Proud To Be An American - Well I Used To Be

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
~~~ George W. Bush ~~~


With the fifth anniversary of our illegal, immoral, ill conceived and idiotic incursion into Iraq fast approaching, perhaps it's time to take an accounting of our actions.

Supposedly, we've lost about 4,000 dead American boys and girls. That's the official toll but the real toll maybe many times that as any one who dies off of Iraqi soil isn't counted.

Even if they're brain dead when the evacuation flight takes off they won't be counted dead in the official count. Nor will they if they succumb to their wounds if they die in the air or in a hospital in Germany or America.

Isn't that special?

Again the official toll for those wounded in Iraq is slightly more than 16,000, many with head wounds that leave them just shadows of their former selves. The cost in treasure is well over two trillion dollars and rising, something that we, our children and their children will be paying off for decades to come.

Now you would think that when we combine our losses in Iraq with those in Afghanistan we'd know we have enough on our plates and have paid a high enough cost in blood and treasure. All this just so our masters in the oil cartels can rake in record, obscene, profits while various other corpo-rat entities and private armies of soldiers of fortune fill their coffers with riches supplied by American dead. You might think this but you'd be wrong.

Everyone in the Junta from Smirky on down to Proconsul Admiral William Fallon, the former commander of this flying circus, keep dropping hints that there is more death and destruction awaiting across the border in Iran.

As costly as this war has been on America, it is but a drop in the bucket compared to what it has cost the Iraqis and the surrounding countries. The current count by the rest of the world stands at 1.3 million Iraqi dead. I say the world count as we don't bother counting the dead in Iraq since they're not considered human and, thus, not worth counting by the Pentagoon.

Add to that another 2 million wounded Iraqis and another 4 million who were forced to flee their homes and become refugees. Count in this group most of Iraq's educated and skilled workers, couple that with the damage we've caused to the infrastructure and Iraq may never recover from our Imperial scams.

Throw in Bush's constant demands on the puppet government for an invite to maintain those permanent bases we've built all over the country and any hope the Iraqi's have is gone.

If they hated us for our freedoms, they wouldn't hate us now as our freedoms are all but gone. They never hated us for our freedoms to begin with. They respected us for our freedoms.

They hate us for what we do to them and others!

Let me close on our five years in Iraq with a very funny joke.

Have you heard the one about Tony Blair, co-architect of this war crime and star of the Blair Bitch Project?

He is going to be teaching "religion" at Yale.

I guess the Church of England doesn't have the commandments "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's" in their Bible?

Support The Oops

When last we actually heard any substantial news reporting about Iraq the line was about how "the surge" had reduced violence...and it's effect upon ice cream shops or some such nonsense.

That was sometime in the Fall.

And then...poof, the occupation, it disappeared.

I know it's vitally important that all news be focused upon a prominent governmental office holder liking to pay for sex, because THAT'S never happened before and all.

I also know there's a Presidential Election on so it's vitally important that the candidates positions be covered for sixty seconds a day and the horse race aspect be for the remaining 23 hours, 59 minutes.

But the occupation still rages on.

People still die.

$12 billion a month still gets spent over there.

And yet, the occupation is not discussed at all. And somehow the end result is this:

Twenty-eight percent of the public is aware that nearly 4,000 U.S. personnel have died in Iraq over the past five years, while nearly half thinks the death tally is 3,000 or fewer...

The survey, by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, found that public awareness of developments in the Iraq war has dropped precipitously since last summer, as the news media have paid less attention to the conflict. In earlier surveys, about half of those asked about the death tally responded correctly.

And it's really unfortunate because up until now, the media has done such a fine job on covering Iraq have they not?

After all, just a few days ago McClatchy reported the Pentagon had authorized an exhaustive study of Iraq Saddam-era documents and the report was coming out having found no relationship between his government and Al Qaeda.

But then the bush Administration decided to just be wankers and not allow the study to be released on-line (it was supposed to be released yesterday). Now, you have to actually write and ask for it and eventually they will send you a CD-ROM ["how does late January 2009 work for you?"]

I'm sure this was given a prominent mention on all of the news broadcasts last night because even our media could see what was afoot. Right?

Yeah right.

Who Is Really Getting Fucked?

Why do political wives allow themselves to be put through the humiliating “stand by your man” routine, wherein you literally stand by your man while he admits to fucking a mistress, another man, or a prostitute to the press?

I suppose standing silently with pain written all over your face while your husband tells the press about his extra-marital dalliances is the first step on the long road to wifely submission. Being a political wife is their career, and so standing by your man is basically just shoving through a major issue at your job, with the hopes that things will continue as normal soon.

The high power, professional wife with a life of her own has become the standard.

Silda Wall Spitzer fits into this mold, with her history of being a handsomely paid Wall Street attorney. Same story with Hillary Clinton clutching Bill’s hand in 1992 to wave away his infidelities. These are women you can imagine just packing their things and walking straight into a brand new life without him.

I can respect that.

Silda Spitzer was following roughly the same script used by the spouse of Louisiana Sen. David Vitter after his name was found on a madam’s list last year; by the wife of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig after he was arrested for disorderly conduct for allegedly trying to pick up an undercover police officer in an airport bathroom last year; and by the wife of New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey who stood by when he announced he had a gay lover who also was a state employee.

