says that rule leaves his company out of luck.

Procacci is the chief executive officer of Philadelphia-based Procacci Brothers Sales Corp., which grows the UglyRipe, a flavorful but misshapen tomato sometimes described in the industry as "cat-faced."

He contends the other Florida growers are jealous of the UglyRipe's success, and want to keep it from competing with their tomatoes out of state.

"This tomato doesn't compete with that cardboard-tasting tomato. It competes with the greenhouse tomatoes and other premium-tasting tomatoes," Procacci said. "The Florida round tomatoes are excellent for quick-service restaurants like McDonald's, Wendy's and Burger King."
(via Palm Beach Post)

Right. Fast-food tomatoes can taste like cardboard. That's OK.

Now, I'm not one to idealize Florida growers, which the UglyRipe guys definitely are. And I'd be the last one to call any vegetable to save the Constitution. Or claim that an army of foodies can't be beaten.

But this is still an important story.

Eating is primal; it's an act that makes and keeps us human (loaves and fishes, eh? Though the "fish" was actually the Galilean equivalent of Nuoc mam). So, if the corporations control the food we put into our mouths, they control a spectrum of our humanity. But food doesn't taste good because corporations made it taste good; food tastes good because we humans co-evolved with the earth and the things that grow in the earth. So, even if the UglyRipe is a CamelCased corporate trademark, we can still strike a small blow for humanity by choosing to eat a tomato that doesn't have the taste and texture of cardboard. Because the next step is buying seasonal fresh vegetables at the farmers market.

That would be the farmers market at the Reading Terminal or in your own town square. Now, I agree that when Democrats buy into the Red/Blue trope they guarantee their collective failure (See upyernoz at Atrios). (Not to say that millionaire consultants and pundits can't use the trope for their personal success.) The country is obviously divided, but not in such a simple, binary way. However, one of the obvious and unhealthy divisions, which the purple maps show, is between the city and the country. I see patronizing farmers markets—because their vegetables taste good, and their meat isn't laden with poisons—as one small way for me, a city dweller, to help out the country.

Oh, the Slow Food movement is one networking opportunity for Democrats. Though I insist that Xan's idea of joining the NRA is brilliant.

Readers, thoughts? Are there better ways for city dwellers to help the country? Is the very notion of helping the country patronizing?

Well, maybe it will work the second time:

"It's going to be difficult putting Fallujah together again, but not impossible," said [Staff Sgt. Alexandros] Pashos. "That is the saddest, to have it all come to this, all these people's homes destroyed."

But even before air and ground assault, Fallujah was poor by the Marines' standards, with many of its people living in mud-brick homes in tight, crowded neighborhoods.

"After we rebuild Fallujah, it will be a lot better place to live," said [Lance Cpl. Brian] Wyer, the Oklahoman, "something that was worth our sacrifice."
(via AP)

A note on the subject of current historical parallels to the growth of right wing nationalism, nativism, and volkisch movements in Weimar Germany - as discussed by Dale Maharidge author of Homeland - and for which RDF points to below with his link to Whose Homeland Is This? by Annette Fuentes. See RDF's earlier contribution: Heart in the Heartland

Just one quick comment on the title to Fuentes's post

Whose Homeland Is This?

I think the answer to that question is that, unfortunately, it's our homeland. It's part of our homegrown homemade history too. Comparisons to the rise of right wing fascism in pre-Nazi Germany are obvious enough, and fair game, but it shouldn't be forgotten that a similar foul and noisy squawking beast, with multiple heads, roared across America during much of the same period. Not to mention its later manifestations.

From the early 1900's through the 1930's the emphasis on a new Protestant "fundamentalist" ideology and its clangorous leadership helped fuel and renew such socio-political cultural perversions as the Ku Klux Klan and such anti-Catholic Klan-styled organizations as the "Black Legion." Far right, often pro-fascist groups, such as the various "shirt" groups and the Christian Front and the openly pro-Nazi German American Bund (to name only a few) collected thousands of members and supporters as well. The OFDI (Order of the Sons of Italy), in cities such as Philadeplphia and New York, proudly organized support for Mussolini's fascist cause. Some were more or less sympathetic to the German and Italian variety of fascism than others. Protestant-based Klan groups tended to be more nativist and nationalistic, and wary of their Italian and German right-wing cousins, preferring a "100% American" home-cooked stew of racism, white supremacy, anti-liberalism, anti-modernism, anti-intellecualism, anti-Catholicism, anti-immigrantion, anti-communism, anti-labor unionism, anti-socialism, anti-semitism, etc.... These delivered up with a pious patriotic wave and a big toothy "Jesus loves you" smile. Even the DAB (German American Bund) meetings (30,000 in Madison Square Garden) featured swastika flags fluttering alongside the stars and stripes. If you've never seen any of that old film footage (and you won't very often), well, it'll give ya the creeps.

Anyway, you people who read here regularly know exactly what I mean so I'll just move along. What follows is an excerpt from Ian Kershaw's Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris as it relates to the emergence of the "leadership cult" in Weimar Germany (all bold emphasis mine).

"Our Leader" THEN:

There had been no trace of a leadership cult in the first years of the Nazi party. The word 'leader' ('Fuhrer') had no special meaning attached to it. Every political party or organization had a leader - or more than one. The NSDAP was no different. [...] Once Hitler had taken over the party leadership in July 1921, the term 'our leader' ('unser Fuhrer') became gradually more common. But its meaning was still interchangeable with the purely functional 'chairman of the NSDAP'. There was nothing 'heroic' about it. Nor had Hitler endeavoured to build up a personality cult around himself. But Mussolini's triumph evidently made a deep impression on him. It gave him a role-model. Referring to Mussolini, less than a month after the 'March on Rome', Hitler reportedly stated: 'So will it be with us. We only have to have the courage to act. Without struggle, no victory!' However, the reshaping of his self-image also reflected how his supporters were beginning to see their leader. His followers portrayed him, in fact, as Germany's 'heroic' leader before he came to see himself in that light. Not that he did anything to discourage the new way he was being portrayed from autumn 1922 onwards. It was in December 1922 that the Volkischer Beobachter for the first time appeared to claim that Hitler was a special kind of leader - indeed the Leader for whom Germany was waiting. ~ [source: Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; by Ian Kershaw; chapter 6, The 'Drummer'; pages 182-183]

"Our Leader" AGAIN:

A billboard recently put up in Orlando bearing a smiling photograph of President Bush with the words "Our Leader" is raising eyebrows among progressives who feel the poster is akin to that of propaganda used by tyrannical regimes.

RAW STORY confirmed the billboard’s existence Monday evening. The billboard pictured, which is on I-4, says that it is a "political public service message brought to you by Clear Channel Outdoor."

A second billboard bearing the same image along the same route says it was paid for by Charles W. Clayton Jr. Clayton's firm, Charles Clayton Construction, said he was traveling this week and couldn’t be reached for comment.

The Clear Channel-sponsored billboard was not lit up for drivers Monday evening. The Clayton billboard was. ~ (more at link... via the Blue Lemur - 11/22/2004)

Kinda gives ya the creeps, doesn't it? What will we tell the children? Don't hold your breath waiting for the today's vapid official statement readers and trinket salesmen in the network and corporate cable TV "news" rooms (especially the Clear Channel ilk) to point out any of these eerie historical parallels. They're too busy declaring evolution and the separation of church and state an internet conspiracy theory. Or breathlessly awaiting news of Donald Trump's next big televised beheading. And just like the dopey modern day wowsers of our current SCLM, the early 20th century German media itself, for the most part, as a whole, expressed little serious attention to what was gradually unfolding in Weimar Germany. By the time they knew what had hit 'em it was far too late.

Some folks might consider that a lapse of moral judgement. But not our shiny cloistered fattened-up-for-the-slaughter SCLM. Nope. Some folks just can't read the writing on the billboards.

Hey, look - over there! - a naked statue and a filthy liberal seducing a God-fearin' American. Someone notify the Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice!

Monster post by RDF.

It strikes me that one way to end the sterile Red/Blue debate—a division where political establishments become a shorthand for the people they do, or do not, represent—is to think through a healthier connection between the city and the country.

Funny how Thanksgiving is all about food, yet where food comes from is a great non-topic. You don't have to believe in the Slow Food movement to want put something in your children's mouths other than chemical-laden corporate swill... And an attitude like that can only help small farmers, for example. The kind who come to the farmer's market. More like this.

It was the 49ers who found the gold, after all...

Voters unite! seems like an interesting and informative site (via alert reader Ben G.. Readers?

We got together Wednesday night. It was a good gathering, I guess. We ate and drank and sang songs (poorly but loudly) and talked. Told ‘em on phone and email, bring anyone who is shocked and angry and sad about the election and about the direction America is headed, for a pre-Thanksgiving get-together. If you want to bring food or drink and a musical instrument, fine.

Called and emailed 50 or 60, ended up 26 people attending. I don’t know how it will go in the future—who does?— and all we have is a vague promise to get together over the winter holidays and try to make it to a party meeting, but at least we talked. Thing is, all of us already do at least some or most of the things we talked about doing, and most everyone felt that it wasn’t doing much good. Met a banjo player who knew all the Phil Ochs songs. Anyway, what sticks in my ruined mind is this guy who I’d met before but hadn’t seen in a year or so, a Native rabblerouser who’d been active in trying to get the border towns around the big rez to take some action to help the homeless drunks last I met him, saying like so as we were getting ready to pack it up (I didn’t take notes)

It took me five years just to get that one little city to agree that it might be, just might be, their responsibility to help. Another two years after that before they kicked in money and an old building to help open the shelter. I had to be a pain in the ass. Still have to be. And I still have to hear that “personal responsibility” crap all the time. They want these poor bastards to just stop doing what they’re doing, and if these guys die of exposure, oh well, it was their choice. They couldn’t see a human suffering, they just saw another Indian drunk. They didn’t say it that way, of course. Sweet talk about freedom and how government handouts just make people weak, words without heart is what they put out. It’s the same all over. There’s no heart, people are beat down. So, it’s good to be with people, especially white people, who have, y’know, some heart …”

And, it was after all an eclectic group—community and tribal college students, drinkers and non-drinkers, animal rights activists, do-gooders, and livestock owners and hunters. Locals and folks who stayed around over Thanksgiving and had nowhere better to go.

And we didn’t argue much. There was “heart.” I’m beginning to think that’s what’s needed. No matter how ineffective our efforts seem, in the end the drops add up and wear away the rock.

So, of course, yesterday I wrapped myself in a blanket, ate leftover barbecue and corn, and read Homeland by Dale Maharidge in front of the fire. And I think maybe that’s what he was documenting, too. A nation ruled increasingly by fear and nationalism and marked by a lack of heart. The line that stuck with me was how the middle of America had been written off economically, was suffering, and yet was the most intensely nationalistic area of all. And the reason? Fear. Too few standing up and putting their hearts up front. And yet, so many… I haven’t spent much time in a real city in 20 years, but I recall it the same way… nobody knows anybody else, really… nobody reaching out. And yet, so many anonymous folks trying, like Oscar Zeta Acosta’s “cockroach people,” invisible when the lights come on, but always there… for those of you who haven’t read Maharidge:

…Maharidge sees nativism and racism as fundamentally anti-democratic, the curdled byproducts of a failed economic system and the betrayal of working-class people whatever their color or creed.

Maharidge finds historical precedents in post-World War I Weimar Germany for what he found as he traveled post-9/11 America “harvesting” stories of reaction and rage. Germany’s political and economic fall from power and the accompanying nationalism fed Hitler’s rise to power. Maharidge sees in today’s America the awful possibilities of a similar angry nationalism. “Many Americans long for a nation that is powerful—at least in economic terms. Americans may not be lugging bushel baskets of money to buy bread, but they are trying to live on Wal-Mart wages paying Silicon Valley-level prices for mortgages and rents in the hinterlands. These Americans want back the America they remember.” Conservative talk radio, Maharidge writes, is “a virtual beer hall” where right-wing thugs like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly whip up their listeners with inflammatory racist and anti-immigrant—not to mention homophobic and sexist—blather.

…Who will get to define patriotism and democracy in post-9/11 America? Will it be, as Maharidge describes them, the “thousand mini-Ashcrofts scattered around the country—0n school boards, in newspaper publishers’ offices, among some college administrators, on local police departments”—or will it be the Katie Sierras? Homeland poses this fundamental question. It is one that all of us who are committed to social and economic justice must ultimately answer. Whose Homeland Is This? -- In These Times

We are the 49ers. And it’s up to us to use our hearts and minds to bring over at least a big chunk of the 51ers. Locally. Person by person. Huge national movements are fine, but it comes down to that.

It’s snowing like hell. Good weather for checking on the livestock, then wrapping up and reading another book. Then, Monday, back on the road for the last time this year... and talking to one person at a time. If I'm scarce around corrente, that's why. Or the power's out again. Arrrghhh, Peace and justice, y'all.

Hecate over at Atrios has an interesting suggestion:

This year, I’m urging
everyone I know to refuse to spend money for Xmas as a protest. Stay out of the stores. For Goddess sake, don’t run up credit card debt. Give your family and friends the gift of your time and attention rather than a new sweater that they won’t wear or some object to clutter-up an already over-cluttered life. But just not buying isn’t enough. You’ve got to contact the retailers and credit card companies and tell them: I’m not going to be buying Xmas stuff and I’m not going to be charging Xmas stuff until this country has a system in place that ensures fair and verifiable elections. Reader Kate has done the research and discovered that The National Retail Federation “is the world’s largest retail trade association . . . .” Write to Their Vice President for Legislative and Political Affairs, Katherine Lugar. Here’s her contact info:

National Retail Federation
325 7th Street, N.W.
Suite 1100
Washington, D.C. 20004
Phone: 1-800-NRF-HOW2
Fax (202) 727-2849
(via Atrios)

Seems to me this is an idea that everyone agree with, even (perhaps especially) Christians, who must surely be appalled at the commercial desecration of Christmas.

My only concern is that the front of attack—all retailers—might be too broad. Why not pick a weak corporation out of the pack, and attack that corporation? Readers? Perhaps a weak corporation that's a heavy Republican contributor?

"Give your country fair elections for Christmas!"

A thumbsucker from the LA Times:

But friends and former associates, and even some adversaries, say Gonzales also has shown a balance that has been obscured in his service to Bush over the years.

Some balance, huh?

Now, with his presumed ascent to the top of the Justice Department, people are starting to wonder which Gonzales will show up for work: the relative moderate who emphasizes a low-key, fact-based approach to the law, or the ardent advocate who follows the marching orders of his president and friend and his expansive view of presidential power.
(via LA Times)

Where to begin? Which Gonzales will show up for work? Presumably, Bush knows—otherwise, Bush wouldn't have nominated him. And I was about to say that someone should just ask him, but all that would come out of Bush's mouth would be meaningless drivel of Hughesian talking points, so why bother?

Seems to me I remember December and January stories in 2001 wondering whether the Bush administration would be moderate.... And look what happened then!

Anyhow—heck, maybe at some point someone will pick up on this—the point on Gonzales isn't that he thinks the Geneva convention is "quaint," bad though that is. The point is that Gonzales wrote the brief that says Bush has the "inherent authority" to set aside the law (here)

That's not moderation in any sense of the word. In fact, it is, precisely, a revolution; taking power by overthrowing the rule of law.

And somehow, this story just doesn't get covered. I wonder why?

SCLM to citizens: Lay back and enjoy it!

UPDATE Link to Gonzales brief fixed, thanks to alert reader Ben G.

More proof that we're winning:

A mortar attack killed four employees of a British security firm and wounded 15 others in the Baghdad's Green Zone, a fortified area that houses the U.S. and Iraqi leadership, the company and British officials said Friday.
(via WaPo)

Can't protect the Green Zone, can't protect the road to the airport... Oh, wait. The Iraqis aren't going to go to the airport to vote, for pity's sake. Let's try not to ask too much, here.

To conclude our lesson in the History of Thanksgiving as a Holiday, we note the two other efforts to get the occasion to stick, as it were, to become a permanent feature of the calendar-printer's schedule and thus become a part of American tradition

(via Philly Inquirer)

As Americans sit down to their Thanksgiving celebrations, most can remember their introduction to the holiday in elementary school, when teachers explained how in 1621, pilgrims and American Indians shared a meal and gave thanks for the harvest.

The history lesson usually ends there, but 168 years later, Rep. Elias Boudinot of Burlington City played a significant role in forming the holiday.

On Sept. 25, 1789, he introduced a resolution asking President Washington to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, the many significant favours of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness."

Boudinot was part of a committee to get the resolution passed, and on Sept. 26 the Senate agreed to the resolution. On Oct. 3, Washington proclaimed there would be a day of prayer and thanksgiving in November, the first time the federal government recognized a day of thanksgiving.

So why don't more people know about Boudinot and his role in Thanksgiving? There are several reasons, said Maxine Lurie, a professor of New Jersey history and early American history at Seton Hall University in South Orange.

"He's not a name that would jump out at you, but he was a significant figure in the Revolution in New Jersey and nationally," Lurie said.

Boudinot's resolution was not considered a big deal when approved, she added.

"In colonial days, they regularly had thanksgiving days as ways of being grateful for things," Lurie said.

The proclamation Washington signed survives in several forms, said James E. Guba, a staff member who worked on "The Papers of George Washington" project at the University of Virginia.

And then--no link, it came in on an email from a Civil War discussion group I belong to--the results of Sarah Josepha Hale's lobbying campaign for a holiday to kick off the Christmas shopping season:

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of
peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have here unto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln

Below: Text of Sarah Hale's letter to Abraham Lincoln requesting national recognition of an "annual Thanksgiving" and "Union Festival."

Private
Philadelphia, Sept. 28th 1863.

Sir.--

Permit me, as Editress of the "Lady's Book", to request a few minutes of your precious time, while laying before you a subject of deep interest to myself and -- as I trust -- even to the President of our Republic, of some importance. This subject is to have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.

You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.

Enclosed are three papers (being printed these are easily read) which will make the idea and its progress clear and show also the popularity of the plan.

For the last fifteen years I have set forth this idea in the "Lady's Book", and placed the papers before the Governors of all the States and Territories -- also I have sent these to our Ministers abroad, and our Missionaries to the heathen -- and commanders in the Navy. From the recipients I have received, uniformly the most kind approval. Two of these letters, one from Governor (now General) Banks and one from Governor Morgan are enclosed; both gentlemen as you will see, have nobly aided to bring about the desired Thanksgiving Union.

But I find there are obstacles not possible to be overcome without legislative aid -- that each State should, by statute, make it obligatory on the Governor to appoint the last Thursday of November, annually, as Thanksgiving Day; -- or, as this way would require years to be realized, it has ocurred to me that a proclamation from the President of the United States would be the best, surest and most fitting method of National appointment.

I have written to my friend, Hon. Wm. H. Seward, and requested him to confer with President Lincoln on this subject As the President of the United States has the power of appointments for the District of Columbia and the Territories; also for the Army and Navy and all American citizens abroad who claim protection from the U. S. Flag -- could he not, with right as well as duty, issue his proclamation for a Day of National Thanksgiving for all the above classes of persons? And would it not be fitting and patriotic for him to appeal to the Governors of all the States, inviting and commending these to unite in issuing proclamations for the last Thursday in November as the Day of Thanksgiving for the people of each State? Thus the great Union Festival of America would be established.

Now the purpose of this letter is to entreat President Lincoln to put forth his Proclamation, appointing the last Thursday in November (which falls this year on the 26th) as the National Thanksgiving for all those classes of people who are under the National Government particularly, and commending this Union Thanksgiving to each State Executive: thus, by the noble example and action of the President of the United States, the permanency and unity of our Great American Festival of Thanksgiving would be forever secured.

An immediate proclamation would be necessary, so as to reach all the States in season for State appointments, also to anticipate the early appointments by Governors.

Excuse the liberty I have taken

With profound respect

Yrs truly

Sarah Josepha Hale,

Editress of the "Ladys Book"

Notes on text from Library of Congress:

[Note 1 ID: Sarah J. Hale, a poet and novelist, became editor of the Ladies' Magazine in 1828. In 1837 the Ladies' Magazine was sold and became known as the Lady's Book. Hale served as editor of the Lady's Book until 1877. During her tenure as editor, Hale made the magazine the most recognized and influential periodical for women. Hale was involved in numerous philanthropic pursuits and used her position as editor to advocate the education of women.]

[Note 2 Nathaniel P. Banks and Edwin D. Morgan]

[Note 3 On October 3, Lincoln issued a proclamation that urged Americans to observe the last Thursday in November as a day of thanksgiving. See Collected Works, VI, 496-97.]

Proclamations:

Oct 3, 1863

President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November to be Thanksgiving Day. The decree only technically affected the District of Columbia and federal employees but governors throughout the Union followed suit with similar state proclamations.
Lincoln issued a similar proclamation in 1864. With the exception of Andrew Johnson designating the first Thursday in December as Thanksgiving Day 1865 and Ulysses Grant choosing the third Thursday for Thanksgiving Day 1869, U.S. presidents maintained the holiday until Franklin Roosevelt broke with tradition in 1939.

Note: In 1939 Roosevelt celebrated Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, Nov 23 rather than the last day of the month, Thursday, Nov 30. (In some years November has five Thursdays). In 1941 Congress lowered the boom and decreed that the fourth Thursday of November (as opposed to the last) would be officially recognized as our national Thanksgiving Day. And so it is.

Links:
Nov 1846 - Hale begins writing letters on behalf of national Thanksgiving proclamation. more here

Sept 28, 1863 - Sarah Hale's letter to Abraham Lincoln. Image and text

Happy Thanksgiving Union Festival Day, heathens.

*

A message crafted by our President's message team for red America:

All across America, we gather this week with the people we love, to give thanks to God for the blessings in our lives. We are grateful for our freedom, grateful for our families and friends, and grateful for the many gifts of America.

On Thanksgiving Day, we acknowledge that all of these things, and life itself, come from the Almighty God. Almost four centuries ago, the Pilgrims celebrated a harvest feast to thank God after suffering through a brutal winter.

President George Washington proclaimed the first National Day of Thanksgiving in 1789, and President Lincoln revived the tradition during the Civil War, asking Americans to give thanks with "one heart and one voice."

Since then, in times of war and in times of peace, Americans have gathered with family and friends and given thanks to God for our blessings. Thanksgiving is also a time to share our blessings with those who are less fortunate.

Americans this week will gather food and clothing for neighbors in need. Many young people will give part of their holiday to volunteer at homeless shelters and food pantries.

On Thanksgiving, we remember that the true strength of America lies in the hearts and souls of the American people. By seeking out those who are hurting and by lending a hand, Americans touch the lives of their fellow citizens and help make our nation and the world a better place.

This Thanksgiving, we express our gratitude to our dedicated firefighters and police officers who help keep our homeland safe. We are grateful to the homeland security and intelligence personnel who spend long hours on faithful watch.

And we give thanks for the Americans in our armed forces who are serving around the world to secure our country and advance the cause of freedom. These brave men and women make our entire nation proud, and we thank them and their families for their sacrifice. On this Thanksgiving Day, we thank God for His blessings and ask Him to continue to guide and watch over our nation.

Plainspoken, common sense, idealistic, words fashioned for a man whose sensibilities are uncommonly common, and for whom words have the power to make the untrue true; or perhaps it's power itself which makes that possible.

From blue America, James Carroll, a writer, by definition one of those reality-based observers whose assigned task, according to that Bush man who spoke to Ron Suskind, is to analyze the new realities on the ground those bold strategic doers gathered around George W. Bush will be creating in the next four years, decides not to do that; instead, Mr. Carroll employs his uncommon, personal, and highly specific sensibility to find the uncommon meanings in the traditional, in the familiar, in the local, in the human, and manages to renew our delight in an American holiday that I have always thought of as part of our shared civic religion. Reading it made me happy and hopeful. It was published first in the Boston Globe, where Mr. Carroll writes regularly, and then at Common Dreams, where I happened on it.

Since our hope for ourselves, and for all who wander the leftward leaning portion of blogtopia, as skippy so brilliantly continues to coin, is to find renewed delight in being an American, and renewed hope for a vision of the American heritage that will reassert itself in the next four years, we reproduce Mr. Carroll, at some length, for your Thanksgiving pleasure.

America's Heartfelt Holiday
by James Carroll

Thanksgiving is preferable to Christmas. No denominational strings are attached to this week's observance, to the benefit of those for whom the birth of Jesus Christ is an emblem of exclusion. Thanksgiving has not been taken hostage by the extravagance of gift-giving or the burdens of shopping. Built around the meal, the feast celebrates the exquisite tension between appetite and its satisfaction. Honoring the turning of the year, it is a first pushing back against winter's cold darkness with the warmth and light of fireplaces, candles, the illuminations of reunion.

True, Thanksgiving legends evoke the conflict between white European settlers and the native peoples who welcomed them, but even so, this holiday points more to inclusion than displacement. Generations of varied immigrant groups have identified as Americans by embracing this holiday -- and its peculiar menu.

When the president of the United States ritually commutes the death sentence of a turkey, as George W. Bush did at the White House last week, one imagines the cruel rebuke felt by the legion of unpardoned death row inmates across the country, and so the joke goes flat. Yet here, too, even wishing for universal commutation, one can affirm an attempt at joviality.

Thanksgiving wants to be lighthearted, only friendly, a time of towns organized around games; of formerly dispersed families gathered at laden tables; a rare interval of authentic leisure; the most martial of nations at ease for once. A holiday, pure and simple.

What we love most is Thanksgiving's underlying idea: that existence itself is a gift. If the holiday ritual calls for the bounty of culinary excess -- four side dishes, three kinds of pie, two forms of cranberry -- it is not to celebrate affluence but to acknowledge the accidental richness of life itself. The multiple desserts are tribute to all that we don't deserve. In taking time away from work, we are remembering that the most precious things are those that we do nothing to earn.

Thus, in some homes couples look across the table at one another and recall how, years ago, each was ambushed by romantic desire, then was stunned to discover it as mutual. In others, parents marvel at the ways their children have surpassed them. Or friends take note of how the passage of time has turned simple familiarity into unbreakable bonds. Perhaps sons and daughters glimpse in their mothers and fathers, or even in their brothers and sisters, a rock-solid trustworthiness for which, as yet, they have no words.

Some people are ill this Thanksgiving, bearing the effects of stroke, say, or recuperating from an operation, or clinging, perhaps, to what strength has outlasted the chemotherapy. Yet aren't they the very ones who tell their healthy friends and relatives how precious is every day, every hour, every minute? Some families are broken, many people are alone, beloved ones are missing -- a holiday that celebrates intimacy can make its absence painful.

Idealized observances, so different from the real, can weigh too much. No one lives in Norman Rockwell land. No one lives forever. Human beings are constitutionally incapable of consistent generosity. Every person has reason to feel regret. Yet directly facing such difficult facts of the human condition can be a relief, because they inherently suggest their counterfacts. Even the tragic aspect of experience, that is, can open to the primal mystery on which all else rests, and Thanksgiving dares to affirm that mystery as benign. Life is good.

An attitude of gratefulness defines us at our best. It does this by pointing away from the self toward others, or toward an Other. Conventionally religious people are quick to put the name "God" on the one being thanked, and prayers come quickly to lips this week. But the feeling of sublime indebtedness, defining what is expressly human about humanity, is larger than religion. On Thanksgiving, feast of the exuberant abundance of creation, all language about any conceivable Creator falls short because creation itself exceeds our capacity to account for it. No matter, because, in being buoyed by this most oceanic of emotions, one need not know toward whom, exactly, one feels it. Let each person be God, therefore, to every other. God enough for now.

And isn't that why we call it "grace" -- the gift that requires nothing of the recipient except a heart so full it overflows, becoming a well of grace for someone else. In this way grace abounds. Why not join hands at the table, then, letting a moment's silence do the speaking, since the day itself is our way of giving thanks?

I'm travelling tomorrow, so very light posting.

I'm thankful for... Well, the Republicans are acting like sloppy (power) drunks who have finally decided to just let themselves go, and toss the empties onto the floor instead of at least kicking them under the sofa.

Honestly! They can pass the money for a Presidential yacht, and can't pass the intelligence bill? I have the feeling they are going to have a very hard time taking the first step.... And we may have to do an intervention....

[Originally published December 1, 2003, almost a year ago—and who would have known that the Iraq qWagmire would turn out even worse than our worst imaginings?

Say, I wonder if Inerrant Boy is, even now, winging his way over the ocean to bring the boys (handpicked (back) for loyalty) another helping of (fake) turkey?]

---

My first artwork!



And for this we give thanks.

You'd think that a real live editorial cartoonist would have come up with this simple notion already, but N-o-o-o-o. SCLM....

Or any other accessories....

Turn your back on Bush.

Do-gooder Colin Powell steps into the Ukrainian mess:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said today the United States does not consider legitimate the results of elections in Ukraine, which the opposition says was marred by fraud.

He challenged leaders of the former Soviet bloc nation "to decide whether they are on the side of democracy or not."

"We cannot accept this result as legitimate, because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse," Powell said.
(via Houston Chronicle)

Fine word, legitimate!

Of course, US elections don't meet international standards either (back), and after Florida 2000, have been shown to be marked by massive fraud.

Sigh...

Still wondering about the military’s role in domestic affairs? This wasn’t really covered by the SCLM, was it? Here’s Rumsfeld’s vision of the ideal nation, speaking in Ecuador last week and calling for a return to police states:

''Since Sep. 11, 2001, we have had to conduct an essential re-examination of the relationships between our military and our law enforcement responsibilities in the U.S.'', asserted Rumsfeld, who never let the phrase ''human rights'' pass his lips. ''The complex challenges of this new era and the asymmetric threats we face require that all elements of state and society work together''.

Indeed, the Pentagon chief included under the rubric of ''enemies'' faced by the region's armed forces a number of actors who normally would come under the jurisdiction of the civilian authorities. ''Terrorists, drug traffickers, hostage takers and criminal gangs form an anti-social combination that increasingly seeks to destabilise civil societies'', he declared, further blurring the line between the roles of the military and the police…

Of the newspapers that covered the conference, only the 'Miami Herald' stressed Rumsfeld's recommendations on expanding the role of the military in dealing with the region's security problems and quoted Jose Pampurro, the Argentine defence minister, and his Brazilian counterpart, Jose Alencar, on the subject…

The same article quoted Brazil's Alencar as calling for global disarmament, and insisting, ''the cause of terrorism is not just fundamentalism, but misery and hunger''. Inter Press Service

There’ll be none of that touchy-feely crap here, pal. Go back to Brazil! So, Rumsfeld is encouraging Latin America to return to the police state model, and Chimpie is encouraging a review of whether “paramilitary forces” should be under CIA or Pentagon control (see Lambert’s question, below). Hmmm. Naah. Of course American troops would never do that. It’s not part of their training:

MOSUL, Iraq - It began with U.S. troops busting through the doors of the wrong house.

Dozens of soldiers rammed the white gates of a well-to-do home in central Mosul early on Tuesday, detaining three Iraqi men, only to discover their target was a house with black gates.
"Four houses down," said the elderly homeowner patiently, his hands bound behind his back by yellow plastic cuffs.

"You've got the wrong people," he told the officer leading the operation in good English, his wife, daughter and two pajama-clad grandchildren cowering alongside him, trying to avoid the glare from the spotlights on the soldiers' guns…

Down the road, soldiers were ramming open the gates of an upscale house. They were about to burst through the door when it opened. Inside were seven young women and six dazed children.
The men of the house were in a village outside Mosul for a few days, one of the women said in fluent English. The soldiers were looking for her father, a Mosul university professor.

"Is he a member of the Baath party?" Lackey asked her. "The Baath party that still exists?"

She replied that he wasn't any more, "that was ages ago." She pointed out her father was detained by U.S. troops in a previous raid and held for five months without charge. Reuters

Tonight, we eat, drink, sing and plan. While we still can. Not that America will ever become a police state—I mean, there would never be any need for martial law here. Right?

UPDATE: I am reminded that it's already been happening. One example:

In March 1992 a police SWAT team in Everett, Washington killed Robin Pratt in a no-knock raid while carrying out an arrest warrant for her husband. (Her husband was later released after the allegations on which the arrest warrant was based turned out to be false.) The Seattle Times summarized the raid:"Instead of using an apartment key given to them, SWAT members threw a 50- pound battering ram through a sliding glass door that landed near the heads of Pratt's six-year-old daughter and five-year-old niece. As deputy Anthony Aston rounded the corner to the Pratt's bedroom, he encountered Robin Pratt. SWAT members were yelling, `GET DOWN,' and she started to crouch to her knees. She looked up at Aston and said, `Please don't hurt my children'. Aston had his gun pointed at her and fired, shooting her in the neck. According to attorney John Muenster, she was alive another one to two minutes but could not speak because her throat had been destroyed by the bullet. She was then handcuffed, lying facedown."

I let my membership lapse when I got poor after losing a newspaper job in 1977 and somehow never got around to rejoining. Sometimes all you need, though, is the right motivation to re-up:

(via Media Matters via Atrios)

Reverend Radical Cleric Jerry Falwell, national chairman of the Faith and Values Coalition and Moral Majority founder, labeled the National Organization for Women (NOW) the "National Order of Witches," said he was going to invite People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to Christian men's gatherings called "Wild Game Night" so that they "can sit there and suffer," and called Americans United for Separation of Church and State "an anti-Christ" group.

Such gracious winners, arent' they? And always into that "Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself" routine. Of course the really scary part is that they may be doing exactly that.....

It seems that in the UK they still have a government that actually functions on Constitutional principles:

A Commons motion to impeach Tony Blair for "gross misconduct" over the Iraq war is being published next week.

Parliamentary officials have approved the motion's wording and will allow it to be tabled on Wednesday - the day after the Queen's Speech.

MPs will have the chance to sign the order paper. The Speaker will then decide whether to allow a debate on it.

Plaid Cymru's Adam Price said 30 MPs have agreed to sign the motion which charges Mr Blair with improper conduct.

The allegation against the prime minister would be that in making the case against Iraq he was guilty of a serious breach of constitutional principles.

Mr Price said that the impeachment process had now been established as part of British Parliamentary practice.

It closed a "gap in the constitution" which had meant that while the prime minister had to hold his ministers to account, there was nothing to hold the prime minister to account if he were to mislead Parliament.
(via BBC)

Wow, what's the Blair impeachment about? A blowjob?

Oh, no, nothing like that. They're accusing Blair telling lies to take his country into a war.

[Yawn] So what's your point?

What is this "work" for "money" thing I've been hearing so much about?

Actually, I can tell you: It's really tiresome.

Here.

And no, we won't let it happen again.

Via Raw Story.

And thanks to ClearChannel for this great, great public service! Love the blue color scheme!

Unbelievable? All too believable!

[Rumsfeld’s uses a machine] to replace his own John Hancock on KIA (killed in action) letters to parents and spouses. Two Pentagon-based colonels, who’ve both insisted on anonymity to protect their careers, have indignantly reported that the SecDef has relinquished this sacred duty to a signature device rather than signing the sad documents himself.

When I went to Jim Turner, a good man saddled with a tough job as one of Rumsfeld’s flacks at the Pentagon, for a confirmation or a denial, he said, “Rumsfeld signs the letters himself.”

I then went to about a dozen next-of-kin of American soldiers KIA in Iraq. Most agreed with the colonels’ accusations and said they’d noticed and been insulted by the machine-driven signature. One father bitterly commented that he thought it was a shame that the SecDef could keep his squash schedule but not find the time to sign his dead son’s letter. Several also felt compelled to tell me that the letter they received from George Bush also looked as though it was not signed personally by the president.

Dr. Ted Smith, whose son Eric was among the first 100 killed in Iraq, notes that the letter he received “from the commander in chief was signed with a thick, green marking pen. I thought it was stamped then and do even now. He had time for golf and the ranch but not enough to sign a decent signature with a pen for his beloved hero soldiers. I was going to send the letter back but did not. I am sorry I didn’t.”
(via Col. David Hackworth's DefenseWatch)

Well, look. Let's be reasonable. Rumsfeld and Bush are busy, busy men! If they had to sign off, personally, on each one of the soldiers they've killed, that would take a lot of their very valuable time!

Playing just hard enough to lose? Again? Or d: we want to bring the country back to where it should be?

What Orcinus said:

Democrats need to start from the ground up. Dean's the guy to do it.

Petitions are here and here.

Let's get that mojo working...

Here's a great, great line:

me 5,000 U.S. Marines, British troops and Iraqi forces launched a new offensive Tuesday aimed at clearing a swath of insurgent hotbeds across a cluster of dusty, small towns south of Baghdad.

U.S. and Iraqi forces have come under repeated attacks by car bombs, rockets, and small arms fire in these areas in "an apparent attempt to divert attention" away from the former militant stronghold of Fallujah, the military said.
(via LA Times)

I love it... "An apparent attempt to divert attention"... Of course, the way we telegraphed the offensive (and held it back until after 11/3) it's obvious that only the insurgents who were strong contenders for the Darwin Award were still hanging out in Fallujah.

Oh, and more consequences of undermanning:

As the election approaches, U.S. commanders in Iraq probably will expand their troops by several thousand. Army units slated to depart are also being held back until after the election. There are now about 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

The backdoor draft continues...

Seems like the terrific success the Pentagon had with Iraq planning has moved Inerrant Boy to give them more responsibility:

The presidential directive, signed by Bush last week, asks the CIA and the Departments of State, Defense and Justice to report back to him in 90 days on "whether or not the paramilitary operations, currently under the control of the CIA, should be transferred to the Department of Defense," a senior administration official said.
(via Reuters)

Not to put my tinfoil hat or, or anything, but does anyone know if the prohibition against domestic covert operations applies only to the CIA, and not to the Pentagon? Readers? Just asking....

Reading things like this by David Willis and Walter Enloe make it hard to hold down my oatmeal:

The news from Washington this past week had eerie echoes of the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Now that George Bush has been re-elected President what might we anticipate as future scenarios? If the doctrine of pre-emption is followed the next conflict is likely to go nuclear.

When I heard Powell speaking off the cuff about Iran’s nookyoolar plans, my first thought was “where have I heard this before?” and then, I confess, I thought, “No, look at the iWaq clusterfuck—there’s no way they’d do that again.” But then again, we are dealing with the same people, people who apparently believe a well-placed nuke here or there for preemptive purposes is okay… now I’m depressed again, and more convinced than ever that peace and justice must be the focus of massive demonstrations nationally and smaller actions locally, or we could be facing a preznit who believes that “extremism in the defense of [American hegemony and oil profits] is no vice” and who would order the use of “tactical” nukes. At least congress killed the funding for the preznit’s new nookyoolar toys for the time being.

The defeat over the weekend of President Bush's attempts to fund research and possibly development of a new family of nuclear weapons was hailed Monday by arms control advocates as their biggest success in more than a decade.

…A major stumbling block to the administration's plans was a maverick Republican, Rep. David Hobson of Ohio, chairman of the House Appropriations energy subcommittee, who feared the funding would lead to a new arms race.

Unlike other military programs, nuclear weapons are overseen by the Energy Department, which is monitored by Congress' energy committees.

"What worries me about the nuclear penetrator," Hobson told one symposium when the administration proposal was being debated, "is that some idiot might try to use it."

via ARMS CONTROL ACTIVISTS HAIL BUSH SETBACK

One Republican with some sense, and we can sing hooray. Every victory counts. Still, it’s a nagging worry. Because “some idiot” might indeed try to use a nuke—it’s not like we don’t have any already, and, the idio—er, I mean, administration says the proposal isn’t dead and might come back in 2006. Vigilance. Who knows what else is being stuffed into these spending bills right now? Readers? So that one up above is peace, here below is justice:

The US debt will climb to $7 trillion a year in 2004, five times the entire debt of the third world. Other countries, notably Japan and China, hold one-third of that debt. This is at a time, we might note, that the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs has proposed that the world's poverty could be eliminated with an investment of $150 billion.

But then, eliminating poverty would make the use of military might needless, and all of those generals would be out of work. Willis and Enloe end with a quote:

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, days before his 1968 assassination, "The world is more and more of a neighborhood. But is it any more of a brotherhood? If we don't learn to live together as brothers and sisters, we shall perish together as fools."

Okay, I’m focused.

from Going Nuclear: The Coming Wars with Iran and North Korea

UPDATE: A link to a website that shows in brief where the money's going in the omnibus spending bill...good place to start, anyway. I'm sure there's more tucked in there:

http://www.womenspolicy.org/thesource/article.cfm?ArticleID=1563

[Michael] Powell belongs at the bottom of the barrel with the lowliest of the bunch. He is an agenda masquerading as a man, the proverbial pompous ass and, worse, a genuine threat to freedom of speech. But on CNBC, he was playing Santa Claus. "I am still having fun," he said merrily, as if that were part of the job. "There are still things that are really significantly important to me to complete. Right now, I just have no plans of going anywhere."

That's the problem. If he were looking for places to go, I could suggest one in a snap. But it's a four-letter word and, who knows, I might end up in jail.
(via WaPo)

Indeed.

Heh.

One more straw in the wind that Philly is becoming a Spot—a new paper, The Evening Bulletin. Or rather, everyting old is new again: A paper by the same name was published in Philly up until 25 years ago. Here's a review of Walt Whitman from back in the day, the 1880s, which accused him of bigwordiness.

I love newspapers, still, even though The Times has betrayed my trust so brutally, so I feel good when a new paper starts up. Still, the Bulletin is non-union. In Philly. Readers, thoughts on this?

Probably.

Kevin Sites is the free-lance photographer who took the picture of the Marine in the mosque, shooting a wounded Iraqi.

As you probably know, Mr. Sites has been the subject of unending bile on the part of many rightwing blogs. Here's a sample from one I happened on called "Babalou," the perspective here that of an anti-Castro Cuban, I believe, not that there is anything wrong with being anti-Castro.

SEMPER FI!!!!! GOOD JOB, MARINE!!!!

The MSM can circle-jerk on this issue all it wants to. Truth of the matter is that that "wounded insurgent" was there for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill American soldiers. He and his cohorts had all the time in the world to get the hell out of Fallujah. He didnt because he is a murderer and a terrorist. He was there because Allah told him to be there. Boo-f*cking-hoo. He was probably not even an Iraqi.

So, my take on it is simple.

F*ck'em. One less killer in this world.

Now let's get the rest of them.

The comments are equally as telling, and innocent of any knowledge of the Geneva conventions.

De acuerdo, Valentín. One of my biggest fears, and I suppose that of many other soldiers, is to get prosecuted for not fighting a politically correct war. If that Marine felt his life was in danger, I have no problem with his action.

But I think this incident illustrates a bigger problem we have an Iraq. The US Armed Forces can't defeat these animals with their hands tied behind their back. I just hope our leadership realizes the Rules of Engagement need to be adapted to the environment over there.

Posted by Yoan Gustavo at November 18, 2004 12:31 PM

From one marine to another, wish I were there to put a bullet thru the back of kevin jackass. Kevin better have eyes in the back of his head.

Posted by charles at November 18, 2004 02:44 PM

charles "the merciless" thinks shooting the reporter Kevin Sikes in the back is an appropriate answer for breaking this story.
I suggest you read the account rather some bunch of apologist bloggers.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6496898/

Posted by Guest at November 18, 2004 05:56 PM

My favorite Slim Pickens line: "the only good injun is a ded injun"

Mr Sites would be doing this country a favor if he were to take one in the head tomorrow.

Posted by Mahgoo at November 18, 2004 08:03 PM

Ge, thanks Guest. I guess Ill watch it again for like the 50th time.

You miss the point entirely.

Posted by Val Prieto at November 18, 2004 08:26 PM

Val Prieto is the proprietor of the blog, and the above is only a selection from an ample thread. The main post also contains easy links to other blogs with an equally severe approach to the horror of having a free press.

I know, everything changed after 9/11. Except that anyone old enough to remember attitudes on the right to the press, once it had ceased to be an arm of the U.S. government and started to act like a free press during the Vietnam "conflict," can tell you how thoroughly is the sense of deja vu all over again. (as RDF does back here)

Among the commentators in the thread, one "madtom" defended Mr. Sites, on the wholly original, and in this day and age, "mad" grounds of having some knowledge of Sites' professional work over time, going so far as to provide a link. Feeling rather foolish it hadn't occurred to me to Goggle Sites' name, one grateful mouse click and there I was on a site of immense interest, with extraordinary photographs, and a just posted, Sunday, the 21st of November, explanation of what happened by Kevin Sites, himself, his first since the incident. It takes the form of an "Open Letter to Devil Dogs of the 3.1."

Since the shooting in the Mosque, I've been haunted that I have not been able to tell you directly what I saw or explain the process by which the world came to see it as well. As you know, I'm not some war zone tourist with a camera who doesn't understand that ugly things happen in combat. I've spent most of the last five years covering global conflict. But I have never in my career been a 'gotcha' reporter -- hoping for people to commit wrongdoings so I can catch them at it.

This week I've even been shocked to see myself painted as some kind of anti-war activist. Anyone who has seen my reporting on television or has read the dispatches on this website is fully aware of the lengths I've gone to play it straight down the middle -- not to become a tool of propaganda for the left or the right.

But I find myself a lightning rod for controversy in reporting what I saw occur in front of me, camera rolling.

It's time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw -- without imposing on that Marine -- guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong. All the other armchair analysts don't mean a damn to me.

Is this not what every American should want from its press? And isn't it interesting that to so few of the hardest of the hardliners, who think that they are supporting the troops, does it occur that a bond often exits between soldier and war correspondent, because they have in common a shared danger? I don't have the statistics at hand, but I understand that the number of dead injured press people has been unusually high in Iraq.

Sites' first person narration of what happened is riveting. You owe it to yourself as an American citizen, and you owe it to the young men and women called upon to fight an impossible war in your name, to read it. It forces us all to understand that what is happening in Iraq is a nightmare for everyone there. The genuine terrorists, those from outside Iraq, are something beyond dispicable. But, although perhaps of a different kind and to a different degree, so are the men and woman here, our own "leaders," who launched this war that cannot be won. Sikes brings home to all of us that our troops are caught in a nightmare not of their making.

I doubt that the Marine involved will be found to have committed a war crime, and quite probably, rightly so. It sounds, also, as if the young Marine will be haunted for a long time to come by what he found himself being forced by circumstances, not only out of his control, but of which he was not fully aware, to do. That part of this young Marine, his ethics, his conscience, his "soul," if you will, interest the keyboard warriors not a jot. The heavy burden that descended on the Marine's young shoulders in that moment when he discharged his gun does not excite the sympathies of the moral values set. It does mine. As it did Xan's in her post back here. Mr. Sites' account of the reality of Fallujah underlines Xan's point, that apart from the knuckleheaded responses of those on the right, as well as some in the center, which she brillinatly illuminates, there is this to add:

Hey guys, after you get done parsing how much really, really worse the Terrorists are, could you turn your fine-tuned Moral Analyzer on the folks who brought the Marine, the reporter and the wounded guys together in that mosque that day?

To get another look at what we're up against in trying to express a different reality than that of the rightwing blogs, who spend as much effort maligning what they are sure are our, anyone not of the right, attitudes, and pretending that the mainstream press, as represented by someone like Chris Matthews, for instance, leans far left and is invariable anti-American, than they do expressing their own points of view, (since their views are invariably shaped by rebounding off a hated "other,"), you can't find any better examples than you'll find here and here, including the comments.

“And I took another slash. And then I took a big full.... That big old yellow moon a hangin' out there. God's lanterns a hangin' in the sky, and suddenly I got a tremendous revolution of emotion in my body like I was fallin' in love with everything in God's sweet world that moved, lived, didn't live, animate, inanimate, black, blue, green, pink, mountains, fountains. I was in love with life, 'cause I was drunk! I wasn't fallin' down, slippin', slidin' drunk. I was GOD'S OWN DRUNK! A fearless man!”

NEW BRITAIN -- Empire-building. Occupation. Pre-emptive warfare.
The war in Iraq was called many things Saturday, but the goal of the 200 anti-war activists gathered at Central Connecticut State University was the same.

"End the Occupation of Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now," was the message at a forum organized by CT United for Peace and hosted by the university's peace studies program.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which many participants said was one reason for America's war in Iraq, was also a subject of the forum.

"We [the United States] have been branded with the letter 'A' for 'aggression,'" said Bill Fletcher Jr., the forum's keynote speaker.

…Fletcher called for a fight for a democratic foreign policy.

The daylong forum brought together various anti-war groups in the state, such as the International Socialist Organization, and national organizations, such as U.S. Labor Against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Saturday's goal was to unite the groups to continue to broaden the anti-war movement and bring the troops back from Iraq. Hundreds of Connecticut Activists Unite in Call to End Iraq War

I hear that train a-comin, it’s comin ‘round the bend…

COLUMBUS, Georgia -- At least 20 people were arrested Sunday while protesting a U.S.-run military school for Latin Americans, some of whose graduates they claim later committed civil rights abuses including murder.

Charges filed against the demonstrators range from trespassing to "wearing a mask," a violation of a rarely invoked 1951 law originally aimed at fighting the Ku Klux Klan.
Those arrested were among about a record 16,000 people who demonstrated outside the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation at Fort Benning, calling for the school to be shut down.

Organizers of the protest said concern about the war in Iraq and President Bush's re-election boosted attendance at this year's event.

16,000 PROTEST US-RUN 'SCHOOL OF THE ASSASSINS'

“Everyone's talkin' about The Nazz. What a great cat he was. How he swung with the glory of love. How he straighten out the squares.

How he stomp into the money changin' carts and kicked the short change all over the place and knockin' the corners off the squares.”

This big ol’ shit-eatin’ grin on my face is placed there by Lord Buckley, a Johnny Cash LP on the stereo, a bottle of fine sippin’ whiskey, a day off with nothing to do but make a few phone calls, email the local Dems, get slowly soused, and practice my protest songs, AND the fact that there’s going to be a planning session for a protest, even if small, at one-a my neighbor’s houses on Wednesday… a bring your own bottle, guitar, and ideas thing. With barbecue and roasted corn. A lot of the GOTV folks are ‘sposed to be coming. Young, angry folks. Whoooeee!Do our fine readers have any stories of the beginnings of the new movement? Any tales of coalitions being built? Any signs of De Nazaroo straightenin’ dem kitties wit de bent frames? ‘Cause, man, we livin’ in bent times. And chicago dyke is right--usn's gotta organize locally and take local actions AND national actions.

I know I usually don’t post twice, but I got this email forward from a friend, who’s sober at the moment, and she says the info’s legit. I don’t know. Website reference looks legit and the numbers seem right, according to my source. And Rockwell is apparently who he says he is. Anybody who can verify other sources from Ohio? Anybody else get this?

93,136 EXTRA Votes Found In ONE Ohio County
From Teed Rockwell
Philosophy Department
Sonoma State University11-19-4

You may have seen the associated press story about the precinct in Cuyahoga county that had less than 1,000 voters, and gave Bush almost 4,000 extra votes. But that turns out to be only the tip of a very ugly iceberg. The evidence discovered by some remarkably careful sleuthing would convince any reasonable court to invalidate the entire Ohio election.

In last Tuesday's election, 29 precincts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, reported votes cast IN EXCESS of the number of registered voters - at least 93,136 extra votes total. And the numbers are right there on the official Cuyahoga County Board of Elections website:

Bay Village - 13,710 registered voters / 18,663 ballots cast
Beachwood - 9,943 registered voters / 13,939 ballots cast
Bedford - 9,942 registered voters / 14,465 ballots cast
Bedford Heights - 8,142 registered voters / 13,512 ballots cast
Brooklyn - 8,016 registered voters / 12,303 ballots cast
Brooklyn Heights - 1,144 registered voters / 1,869 ballots cast
Chagrin Falls Village - 3,557 registered voters / 4,860 ballots cast
Cuyahoga Heights - 570 registered voters / 1,382 ballots cast
Fairview Park - 13,342 registered voters / 18,472 ballots cast
Highland Hills Village - 760 registered voters / 8,822 ballots cast
Independence - 5,735 registered voters / 6,226 ballots cast
Mayfield Village - 2,764 registered voters / 3,145 ballots cast
Middleburg Heights - 12,173 registered voters / 14,854 ballots cast
Moreland Hills Village - 2,990 registered voters / 4,616 ballots cast
North Olmstead - 25,794 registered voters / 25,887 ballots cast

And it goes on with more examples… and ends with:

The Republicans are so BUSTED.
http://boe.cuyahogacounty.us/BOE/results/currentresults1.htm#top

Is the official website of the Cuyahoga county election board, providing irrefutable evidence that the vote was off by at least 93,000.

Kerry lost Ohio by approximately 130,000, so this is not an insignificant figure that can be ignored, particularly when there are numerous other indications of voter fraud in Ohio and elsewhere. I think the only possible alternative is to invalidate the entire Ohio election, if not the entire national election.

I'd say the game's up. America, it looks pretty much like you've been had.

Sincerely,
Teed Rockwell
Philosophy Department
Sonoma State University

Readers?

Well, what do you know? Changing your thesis advisor is now circumstantial evidence of being a terrorist. As Johnny Carson used to say, I did not know that.

If that's news to you, grad student Sami al-Hussayen can fill you in on the details. He just spent the last 1 1/2 years in jail finding out. Here's what else now gets you in the crosshairs of the Bush Administration:

Studying computer security systems

Changing your campus office

Doing volunteer Web design work for an Islamic charity

Of course, being a Muslim helps alot.

Read the whole thing, keeping in mind that this is the outfit Americans believe is best able to keep us safe from terrorism.

link to this post - by Tresy :   11:50 AM | |

What Jesse said:

The entirety of the "Ownership Society" seems to rest on a single idea - the government forces you to set up a bunch of private savings accounts that can only be used in particular markets, thereby dismantling old entitlement programs while forcing those who actually need the entitlements (i.e., those who don't have much money and who do have a harder lot in life) to "own" them - "own" be a codeword for "stop making anyone else think about them". And, as far as I can tell, it's married to a magic pool of redistributed money that comes from a pool of lower tax revenue and a tax code that becomes increasingly punitive towards those of lower incomes.
(via Pandagon)

In Prussia, public assistance was run by the Police, whose duty was, after all, to weed out undesireable elements. I'm surprised none of the wingers are proposing this...

Wow! Blogger let me connect! Boy, I'm glad. I sure hope Wall Street isn't watching Google to see if they can actually run a server farm, otherwise their stock might tank.

Meanwhile, just fancy! The Republicans have managed to buy Bush a new Presidential [cough] yacht. They can't pass a bill to straighten out our intelligence agencies, but this is the least they can do. In fact, it's the most they can do! At least Bush hasn't named his horse consul. Or his goat.

And in other news, Bush rips the arm of a Chilean security guard! Then eats it! Film at 11, when you can watch the wingers wet themselves! On national TV!

In the thread over at Atrios yesterday about the disgusting crap they snuck into the Omnibus Spending Bill, including the abortion-information-evasion provision, the Let Selected Senators Read Your Tax Returns provision, and re-purchasing the Presidential Yacht, and God only knows what else hasn't been found out yet.

But amidst the "Aw JEEZ, does it never STOP???" type of comments there was a very wise observation from a guy by the name of Robert M. Jeffers:

Interesting is the fact that shame is still a force to be reckoned with.

If Bush were so sure of his power, he would not hide what he wants to do, he would announce it boldly and go forward knowing no one would dare disagree, a la Stalin. If the GOP were sure of its power, it would vote to support Tom DeLay and give itself all the power it needed to crush Ronnie Earle in open session, laughing as it did so.

The Vikings were never ashamed about raping and pillaging. They did it in broad daylight. It was Grendel and his mother who attacked at night, like cowards. And Stalin was quite open about his purges and his pogroms. No one dared challenge him, because he dared destroy his enemies openly, and let them know who did it.

Representative government, in other words, is still functioning. The GOP still wants to do one thing and proclaim another, knowing full well that what it does would never earn it any points at the polls, and that the polls still count.

Sunshine is still the best antiseptic, and the best antidote to bad government.

So what we do here does have value, even if it seems to come too late, even if it sometimes seems like the manure piles up faster than we can get it transported to the south 40.

Right now you have the Congressional lame ducks trying to get in a few last licks. Come January you'll have the Newer, Even Nuttier GOP testing out their new sandbox and thinkin' they're hot shit. But more eyes than ever are watching them, keeping lists and taking names. And that south 40 is gonna grow a HELL of a crop in '06.

That's the actual quote from Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, usually presented in somewhat abbreviated form as "War is hell."

Juan Cole's post for today is getting attention here and there for its first paragraph:

Rod Nordland and Babak Dehghanpisheh of Newsweek believe that the US military simply cannot win hearts and minds in Iraq. That's a pretty safe conclusion by now. Quite the opposite, it seems clear that more and more Iraqis simply hate the Americans, and especially American troops.

More noteworthy is the next graf, which expresses something I've been trying to verbalize and now don't have to, because he said it better:

I personally agree that there may have been extenuating circumstances regarding the shooting of a wounded Iraqi guerrilla in a mosque by a marine (wounded guerrillas often lure US troops close and then blow them up).

But most people aren't good at seeing both sides of the story. If guerrillas had stacked four wounded American Marines up somewhere, and then a second set of guerrillas came in, and a guerrilla shot one of the unarmed, wounded Marines in the head on camera, I guarantee you no one in the American media would be talking about extenuating circumstances. This act would be seen as cowardly and perfidious, with no need for further investigation.

Thanks to all who commented on finding ways for the godless and godly to work together. “Whither Rational Discourse?” Sorry I dropped out of the discussion early, but rest assured I read all of the comments and this morning thought about them over an urn of coffee and a pipe. Maybe this is the type of rational Christian P&J advocate we were discussing, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of him earlier, as I used to work in the Vietnam antiwar movement and his was a primary voice among the religious. It took a friend to remind me of him, and to remind me that, after all, Dr. King was a Christian (something I forget) and she sent this snip and link:

It must be possible, I thought, to reconcile the Christ of Revelation and of the Gospels; the warrior image of Christ with the meek and compassionate One of the sermon on the mount. To reconcile the violent images of Revelation with the prohibition of violence in the gospels. There must be in sum one Christ, not two; if we were not to suppose that our God is as divided in mind as were His stupefied votaries.

We must claim the book [Revelations] from the violent culture. Nothing must be allowed to subvert the text; no optimism springing from political chauvinism or national frenzies. No pessimism, issuing from the fall of this or that cherished ideology. And above all, no false gods; enticing, telling of our moral excellence, probity, fame, prosperity, and the violence that beckons us to secular nirvana. No gods of America ventriloquizing, aping, displacing true God.

We must flee them; they are putrid, they smell of death. We must plant ourselves in a wilderness, a desert, a prison -- where the soul might grow literate, might 'tolle et lege: In such unlikely places a vision might be granted us, as was granted to the prisoner John in the slave camp on Patmos. A modest and serviceable vision to be sure; something so modest as a sane reading of a simple text.

…And inevitably, tyranny seeks out and befriends religion, an ally, a blessing on the enterprise, a bargaining partner, a power broker who can be winked at and wink back.

But not this community. Christians, John reminds us, are to name the old names anew; Washington or Moscow or whatever. Name them for what they are, and suffer the consequence, in some latter day Patmos or gulag.

Revelation is neither magical nor evasive. It is penetration, meaning, light in dark times.

This is, of course, Daniel Berrigan, who, while I do not share his faith, could work with one who propounded it this way rather easily… War in Heaven, Peace on Earth

Are these voices still out there? I’m not in this community, and I'm not sure this will help me reach out to the lunatic fundies, but I hope I smell new coalitions brewing. And you'll notice, in the spirit of reaching out, I'm posting it on a Sunday morning... peace and justice, y'all.

First, the bad news. AQ has resurfaced in Afghanistan:

U.S.-led troops mounted overnight raids on suspected al-Qaida compounds in eastern Afghanistan, killing four people and detaining several others, officials said Sunday.
(via AP)

Um, I thought we'd defeated AQ already? When we destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan? Apparently not.

And what does AQ want? Loose nukes:

A newly retired CIA terrorism expert said Friday he has no doubt that Osama bin Laden wants to unleash a nuclear attack on the United States, perhaps with one of about 100 "suitcase bombs" believed missing from the former Soviet Union.

Moreover, Bin Laden's Al-Qaida network likely has operatives in the United States who could obtain radioactive material from a research laboratory or medical facility and set off a "dirty bomb," said Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's Bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999.

Scheuer said Al-Qaida concluded it was "too darned hard" to obtain the plutonium and equipment to build a nuclear weapon, "so they're after a kind of off-the-shelf device, if they could find one," and the Soviet Union seems the most likely place.

"What we know is that he's always said it was a religious obligation to have the same weapons as their enemies," Scheuer said. "He clearly has said he would use it. He doesn't intend it as a deterrent. It's going to be a first strike."
(Strib via Kos)

Of course, Bush has never been serious about loose nukes (here)

And here again, there's the bad scenario, and the really bad scenario.

The bad scenario is we lose a big city in a Blue State to a loose nuke. At that point, the Talibornagain say it's the judgement of God that fire from heaven rained down on the Godless (subtext: the fags that God hates). And in about 24 hours, the Republicans institute martial law.

The really bad scenario is that we lose a megachurch in a red state to a loose nuke (back) At that point, the Talibornagain call for jihaada Crusade. And in about 24 hours, the Republicans institute martial law.

Both scenarios look pretty grim, don't they? Of course, I know which one the Republicans would prefer....

And in either case, the terrorists will have won. Eh?

What a farce (via Kos)

And it's a Rove-ian bank shot! Whiny Joe gets sucked into the administrative quagmire of DHS, and his Senate seat goes to... A Republican! One more step to removing even the power to filibuster from the Democrats!

Would Whiney Joe sell is own party down the river for a fancy title? (Power, in the Bush administration, he surely will not have.) In a heartbeat! (His betrayal will, of course, be put under the heading of "bipartisanship.")

Not to speak ill of the dead, but it shows Al Gore's tone-deaf-ness that he went anywhere near this guy. And it's a salutary warning about "reaching out" to the basis of "those who practice piety before others in order to be seen by them" (Cited here)

Swarms of locusts devoured lawns and palm trees Sunday in southern Israel, panicking farmers and leaving others worried about biblical plagues.
(via AP)

In this corner, the glory of the Enlightenment, the oldest written Constitution in the world, the document that founded the world's first representative government, the cornerstone of our rights and liberties, the rock on which our secular democracy is built! And the tag team: Ben Franklin! James Madison! Alexander Hamilton! And G-e-o-r-g-e Washington!

And in this corner, making a long, long comeback all the way from the Middle Ages, the Talibornagains, hellbent on seizing power no matter what it takes, the think-tank master-debaters, the Sabbath-day gasbags, the Jeebofascist clerics of theocracy—one nation, under them! And the tag team: Pat Robertson! Jerry Falwell! Richard Mellon Scaife! R.J. Rushdooney! Karl Rove! And a man who needs no introduction, the man the other executives call "Chief"! Raise your right arm and give it up for Mr. AWOL Himself— G-e-o-r-g-e Bush!

And there's the bell!

Round 1: Will Bush be able to park Alberto Gonzales at Justice before nominating him for the Supreme Court?

Think this is a little over the top? A little too lambert-esque? Recall that Gonzeles was the author of Bush torture memos. Most of us have focussed on the fact that the memos justify torture ("worse than a crime; a blunder"—Talleyrand, not to mention WWJD). Far more dangerous is the fact that the memos purport to reveal the "inherent authority" of the chief executive to ignore the law (recall that the Geneva convention is the law of the land, a treaty ratified by the Senate). The torture memos not only justify torture, but destroy the system of checks and balances that protect all of us againt cruel and unusual punishment.

It turns out that Gonzales was busily working to trash the Constitution when he was Bush's bum boy Counsel in Texas, too. Alan Berlow reports in today's Post:

Gonzales is perhaps best known for a controversial January 2002 memorandum to the president in which he argued that Geneva Convention proscriptions on torture did not apply to Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners, and that the conventions are, in fact, "obsolete."

This interpretation of international law, which many have linked to the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison, will no doubt be a focus of confirmation hearings. Senators might also want to quiz Gonzales about a less well-known June 1997 memo involving another treaty, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Written when Gonzales was counsel to then-Gov. George W. Bush, the memo puts forward the novel view that because the state of Texas was not a signatory to the Vienna Convention, it need not abide by the treaty. Or, put another way, Texas is not bound by Article VI of the Constitution, which states that U.S. treaties are "the supreme Law of the Land."
(via WaPo)

Lovely. Blue staters do some muttering about leaving the country, and the wingers, all at once, almost as if on cue, get all hysterical. Write a memo that claims, in effect, that Texas is a sovreign state, and become Counsel to the President! Sounds like yet another case of WPS, eh?

If the Dems roll over on this one, the Constitution is toast. That means we're toast. Will they cave? Or will they rediscover what it means to have a spine?

Let's watch them duke it out! Talibornagains vs. The Constitution!

By 2005, it may all be over!

UPDATE Xan comments:

I think Gonzales is a stalking horse for Estrada. Rove's Red Cape at work again.

E.J. Dionne gives voice to the obvious:

What's surprising [Why?] is how shameless House Republicans were on Wednesday in casting aside their 11-year-old rule requiring a member of their leadership to step aside temporarily if he or she comes under indictment.

The repeal might be called the Tom DeLay Protection Act of 2004. DeLay, the House majority leader, is under investigation by Ronnie Earle, the district attorney in Texas's Travis County. Earle, who is a Democrat, is investigating charges that corporate money was used illegally to help Republicans win Texas legislative races in 2002. Republican victories that year paved the way for changes in the state's congressional district lines that helped Republicans win additional U.S. House seats in Texas this year, solidifying their hold on power.

Earle has already obtained indictments against three of DeLay's political associates. The Hammer, as DeLay is known, must be worried.

Recall how Republicans dismissed any and all who charged that the investigations of President Bill Clinton by special prosecutor Ken Starr were politically motivated. Ah, but those were investigations of a shady Democrat by a distinguished Republican. When a Democrat is investigating a Republican, it can only be about politics. Is that clear?

Rep. Henry Bonilla, the Texas Republican who sponsored the resolution to protect DeLay, said it was designed to protect against "crackpot" prosecutors whose indictments might get in the way of the ability of House Republicans to choose their own leaders. Can't let a little thing like an indictment get in the way of the sovereignty of House Republicans, can we?

"Attorneys tell me you can be indicted for just about anything in this country," said Bonilla. Remember the old days during the Clinton impeachment when Republicans went on and on about the importance of "the rule of law"? Oh well.
(via WaPo)

IOKIYAR! Woe to you, Pharisees, hypocrites! (Matthew 23:13)

$70 million for a blowjob? No problem!

Using illegal campaign contributions to gerrymander Texas? That's politics!

Thanks to alert reader granny insanity:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) paid tens of thousands of dollars to a technology and communications strategy firm headed by Mike McCurry, a former spokesman for the Clinton administration, while McCurry served as a senior adviser to the Kerry-Edwards 2004 campaign.

Records show that since the end of April, Grassroots Enterprise has received $93,000 in payments from the RNC for Internet hosting, but Heather Layman, an RNC spokeswoman, said the Republican Party hired McCurry’s firm to help deliver content to potential voters, not for Web-hosting services.

What kind of content, one wonders?

McCurry joined the Kerry campaign full time in mid-September and before that served the campaign as a member of a task force on religious outreach. McCurry took a leave of absence as chairman of the board of Grassroots when he joined the campaign. He expects to be reinstated as chairman soon.

Bill McIntyre, a Grassroots spokesman and a former spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said accepting RNC money while McCurry advised Kerry was not a conflict.

“Mike took a leave of absence,” explained McIntyre, “We have two offerings here. We have our technology platform and strategic services that go with it, and clients can choose. …

“The RNC uses our technology platform, and they do all of their own strategic work and don’t rely on anyone here, especially Mike McCurry because that would be odd. … It’s the equivalent of the RNC or DNC using a Dell computer or a copier; it’s technology.”

Uh, right. So, what kind of content did the wingers deliver with the platform, and who was it targetted at? Say, voters in Ohio? Just asking.

“It’s giving them stuff we could use. It’s helping them beat us,” [Democratic fundraiser Erickson] said. “It would be a lame excuse.”

McCurry said he had little knowledge of his firm’s contract with the RNC. “We provide the technology equipment they use to run some of their contact programs,” he said, “I have a Chinese-wall relationship on that account. I don’t supervise that account or do anything with it.”

McCurry said he tried to sell the technology to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) but was turned down. “We would love to sell to the DNC too,” he said.

Now that I can believe....

Layman said the RNC hired Grassroots two years ago and its contract expires at year-end. The committee chose McCurry’s firm because “they provide a content-delivery system that met our requirements for the past two years,” she said.

Again, what kind of content?

Grassroots helped win the contract by customizing its product to meet the Republicans’ needs.

McCurry said that for critics to charge impropriety is “like saying Microsoft should not supply Microsoft Word to the party.”

Nope. It was content delivery, not software. McCurry obfuscates.

Donna Brazile, who served as Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000, said that many political consultants work for both sides and that she didn’t object.

“There are a number of firms that double dip and take resources from both political parties, and I don’t see a problem with it,” she said. “I know people who cross the street a lot, but they don’t get caught. I do know people, but they remain nameless.

“Your piece will cause eyes to roll but not a lot of head-scratching. It happens all the time in Washington,” she said.
(via The Hill)

Just business....

If anyone wonders why the Dems aren't about winning but just about continuing to play a losing game, look no further. If you can play both sides, it doesn't matter who wins. (We lose, of course, but ... What was the point I was trying to make?

I remember very well what happened when the Democrats used Republican servers in the House. The Republicans stole all the Democrats' files (back) How is it that the Republicans can trust a Democratic"Democratic" enterprise not to do exactly the same thing?

There's a word, I just know it, for people who take money to, um, do anything for anyone who asks... Not that there's anything wrong with that; after all, it's just the free market in action, eh? I know the word will come to me.

A song for Mike McCurry:

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life, at all.

Faugh. Oh, and I love the name "Grassroots." Orwellian, eh?

NOTE I do wonder, though, if this piece isn't a ploy by Blue State Digital, which provides the technology platform for the Dean organization—especially since the trial balloons have been floated for Dean as DNC chair. However, Blue States is just a business, too. One looks in vain in their services section for any indication of which party organization Blue States serves.

Say, why doesn't someone, anyone, in the Democratic Party get smart and build some in-house expertise instead of using hired guns? In business, the rule is this: Never outsource your core competence. Well, if the message isn't the Dems core competence, and delivering the message isn't the Dems core competence, then what is their core competence? I mean, besides losing?

And just think! The Republicans haven't even started to privatize Social Security, fuck the Blue States by eliminating the deduction for state and local taxes, or fuck working people everywhere by eliminating the tax break for employer-supplied health insurance! Not to mention invading Iran.

Look! Over there! A tit!

UPDATE I wrote those words... And a picture came into my mind... Poster-sized... A humongous tit, about the size of Mount Rushmore, menacing a tiny male human we know must be a Christian, perhaps even a Pastor, from his pious expression, his only-just-visible repressed hysteria, and the large SUV parked in the background.... With one hand, the tiny Christian is warding off the giant tit by holding up a cross.. With the other, he covers the eyes of two overly winsome little children -- they look kinda like Dick and Jane.... Well, one more Saturday Night, eh?

Unbelievable? All too believable!

Congress debated legislation Saturday giving two committee chairman and their assistants [Why, that would be Tom "Don't call me French!" DéLay, right?] access to income tax returns [Whose returns? Democrats? Perhaps Ronnie Earle's?] without regard to privacy protections, but not before red-faced Republicans said it was all a mistake and would be swiftly repealed.

Right. "Swiftly repealed." Feel free to hold your breath, people...

"This is a serious situation," said Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. He said he was unaware of the provision, inserted into a 3,300-page spending bill covering most federal agencies and programs.

Questioned sharply by fellow Republicans as well as Democrats, Stevens pleaded with the Senate to approve the overall spending bill.

So we're going to pass the bill, and then undo the bad parts later? Nice! God knows what else is in there.

Stevens promised a resolution repealing that provision relating to tax returns. He said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., had agreed to have the resolution passed when the House returns Dec. 6.

In the meantime, he said, President Bush intends to issue a statement declaring that the section of law will be disregarded.

Right. Smooth move. So now it's up to Bush's whim whether the law is regarded or disregarded? That's a great precedent. Remember all that "rule of law" bloviation during the coup against Clinton? WPS, pure and simple. The Democrats nail this one.

But Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that wasn't good enough. "It becomes the law of the land on the signature of the president of the United States. That's wrong."

Stevens, who repeatedly apologized for the error, took offense at Conrad's statement. In a reference to House Republican leaders, he said it was included in the bill after "a representation was made by one staffer [Um, which staffer, I wonder?] that the front office [that is DéLay] in the other body [that is, the House] wanted it."

Pounding on his desk, Stevens said he had given his word and so had Young that neither would use the authority. "I would hope that the Senate would take my word. I don't think I have ever broken my word to any member of the Senate."

"... Do I have to get down on my knees and beg," he said.

Yep. And do worse than beg, eh? It's DéLay we're talking about, and these people will do anything to hold onto power.

"We weren't born yesterday, we didn't come down with the first snow," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. "This isn't poorly thought out, this was very deliberately thought out and it was done in the dead of night."
(via AP)

It's good to see that some Senate Republicans don't have the stomach for Bush's tactics, but at the end of the day, what will they do for us? Nothing.

Meanwhile, the Dems have to do this every day, every bill, all the time. The Republicans don't rest, and neither can the Democrats.

Topic: "Connecting the dots." Discuss.

Talk amongst yourselves.

From the Department of Amplification:

We of Corrente are trying to figure out a way to connect ideas, people, help make a movement, build bridges, and what kind of liberal isn't always looking for a coalition, and that "we" means you guys who come here and read, and leave comments. We 're looking for ways to include all the intelligence and smarts and experience that we see on our comment threads, and in other blogs, too.—Leah A.

I’ve been holding back on this post, because I’m not sure it should be me making the case. As you will see, I have no answers. But it’s been a topic in comments, and we were talking over coffee this morning and it came up again when the waitress wrote “Jesus Loves You!! (smiley face) on our check. So…

See, the thing is, there are religions that aggressively proselytize and those that don’t. Evangelical Christianity is one that does; so does much of fundie Islam; history is rife with “convert or die” stories that we conveniently forget or throw into the dustbin of history. I could go on, but corrente readers already know this. The view that these religions put out is an absolute “us or them” message. Come around, join us, or die now, or die later and rot in hell, it’s all the same to them. Other sects, while not as aggressive, use the same tactics.

You all know this; you’ve all been approached by these folks with their “message.” Not so much Islam here in America, of course. But you’ve all been accosted by others. You can be sure that this is happening all over the world, as each fundie group tries to win the most converts. It’s a growth industry game, with the end being dominance of the belief market.

Other religions don’t proselytize but do say that “you ain’t one of us,” thus effectively cutting off dialog. Like the old bumper sticker: God said it; I believe it; that settles it.

Well, yeah. That settles it. Rational dialog has just been cut off a-borning.

And that’s the problem. Tolerance of this is tolerance of irrational thought. Tolerance of this is tolerance of intolerance. Tolerance of this approach—this world view—is tolerance of an absolute irrational end game.

Here in my neck of the woods, evangelical Christianity is making a shambles of Native culture—families are torn in two when someone converts, communities are divided. I’ll leave that discussion to someone on the inside. The same happens in all families and communities.

So, what’s to be done?

That’s where this story breaks down. We are stuck in this “us or them” cycle that is directly tied to these opposing world views, one that sees progress toward a sustainable and just future as the work of rational discussion and action, and one that sees progress as aiming toward a religious goal that will usher in a one god utopia.

There are, of course, those trapped in between. A painful place to be. Where we have neighbors and family who are not rational and we look at them like “are you nuts?” and they look at us like “do you want to go to hell?”

One story? The governor of New Mexico—seemingly a rational person—came out and renamed a highway there from the 666 to the 491, in order to “exorcise” it. Since then, 20 people have died on that highway because it’s a two lane, non-express piece of shit that carries major traffic through the largest Native nation in America. Please tell me how that’s rational?

What’s to be done? Are we to stare at each other in sad disbelief until one side or the other is victorious? Or are we a nation built on Enlightenment ideals? Readers? Help me out. I’ve been alive for awhile and am still at a loss. Bear in mind that armed revolution hasn't historically worked too well and I don't endorse it. FTF is a good slogan, but what's to be done?

Oh, and I wrote “Oh, yeah? Well, why doesn’t Jesus ever call, then?” on the check before I paid it. Childish, I know.

And if I don’t respond in comments it’s because the power went out again. Maybe if I pray hard enough it’ll come back on.

What Ezra said:

All the progressives [proud Democrats ;-)] I know found our newfound unity and clean loss far-and-away the most intolerable aspect of the election. That we could unite behind a single candidate, marginalize Nader, win the debates, run an unheard-of field operation and still lose to bigotry and fear left a much sourer taste in our mouths than 2000, where we lost unjustly but could comfort ourselves with the knowledge that more Americans agreed with the Democrat than the Republican.
(via Pandagon)

After 11/2, everything changed...

Still, in "What have we got that's good" mode, these are no mean accomplishments. Now, if Kerry will continue to lead, Dean gets to be head of the DNC, and we at the grass-roots continue the delicate operation of transplanting a spine into the Beltway Dems... All may not be lost.

NOTE On another note, Xan points out that I've been punk'd by the Hoosier Gazette! On the other hand, isn't it great to have a new parody source? And from the heart of Republican darkness in Indiana, too. Ah well, we know where roses grow best, don't we...

RDF has clearly been reading my mind, because his Rational Discourse piece asks the same question, basically, as these two items.

These are edited to the point of butchery to get to what seems the core message of each. Note that the first is from a European and the second from a Canadian:

(via LATimes op-ed) Jonathan Sachs is the chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain and the Commonwealth. Website: www.chiefrabbi.org.

Religion persists at the center of world concerns.

All this is hard for a European, particularly a North European, to understand. The reason is that we are heirs to a highly singular history whose origins lie in more than a century of religious and political warfare between Catholics and Protestants that began with the Reformation in 1517 and the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. [snip, chop, whack]

If, in Europe, modernity meant a retreat from religious passion, the American paradox is that such passion coexists with secular politics. But in other parts of the world there has been a third trajectory, in which religion has emerged as a mass protest against failed secular nationalisms of the kind that Gamal Abdel Nasser introduced into Egypt and Saddam Hussein into Iraq. Here religion functions as a critique of modernity: mass poverty, widespread unemployment, political corruption and human rights abuse.

In such environments, religion alone seems to speak the language of human dignity and hope, and until we understand this, we will utterly fail to comprehend the strength of reaction against regimes that sought to imitate the West.

Religion didn't die. It persists as humanity's oldest, noblest attempt to endow human life with meaning. Secularization turned out to be the exception, not the rule.

There's more, but I cut off here just to make the slightly cynical point that the good rabbi's statement here is just a tad self-serving. If he comes to a different conclusion he has to throw over his job and get work digging ditches or something.

Then the Muslim take. Less history, more personal, and up on the NYT front page for a remarkably short time yesterday before vanishing to the point of taking a good deal of searching to find again:

NYTimes

IRSHAD MANJI Irshad Manji is the author of "The Trouble with Islam: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith.''

As a young Canadian Muslim who has called for reform in Islam, I've been traveling throughout North America and Europe over the past year. Last week, I toured France and Spain. God help me.

...From Amsterdam to Barcelona to Paris to Berlin, people incredulously ask me one type of question that I'm never asked in the United States and Canada: Why does an independent-minded woman care about God? Why do you need religion at all?

[snip] To a lot of Europeans, still steeped in memories of the Catholic Church's intellectual repression, religion is an irrational force. So women who cover themselves are foolish at best and dangerous otherwise.

But there's something else going on. The mass immigration of Muslims is bringing faith back into the public realm and creating a post-Enlightenment modernity for Western Europe. This return of religion threatens secular humanism, the orthodoxy that has prevailed since the French Revolution.

[long snip] Which brings me back to the question of why I, an independent-minded woman, bother with Islam. Religion supplies a set of values, including discipline, that serve as a counterweight to the materialism of life in the West. I could have become a runaway materialist, a robotic mall rat who resorts to retail therapy in pursuit of fulfillment. I didn't. That's because religion introduces competing claims. It injects a tension that compels me to think and allows me to avoid fundamentalisms of my own.

So these are the only choices she can think of? How sad.

Note that the rabbi makes no mention of Yahweh and the Muslim says not a word about Allah. They both cast their arguments in terms of culture, really. Religion as an alternative to politics or an alternative to shopping.

Both, tragically from my point of view, use the phrase "post-Enlightenment" as if my deepest beliefs were somehow suddenly past their sell-by dates.

(via Copley News Service)

The Army is reportedly investigating allegations that members of a Springfield National Guard unit shipped contraband back to the United States from Iraq and attempted to sell some of the items on eBay, a popular online auction site.

[snip 90% of story]
Some members of the media were scrutinized in April and May 2003, when they returned with war souvenirs taken from unprotected sites in Iraq.