And, perhaps most famously, Silda Spitzer followed the model used in 1992 by Hillary Clinton in a joint “60 Minutes” interview with her husband, Bill, then a presidential candidate. Responding to allegations that Bill Clinton had had an extramarital affair, Hillary Clinton created a media template for spousal behavior in times of scandal.

However when Clinton got on TV and addressed an apology to the nation for screwing around with Monica Lewinsky, he did not get his wife to stand there looking sorrowful. There’s a few key differences in that case. For one, the wife in this case was informed long before the press conference, and so she had time to think things over. I think, in a lot of these cases, the wife is in a bit of shock and could be more malleable to other people’s wills.

But more importantly, there’s no doubt in my mind that the Clintons were sculpting the strategy to get Hillary Clinton into a Senate seat and possibly into the White House at that point.

So it was useful to quit playing her up as the submissive wife, and start putting her out there as a strong person, not the sort who stands around looking sad, but STILL allowed herself to be publicly fucking humiliated.

But, as a politicians wife, do you play by a different set of rules?

You’ve accepted that you have to work for him for free on campaigns, you have to play nice to the cameras regardless of your mood, and you have to accept that he’s gone a lot doing all sorts of crazy things. You may even accept that this involves sex with other people. Habits are hard to break, and high stress times are not the time to start breaking them, as we all know. And when a sex scandal hits, all that training at doing what you’re told by advising staff and rolling with the punches probably kicks in.

But as a woman you have been embarrassed, humiliated, put down in the worst way possible. You have had your man cheat on you in the high profile public eye.

How can someone that allows this be seriously considered as a presidential candidate?

So in the end of it all, despite the marital indiscretions, all the apologies, all the excuses - it is the American voter that gets screwed.

Similar to the mistresses no doubt, without the pleasure of orgasm.

Move Forward With Impeachment Already!

Dennis Kucinich has now written 50 articles of impeachment against Bush.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney now has more cosponsors signed onto it than any resolution to impeach President Richard Nixon ever had.

There are CURRENTLY 50-60 members of Congress who openly or secretly support impeachment or impeachment hearings for Cheney. There are 26 who have signed onto actual articles of impeachment (Kucinich’s resolution), several others who have signed onto a letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers urging impeachment hearings, several others who have made public comments suggesting they favor the hearings, and several more who signed on during the last Congress to Conyers’ resolution to create a “preliminary impeachment investigation.”

Conyers has not reintroduced that bill (HR 799). Perhaps he needs some nudging from THE AMERICAN PEOPLE that elected him AND can vote against him if he doesn't quite hear the collective voices of We The People. Contact Conyers at

John Conyers United States House of Representatives 2426 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515-2214
DC Phone:	202-225-5126
DC Fax:	202-225-0072
Email Address:	http://www.house.gov/writerep/

A group of citizen activists from around the country has been meeting with members of Congress and their staffers to argue a case for recreating what they are calling the Nixon flooding plan. If, they argue, just the 30 or 40 members who are currently pushing for Cheney’s impeachment were to file their own resolutions, the impact would be far greater than simply adding more names to Kucinich’s bill or to a Dear Colleague letter.

All that is needed, in other words, to move impeachment forward in the House might be for those who already claim to support it to put their printers where their mouths are and crank out a couple of dozen new bills.

In the Nixonian example, many of the bills introduced were very short and simple, and many were nearly identical to each other. Others picked out a few favorites from the list of available abuses by that president. In the case of Dick Cheney (or George Bush, for that matter), Congress Members could turn to the recent example of Congressman Jay Inslee’s short and simple resolution to open an impeachment hearing on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. (Thirty-two members got behind that bill, and surely more would have signed on had Gonzales not resigned. Now, Gonzales’ replacement is repeating his crimes and abuses of power, but impeaching Mukasey would just highlight the fact that Bush and Cheney are giving the orders and that the Senate approved a clone of Gonzales as his replacement.)

Beyond Gonzales-style resolutions that simply create hearings, pro-Constitution congress members could pick from a select menu of those abuses in which (unlike most of the Bush-Cheney abuses) Congress has not been complicit. These include rewriting laws with signing statements and proceeding to violate numerous statutes, refusals to turn over information, misleading Congress, refusals to comply with subpoenas, ordering former staffers not to comply with subpoenas, refusals to enforce contempt citations, commuting the sentence of a former top staffer who obstructed an investigation that involved Cheney and Bush, exposure of an undercover agent as punishment for a whistleblower, running a secret energy task force in violation of open-government laws, profiting through no-bid contracts to a war profiteer, election fraud, and the criminally negligent response to Hurricane Katrina.

Barbara Ellis, the author of the paper excerpted above, is an impeachment activist in Oregon and a member of a group called the National Coalition of We the People. Three members of this group, Michael Greenman from Ohio, Marcia Meyers from Oregon, and Carl McCargo from Massachusetts, traveled to Washington, D.C., last week and met with 32 congressional offices, in some cases with members and in others with staff. They intentionally included among those they spoke with some of the leaders of the original Nixon Flooding Plan who are still in Congress: Pete Stark (CA-8), John Conyers (MI-1), William Lacy Clay (MO-1), David Obey (WI-7), and Charles Rangel (NY-19).