Hmm, somehow no mention of Dear Leader's "souvenir" of Sadaam's favorite pistol. Or Daring Donny Rumsfeld's "souvenir" crystal globe from the ruins of the World Trade Center. But a bunch of Illinois National Guardsmen are under investigation for trying to help the economy on eBay.

I sure don't understand why one is Just Peachy and the other is a potentially criminal offense. I must be afflicted with that "moral confusion" that comes with being a Democrat.

This is from a quite long LA Times Magazine piece about the problems faced by the US Forest Service, not to mention the problems faced by forests that need protection from the said Forest Service. However, this quote seemed apropos for such a much wider range of topics:

(via LA Times)

"The hardest part," said one of the sequoia activists at the time, "is for us to tell other people what's happening and watch them disbelieve us instead of the Forest Service. We have to work on each new group, each new person, and they have to learn that lesson themselves."

"And," said another, "they think we're awful people for suggesting that their Forest Service wouldn't tell the truth."

Sound like any conversations you've had lately?

(via antimagnet.com)

Being right has never been a guaranteed route to popularity, but They really seem out to get this guy. Three cheers to Ball State University for standing up to some Thug pressure to get this guy a speaking fee:

(via Muncie IN Star-Press)

MUNCIE - Three years after publication of his book Fast Food Nation, freelance journalist Eric Schlosser remains fearful that McDonald's is going to sue him any day.

And that's not all he's afraid of.

On Thursday afternoon, Schlosser was escorted by linebacker-sized Ball State University police Cpl. Alvin Tank, armed with a 9-mm semi-automatic handgun, into a classroom at Pittenger Student Center for a question-answer session with six students. An officer accompanied the author everywhere he went on campus.

"It's kind of embarrassing that I have to have security," Schlosser told The Star Press. "To me, it's a symptom of what's wrong with this country at the moment. My book has inspired some people to call me a socialist or communist or un-American. We had a Civil War in this country, and when you look at how other countries fly apart, it's because people start being called traitors, un-American, and demonizing one another. That's very, very dangerous."

Read the rest, it's not real long. Look at some of the stunts pulled to keep him from speaking. This is not some random Rand-reading college students getting their uber-individualized kicks, there's some money behind this.

(via an Atrios' comment thread)

Anybody remember that Beavis N Butthead episode where Butthead chokes on a chicken nugget? Then Beavis inadvertantly makes Butthead spit out the offending morsel, THEN picks it up, sticks it in his mouth and promptly starts choking . . . immediately repeating history?

The current neo-con blather about Iran reminds me of that.

All this talk about Iran.

Sorry for the length here but the Austin paper is registration and this is just all too good to have anyone miss. Make note of the whores, corporate, elective and otherwise, that their names may be besmirched and their products languish unsold.

(via Austin Statesman-American)

WASHINGTON -- House Republican leader Tom DeLay has re-energized his legal defense fund, raising at least $310,300 since summer to combat a Democrat's ethics charges and to monitor a Travis County grand jury investigation that led to indictments against three DeLay aides in September.

Two Austin-area Republican House members got the ball rolling, with U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio writing the fund's first check of the year June 24, followed by Rep. John Carter of Round Rock. Until then, the legal fund had collected no money since last year.

Smith and Carter each donated $5,000, the annual limit, from their campaign funds. They were joined by 29 additional Republicans in Congress, including six others from Texas, providing almost half of DeLay's haul. The rest of the donations came from political action committees, corporations and individuals.

Carter said he was motivated by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle's investigation into allegations of campaign finance irregularities in the 2002 Texas elections. Grand jury indictments sought by Earle, a Democrat, allege that corporate money was illegally used to help elect a Republican majority to the Texas House.

"I think we're involved in a political witch hunt here, and I also think Mr. DeLay is innocent," Carter said.

Carter said nobody solicited his contribution.

"I volunteered to give the money," he said. "I think we should show that we are grateful for all the hard work (DeLay) does for the state of Texas."

According to documents that must be filed quarterly with the House ethics committee, DeLay's legal defense fund accepted $185,300 in contributions in July, August and September.

However, the filing does not include $125,000 in checks written or received after the Sept. 30 filing deadline, said Brent Perry, a Houston lawyer and trustee for DeLay's legal fund. Those checks, disclosed in separate filings with the Federal Election Commission, will appear in the fourth-quarter report, Perry said.

In the meantime, the legal fund continues to receive donations, he said.

Legal expense funds are regulated by the House ethics committee, which limits spending to a broad range of issues, including legal expenses connected to a campaign, criminal prosecution of a lawmaker or civil matters "bearing on an individual's reputation or fitness for office." Legal funds also may pay fund-raising costs, if the money is for the legal fund.

The ethics committee requires legal funds to file quarterly reports detailing donations and expenses above $250, though any contribution from a corporation or labor union must be listed. Copies of the reports are available in a basement room of a House office building, difficult to get for most Americans.

"In a world where many things are posted on the Internet . . . these are basically held out of the way and require you to come down to Washington to look them up, so there is really not good disclosure," said Larry Noble, executive director of Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group.

Disclosure is important because contributions provide another avenue for access to leaders in Congress, Noble said.

"The legal expense funds are strange animals to begin with since they're not part of campaign finance laws, yet they can be used to buy access as much as campaign contributions can be," he said. "They really are just another pocket to put money into and for contributors to fill."

According to DeLay's third-quarter report:

* Kentucky businesses and residents donated almost $113,000, thanks to a summer fund-raiser by Republican Rep. Hal Rogers. Rogers is one of three Republicans vying to become chairman of the high-profile Appropriations Committee, and DeLay holds three votes on the Republican Steering Committee, which will make that decision in the coming weeks.

* $60,000 was paid to Austin defense attorney Bill White, who has monitored the Travis County investigation on DeLay's behalf. The fund also paid $50,000 to Dallas law firm Bracewell & Patterson, whose lawyer Ed Bethune represented DeLay before the House ethics committee.

* Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-San Antonio, donated $5,000 from his campaign fund and $5,000 from his political action committee. Other Texans giving $5,000 were Reps. Kay Granger of Fort Worth, John Culberson of Houston, Sam Johnson of Dallas, Jeb Hensarling of Dallas and Michael Burgess of Irving.

* About $100,000 was donated to DeLay's legal fund after the Sept. 21 indictments of his associates, which was followed by two rebukes of DeLay from the House ethics committee. One rebuke resulted from DeLay's offer to exchange political help for a yes vote on the House floor; the other faulted DeLay for misusing the Federal Aviation Administration and for accepting a contribution that appeared tied to legislative favors.

DeLay's legal fund was established in 2000 after Democrats filed a racketeering lawsuit, which they later dropped, alleging shady practices by DeLay-related fund-raising groups.

By the end of September, the legal fund had spent almost $973,000. Its biggest contributors have been Reliant Energy of Houston, $20,000, and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., $17,000.

Anybody want to hold their breath waiting for this group to be actually, like, punished for this?

(via Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

BELLWOOD, Pa. -- A group advocating the separation of church and state has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate a Blair County church that advertised transportation on election day in support of President Bush.

The Bride of Christ Church's 1.25-by-2-inch advertisement in The Altoona Mirror said "In support of President George W. Bush, we are offering transportation to the voting polls" and listed three phone numbers for voters to call for rides.

The Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State said the church violated IRS regulations for tax-exempt organizations by touting Bush.

Don McCaulley, pastor of the 50-member church, said he had no idea that plugging Bush was illegal and that the church made a mistake.

An IRS spokesman declined to comment on the group's complaint but said penalties can include a warning, a requirement to pay taxes on income related to the violation or revocation of tax-exempt status.

Of course ignorance of the law is an excuse! If you say otherwise, you hate Jesus.

Get a load of this:

John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number.
(via Hoosier Gazette)

"A more moral-sounding number" ... Oh, the depravity! Hey, how about 1217 (and counting). Is that a moral number?

Actually, the best part of the story is the headline: "Hostettler mounting [snicker] campaign to change the name of Interstate 69." Eesh. How does the campaign feel about that?

Anyhow, sayeth the Congressman: "Naming the road I-63 not only follows numbering guidelines, it doesn’t have the sexual undertones that I-69 has," says Hostettler, "It is a win-win situation."

I-63 no sexual undertones?! Not for long... Check it out, readers... Get creative... Start an entry.... But remember! Verisimilitude counts!

Quickly, while blogger is still accepting posts. Honestly, a billion dollar corporation that can't manage a server farm. Listening, Wall Street?

In fact, excellent!

"Embedded reporter" Kevin Sites was on MSNBC several times an hour it seemed, and on Brokaw every night, until he took some rather famous pictures in a mosque.

He hasn't been seen since, on TV at least. This caused me concern, so I went to see what I could find.

WNBC TV (New York) says the "network has him under wraps" without specifying exactly where. Sites was working under contract as a freelancer, not as an NBC employee. What that means as to their ability to protect him I don't know.

As to why a reporter, doing his job, following every rule of the US Military and at the scene at the said military's request, might need protection? Did he do something bad, or at least precipitous? Let's look at some background:

The Chicago Tribune reports:

NBC, aware of how potentially damaging the footage of a wounded and possibly unarmed Iraqi being shot by a U.S. Marine could be while troops were still in battle, decided on its own to hold off on airing them for two days.

The footage was recorded Saturday by NBC News freelancer Kevin Sites, who is embedded with Marines in Fallujah. Sites was a pool reporter.

Pool footage usually is distributed via satellite transmissions, which can be intercepted by just about anyone with a satellite dish. Because of the sensitive nature of Sites' footage, NBC decided to send it out to the pool on a slow but secure Internet-based system, meaning it didn't get out until about 3:30 p.m. Chicago time Monday.

Did this restraint, this investigation, this attempt to "put the piece in context," get the network any pats on the back? It did not. We have here two viewpoints on this, which we will call the Centrist and the Right-Wing. Let's look at the calm, balanced Centrist point first:

Slate columnists:
Owen West and Phillip Carter
Updated Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004, at 10:28 AM PT

A Marine shot an unarmed insurgent in a Fallujah mosque on Saturday. We know this because we saw it. The digital video footage of the shooting—recorded by NBC reporter Kevin Sites, who was embedded with the Marines—is running nearly continuously on cable news channels worldwide.

This case would not exist without Mr. Sites.

Bullshit number 1, dear Centrists. "The case" is the shooting of an unarmed, wounded prisoner. That would exist whether Mr. Sites photographed it or not. What you mean is "this embarrassment" only exists because there is tape of it. As my mother was wont to say in difficult moments, "You're not sorry you did it, you're sorry you got caught." But to continue:

That a young soldier deferred to instinct over the rulebook in combat is unsurprising. What was surprising was the near-instant transmission of a battlefield video around the world, allowing us to witness the actions of one American rifleman.

Bullshit number 2. See Tribune quote above. The networks did NOT put this on the satellite and did NOT air it "instantly" but after two days of dithering, mostly waiting for the battle to be largely over.

But now let's look at the Right-Wing View on the unfortunate matter. They, the 101st Fighting Keyboarders as tBogg calls them, have a low opinion of moral ambiguity. They want swift justice, swift punishment of the guilty.

Of course they don't mean the Marine should be punished! They meay Kevin Sites. According to Jesus' General, who has a vastly stronger stomach than I to read this stuff, here's what they think at Free Republic (get yer own link):

Turn Sites over to the terrorist.
---
No need for anything overt. Unfortunate things happen in combat zones, and if the reporter fails to hear someone yell "Sniper!!", well, c'est la guerre.
---
The US attorney general may be able to charge him with sedition.
---
I wish. This guy Sites shouldn't walk away from this unscathed. Red America wants justice.
---
If the government won't police the press there will come a day when the people will.
---
It better charge Sites, that treasonous bastard!
---
He's an effin traitor. He is aiding the enemy. He should be tried and killed.
---
He sure behaved like a Judas didn't he? He certainly is doing the leg work for our Islamofascist enemies
---
Kevin Sites is a traitor. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with this
---
The Constitution was written for the common man and for Christian's sense of Justice. Common law represents God's law. American Justice may seem rough and crude to you, but it is based on godly liberties. Sites is in a WAR ZONE. He has aided the enemy. If he cared about what was going he should have ran back to the brass...not to MSNBC. He's either looking for a pulitzer or he's effin traitor. Either way...he's done.

Love that "Red America" bit, don't you? "Red: It's Not Just For Commies Any More!" Can you imagine the hissy, spitty fit they'd throw if this was a term "we" had come up with to describe "them"?

Snark aside, it's actually the Slate piece that I find more depressing. It boils down to "Well, this was an awful thing, but These Things Happen in War." Hey guys, after you get done parsing how much really, really worse the Terrorists are, could you turn your fine-tuned Moral Analyzer on the folks who brought the Marine, the reporter and the wounded guys together in that mosque that day?

UPDATE Tinfoil hat time. Hmmm, Kevin Sites showed up on a freeper hate site. Say, didn't Nick Berg's dad show up on one of those too? You know, I'd hate to think that "our" government has some sort of death squad operating, that's taking its names from the freepers. And certainly our Ambassador to Iraq, Negroponte, would know nothing, Nothing! of such activities...Anyhow, if Sites shows up in a video in an orange jumpsuit, you read about it here at Corrente first. —Lambert

And yet, as always, Clinton stays moderate:

"No other president ever had to endure someone like Ken Starr," Clinton said. "No one ever had to try to save people from ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and people in Haiti from a military dictator that was murdering them, and all the other problems I dealt with, while every day an entire apparatus was devoted to destroying him."

The former president said he would go to his grave at peace that, while he had personal failings, he never lied to the American people about his job as president.

Clinton added that he doesn't care about what his detractors think about him. Jennings then said it seemed to him that Clinton did care.

The former president responded, "You don't want to go here, Peter. You don't want to go here. Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every, little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like."

"You never had to live in a time when people you knew and cared about were being indicted, carted off to jail, bankrupted, ruined, because they were Democrats and because they would not lie," he said. "So, I think we showed a lot of moral fiber to stand up to that. To stand up to these constant investigations, to this constant bodyguard of lies, this avalanche that was thrown at all of us. And, yes, I failed once. And I sure paid for it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the American people. And I'm sorry for the embarrassment they performed."

Starr's former chief deputy said Friday he understood the difficulty for Clinton, but added that the bipartisan staff did what they had to do and performed honorably in seeking the truth.
(via San Francisco Chronicle)

"Moderate"? Absolutely. It was a slow-moving media-fueled COUP funded and organized by winger billionaires. So come, Bill. Use the word! "Coup!" Say it!

Okay, this has to be a joke, right? No such luck. Leon Jaroff, writing in Time:

…some four million people annually visit Grand Canyon National Park, marveling at the awesome view. In National Park Service (NPS) affiliated bookstores, they can find literature informing them that the great chasm runs for 277 miles along the bed of the Colorado River. It descends more than a mile into the earth, and along one stretch, is some 18 miles wide, its walls displaying impressive layers of limestone, sandstone, shale, schist and granite.

And, oh yes, it was formed about 4,500 years ago, a direct consequence of Noah’s Flood. How’s that? Yes, this is the ill-informed premise of “Grand Canyon, a Different View,” a handsomely-illustrated volume also on sale at the bookstores. It includes the writings of creationists and creation scientists and was compiled by Tom Vail, who with his wife operates Canyon Ministries, conducting creationist-view tours of the canyon. “For years,” Vail explains, “as a Colorado River guide, I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time span of millions of years. (Most geologists place the canyon’s age at some six million years). Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can’t possibly be more than a few thousand years old.”

...But when Grand Canyon National Park superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale of Vail’s book at canyon bookstores, he was overruled by NPS headquarters, which announced that a high-level policy review of the matter would be launched and a decision made by February, 2004. So far, no official decision has been announced.

Faith-Based Parks?

My bet is the official decision will be that God told them it’s okay to sell it in National Park Service bookstores. Me, I want to go on the creationist-view tour so I can see the exact spot where Noah heaved his cookies when he forgot to take his Dramamine.

Which has, of course, long been a firing offense for radio commentators, as evidenced by the brief, ignominious careers of Messrs. Limbaugh, Savage and the like:
(via Atlanta/AP)

MILWAUKEE — A radio talk show host drew criticism Thursday after calling Condoleezza Rice an "Aunt Jemima" and saying she isn't competent to be secretary of state.

John Sylvester, the program director and morning personality on WTDY-AM in Madison, said in a phone interview Thursday that he used the term on Wednesday's show to describe Rice and other blacks as having only a subservient role in the Bush administration.

Rice has served as President Bush's national security adviser and was named this week to replace the departing Colin Powell as secretary of state.

Sylvester, who is white, also referred to Powell as an "Uncle Tom" — a contemptuous term for a black whose behavior toward whites is regarded as fawning or servile.

He said Thursday night that he was referring to remarks by singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte that the price of admittance for blacks to the Bush White House was subservience.

As for Rice, "they're using her for an illusion of inclusion," he said, adding that he feels her history as national security adviser showed a lack of competence.

He said he was planning a giveaway on Friday's show of Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup. "I will apologize to Aunt Jemima," he said.

As well he should.

Since Bush—with silence, a wink, and a smirk—decreed that torture is now national policy (shamefully abetted (back) by the gutless, feckless Beltway Dems), it was only a matter of time before people a lot lower in the executive branch got the same idea:

A federal prosecutor in Alexandria made a comment last year suggesting that a Falls Church man held in a Saudi Arabian prison had been tortured, according to a sworn affidavit from a defense lawyer that was recently filed in federal court in Washington.

The alleged remark by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D. Kromberg occurred during a conversation with the lawyer, Salim Ali, in the federal courthouse in Alexandria, according to Ali's affidavit. The document was filed Oct. 12 in connection with a petition by the parents of the detained man, Ahmed Abu Ali, who are seeking his release from Saudi custody.

Ahmed Abu Ali, a student from Falls Church, has been held without charge by Saudis since June 2003.

The lawyer stated in the affidavit that he asked Kromberg about bringing Abu Ali back to the United States to face charges so as "to avoid the torture that goes on in Saudi Arabia."

[Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon D.] Kromberg "smirked and stated that 'He's no good for us here, he has no fingernails left,' " Salim Ali wrote in his affidavit, adding: "I did not know how to respond [to] the appalling statement he made, and we subsequently ceased our discussion about Ahmed Abu Ali."
(via WaPo)

Nice, eh?

Oh, and Kromberg did his little bit to help out with the winger coup against Clinton as an Associate Independent Counsel on the Morgan Guananty Trust fiasco. So we already know he has a strong stomach; now strong enough to smirk at acts of torture and make jokes about them.

Of course, it can't happen here. Right? You could ask him, of course, like any citizen:

Gordon D Kromberg
Firm: US Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Virginia
Address: 2100 Jamieson Ave, Alexandria, VA 22314-5794
Phone: (703) 299-3700
Fax: (703) 299-2584

I can't find an email address for Kromberg, or his office. Readers?

"Fighting Democrats" is better. Readers?

At last, we're taking out the mosques!

Iraqi and U.S. troops raided a major Sunni mosque in the capital after Friday prayers, killing or seizing several people, according to local witnesses. Two people were killed and 14 wounded, hospital sources said after national guards backed by U.S. troops tried to storm the Hanifa mosque. Witnesses said worshippers threw shoes at the troops -- a grave insult in Islam -- and soldiers opened fire.
(via Reuters)

Hospitals too! All I want to know is, What took us so long?

The raid on the Zaharawi hospital in Mosul -- Iraq's third-largest city -- was conducted by Iraqi commandos with the Ministry of the Interior's Special Police Force, backed by U.S. troops.
(via WaPo)

And we found an Al Qaeda headquarters? How do we know? They put a big sign on it!

The U.S. troops came across a large house with a sign in Arabic that said "Al-Qaeda Organization," according to footage from a CNN crew embedded with the U.S. Army.
(via Ibid.)

Not for the cameras, right? Of course not!

And best of all, we're forcing the insurgents to make new friends, and the more new friends they make, they more likely they are to make mistakes!

Sattler, the Marine commander, said the Fallujah offensive had "broken the back of the insurgency" in Iraq, disrupting rebel operations across the country.

"Each and every time we can force these individuals to go to new locations, expand their circle of friends -- if you want to call it that -- to include some that they don't know and they don't trust, they'll bring in rookies, more-junior people that will, in fact, make mistakes," he said. "This is going to make it very hard for them to operate."
(WaPo)

More insurgents? That's just more proof that we're winning!

Kill 'em all! That's what great powers do! Let's create our own reality! Freedom's on the march, even if it's untidy! If you're not with us, you're against us! And you know who's against us? Satan! Are you for Satan! You are? Pussy! Und zo weiter ...

UPDATE And there's more good news! The money spigot has finally been turned on!

Of the $18.4 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds allocated by Congress last year, only $1.7 billion has been spent, Hess said, an increase of about $400 million from six weeks ago. He said 873 construction projects have been started, up from 703 six weeks ago. The goal is to have 1,000 started by year's end.
(AP)

See? We've spent $400 million in six weeks, and we haven't even started rebuilding Fallujah and Mosul! Tell that to your panty-waisted Chablis-swilling so-called liberal friends. Pussies.

UPDATE Plus, we're giving them jobs!

insurgent leaders in the area offer cash bounties for killing certain kinds of people: $1,000 for a Shiite, $2,000 for a member of the Iraqi National Guard and $3,000 for an American.
(USA Today)

$3,000?! To your typical rag-head, that's a fortune!

UPDATE Rereading this post, I see that I have become a little, um, unhinged. Look, I'm only saying what everybody's thinking, OK? Pussies.

To follow up on Leah’s post about what’s really going on in iWaq and how we will never really know what’s going on, and links to voices of those who are there… this stinking mess should hang around the neck of Bushco like that Molly Ivins chicken. Here in the hinterlands, people actually believe they know what’s going on with this invasion-occupation because they read the paper or watch teevee, and of course very few listen to public radio, so it’s especially maddening to hear them spew simplistic victory snippets. I guess it’s the same all over, though. Anyway, this bit below is from an interview on Democracy Now with Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist on the scene, kind of shows what’s feeding the SCLM and why we don't hear what's really going on:

Amy Goodman: Which brings up the issue of what kind of news is getting out of there. You have got embedded reporters with the U.S. military, and then the two major Arab satellite networks, Al Arabiya, the reporter detained by the U.S. military, and Al-Jazeera, forbidden to report from Fallujah. Could you explain what's happening and what you know of this Al Arabiya reporter, what has happened to him?

Dahr Jamail: Well, as you mentioned, he did go to Fallujah to try to get inside the city, to report on what was really happening, and he was promptly detained by the military, and he is still being held. That's all the news that we have. He's essentially disappeared at this point, which is the typical case when anyone is detained here. They vanish. There is no contact with them. And so he¹s had - no one has been able to contact him, nor him anyone else. I should add also that as of yesterday, U.S.-backed Prime Minister Allawi made a statement that any Al-Jazeera journalists caught trying to report in Iraq will be detained. So, they remain under the gun, and the media crackdown here has really been beyond belief. They have made announcements prompting media to report, quote-unquote, "accurately," meaning they only want the U.S. military side of the story. And this crackdown on the Arab media has been very pronounced because stations like Al-Jazeera have consistently done a very good job of reporting extremely accurately what is happening here on the ground in Iraq. They do very good war reporting. They do show the graphic images, as they should, because this is a war, and this is what's happening here. This is why they continue to catch so much flack from the United States, particularly Defense Minister Rumsfeld. This is why their office in Baghdad was bombed during the initial invasion of Iraq, even though they specifically gave their coordinates to the Pentagon to avoid that happening. So, it keeps continuing on into the occupation. Of course, when the fighting rages and reports come out that don't play in the best interests of the U.S. military here, or the U.S. government, of course, the hammer gets dropped once again on the media that's doing their job.

His blog: Read Dahr's near daily log from iraq

The Mind of Ted. Dissecting a bigot.

"ted". aka: (Ted) Edward Baiamonte, aka: Ted7000@aol.com, aka: bje1000@aol.com

Author - according to Ted's own weblog banner - of the "classic" American screed "UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICIANS". Presented in all caps. Which makes it that much more of a "classic." Ted also wrote something called "The 91% Factor: why women initiate 91% of divorce", which, as far as I can determine without wasting my time actually reading the damned thing, is essentially some kind of anti-feminist sex obsessed ballyhoo based largely (I suspect) on Ted's own divorce and personal failed matrimonial experience. And therefore amplified (at least in Ted's head) as a (no doubt "classic") standard for all such matters. What has wronged Ted has wronged the world. Or at least 91% of it. Or something like that. See for yourself. - Amazon Books link

Ted wears many masks, at least according to Ted, but if there is one thing Ted definetly is its a kind of grand portmanteaux crammed with all assorment of right-wing squawk radio canards, talking point pop political slogans, buzzphrases, bugaboos, alarmist hot button anti-liberalism causitries, antecdotal historical fantasies, cloud cuckooland economic quackeries, and any number of other looney-tune buzzings scrambling around inside the hollow skull of the Ted like so many little animated bluebirds in a Saturday morning TV cartoon. Ted, you might say, is a kind of Mary Poppins-bag of fantastic right wing props. Or a twittering animated bird brain with baggage issues. Take your pick.

You can wander off and read some of Ted's twitterings at Ted's fabulous weblog "the dumb democrat" HERE. Or take a look at Ted's alternative selection "dumb liberal" HERE. When it comes to birthing clever original names for weblogs Ted is a regular Cagliostro. Likewise, it might be noted that Ted is neither a "liberal" or a "democrat", dumb or not, which brings me back to my earlier contention that Ted is something of a fraud in progress and a liar and a deceptive cad to boot.

Ted the Operator
But make no mistake dear readers, should you engage Ted in conversation, Ted will amuse you with his practiced savoir-faire and seemingly reasonable and friendly-fellow non-confrontational manner. Ted will even shower you with gaudy compliments (as he showered upon me - and for which I genuinely got a big kick out of because I recognize a buttery bullshit artist when I run into one). Ted will maintain this silky posture to the very end. Ted, you see, is one smooth operator. Or at least Ted fancies himself so. Despite the fact that his own half-baked online screechings reveal him to be something of a candidate for the booby hatch, and despite the fact that he refuses to pony up explanations for some of the crank he conjures out of thin air. Ted, you see, is a con man. And like all successfull con men Ted makes his pitch with a howdy-do handshake and a friendly slap on the back while simultaneously drawing a toothy white smile across the face of all things Ted.

For example: Ted, just prior to the election, submitted to Corrente, for our examination, his so titled magnum opus "JOHN KERRY AND THE LEPER COLONY." For greater context you can read the entire diseased ramble HERE.

Within this masterpiece Ted regales the reader with the following little autobiographical slice of traditional family values hokum.

No state is bluer than NY and no place in NY is bluer than NYC. In 1955 my Mom had a very safe domestic policy manifested as follows: when I said, "Mommy what can I do today?" she'd gave me 5 cents and tell me to get a friend and go have an adventure on the subway for the afternoon. Today a mother in NYC would be arrested for the very same domestic policy. What happened?

So I decided to respond to Ted's mailing and ask him how old he was in 1955. Seems like a simple question doesn't it? Well take my word for it... it wasn't. Oh God no! In fact Ted still refuses to provide an answer. And I think I eventually gave it all up after making the request at least a dozen times. Mainly because I already knew how old Ted was. I just wanted to hear him say it himself. (more on that later) Moving along: Ted makes the following observation:

Still, we're all so fortunate to have the cultural elite of Western civilization tucked away safely in their high security NYC buildings where their media, fashion, entertainment publishing, art, social, and political industries and institutions can teach the rest of us farmers how to organize ourselves and get along properly. I just don't understand though why farmers have God and families while a recent US Census lists Manhattan as first in the nation in percentage of single people, followed closely by the Kilauea Leper Colony in Hawaii?

"the rest of us farmers" (?) Hookay. Remember what I said above about Ted being a regular haversack chock full of right wing cliches and canards and so forth? But, despite that, what I also noticed, was that Ted was, according to Ted, apparently, a farmer! Hip hip hooray! I imagined Ted bringing in the Brussels sprouts or standing upon the farm porch, cup of hot freshly brewed farm coffee in hand, squinting steely-eyed, chin forward, eastward into the new day, and wondering what new liberal cultural elitist horror might come galloping out of the rising sun, at any monment, across those amber waves of grain. Ha! Not really. I didn't think of that until now.

You know why? Because I knew that Ted was completely full of crap right up to his ears. I knew that Ted wasn't a farmer (unless he were a BMW farmer from Stamford CT) and I knew that Ted would have been two years old in 1955 when "mommy" supposedly skedaddled little Tedster off to spend the afternoon scrambling around a NYCity subway platform. Which on the face of it would seem to make Ted's "mommy" appear to be something of an irresponsible dolt. Or crazy. Or something like that, since sending a two year old off to play on a subway, even in 1955, strikes me as a tad on the really friggin' stupid side of the third rail. Whatever.

So how did I know that Ted wasn't a farmer and that Ted would have been 2 years old in 1955? Ted said so himself. In the year of our Lord 2000, Ted (aka: bje1000), while apparently in full rut, offered the following biographical information to an online forum:

Anyway, here's a little about myself if I may. I'm 47, in very good shape thanks to many athletic pursuits (recently- skiing, rollerblading, golf, scuba, snow camping, kayaking), very good looking (I hate to say that), MBA, BA, in literature, self-employed with very small businesses in computer software, real-estate, and publishing (just finished writing second book-relationship book- although not an egghead type at all), home owner in Stamford, CT (40 minutes to Grand Central), divorced 8 years after a 20 year marriage. === Ted on Ted

Way to go Ted. See, if Ted were 47 years old in 2000 that means that Ted was born in 1953. Which would make Ted 2 years old in 1955. When I hinted at this possibility in my communications with Ted he refused to deny or confirm his actual age in 1955 and instead did his best to squirm and wiggle and altogether avoid the subject. You know how it goes. Of course Ted could have been lying about his age in the year 2000. Who knows with a guy like Ted.

Ted is also apparently something of a romantic loon (Bill O'Reilly take note!) so don't miss Ted's musings on steamy messages left on bathroom mirrors in the link (Ted on Ted) noted above.

So why am I picking on a pathetic middle aged moon-calf like Ted?
Why am I picking on Ted, tucked away safely up there in his gilded Stamford, CT nest? One of the most culturally elite high security communities in the nation. Because Ted is a hypocrite and a fraud and a liar and a con artist and a noisy right wing busybody bigot windbag. And because I don't like con artists and liars and morally self-righteous busybody bigots one little bit. Call it an occupational hazard which I've had a good deal of experience with in more thrilling times. I can track a road agent like Ted thrashing his way through a thicket and up a holler from a mile or more out. Easily.

Well, anyway, what Ted does is serve up and excitable stew of boing-eyed bogeymen labled "liberals" which he spotlights and amplifies and presents as proof of this or proof of that without actually providing any proof of much of anything.

Hell, Ted won't even clarify how old he is. Ted's rambling excitable gibberish is basically little more than the kind of fear and sneer caterwauling the Ku Klux Klan has engaged in down through the decades. Replace "Jew controled Hollywood" with "liberal controled Hollywood" replace gay marriage equals the collapse of western civilization canard with the old blather all about how western civilization will certainly implode upon itself should the black man be allowed to marry the white woman and blah blah blah blah blah. On and on. Thats basically the entire premise and purpose and scaffolding supporting Ted's seemigly endless feverish old timey ravings.

What Ted Baiamonte cacks up from his little self publishing economic elitist perch in Stamford Connecticut is exactly what David Neiwert describes below:

"... a relentless campaign of hatred and demonization directed at liberals, one specifically geared toward a rural audience." - See: Home is where the hate is

Except of course, Ted, like so many other Ted-bots, really, has no experience at all with rural America. Ted ya see is a perfect example of how the right wing drummer boy operates. Ted is an actual tin soldier in the cause. Marching around banging the hollow drum of skin deep morality and pretending to be something he is not in the hope that it instigates a battle that he can exploit and harvest for his own right wing elitist MBA inspired cheap labor conservative based ideological economic and political gain. For Ted the means justify the ends. As long as Ted wins! As long as Ted and the cult of Ted gets a share of the political party power boodle. For the sake of Ted of course.

No wonder hes divorced.

Ted the pedophile!!!!
CLASSIC TED - latest - hot off the wire - TED citing!!!!! ~ Ted is now pretending to be a gay teenager who looks like a movie star!:

From: Ted (TED7000@aol.com)
Subject: Male/16 Needing Help
This is the only article in this thread
View: Original Format
Newsgroups: alt.personals.gay
Date: 2004-11-05 14:00:03 PST

Hello...My name is Ted and I just got my first computer. I am gay but I have not told anybody and I want to reach out and try to find somebody to talk to. My sister tells me I look like Brad Pitt and I have a computer camera but I need help trying to set it up. I would like to show you what I look like but I don't know how it is done. I just turned 16 and am pretty scared of all this.

Thanks, Ted === HERE

Amazing ain't it? Ted has no shame or moral constitution at all. He's a pathological liar and a hooded creep to boot. A lonely fifty year old+ man attempting to lure gay teenagers into some online conversation so he can do what? Question them about their butt-holes? Well, only Ted knows.

By the way, if you'd like to read Ted's spooky Nazi-like morally vapid justification for genocide you can read it here:

Americans need to get over their squeamishness about bombing so called "innocent people" when there really are no innocent people. If we killed every person in Afghanistan we would have killed Bin Laden and the Taliban and eliminated a great part of our enemy and scared the rest. We hesitate only because the so called "innocent" are in the way." Their very presence obscures and hides and sustains our target. They our the enemies life line; they are the enemy. Yes, perhaps Bin Laden the tumor can be taken out by a Special Forces surgical strike but that does not mean the cancer won't grow back even more experienced and virulently or that it can be done before the anthrax spraying begins, before vaccines are available, and before business can produce other safety equipment. In sum, we need to teach the world and ourselves that there are no innocent people. === HERE

I have captured Ted. So study Ted. He's really a pretty simple specimen. A kind of spoon fed text book example of the right wing carrier pigeon. Pick the yicky bastard apart yourself. One hollow bone at a time and toss the leftovers to the wind when you're done.

If you'd like to more closely examine the specimen Ted (going back several years) simply go to Google, select "Groups" on the tab and type in = "Ted7000" or "bje1000" and follow the evolutionary development of Ted for yourself. Then...

Go knock over Ted's cheap scaffolding and watch Ted cry like the girly mandated pantysniffing attack pussy he truely is.

******
TED SPAM WARNING: if any of you decide to venture forth and leave a comment in the commnet threads of a Ted weblog -- BE WARNED -- if you leave your email address Ted may spam you with his Tedisms forever and ever. Asking Ted to stop spamming you will be fruitless. Take my word for it.

*

girly mandate is propagating.

Try for yourself—it's number one!

Of course, there aren't that many hits... But if maybe if we all pray hard enough....

NOTE Bush mandate is still going strong. I hope lots and lots of wingers are "feeling lucky." And the new cover gives a whole new, um, dimension to the phrase "budget package," doesn't it....

UPDATE Ezra at Pandagon writes:

Most all political magazine writing happens in DC (save Mother Jones in San Francisco and The Nation in New York), and that shared perspective tamps down on distinct voices and eccentric viewpoints. Some of the most dead-on and worthwhile pundits of the past few years (Ivins, Hightower, Frank, Moore) have emerged and found themselves necessary precisely because their vantage point is so far from the DC norm. Meanwhile, the political media in DC used their influence to demand the sort of campaigns that'd appeal to them and their idea of America, and, despite the Kerry campaign making a pretty good effort to do as they were told, woke up on November 3rd and began telling the Kerry campaign that they'd failed to connect with the heartland.

Well, not to turn into a marketing weasel or anything, but I'd like to believe that this kind of "distinct voice" "far from the DC norm" is exactly the kind of writing we do at Corrente. Enjoy DC, Ezra...And be sure to bring your big, big hipboots!

Especially unofortunate if you think you're fighting Satan. Anyhow:

Senior Marine intelligence officers in Iraq are warning that if American troop levels in the Falluja area are significantly reduced during reconstruction there, as has been planned, insurgents in the region will rebound from their defeat. The rebels could thwart the retraining of Iraqi security forces, intimidate the local population and derail elections set for January, the officers say.

They have further advised that despite taking heavy casualties in the weeklong battle, the insurgents will continue to grow in number, wage guerrilla attacks and try to foment unrest among Falluja's returning residents, emphasizing that expectations for improved conditions have not been met.

The pessimistic analysis is contained in a seven-page classified report prepared by intelligence officers in the First Marine Expeditionary Force, or I MEF, last weekend as the offensive in Falluja was winding down. The assessment was distributed to senior Marine and Army officers in Iraq, where one officer called it "brutally honest."
(via Times)

Brutally honest?!?!? Arrest that man! He has traduced Dear Leader, God's Annointed Representative On This Earth!

So, will Bush nominate this man for Chief Justice?

When he was asked by a member of the audience whether he would like to revisit his decision in 2000 the Al Gore/George W. Bush election dispute, Scalia cut off the questioner, saying, "I'm inclined to say it's been four years and an election. Get over it." That drew loud boos from the crowd.

"The issue is not whether the decision should have been decided in the Florida or U.S. supreme courts, but that the Constitution had been violated. ... The only decision was to put an end to it after three weeks and looking like fools to the rest of the world," Scalia said. "It was too much of a mess. The equal-protection clause had been violated because they were counting votes differently. What did you expect us to do, not take the case because it wasn't important enough?"
(via Detroit News)

"Looking like fools to the rest of the world"... Man, we looked pretty good back in 2000, didn't we? I mean, by comparison to now....

"Get a room!"

And how does the lump in the bed feel? Let alone the goat?

Remember how we all thought it was amazing that anyone could vote for Bush—but couldn't understand how anyone could possibly be undecided? Well, here's one answer....

[In the New Republic, Chris] Hayes portrays undecided voters as so fatalistic that Bush's manifold failures only confirm their conviction that the world's problems are intractable, a conviction that worked against Kerry's promises to fix things. He paints them as weirdly irrational, possessed of chimerical "facts," and unable to connect politics to material outcomes.

More disturbing still is Hayes' portrayal of the odd lacuna in voters' understanding of what a political issue even is. "As far as I could tell, the problem wasn't the word 'issue'; it was a fundamental lack of understanding of what constituted the broad category of the 'political,' he writes. "The undecideds I spoke to didn't seem to have any intuitive grasp of what kinds of grievances qualify as political grievances. Often, once I would engage undecided voters, they would list concerns, such as the rising cost of health care; but when I would tell them that Kerry had a plan to lower health-care premiums, they would respond in disbelief -- not in disbelief that he had a plan, but that the cost of health care was a political issue. It was as if you were telling them that Kerry was promising to extend summer into December."

The depressing upshot of this is that Democrats can't make headway by configuring their policies. In the end, Hayes sees only two options: "either abandon 'issues' as the linchpin of political campaigns and adopt the language of values, morals, and character as many have suggested; or begin the long-term and arduous task of rebuilding a popular, accessible political vocabulary -- of convincing undecided voters to believe once again in the importance of issues." In other words, find a demagogue or educate the country -- either way, Democrats have their work cut out for them.
(via Salon)

Hmmm... I'm not sure it's either/or. Clinton could talk both issues and morals, in a vocabulary anyone could understand (one of the many reasons the wingers had to destroy him). And someone like, oh, Barack Obama could too...

Or, for that matter, Howard Dean. His idea that "you have the power" attacks the fatalism directly (one of the many reasons the political class had to destroy him).

But Patrick Leahy? From Vermont?? He must actually believe it's possible to do business with the Republicans—or he believes what he's saying. Either way, it's frightening:

"[Senator] Leahy quickly added he didn't consider Gonzales to be a right-wing barbarian and said it was smart for the president not to choose a nominee that would have alarmed Democrats.

" 'Judge Gonzales is no Attila the Hun; he's far from that, and he's a more uniting figure,' Leahy said. 'The president could have picked a polarizing figure; he did not. I applaud him for that.'
(via WaPo)

"Please, sir, I want some more."

A uniting figure? The man who wrote the memos justifying Bush's policy of torture? The man who wrote the memo that said Bush has the "inherent authority" to set aside the law—in secret? Gonzales is, indeed, no Attilla the Hun, since Attilla was no professional. Albert Speer, perhaps?

Thank God the CIA is going to get more aggressive! I can hardly wait!

CIA Director Porter Goss told his new chief of spy operations this week to launch a much more aggressive espionage campaign that would use undercover officers to penetrate terrorist groups and hostile governments such as North Korea and Iran, according to a senior U.S. official with direct knowledge of Goss' plans.
(via US Today)

Of course, this would be a lot easier if we hadn't fired all the gay translators....

Anyhow, Goss being a Republican, this is probably all disinformation anyhow—a publicity stunt while they gear up for Bush's domestic agenda.