They brought along a packet of information that included Ellis’s paper which you can see here.

A partial list of the bills introduced against Nixon are here.

Arguments in favor of this approach are here.

And a cover letter is here.

“So the main effort we’re launching is a drive in the national impeachment movement for a “National Call for Impeachment Bills.”

We’ll focus on the week of March 16 - 22 to flood House members with our support for either bills on investigations for impeachment or articles of impeachment.

Find your House Rep here.

Congressman Kucinich has drafted over 50 articles of impeachment against Bush, and he should be encouraged to introduce those soon. But he and every member of Congress should be encouraged to introduce their own favorite resolution with regard to Cheney, even if it’s simply a proposal to hold impeachment hearings.

Give a quick call to express your opinion on impeachment to the person who counts - your House Rep.

Contact your Congressional Representative here

Iraq Veterans Against The War Decend On Washington

This week, on March 13-16, a new generation of "Winter Soldiers," veterans of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, will descend on the nation's capitol to tell America in their own words what they saw during their service in the asshole presidents faux war on terror.

They'll give a ground's eye perspective on the occupation's toll on the people of those countries and the costs to the military, and they'll tell stories of what it was really like in places like Fallujah and Ramadi, places that are just names on a map to most of the people in America.

They'll be following large footsteps.

In the early months of 1971, a group of Vietnam vets, organized by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), gave two days of testimony about the Vietnam that they had seen, up close and all-too-personally, in the original "Winter Soldier" investigation. While largely dismissed by the political establishment, their wrenching testimony redoubled the peace movement's efforts to end that war.

In his opening statement 37 years ago, William Crandell, a 26 year-old lieutenant who served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, the division that committed the infamous My Lai Massacre, told the hushed room, The Winter Soldier Investigation is not a mock trial. There will be no phony indictments; there will be no verdict against Uncle Sam." He promised "straightforward testimony, direct testimony, about acts which are war crimes under international law.

Acts which these men have seen and participated in.

And they did just that. Over two days, more than a 100 vets of the Vietnam conflict bore witness to the horrors that they had seen with their own eyes, "the inexorable result of national policy." One panel examined the question, "What are we doing to Vietnam?" and another asked "What are we doing to ourselves?"

The media largely ignored the hearings. The East Coast papers, with the exception of a New York Times article a week after the event, refused to even cover them. The VVAW complained of an "official censorship blackout."

That was before the right had built its formidable echo chamber, before Fox News, the Washington Times, the New York Sun and the emergence of the right-wing blogosphere, with its instinctive attacks on any who question the morality of the "war on terror." It's difficult to imagine the kind of character assassinations the soldiers who gather in Washington this week will face from the war's supporters, but it's likely that they're going to redefine courage and genuine patriotism in the face of withering criticism.

But the progressive community is also better prepared to push back against those attacks this time around. A robust alternative media, of which I, FED UP AMERICAN am proud to play a role, will at least allow this new generation of Winter Soldiers to be heard.

Nothing But The Best

A spate of illnesses among US troops at several bases in Iraq may have been caused by untested and possibly tainted water supplied by a private contractor then owned by Halliburton, according to a Pentagon audit to be released today.

The inspector general of the US defence department found a rise in diarrhoea, cellulitis and skin infections reported by troops who used the polluted water for personal tasks such as shaving and laundry at US bases, including three serviced by the defence contractor KBR.

The audit said the military provided water of questionable quality at two further bases.

Until last year KBR had exclusive rights to provide food, shelter, laundry services and transport to US forces serving in Iraq. At the time of the outbreaks KBR was controlled by Halliburton, the former employer of vice president Dick Cheney.

Independent Pentagon auditors found that at camp Q-West, a base 40 miles south of Mosul, KBR added chlorine to wastewater before distributing it for personal hygiene. At another base, Camp Ar Ramadi in Anbar province, 45% of soldiers surveyed said their personal hygiene water had an unusual odour or colour.

Desperate White House Wife

It's become clear over the last week that the more Hillary Clinton becomes desperate, the more she reveals her true republican self.

The fact that this self is unscrupulous is bad enough, but the fact that her whole campaign for the last year has been predicated on positioning, spin, and other varieties of public relations is worse.

In fact, it is not only worse, it is Bushian, and that is the worst.

Even though Clinton won two and a half contests of the four staged on Tuesday, her campaign strategists are fighting among themselves, her campaign is in a turmoil, and, it seems, they can't decide which tack to take. Should they try the lying (about NAFTA, about Obama's religion)? Should they try the cheating (trying to seat delegates from the Florida and Michigan primaries)? Should they try the fear-mongering (the red telephone ad)? Should they try the sucking up to Republicans (spelling out similarities between Clinton and cheerleader-for-war McCain)?

No one ever said that the Clintons weren't corrupt. Even they didn't say that. The only questions were:

1) Were they less corrupt than the Republicans and

2) Did they combine at least a modicum of compassion and interest in the public good with their corruption?