Nice rant:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

...

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

And the beauty part? It's all true.

Anyone like to bet on what will be the response to a report from a "Berkeley Research Team," that there is sufficient warning evidence, (think "smoke alarm"), to justify further inquiry into the Florida vote results?

Let's see; besides the report eminating from Berkeley, generally considered one of the world's top university, but also as a hotbed of mindless liberalism, there's the fact that it is based on statistical analysis of e-voting machines, rather than hardcore evidence, like, say, a paper trail. Here's the logline for the story:

UC Berkeley Research Team Sounds 'Smoke Alarm' for Florida E-Vote Count
Statistical Analysis - the Sole Method for Tracking E-Voting - Shows Irregularities May Have Awarded 130,000 - 260,000 or More Excess Votes to Bush in Florida
Research Team Calls for Investigation

You can find the rest of the story here. Basically it appears to be a university press release, and even more suspicious, it's to be found on CommonDreams, which has the temerity to even call itself "progressive."

Enjoy it while you can, unencombered by the negative spin meant to put such findings in their place, the nearest dumpster, by the "fair and balanced" SCLM.

To round up the outrages we hollered about over pre-chores coffee today, in no particular order:

So I see in an article by Jonathan Schell that the NYT says that "The offensive also shut down what officers said was a propaganda weapon for the militants: Falluja General Hospital, with its stream of reports of civilian casualties." “Shut down” as in “Bombed to rubble.” So that “propaganda” about who goes to hospital can’t come out. Bottom line: nobody knows how many were killed, or how many that were killed were “insurgents.” And while we're at it, what’s the difference between an “insurgent” and some pissed off person trying to protect their home—how is that differentiation made? Jonathan Schell puts it this way: “No men of military age were permitted to leave during the attack. Remaining civilians were trapped in their apartments with no electricity or water. No one knows how many of them have been killed, and no official group has any plans to find out.” "Tomgram: Schell, The Battle for Minds (Forget the Hearts)"

Latest news is the UN wants to investigate the possibility of war crimes in Falluja. Might be a good time to drop a line to Danforth and tell him that would be a really good idea, with a cc to Kofi Annan. Oh, and now it’s happening in Mosul, too.

Can we please at least be united in our horror and anger? (And please don’t preach to me about the troops not being responsible for the kidnappings and murders—I understand the concept of cause and effect... see The Star for example…)

On the election fraud front, Greg Palast and Farhad Manjoo are having a tiff about whether or not Kerry actually won Ohio. But it’s a silly argument—they both agree that the election was a mess. Totally FUBAR, er, goshdarned. Their disagreement is whether or not that means Kerry had enough votes to win. A recount will tell that, but only if it’s fair, and it likely won’t be. The real issue is the undisputed fact that election officials in Ohio (and Florida, and elsewhere) botched the election process. And I personally have no doubt that it was deliberate—remember the usefulness of the Fog Machine? Toss enough shit up in the air and it starts to look like, well, golly, there’s so much shit in the air, it’s so complicated to figure out, questioning it’s just one of those silly left-wing crybaby conspiracies. Blackwell, et. al. know that the American public and the SCLM pablum-feeders don’t have time for subtleties. Watch for this same tactic over and over again. New Hampshire will be next. And they aren’t done counting in New Mexico, either.

A girl who busted her ass for Kerry around here, even though she was a Green and thought he was a sellout, just did it to help save her country from Bush, sent me this link, she said it matched her feelings and I don’t know what to think: Now Is Not the Time For National Unity!

Where does this leave us? Hmmm:

Mokhiber: Kofi Annan in September said that the Iraq war is an illegal war. If it is an illegal war, then the 100,000 who have died there – according to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health – are victims of war crimes. Now, the President is going to Canada later this year. And the largest circulation newspaper in Canada (the Toronto Star) printed a column yesterday titled “Should Canada Indict Bush?” – raising the question of a war crimes prosecution. They have a war crimes law in Canada. And I’m wondering –

Scott McLellan: Do you have a question or is it just a statement of opinion?

Mokhiber: No, this is the question. Has the White House counsel looked at the President’s legal exposure to a war crimes prosecution?

Scott McLellan: It is a ridiculous question that you bring up. You were out on the Nader campaign at the time that this issue came up. It was addressed at that time. And I’m not going to go through it again. more...

Ridiculous, is it?

I'm afraid Josh can scratch one off. My weasely congressman, Sam Graves, voted for the DeLay rule. I called his office and the staff person on the phone admitted it -- rather sheepishly I might add. The staff person tried to argue that the Republican caucus was just "updating" an "outdated" rule from the Contract With (On) America. Right.

I'm sure Sam's vote had nothing to do with the fact that Sam got $30,000 in campaign funds from Tom DeLay's PACs now, would it?

Of course not. Perish the thought.

If you want to know more about the thuggish tactics of weasely Sam Graves, go here.

Yes, yes, Sam's also the genius that got the money to study Goths for the Blue Springs school district -- and there weren't any Goths in Blue Springs.

That's all. Move along.

The multimillion dollar celebrity cable nooze wowsers and their right wing think tank pilot fish are of course whooping up the big wind over the recent airing of some silly assed television commercial for some silly assed television program which depicts some silly assed towel drop and a white huntstress leaping like some ravenous minx into the muscular arms of a blackamoor sports warrior! Oh the outrage! Oh, as Aaron Brown dramatically testified (really, they actually say this kind of shit on cable TV.), on behalf of a sixteen year old: "they are taking our childhood away!"

Whew. Jeepers.

Recall here also the Great Nipple Super Scare of 2004. Oh, the outrage! Oh, the fragile foundations of western civilization itself are quivering under the onslaught of such monstrous deparvity. The mind reels. Not since the white goddess Edwina Booth, mostly almost nekkid and surrounded by mostly almost nekkid pygmies - and plunked in a jungle clearing as drums thunder in the background and the great white hunter Trader Horn is summoned to the rescue and so on and so on... has western civilization balanced on the brink. The outrage.

Oh sure.

Hey, remember back in the good old days when "they were taking our childhood away" that time? Before we had gone "stark raving mad!", as some scoldpottle dolt from the Heritage Foundation explained to Aaron Brown on CNN.

Remember back when spartan hot-pants clad Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders were shaking their sunny southern exposures and bodacious Sunday afternoon super-dupers before our collective boing-eyed TV glazed beamers? Bursting forth with bulging cleavage dazzling enchantment and leggy high kicking Calvinist Cowboy verve? Remember them good ol' days?

And every good ol' boy Baptist-dunked football whoopster from Texarkana to Texico was declaring such gaudy displays of Lone Star red blooded Christian born and hair-sprayed American sideline cheesecake an inspirational spoke in the great wheel of our national cultural life. And by extension a televised celebration of manly virility and Super Bowl victory and the glory of God itself. And every rutting testosterone doped sixteen year old red blooded Gawd-ferrin' young'n worth his salt struck out for the glamourous bright lights of the shiny new shoppin' mall to fantasize about the pantyhosed department store manikins and ultimately lay claim to his very own 24x36 inch full-bleed color poster-photo tribute to the purity of feminine essence and the full bosomed bleach blond champions of "America's Team". Which was proudly tacked like a glossy trophy to the back of a bedroom closet door. Oh the outrage. By God and country and motherhood and the NFL -- oh the outrage.

Remember? (snicker wink snicker) Remember that televised climax of "Red State" patriotic Cowboy Americana? Way back when. Remember that great theft of our "childhood" (oh the outrage!) by the darlings of Dallas? Before we all went "stark raving mad!" Back when boys will be boys and hey...hows a little sporting peek at some smooth glistening milk-fed thigh or silicone ta-ta gonna hurt little junior anyways? Huh? Take a hike whiny liberal feminist political correctness types. Remember all that then? Golly Jesus, almost makes a patriot long for the good old days now don't it?

And how about mommy's disturbingly weird TV soap operas? How about those slutty idiotic yarns? When are the cable TV nooze wowsers and think tank culture war harpies going to swoop down on that bordello of daytime smut? Huh? Soon I hope.

Meanwhile, somewhere on the fringes of forgotten moral reality:



Well, fuck... who cares about that ugliness? As long as they don't show it on our glowing virtue spewing fully clothed TV screen. Afterall, Aaron Brown, you sniveling cable-hag girly mandated coward, we wouldn't want to rob some sixteen year old of their childhood - now would we? Aaron?

Oh the outrage.

*

Lots of interesting ideas about connecting in the last day or two. I like RDF's idea about musical house parties. Believe it or not, people used to make their own music in this country. They could sing and play instruments and everything. Now, of course, we have corporations who do that for us.

And Xan's idea of joining the NRA is brilliant. I make this statement totally without irony. Join it, subvert it... And heck, is the skillset they have on offer such a bad thing to have?

And I think a healthy (i.e., a non-corporate) relation between city and country is key. Buying food at farmers' markets is one thing I do. It's a small step—all farms can't grow arugala or organic vegetables or whatever—but it's a real step. There are probably others....

It's also—while thinking of non red/blue ways to classify the country, like city/country—amazing how blue the blue states are. Blue as in blue water, that is. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts are blue. The Great Lakes (including, as some do, Lake Champlain) are blue. And the Ohio and the Mississippi are battlegrounds. Seems like taking care of our waters makes the blue citadels stronger—but also benefits the country as a whole, since clean water helps everyone.

Santorum:

"I think everyone knows that I have been a supporter of Sen. Specter throughout this process, in his re-election," Santorum said. "I expect him to keep his commitments, to move judges out of committee, and to be an advocate of the president in getting those judges passed."
(via AP)

The Constitution:

[Article II, Section 2, Clause 2: He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

Sheesh. It's almost like Santorum thinks a Senator is like Bush's, um, dog or something, isn't it...

And a chance to show some Christmas spirit!

From the other side of the pond:

Bakers of mince pies, Christmas puddings and other traditional British treats have been warned that they might be facing a lard-free Christmas this year.
(via AP)

So, um, Rush? Are you up for it? Helping the Brits out with their shortage?

I can't imagine ....

Telling consumers where their meat, fruit and vegetables came from seemed such a good idea to U.S. ranchers and farmers in competition with imports that Congress two years ago ordered the food industry to do it. But meatpackers and food processors fought the law from the start, and newly emboldened Republicans now plan to repeal it before Thanksgiving.

As part of the 2002 farm bill, country-of-origin labeling was supposed to have gone into effect this fall. Congress last year postponed it until 2006. Now, House Republicans are trying to wipe it off the books as part of a spending bill they plan to finish this month.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said he expected the Senate to agree to repealing the measure, whose main champion two years ago was Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

"I can't find any real opposition to doing exactly what we want to do here," Blunt said.
(via AP)

Weird. Seems like the Red States elected these guys, then get kicked right in the teeth by the guys they elected. WTF?

I mean, all things considered, wouldn't I really rather help out an American farm by buying American beef?

Interesting discussion down in Comments on Lambert's Goodnight Moon and the link to the Orcinus piece (which I must admit I haven't read yet.) Here's one strategy we might think about, and it even has some points of use in cities:

(via LATimes)

Almost nine months before, I had put down my name and my deposit on the wait list for a hybrid car. Did I say wait? This wasn't a wait, it was a gestation.

Then I got the call: Congratulations, it's a Prius. The night before I picked it up, I did a television news gig. I ran into a friend who works at the station, and I told her how excited I was about the Prius. A Republican political aide, whose boss had been on TV with me, heard us. "Huh," he said sarcastically. "Does it come with a Kerry sticker?"

It made me wonder: When did conserving — saving — gasoline, or anything else, become something those awful liberals do? When did big SUVs and bigger federal deficits redefine "conservative"? When did conservatives start mocking conservation?

The original Mr. Conservation Republican being unavailable, I turned instead to his great-grandson, TRIV — Theodore Roosevelt IV. [snip] When I told him of the politico's snarky remark about my green-mobile, he said: "What an offensive reaction that is: 'I know you're right morally, so I'll sneer at you.' " [snip]

The original meaning of "conservative," he went on, has been dumped like an ashtray emptied out a car window. "It's no longer used even in economic terms. Conservatives are saying 'Have budget deficits, spend money, don't worry about the future,' " and applying " 'conservative' … almost exclusively to family values or social issues."

Blue states could make common cause with greenies in red states by demonstrating that it's about protecting ourselves not just from terrorism but from our own feckless carelessness and a dollar democracy that equates citizenship with throwaway consumerism.

I've heard people suggest that we join the NRA en masse, in part to establish credentials for the future and some implication of "taking over from the inside" in the matter of rational gun control. Not sure I'm on board with that one yet, but let's drag some of these ideas out on the rug and let the cats sniff 'em.

This just in:

Scientists say running shaped early humans

And the best line in the article?

“If natural selection did not favor running, the scientists believe humans would still look a lot like apes.”

These scientists obviously haven’t gotten a good look at the preznit lately, huh?

Just wondering, since the Toronto Star’s Thomas Walkom asks:

Should Canada Indict Bush?

When U.S. President George W. Bush arrives in Ottawa — probably later this year — should he be welcomed? Or should he be charged with war crimes?

It's an interesting question. On the face of it, Bush seems a perfect candidate for prosecution under Canada's Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

This act was passed in 2000 to bring Canada's ineffectual laws in line with the rules of the new International Criminal Court. While never tested, it lays out sweeping categories under which a foreign leader like Bush could face arrest.

In particular, it holds that anyone who commits a war crime, even outside Canada, may be prosecuted by our courts. What is a war crime? According to the statute, it is any conduct defined as such by "customary international law" or by conventions that Canada has adopted.
War crimes also specifically include any breach of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, such as torture, degradation, wilfully depriving prisoners of war of their rights "to a fair and regular trial," launching attacks "in the knowledge that such attacks will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians" and deportation of persons from an area under occupation.

Outside of one well-publicized (and quickly squelched) attempt in Belgium, no one has tried to formally indict Bush. But both Oxfam International and the U.S. group Human Rights Watch have warned that some of the actions undertaken by the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Iraq, may fall under the war crime rubric.

The case for the prosecution looks quite promising. First, there is the fact of the Iraq war itself. After 1945, Allied tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo — in an astonishing precedent — ruled that states no longer had the unfettered right to invade other countries and that leaders who started such conflicts could be tried for waging illegal war...

and there's more at Should Canada Indict Bush?

Ohhhh, me hearties, I know it’ll never happen, but wouldn’t it be too, too great? Picture it: A group of Mounties descends on King George as soon as he disembarks from AF-1, guns drawn, reads the arrest warrant, puts a bag over his head, and claps him in cuffs. Condi looks on in horror and runs after him screaming, “No! Not my husb, er—boss!” and she must be sedated and taken to hospital. Laura, following Condi out, asks for political asylum. The PM refuses to budge—no bail pending trial, but he will allow George to have a lawyer.

To piggyback off of Tom's post here, I have two links to offer to this discussion.

The first is a discussion in The Nation by James K. Galbraith, not to be confused with his father Kenneth J. Galbraith, since both are distinguished humanist economists who write uncommonly well.

Please note in reading the piece that Galbraith closed up shop, he teaches in Texas and writes for Salon and other publications, to go himself to do grassroots GOTV work in Ohio. He is doubtful that Kerry was robbed, and carefully and respectfully explains why. He doesn't doubt that the way we conduct elections is a national shame. His answer, voting by mail, is one I question, primarily because my earliest awareness of what I have always concieved of as our national civic religion, came from accompanying my parents to the neighborhood polling place, run by lovely women we all knew; walking into a voting booth and the act of voting retains its thrilling power for me. But perhaps Prof. Galbraith is right, and modern technology has moved us beyond the point where it makes sense for voting to remain a public experience. You can find the article here.

My second link is to a DU forum that exhibits a post from Bev Harris herself, providing an update straight from Volusia County, plus a discussion thereof. As you all may know, DU links sometimes disappear; be assured this is a working link as I post it now.

Keith Olbermann continues to write about the Ohio Recount. If you want to read an (overly) optimistic calculation as to whether this recount could change the winner in Ohio, go read this post at DailyKos.

It is amazing how little coverage this is getting in the press. I'm always amazed when our media decides to "protect us" from icky things like the guy who they've projected as winning the election actually didn't win the election.

I'm still not quite sure what to make of all of this. As someone who thinks the time for the Electoral College has passed (waaay back in the election of 1876), I can't get very excited about finding a way to win the presidency when you've already clearly lost the popular vote.

I've tried folks. I really have. I just can't do it.

In the immortal words of Casey Stengel: "Can't anyone here play this game?"

The attempted suicide Monday outside the White House was that of a Yemeni man who was an FBI informant on terrorism, and it has complicated a federal prosecution in Brooklyn of a suspected financier of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

The informant, identified by defense attorneys as Mohamed Alanssi, 52, set himself on fire after he wrote letters to the news media and the FBI about his growing despondency as a confidential witness.

He is a crucial government witness against Mohammed Ali Hassan Al-Moayad and Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, both of whom were extradited from Germany in 2003 to stand trial on charges they gave support to terrorist groups al-Qaida and Hamas. Both defendants are being held without bail in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Sunset Park.
(via Newsday)

The rest of the Newsday story has plenty of information from the defense on issues of the case in which Alanssi was a witness...

But sheesh! FBI informants setting themselves on fire? WTF? There's no possible scenario where this could be the right thing to happen. Start with the idea that it's just barely possible that the FBI may have a little more trouble recruiting informants—at a time when human intelligence is desperately needed.

I'm sure whichever higher-up who let this happen will be held accountable [cough].

So, where the heck are all the leaks from those fired CIA guys? Surely they kept the best stuff back?

UPDATE The ever-essential Orcinus has fine post on rural (Red) America. But what do I know? The closest I come to rural America is buying meat and potatoes from the Amish at the Reading Terminal Market (though buying my food from family farmers isn't a bad way to relate to rural America, come to think of it). I'd be interested to see what our other writers, some of whom are a lot more rural than I am, in Center City Philly, think about what Orcinus said.

Here.

Remember, these people are serious.

UPDATE Caption from alert reader Nancy. Readers—other suggestions for a caption?

Here's some snappy dialog:

"He's fucking faking he's dead," he says. A second replies: "Yeah, he's breathing." The first marine repeats: "He's faking he's fucking dead." At this point the footage shows the marine point his automatic rifle at the wounded man. Though US and British networks stopped the film here, the sound of a gunshot can be heard, followed by a voice saying: "He's dead now."
(via Independent)

Of course, the true obscenity is that the higherups who put these Marines into this battlefield will never, ever pay for their crimes. Woe to you, hypocrites, Pharisees!

Alert reader taco cabana writes:

is there any way to introduce a bill into congress that would hold companies and organizations that deny that global warming is due to man's industriousness liable for any damages that should occur from climate change once all the studies once again reaffirm that global warming is due to man?

just kinda a symbolic gesture to underscore how the monied interests use our social and governmental structure to constantly socialize risks and costs while privatizing gains....

I rather like this idea. The beauty part is this: The Republicans can vote for it, since, according to them, there's no global warming, so there won't be any liability! And if they oppose it, well, that means there's global warming, doesn't it? Heh heh.

And what goes around, comes around. Heh.

House Republicans were contemplating changing their rules in order to allow members indicted by state prosecutors to remain in a leadership post...

That's our "moral values" party at work, showing every ounce of the class we know and love them for!

....a move designed to benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates, GOP leaders said today.

A purely hypothetical and extremely remote possibility, bien sur, since all of DéLay's dealings have been highly legitimate.

Republicans tonight were considering several proposed changes to the 1993 rules. One of them, proposed by Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.), would apply only to leaders indicted by a state prosecutor or grand jury. A party leader indicted by a federal court would have to step down at least temporarily. The GOP conference, however, could waive that restriction at any time. Bonilla's proposal will be among several rules changes that House Republicans will vote on in a closed meeting Wednesday.

"Congressman Bonilla's rule change is designed to prevent political manipulation of the process while preserving the original ethical principles of the rule," said Bonilla spokeswoman Taryn Fritz Walpole.

Wow. I really have to pause to savor that one. "Preserving the ethical principles of the rule." [cough]

Asked whether he supported the change, Hastert told reporters, "that's going to be the will of the conference and we'll see what happens."

Too bad. After Bush decided the Cheney heart attack thing wouldnn't fly (yet), Hastert's still stuck in the House—and we know what kind of a "house" it is, don't we—and doesn't get to be Vice President! Chorus: Awwww!

A Texas grand jury in September indicted three of DeLay's political associates on charges of using a political action committee to illegally collect corporate donations and funnel them to Texas legislative races.

The Texans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, known as TRMPAC, is closely associated with DeLay. DeLay has said he has not acted improperly and has no reason to believe he is a target of the grand jury, which continues to look into the matter.

The House ethics committee on Oct. 6 admonished DeLay for asking federal aviation officials to track an airplane involved in the highly contentious 2003 redistricting battle, and for conduct that suggested political donations might influence legislative action. The ethics panel deferred action on a complaint related to TRMPAC, noting that the grand jury has not finished its work.

The Texas investigation is headed by Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat who has been bitterly criticized by DeLay supporters. Cantor today called Earle's efforts "a witch hunt."

House Republicans in 1993 -- trying to underscore the ethics problems of Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), then-chairman of the Ways and Means Committee -- adopted the rule that requires a party leader to surrender his or her post
(via WaPo)

But now the jackboot's on the other foot, isn't it?

Oh my. Let's not talk about the facts of the case. Let's froth and stamp and change the rules.

Typical Republicans. Sad, sad, sad.

I was trying to remember why all of this sounds so familiar, and then realized that I’d read it all before, lived through it all before. A friend sent me the article and link, and I post it here, but I didn't follow the link to source. Reading it gave me a sort of a dys-deja-vu, and pissed me off so badly I'm still shaking. Of course, the two scenarios are nothing alike, as we are reminded by the smart people. Shit, you can substitute names and places and it's EXACTLY the same. The only thing history teaches us is that history teaches us nothing. I quote at length because, well, dammit, it’s worth reading, and I probably won’t post again for awhile because the nausea makes it hard to see the screen:

Originally published in Liberation Magazine - "From "American Atrocities in Vietnam," by Eric Norden - February, 1966. The monthly magazine "Liberation" (1956-1977) was founded, published, and edited by David Dellinger from 1956-1975 out of New York and continued as a collective left publication until 1977. This is one of the earliest systematic accounts of the human consequences of the war and is based largely on public sources.

In the bitter controversy over our Vietnamese policies which has raged across the nation since the President's decision last February to bomb North Viet-Nam, there is only one point which supporters of U.S. policy will concede to the opposition: the sheer, mindnumbing horror of the war. Despite the barrage of official propaganda, reports in the American and European press reveal that the United States is fighting the dirtiest war of its history in Viet-Nam. The weapons in the American arsenal include torture, systematic bombing of civilian targets, the first use of poison gas since World War One, the shooting of prisoners and the general devastation of the Vietnamese countryside by napalm and white phosphorus. Not since the days of the American Indian wars has the United States waged such unrelenting warfare against an entire people.

The Vietnamese peasant is caught in a vicious vise by U.S. "pacification" tactics. If he stays in his village he may die under U.S. fire; if he flees before the advancing troops he may still be rounded up, and shot on the spot as an "escaping VietCong."

"The sweat-soaked young Leatherneck stood over the torn body of a Viet Cong guerrilla with mixed emotions flitting over his face. For Cpl. Pleas David of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, it was a day he would never forget. David had just killed his first man. 'I felt kind of sorry for him as I stood there,' said David, a lanky 17-year-old. 'And he didn't even have a weapon.' . . ." The unarmed "Viet-Cong" was walking along a paddy dike when the four Marines approached him with leveled guns. The frightened Vietnamese saw the guns and threw himself on the ground. As the Marines ran towards him he jumped up and tried to escape. "I let him get 250 yards away and then dropped him with two shots from my M-1," the A.P. quotes the young Marine, adding "The man had been hit squarely in the back. No weapons were found with him. . . ." The Marine was congratulated by his buddies. "Maybe the Viet-Cong will learn some respect for marksmanship. When we see them we hit them," one boasted. Another declared that " David is a good example. . . . Don't think we are killers. We are Marines." (New York Post, April 30, 1965.)

It is official U.S. military policy to shoot and ask questions later. Thus, in an operation thirty-five miles outside of Saigon, U.S. troops rushed a peasant shack believed to harbor VietCong. One U.S. Lieutenant hurled a grenade through the door but the inhabitants tossed it back out. According to the A.P., "Another American soldier charged the shack, pulled the pin on a grenade and gave the fuse a few seconds count-down before pitching it in. Following the explosion the G.I. leaped into the shack with his M-14 rifle blazing. Three men and a baby died. Two women were wounded. Shrapnel took off the lower half of one woman's leg." (November 16, 1965.)

Not all G.I.'s enjoy making war on women and children. Some have written agonized letters home. Marine Cpl. Ronnie Wilson, 20, of Wichita, Kansas, wrote the following letter to his mother:

Mom, I had to kill a woman and a baby. . . . We were searching the dead Cong when the wife of the one I was checking ran out of a cave. . . . I shot her and my rifle is automatic so before I knew it I had shot about six rounds. Four of them hit her and the others went into the cave and must have bounced off the rock wall and hit the baby. Mom, for the first time I felt really sick to my stomach. The baby was about two months old. I swear to God this place is worse than hell. Why must I kill women and kids? Who knows who's right? They think they are and we think we are. Both sides are losing men. I wish to God this was over.

But those American G.I.'s who react with shock and horror to their bloody mission are a distinct minority. Most American soldiers in Viet-Nam do not question the orders that lead them to raze villages and wipe out men, women and children for the "crime" of living in Viet-Cong-controlled or infiltrated areas. Extermination of the (non-white) enemy is to them a dirty but necessary job, and few grumble about it. Some have even come to enjoy it. Warren Rogers, Chief Correspondent in Viet-Nam for the Hearst syndicate, reports that:

There is a new breed of Americans that most of us don't know about and it is time we got used to it. The 18 and 19 year-olds, fashionably referred to as high-school dropouts, have steel in their backbones and maybe too much of what prize fighters call the killer instinct. These kids seem to enjoy killing Viet-Cong. . . . (New York Journal-American, September 16, 1965.)

Of course, war has always been described as evil, but does this mean that America must add to it? Our military advisers teach Vietnamese modern techniques of killing each other. Our weapons aid in more thorough destruction of themselves. Rather than liberating a people, it seems that these techniques and weapons result in innocent civilians, women, and children being beaten, burned and murdered. . . .

More than any other single factor, our air war in Viet-Nam is turning the rest of the world against the United States.

All war, of course, is hell. There is no such thing as a "clean war," in Viet-Nam or anywhere else. But even in warfare there are certain observable norms of decency which cannot be disregarded. These were laid down after World War Two in the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, under which the Nuremberg Trials of top Nazi civilian and military leaders were held. Our actions in Viet-Nam fall within the prohibited classifications of warfare set down at Nuremberg under Article 6 which reads: The following acts, or any of them, are crimes coming within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal for which there shall be individual responsibility:
a.) Crimes against peace: namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing.
b.) War crimes: namely, violations of the laws or customs of war . . . plunder of public property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity.
c.) Crimes against humanity: namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before, or during the war. . . .

Under the provisions of Article 6 the United States is clearly guilty of "War Crimes," "Crimes against Peace" and "Crimes against Humanity," crimes for which the top German leaders were either imprisoned or executed. If we agree with Hermann Goering's defense at Nuremberg that "In a life and death struggle there is no legality," then no action can or should be taken against the government leaders responsible for the war in Viet-Nam. But if Americans still believe that there is a higher law than that of the jungle, we should call our leaders to account. Otherwise we shall have proved Albert Schweitzer correct when he wrote:

It is clear now to everyone that the suicide of civilization is in progress. . . . Wherever there is lost the consciousness that every man is an object of concern for us just because he is a man, civilization and morals are shaken, and the advance to fully developed inhumanity is only a question of time. . . . We have talked for decades with ever increasing lightmindedness about war and conquest, as if these were merely operations on a chessboard; how was this possible save as the result of a tone of mind which no longer pictured to itself the fate of individuals, but thought of them only as figures or objects belonging to the material world? (The Philosophy of Civilization.)

The issue at stake in Viet Nam is not, as President Johnson constantly claims, what will happen if we leave. It is what will happen to us as a people, and to our judgment in history, if we stay.

Vietnam Atrocities

I'm still shaking with anger. But Dellinger took action, and action is what's needed.

Hardly news, I know. But that's Riverbend's cry of rage and despair as of Saturday, November 13th. I read it Sunday morning, and for two days have not been able to bring myself to say anything about it, or even to provide a link.

What is there to say? Somehow, highlighting, cutting and pasting what is a cry of inconsolable pain, bewilderment and outrage seems such an inadequate-bordering on criminally insane response. She asks two hard questions, both of which spell the doom of the Bush flying-by-the-seat-of-your-guts policy in Iraq: "WHERE IS EVERYONE???

Furthermore, where is Sistani? Why isn't he saying anything about the situation? When the South was being attacked, Sunni clerics everywhere decried the attacks. Where is Sistani now, when people are looking to him for some reaction? The silence is deafening."

I've been trying all weekend to send her a supportive email, I simply can't think what to say that won't seem cruel and empty; of what possible value to her and the millions of Iraqis she echoes is our sorrow, or apologies or empathy?

So here is the link, go and read, we owe her and Iraq that. It's important to leave a record that it was possible to know what is being done in our name. Scroll down, she has several other posts which draw a terrifying word picture of living in Baghdad the week before the assault on "Falloojeh," as she spells it. Don't miss, in particular, "The Rule of Iraqi Assassins Must End," a line of Rumsfeld's she deftly redefines. If Allawi ends up as the ruler of Iraq, even if the means of annointing him is an election, the Iraq that emerges will be a softer, gentler version, for public consumtion, anyway, of Saddam's rule.

E-mail links and a must-read recommendation to those of your friends and family who don't know about Riverbend, or the other Iraqi bloggers, and no, I don't mean the ones Andrew Sullivan is always touting. I've consistently read "Iraq, The Model" and the others; being a good liberal I always search out the other side to challenge my own beliefs. What is the "other side" of murder?

And go and visit Raed now at "Raed In The Middle." He has pictures, amazing pictures, of our guys, too; we have an obligation not to fail to look at the pictures. He talks about American casualties, too. I've been looking for ways to contribute to relief efforts; it sounds like there's too much chaos right now for the Jarrars' own such efforts to go forward.

Don't just look at the pictures, read Raed's text, as well, especially the parts about how this war is handing Iraq over to the fundamentalists, among whom Raed does not count himself. Is this war not becoming criminally insane? Visit Khalid, as well, Raed's "sunni brother," and read his only post since mid-October.

Also courtesy of Khalid is this link to a forum in which you can talk to or read the accounts of eye witnesses to what's happening "over there." There was no one there for "live" discussions when I checked it out, but you can click to read previous discussions, and to find out future schedules, and to leave a question. If any readers avail themselves and find interesting material, we would be happy to publish any such submitted posts.

So, now that Condi-lie-zza is going to take over Colin's duties up at the big house, who's going to get her position as National Security advisor? Why, Stephen Hadley—the guy who, um, accidentally slipped the famous 18 words lie into Bush's SOTU (see here)

You know, if your child fails a test under Bush's No Child Left Behind act, they get held back, thrown to the lions, branded, tortured—whatever the wingers have decided is an adequate incentive.

But Hadley failed a huge test, too: He put an obvious untruth into a Bush State of the Union Speech, and got caught.

Hadley failed his test, and should be held back. Instead, he's promoted! Go figure.

UPDATE Robert Scheer writes in the LA Times:

In fact, despite calls for their resignations — from the former head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Anthony Zinni, among others — the neocon gang is thriving. They have not been held responsible for the "16 words" about yellowcake, the rise and fall of Ahmad Chalabi, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the post-invasion looting of Iraq's munitions stores and the disastrous elimination of the Iraqi armed forces.

As of today, the neocons on Zinni's list of losers — Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul D. Wolfowitz; the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby; National Security Council staffer Elliott Abrams; Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld — are all still employed even as Bush's new director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, is eviscerating the CIA's leadership.

We should remember that as flawed as its performance was under former Director George J. Tenet, the CIA at least sometimes tried to be a counterweight to the fraudulent claims of Rumsfeld's and Dick Cheney's neoconservative staffs. All of the nation's traditional intelligence centers were bypassed by a rogue operation based in Feith's Office of Special Plans. Feith was given broad access to raw intelligence streams — the better to cherry-pick factoids and fabrications that found their way into even the president's crucial prewar State of the Union address.

Now, by successfully discarding those who won't buy into the administration's ideological fantasies of remaking the world in our image, the neoconservatives have consolidated control of the United States' vast military power.

With the ravaging of the CIA and the ousting of Powell — instead of the more-deserving Rumsfeld — the coup of the neoconservatives is complete. They have achieved a remarkable political victory by failing upward.
(LA Times)

That damn theme from Looney Tunes just keeps going through my head... Unfortunately, "Tha-a-a-t's all, folks!" doesn't come. The theme just keeps repeating....

Maybe.

Still recovering from their crushing losses on Nov. 2, Senate Democrats today chose Harry M. Reid (Nev.), a quiet insider and consensus-builder, to succeed Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) as their minority leader.
(via WaPo)

Why the Beltway Dems are going to try to build consensus with the wingers who are about the eviscerate them, I cannot imagine. And why they want a master parliamentarian when Frist is going to go to the nuclear option, I don't know.

The only possible reason I can imagine is that he's going to pick off a few moderate Republicans in otherwise blue states. That would be A Good Thing. But still...

Rover Scheer writes about the Goss purge at CIA

So far, half a dozen of the nation's top spymasters have been forced out abruptly — a strange way to handle things at a time when Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are still seeking to attack the U.S. Ironically...

"Ironically"? What's ironic about it? Wouldn't "Naturally" be a better word?

... this all comes as Goss is suppressing a lengthy study, prepared for Congress by the CIA's inspector general, that, according to an intelligence official who has read it, names individuals in the government responsible for failures that paved the way for the 9/11 attacks.
(via LA Times)

So, presumably there are copies of this report somewhere. Can we see?

It's dark under the stairs and I'm falling asleep. I know I have a lot of mail to answer, but, tomorrow....

It looks like Bush is repeating his usual pattern, but in a more florid and grandiose way, doesn't it? All the crooks and liars and thugs get promoted because they're loyal—because to be loyal to Bush you have to be a crook, a liar, and a thug. It's the only way to deal with the insanity.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: Gosh, I wonder if, when Bush is done filling all the top posts at the CIA with winger operatives, whether he'll set them to work on domestic intelligence?

Just a thought.

or underneath Bush's ....

President Bush has a nickname for Condoleezza Rice, his choice as the next secretary of state: "The unsticker."

Bush tagged the name on Rice, his national security adviser for the past four years, because he said she helped "unstick" problems in Iraq that got caught up in the gears of government.
(via AP)

Great. Unsticking problems in Iraq.... I mean, without Condi, things would have been so much, much worse....

Let's watch Bush win Iraqi hearts and minds!

A U.S. Marine shot and killed a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, according to dramatic pool television pictures broadcast Monday.
(via AP)

Thank God the Geneva Convention is "quaint"!

In this image taken from pool video provided to the Associated Press by NBC News, a U.S. marine is seen, left, raising his rifle in the direction of Iraqi prisoners lying on the floor of a mosque in Fallujah, Iraq Saturday Nov. 13, 2004. The pool video was recorded Saturday as the Marines returned to an unidentified Fallujah mosque. The video, in a version aired by CNN showed the Marine raising his rifle toward the prisoners but neither NBC nor CNN showed the shooting itself. The video was blacked out but the report of the rifle could be heard. The bodies in the foreground are other Iraqi prisoners.
(ABC)

Just another fraternity prank....

The NBC's Kevin Sites says the wounded men had been left in the mosque after marines had fought their way in on Friday and Saturday.

According to Mr Sites, one of the soldiers points his rifle at the head of one of the injured, an old man. The sound of a shot is then heard.
(BBC)

And of course, a few "bad apples" will take the fall for this, just like at Abu Ghraib. Because under Bush, there's never ever ANY accountability for the higherups. Those are the moral values of the Bush regime.

Moral values... 'Scuse me, got to go vomit now.

UPDATE More from NBC's Kevin Sites.

Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches:
People in Fallujah...

People in Fallujah had been left helpless, he said. "Anyone who left their house would either be shot by American snipers or recruited by the Mujahideen,” he said. ”So we stayed inside most of the time and prayed. The more the bombs exploded the more we prayed and cried."

Ahmed says he did not expect to survive. "Every night we said goodbye to one another because we expected to die," he said. "You could see areas where all the houses were flattened, there was just nothing left. We could get water at times, but there was no electricity ever."

U.S. forces had bombed families in their homes, he said. "Even those of us who do not fight, we are suffering so much because of the U.S. bombs and tanks. Can't they see this is turning so many people against them?"

November 15, 2004

Dogs Eating Bodies in the Streets of Fallujah

The horrendous humanitarian disaster of Fallujah drags on as the US military continues to refuse the entry of an Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) convoy of relief supplies. The Red Crescent has appealed to the UN to intervene, but no such luck, nor does the military relent.

IP's, who are under U.S. control, have looted Fallujah General Hospital.

The military stopped the Red Crescent at the gates of the city and are not allowing them in. They allowed some bodies to be buried, but others are being eaten by dogs and cats in the streets, as reported by refugees just out of the city, as well as residents still trapped there.

The military said it saw no need for the IRC to deliver aid to people inside Fallujah because it did not think any civilians were still inside the city.

Contradicting this claim, along with virtually every aid work, refugee, and resident of Fallujah was US Marine Col. Mike Shupp who said, "There is no need to bring [Red Crescent] supplies in because we have supplies of our own for the people."

...one family’s diary of terror 14 November 2004, The Sunday Herald [Scotland]:

She weeps while telling the story. The abaya (tunic) she wears cannot hide the shaking of her body as waves of grief roll through her. "I cannot get the image out of my mind of her foetus being blown out of her body."

Muna Salim's sister, Artica, was seven months' pregnant when two rockets from US warplanes struck her home in Fallujah on November 1. "My sister Selma and I only survived because we were staying at our neighbours’ house that night," Muna continued, unable to reconcile her survival while eight members of her family perished during the pre-assault bombing of Fallujah that had dragged on for weeks.

Khalid, one of their brothers who was also killed in the attack, has left behind a wife and five young children.

"There were no fighters in our area, so I don’t know why they bombed our home," said Muna. "When it began there were full assaults from the air and tanks attacking the city, so we left from the eastern side of Fallujah and came to Baghdad."

Selma, Muna's 41-year-old sister, told of horrific scenes in the city which has become the centre of resistance in Iraq over the last few months. She described houses that had been razed by countless US air strikes, where the stench of decaying bodies swirled around the city on the dry, dusty winds.

"The bombed houses had collapsed and covered the bodies, and nobody could get to them because people were too afraid to drive a bulldozer," she explained, throwing her hands into the air in despair.

[...]

While recounting their family's traumatic experiences over the last few weeks, from their uncle's home in Baghdad, each of the sisters often paused, staring at the ground as if lost in the images before adding more detail. Their 65-year-old mother, Hadima, was killed in the bombing, as was their brother Khalid, who was an Iraqi police captain. Their sister Ka'ahla and her 22-year-old son also died.

"Our situation was like so many in Fallujah," said Selma, continuing, her voice now almost emotionless and matter of fact. The months of living in terror are etched on her face.

"So many people could not leave because they had nowhere to go, and no money."

Adhra'a, another of their sisters, and Samr, Artica's husband, were also among the victims. Samr had a PhD in religious studies. Artica and Samr had a four-year-old son, Amorad, who died with his parents and his unborn brother or sister.

This Thanksgiving I intend to offer thanks to the Great Whatever for the transcendent belief that one day Jesus Christ himself will personally drop kick George W. Bush and his entire "faithful" congregate trull straight into the bottomless eternal pit.



*

This story just keeps slipping away, but it won’t die. This one is particularly damning, since it comes from someone who can say, “I work with statistics and polling data every day. Something rubbed me the wrong way.” It’s rubbing my fur backwards, too. I’m looking like the Sabocat. I didn’t post all of it here, since it’s a no registration required one. Just the backards-rubbin highlights:

By Colin Shea, Zogby.com, Friday 12 November 2004

In Florida:

In the second scenario I assumed that Bush had actually got 100% of the vote from Republicans and 50% from independents (versus CNN polling results which were 93% and 41% respectively). If this gave enough votes for Bush to explain the county's results, I left the amount of Democratic registered voters ballots cast for Bush as they were predicted by CNN (14% voted for Bush). If this did not explain the result, I calculated how many Democrats would have to vote for Bush…

…In 41 of 52 counties, this did not explain the result and Bush must have gotten more than CNN's predicted 14% of Democratic ballots - not an unreasonable assumption by itself. However, in 21 counties more than 50% of Democratic votes would have to have defected to Bush to account for the county result - in four counties, at least 70% would have been required. These results are absurdly unlikely.

Uh, yeah, I’d call 70% of Dems switching votes “unlikely.” Even “magical.”

In Ohio:

In 30 precincts, more ballots were cast than voters were registered in the county. According to county regulations, voters must cast their ballot in the precinct in which they are registered. Yet in these thirty precincts, nearly 100.000 more people voted than are registered to vote - this out of a total of 251.946 registrations. These are not marginal differences - this is a 39% over-vote. In some precincts the over-vote was well over 100%. One precinct with 558 registered voters cast nearly 9,000 ballots. As one astute observer noted, it's the ballot-box equivalent of Jesus' miracle of the fishes. Bush being such a man of God, perhaps we should not be surprised…

Night of the living dead voters! And then the framework:

…Bush has not led the nation to unity, but ruled through fear and division. Dishonesty and deceit in areas critical to the public interest have been the hallmark of his Administration. I state this not to throw gratuitous insults, but to place the Florida and Ohio electoral results in their proper context. For the GOP to claim now that we must take anything on faith, let alone astonishingly suspicious results in a hard-fought and extraordinarily bitter election, is pure fantasy. It does not even merit discussion.

The facts as I see them now defy all logical explanations save one - massive and systematic vote fraud. We cannot accept the result of the 2004 presidential election as legitimate until these discrepancies are rigorously and completely explained. From the Valerie Plame case to the horrors of Abu Ghraib, George Bush has been reluctant to seek answers and assign accountability when it does not suit his purposes. But this is one time when no American should accept not getting a straight answer. Until then, George Bush is still, and will remain, the 'Accidental President' of 2000. One of his many enduring and shameful legacies will be that of seizing power through two illegitimate elections conducted on his brother's watch, and engineering a fundamental corruption at the very heart of the greatest democracy the world has known. We must not permit this to happen again.

via 'I Smell a Rat'

One minute I’m ready to think it’s a lack of organization that lost us the election, and the next I’m convinced that we didn’t lose it at all. Not that one excludes the other, really…let’s get organized and end the war, and find the stories that will lead us to impeachment and removal. I, for one, hope it’s election fraud. And into the coffeehouses—didn’t several monarchs close the coffeehouses because of their subversive purposes? Note: Thanks to alert readers Oscar and what, and anybody who is still steamed about the (d)election…

Yesterday, while we were outside trying to figure out what was wrong with our phones, I ran into the guy who had said he was thinking of voting for ABB because of the flu shots and stem cells. He was plowing the road. He invited me into the cab of his truck for a cup of coffee, and I accepted because it was (is) cold as hell.

We drank in silence for minute and then he said to me, “Well, I voted for Bush anyway. I knew you were wondering.”

While we were drinking coffee and talking, things were happening on moral values front, and although I didn’t know it at the time, they were interjecting themselves…

Victory was being declared yesterday in the battle of Fallujah, with 1,000 rebels reported dead, hundreds more in custody and spectacular footage from embedded television crews, showing Marines charging through deserted neighbourhoods.

“That’s too bad,” I said.

Aamir Haidar Yusouf,a 39-year-old trader, sent his family out of Fallujah, but stayed behind to look after his home, not just during the fighting, but the looting which will invariably follow. "The Americans have been firing at buildings if they see even small movements," he said. "They are also destroying cars, because they think every car has a bomb in it. People have moved from the edges of the city into the centre, and they are staying on the ground floors of buildings.

“And I can tell you why you guys lost, if you want to know,” he added.

"There will be nothing left of Fallujah by the time they finish. They have already destroyed so many homes with their bombings from the air, and now we are having this from tanks and big guns."

“Okay, tell me,” I said, knowing that I had a half-pint of whiskey in my jacket if needed.

"Anyone who gets injured is likely to die, because there's no medicine and they can't get to doctors," said Abdul-Hameed Salim, a volunteer with the Iraqi Red Crescent. "There are snipers everywhere. Go outside and you're going to get shot."

“You got no organization compared to the Republicans,” he said. “None.”

Sami al-Jumaili, a doctor at the main Fallujah hospital who escaped arrest when it was taken, said the city was running out of medical supplies, and only a few clinics remained open. "There is not a single surgeon in Fallujah," he said. "We had one ambulance hit by US fire and a doctor wounded. There are scores of injured civilians in their homes whom we can't move. A 13-year-old child just died in my hands."

“We tried. It’s hard for our side, y’know. No easy voting blocs to tap—no churches or gun clubs or money.”

Around 10,000 people took shelter in Habbaniya, 12 miles to the west of the city, and many had tragic stories. "There have been a lot of innocent people killed," said Suleiman Ali Hassan, who lost his brother. "The Americans say they are just aiming their tanks and aircraft at the mujaheddin, but I know of at least eight other people who have died beside my brother."

“That’s what I’m talking about. No organization. You better start making up some churches and gun clubs, or whatever it is you guys are into. Because that’s the key. I ended up voting for him because I knew I had to. Everybody I know was. It was organized. My vote was pledged.”

Samira Sabbah arrived at the refugee centre yesterday with her three children, but her husband stayed behind in Fallujah. "People have been living like animals," she said. "There has been no electricity, no food and no water. We were very afraid to move out because there were so much shooting everywhere. I do not know how we will live now."

“I guess I knew how you would vote. But why are you telling me this?” I asked, finishing the coffee.

Rasoul Ibrahim, a father of three, fled Fallujah on foot with his wife and children. "There's no water," he said. "People are drinking dirty water. Children are dying. People are eating flour because there's no proper food."

“Because you look so down. Listen, if your side wants to win, they gotta organize. That’s it.”

And we left it at that. And I got to thinking. I mean, I know I harped on about the need to organize, and how disorganized the locals were (and are), and I know there are real efforts to build coalitions among progressive causes. And, yeah, I know blogs are one way to do that. But you know, the maternalfornicators’s right. He’s right. The key to getting anything done is going to be organization. And I don’t just mean Moveon and Michael Moore and so forth. I mean an all-out effort. Some way to coalesce into powerful voting blocs, locally and nationally. Should it be around issues and causes? Churches? Covens? Pottery classes? It’s got to be more than last minute van rides to early voting, registering, and going to party meetings. House parties are great, but that’s not it, either. Don’t get me wrong, all of this is great—but I think maybe we don’t realize how well organized the jackbooted wankers we’re up against really are. We can’t afford to be pockets of resistance. We need a national movement—it has to be the Dems, nobody else is even that organized—but how to pull it together so we feel we're part of a national movement? I’ve asked myself this question ever since I gave up the idea of a general strike or revolution working, years ago, and thought grassroots Green organizing was the answer, and…and I still have no answer. Maybe there ain’t one. Readers?

I know we’ve got to stop this “war.” Can we get together on that?

When the smoke has cleared around Fallujah, what horrors will be revealed?

This time it's that most mild-mannered, and we do mean "mannered," of right-wing pundits, the ever affable David Brooks, who, in his latest column, takes a pistol in hand and proceeds to blow America's brains out, metaphorically speaking. I will resist the obvious snark and not suggest where the metaphorical pistol might better have been aimed.

The column starts promisingly enough:

Now that he's been returned to office, President Bush is going to have to differentiate between his opponents and his enemies.

"Fair enough," says I to myself, "good for Brooks, he is going to make a useful distinction between Democrats and foreign infidels." Have we been conditioned to expect too little accommodation from our American right wing, or what? Silly me, for expecting even that little.

His opponents are found in the Democratic Party. His enemies are in certain offices of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Tom has already clued you (here) into the "purge" recently begun by Porter Goss, our new CIA chief, who was confirmed because he convinced congress he would be sufficiently independent of White House demands to shape intelligence to serve any Bush administration political needs of the moment. Well, true to form, Brooks gives you a version of America's intelligence needs exclusively from the point of view of the White House. And it ain't pretty.

Over the past several months, as much of official Washington looked on wide-eyed and agog, many in the C.I.A. bureaucracy have waged an unabashed effort to undermine the current administration.

At the height of the campaign, C.I.A. officials, who are supposed to serve the president and stay out of politics and policy, served up leak after leak to discredit the president's Iraq policy. There were leaks of prewar intelligence estimates, leaks of interagency memos. In mid-September, somebody leaked a C.I.A. report predicting a gloomy or apocalyptic future for the region. Later that month, a senior C.I.A. official, Paul Pillar, reportedly made comments saying he had long felt the decision to go to war would heighten anti-American animosity in the Arab world.

White House officials concluded that they could no longer share important arguments and information with intelligence officials. They had to parse every syllable in internal e-mail. One White House official says it felt as if the C.I.A. had turned over its internal wastebaskets and fed every shred of paper to the press.

The White House-C.I.A. relationship became dysfunctional, and while the blame was certainly not all on one side, Langley was engaged in slow-motion, brazen insubordination, which violated all standards of honorable public service. It was also incredibly stupid, since C.I.A. officials were betting their agency on a Kerry victory.

Where to begin? How about here? C.I.A. officials are sworn not to serve the President, though many of them may serve at the pleasure of a President, they are sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.

Got that Brooks? The U.S. Constitution, fought and paid for, over and over again, by the blood of patriots, all kinds of patriots, none of whose moldering remains are you fit even to contemplate.

And then there is the little matter of who pays the salaries of everyone at the CIA. We do. We, the people of these United States. Hey, buckco, remember us? And to whom does the information gathered by the CIA ultimately belong? If you don't know the answer by now, go shoot your own brains out.

Sorry about that. Mustn't get too angry. What was it that was leaked again? Pre-war intelligence estimates? Brooks doesn't specify estimates of what, but I think we can guess. Since those estimates, and not the estimates of the White House, have turned out to be the more accurate, shouldn't we have an opportunity to know that? Does not an informed electorate need to know about the possibility that our policy in Iraq may be turning both Arabs and Muslims around the world against us? Not in Brook's version of America. And though it's true that some prominent ex-CIA personnel came out for Kerry, please note, that "ex." Some of them resigned before the natural end of their careers because they couldn't support Bush policies in good faith. But what would a David Brooks know about "good faith."

As the presidential race heated up, the C.I.A. permitted an analyst - who, we now know, is Michael Scheuer - to publish anonymously a book called "Imperial Hubris," which criticized the Iraq war. Here was an official on the president's payroll publicly campaigning against his boss. As Scheuer told The Washington Post this week, "As long as the book was being used to bash the president, they [the C.I.A. honchos] gave me carte blanche to talk to the media."

Those of you who saw Steve Croft's piece on Scheuer last night on "Sixty Minutes" know that Scheuer's critique extends to Clinton, Clarke, Tenant, and, indeed, his harhest criticisms are aimed at the C.I.A., which might account for his willingness to finger their willingness to undercut Bush. No matter to Brooks; Scheuer dared to criticize the invasion of Iraq as irrelevant to combating Jihadist terrorism, except to the extent it confirm's Bin Laden's version of the world, therefore Scheuer is bad. But there is worse news, according to Brooks.

Nor is this feud over. C.I.A. officials are now busy undermining their new boss, Porter Goss. One senior official called one of Goss's deputies, who worked on Capitol Hill, a "Hill Puke," and said he didn't have to listen to anything the deputy said. Is this any way to run a superpower?

Clearly not. On the other hand, if we're talking about a democratic republic...Oh, dear, silly me, again. I keep forgetting, WE'RE AT WAR!!!!

Note that nowhere does Brooks stop to consider whether or not the information "leaked" to the press was true, and whether or not its status as "classified" has more to do with covering asses than with protecting this country. No such possibility exists in Brooks's America. Not when a rightwing Republican is in the White House.

In fact, "we, the people," scarecely exist there either, except as Brooksian social types. Now that there's been an election and we, the people, have fulfilled our part in the democratic pageant, "we" can and should be safely relegated to the role of passive audience. It's all about the Bush administration now, and the Republican congress, and of course the rightward yapping of the attack poodles. All that's left for us citizens to do is sit back and enjoy the show.

If we lived in a primitive age, the ground at Langley would be laid waste and salted, and there would be heads on spikes. As it is, the answer to the C.I.A. insubordination is not just to move a few boxes on the office flow chart.

The answer is to define carefully what the president expects from the intelligence community: information. Policy making is not the C.I.A.'s concern. It is time to reassert some harsh authority so C.I.A. employees know they must defer to the people who win elections, so they do not feel free at meetings to spout off about their contempt of the White House, so they do not go around to their counterparts from other nations and tell them to ignore American policy.

In short, people in the C.I.A. need to be reminded that the person the president sends to run their agency is going to run their agency, and that if they ever want their information to be trusted, they can't break the law with self-serving leaks of classified data.

You'd think this administration, from Colin Powell to the President himself had not been caught out knoodling with the "information" supplied them by the CIA in order to insist Iraq was a threat to us, that time was on their side, not ours, that to delay invasion was certain to be more dangerous to our security than was going ahead with an invasion with too few troops, too poorly equipped, and with no discernible plan for the post-invasion occupation of a country of twenty-five million, nor that every detail of the intelligence used to bolster these assertions by the first Bush administration has been shown to be in error, and all of this while the whole world was watching. Don't worry, David Brooks has an answer for such quibbles.

This is about more than intelligence. It's about Bush's second term. Is the president going to be able to rely on the institutions of government to execute his policies, or, by his laxity, will he permit the bureaucracy to ignore, evade and subvert the decisions made at the top? If the C.I.A. pays no price for its behavior, no one will pay a price for anything, and everything is permitted. That, Mr. President, is a slam-dunk.

Nice touch, that reference to Tenant's promise to the President that the sufficiency of intelligence to back an invasion of Iraq amounted to a slam-dunk. "What," Brooks seems to be saying, "we he-men be embarrassed by our own mistakes? You kidding? We don't need no stinkin' reality."

Interestingly, this is the column at the end of which Brooks apologizes for having misrepresented a comment by John Kerry as being something (an early approval of Bush's Tora Bora policy) that it wasn't. In view of the views expressed in the rest of the column, how believable is the apology?

Finally, a reasonable assessment in the SCLM. Ron Brownstein writes:

But on several key indicators, Bush's victory ranks among the narrowest ever for a reelected president.

Measured as a share of the popular vote, Bush beat Kerry by just 2.9 percentage points: 51% to 48.1%. That's the smallest margin of victory for a reelected president since 1828.

The only previous incumbent who won a second term nearly so narrowly was Democrat Woodrow Wilson: In 1916, he beat Republican Charles E. Hughes by 3.1 percentage points. Apart from Truman in 1948 (whose winning margin was 4.5 percentage points), every other president elected to a second term since 1832 has at least doubled the margin that Bush had over Kerry.

In that 1916 election, Wilson won only 277 out of 531 electoral college votes. That makes Wilson the only reelected president in the past century who won with fewer electoral college votes than Bush's 286.

Measured another way, Bush won 53% of the 538 electoral college votes available this year. Of all the chief executives reelected since the 12th Amendment separated the vote for president and vice president — a group that stretches back to Thomas Jefferson in 1804 — only Wilson (at 52%) won a smaller share of the available electoral college votes. In the end, for all his gains, Bush carried just two states that he lost last time.

Another trend explains why all of this might matter to more than just historians: Throughout American history, the reelection of a president has usually been a high-water mark for the president's party. In almost every case, the party that won reelection has lost ground in the next presidential election, both in the popular vote and in the electoral college.

The decline has been especially severe in the past half century. Since 1952 there have been six presidential elections immediately following a president's reelection. In those six races, the candidate from the incumbent's party has fallen short of the reelection numbers by an average of 207 electoral college votes and 8.4 percentage points in the popular vote.

Because his margin was so tight, Bush didn't leave the GOP with enough of a cushion to survive even a fraction of that erosion in four years. Even if the GOP in 2008 matches the smallest electoral college fall-off in the past half century — the 99-vote decline between Reagan in 1984 and George H.W. Bush in 1988 — that would still leave the party well short of a majority.

So Bush needs a second term successful enough to break these historical patterns. That's where his gains at expanding the Republican margins in Congress could become critical.
(via LA Times)

Sure nice to see Bush spending all that capital on installing political operatives to run the CIA as His very first move. Why would that be, I wonder?

What Bush mandate?

Destroying the city in order to save it:

Fallouja once was home to almost 300,000 people, though most fled before U.S.-led forces launched the assault early last week. The city now lies abandoned and in ruins, a tableau of the aftermath of urban warfare.

The town's main east-west drag, a key objective of U.S. troops, is a tangle of rubble-filled lots and shot-up storefronts. Shattered water and sewage pipes have left pools of sewage-filled water, sometimes knee-deep. Scorched and potholed streets are filled with debris; power lines droop in tangles or lie on the ground.

Many mosques, the city's pride and joy, are a shambles after insurgents used them as shelter and firing positions, drawing return fire from the Marines.

Houses have been ransacked by insurgents and further damaged as U.S. troops chased snipers, searched for weapons caches or took cover in the homes. Marines routinely called in tanks, artillery and airstrikes to take out gunmen.

But the bombed-out buildings are only the most obvious damage.

There is no running water or electricity. The water, power and sewage infrastructure will probably need complete overhauls.

Food distribution systems must be reinstituted. Shops must be reopened, commerce resumed. Battered hospitals, clinics and schools must be patched up and reopened.

Beyond that, U.S. officials have lofty plans to help install a democratic government here that will answer to the administration of interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. A police force of more than 1,000 officers must be deployed in a city where police have been consistently targeted for assassination in the past as collaborators with the Americans.

"The challenge is to get a civil administration up and running, and they are starting from zero," said a senior U.S. diplomat. "They have to do everything from getting the director of the waterworks to come back to work to getting a chief of police."

And, if all that wasn't enough, commanders would like the city to be ready to hold peaceful elections in January, when Iraqis nationwide are scheduled to choose a national assembly.
(via LA Times)

The difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a little longer....

Of course, Bush's goal isn't to hold peaceful elections. It's to hold elections that can be plausibly said to be peaceful, given what we will be allowed to see.

I just can't understand why Bush would want winger political operatives from the House to control the CIA... But that seems to be what's happening:

The two top officials running the CIA's clandestine service resigned this morning, following a series of clashes with director Porter J. Goss's chief of staff.

Stephen R. Kappes, the deputy director of operations, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, announced their resignations at a senior staff meeting, according to former CIA officials.

Soon after Goss, a former CIA case officer and chairman of the House intelligence committee, took over as director in September, he installed four former Hill aides known for their gruff management style. Three of them were former mid-level CIA officers whom Republican and Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill said had idiosyncratic views of the agency's problems and never undertook a thorough study of the clandestine service in their roles as congressional overseers.
(via WaPo)

It's a question worth asking, I think, in today's climate: What on earth does a Republican think is an "idiosyncratic view" these days?

Colin, we hardly knew ye... Or, perhaps, we knew you all too well:

Despite his popularity, Powell will be remembered for presenting flawed evidence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations when he made the case for war on behalf of Bush.
(via Reuters)

His likely successor? Condi-lie-zza.

I'm sure the Dems will give Condi a really tough confirmation hearing, yeah right.

(via Jackson TN Sun)

FINGER - In the depths of rural West Tennessee, far from any sign of urbanization, at the only inhabited site on a gravel road that's not listed on a county map, a wing of the Ku Klux Klan has found a new meeting place.

Just to clarify, this "meeting place" is four counties south of me. If it was any closer I wouldn't be here posting this, I would be in camped out front of Redneck's Pawn & Trade waiting for them to open up so I could buy a shotgun.

And for what it's worth, this is a piece of journalism from a little Gannett rag that puts most of the last few years' output of the New York Times to shame.

This story ran on ABC Nightly News and is running on the half-hour as I write, on ABC World News Now. Several Googlesearches have not, for some reason, turned up a transcript so you're going to have to take my word for this outrage.

You know those campaigns, run by everybody from Dear Abby to random people everywhere, to get folks to gather up "care packages" to be sent to "Any Soldier"? They run constantly but always get huge around Holiday time.

Well, it seems they ain't getting shipped this year.

The Pentagon has ruled that getting these packages to troops in the field is just too much of a hassle. The only packages or mail that will be allowed into the system must have a specific name, rank and serial number--or at least name, unit, and precise destination.

They told the story of a man who was killed in the qWagmire. His family asked in his obituary that "in lieu of flowers" people should instead donate supplies to help others in his team, or any soldier anywhere.

Within days hundreds of packages were assembled. Then they hit this brick wall of bureaucratic crapola. It took the combined intervention of the Red Cross, their congressman, their Senator and probably God Himself to persuade the Pentagon to get stuff like Chap-Stik, bug spray and baby wipes actually delivered to the intended recipients.

Stuff sent without such intervention, it seems, is just being sent to the Dead Letter Office. Into a warehouse somewhere was the implication, but in any case not into the hands of soldiers who might have a need for them, and would get a little bit of a boost by knowing that total strangers were rooting for them, cared about them regardless of politics, wanted to do something to help them through a rough time.

And the Pentagon says: nope. This would clog up the supply lines, this human-needs, home-front support shit.

Hell, for all I know they're right. From Lt. Gen. Whoozit's point of view, the trucks need to be carrying ammunition resupply. That convoy duty is hazardous shit, you want somebody to get killed carrying feel-good teddy bears and letters from strangers when they're liable to get blown up at any random curve in the road?

It is probably a cognative dissonance they really wish we'd shut up about: The official line is we're WINNING, dammit! Corners have been turned! We have conquered Faloujah, killed or captured all those insurgents! With not nearly as many casualties as D-Day required, so stop complaining! The country is pacified now, or nearly so, we're almost there, don't you understand?

It's just a little too hazardous still to be able to have mail delivery, that's all.

Please Stand By - Experiencing Technical Difficulties.


Just a test. Apparently, Xan and Lambert are having difficulties posting. So I'm just posting this to see if I can do it. So, if it works - just use it as an open thread.

******
Great moments in moral certitude. Tiny tales from the Red States.

News item - Ashland Kentucky, 1929:

"The famous annual public foot washing, so great an attraction in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, will not be held by the Baptists this year. It had been called to meet at Glo, in Lawrence County, and hundreds heeded the summons, according to word from there today, but because one official of the church where the sessions were to be held admitted he had voted for Al Smith, such a disturbance arose that the ceremonies were cancelled."

Who says your vote doesn't count.

*

(via Raleigh News & Observer)

The U.S. Selective Service System is looking for a few good volunteers in North Carolina -- not to go to boot camp, but to serve on local draft boards.

For reasons having to do with when the law reactivating draft registration was passed, these openings are most likely coming around everywhere. That means where you live too.

Not that we'd want to encourage anybody to sign up for these bodies with the intent of subversion or anything. Perish the thought. Heavens to Betsy, no. Besides, there's never going to be any draft, Dear Leader told us so.

"Failing to plan is planning to fail," as some football coach or other is said to have said. To failing to plan to win the peace to failing to plan for a type of casualty as old as warfare, the Bushco Brain Trust is nothing if not consistent:

(via LA Times)

Matt LaBranche got the tattoos at a seedy place down the street from the Army hospital here where he was a patient in the psychiatric ward.

The pain of the needle felt good to the 40-year-old former Army sergeant, whose memories of his nine months as a machine-gunner in Iraq had left him, he said, "feeling dead inside." LaBranche's back is now covered in images, the largest the dark outline of a sword. Drawn from his neck to the small of his back, it is emblazoned with the words LaBranche says encapsulate the war's effect on him: "I've come to bring you hell."

In soldiers like LaBranche — their bodies whole but their psyches deeply wounded — a crisis is unfolding, mental health experts say. One out of six soldiers returning from Iraq is suffering the effects of post-traumatic stress — and as more come home, that number is widely expected to grow.

The Pentagon, which did not anticipate the extent of the problem, is scrambling to find resources to address it.

"We're gearing ourselves up now and preparing ourselves to meet whatever the need is, but clearly this is something that could not be planned for," said Dr. Alfonso Batres, a psychologist who heads the VA's national office of readjustment counseling services.

Disclosure: My father worked for the VA as a psychiatric social worker. Trained in the talk therapies, he became increasingly frustrated as the psychoactive drugs came into wider use. Not only were the early ones both powerful and crude, "calming" the patient into a stupor, but they were seen as replacements rather than supplements to the Talking Cure.

Go read the whole story, it's vastly worse than these excerpts show. These guys, and the ones now at Ramstein and Walter Reed with overt brain damage and the ones still in the field with milder forms, will be coming soon to a streetcorner near you.

strike his (yes) head on the floor three times, cut off a little finger, then rend his garments and say to the rank and file:

"We blew it. We handed Bush his girly mandate. Can you ever forgive us?"

Think I'll be waiting long?

WASHINGTON - Within the past month, four former deputy directors of operations have tried to offer CIA Director Porter J. Goss advice about changing the clandestine service without setting off a rebellion, but Goss has declined to speak to any of them, said former CIA officials aware of the communications.

The four senior officials represent nearly two decades of experience leading the Directorate of Operations under both Republican and Democratic presidents. The officials were dismayed by the reaction and were concerned that Goss has isolated himself from the agency's senior staff, said former clandestine service officers aware of the offers.

The senior operations officials "wanted to talk as old colleagues and tell him to stop what he was doing the way he was doing it," said a former senior official familiar with the effort.

Last week, Deputy Director John E. McLaughlin retired after a series of confrontations between senior operations officials and Goss's top aide, Patrick Murray. Days before, the chief of the clandestine service, Stephen R. Kappes, said he would resign rather than carry out Murray's demand to fire Kappes's deputy, Michael Sulick, for challenging Murray's authority.

Goss and the White House asked Kappes to delay his decision until Monday, but they are actively considering his replacement, several current and former CIA officials said.

Kappes, whose accomplishments include persuading Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi to renounce weapons of mass destruction this year, began removing personal photos from his office walls yesterday, associates said.

A handful of other senior undercover operations officers have talked seriously about resigning, as soon as Monday.

"Each side doesn't understand the other's culture very well," one former senior operations officer said. "There is a way to do this elegantly. You don't have to humiliate people. You bring in people with really weak credentials, and everyone is going to rally around the flag."
(via MSGOP)

Oh, but as our trolls around here assure us, I'm sure this is actually all part of some cunning plan to create a super-efficient and apolitical CIA.

Right.

I'll ask it again. Just what color is the sky in your world?

UPDATE Atrios, as usual, is on top of this one. Apparently the Bush administration is just planning to purge the CIA of all the "liberals" (isn't that hilarious?) who have embarrassed our Imperious Leader over the last year.

This could get nasty -- and quite scary -- folks. If the CIA becomes simply another part of the Bush political machine, we're all in much greater danger.

Congratulations on your recent divorce rate Red State "morality" thumpers - yeah, you know who you are you slackjawed backdoor boondockers! - you win the matrimonial booby prize. What will we tell the children!!? Assuming we can find where they live. I'm reporting you all to Jesus. You'll be sorry.

To Avoid Divorce, Move to Massachusetts - By Pam Belluck Link

BOSTON — If blue states care less about moral values, why are divorce rates so low in the bluest of the blue states? It's a question that intrigues conservatives, as much as it emboldens liberals.

As researchers have noted, the areas of the country where divorce rates are highest are also frequently the areas where many conservative Christians live.

Kentucky, Mississippi and Arkansas, for example, voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage. But they had three of the highest divorce rates in 2003, based on figures from the Census Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics.

The lowest divorce rates are largely in the blue states: the Northeast and the upper Midwest. And the state with the lowest divorce rate was Massachusetts, home to John Kerry, the Kennedys and same-sex marriage.

In 2003, the rate in Massachusetts was 5.7 divorces per 1,000 married people, compared with 10.8 in Kentucky, 11.1 in Mississippi and 12.7 in Arkansas.

Oh, there ain't no flies on us.
There ain't no flies on us:
There may be flies on some of you guys,
But there ain't no flies on us.
Oh, there ain't no crumbs on us.
There ain't no crumbs on us:
There may be crumbs on some of you bums,
But there ain't no crumbs on us.
Oh, there ain't no bugs on us,
There ain't no bugs on us:
There may be bugs on some of you thugs,
But there ain't no bugs on us.

Ha ha!

*

As ever, Enlightenment values:

No, no, no, no! Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.
(via William Shakespeare, King Lear)

I guess this is the acceptance part.

As if!

I see that W and the boys have been screwing it up, as usual.

The deputy director of the CIA resigned yesterday after a series of confrontations over the past week between senior operations officials and CIA Director Porter J. Goss's new chief of staff that have left the agency in turmoil, according to several current and former CIA officials.

John E. McLaughlin, a 32-year CIA veteran who was acting director for two months this summer until Goss took over, resigned after warning Goss that his top aide, former Capitol Hill staff member Patrick Murray, was treating senior officials disrespectfully and risked widespread resignations, the officials said.

Yesterday, the agency official who oversees foreign operations, Deputy Director of Operations Stephen R. Kappes, tendered his resignation after a confrontation with Murray. Goss and the White House pleaded with Kappes to reconsider and he agreed to delay his decision until Monday, the officials said.

Ah, appointing an incompetent political hack to head the CIA. That made us all safer, didn't it?

After 11/2, everything changed.

We're not going away, but we need to think about where we are going. Readers?

The local county Dems are divided. In one, the chair came out and said in public that the party was going to have to “make some changes” and “do some soul-searching” in light of the overwhelming desire on the part of voters for a “moral values” platform. In another county, the Dem chair is pointing to the Salazar-Salazar victory as a model, which a friend of mine shows me is hitting the SCLM radar:

In a year when Republicans strengthened their grip on Congress and Bush decisively won a second term, the Salazar brothers offer a blueprint for Democrats desperate to make inroads in the nation's midsection.

The two got elected in a Republican-leaning state by playing up traditional values, faith and rural heritage while hammering home a populist message that included bashing tax cuts for the rich. Getting a boost from fellow Hispanics didn't hurt, either.
via Colorado May Be Blueprint for Democrats

I just love the “decisively won” line. I thought it was a “man date”? Anyway, the counties that elected John Salazar to the house are now thinking that the approach to take for the midterms and ’08 (assuming that Bush makes it through this term—i.e., doesn’t go to prison) is to appeal to this “populist” theme, including a good dash of Liberal Christianity and a generous shot of waffling on the hot-button issues (abortion, gay marriage, war on drugs, etc.).

Various members of the RDF conspiracy have pointed out to their locals that this didn’t win Colorado for Kerry. They also point to the fact that it was the youth vote that can claim a lot of credit for getting Salazar and Salazar elected, and among the kids faith and values were not the issue. I pointed out to our own local that the whole “moral values” issue as the deciding factor in the election was a load of crap—I pointed out that the polling techniques used to show this great concern for “moral values” were for shit and that the real issues were, after all, iWaq and the economy, stupid. I also pointed out that nobody is doing anything to make sure that all the votes are counted, and that the election process is so FUBAR that New Mexico hasn’t even called the election, which is now so close that the provisional ballots could decide it. (Ditto the Washington State gov race.) And in one county I know of (I posted on this earlier) the county clerk tossed the provisionals she didn’t like before there was even a watcher at the canvassing board. Ohio and Florida? Don’t get me started.

The answer? “We don’t want to seem like whiners. Nobody really believes Bush stole the election. Let’s just put it behind us and look to the future.”

Ahh, the future… I hear that there are now kids—well, kids to me—coming to the party meetings and raising hell. These are the ones who voted Dean and Kucinich in the primaries but then busted their asses for Kerry anyway. And they want a genuinely Liberal party—one that doesn’t hesitate to get in the faces of the GOPers. They want every vote counted. They want real election reform. And they’ve already proven that they can bust their asses in GOTV efforts. They want to be heard. I think they’re mostly getting blown off by the Old Guard, but carefully, because they need them for GOTV. It’s like, “okay, you let us handle the platform and the focus of the campaigns, and you just GOTV for us.”

I have only gone to the one official county meeting, and the party here is not as flush with youth as other locals—we’re REALLY rural—but I trust what I hear from my new friends around the area.

Me, I’m torn. On the one hand, I want to do whatever is necessary to win. If that means joining the party, compromising on issues to appeal to the center, part of me says, “okay, win, get in power, and then fight.”

Part of me says, no, stick with the issues that made you join the Greens to begin with. No compromise, no quarter to the Dems who are “desperate to make inroads in the nation's midsection.” Instead, a firm punch in the nation’s midsection is called for.

But then, the Old Guard can point to Salazar and Salazar and say, see? We told you so.

A lot of my decision-making in the near future is going to depend on what the Dems we did send to DC actually do. If they show a strong custodial relationship with their nads, then maybe I can see working with the party to just win, whatever I have to swallow.

If they cave to the GOPers—on Gonzales, e.g.—then I will be more likely to play my old game, and push for the Dems who are closest to the Green Party platform, and GOTV for whoever ends up on the ticket.

I’m sure there are others who are similarly torn, and others who are seeing what’s happening in their locals better than I. N’est-ce pas? I only know what I hear from my friends and the evidence of my own eyes. Right now I'm still catching up on chores that went undone in the whirlwind before the election.

Like this wasn't predicted by everybody, their brothers and their dogs:

(via AP/nyt)

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a history of heart trouble, was having tests at a hospital Saturday after experiencing some shortness of breath, a White House spokesman said.

So chuck out all the assumptions based on an "open seat" for Preznit in '08, trusting there will be at least some pretense of an election held that year for form's sake.

Who do we want as the next Dauphin? The Austrian Archduke (Ahhnold?) Or should we go right to the Crown Prince (Jeb)?

UPDATE So, soon Cheney will resign, over his health problems. The Constitution's line of succession means that Hastert would—without being elected, the beauty part—become Vice President.

Yep, sure sounds like parliamentary government to me, just like the Brits (unwritten Constitution and all). —Lambert

Alex Witt, MSGOP "official" buzz-phrase reader, keeps referring to ongoing operations in Fallujah as assaults on "pockets of evil." Yup, you heard it right. "Pockets of evil." We're not only fighting "insurgents" and "terr'ists" in Iraq, we are also fighting supernatural "pockets of evil!". Why we've even discoverd "unarmed sleeper cells." Whatever the hell those are.

So please GE/NBC/MSNBC - pleeeeze - just stop pretending that you are an actual news gathering and dissemination organization. Please. Just knock off the f#&king bullshit will ya. You're not really kidding anyone out here. So stop trying to pretend that what you do constitutes the practice of investigative journalism or anything even remotely resembling that. Afterall, MSNBC, you and others like you (CNN etc...), are the cheeky wowsers who cultivated the "info-tainment" flower. So stick with tending to it. You watered it and weeded out any practice of serious genuine skeptical reporting a long time ago. Just admit that what you do is little more than operate as a propaganda hothouse for "official statements" - a large exhaust fan for Creel Committee styled crank and sloganeering - and a marketing PR shill-mill for corporate info-mercials dolled up as little sham-nooze items. Fertilized with the usual celebrity goo-goo manure (Headliners and Legends, Donald Trump updates, etc...) and cheeky chirping cosmetic counter "news" reader banter. So stop pretending to be something you are not. No one likes a phoney and a quack.

"No one likes a phoney and a quack." Uh, I take that back:





Girly Mandate

(Thanks to AJP

*

The question all American is asking:

What Bush mandate?
(via Google)

Heh.

OK, it's a cheap shot. Or not so cheap. The hysteria, often sexual, beneath wingerly rhetoric is obvious, as soon as you look for it.

It isn't coincidence that in case after case, a winger moral exemplar is exposed as being guilty of precisely the same actions ("sins," if you will) that he excoriates others for. It's structural—the wingers are Pharisees (back here).

And because the wingers are Pharisees, they cannot admit their true nature to themselves; their hysteria stems from the need to maintain their facades. We have named this hysterical behavior WPS, back (Winger Projection Syndrome).

The wingers are and will be Pharisees, "those who practice their piety before others in order to be seen by them" (a great sin, according to Jesus). They will never change, if for no other reason than that the worldly rewards are so great for being who and what they are; they are and will be Pharisees.

A strategic consequence: our enemy—I do not hesitate to use that word—is spiritually and psychologically immobilized. We can exploit their immobility by exposing them, mocking them, holding them up to ridicule, and otherwise assaulting their abilities to pose as representatives of anything other than their own base desires. We can break their code.

Dirty work, but someone has to do it.

Local columnists are still the best. Those contemplating steps like quitting political involvement altogether, or disemboweling the Democratic Party, are asked to read this first. And note that while we here in Blogland get trolls, people who put their real names on their stuff in a real paper are targets for trollish hostility too:

(via MN Star-Tribune)

Despite the belief in some quarters that an extraordinary amount can be accomplished in a mere seven days, it will take a bit longer for people to come down from the emotions of the election.

The victors are still on a roll, like kids who've found copies of upcoming tests and are having a blast making sure that the students who won't share in the spoils know who they are.

There's the Internet poster of the four cell phones, each viewscreen filled with that now-famous photo of George Bush giving the finger, with the message: "Can you hear me now?" Eight days ago, I would have expected this from a Democrat, but that's because I thought the gesture wouldn't play well among The Base. I was wrong.

I've only heard from these victors through e-mails and letters. Most of us hang out with people who are like us, so my actual conversations have been only with others who are worried about the country's direction. You can pretty much imagine how they've gone; it's the whole "five stages" thing: Denial, anger, French silk pie, depression, acceptance.

It will take a while to recover. But not as long as it felt seven days ago. After all, people have had time to filter spin from substance. No question, a record number of people voted for Bush, but a few deep breaths also revealed that a record number voted against him. That's what happens when more than 115 million people vote. That it came down to a mere 3.5 million difference -- can you see the pie chart in your head? -- which signals that the debate about our nation's direction will remain alive and vigorous.

It's been quite a week, though...And seven days out, balance seems to me to be the key, albeit for slightly different reasons than some people might attribute to a liberal.

We tend to think of balance as a state of equanimity, but it's also a state of heightened alert because one way or the other lies a tipping point.

Right now, our country is canting in a certain direction, by the will of the people, but just barely. It could tilt further, and it may well do so, but the counterweight of almost equal proportions that currently exists will keep the scales from canting too crazily. Unless, of course, one side starts to bail out and the tipping point is reached.

So to those of us on the receiving end of the celebratory screeds and the presidential portraits, who have commiserated over the past week with our fellows in driveways and coffeeshops and Target lines: We can take heart in our collective weight, of our very avoirdupois, so to speak.

We are a long way from the tipping point. Be it humble or French silk, that pie helped, after all.

[Very minor snippage for length, so you don't have to bother with the Strib's PitA registration.]

Yawn, snarfle. Time to break out the cot in my tiny room under the stairs in The Mighty Corrente Building...

UPDATE Bush heaves Paige over the side. No weasel left behind...

UPDATE The question all America is asking:

What Bush mandate?

makes Taegan Goddard's Political Wire here

Corrente, ground zero of the latest Google bomb!

Of course, this vile rumor is a relatively benign one—especially compared to the one about the goats.

UPDATE And somewhere in this week, we passed our millionth visit. Thank you, alert readers!

That this was coming was obvious to anyone:

Police Lose Control of Mosul Amid Uprising

Police in Mosul largely disappeared from the streets, residents reported, and gangs of armed men brandishing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers roamed the city, 225 miles north of Baghdad. Responding to the crisis, Iraqi authorities dismissed Mosul's police chief after local officials reported that officers were abandoning their stations to militants without firing a shot.

The most serious incidents took place in Mosul, a city of about 1 million people, where fighting raged for a second day. Gunmen attacked the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party in an hourlong battle that a party official said left six assailants dead.
(via AP)

Ah. Now it's going to be Kurds versus Sunnis? Splendid. Anyone know where we're building our military bases? In Shi'ite territory? Maybe we'll just end up cutting a deal with Sistani, and let the rest of the country go the way of Milosevic's Yugoslavia.

But who really knows, at this point? Except that the situation is worse than we're being told, of course, since otherwise we'd be hearing nothing but propaganda about that.

The Democratic Party, I mean. (The world's oldest continuously functioning political party, if I am not mistaken.)

UPDATE Alert reader shystee ups the ante:

I'll bet a $20 donation to the Corrente server fund that Howard Dean will not be the next chairman.

There has been much talk about the (non)broadcast of "Saving Private Ryan" by some ABC stations on Veterans Day. Our own Keanu Reeves [no, really] was heard to suggest the motivation that "Must squelch Spielbergian leftist drivel -- real Americans don't question orders." There's questioning going on here all right, but it looks like more of a smack in the face to Michael (Colin Jr.) Powell's schizophrenic FCC:

This was the most complete single story I was able to find, out of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I have taken the liberty of boldfacing the ownership identification of the stations that took part. It's an interesting mix, but the rationales given may, just may, indicate a wedge making its way into a crack in the Republican facade, between the "values" crowd and the Big Bizniz Boys:

NEW YORK (AP) -- Several [actually 66 of them, or a third of the total per E!News] ABC affiliates have announced that they won't take part in the network's Veterans Day airing of "Saving Private Ryan," saying the acclaimed film's violence and language could draw sanctions from the Federal Communications Commission.