Back in the 90s, I felt that, on balance, Bill Clinton was openly compassionate, and that his corruption did not fatally taint his administration. But Hillary Clinton seems to have learned the wrong lesson from her Senatorial success.

The lesson she has learned is that Republicans such as McCain are more her friends than Senators with progressive principles.

As a result, it now appears that Clinton and McCain stand together on one side of a divide, and Barack Obama stands on the other side of that divide. The divide is between the inside-the-beltway ruling class, who can see no reason of any kind that they should give up the power they have accumulated and the avenue to wealth that it represents, and the citizenry of the country, who in every poll insist that the country is headed in the wrong direction. In the last week, Clinton has put herself on McCain's ticket, attacking the change that Obama promises and seems poised to deliver, and promising more more more of the same of what we have had for the last thirty years.

More of the same is exactly what almost everyone does not want, but Clinton tells us everyday in every way that that is exactly what we will get -- what we have had is what she touts as her "experience".

What we see in her campaign is that we will get the same old same old with an added measure of chaos.

Fed Up Goes Daily

Today my blogtalk show goes daily, Monday through Friday.

I will STILL do my two hour Sunday show, but the daily show will be 60 minutes in length.

This week I will be focusing on my love for Christianity. The fact that I love to debunk all Christian myth's with FACTS and LOGIC makes it all relatively easy.

I invite you all to check out Fed Up's Daily show each weekday at 4PM and let me know what you think.

A Plea For American's

Dear Fellow American who is living in this country as the neocons bring us to the brink of disaster,

Two weeks ago, the House took a bold step demanding accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration by holding former White House Council Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in Contempt of Congress for blatantly ignoring congressional subpoenas for over 8 months.

Though it was not a surprise, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives stating that he refuses to call a Grand Jury to enforce those contempt citations.

The Attorney General’s letter, effectively claiming that members of the executive branch are immune from congressional subpoenas, calls for quick action.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Chairman Conyers have smartly decided to pursue a civil lawsuit to force Bolton and Miers to appear before Congress. We should pursue a lawsuit – but I think we can do even more.

While a court may order – months from now –that Miers and Bolten must appear before Congress, by then George Bush and Dick Cheney will have largely accomplished their goal of running out the clock on the investigation into this Administration’s politicization of the Justice Department. Even a successful outcome in federal court might only mandate that they appear, at which time the witnesses are likely simply to continue their obfuscation by claiming executive privilege of the 5th Amendment in person.

The House of Representatives must re-establish its legitimate rights as a co-equal branch of government. Congress cannot allow its power to be summarily ignored and justice delayed.

The House was correct to hold these renegade White House officials in contempt, and much credit should be given to Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Conyers for pushing for that outcome. Now, we must go further: The House must immediately consider taking the following actions:

- Initiating impeachment hearings that would likely break through the reckless claims of executive privilege made by the Bush Administration.

- Approve a resolution that calls for an inherent contempt citation which would give the House Sergeant at Arms the power to bring Miers and Bolton before Congress.

As you may know, 17 of my colleagues, including four of my fellow members of the Judiciary Committee have joined my call for impeachment hearings. This is not an issue between Democrats and Republicans. As members of Congress, we have an absolute duty to enforce the checks and balances prescribed by our Constitution.

We have ceded too much for too long, enabling George W. Bush to assume a unitary imperial Presidency. It is long past time to secure accountability for those who have, by all appearances, committed significant breaches of our laws and trust.

Mukasey’s claims are simply the latest in a long line of outlandish legal arguments ranging from the idea that we can selectively cherry-pick from torture laws to the concept that the Vice President is no longer part of the Executive Branch (except, of course, when he needs to claim Executive Privilege).

Over the past months, I have received tens of thousands of emails and letters from you expressing your great support for my efforts. Your encouragement and activism on these causes are much appreciated. I continue to work hard on your behalf and hope you feel these updates are valuable.

With kind regards,

Congressman Robert Wexler
www.WexlerForCongress.com

Fuck The bush Puppet Mukasey

Two weeks ago, the House took a bold step demanding accountability for the Bush/Cheney Administration by holding former White House Council Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten in Contempt of Congress for blatantly ignoring congressional subpoenas for over 8 months.

Though it was not a surprise, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, wrote a letter to the House of Representatives stating that he refuses to call a Grand Jury to enforce those contempt citations.

The Attorney General’s letter, effectively claiming that members of the executive branch are immune from congressional subpoenas, calls for quick action. [..]

The House of Representatives must re-establish its legitimate rights as a co-equal branch of government. Congress cannot allow its power to be summarily ignored and justice delayed.[..]

This is not an issue between Democrats and Republicans. As members of Congress, we have an absolute duty to enforce the checks and balances prescribed by our Constitution.

We have ceded too much for too long, enabling George W. Bush to assume a unitary imperial Presidency. It is long past time to secure accountability for those who have, by all appearances, committed significant breaches of our laws and trust.

Mukasey’s claims are simply the latest in a long line of outlandish legal arguments ranging from the idea that we can selectively cherry-pick from torture laws to the concept that the Vice President is no longer part of the Executive Branch (except, of course, when he needs to claim Executive Privilege).



You can support Robert Wexler by signing up at WexlerWantsHearings.com.

Where The Corn Is As High As A Homophobes Eye

Today's quiz:

Which political party do you think THIS idiot belongs to?



This is Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern

She didn’t know that she was being recorded in a meeting, so we get the a nice insight about what she thinks of her gay and lesbian constituents.

Perhaps she doesn’t think she has any.

Hillary's 3AM Child

“Its hilarious and ironic that the child in Hillary’s ad is now of voting age and not her supporter. I’ve been campaigning for Barack since October and was a caucus precinct captain. I’ve been a very avid advocate of his and recruited a lot of folks to caucus for him in January. He’s inspired and mobilized so many already, he’s refreshing and quite simply the best option for people who want to change this country.”

-Casey Knowles, featured sleeping safely in Clinton’s “3 a.m.” ad, outting herself as an Obama organizer

Was It Worth It?

Laura Youngblood clutched her husband's photo as she drove alone to the hospital. She'd become pregnant nearly nine months earlier, the day he'd left for training for Iraq. Hours later, after the baby was born, she placed the photo in the bassinet next to the infant he'd named Emma in his last letter home. He would never hold her.

Petty Officer 3rd Class Travis L. Youngblood, 26, had died two months earlier, killed by an improvised explosive device.

Laura Youngblood is just 29 years old, but she insists she will not remarry. Her life is her children, now ages 2 and 7. One day, she says, she'll be buried in the plot with her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.

"I tell people I'm a happily married woman," she says, crying.

Five years after U.S. troops invaded Iraq, there are many tears — though not everyone is crying. For the great majority of Americans, this is a war seen from afar. They turn off the news and forget about what is happening a world away.

Then there's the other war, the one that's a very vivid and present part of some Americans' lives.

It's the war that more than a million U.S. soldiers have fought, leaving nearly 4,000 dead and more than 29,000 wounded in action. The one in which thousands of contractors rushed in to serve and to make a buck — though some paid the ultimate price, as well.

Around military bases across America, vacations are planned around deployment schedules. Mini baby booms occur nine months after troops come home. Support groups for widows and injured soldiers have come together.

At small town National Guard armories, the focus has shifted from one weekend a month to filling out life insurance forms and packing a rucksack for war.

"'How did I end up in this kind of a situation?' There were a lot of guys that said that," says Jeff Myers, 48, a tech sergeant in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard from Pillow, Pa. His lips still discharge shrapnel shreds, the residue of two roadside bombs he survived in 2004; a neurologist monitors the concussions he sustained.

In his job as a gunner guarding Army convoys, he saw men so paralyzed by fear they wouldn't go outside the wire. He saw others die 15 minutes after he was chatting with them.

It's not a matter of whether you will have to deal with things like irritability and nightmares after you get home, he says: "It's how you deal with it when it does happen."

And how you deal with your fellow Americans who experience Iraq from a distance.

Amanda Jordan, whose Marine husband was killed three days into the war, says she doesn't know what bothers her more — the days that go by when no one speaks of the war, or the punditry. At a local diner she frequents with her 11-year-old son near their home in Enfield, Conn., she's contemplated standing up and leaving so he doesn't hear when people say Iraq was unnecessarily invaded.

"This is like my life. You're saying my spouse, my child's father, is dead for no reason," says Jordan, a 39-year-old former paralegal who is studying to be a therapist specializing in grief. "That's a pretty harsh thing to hear all the time."

Truth hurts for some people I see.

Her husband knew what the dangers were. He knew he was leaving his wife. He knew there was a chance that he would never hold his baby. At least he didn't make it home physically or mentally crippled. That would have REALLY fucked up his family he OBVIOUSLY cared very little for.

So I ask Ms. Youngblood, what reason would be good enough to tell your child why his daddy is dead?

Do you feel it was worth your sacrifice?

BOO!!! Are You Scared?

This week, a “shadowy figure on a bicycle” planted a small bomb that shattered the glass facade of the military recruiting station in Times Square in New York City.

Fox News’ Ollie North (remember this moron?), however, has found his scapegoat.

This morning, he said the incident may have been prevented had the House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) granted a renewal of the Protect America Act:

"Last month, of course, the U.S. House of Representatives under the direction of Nancy Pelosi went on vacation rather than voting on the Protect America Act, which provided for wiretapping of terrorists making phone calls into and out of the United States to foreign places. And I note that it would have been a lot easier, perhaps, to find out who did this, or even to know that they were planning it, had we been able to intercept those communications."

What a fucking idiot.

North’s comments are a pathetic attempt to politicize the bombing and scare stupid American's into making stupid decisions again.

In reality, surveillance that began under the law will be able to continue, and intelligence officials can initiate new surveillance against suspected terrorists by simply getting a warrant through the FISA court. The warrants can even be obtained after the surveillance has begun. North, however, conveniently failed to mention this.

Conservatives have stalled Congress from negotiating on the PAA. Last week, Senate GOP leaders blocked another extension of the PAA. In fact, the Politico reported this week that some Republicans are boycotting the negotation meetings.