Stations replacing the movie with other programming Thursday include Cox Television-owned stations in Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C., three Midwest stations owned by Citadel Communications.

"Under strict interpretation of the rules, we can't run that programming before 10 p.m.," said Ray Cole, president of Citadel, which owns WOI-TV in Des Moines, KCAU-TV in Sioux City and KLKN-TV in Lincoln, Neb.

In a statement on the Web site of Atlanta's [Cox TV owned] WSB-TV, the station's vice president and general manager, Greg Stone cited a March ruling in which the FCC said an expletive uttered by rock star Bono during NBC's live airing of the 2003 Golden Globe Awards was both indecent and profane.

Other stations that decided not to air the movie include WGNO-TV of New Orleans, owned by Tribune Broadcasting Corp., and WMUR-TV of Manchester, N.H., owned by Hearst-Argyle Television Inc.

WSOC-TV of Charlotte [owned by the mysterious IBS company, about which I can find little information] said it had received complaints about language in the movie when it was aired in 2001 and 2002.

ABC has told its affiliates it would cover any fines, but Cole, of Citadel, said the network could not protect its affiliates against other FCC sanctions.

Cole cited recent FCC actions and last week's re-election of President Bush as reasons for replacing "Saving Private Ryan" on Thursday with a music program and the TV movie "Return to Mayberry."

Google any of the stations named above, or just "Private Ryan" for further details. There are currently 617 stories filed there under that topic so I hope I will be forgiven for not checking all of them.

This cannot possibly have amused Disney-owned ABC TV. Oh, and Sen. John McCain (R-Hypocrisy), who gave a little talk as an intro to the film on those places where it did air, is reported to have personally worked the phone lines to individual stations to assure them that this movie would never get them in dutch with FCC. Somehow they failed to find his words reassuring. Wonder why?

UPDATE: Just a couple more ownership details, per the Richmond VA Times-Dispatch:

ABC affiliates of Young Broadcasting Inc., including Richmond's WRIC-Channel 8, are withdrawing "Saving Private Ryan" from tonight's schedule.

WRIC general manager Bill Peterson says, "The debate and decision were made at our corporate offices. We had input.

and from the North Carolina News-Record, a name you knew would come up in this discussion somewhere:

Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the ABC affiliate in Winston-Salem, WXLV (Channel 45), opted not to broadcast Steven Spielberg’s critically acclaimed movie “Saving Private Ryan” in honor of Veterans Day.

Sinclair ABC in Nashville didn't run it either.

Here. I mean,shouldn't we really count all the votes?

Saving young Ryan from himself: See back post, Lambert, Thursday, November 11, 2004

OREGON - 1927:


How about "The gentleman in question has not the fortitude of mind nor certitude of entrails to discharge ones armament." Lets go with that, shalt we not, fair minded moviehouse patron?

Further historical indications of grave moral decline among the cultural elite as manifested in former seasons.

MICHIGAN - 1929:


Watch what you say,un-American! Traditional conservative "values" correctness, so decreed, and an attempt to further contain the nefarious advancement of dangerous cultural elitist agendas.

ARKANSAS - 1926:
From a 'United Press' item, Little Rock, Arkansas.


Thus, I respectfully request of our divinely inspired moral uplifter in chief, Dear Leader of the soon to be free world, His majesty George W. Bush, that Him please forswear from further plebian allusions to his personal instinctual gut inspired mettle, seh.

Forsooth, my fellow moonbat fuck-wits and swaddled countrymen, for if not now when, and what then shall we speak of, in latter days, to the children!

*

No, not the election. Fallujah:

A battle erupted near a mosque in northwest Falluja on Friday just hours after U.S. Marines said insurgents were now trapped in the south of the city.
(via ABC)

I'm not commenting a lot on the war—I won't use the word "clusterfuck," but feel feel to think it—because it's unlikely we are getting very good data, with the newspeople leaving, a curfew, and Allawi/Negroponte in charge. But that little snippet was just too good to resist...

Oh, that moral values thing everyone's been buying into. Turns out iWaq and the economy were bigger issues after all. Oops, say the pollsters, sorry we didn't make that clear a lot sooner, y'know, before the fundies spread this manure all over the countryside, crowing about the "shift in values." And before the Dems began talking about having to be more "moderate" and, and and…

…when they were asked an open-ended question about the top issue, Iraq and the economy moved past moral values. Iraq was picked by 27 percent, the economy by 14 percent and moral values tied with terrorism at 9 percent.

"Moral values was an element in the Bush formula, but probably not the driving one," said Lee Miringoff, president of the National Council of Public Polls.

The Pew poll found that voters' reasons for picking "moral values" varies. Just over four in 10 of those who picked "moral values" from the list mentioned social issues like gay marriage and abortion, but others talked about qualities like religion, helping the poor, and candidates' honesty and strength of leadership.

"We did not see any indication that social conservative issues like abortion, gay rights and stem cell research were anywhere near as important as the economy and Iraq," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center. "'Moral values' is a phrase that's very attractive to people."
The Pew survey was taken Nov. 5-8 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Survey: Format Influenced Voter Priorities

Odd thing, though--if the economy and iWaq were indeed bigger issues, and if exit polls also showed a Kerry lead, how the fuck, oops, I mean heck, did we end up with aWol in the White House again? It just doesn't add up. At all.

My goodness! Soldiers use profanity! Who knew?

Yes, first Janet Jackson's tit, now Saving Private Ryan. How all-too-believably stupid and childish.

... is the headlines saying Bush "chooses" Gonzales or Bush "picks" Gonzales. After all, we have a Constitution, and a system of checks and balances, and the Senate has to confirm him, so the right word would be "nominates."

Oh, wait. I forgot. Now we live in a one-party state. No checks and balances at all. My bad. Sorry.

Thanks, FUX. It had to be you...

The Twentieth Century Fox studio, a veteran of the big screen and the TV screen, is about to break into an entirely new realm: the really little screen, the kind that comes on a cell phone.

Teri Everett, a spokeswoman for Fox Entertainment Group, said Fox's deal with Vodafone represented the first time a Hollywood studio had agreed to make a TV series expressly for distribution on cell phones.
(via AP)

Back to business as usual! That is, losing.

"I think he's a pretty solid guy," Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said of Mr. Gonzales.

"There's a feeling that Gonzales is less confrontational that John Ashcroft and he at least tries to reach out," Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in an interview. "His style is not to throw down the gauntlet. So the White House has taken a step back from the red-hot confrontation that Ashcroft embodied, but we don't know how big a step back."
(via NY Times)

Merciful heavens. If writing memos to try to justify rule by decree, torture, trashing the Geneva convention, stonewalling the Plame Affair, and pressuring the 9/11 commission (back) isn't "red hot confrontation," then what in the name of God is? The Constitution is burning, and these guys are fiddling and diddling!

Bush didn't pick Gonsales because He all of sudden turned from a vicious slippery little scut into a nice guy; He picked Gonsales because Gonsales would be more effective advancing his agenda than Ashcroft was. And that agenda, Senators Biden and Schumer, has nothing to do with the needs or the views of your base.

Further, in the Texas Clemency memos (back), there's plenty of material to show both Gonsales and Bush for the sloppy and lethal incompetents that they are.

The Democrats have to get used to the idea that the Republicans work all the time. The Republicans don't take time off because they got all emotional about the election. The Republicans don't take time off because, after all, the Senate isn't in session. The Republicans don't take time off because it's the holiday season. The Republicans don't take time off because, after all, the President just got elected and it's OK to give him some slack. The Republicans never stop, and since their goal is the destruction of the Democratic Party and all it stands for, it's really surprising, or not, that Schumer and Biden are so lazy and willing to go along.

Beltway Dems: Get a clue. Get to work. Start throwing some punches. Mark Bush up. You've got a base; start firing it up!

The guy who wrote a memo justifying Presidential rule by decree gets to be Attorney General? Tell me it's not a great country.

UPDATE And Vermont's Leahy dives in the tank. WTF?

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying: "I don't see Judge Gonzales as being a controversial nomination -- at least not a lightning rod type."
(ABC via Froomkin)

Too bad there's no Club for Growth on the left to put a competitor into Leahy's district. That would get his attention.

And a useful Chronology of torture memos.

According to Bob Fertik, a recount is coming in Ohio.

As some of you probably know, Keith Olbermann has been all over this story. Apparently there are some pretty suspicious things going on in Ohio.

We shall see, won't we?

No, that's not an ironic jab at the fact that the "War" on terror "soldiers" onward with few discernible positive results, and a lot of discernible horror.

There's no irony to be found in the unending mendacity and negligence this White House has lavished on the men and women called by it to do the actual fighting in its war on terror. Is there anything this President touches he doesn't break? He's certainly come close to breaking what it took two decades to create - an all-volunteer Armed Forces that worked.

Do you have a rough idea of how many National Guard and Reservists have thus far been called up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. Try 400,000 plus. Is that not an astonishing figure?

Here's some selections from what the President had to say today, standing on ground more hallowed than it is possible for a man of his limited moral perception to understand:

Mr. Secretary, thank you for your kind introduction, and thank you for your strong leadership in making sure our veterans have got the very best care possible. Secretary Principi has done a fantastic job for the American veteran. (Applause.)

edit

Some of our veterans are young men and women with recent memories of battle in mountains and in deserts. In Afghanistan, these brave Americans helped sweep away a vicious tyranny allied with terror and prepared the way for a free people to elect its own leaders. In Iraq, our men and women fought a ruthless enemy of America, setting the people free from a tyrant who now sits in a prison cell. (Applause.)

All who have served in this cause are liberators in the best tradition of America. Their actions have made our nation safer in a world full of new dangers. Their actions have also upheld the ideals of America's founding, which defines us still. Our nation values freedom -- not just for ourselves, but for all. And because Americans are willing to serve and sacrifice for this cause, our nation remains the greatest force for good among all the nations on the Earth. (Applause.)

Some of tomorrow's veterans are in combat in Iraq at this hour. They have a clear mission: to defeat the terrorists and aid the rise of a free government that can defend itself. They are performing that mission with skill and with honor. They are making us proud. They are winning. (Applause.)

Our men and women in the military have superb training and the best equipment and able commanders. And they have another great advantage -- they have the example of American veterans who came before. From the very day George Washington took command, the uniform of the United States has always stood for courage and decency and shining hope in a world of darkness. And all who have worn that uniform have won the thanks of the American people.

edit

The security of America depends on our active leadership in the world to oppose emerging threats and to spread freedom that leads to the peace we all want. And our leadership ultimately depends on the commitment and character of the Armed Forces.

America has needed these qualities in every generation, and every generation has stepped forward to provide them. What veterans have given our country is beyond our power to fully repay, yet, today we recognize our debt to their honor. And on this national holiday, our hearts are filled with respect and gratitude for the veterans of the United States of America. (Applause.)

This is what was reported in the Washington Post today.

On this Veterans Day, about 180,000 members of the National Guard and reserves are serving on active military duty. Surveys show that 40 percent of them make less money while mobilized than they earn in their civilian jobs.

Congress has been wrangling over how to address the "pay gap" for 18 months, mostly without success. A number of proposals that would require the government and other employers to make up the difference between civilian and military pay have been blocked or stripped out of defense bills, apparently because of their cost.

But the compensation issue probably will come up again next week when Congress flies in for its lame-duck session. A coalition of 35 military and veterans organizations is pressing the House for prompt action on legislation that would permit Guard and reserve members to make penalty-free withdrawals from their employer-sponsored retirement plans to help them cope with any financial squeeze.

More than 410,000 members of the National Guard and reserves have been activated for duty in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere since Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists slammed hijacked jetliners into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Of the 120,000 federal employees in the reserves, about 21,000 will serve on active duty in fiscal 2005, according to a congressional estimate.

No data indicate how many federal employees called to active duty suffer a reduction in pay. Surveys of all Guard and reserve personnel found that among mobilized troops whose pay was cut, the average reduction was $3,000, although some took pay cuts in the tens of thousands.

"These citizen-soldiers and their employers need and deserve some financial relief from the disruption of active military service," the Military Coalition, which represents more than 5.5 million current and former service members and families, said this week in a letter to House leaders urging approval of the bill that would allow activated troops to avoid tax penalties if they tap their retirement funds.

The coalition urged House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to schedule a quick vote on the legislation, sponsored by Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-Colo.) and amended by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

You can find out here what meager relief this Republican dominated congress, under the leadership of a President so dedicated to the uniformed heros he was extolling this morning, has yet to be able to put into practice. Be aware, however, of this ignored alternative:

Critics, however, say the legislation falls short of providing the financial relief that numerous Guard and reserve members need. Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), who has pushed legislation that would require federal agencies to make up the difference between civil service pay and military pay for activated employees, probably will speak out again next week on the financial woes facing many members of the Guard and reserves, an aide said.

The most recent attempt to address the pay gap fell apart last month, when House and Senate negotiators for the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill removed provisions that would have replaced income for certain reservists and would have required federal agencies to pay any difference between military and civil service compensation for federal employees called to active duty.

This is exactly the kind of issue that Democrats in the future need to propose their own solutions for and find a way to force the media to cover them. Once their proposal is voted down, then fine, on an issue like this, work with Republicans to get something passed.

Since this is Veteran's Day, let's hear from a real one, the great Democratic Veteran, who posted on his epynomous blog yesterday, these brilliant observations about the blood lust of chickenhawks.

"Bush's victory was the NARROWEST win for a sitting president since Woodrow Wilson in 1916..." Michael Moore

Solemnly, world remembers its war dead on WWI anniversary
PARIS (AFP) - In sombre ceremonies, world leaders and war veterans paid tribute to their war dead on the anniversary of the end of World War I, a conflict remembered only by a rapidly dwindling band of survivors. World leaders, vets mark WWI anniversary

The war to end all wars. Almost forgotten. My grandfather fought in it. On the “wrong” side. The blood had been so deep in WWI that many believed it must surely be all that humanity could stomach and that there could be no more like it:

We set to work to bury people. We pushed them into the sides of the trenches but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out, like people in a badly made bed. Hands were the worst; they would escape from the sand, pointing, begging - even waving! There was one which we all shook when we passed, saying, "Good morning," in a posh voice. Everybody did it. The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath... Leonard Thompson - quoted in Ronald Blythe, Akenfield

Gentlemen, I have mentioned several times that I am opposed to war, to capitalist war, and that I believe in universal peace and the constructive tendencies of man. I believe that through education, through organization, through enlightenment we will bring people to the point of sanity where war will become impossible, where the destructive tendencies will disappear, and misery, desperation and poverty, the sources of crime, will be things of the past. I believe that with the whole power of my heart and mind. May be I shall not see that day in my own lifetime. But that makes no difference. I believe these things are absolutely true….Why, yes, the war, you say, is for the very purpose of carrying democracy and liberty to Europe. Will you proclaim to the world that you who carry liberty and democracy to Europe have no liberty here, that you who are fighting for democracy in Germany, suppress democracy right here in New York, in the United States? Are you going to suppress free speech and liberty in this country, and still pretend that you love liberty so much that you will fight for it five thousand miles away? Charity begins at home, gentlemen of the jury. Liberty begins at home. That is where you begin right now, to-day, to show that you stand for liberty. We have spoken for liberty all our lives. Now you are put to the test as men who believe in liberty; you are put to the test. It is for you to show whether you believe in liberty. And let me tell you, whether you think that we are right or whether we are wrong, one thing you know: the spirit that animates this woman, the spirit that animates these defendants, is the spirit that has in the past emancipated the bondman. It is the spirit that will in the future emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny; the spirit that will abolish war, make us all brothers of one family, without the evils and crimes that darken the world to-day, without oppression and monopoly, and make the world a fit place to live in, with a real motto, actually applied: Liberty for all, well-being for every one, and happiness for humanity.

Alexander Berkman spoke these words on July 3rd, 1917, as he and Emma Goldman were on trial for holding rallies and printing papers in opposition to WWI and the draft.

Guido Bruno described them this way:

And there, opposite me, sat Alexander Berkman. A strong, fighting face; decision and action written all over him. Around his mouth plays the tired smile of the fighter who knows what it means to meet stupidity face to face. His hands are clenched, he is armed against attacks and lies, against rudeness and against injustice. He has come to fight. He does not know how to compromise. He does not know how to bow politely to the court, how to invoke in flowery language the attention of the District Attorney or how to arouse the sympathetic interest of his peers--the jurymen. The principles for which he is fighting, which brought about his indictment, are now his only weapons and his only shield. He is a non-conformist who believes in liberty and in freedom uncurtailed in any way…There is Emma Goldman, sitting behind him. I don't see hatred in her eyes but determination; to do to the last minute what she thinks so important for the happiness of future generations. She is reading some report introduced as evidence by the District Attorney. There is a grave seriousness on her features and that wonderful, final resolve that has ever--since time began--caused men to be crucified, to be burned alive, hung, drawn and quartered; the resolve and purpose which have brought to humanity all the good things it possesses.

They were, of course, found guilty and sentenced to the maximum. And over 100,000 Americans went on to die in The War to End All Wars.

The shadows inhabit the earth today. May the resistance continue!

A Note On The Presidential Election in Ohio, by Congressman Dennis Kucinich:

I have been vigilant in monitoring Ohio's election in 2004. Attorneys from my party closely monitored the election before and during election day. While there were some incidents of voter intimidation noted by the attorneys, most if not all cases were resolved at the scene because of quick action by challengers, witnesses, the Kerry campaign, and volunteers from other campaigns including my own.

The unofficial count gave Ohio to George Bush by approximately 136,000 votes. The official count by county Boards of Election will begin on Saturday, November 13, 2004. It is due at the Secretary of State's office by December 1. The Secretary of State must certify the election by December 3.

During this interim period, attorneys from both political parties, and those representing me, will be watching the procedures by county Boards of Elections carefully.

[...]

The official tabulation of votes for Ohio will begin on Saturday and will include four categories not reflected in the unofficial count: provisional ballots, late absentee ballots, overseas military and overseas civilian.

If the difference between George Bush and John Kerry is less than one quarter of one percent after the official tally is completed (about 16,000 votes) an automatic recount occurs under Ohio law.

If the margin is greater than one quarter of one percent, a candidate can request a recount at an expense to the candidate of $10 per precinct. Because there are approximately 12,000 precincts in Ohio, the recount would cost about $120,000, before legal fees. A recount would entail a visual inspection of every punch card ballot.

I believe we must pursue every lead which raises questions about the integrity of the electoral process. Our work may not change the outcome, but it will demonstrate that beyond our commitment to our candidates, we have a higher commitment to our democracy. ~ (for more details...see link above)

Democracy Now:

In Warren County, Ohio, election officials took a rather unprecedented action on November 2: They locked down the building where the votes were being tallied, blocking anyone from observing the vote counting process. President Bush won 72% of the vote in the county. We speak with the reporter who broke the story. [includes rush transcript] ~ (for entire post see link above)

Keith Olbermann is also watching this story. The only one, as far as I know, up to this point, inside cable tee-vee-lands fabulous goo-goo-eyed nooze bubble, who has actually ventured outside the cave for a looksee.

County Emergency Services Director Frank Young said last week that in a face-to-face meeting with an FBI agent, he was warned that Warren County, outside Cincinnati, faced a "terrorist threat." County Commissioners President Pat South amplified, insisting to us at Countdown that her jurisdiction had received a series of memos from Homeland Security about the threat. "These memos were sent out statewide, not just to Warren County, and they included a lot of planning tools and resources to use for election day security.

"In a face to face meeting between the FBI and our director of Emergency Services," Ms. South continued, "we were informed that on a scale from 1 to 10, the tri-state area of Southwest Ohio was ranked at a high 8 to a low 9 in terms of security risk. Warren County in particular, was rated at 10."

But the Bureau says it issued no such warning. - Olbermann/Blog

*

'Til death do us part ~ Part 2 - Following up on Lambert's earlier post 'Til debt do us part (Nov 10, 2004)

Brilliant post from Steve Gilliard on debt here. Go read. If you want to disentangle yourself from Bush's America, dealing with debt is a good place to start.

Here's an insiders take on how that entanglement works on a national and multinational - global - scale:

U.S. multinatioinals get the contracts, and when the poor countries fall behind in payments, take over their economies. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is a blistering attack on the inner workings of rich government and corporate policies that create globalization and the poverty of millions of people around the world. - Powells Books

Bush/Gore Pres. debate Oct 11 2000:
MODERATOR: Does that give us -- does our wealth, our good economy, our power, bring with it special obligations to the rest of the world?

[George W.] BUSH: Yes, it does. Take, for example, Third World debt. I think we ought to be forgiving Third World debt under certain conditions. I think, for example, if we're convinced that a Third World country that's got a lot of debt would reform itself, that the money wouldn't go into the hands of a few but would go to help people, I think it makes sense for us to use our wealth in that way, or to trade debt for valuable rain forest lands, makes that much sense, yes. We do have an obligation, but we can't be all things to all people. We can help build coalitions but we can't put our troops all around the world. We can lend money but we have to do it wisely. We shouldn't be lending money to corrupt officials. So we have to be guarded in our generosity.

******
[from transcript] Via Democracy Now - Tuesday, November 9th, 2004, "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions":

John Perkins describes himself as a former economic hit man - a highly paid professional who cheated countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. 20 years ago Perkins began writing a book with the working title, "Conscience of an Economic Hit Men."

Perkins writes, "The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been his clients whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits - Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Okay. Explain the company you worked for.

JOHN PERKINS: Well, the company I worked for was a company named Chas. T. Main in Boston, Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees, and I became its chief economist. I ended up having fifty people working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly repay. One of the conditions of the loan–let's say a $1 billion to a country like Indonesia or Ecuador–and this country would then have to give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S. companies, to build the infrastructure–a Halliburton or a Bechtel. These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing debt that they couldn't possibly repay. A country today like Ecuador owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its debt. And it really can’t do it. So, we literally have them over a barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, "Look, you're not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil." And today we're going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give them to us because they've accumulated all this debt. So we make this big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our servants, our slaves. It's an empire. There's no two ways about it. It’s a huge empire. It's been extremely successful.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: You're actually called economic hit men --e.h.m.’s?

JOHN PERKINS ...in Iraq we tried to implement the same policy that was so successful in Saudi Arabia, but Saddam Hussein didn't buy. When the economic hit men fail in this scenario, the next step is what we call the jackals. Jackals are C.I.A.-sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If that doesn't work, they perform assassinations. or try to. In the case of Iraq, they weren't able to get through to Saddam Hussein. He had -- His bodyguards were too good. He had doubles. They couldn’t get through to him. So the third line of defense, if the economic hit men and the jackals fail, the next line of defense is our young men and women, who are sent in to die and kill, which is what we’ve obviously done in Iraq.

[...]

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain how Torrijos died?

JOHN PERKINS: Omar Torrijos, the President of Panama. Omar Torrijos had signed the Canal Treaty with Carter much -- and, you know, it passed our congress by only one vote. It was a highly contended issue. And Torrijos then also went ahead and negotiated with the Japanese to build a sea-level canal. The Japanese wanted to finance and construct a sea-level canal in Panama. Torrijos talked to them about this which very much upset Bechtel Corporation, whose president was George Schultz and senior council was Casper Weinberger. When Carter was thrown out (and that’s an interesting story–how that actually happened), when he lost the election, and Reagan came in and Schultz came in as Secretary of State from Bechtel, and Weinberger came from Bechtel to be Secretary of Defense, they were extremely angry at Torrijos -- tried to get him to renegotiate the Canal Treaty and not to talk to the Japanese. He adamantly refused. He was a very principled man. He had his problem, but he was a very principled man. He was an amazing man, Torrijos. And so, he died in a fiery airplane crash, which was connected to a tape recorder with explosives in it, which -- I was there. I had been working with him. I knew that we economic hit men had failed. I knew the jackals were closing in on him, and the next thing, his plane exploded with a tape recorder with a bomb in it. There's no question in my mind that it was C.I.A. sanctioned, and most -- many Latin American investigators have come to the same conclusion. Of course, we never heard about that in our country.

Go read it all. Democracy Now

Also see: Globalism's Discontents, by Joseph E. Stiglitz, January 1-14,2002, The American Prospect.

*

After 11/2, everything changed....

Should we keep looking for a "single bullet theory" to explain the disaster?

Or should we start thinking of Rove "architecting" his win, at the margin, by collecting 10,000 here, 100,000 there, and so on. A big spreadsheet, with a lot of precisely targeted cells....

Thoughts from the 48% of us who are taxed without being represented?

Did Froomkin really write this? The Froomkin we know?

... before the furor over the abuses at Abu Ghraib unexpectedly dissipated ...
(via WaPo)

Rather fine, that "unexpectedly," what?

These lunatic shitheads below are the ones that pushed a lot of the elephant buttons. It is up to the reality-based community to hold on until the Invisible Cloud Being fails these poor saps, and they snap to. I mean, damn, you’d think that if they really believed this crap, they’d save some money on health care by just trusting the ICB to heal them, or give up if he doesn’t. It amazes me that I have to run into people like this every so often to remember that they really exist. It’s clear that Bushco panders to them. How, aside from waiting for them to realize that the Rapture ain’t coming and Bushco is bending them over, do we answer these poor deluded tiny-brained wipers of others’ bottoms? Or do we? What letter to the editor do we send in response to our own local loonies? Witness the headline in the letters section of a Pennsylvania fishwrapper:

Jesus speaks through the Republicans

I hope the election of George W. Bush is seen as a wake-up call to all the liberal Democrats who oppose God's will. It is His doing that George W. Bush is still our president. Millions of born-again Christians helped win this election through our prayers and votes. Jesus speaks through the Republicans.The Democrats will not be able to win elections until they renounce their sinful ways and stop encouraging abortions, gayness, and trying to take away our guns.

Earl Balboa

This is what we’re up against, folks. Yet another from a daily in New Mexico:

Thanks to God for President Bush

Editor:

There is joy in Mudville! The results of this election bodes well for America.Same-sex marriages took it on the chin. Positive family values were reinforced. It will be increasingly difficult for the ACLU to assassinate God. Taxes will not go through the roof.More importantly, the world sees that those filthy people — film makers — in Hollywood could not topple a sitting U.S. president. With George Bush, we will get some decent people on the Supreme Court — judges that will make fair decisions without liberal bias.Suddenly the future of America looks much brighter — the Democrats have lost more control of their “fat cow.”I personally give thanks to God for President Bush.

JIM HAMILTON

Arrgggghhhh! I can only answer this self-righteous, brainless, deluded evil with this:

How can you BE SO STUPID? How? Someone tell me. You’re NO DIFFERENT than the fundamentalists you’re ostensibly fighting. IDIOTS. Aaiiiieeeeeee!

...if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

from Howard Zinn

I’m gonna make it part of my own “succession of presents” to swell the ranks of the Democratic Party locally with hardnosed rationalists and people with Enlightenment values—screw this “we’ve got to become more friendly to the faith-based” line of crap. Yeah, I’ve switched parties. It was too easy “organizing” the 34 Greens we have in the county. I’ll settle for nothing less than a takeover from the testicular non-custodial Dems currently in power here. No quarter! I’ll give into these Jeebofascists when they pry the portrait of Emma Goldman out of my cold, dead fingers.

It's not TV. It's a Bush Blowjob. Aside from the gholishness of the very idea, get a load of how HBO's pitching "Last Letters Home":

The soldiers' last words. Their families' last memories. Our nation's lasting gratitude. This Veterans Day, HBO and The New York Times, in association with LIFE Books, present a poignant tribute to the fallen American soldiers who sacrificed their lives in the war in Last Letters Home: Voices of American Troops from the Battlefields of Iraq, read by the families of ten men and women killed in action.

Whaddya think the odds are that Lila Lipscomb's son's last letter will be one of those?

"[Bush] got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I am so furious right now, Mama.

"I cannot wait to get home and get back to my life."

Based on the sanitized letters that ran last year in the "liberal" NYT (and linked to by HBO), Tracksports has a glurge orgy at very short odds.

I canceled HBO after Six Feet Under ended, so I can't tune in even if I wanted. If non-diabetic readers have the stomach, they can report back. I have a still-living friend in Iraq I'm more concerned about right now.

Brilliant post from Steve Gilliard on debt here. Go read. If you want to disentangle yourself from Bush's America, dealing with debt is a good place to start.

... you read it in Kos first. Brilliant, chilling analysis. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE Alert reader catalexis comments:

Damn good piece. It kind of puts a bucket of cold water on things, including the attractivness of the angry Left, which, darn it, I was really warming up to. Now, of course it becomes clear that we must fight for the center.

I'm not talking about abandoning anyone, the unions, GLBT, the poor, minorities, all of these are still our people and we will still insist on their full inclusion in our society but we must deny the radical his fuel, or the center gets clobbered.

The language of the fight, the slogans of war, these must be put aside and turned aside and neither waved nor engaged. We are being ju-jitsued, that's what happened to us last week, we got out pumped-up, new plan needed. We shall not abandon the struggle but we need to lose the martial trappings, they're tripping us up when we least expect it.

Yeah, I could work up to militancy too. Just needs to be militancy of the right kind...

I had a hard time believing it was possible, but once I read this, it was just so obvious that not only was this likely to be Bush's choice, it really is worse:

Administration sources said Ashcroft's successor is likely to be White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales.
(via WaPo)

Why Gonzales?

Picking Gonzales would give Bush tight control over the Justice Department.

Wow! I wonder why Bush would want that? Say, do you think Gonzales will bring Malkin in, to organize the coming internments?

As governor of Texas, Bush put Gonzales on the state Supreme Court.

Oh good. So we'll only have to put up with Gonsales for a year at Justice. Phew!

Of course, Alberto R. Gonzales is an old, old friend of ours. As Presidential Counsel, Gonzales has written or approved memos that "justify":

1. rule by decree (back)


2. torture (back)


3. Trashing the Geneva convention (back)

Hey, what's not to like?

In addition, Gonzales's dirty fingerprints are all over:

1. Evidence suppression in the Plame Affair (here>)


2. Pressuring the 9/11 Commission on Clarke's testimony (back

Finally, Gonzales, also Bush's counsel when He was governor, wrote the "Texas Clemency" memos, so being the happy instrument whereby Bush could send several hundred people to their deaths (back), on the basis of carelessly worded, sloppily reasoned, one-page memos.

Oh, and some alert readers were inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on this one. How could anyone be worse than Ashcroft, they answered? Well, I'd rather have a religious loon like Crisco Johnny than a smooth enabler of Bush's dark urges for blood and power.

Rule One: Never, ever, give Bush the benefit of the doubt. It's always worse than you could ever imagine.

NOTE I guess this means Bush is more worried about indictments than I thought.

Definitely not for chair of the DNC (C'mon. The appearance of conflict is just too great.)

I like Clinton as head of the UN after Kofi Annan. Clinton would be great.

But for all our sakes:

The cities are blue. And where we have strong Democratic machines in the cities, we get blue states. Illinois is the prime example. What that means is that the cities will be the next victims of Republican assault (as if they weren't already, with all the Homeland Security money going to places like Wyoming. I know it's per capita. So?) Therefore, we have to defend the cities.

So why, oh why, is a Republican the mayor of New York? Get him outta there, bring on The Big Dog, and maybe New York will have someone to defend it against Bush over the next for years.

Plus, you know Clinton would make a great mayor of New York—and you know he's love it.

God lay on the cosmic couch all afternoon and watched chariot racing.
Religion Today (Times Leader/AP):

In a society where young adherents often face challenges to their beliefs, the top world authorities of the Seventh-day Adventist Church have reaffirmed the faith's insistence that fidelity to the Bible requires belief in "a literal, recent, six-day creation," no matter what conventional science says.

[...]

And six days means just that - "literal 24-hour days forming a week identical in time to what we now experience as a week," the Adventist decree says.

***13.6 million anti-Sunday crusaders can't be wrong!***

The church's statement came last month, after three years of special conferences on the issue of creation. It was approved at a meeting of the Adventists' 293-member Executive Committee at the Silver Spring, Md., headquarters of the church. The faith has 13.6 million members internationally and 936,000 in the United States.

[...]

Why is this one belief so particularly strong for Adventists?

The answer stems from the faith's special belief that founder Ellen G. White was a modern prophet who correctly interpreted the Bible. White (1827-1915) was a native of Maine and prolific writer who reported some 2,000 divinely given visions and dreams. In one, White wrote in 1864, she was "carried back to the creation and was shown that the first week, in which God performed the work of creation in six days and rested on the seventh day, was just like every other week."

CASE CLOSED! Take that you cultural elitist Christ hating liberals! You can't argue with "scientific" reasoning like that.

Ronald L. Numbers, a University of Wisconsin science historian who was raised Adventist, notes that even in the 19th century, White's position was at odds with prevailing science. Early in the 1800s, experts had agreed upon a vast age for the Earth and for life forms found in fossils, later reinforced by techniques like radiometric dating. In Darwin's "On the Origin of Species," published five years before White's writing, the hugely ancient earth allowed time for natural selection.

LIAR! Academic elitist, academic elitist! I think our Codpieced Divine, Commander Skybox, who channels the mind of the Almighty, needs to hold a press conference and hold forth on the revealed truth about how many days it actually took to whip this whole flying slag heap into the fabulous asylum it is. Put the entire matter to rest once and for all. So we can all get back to hunting for sea monsters and chasing naked frogs from thy kneadingtroughs and spewing weird petrochemical crap into the heavenly firmament.

Just as God planned.

*

I saw Barbara Starr, the Pentagon correspondent, on CNN this morning. She said that the folks in the Pentagon were wondering when they were going to have what she called "the mother of all battles." In short, the folks in Pentagon are wondering where are the insurgents went!

Okay, guys, I'm no military expert or anything but everyone in the world, no, really, I mean it, everyone in the world has known for months that this offensive would happen a couple of days after the November election.

So, guess what, Barbara? Guess what, Pentagon Poobahs?

The bad guys have been out of Fallujah for weeks.

W and the boys had the insurgents cornered in April. Consequently, W's poll numbers tanked disastrously and W, Karl and the boys could see their little re-election effort literally going up in smoke as we lost numerous soldiers in our first assault on Fallujah.

So, W and the boys did what all purely political animals would do in this situation. They chickened out. That's right folks. In the middle of the presidential campaign, Mr. "Resolute and Stay the Course" chickened out. Now these bad characters have moved on to fight another day.

I honestly can't say I'm surprised.

Are you?

Decided to repost an excerpt from Tom Frank's book What’s the Matter With Kansas. COVER image.

Lie Down for America: How the Republican Party Sows Ruin on the Great Plains, appeared in Harpers magazine (April 2004) and I posted the excerpt below back in late May (thereabouts), of this year. Seemed like a good timely idea to post it again. So, here goes again:

"The villain that did this to my home state wasn't the Supreme Court or Lyndon Johnson, showering dollars on the poor or putting criminals back on the street. The culprit is the conservatives' beloved free-market capitalism, a system that, at it's most unrestrained, has little use for small town merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place. Deregulated capitalism is what has allowed Wal-Marts to crush local businesses across the Midwest and, even more importantly, what has driven agriculture, the region’s raison d’etre, to a state of near-collapse.

..........There's a reason you probably haven't heard much about this aspect of the heartland [the blight of Emporia, Kansas]. This kind of blight can't be easily blamed on the usual suspects like government or counterculture or high-hat urban policy. The villain that did this to my home state wasn't the Supreme Court or Lyndon Johnson, showering dollars on the poor or putting criminals back on the street. The culprit is the conservatives' beloved free-market capitalism, a system that, at it's most unrestrained, has little use for small town merchants or the agricultural system that supported the small towns in the first place. Deregulated capitalism is what has allowed Wal-Marts to crush local businesses across the Midwest and, even more importantly, what has driven agriculture, the region’s raison d’etre, to a state of near-collapse.

People who have never lived in a farm state often think of all agricultural interests as essentially identical: farmers and huge agribusiness conglomerates want the same things, they believe. But in reality the interests of the two are more like those of the chicken and Colonel Sanders of backlash lore. And Colonel Sanders has been on an unbroken winning streak now for twenty-some years, with farm legislation, trade policy, and a regulatory climate all crafted to strengthen the conglomerates while weakening farmers. For shareholders and upper management of companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Tyson the result has been miraculous; for town like Emporia it has been ruinous.

Whereas farmers are naturally disorganized, agribusiness seeks always to merge and acquire and choke off competition. And so, like other industries, it was finally permitted to do these things in the deregulatory climate of the Reagan-Clinton era. In the eighties, according to William Heffernan, a sociologist at the University of Missouri, agriculture experts generally agreed that if four companies controlled more than 40 percent of market share in a given field, it was no longer competitive. Today, Heffernan estimates, the four largest players process 81 percent of the beef, 59 percent of the pork, and 50 percent of the chicken produced in the United States. The same phenomenon is at work in grain: The largest four process 61 percent of American wheat, 80 percent of American soybeans, and either 57 percent or 74 percent of American corn, depending on the method. It is no coincidence that the internal motto of Archer Daniels Midland, the grain processing giant notorious for its political clout and its price-fixing, is reported to be, "The competitor is our friend and the customer is our enemy."

The admirers of farm deregulation – and there are plenty of them, in economics departments as well as in the Bush Administration Department of Agriculture – see in it not some hideous power grab but a heroic "restructuring" of the food industry. Cargill, ADM, and the rest of the giants are bringing order out of chaos; if we finally have to say goodbye to the Jeffersonian fantasy of the family farm – if we have to transform the prosperous farmer into a sharecropper and turn the countryside into an industrialized wasteland and destroy the small towns – maybe it’s all for the best.

One thing unites all these different groups of Kansans, these millionaires and trailer park dwellers, the farmers and thrift-store managers and slaughterhouse workers and utility executives: they are almost all Republicans. Meatpacking Garden City voted for George W. Bush in even greater numbers that did affluent Johnson County.

Not too long ago, Kansans would have responded to the current situation by making the bastards pay. This would have been a political certainty, as predictable as what happens when you touch a match to a puddle of gasoline. When business screwed the farmers and the workers - when it implemented monopoly strategies invasive beyond the Populists' worst imaginings, when it ripped off shareholders and casually tossed thousands out of work – you could be damned sure about what would follow.

Not these days. Out here the gravity of discontent pulls in only one direction: to the right, to the right, further to the right. Strip today’s Kansans of their job security and they head out to become registered Republicans. Push them off their land and the next thing you know they’re protesting in front of abortion clinics. Squander their life savings on manicures for the CEO and there’s a good chance they’ll join the John Birch Society. But ask them about the remedies their ancestors proposed – unions, antitrust laws, public ownership – and you might as well be referring to the days when knighthood was in flower.

Let us pause for a moment and gaze across this landscape of dysfunction. A state is spectacularly ill served by the Reagan-Bush stampede of deregulation, privatization, and laissez-faire. It sees its countryside depopulated, its towns disintegrate, its cities stagnate – and its wealthy enclaves sparkle, behind their remote-controlled security gates. The state erupts in revolt, making headlines around the world with its bold defiance of convention. But what do its revolutionaries demand? More of the very measures that have brought ruination on them and their neighbors in the first place.

This is not just the mystery of Kansas: this is the mystery of America, the historical shift that has made it all possible.

In Kansas the shift is more staggering than elsewhere, simply because it has been so decisive, so extreme. The people who were once radical are now reactionary. Although they speak today in the same aggrieved language of victimization and although they face the same array of economic forces as their hard-bitten ancestors, today’s rebels make demands that are precisely the opposite. Tear down the federal farm programs, they cry. Privatize the utilities. Repeal the progressive taxes. All that Kansas asks today is a little help nailing itself to that cross of gold.

Excerpt above can be found at: Rural Womyn.net

Description below from: Amazon.com:

A brilliant analysis - and funny to boot - "What's the Matter with Kansas?" presents a critical assessment of who we are, while telling a remarkable story of how a group of frat boys, lawyers, and CEOs came to convince a nation that they spoke on behalf of the People.

I think (I'm still hopefuller), that some of the popular reactionary sway Frank highlights may change over the next four years. Shifting away from the more poisionous trends he notes above. Especially in light of the Bush cororations duplicitous and morally vapid stewardship. But, uprooting the diseased stump that has taken hold across the motherland, and has been throwing up new sucker shoots for thirty some years now, isn't going to be accomplished easily or any time soon or simply by clearing away the rotten nuts rolling around it's base. Although that would be a good place to start. It will require a lot more clean up work than that. There will be a lot of digging and pick-axe swingin' left to do over the years. So, diggers...

sharpen your shovels and reload your gun, we're gonna have a whole lot of fun.