North’s statements echo CNN’s Glenn Beck, who said recently, “Nancy Pelosi will end up killing Americans.”

So the fear mongers are at it again it would seem. Don't let their rhetoric scare you.

Become a Fed Up American!

Democrats Looking Pretty Stupid

This isn't going to make Senator Clinton happy at all.

A caucus favors Obama, and Clinton was hoping for just seating the delegates she already won in an unfair primary.

A member of the DNC's Rules And Bylaws Committee--the committee that stripped Florida and Michigan of its delegates for moving their primaries before February 5th--told me that Michigan plans to get out of its uncounted delegate problem by announcing a new caucus in the next few days.

"They want to play. They know how to do caucuses," the DNC source said. "That was their plan all along, before they got cute with the primary."

Michigan Democrats had originally planned on caucuses after the legally permissible Feb. 5 date, but then went along with top elected Democrats, including Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who pushed for an early primary.

UPDATE: Fla. Dems weigh redoing presidential primary by mail

Everyone wants back in the game!!!

WASHINGTON -- With pressure to resolve the Florida Democratic primary's renegade status intensifying, the state party is looking at the possibility of giving voters a chance to cast a second ballot in the presidential primary -- by mail.

The party has all but ruled out as too costly holding an election in which voters would go to the polls, but is looking at a mail-in contest that could give Florida Democrats a say in the presidential nominating contest.

"We're going to do what have to do to have our delegates represented,'' said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski. "But the money is pretty much out of the question.''

Another Delussional Republicunt

Usually, political groups trip over one another to try and gain public notoriety and attention. The Council for National Policy, meanwhile, would be perfectly happy if the public didn’t even know it exists. (I’ve long believed the easiest job on Earth would be to serve as this group’s press secretary.)

The CNP is made up of many heavy-hitters from the religious right and conservative movement in general, and they meet periodically to plot and scheme. It may sound excessively cloak-and-dagger of the group, but the CNP has a list of formal rules, one of which reads, "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting.”

Fortunately, details routinely leak. Today in New Orleans, for example, the CNP will gather and hear from none other than John McCain. (You know, the one who “refuses to pander” to anyone.)

Sen. John McCain, in his post-victory debut before the conservative movement’s top donors and leaders, will address the Council for National Policy’s annual winter meeting here today.

His remarks at the event, which has always been closed to the public and will have only a partial accommodation of the press this year for the first time, could turn out to be his make-or-break pitch for support from some of the right’s most influential critics of his past positions and policies.

“This is the most distinguished collection of conservative leaders and donors, and he was anxious to appear as part of his ongoing effort to consolidate support for his candidacy within the conservative movement,” said Charlie Black, Mr. McCain’s campaign adviser.

Not everyone will be glad to see him. One veteran CNP member told the far-right Washington Times, “It will say more about the state of the conservative movement than it does McCain. If he is accepted at CNP, this will mark the official end of the conservative movement as we knew it.”

And who, exactly, is the Council for National Policy? I’m glad you asked.

U.S. News reported during the ‘04 campaign:

The supersecret Council for National Policy, founded at the onset of the Reagan era, will be meeting in New York at an undisclosed location in hopes of avoiding protesters. The thousand member group includes political heavyweights like John Ashcroft, Bill Frist, and Tom DeLay, religious leaders from Pat Robertson to James Dobson, media moguls like Steve Forbes, and conservative billionaires Howard Ahmanson and Nelson Bunker Hunt.

Conservative Republicans boast that the council’s meeting is the “real” convention. “It’s the old smoke-filled room, but I wouldn’t say it’s corrupt,” says a source. “Rather it’s just where the work gets done.”

No one really knows what kind of work gets done when these wealthy, powerful right-wingers gather in their proverbial smoke-filled room. We do know that the CNP was co-founded by Tim LaHaye, who provides the Biblical analysis for the popular, right-wing “Left Behind” novels and who has worked to advance the religious right’s agenda for decades.

We also know that the CNP’s membership reads like a who’s who of some powerful far-right players. In addition to those mentioned in the U.S. News piece, readers may recognize names such as Grover Norquist, Phyllis Schlafly, and Oliver North.

Perhaps the best mainstream report on the CNP came from ABC News a couple of years ago, which described the Council as “the most powerful conservative group you’ve never heard of.”

When Steve Baldwin, the executive director of an organization with the stale-as-old-bread name of the Council for National Policy, boasts that “we control everything in the world,” he is only half-kidding.

Half-kidding, because the council doesn’t really control the world. The staff of about eight, working in a modern office building in Fairfax, Va., isn’t even enough for a real full-court basketball game.

But also half-serious because the council has deservedly attained the reputation for conceiving and promoting the ideas of many who in fact do want to control everything in the world.

As for McCain, the Washington Times added, “‘We agreed the press could sit in a separate room and listen to the speech and the questions and answers,’ a CNP official said, speaking anonymously because the rules of the council forbid officials or members to speak by name in public.”

May I Have Your Attention

The focus of everyone's attention should be on the cost of the war in Iraq, which is likely to reach $2 trillion, if not more. It has affected the American economy. Hell, it has affected the world economy.

On Thursday, the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Chuck Schumer, conducted a public examination of the costs of the war. The witnesses included the Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz (who believes the overall costs of the war — not just the cost to taxpayers — will reach $3 trillion), and Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International.

Both men talked about large opportunities lost because of the money poured into the war. “For a fraction of the cost of this war,” said Mr. Stiglitz, “we could have put Social Security on a sound footing for the next half-century or more.”

Mr. Hormats mentioned Social Security and Medicare, saying that both could have been put “on a more sustainable basis.” And he cited the committee’s own calculations from last fall that showed that the money spent on the war each day is enough to enroll an additional 58,000 children in Head Start for a year, or make a year of college affordable for 160,000 low-income students through Pell Grants, or pay the annual salaries of nearly 11,000 additional border patrol agents or 14,000 more police officers.

What we’re getting instead is the stuff of nightmares.

Noting this, Matt Yglesias added, “Few people seem to appreciate it, but it’s quite literally true that al-Qaeda’s strategy is to cripple the U.S. economy by dragging us into quagmires abroad. Osama bin Laden himself has said this, and it’s the only strategy that makes sense.

Here's Your 3AM Call Hillary - Will You Answer?

Hillary? Hillary?

It's 3 a.m., the phone is ringing and the crisis is you. So what's your answer?

Look, I'm sorry if I woke you up. But you said you were fine with 3 a.m. calls.

I'm calling because we have a serious crisis on our hands. And I thought of you immediately, because you're right, you're the only person who might be able to defuse the situation.

We've got a problem with John McCain, Hillary. Remember him? I know, you've been so busy lately trying to destroy Barack Obama that McCain probably slipped your mind. That's why I had to call.

Hillary, listen: This country could be in serious danger if McCain becomes president. His national security policies are a recipe for endless conflagration, especially in the Middle East. Saying McCain's a "hawk" is an understatement. McCain makes Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld look like cute little parakeets. No kidding. Remember "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran?" Ha ha.

No, no, you're right, it wasn't funny. And by the way, McCain says your Iraq strategy would constitute "surrender ... waving the white flag."

What's that? You don't want to see McCain become president either?

Then withdraw from the Democratic race right now, Hillary.
Whoa! Don't get so irritated. It's just that the longer you stay in, the more help you give McCain and the right.

Stop being so mean? I'm not trying to be mean, Hillary. Please, get yourself another pillow if you want one. You're smart and you're tough, and you've blazed an important trail. But at 3 a.m. -- dark-night-of-the-soul time -- we need to be realistic.

Let's do the math together. Do you want to go find a calculator? No? Sorry, of course you're good at math.

OK -- so before this week's primaries, Obama had 1,192 pledged delegates, and you had 1,036. On Tuesday, you won in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, and MSNBC estimates that after the results have been fully tabulated, you'll have eroded Obama's original 156-delegate lead by ... somewhere between seven and 13 pledged delegates.

Whoop-de-do.

What? Oh sure, you did manage to regain some momentum. And yes, I probably wouldn't even have called if it hadn't been for those infamous "red phone" ads you've been running. They're definitely effective ads, Hillary. By suggesting that Obama isn't fit to be commander in chief, you do seem to have shifted the dynamic; exit polls suggest that Ohio and Texas voters who made up their minds at the last minute mostly opted for you.

So is that your campaign's take-away here? That if you go all out to destroy Obama -- suggesting he's weak on national security -- you'll be able to eke out a few more victories in the primaries that lie ahead?

That's what I was afraid you were thinking. Only a few months ago, you were accusing Obama of attacks on you that came "right out of the Republican playbook." I should have figured you'd be studying that playbook yourself.

For the sake of your country, don't do this. You've got 12 contests remaining before the Democratic convention, and given the complex proportional system for awarding delegates, you'll have to win all 12 by 20-point margins just to break even with Obama in the pledged delegate counts. It's not going to happen. (And don't even think about Florida and Michigan. Trying to change the rules in the middle of the game will tear the Democratic Party in two.)

And as you chase after near-impossibilities, you'll be running a campaign aimed at systematically destroying the reputation of your party's front-runner -- the candidate who leads in the overall popular vote as well as the delegate count, the candidate who has shown an impressive ability to win the hearts of independents and even Republicans, the candidate who is attracting new voters in droves, the candidate who voters think stands the best chance of preventing Mr. "Bomb Bomb Iran" from becoming our next president and leading us into a future of endless war.



This week, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh urged Republicans to vote for you instead of McCain in Texas and Ohio -- because "Obama needs to be bloodied up. Look, half the country already hates Hillary. But nobody hates Obama yet. Hillary is going to be the one to have to bloody him up politically."

You were right all along, Hillary: There is a vast right-wing conspiracy. The thing is, you've just become their not-so-secret weapon.

Here it is at last, Hillary, a genuine test of your ability to lead in a dangerous world. It's too late for you to win the Democratic nomination -- but if you stay in the race, you can sure help Obama lose the White House.

What are you going to do?

Hillary?

Hillary?

Just A Couple Of Felons

The courageous people of Brattleboro, Vermont have taken the lead!