*

Apologies for not keeping up with the blogroll additions over the last month or so. Too much going on too fast and so on... If anyone out there sent in a blog-link post request and I didn't see it or lost it or forgot to add it - or you would like your link added - please let me know. Looks like I'll have at least another four years to work on it. Assuming I don't get run over by a bus, or something tragic like that.

Added this morning:
Reload Blog
Tommy Pain
SteveAudio
Red Hair Black Leather

and finally, from...Loaded Mouth, go see why they're called MEDIA WHORES:

Ahhh, that wonderful liberal media, how I fucking love thee...

Hee.

*

What Bush Mandate? I guess I'm one of the 48% of Americans who didn't get the memo...

UPDATE Follow the money. You know, the people running the red states can't be all that dumb—after all, they've somehow managed to get the people running the blue states to subsidize them. Odd.

"People running the red states" being a first crude attempt to distinguish between the (vicous, bigoted, corrupt, Jeebofascists) red state political establishment, and the voters in the red states who voted blue (ie, were not vicious, bigoted, or corrupt Jeebofascists).

CBS.

Well, they couldn't get anyone worse than Ashcroft. Right?

Readers, we came into being to defeat Bush in 2004.

That didn't happen (modulo the efforts to actually count the vote; let's not talk about that here).

What's next?

What should be next?

Since the CW seems to be I have two weeks to be weepy and pissed before I get all "responsible" and "civil" and bend over for the Republicans again, I guess it's OK to link to this.

Then again, this guy writes better than the heinous Mike "Is this on?" Thompson.

And now that I've released my bile: As everyone knows, I'm a yellowdog Democrat from Philly. We saved this part of what used to be called the Union for democracy, at least. So I'd be interested to know what Xan, for example, makes of this red state/blue state thing. It's fun to rant, and there's something to it, but isn't it possible reality could be a little more subtle than red, blue, or even purple?

Watch the yokels fight. Red yokels fight Blue yokels. Fight yokels fight.

Culture war that is. That's what the pundit gigglers and "official statement" readers in the corporate media and the multimillionaire religious mountebanks and the right wing think tank remoras and the Wall Street Journal op-ed page swindlers patting their fattened tummies in Manhattan want you to see on your shiny TV.

MSNBC meathead Chris Mathews, last night, on his moronic carnival show Hardball, even went so far as to offer the brilliant observation that no-one with a "southern" accent had voted for Kerry and no-one in the Blue states had voted for the guy with the "southern" accent. Mathews accomplished this marvel of certifiable nonsense while plopped in front of a Red State/Blue State cartoon prop map. Apparently it has never dawned on a dolt like Mathews that the people who live in places like New Orleans LA, for instance, (which voted blue) have "southern" accents. Ditto for any number of other areas in the south (especially urban areas) which Kerry often won. Likewise, many counties in New York state, for instance, came up red. Not many southern accents in upstate NY. So whats really going on here? Why are people like Chris Mathews so eager to keep the pond as stirred up muddy as possible? Well, maybe, while the yokels are slugging it out in the parking lot, the "have-mores" can sneak in the back door and make off with the cash register.

Remember this?: The "Haves" and the "Have-Mores" ~ "Some people call you the elite," remarked Bush "I call you my base." Remember that scene from Michael Moore's F-9/11?

Rick Perlstein has more on this:

Where did the lion's share of the extra votes come from that gave George Bush his mighty, mighty mandate of 51 percent? "Two of those points," Klinkner said when reached by phone, "came solely from people making over a 100 grand." The people who won the election for him—his only significant improvement over his performance four years ago—were rich people, voting for more right-wing class warfare.

[...]

How did the "people voted for the Republicans because of moral values" meme become the gospel truth about this election? The exit poll question, after all, signifies little: If a pollster went up to you and asked what was more important, your moral values or your economic well-being, what kind of cad would you be to tell a stranger that money meant more to you than morals?

All that the message about "moral values" dominating the proceedings last Tuesday means is that the Republicans have succeeded in their decades-long campaign to get what should plainly be called "conservative ideology" replaced, in our political language, by this word "morality." They have reworked the political calculus so thoroughly that liberal definitions of what is or isn't a moral value don't count. It's as if liberals didn't have any morality at all.

It's amazing how many people Republicans have been able to punk with this. Even Senator Charles Schumer, appearing Wednesday night on The Daily Show, said that Republicans won on "these values issues."

Hey, Chuck: Don't fall for their crap, it only encourages them. You have values too.

Go read the rest of It's the Wealth, Stupid

It's all about the old "fusionist" mind-meld of course.

Fusionism, simply put, was the historical juncture at which right-wing activists and intellectuals focused, diversely, on the libertarian, moral-traditionalist, and emerging anticommunist strains of conservative ideology, recognized their common causes and philosophies, and began to fuse their practical agendas. - Roads To Dominion, Sara Diamond, 1995.

God, Guns and Greed.
Sound the culture war trumpet - with plenty of accompanying fear, sneer, magic, and noise from the corporate media whore house piano - and fire a few rounds into the air providing plenty of smoke and cover-fire for the advancing pitter patter of little neo-con and libertarian feet. Neither of which would go anywhere by themselves. Without the clamorous distraction of a theatrically orchestrated "faith based" moral-traditionalist hoot and bellow revival show the entire second story crew would never find their way out of their own lobby.

*

Has it occurred to anyone that the Bush scam to move the tax burden to wage earners and privatize Social Security amounts to taxation without representation for the 48% of the country that didn't vote for him and has no power in Washington at all?

Try it for yourself!

Of course—blush—you heard it here first (back). However, we must thank the Mighty Atrios for making our little dream a reality.

Wonder if this kind of leaderless resistance is something Froomkin would like to hear about. Maybe use the words "unexpected, heh, gay subtext" or something.... Just to let people know the other 48% are still out there, and, though entirely disenfranchised nationally, still very active.

Suppose Bush does in fact reduce the deficit (as the bond market is going to force him to do, sooner or later) but He does so in conjunction with tax [cough] "reform," by shifting the whole burden onto wage-earners? There's a scary thought! They would never do that, though.

Lincoln Chaffee:

Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee said yesterday that he will remain in the Republican fold and "work hard to regain the support" of Republicans upset over his Election Day comments on his vote against President Bush and his consideration of a party switch.

Chafee said he would also reach out to Mr. Bush "at the proper time," adding, "I wouldn't blame him if he were angry at me."
(via ProJo)

Whimper!

Summarizing another day in hell, the Pakistan Times bloodlessly reports, midstory,

Three attacks on U.S. convoys in and around Baghdad killed two American soldiers and wounded five others Sunday, the military said.
(via Juan Cole)

As it happens, a friend of mine was in one of those convoys. Here's what earns you a bullet point in a wire service report from Iraq:

I can't remember which was first. A blinding flash. A thick cloud of dust. A percussion sound that absorbed all other noise for a second and the ringing sound that followed. A concussion wave that felt like a hot slap on my face.

"Sir, what do I do?" Says my driver. The clear Baghdad sky has been instantly clouded with brown dirt. We had been going 55. There was one of our vehicles in front of us. Nothing else on the road.

"Pull over." I order as the smoke clears. I see Zulu 823 spinning. All of the tires blown out. The gunner on the roof fallen over into the HUMMWV. "Pull past them." I change my order as I realize that they won't be able to defend to their front.

"I can't get out, Sir! I have to get out." Says the medic in the seat behind me. She's right. She has to get out there are wounded.

"Sir, what do I do?" Repeats my driver. I don't have an answer. My vehicle has come to a stop. I help the medic out. I have to check on Zulu 823.

By the time I get to 823 there are four other people working with the wounded gunner. The medic tells me she needs a helicopter if the gunner is going to have a chance. The nearest U.S. Hospital is about three miles away. Through downtown Baghdad. Three miles is so close that a HUMMWV will usually beat a helicopter. Unless you have to worry about people blowing themselves up next to you. Which, apparently, we do.

I run to the radio to call for an aero-medical evacuation. "Dustoff this is Razor 44. We've been hit. We're on route Warszaw. Over."

The radio responds in a broken crackle that reminds me of a cheap drive through restaurant, "Razor ... Dustoff... location... over." I can't understand them.

I need a helicopter. I need to get this kid out of here. Now. I saw him. A strong pulse was pushing blood out his neck.

I hear a rattling sound and think, "what now?" I see a Bradley fighting vehicle pulling up. I run to the Bradley as Dustoff is trying to get me back on the radio. "I have two wounded. We need to get them to the CASH." I yell at the Bradley commander.

"What unit are you?" Says the commander.

Answer his question but I think "Who cares?"

"Put your wounded and your medic on the track." Says the commander. The back door of the Bradley opens like a U.F.O. unfolding and laying down as a ramp from the road to the Bradley.

Bang. Another, smaller explosion.

Another bomb detonated. We gotta get out of here. Now. I can't see who's detonating these things but two more go off. Bang. Bang.

We gotta go. "Put him on the track. You Chief. You gotta get on the track too."

Chief was wounded. Couldn't tell how bad. He'd been in the front passenger seat of Zulu 823.

"I know! Where's the medic?" Chief always knew. He was always right. The medic.

Bang.

There she is. "Medic. Get on the track." And she joins them.

How about the vehicle. Mechanics had already removed the .50 cal. There's a SAW. There's a Shotgun. Got them too. Can I get the radios? No. They're locked.

Bang.

"Let's go. We gotta go." Everybody's back on their vehicles.

It's been four minutes since the first explosion and off we go. Toward the base.

I start to think. Was that a VBIED? It was definitely an IED. Improvised Explosive Device. Definitely. Just an IED. Not a vehicle born IED. There was no other vehicle. None. Just us and some Bradleys. That was all I saw. There was a kid... Did he know? Were there signs? There are usually signs. How did we miss them?

The gravity of everything hits me. I've been on a dozen convoys. Nothing ever happens. What just happened? Why now? This is my first time as convoy commander. Where are we going now?

There's a base about 1 mile ahead. Get on the base. We have a sister unit there. We can use their office.

At the base I am able to call my unit 50 miles North. I let them know what's happened. I contact the hospital five miles East. The Chief will be fine. A few pieces of shrapnel that he'd have rather extracted with his Gerber multi-tool. The gunner is pronounced dead on arrival. KIA. I call my unit back to start family notification.

The commander of the sister battalion corners me. "Captain, why did you have mortars on that HUMMWV?"

"Sir, I didn't have any mortars."

"Currently the traffic control point is reporting that mortar rounds are cooking off around the vehicle you left there." Zulu 823. Yes. I left it. Lopez was the driver. Did I see Lopez? She's about 100 pounds and an outstanding driver. Damn where's Lopez? S2 tells us that Haji wants to behead an American female soldier. Where's Lopez?

"Sir, I didn't have mortar rounds in that truck." I gotta find Sepulveda. Who else was on that truck? Needleman. He got on another truck. I gotta find Lopez.

We find Lopez and Needleman at the rally point. They both got in other trucks.

Within about an hour it becomes clear that the investigators all believe we were hit by a vehicle IED (VBIED) and not just a roadside IED. Nobody in the first vehicles saw another vehicle. But some people in my convoy say they saw body parts lying around. Unidentified and miscellaneous body parts. A leg below the knee seemed fairly complete to somebody. And the random explosions afterwards…. Yep that was a VBIED. Haji packs the trunk with explosives, like mortars, and he knows some will detonate initially and some later. So that explains the mortars.

A suicide VBIED on the last few days of Ramadan. "Nights of Power" they call them. But this was in the morning.

So that's how my Sunday at 1053 was.

When my friend, a Bush voter in 2000, was called up in March, he was one of the most "up" people I'd ever known, devout yet intellectually omnivorous, funny and gregarious, inclined towards studying law when he got back, with a young wife and newborn child that he doted on with abandon. As recently as a few months back he was writing witty letters about the tedium of administering the base network. Last week, he voted Kerry. Yesterday, he watched the life of a comrade drain into the Iraqi desert. A fraction of a second difference, and ....

I fear something else died yesterday too.

According to his former party and co-religionists, of course, he didn't even suffer a scratch, so Baghdad 11/07/04 1035, should it inform a future decision to try to save other kids from watching their friends die, will be fair game for mockery and slander at the hands of people with "other priorities" than being foolish enough to place their trust in their feckless leaders' cynical call to patriotic duty.

The campaign has ended, and the United States of America goes forward with confidence and faith. - George W. Bush, acceptance speech, Washington, D.C., Nov. 3, 2004

Power and ideology wrapped in signs and wonders. Once upon a time in faithless decadent cultural elitist liberal America: moral decay! relativism! pluralism! cultural Marxism! cultural elites! chaos! the collapse of Western "traditional values"!...blah blah blah blah blah:
Suppose your heard the following (below) coming from your car radio or emanating from the well oiled flapping maw of some cableTV "news" mortal glaring back at you from your blinking television set. And suppose this professional mountebank made noise like this:

You know who:

...had fallen into worldview chaos, from which followed political, economic, cultural and moral decay, since a standard of measurement failed that would have enabled a valid judgment about the value or lack of value of a particular phenomenon. Every viewpoint had its proponents, but none was taken to heart, none was taken seriously. Each group, each opinion had its own standards, which destroyed the binding power and moral strength of anygenuine worldview. The dying liberal-democratic system had opinions that were changeable, relative and not binding, but it did not have an absolute worldview in which people could put their faith. It had a panopticum, but no picture of the world. It collected every possible opinion, standpoint and value from every time and people, rather like exhibits in a museum, but had no dominant standpoint, no real values. The result was chaos, sterility and relativism. The most wretched viewpoint could take center stage because sure faith was lacking, from which alone comes strength of judgment. The era had lost a central worldview, and thus the measure of character, of style. The chaos of worldviews resulted in chaos in science, education, and all other areas of life. People staggered before the abyss, unsteady, irresolute.

[...]

Former values and principles had collapsed, having lost all their strength. The meaning of the universe no longer mattered, questions of the content and tasks of life went unanswered. In the chaos of world views, every conceivable opinion found its proponents, but none had greater weight or force than any other.

RENEWAL! MARCH TO FREEDOM!:

A new idea joined the historic march to self-realization, forming people's attitudes and characters, as well as the style of their lives. A central worldview once more permitted internal unity and thereby the creative strength of a new era.

[...]

As long as a people has the strength for a revolution, for a change in worldview and a reordering of its life, it remains capable of making history. If it loses the will and the strength for national renewal, it sinks into the mists of history and perishes.

A UNIFIED UNILATERAL FAITH:

Historic and worldview battles always are about the victory of an idea that seeks to become absolute, that takes upon itself the transformation of the world. If a victorious revolution has won freedom of action, it cannot be distracted or stopped by complaints about intolerance. They come either from adherents of past structures, structures against which the revolution fought and displaced, or from those who as Nihilists oppose any order because they want chaos and anarchy. Against such people, the rule of an idea must be hard and unforgiving. He who wants to build must push aside and fight everything that stands in the way. The greatness of an era depends on bringing all thoughts and all forms of life under a unified worldview, a unified faith.

Any worldview seeks to rule alone, and must seek that. It must believe in its sole right, which is the foundation of its effectiveness. In battling other worldviews, it must maintain its good conscience. If it loses that, it loses its self-confidence, the feeling of superiority, and thereby its power over people. Where each can do what he wants, there is no whole. Eras without unity lack compelling power. Only where a will to life dominates, only where all strengths are moving in the same direction, does greatness follow.

I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." [...] "Tha's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ("Without a Doubt", Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine, Oct 17, 2004)

THE ALTAR OF IMMORTALITY - RUTHLESS and FANATIC PERCEIVED REALITY:

The result of any fruitful worldview is a firm, self-confident life order that is perceived as necessary, as a reality, about which there is nothing uncertain or disputable. A revolutionary worldview must therefore be ruthless and fanatic in representing its exclusive principles until they have become taken for granted, dominating the life of a people as a tradition does. Any era, any worldview, needs firm foundations. When these are open to discussion, the idea is already questionable and has lost its finding force and strength. An age that discusses its foundations is sawing off the branch on which it sits. It loses its good conscience, its self-confidence — and perishes. The cathedrals of the Middle Age would never have been built if Christianity had asked itself why it had the right to claim exclusive truth for its faith by eternalizing it in stone. The idea justifies itself through its fruitfulness. It rules the consciousness of those people who set the direction of their age. It is seen as foundational, formative, the bringer of the future. And throughout history it leaves creative ideas and deeds on the altar of immortality.

ABSOLUTE LIVING FAITH:

This demonstrates the deepest roots from which a worldview draws its strengths: from faith. Great times rest on a great, absolute faith. Only those with faith, with mountain-moving strength and joy in action can fulfill an historic mission. Values that are truly believed, not merely recognized and discussed, are the foundation of creative strength. In era of decline, however, everything is open to discussion and therefore to denial. When God is a question, one no longer builds cathedrals. Where people have no living faith, they do nothing great, nothing that lasts.

Sound familiar? How many times have you heard those exact themes repeated over recent months and years. Cast down from Christian evangelical fundamentalist pulpits and scrawled over miles of Right Wing think tank scroll or snarled into a Right Wing radio microphone. What would you make of it? Where does something like that come from?

Faith's Codpieced Sword of the Lord:

It's not a dictatorship in Washington, but I tried to make it one in that instance. -- George W. Bush, describing his executive order making faith-based groups eligible for federal subsidies, New Orleans, Louisiana, Jan. 15, 2004 (via link)

Faith's Gestapo:
What you read above are excerpts from a tract which appears in a monthly publication called Der Schulungsbrief and dated January 1939. Der Schulungsbrief, in case you've never heard of this particular publication, translates in this case to "The Party Directive". A kind of "how to" manual for the German faithful and Nazi Party true believers. The magazine was the NSDAP (Nazi Party) monthly accompanyment to Reichsorganisationsleiter Robert Ley's organizational book Organisationsbuch der NSDAP. DS had a large circulation and was often handed out by neighborhood NSDAP representatives throughout Germany. Most copies of DS were destroyed by the Allies following WW2 due to the dangerous nature of much of its content. Especially its vicious anti-semetic rantings which rivaled Julius Streicher's Der Sturmer for sheer unhinged homicidal lunacy. But copies still exist, and, as a side note, DS (its modern day equivalent) is still in publication and available via German far right networks and Neo-Nazi publications.

David Neiwert, as almost everyone who reads here knows, is the go to author/blogger on the topic of retooled psuedo-fascist rhetoric from the right and infestations of it in our mainstream media and body politic. So if you're unfamiliar with Neiwert's material go there and read.

******

Theologians are well aware, deep down in their hearts, that faith alone is not sufficient to make even half-wits believe in their mumbo jumbo; they sense a need to sweeten the dose with such testimony as would convince a judge and jury. The result of their labours in that direction, continued through many centuries, has been only to reduce human reason to the quaking and malarious thing that it is today ...gradually broken down all the natural barriers between fact and fiction, sense and nonsense, and converted logic into a weapon that mauls the truth far more than it defends it. - H.L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods, 1930

Welcome back to the quaking and malarious thing.

*

Here.

Who'd a thunk it? Electing Bush pushed the Rapture back? Why'd all these loons vote for Him, then?

You know, I thought about taking farmer's advice, and making my way up, from my tiny room under the stairs, up past the fountains and the mosaics, and all the way up the marble stairs to The Executive Club—I know the gold taps are polished, because I polished them—but there was this red velvet rope on the landing, with a sign that said "Private" so I just didn't feel right... Maybe... Some day...

So, will the DNC fire themselves?

Reminds me of an exchange I read in one of John Keegan's military history books:

How will we know the battleship is obsolete?

When it fails in war.

Good question; good answer. And the DNC is that battleship. (And fuck the DLC. It was Clinton's personal abilities that one that election, not the DLC's strategery).

So, will the DNC fire themselves? [Pause for laughter.]

But still, there's hope:

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean (news - web sites) is considering a bid to become chairman of the national Democratic Party.
(via AP)

Do it.

Then make Bill Clinton head of the UN. (He shouldn't be head of the DNC anyhow; the UN won't care about a blowjob, but do, say, 2% of American voters? Apparently...)

Meanwhile, after Harry "Master Debater" Reid fails, because the Dems still seem to believe its business as usual, instead of a Republican war of extermination, give Hillary his job. Bright as she is, I don't see her as a winner. Though I have to say it would be a pleasure to see her eviscerate Jebbie in 2008.....

My, what a nice letter from the DNC today, reproduced below as I read it:

Dear Chump,

I want to thank you for everything you've done over the course of this campaign. Time and time again we asked for your help, and you were always there for us [except last week, when we bailed on you and you suddenly became "shrill."].

Even though we didn't [really fight to] win back the White House, you created something historic. Our grassroots campaign of hope and optimism was unprecedented in American politics. More than 1 million volunteers made 11 million person-to-person, door-to-door contacts, and made 38 million phone calls to voter in battleground states. [And then, after all that, our candidates graciously bailed out on you all, but, hey…]

If you were involved in these grassroots activities, we want to hear from you about your experience. What did you do? Did you feel the action you took was effective? Was it a good experience for you? How would you make it better? [Ooooh, tough one—let’s see… count every vote before conceding?]

Tell us your thoughts. [Okay, but remember, you asked...] http://www.democrats.org/feedback/

We plan to use your feedback to help develop our strategy in 2005. As always, you will continue to play a critical role in the future of the Democratic Party. What we created together will be the backbone for Democratic victories in the future [unless, of course, we’re as spineless as ever, and then it's up to you].

You and I know that this fight is not over. We will never waver when it comes to defending our values and fighting for what we know is right. [Except of course, when it comes to counting every vote. Or speaking up loud and proud in public. Or when we’re afraid the GOPers will get mad at us.]

Again, thank you for helping create something special. [A groundswell of angry young Democrats who are going to take this party away from the invertebrates currently in charge? No problem. My pleasure to do a small part.]

Sincerely,

Terry McAuliffe

Or is my hair on fire? Keith Olbermann:

[T]he Cincinnati Enquirer reported that officials in Warren County, Ohio, had “locked down” its administration building to prevent anybody from observing the vote count there.

Suspicious enough on the face of it, the decision got more dubious still when County Commissioners confirmed that they were acting on the advice of their Emergency Services Director, Frank Young. Mr. Young had explained that he had been advised by the federal government to implement the measures for the sake of Homeland Security.

Gotcha. Tom Ridge thought Osama Bin Laden was planning to hit Caesar Creek State Park in Waynesville. During the vote count in Lebanon. Or maybe it was Kings Island Amusement Park that had gone Code-Orange without telling anybody. Al-Qaeda had selected Turtlecreek Township for its first foray into a Red State.

The State of Ohio confirms that of all of its 88 Counties, Warren alone decided such Homeland Security measures were necessary.
he majority of the media has yet to touch the other stories of Ohio (the amazing Bush Times Ten voting machine in Gahanna) or the sagas of Ohio South: huge margins for Bush in Florida counties in which registered Democrats outnumber registered Republicans 2-1, places where the optical scanning of precinct totals seems to have turned results from perfect matches for the pro-Kerry exit poll data, to Bush sweeps.
(via MSNBC)

Homeland Security involved in swing state voting? Pshaw! Why, that's almost as implausible as thinking the FAA would get involved in a redistricting fight in Texas!

UPDATE See Palast on spoilage.

UPDATE Those troubling Florida optical scan numbers.

And it felt great!

Yeah, I still love newspapers, and I can read them on the commute. But $5.00 for the Sunday plus $1.00 for the daily is ten bucks a week times 52.

$520 a year is way too much money to lay on the dresser for Judy "Kneepads" Miller, or to listen to Dan "Bud Man" Okrent insult me.

And what do I get from the Times that I can't get from The Daily Kos, anyhow? Well, the Arts Section. But there's a feisty weekly in town that does great arts coverage, and real reporting, too. The New Yorker. You've heard of it?

Punish bad behavior: Don't pay the Times tax!

Reward good behavior: Buy The New Yorker!

And speaking of rewarding good behavior, the National Geographic has a new issue out with the provocative question on the cover: "Was Darwin wrong?" Inside, they answer, in really big letters, NO! Go buy it.

A-ha. The face that launched a thousand ships reveals itself, although only in the Scottish news. It’s back to being a crusade, I guess:

During the night American Marines, backed up by troops of the Iraqi Army, began their operation....

Colonel Gary Brandl of the United States Marine Corps commented: "The enemy has a face. It is Satan's. He is in Fallujah, and we are going to destroy him."

The Americans needed to free up hundreds of troops for this operation and the Black Watch was moved from the relatively benign Basra area to allow that to happen. via American Marines attack Fallujah

You know, maybe we were wrong before. Maybe Bushco waited until after the (d)election because they figured out what a clusterfuck this operation was about to be… in terms of “moral values,” I mean… or maybe they just really don’t give a shit because they think the Invisible Cloud Being will make it all right, because, after all, they’re fighting Satan.

As long as we're talking about what we're for?

I mean, I always thought it was along the lines of "Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required" (Luke 12 : 48 (RSV)), but what do I know anymore?

Morality, morality… thy name is Bushco… so as I write this, the bombs are dropping on Fallujah because hand-puppet Allawi said it was OK for Bush’s soldiers—our children, brothers, sisters, dads and moms—to start the “operation.” Major Falluja assault under way So, as I write this, the election is settled, only it’s not settled (see below and seethe). So, as I write this, Rove comes out of the closet unchained and tells Americans he plans to decree whom they can marry and rip the Constituion in little pieces Rove: Bush serious about gay marriage ban

And the continued rape of the environment hasn’t even made it onto the SCLM’s radar screen. Enviro's hands 'full' with four more years of Bush

And poor elderly in Colorado have to choose between heat and medicine and food. Again, just like two years ago when that Liberal hotbed the Salvation Army wrote this: LIHEAP Newsroom Story

My tomcat has better morals. Anyway, more on the (d)election. Read it and weep tears of anger:

Dick Morris, the infamous political consultant to the first Clinton campaign who became a Republican consultant and Fox News regular, wrote an article for The Hill, the publication read by every political junkie in Washington, DC, in which he made a couple of brilliant points.

"Exit Polls are almost never wrong," Morris wrote. "They eliminate the two major potential fallacies in survey research by correctly separating actual voters from those who pretend they will cast ballots but never do and by substituting actual observation for guesswork in judging the relative turnout of different parts of the state."

He added: "So, according to ABC-TVs exit polls, for example, Kerry was slated to carry Florida, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa, all of which Bush carried. The only swing state the network had going to Bush was West Virginia, which the president won by 10 points."
Yet a few hours after the exit polls were showing a clear Kerry sweep, as the computerized vote numbers began to come in from the various states the election was called for Bush.
How could this happen? Evidence Mounts That the Vote May Have Been Hacked

The poster here is an eye-popper...

A poster named 'TruthIsAll' on the DemocraticUnderground.com forums laid out the questionable results of Tuesday's election in succinct fashion: "To believe that Bush won the election, you must also believe: That the exit polls were wrong; that Zogby's 5pm election day calls for Kerry winning Ohio and Florida were wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that Harris' last-minute polling for Kerry was wrong (he was exactly right in his 2000 final poll); that incumbent rule #1 - undecideds break for the challenger - was wrong; That the 50% rule - an incumbent doesn't do better than his final polling - was wrong; That the approval rating rule - an incumbent with less than 50% approval will most likely lose the election - was wrong; that it was just a coincidence that the exit polls were correct where there was a paper trail and incorrect (+5% for Bush) where there was no paper trail; that the surge in new young voters had no positive effect for Kerry; that Kerry did worse than Gore against an opponent who lost the support of scores of Republican newspapers who were for Bush in 2000; that voting machines made by Republicans with no paper trail and with no software publication, which have been proven by thousands of computer scientists to be vulnerable in scores of ways, were not tampered with in this election."

In short, we have old-style vote spoilage in minority communities. We have electronic voting machines losing votes and adding votes all across the country. We have electronic voting machines whose efficiency and safety have not been tested. We have electronic voting machines that offer no paper trail to ensure a fair outcome. We have central tabulators for these machines running on Windows software, compiling results that can be demonstrably tampered with. We have the makers of these machines publicly professing their preference for George W. Bush. We have voter trends that stray from the expected results. We have these machines counting millions of votes all across the country. Worse Than 2000: Tuesday's Electoral Disaster

Thanks for waiting in line, y’all. Now, surrender goddamit!

This from Saturday's Washington Post:

BAGHDAD, Nov. 5 -- As Marines step up preparations for military offensives on two major Iraqi cities, a number of Sunni Muslim leaders are forwarding a plan to establish the rule of law in those areas through peaceful means, with the promise of reducing the insurgency across a large swath of the country.

Some of the groups leading the bid have encouraged violent resistance in central, western and northern Iraq. The groups say they will withdraw their support for violence if Iraq's interim government can reassure Sunni leaders wary of national elections, which are scheduled for the end of January.

The Sunnis have proposed six measures, including a demand that U.S. forces remain confined to bases in the month before balloting. Such an ambitious demand, which some advocates acknowledge is not likely to be met and may be open to negotiation, represents a dramatic shift by Sunni groups opposed to the U.S. operation in Iraq.

Until now, groups such as the Association of Muslim Scholars, which supports the new proposal, had insisted that no election could be considered legitimate until Western troops left Iraq. The association has repeatedly threatened to call for an election boycott through the loudspeakers of Iraq's Sunni mosques, which the association represents.

"We took an initiative regarding the elections. It is being welcomed by the people on the boycott side," said Wamidh Nadhmi, a Baghdad University political science professor who is spokesman for the initiative. "They said that if such agreements could be met by the Americans, they could change to participation."

And once you change to participation, you are no longer part of the insurgency.

Can anyone who isn't a completely crazed neocon not understand that the offer described above has the makings of a major breakthrough, one that Bush & Co could even take credit for, deserved or not, one they could even use to justify their bloody air attacks on Fallujah as a "get tough" policy that is working. Thus, I read those first quoted paragraphs with increasing excitement. Nothing is more important than that the Sunni Iraqis participate in the January election, absolutely nothing. Without their participation, the election will be seen as an American/Shia election, not an Iraqi one.

Do I have to even tell you what the response of the Bush-league administration is thus far? Zero. Zed. Zilch. Nothin.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad offered no reaction to the proposal, which it received this week. A Western diplomat emphasized that any decision lay with Iraq's interim government.

Fuck'em for the heartless, brainless savages they are.

More disturbing, however, is the response of Iraqi officials, i.e., members of our own hand-selected soverign Iraqi government.

"They don't seem to get it. The monopoly of power is over," said a senior Iraqi government official, referring to former President Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated government. "One wonders how representative these elements are of the mainstream Sunni population. They may represent nostalgia for the past, but for sure no realistic vision for the future."

No one who isn't under lock and key is nostalgic for Saddam. Many Iraqis may well feel nostalgia for a time when they lived in a country with a civil society that worked, even if its political life was often debauched by Saddam. I don't discount the new freedom of expression that is now possible there, but without civil order, there can be no civilized order, let alone a just, democratic society.

And someone please explain to me how a representative group of Sunni scholars and clerics who are willing to withdraw their support from the insurgency and to urge fellow Sunnis to as well, in exchange for American controlled troops agreeing to not mount a lethal attack on cities like Fallujah, where all kinds of different people live, most of them not terrorists, and a guarantee of genuine participation in the coming January elections, somehow equals insisting on a monopoly of power.

Way back in the summer and fall of 2003, Democrats who visited Iraq came back to explain to Americans, and the Bush administration that in addition to restoring civil order, the most important order of business for the occupation was to convince Sunni Iraq that it has a real stake and a real role in the new Iraq, a task made all the more difficult by the half-assed moves by Bremer to de-Baathify Iraq. Like almost every other aspect of the entire Bush administration's occupation of Iraq, neither objective was achieved. Not only were Sunni Baathists who had committed human rights depredations against fellow Iraqis not identified, nor preperations made to bring them to some kind of accounting for their actions, Sunnis who hated Saddam as much as any Iraqi, even though they were part of the civil apparatus that helped make Iraq a working society, were treated as if they were as guilty as Saddam himself, and all Sunnis were given every indication that they had no future in the new Iraq, no stake at all in supporting the occupation as an avenue to a democratic Iraq in which their rights as a minority would be protected.

I know, I know, the red Americans who voted moral values over all else don't care about any of that. Even though the administration they so admire as being "moral" above all else has made, as its final argument in support of their invasion of Iraq, that we deposed a terrible despot, and we are now proving that Arab Muslims are capable of democratic governance.

Well, they ought to care. They ought to be aware that every major move this administration has taken from the day they invaded Iraq has been the precise, wrong move to achieve their own stated goals. Nor, as in all previous instances, are there any lack of responsible, knowledgeable voices issuing warnings to this President and his matchless matched set of advisers.

Some former officials with experience in Iraq called the Sunni proposal a potential breakthrough that could avert not only an assault on Fallujah but also a violent aftermath, when insurgents might take the fight elsewhere.

"Most of what we've learned about insurgencies is that you don't defeat one through purely military means," said Larry Diamond, who served in the U.S.-led occupation authority. "When you try to do that, you may win the battle but lose the war. The insurgency in the Sunni heartland is now quite broad-based, and I don't think we're going to defeat the insurgency in this part of the country through purely military means. I think we're looking at a protracted insurgency which will get worse if we go through with elections" that many Sunnis boycott.

"These groups," Diamond said, "have to be given evidence that it's in their interests to participate in the electoral process."

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, in a letter to President Bush disclosed Friday, warned that an assault on Fallujah "would be very disruptive of Iraq's political transition."

"Persuading elements who are currently alienated from, or skeptical about, the transition process to compete politically is key to creating a political and security context that will inspire confidence among all Iraqis," Annan wrote.

Okay, Annan is an object of contempt in the Bush White House. Larry Diamond was not only part of the occupation, his home is the Hoover Institute, hardly a hotbed of leftist defeatism. On the other hand, Diamond, a genuine expert on how to help failed nations transition to democratic goverenance, has testified to various Congressional committees on the startling failures of Bush policy in Iraq, and has written the best, single article I've read on the subject of "What Went Wrong?" in Iraq. Do read it if you haven't. In fact, even if you have, read it again, and then weep again. Weep because, as we all know, there is no better way to become irrelevant to any policy debate than to make even the slightest criticism, any at all, of the President, or any member of his administration.

Iraqis who didn't need to will die because this President can't bear to be criticized.

In fact, it's already started. Sorry, I can't bear to think about Iraq another second. I'm sure I can sleep that feeling away, and then I'll be back on the case. Here's the link to the original Wa Po piece.

This is, shall we say, not as forcefully written as could be. Nor as timely as one might like. But there are certain things that can be counted on to piss off just about everybody not directly employed by Enron, and "lying to Grandma" is high on the list.

(via NYT's usually reliable Business section)

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 - The nation's insurance commissioners say the federal Medicare agency has made misleading statements about the new drug benefit in an effort to persuade people to sign up.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which represents insurance regulators in all 50 states, registered its concern in a letter to the agency. State officials elaborated on their concerns in recent interviews.

If private insurers made such statements about their products, the association said, state officials would investigate their marketing practices for possible violation of consumer protection laws.

The insurance commissioners objected to a proposed federal rule requiring insurers to tell policyholders that the Medicare drug benefit provided "greater value'' than did the drug coverage available to people with private Medigap insurance. Similar statements appear on the Web site of the Department of Health and Human Services.

The views of state insurance commissioners are significant for several reasons. The commissioners regulate the marketing and advertising of all sorts of insurance. They have years of experience in evaluating the claims made for insurance products. The federal government is required to consult them in setting Medigap standards. Their letter had no apparent ties to this year's elections and expressed no opinion on the merits of the new Medicare law.

Gasp! They sound suspiciously like members of the Reality-Based Community! Worse yet, there are signs of treason here...

In fact, the letter was signed by a Republican, Ms. Praeger, who is chairwoman of the association's committee on health insurance and managed care.

The proposed notice to beneficiaries "sounds a little too much like advertising'' for the new drug benefit, Ms. Praeger said in an interview.

Members of the association said they were speaking not as Republicans or Democrats, but as professional insurance regulators responsible for protecting consumers.

The Bush administration contends that the new drug benefit will be superior to existing private coverage.

And because They say it is so, well then, it must be so!

Under the law, Medigap insurers must send a notice to policyholders with drug coverage, explaining what options they will have in 2006. The administration says insurers should tell beneficiaries, in the first paragraph of any notice, that the new drug benefit "will provide greater value than your current coverage.''

Companies are now required to screw themselves in the course of doing business. Somehow I don't think they're going to be as easily bought off as the Christian Fundamentalists who are pacified by Karl Rove doing some gay-bashing on the Sabbath Gasbag circuit.

State insurance commissioners object to that requirement. The new benefit, they said, does not necessarily offer greater value for all Medicare beneficiaries.

In its letter, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners said the federal government was using "precisely the type of 'push' advertising technique that the N.A.I.C. and its members consistently oppose and prohibit at the state regulatory level.''

If you help your grandparents, parents or other people who have to deal with Medicare, click the link above and print out the story. If you just try to tell them flat out the Gummint is lying to them, they might sigh and give you the Get Over The Election Already speech.

Anyone know what the moon-phase will be for the coronation inaugural?

The Praetorian Guard has been summoned forth in all its splendor. Full-body patdown searches will result in Gitmo for anyone caught carrying a raw egg.

(via WaPo)

An unprecedented level of security will frame President Bush's second inauguration, with officials planning to use thousands of police from across the country, new screening technology for inaugural guests and a military contingent that could include a combat brigade of up to 4,000 troops.

As tens of thousands of people come to Washington to watch the Jan. 20 swearing in, the city will be filled with military personnel, FBI agents in full SWAT outfitting, snipers on rooftops and scores of bomb-detecting dogs.

About 2,000 out-of-town officers will help with security and traffic details. Undercover officers will work the crowds, and D.C. police officers will be posted every six to eight feet along the parade route.

Law enforcement authorities do not have specific information that al Qaeda or another terrorist group is targeting the inauguration.

Yeah, like they're really worried about al Qaeda. This is to protect Dear Leader from his own people, or at least an insignificant 48 percent of us.

In addition, officials said the new Joint Forces Headquarters-National Capital Region is prepared to pre-deploy 4,000 active-duty combat forces in the District -- a significant departure from past inaugurations.

D.C. police officials said they have requested help from scores of police departments east of the Mississippi River. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey said he expects to need 1,600 to 2,500 officers from other jurisdictions.

Officials said that none of the security measures is meant to keep people from attending the parade or other events.

Yeah, right. I'm sure he meant to say "the right people."

Scientists have discovered water on Mars, and that could mean life on Mars.

So I think it's important that we make sure that gays can't marry on Mars, either. And that would include the Martian gays. In fact, I think all the Martians are gay. So let's kill them.

No, silly! He didn't say that in so many words... But isn't that what "moral values" is code for?

President Bush will renew a quest in his second term for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage as essential to a "hopeful and decent" society, his top political aide said on Sunday.

Bush's call for a constitutional ban on gay marriages failed last year in Congress, but his position was seen as a key factor motivating Christian conservatives concerned about "moral values" to turn out in large numbers and help supply Bush with a winning margin in last week's election.

"If we want to have a hopeful and decent society, we ought to aim for the ideal, and the ideal is that marriage ought to be, and should be, a union of a man and a woman," Bush political aide Karl Rove told "Fox News Sunday."
(via Reuters)

I love it. "Hopeful and decent."

But then I guess, given the Bush mandate, these guys can do anything.

For the Bush flip-floppping and cowardice on this issue, see back here.

Eesh.


I could snark. I mean, I can see all the moves about to happen. All the positioning. All the press releases. But. Jesus.

UPDATE Link corrected. Sorry.

From a classic post by the ever-essential Orcinus way back in 2003. The post is prescient (or, if you prefer, prophetic):

I remember rather vividly, like the day JFK was shot, where I was and what I was doing, the evening [Bush v. Gore] came down. I was in a small harbor town in western Washington, staying with the parents of some close friends (who are themselves good friends) while I covered a manslaughter trial in a nearby town. He is an accountant, she a homemaker, good moderate churchgoing Democrats. We all sat together and watched the bulletins come over the newscasts (I think we were tuned to MSNBC).

And I remember she turned to me and said: "I feel sad. Because I can't vote a mixed ticket anymore." He nodded.

So did I. I knew exactly what she meant.

It is, frankly, foolishness at this point in time to even vote for a Republican. Not because the party lacks candidates who are utterly unworthy of support; there are, indeed, smart, thoughtful and honest Republicans even still, though they are harder to come by. But even they represent, and remain an integral part of, a party that has become nearly absolutely corrupted by its near-absolute power, and almost permanently tainted by its lust for utter control of the political and social landscape.

I decided then that, for the foreseeable future, I could not cast my vote for any Republican on any ballot.

Ultimately, all politics is personal, and human nature being what it is, there was a measure of mistrust of all conservatives that came with this assessment. What I observed over time was that none of my conservative friends would seriously defend Bush v. Gore but would switch subjects or revert to a "get over it" kind of response.

And so the feeling grew on my part that they neither were being honest nor being, at base, civil in its core sense. Maybe I was wrong to feel this way, I don't know; but I felt it. I tried not to let it show, but it was there. And it was a wedge in our friendships.

What seems to have really ripped things apart, though, was the aftermath of September 11. And this came down not so much to my feelings, but to theirs.

It is in the last of these failures -- painting dissent as treason -- that the president, his administration and the accompanying pundits (or rather, the choir of sycophants) all have affected us all personally, and badly. Because that view has become the worldview of mainstream conservatives in all walks of life.

Most of all, the prevalence of the "dissent is treason" meme has affected how ordinary people relate to each other, in profoundly negative ways.

But I no longer much trust in the moral strength of my conservative friends. Whereas once I believed that the basic decency of average, mainstream conservatives was more than an adequate bulwark against the possibility of right-wing fascism from ever manifesting itself, I have been forced to conclude that, when swept along by the combination of a movement and the fearmongering of public officials, they are as susceptible to doing the wrong thing as their ancestors were in 1942, when they shipped off 110,000 Japanese Americans to concentration camps.

It grieves me to see old friendships and relationships actually damaged by this war. But it was not a fight I or other liberals chose. It was thrust upon us. And until that aggression comes to a stop, I will not stop fighting back. Civilly, of course, but with all the blunt force and passion I can muster.

Because, yes, it is political -- but it's also become personal.

Now, many Pennsylvania Democrats haven't learned this hard lesson. And many of them voted a split ticket for Kerry and also for the "moderate" Spector (not Hoeffel). Well, Rove left his usual calling card—a horse's head in the bed—for Spector, and Spector caved. So long Roe v. Wade! Welcome, two, three, many Bush v Gore! The shameful, shabby sequence of events:

Last week, Specter told reporters that "judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade (news - web sites)" probably would face problems in the Senate.

Specter said Bush has had trouble getting some of his nominees through the Senate because of Democratic filibusters. He added: "I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."

Filibusters, a bill-killing tactic of unlimited debate, remain possible in the Senate elected last week because the Republicans' 55-45 majority falls five votes short of the 60 needed to cut off debate.

Specter's comments on the question came a day after he won re-election in Pennsylvania in a tight race in which the president campaigned for him. The remarks outraged conservative groups such as Concerned Women for America, which sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist urging him to prevent Specter from taking the chairmanship.

Specter backtracked the next day, saying he wasn't warning Bush not to make those kinds of choices. His meaning, Specter said, was that "in light of the repeated filibusters by the Democrats in the last Senate session, I am concerned about a potential repetition of such filibusters."
(via AP

Spector, you see, does not understand the way we live now: In a one party state, where all checks and balances have been swept away in the service of unchecked executive power.

Split ticket voters, it's a hard lesson—one that I hope has not been learned too late.

More proof that we're winning:

The government declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout most of the country Sunday, as U.S. and Iraqi forces prepared for an expected all-out assault on rebels in Fallujah. Insurgents escalated a wave of violence that has killed more than 50 people the past two days.

Heavy explosions were heard in Baghdad as government spokesman Thair Hassan al-Naqeeb announced the state of emergency over the entire country except Kurdish areas in the north.
(via AP)

Hey, that's some election they're getting ready for....

This whole "value voters" thing is, as I suspected all along, a crock. Religion is a subject that almost by definition engages the strong emotions and is therefore very satisfying to rant about. Numbers are cold, money is cold, organization is both cold AND boring, so we don't notice the stories like this:

(via Minneapolis Star-Tribune's Greg Gordon)

Business groups picked Ohio two years ago as the first place to fully deploy a new tactic for turning out Republican votes in the 2004 election.

Managers at more than 50,000 companies in Ohio urged employees to vote, while trying to coax them in e-mails to look at customized internal Web sites rating politicians' votes on business issues, a project leader said. One rating gave Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry a zero last year on votes affecting manufacturers.

Greg Casey, a former U.S. Senate sergeant-at-arms who headed what he calls business' "below-the-radar" national effort, said it resulted in 30 million electronic contacts with workers, about 700,000 the day before the election.

Casey believes that the "Prosperity Project" had a big impact in Ohio, citing research suggesting that for every 10 employees who scanned company Web sites, one was motivated to vote. He said Ohio companies made 1.3 million employee contacts, more than nine times Bush's 136,483-vote victory margin in the state.

Prosperity Project officials, however, say they are "respectful" to employees and merely offer them access to information affecting their companies' prospects in a tough global economy.

"At the end of the day," said Eric Burkland, president of the Ohio Manufacturers Association, if employees and companies "aren't working together, all those jobs are going to China."

Yeah baby! BOHICA time in Ohio! Work to your last waking hour, let us extract that last drop of blood before you drop, while we chop medical benefits first from retirees (they don't have that shit in China!) then from current employees (we gotta compete with China!) and then take your damn jobs to China anyway. Sorry about that but we have The Company's Best Interests To Consider.

I humbly request/arrogantly demand (pick one) that everybody go read this entire story. The Strib is registration but you can read one story per day without it, so go there, copy this, and save it for re-reading. I add just one more bit because it pertains to a company that operates nationwide, and which you might wish to reconsider your relationship with if you are a customer:

While many participating companies refuse to be identified publicly, Gordon Crow, director of government and community affairs for Schwan Food Co., said the frozen-food maker, based in Marshall, Minn., has operated a Prosperity Web site since 2002 and actively encouraged employees to vote.

Okay, just one more one more thing: You know how we here in the left part of blogland have been just a big smug about how we're the cutting edge of using the Net to good effect? Feh. We're schmucks. They were not only out there too, they were better targeted:

It turned out to be a bargain, costing less than $10 million this election cycle to gain participation from 800 to 1,000 businesses and trade associations, which in turn linked hundreds of thousands more corporate members to the system. Meanwhile, Democratic voter mobilization groups spent more than $100 million.

Yeah, this is apples v. oranges, comparing one part of the Great Noise Machine to the entirety of the Dem GOTV efforts. But look at those numbers again. This was just the rollout, the test-marketing project. Wonder why we had such unexpected trouble in the upper Midwest? It wasn't because the Lutherans suddenly became Rapturists.

Earlier post: Lambert asks, "How should we respond to this?" (scroll down a couple of posts) Or use this back link


As i've mentioned in an earlier post (below: Steal This Bible - Crusade 2008) i've decided to help advance the new faith based Jesus Shoutin' Liberal Agenda. Thats why I've also decided that i will try to point out in all future posts (for the next four years) why i think Republican Jesus and Mandate Christianity is relevant to almost any issue that can possibly be thunk on.

And to be honest its a little liberating. I can feel the scales falling from my eyes and the cold binding chains of reality falling from my shoulders as I write to you here and now. Thine eyes are lifted to the hand hewed box wood rafters of my splendorous sprawling loft office here within the bosom of the Corrente Building. Gilded cages filled with twittering turtle doves sing hyms of joy and redemtion as the luminous visage of the Rev. G. W. Bailey [ironic signs and wonders creationist designer monogram note: GWB], "pastor of the Mt. Sinai Institutional Baptist Church at Conemaugh" hovers in the upper right hand corner of the room like some kind of skittish aeriform marshland gas.

Why pastor Bailey you ask? Well, I'll tell you in a minute, but first I want to remind you of new developtments in the advancement of science larnin'. Creation "Science" larnin' that is.

First (thanks to "editoress" for pointing to this Fabulous News):

Wis. City's Schools Allowing Creationism | By Associated Press | November 6, 2004, 7:30 PM EST.

GRANTSBURG, Wis. -- The city's school board has revised its science curriculum to allow the teaching of creationism, prompting an outcry from more than 300 educators who urged that the decision be reversed.

School board members believed that a state law governing the teaching of evolution was too restrictive. The science curriculum "should not be totally inclusive of just one scientific theory," said Joni Burgin, superintendent of the district of 1,000 students in northwest Wisconsin. - Read more here

Next here / Kansas:
Posted on Sat, Nov. 06, 2004 | Creation, evolution back on agenda

The state school board prepares to begin considering guidelines for teaching religion in Kansas public schools. - BY JOSH FUNK, The Wichita Eagle

Hallelujah brother Funk! I'm not sure if that was the proper moment for a hallelujah, i'm still in training, but I hope it was ok. The best part of this new faith-based liberal agenda is all the spontaneous shoutin' and whoopin' and hopping around. And all the general excitable grab-ass that goes with it.

REVEALED ABSURDITY THEORY:
Ok, what I'm getting at here is this: all this revived interest in whisking school children into a creationist lather presents a great opportunity for liberals to push the New Jesus Shoutin' Liberal Creationist Agenda. And thats where the Rev. G.W. Bailey of Conemaugh comes in. You see, in 1929 the good Rev. had this to say with respect to the true theoretical scientific nature of the earth and sun: (via the Johnstown Democrat, 1929)

The Rev. G. W. Bailey, pastor of the Mt. Sinai Institutional Baptist Church at Conemaugh, delivered a sermon last Sunday afternoon at the church on "The Sun Do Move." The Rev. Mr. Bailey cited a number of scripture passages in support of his contention that the earth is flat and square. The speaker declared that the Bible speaks of the four corners of the earth, saying "I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth."

The Rev. Mr. Bailey then related the story of the children of Israel, up until the time Joshua became their leader. He told of the mighty battle which Joshua was waging when the sun was going down, leaving Joshua's enemies victorious. He said that Joshua prayed to God to stop the sun until he had won the battle and declared that the Bible relates very plainly that God stopped the sun. The Rev. Mr. Bailey also stated that the Bible declares that after Joshua had won the battle the sun moved on.

The speaker declared that scientists have discovered eight planets, while the Bible relates that there are only three planets, citing the 38th chapter of Job. He declared that the Bible gives proof that the earth has never moved.

Hallelujah! And a "Democrat" story too boot! Again, a big hallelujah shout out to Rev Bailey hovering in the corner. I do have a slight problem with the man's suggestion that the earth is square. Afterall, if it were square wouldn't it have eight corners? Whatever. Just a small matter of opinion there and i've never been very good with counting or geometry or any of that useless crap so lets just move on.

See, pastor Bailey was a kind of early Revealed Absurdity Creation Designer. I think that pastor Bailey's theories not only present an excellent opportunity for liberals to embrace an old idiotic historical scientific quackery but also an opportunity to participate within the greater hilarious framework of Revealed Absurdity Design. Does that makes sense? I really haven't any idea what I'm talking about to be honest. But who the hell cares. Thats not important. Whats important is that us liberals get in on the next great fabulous awakening.

I'm sure fellow Corrente congregation member Tom will agree with me that advancing phantasmagorical scientific absurdities within an historical context is a grand scheme that more liberals should embrace. Think of the hilarious historical satirical possibilities! Think of the creative nonsense we can just make up on a whoop and a whim! Hallelujah!

I have a few other Revealed Absurdity Theory design elements which I would like to see scientifically incorporated into our Christian Mandate educational curriculums around the country. For instance:

[1] Flip flops: Jesus wore flip flops. Jesus stomped and smited scorpions with flip-flops.
[2] The 4 Corner Theory. The earth is a four cornered slab. The whole flat earth thang. The Stop-n-Go Sun theory. And all that. (see above)
[3] Puritan values are good God-fearin' values and the Native Americans were Satan's tool sent to thwart the White Calvinist Reformer Christian casino gaming errand in the wilderness.
[4] Florida real estate developtment was first recorded in the book of Genesis.
[5] The Steinway organ is "the instrument of the immortals".

Its a start. Those are just five examples of possible concentrations of study. I'll reveal more over the next four years, as they are revealed to me by powerful forces beyond my control, but I think those are a few good topics to build on. So all you reborn liberals out there - get on down to your local school board meeting and ask, NO!, demand, that your school district begin offering students the option of studying such idiotic subjects as scientific medical exorcism and Public Television Ministry management and the effects of long term macroclimatic change on the shifting economic dynamics of Mystery Babylon. We're all in this together. Do it for the Gloryland!

Hallelujah!

*

Rebecca at Approximately Perfect, lives up to that witty name (the blog's, though "Rebecca" is surely a very lovely name) while taking on a gloating Michelle Malkin, who uses that hack job of a red/blue map of America by to erase the notion that America is anything but all red now.

Rebecca, in typical fashion for a member of the reality-based community, had the brilliant idea of overlaying the hack job map with a map which shows population density, and comes up with a map of as many colorsas Joseph's coat. (See, we can be Biblical, too) The new map is truly a thing of beauty. Thank-you Rebecca.

And if you need a little more bucking up, our hero, Joe Conason, writing in Salon, puts the nightmare of Tuesday in perspective by reminding us not to forget history.

So for the moment set aside the triumphal proclamations from the Republican leadership and their echoes in the media, along with the petty recriminations against John Kerry, who has devoted his life to public service and deserves admiration for the honorable campaign he waged against unscrupulous opponents. As a presidential candidate he had his virtues and flaws, which obviously differed from those of George W. Bush -- and will surely differ from those of the next Democratic nominee.

A longer perspective is more pertinent and more relevant to the future than listening to televised imbeciles maundering about the "death of liberalism." (Had the Democrat won by three points and a couple dozen electoral votes, nobody would be touting the "death of conservatism.") Progressives and reactionaries in America have both survived much sharper electoral rejections than this one. Both sides tend to overreact to such rejection in an election's emotional aftermath.

Exaggeration is the rule, not the exception, in the post-election autopsy. Sweeping pronouncements about this year's close, hotly contested campaign should be considered skeptically, especially when Republican propagandists start to talk about their "mandate" and their "permanent majority." Such claims are convincing only to citizens (and journalists) suffering from amnesia.

Only six years ago, the self-appointed guardians of "moral values" wailed their despair when midterm voters rejected the Republican impeachment jihad, and pundits pondered the political demise of the religious right. Paul Weyrich, architect of the modern religious right, described Bill Clinton's escape from judgment in near-apocalyptic terms, as a signal for the "godly" to withdraw from politics. The Republican House members defenestrated the outspoken proponent of "moral values" then serving as speaker, and his would-be successor, too. But in the next election two years later, the Republicans came back to win the White House (with the assistance of Florida state officials and the Supreme Court), and kept control of both houses of Congress.

Twelve years ago, Clinton won the presidency and ousted a Republican president whose humiliation included receiving only 37 percent of the popular vote. The Democrats began the Clinton administration with control of both House and Senate. Two years later, they lost both houses in the stunning "Contract With America" midterm, which brought Newt Gingrich to power as speaker. (We all know what soon happened to him -- see 1998 above.) The great minds of the nation declared Clinton "irrelevant," predicting in their wisdom that he could not possibly win reelection and must be replaced by the Democrats. They were wrong, of course.

That's all I can quote in good conscience. If you don't have a subscription to Salon, consider getting one. David Talbot, for all his idiosyncracies, chief among which is surely his strange admiration for Camille Paglia, who has popped up, yet again, to rub salt into the wounds of the progressive left she purports to count herself among, other than that, Talbot has done a great and valuable job of keeping Salon viable and increasingly invaluable.

And don't miss the Farmer's intriguing, wholly original suggestion for who and what should be the Democratic standard bearer in 2008. (back)

Now I lay me down to sleep ...

UPDATE Excellent post from a Kossack on election fraud claims. All I would say in response, is that it seems we live in a powerful reality distortion field right now. We already know, from election 2000, that the SCLM just won't cover this story. Witness the Times totally schizzy approach: On the editorial page, sounding the alarm; in the news hole, nothing, zip, nada. So the people putting together the maps and the statistics deserve support, not blame or chastisement.

UPDATE Radical thought, but given the long lines and people with nothing to do... Why not do am entrance poll? Kinda like a parallel structure. Give people some paper to write on, drop it in a sealed locked box, open it later, compare! What could be simpler?

UPDATE The Power of Nightmares. Indeed. Say, I wonder if the Raleigh Police got to use any of their new-fangled Homeland Security gear on those [cough] anarchists? Curtis, the documentary maker, points out that:

the term "al-Qaida" was invented by American prosecutors in early 2001 so they could prosecute individuals under terms of the RICO statues -- the anti-Mafia laws required a named organisation.

Eesh. Layers on layers of deception...

In some way other than mockery, derision, or condescension?

Lynn said that a number of evangelicals, inspired in part by minister Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" novels, have come to view politics as part of their religion. "There is a strain of evangelical Christians who believe it is political figures who usher in the Second Coming," he said. As such, Bush "is the spiritual and political leader of a moral revolution."

Though such views are a minority, there were glimpses of that passion on the campaign trail. Last month, at an invitation-only meeting with Vice President Cheney, a questioner rose and said: "I personally think, next to Jesus Christ, [Bush] probably took the greatest load upon his shoulders of any individual, so it had to be with strong backing that he has been able to stand for his testimony for the Lord Jesus Christ."

At another invitation-only event, a questioner asking about Bush's "faith-based initiatives" told the president: "I believe that the enemy that we need the greatest freedom from right now happens to be Satan, and it's the enemy that we also don't necessarily always see. There's so many people who are being attacked on every level."

Leaders of Christian political organizations have spoken of Tuesday's results as providential. "Only the Lord could have orchestrated an election in which the president got a wonderful majority vote and at the same time we had a basic Christian institution of marriage on the ballot," Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family's vice president of public policy, said on the group's radio show this week.

The organization's head, James Dobson, said, "I think God has honored" Bush because "the president did acknowledge Jesus Christ." The same program broadcast a statement by Dennis Prager, a Christian commentator, saying "civilization as we understand it was in the balance" in the election, and "a beautiful man has been vindicated."
(via WaPO)

Besides the obvious rejoinder—and, oh heck, it is a cheap shot—that these statements build an overwhelming case for atheism, can someone give me a way to react to them in some constructive way?

Some way to react besides pounding my head on the wall? Or screaming and running off into the night?

From Salt Lake City, that well known hotbed of anarcho-syndicalism, a commentator (an anesthesiologist at LDS Hospital and former instructor at Harvard Medical School) actually uses "the F word":

Little did I know that walking next to me in the halls of Olympus High School that year was a friend who would shape history in 2004 as profoundly as these events did in 1968, the year Karl Rove and I were 17.

Karl was the only 17-year-old I'd ever met whose dreams were limited to being a political operative, period. One mutual friend said, "Karl would stare at a sunset and see only the political implications of it." I never remember Karl talking about making the world a better place.

His next milestone: At age 22 he conducted a conference for young Republicans on the art of dirty-tricks politics.

Thirty years later he has accumulated a remarkable winning streak at political gamesmanship, but with the Machiavellian mantra of the end always justifies the means. The means have been astonishingly brutal.

If Karl the Terminator would pause long enough to turn his head a little to either side he would notice that in the movie of real life the victims scattered all over the highway are not just the Democrats but democracy itself. An electorate distracted by dirty tricks is less able to vote to protect the public interest, which is the whole purpose of democracy. A distracted, deceived and fearful electorate is the precursor of fascism.
(via Salt Lake City Tribune)

In a very, very Red state... Stop, children, what's that sound...

NOTE That's the real story, and an amazing one. An anaesthesiologist in Salt Lake City uses the F-word (OK, qualified with "precursor") to decribe the Bush administration. Talk about framing! Modo, that dried-up worthless twit, once again obscures the real point with blather.

For those who can't follow along at home, Inerrant Boy is definitely not preaching on this text:

1: Beware of practicing your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2: "Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3: But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4: so that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
5: "And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
6: But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Revised Standard version)

Bottom line: The Jeebofascists, and Bush, are exactly the people Jesus warned us against.

Looks like Bush undermanning the Iraq invasion force caused more problems:

American intelligence agencies have tripled their formal estimate of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile systems believed to be at large worldwide, since determining that at least 4,000 of the weapons in Iraq's prewar arsenals cannot be accounted for, government officials said Friday.
(via the and-then-they-came-for-you Times)

Wow! Looks like those missiles got privatized! Feeling safer yet?

This is way beyond "what it is ain't exactly clear." This is, as Lambert noted, getting into Reichstag Fire territory.

The link earlier was to a brief USA Today piece. This is from the local Raleigh News & Observer:

RALEIGH - Vandals attacked the state Republican Party headquarters late Friday leaving behind busted windows, kerosene-soaked rags, vulgar slogans and a charred effigy.

Three protesters were arrested and charged in connection with the damage and attempted arson.

Commotion erupted in two spots on Hillsborough Street shortly after 11 p.m. -- one group of 100 people blocked the road across from the N.C. State University Bell Tower while another 100 gathered at the GOP building.

As officers responded to the illegal demonstration in the street, they passed the group vandalizing the North Carolina Republican Party headquarters at 1506 Hillsborough.

Raleigh police Maj. Dennis Lane said he could not confirm that the two events were related.

When police arrived, both groups scattered in all directions. Many of those who were at the party headquarters fled into the Cameron Park neighborhood.
Police caught none of the protesters in either area. But two neighbors did.

Hearing a commotion, John Robbins and a neighbor captured and detained three protesters until police arrived.

"I found them between the garages taking off their black clothes," Robbins said, adding that one of the female protesters bit him on the shoulder.

"They were saying they didn't hurt anybody, but my thing for going out there was to hold them responsible for the damage they had done," he said. "Doing this sort of thing just isn't right."

UPDATE: Very alert reader gene 214 raises a damn good point about Mr. Robbins: "Perhaps I'm missing something, but this guy Robbins issued this statement to police right after holding a couple of people who "were changing clothes between garages" immediately after they had apparently committed their little act of armed resistance. Unless this guy lives right next door to the Gop office, how the hell did he know about the damage these people caused??"

Good question, gene, let's hope somebody at the Nando thinks to ask it.

To continue with our story...

Vanessa Marie Zuloaga, 24, and Melissa Lynn Brown, 18, both of Columbia, S.C. and David Reuben Hensley, 20, of Raleigh were each charged with one count of causing malicious damage to property by use of an incendiary device, a felony. All three remained in the Wake County jail late Saturday, each being held on the $50,000 bail.

Saturday morning, Robbins discovered a black flag and crowbar in his yard and handed them over to police.

John Denton found all sorts of odd stuff during his morning walk including a duffel bag, a torch, bandannas, gloves, a roll of duct tape and even a discarded drum. He pointed it all out to officers. Denton said he too heard lots of unusual noise Friday night.

Besides the spray-painted slogans "Hang em high" and "No more prez," the vandals scrawled a capital "A" inside a circle, an anarchist symbol, on the blond brick building and on its sign.

Anarchy symbols also appeared on the Bank of America automatic teller machine across from the Bell Tower and on another nearby brick building, both on Hillsborough.

The N.C. Independent Media Center web site published what appeared to be a firsthand account of the vandalism, describing the march preceding it as featuring "anarchist, anti-capitalist and revolutionary" banners carried by demonstrators who "danced to the beat of several drums" and "decorated the streets with graffiti."

Bill Peaslee, state GOP chief of staff, said the party plans to make repairs and move forward.

Asked if he thought the attack was partisan, he said: "They didn't hit down the street," referring to the state Democratic Party headquarters on Hillsborough closer to the Capitol. Police said they are trying to protect that building.

"The thing that is the most disturbing is that these people don't have a better way of expressing themselves," said Peaslee, who was wearing a "W 2004" ballcap Saturday morning. Ever the party leader, he even offered a backhanded compliment to the protesters. "They were very well organized."

The police investigation continued Saturday afternoon, Lane said.

"We're trying to determine if we can identify any additional suspects," he said.

Now let's look this over. I have no links to the anarchist community but just on the face of it I would have trouble believing that they (1) number 200 active, willing-to-show-up-for-a-rave members in Raleigh-friggin'-Durham North Carolina, or that (2) all 200 would agree to engage in this project, or most especially that (3) a group that size would not have as many police infiltrators as actual members, if not more.

The fact that somebody does things they've seen self-proclaimed "anarchists" do on TV, like the spraypainting of "A", does not prove anything except that they watch TV. And why the automatic assumption, not just by the local Head GOoP but the cops and even the newspaper reporter, that these people must be, or be affiliated with, Democrats? Hell, we have enough trouble keeping our own factions marching together, I never once in the course of a long campaign heard of any outreach to the black-beret folks.

And out of 200 people rampaging in the streets the police caught exactly ZERO? Does this not seem just a tad odd to anybody?

And an Indymedia site, yeah the outfit that had a batch of their servers seized by police in a bizarre international effort just before the election, happens to be the one they mention as having a remarkably quick story about this action?

And doesn't the aforementioned Head GOoP, Mr. Peasley, sound remarkably calm about all this? Just barely a tut-tut, followed by a compliment on the organizational skills of a rampaging, property-destroying, raving MOB for chrissakes?

Correntians in the area, or who have contacts there, let us know what the local chatter is. Anybody know these three arrested parties? Previous affiliations of a political nature? What's the neighborhood like, what's the nearest college, etc.

Followup will be conducted here.

You know, this story shows why Kerry should never have conceded until all the votes were counted. That would have given the SCLM a frame for the story immediately. (No, there was no point litigating Ohio. What Kerry should have said is that "Yep, it looks like Bush won. And I'll concede officially when all the votes are counted. And now the country can go about its business." It's FOLLY to concede the Republicans anything.) And now we see why:

When I spoke with Jeff Fisher this morning (Saturday, November 06, 2004), the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 16th District said he was waiting for the FBI to show up. Fisher has evidence, he says, not only that the Florida election was hacked, but of who hacked it and how. And not just this year, he said, but that these same people had previously hacked the Democratic primary race in 2002 so that Jeb Bush would not have to run against Janet Reno, who presented a real threat to Jeb, but instead against Bill McBride, who Jeb beat.

"It was practice for a national effort," Fisher told me.

While the heavily scrutinized touch-screen voting machines seemed to produce results in which the registered Democrat/Republican ratios largely matched the Kerry/Bush vote, in Florida's counties using results from optically scanned paper ballots - fed into a central tabulator PC and thus vulnerable to hacking – the results seem to contain substantial anomalies.

In Baker County, for example, with 12,887 registered voters, 69.3% of them Democrats and 24.3% of them Republicans, the vote was only 2,180 for Kerry and 7,738 for Bush, the opposite of what is seen everywhere else in the country where registered Democrats largely voted for Kerry.

In Dixie County, with 4,988 registered voters, 77.5% of them Democrats and a mere 15% registered as Republicans, only 1,959 people voted for Kerry, but 4,433 voted for Bush.

The pattern repeats over and over again - but only in the counties where optical scanners were used. Franklin County, 77.3% registered Democrats, went 58.5% for Bush. Holmes County, 72.7% registered Democrats, went 77.25% for Bush.

More visual analysis of the results can be seen [here], and [here].

Note the trend line – the only variable that determines a swing toward Bush was the use of optical scan machines.

(via Common Dreams)

What could enable such a discrepancy in the counties with optical scanners? The answer could be in the network architecture that Diebold adopted: A central server where the votes from the polling places are tabulated, which stores the data—I kid you not—in Microsoft Access. The whole system is totally insecure and eminently hackable:

Be they Diebold Opti-Scan machines, which read paper ballots filled in by pencil or ink in the voter's hand, or the scanners that read punch cards, or the machines that simply record a touch of the screen, in all cases the final tally is sent to a "central tabulator" machine.

That central tabulator computer is a Windows-based PC.

[Says Bev Harris:] "What surprises people is that the central tabulator is just a PC, like what you and I use. It's just a regular computer."

"So," Dean said, "anybody who can hack into a PC can hack into a central tabulator?"

According to congressional candidate Fisher, it makes far more sense that the exit polls were right - they weren't done on Diebold PCs - and that the vote itself was hacked.

And not only for the presidential candidate - Jeff Fisher thinks this hit him and pretty much every other Democratic candidate for national office in the most-hacked swing states.

Still in the interesting if true category. The story is kinda schizzy—the lede is about Fisher and the FBI, but the statistics in the story don't give a clue to what Fisher actually has. And why hack the optical scan machines, since those are the ones that leave a paper trail?

It's also interesting that the Harris quote comes from an interview with Howard Dean. Where is he on this?

UPDATE Interesting statistical analysis on California here.

As young people in iWaq are forced on all sides to kill each other for the sake of W, and hospitals are bombed, and morality and values are ballyhooed, the election ain’t over.

I just got back from the meeting of local Dems from the region, sort of a confab for those who were pollwatchers and canvassing board watchers during the election, to compare notes and talk to lawyers and party bosses, and I am pissed. Really pissed. I followed up with a bunch of phone calls and compared notes around. Everybody’s pissed. And here’s a list of reasons why:

ORGANIZATION. We’re disorganized as hell. Total fascist efficiency would scare me, and I wouldn’t want that, but come on…Two county HQ’s didn’t even have computers, and no central list of volunteers even on hard copy. GOP HQ’s in all counties, on the other hand, all had computers, and runners to get the numbers in real time on E-day, and now have a complete list of who did and did not show up in their precincts on E-day to vote. Think that’ll be handy in the next election? Think the county part bosses can use that info? The Dems have voter registration lists, that’s all, no record of who voted. While the GOPers had lunches taken to their workers, and regular runners to check on them, at fifty of the precincts no Dem runner even showed up to check on things, and cell phone use was banned, and if you left the polls you weren’t allowed back in, so nobody could call in a lawyer if they needed to. Five pollwatchers were sent to precincts where there were already pollwatchers, and had to be moved, and so didn’t see the machines fired up. Of course, when they got there, the GOP-watchers were already there. Only twenty precincts had any Dems 100ft. away to watch what was going on outside and wave people in. Anecdotally, it seems the GOPers had people with signs at damn near all of the polls. LESSON: Organize, goddamit!

IRREGULARITIES. Everybody reported nothing but minor problems at the precincts themselves. This is the good news. The bad news? In at least one county, the clerk’s office opened up the bags containing the absentee ballots and later, the provisional ballots, without even a single outside witness. They broke the seals open and sorted the ballots and then proceeded to see which ones they would disqualify without any outside monitoring. And not in the presence of the canvassing board, either (and in many states, the county commissioners are the canvassing board—yet another reason to organize and run locally, me hearties). And the clerk was a GOPer. In one county, they allowed absentee counters who entered votes that were rejected by the machine to “interpret” the ballots differently than the machine would have; e.g., counting an undervote as a straight party ticket vote. It took a judge to send a TRO to stop that and get a recount according to machine standards. The clerk wasn’t going to do it because the staff was “tired.” Talk about “Oh, it’s only a few votes, don’t worry.” Some of the provisionals were rejected because the voters had been purged for inactivity—but nobody could verify right then when they had last voted. In one county there was only one Dem to watch ALL of the provisionals being counted. Plenty of GOPers, though. Redistricting sent many voters to the wrong precinct because they never bothered to check and see if it had changed, and many didn’t bother to find the right one after that. Point is, even in counties where the precincts didn’t report problems, weird shit might have gone on, or (especially in Ohio and Florida) be still going on at the county courthouse, and your local Dems might be not even be there to watch. LESSON: If you don’t know who’s watching the count, find out. NOW, before the SoS certifies the election and the lawyers go home. Find out who’s watching the canvassing board. Ask questions. Be a pain the ass. At party HQ, too. The party has rights Joe Citizen doesn’t, to appoint watchers, for example.

TIMIDITY. Then, the Dem bosses wanted to argue about whether or not to challenge these rejected ballots and counting irregularities legally, or go to the press, or both, because the GOPers might scream that we were “whiners.” Argue? Hell, yes! all the pollworkers all said. One party boss said we should wait to go to the press until after contacting the SoS, because the SoS is the one to take legal action. One guy pointed out there was no reason not to do both. In fact, logically, it might even build a fire under the SoS if there’s a lawsuit behind it. So, supposedly, they’re going to have a lawyer “look into it” at the next party meeting. You can bet it’ll end up in the papers, though, oh yes. At least in the letters. Whiners indeed. So now it’s “whining” if you insist on having every vote counted?

FOLLOWUP: If it’s like this around here, what’s it like in your area, your county, your precinct and local party? Yeah, these records have to be stored for a period of time, and the Dems could review them at any time, but #1 and #3 seem to be standing in the way. Whether it changes the election or not, isn’t it reasonable to insist that every damn vote be counted? And take steps to assure this NEVER happens again? Nationally, I mean? Because if elections are left up to locals, and states, the GOP will do it again. And again. They are a deadly efficient machine, especially locally.

I guess my point is this: Dems can’t be standing on the sidelines waiting for a final tally, folks, assuming that No! They would never do that! Or thinking that just because it looked clean on the precinct level, that means it’s clean. Things happen in your canvassing boards and county clerk’s office and party HQ, too. Bad things. Immoral things, if you believe in democracy for real, having every vote counted.

I came away thinking that we will never know the real results, myself. I think I’m becoming cynical, again. Or I may just have to switch party affiliations from Green to Dem and show these fuckers how it’s done. I dunno. Right now, I take a taste of medicinal whiskey. Any other pollwatchers or canvass watchers out there?

Hey, like Grover Norquist said, "bipartisan" is a synonym for date rape. So, yawn.

I mean, people who are, um, openly Democrats can't even get into a Partei rally, and are thrown out, or arrested, or thrown to the ground and stomped if they reveal their political affiliation.

Seems to me the best way to protect the 49% of the country who didn't vote for Bush from what He has in store for them is to tell Bush to go Cheney himself. We'll see how the Beltway Dems handle it.

Riverbend has more on the subject of what is happening in a city where actual people once lived actual lives, you know, going to work, to school, to the doctor, or to the market to shop and gossip, people who celebrated birthdays and graduations, for whom family means the large, extended kind, and for whom a neighborhood is a web of personal connections. Weirdly, the whole city has become a center of terrorism. All those people leading everyday lives have turned into terrorists, or potential terrorists. Or so we're told. Thus the entire city is "fair game," and "in play," sort of like John Kerry's Vietnam medals, only more deadly. Falluja has become a city of targets to be attacked from the air. Well, this is war and war is hell, and didn't the Iraqi's attack us first? Oh, that's right, they didn't. Damn, I keep forgetting we're there to liberate them. Increasingly the question becomes, who will liberate them from us?

Meet a mother and her children, refugees in their own country, who have left behind in Falluja, the father and the oldest son. I'll let Riverbend do the introductions.

She also reacts to the election results. Ours. With unblinking wit.

In addition to all that, she points us to an effort to provide help to the refugees from Falluja and other cities under attacked initiated by the Jarrar family. I'm still a bit unclear on exactly how to contribute; a hoped for Paypal account hasn't worked out. Do check it out; I can't imagine a more worthy cause for any American to support, and even small contributions will go a long way in Iraq, or Jordan, where supplies are to be purchased, toward helping to provide the kinds of help all refugees need.

How odd.

(via dKos)

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles.

It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake."

Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the Sedition Act.

Here's a weird a little tidbit:

[The Marines] are awaiting orders from interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi to launch an all-out assault [on Stalingrad Fallujah].
(via AP)

Weird. Either Bush has abolished our own sovreignty by handing over control of our troops to another country, or Iraq has no sovreignty.

Which is it?

Nice to see Bush making himself accountable, right out front, for the timing of the latest assault on Fallujah. Oh, wait....

Here?

Feel the fear....

UPDATE Gee, our troll is all over this one (off-topic, of course, in another thread). Gee, this guy is such a barometer. It's almost like it's a permanent campaign, or something, and everything is still being co-ordinated by the Gaulieters. Naah... What am I thinking.... That's tinfoil hat stuff!

At the American Politics Journal.

And in fact, the Lexicon does seem to have some small effect—Corrente shows up at Wecovery and YABL (#7) as well as SCLM.

Now, none of these hits are in the 10,000s let alone the 100,000s. But it still shows connections being made. Leading to two conclusions:

1. Obviously, after 11/2, "invective" (memes...) is not enough. Frames and/or design patterns (back) might be more effective.

2. What's needed is some technical approach to allow people to "connect the dots," where the dots are both the people themselves, ideas, values, and events; a better way to be reality-based, and to manufacture the frames/patterns we need, by working togethre. And the approach needs to be federated, not concentrated (like the rest of the media and, now that I think about it, blogger).

I'm not sure whether blogs in themselves are this techology, though they clearly point the way to it.

Not in my name. No, no. In the name of the “morals and values” crowd:

A hospital has been razed to the ground in one of the heaviest US air raids in the Iraqi city of Falluja.

Witnesses said only the facade remained of the small Nazzal Emergency Hospital in the centre of the city. There are no reports on casualties.

A nearby medical supplies storeroom and dozens of houses were damaged as US forces continued preparing the ground for an expected major assault.

UN chief Kofi Annan has warned against an attack on the restive Sunni city.

US strikes raze Falluja hospital

And in other “morals and values-based” developments:

Four Car Bombs, Attacks Kill 37 in Iraq's Samarra

Weapons: U.S. Expands List of Lost Missiles

20 U.S. Soldiers Wounded in Ramadi

U.S. Army Report Sees No Fault in Iraq Hotel Attack

I filled out the Massacree with the four-part harmony. Wrote it down there just like it was and everything was fine. And I put down my pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there . . . on the other side . . . in the middle of the other side . . . away from everything else on the other side . . . in parentheses . . . capital letters . . . quotated . . . read the following words: "Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?"

I went over to the sergeant. Said, "Sergeant, you got a lot of god-damned gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself! I mean . . . I mean . . . I mean that you send . . . I'm sittin' here on the bench . . . I mean I'm sittin' here on the Group W bench, 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough to join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."
He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind! We're gonna send your fingerprints off to Washington"!

And, friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.

And the only reason I'm singin' you the song now is 'cause you may know somebody in a similar situation.

There’s a meeting at Dem HQ today here to discuss what pollwatchers saw that was weird. I’ve been invited. If anything interesting comes up, I’ll be sure to post.

Meanwhile, I’ll just marvel at what passes for “morals and values.”

1% doth not a Bush mandate make (put your coffee down before clicking). In a just world.

But pragmatically, Bush is going to rule just like He had a mandate. And because 49% of the people are being taxed without being represented, He's going to get away with it (for awhile).

So, the rules aren't working for us. In fact, the rules have been systematically rigged against us, and the refs turn a blind eye. So maybe rather than trying to play the same game better, it's time to change the rules.

Catherine Austin Fitts has one way of changing the rules, called Solari. She has a considerable and impressive body of work. Here is one passage that caught my eye:

We have the power of our votes in the marketplace.

We are going to exercise that power now!

Beginning with our kickoff this past July 4th, we are calling for 600,000 people worldwide to join us in pulling our checking accounts, certificates of deposits, credit cards and other business out of multi-national banks such as Citibank, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and switching to a local, well managed community-friendly bank or credit union...
(via Declaring independence)

Catherine Austin Fitts is right. Follow the money. A cut of the profits from the multinationals goes to the campaign contributions that fuel Republican dominance. If it were business as usual, and "honest graft," that would be OK, but it isn't business as usual any more.

If you want a local, well managed community-friendly bank in Philly's Center City, try The Asian Bank in Chinatown (and here).

And check out the Solari site. What do you think? The slogan "Follow the money" makes a lot of sense to me.

P.S. Note that the Sinclair episode proves that 49% of the people do—duh!—have marketplace power. But wouldn't it have been great if, instead of stopping the un-FUX network at the national level, we had been starting something at the local level? That's the kind of logic Fitts is using.

It has been brought to our attention that, again, some writers and alert readers are not exhibiting due deference to Dear Leader. Such slovenliness and covert defiance can no longer be permitted.

Therefore, let me give you guidance on this matter:

WRONG: The Bush mandate means that he ...
RIGHT: The Bush mandate means that He ...

Capice?

Bush Will Not Seek Mass Resignations

In His great mercy...

Of course, what that means is that Bush and Rove are making a list right now of the lucky duckies to heave over the side... Where they will promptly make fortunes writing "tell all" books that, in fact, tell nothing important. Except, of course, for the mid-level scientists and whistleblowers who risked their careers, out of a sense of professionalism—dare I say "moral values"—to try to protect us all.

Mass casualties, though... That's another thing....

Does anyone know of a source or a method for developing/using political design patterns? (A more informally styled site here).

Sure, these sites are about developing software, and politics is about developing wetware. So?

An example of a design pattern would be the "TTT" (trick, trust, transfer) Confidence Game (back) pattern that the Republicans have used so successfully. Note, however, that the work to put the TTT pattern into a larger pattern—where the con is recognized, resisted, and exposed has yet to be created (and shown to work in actual political situations).

I am thinking of political design patterns as an alternative/complementary methodology to Lakoff's frames.