Frustrated that elected officials have refused to introduce articles of impeachment in defiance of their constituents' demands, the people of Brattelboro voted to direct town officials to draw up indictment papers against George Bush and Dick Cheney for violating their oath of office.

The Brattleboro vote took place during the Tuesday's Vermont primary election. Bush supporters launched a major campaign to discredit the referendum resolution and the organizers. Yet the resolution passed by a vote of 2012 in favor to 1795 against.

"Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictments for consideration by other authorities and shall it be the law of the Town of Brattleboro that the Brattleboro Police, pursuant to the above-mentioned indictments, arrest and detain George Bush and Richard Cheney in Brattleboro if they are not duly impeached, and prosecute or extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them?" The people of Brattleboro answered, "yes!"

The indictment means that Bush and Cheney can be arrested for criminal acts should they ever enter Brattleboro. The indictment would go into effect after Bush and Cheney leave office.

The Brattleboro resolution is becoming a powerful organizing model for cities and towns around the country. The impeachment movement has sunk deep roots throughout this country. The people of the United States are demanding not only that the Constitution be restored, but that the President, Vice President and other officials be held accountable for committing high crimes and misdemeanors.

The Brattleboro resolution shows that even where Congressional representatives are refusing to follow the majority sentiment demanding impeachment, that the people themselves can and will take action.

A Rush For A Democratic Nominee

Senator Hillary Clinton revived her campaign for the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States with victories in Ohio, Rhode Island and Texas.

Clinton’s campaign officials believe she won because of her relentless, hard-hitting, and intelligent efforts. But Rush Limbaugh thinks he is partially responsible for Clinton’s success.

For weeks now, Limbaugh, the court jester of conservative talk radio, has been urging his conservative audience to vote for Senator Clinton. In the states where Republicans and independents can vote in the Democratic primary he urged listeners to sabotage the Democrats by voting for Clinton. Limbaugh thinks the longer Senators Clinton and Obama are in a heated battle for their party’s nomination, the better the chance for Republican nominee John McCain to win in November.

Limbaugh praised Clinton’s “Three O’clock in the Morning” television ad that suggested that Clinton was much more ready to lead the nation in times of international crises. Limbaugh believes the more Democrats have to face the issues of national security and terrorism, the Republican nominee wins. He applauded Senator Clinton for suggesting that while she and Senator McCain had records of significant service to the nation, Senator Obama only had a speech. Not only does negative campaign rhetoric tear down Obama, but Limbaugh believes it divides Democrats in the November election.

Limbaugh is ‘elbowing” his way into the Democratic nomination battle also, because he simply despises the Clintons. For Limbaugh the Clinton’s, the former President and the current New York senator, are “evil incarnate.” Limbaugh’s critique of the Clintons is not just political but it is personal. Limbaugh led the chorus of conservative critics of the Clinton presidency. Almost anything Bill Clinton supported Rush opposed. He didn’t let go of the Whitewater investigations, the death of Vince Foster, and the Mark Rich pardon to name a few. The Monica Lewinsky/ Ken Starr situation was for Limbaugh the gift that kept on giving.

Limbaugh also believes that Senator Clinton is a much weaker candidate than Senator Obama in a run against McCain. He says that almost half of the American electorate tell pollsters that they would never vote for Clinton. Limbaugh says independent political groups will raise so much money to remind Americans of the scandals of the Clinton years that few will hear,” it’s the economy stupid“. Limbaugh thinks Senator Obama is a more formidable candidate because he does not have Clinton’s baggage and is youthful in appeal and appearance in contrast to McCain.

I am reminded that in the 1980 presidential primary, then President Jimmy Carter and his supporters were rooting for Ronald Reagan to win the Republican nomination. Reagan was after all just an actor. Reagan’s major foreign policy credential was attending Chaing Kai- shek’s funeral, as an official representative of the United States. Carter believed Reagan was a “right wing nut job” who he would beat easily in the November election. I am sure history will always remember Carter for underestimating the “Gipper”.

Our First President

I'm sure that George Washington was your best guess.

After all, no one else comes to mind.

But think back to your history books - The United States Declared its independence in 1776, yet Washington did not take office until April 30, 1789. So who was running the country during these initial years of this
young country?

It was the first eight U. S. Presidents.

In fact, the first President of the United States was one John Hanson. I can hear you now - John who? John Hanson, the first President of the United States . Don't go checking the encyclopedia for this guy's name - he is one of those great men that are lost to history.

If you're extremely lucky, you may actually find a brief mention of his name.

The new country was actually formed on March 1, 1781 with the adoption of The Articles of Confederation. This document was actually proposed on June 11, 1776, but not agreed upon by Congress until November 15, 1777. Maryland refused to sign this document until Virginia and New York ceded their western lands ( Maryland was afraid that these states would gain too much power in the new government from such large amounts of land). Once the signing took place in 1781, a President was needed to run the country.

John Hanson was chosen unanimously by Congress (which included George Washington). In fact, all the other potential candidates refused to run against him, as he was a major player in the revolution and an extremely influential member of Congress.

As the first President, Hanson had quite the shoes to fill. No one had ever been President and the role was poorly defined. His actions in office would set precedent for all future Presidents.

He took office just as the Revolutionary War ended. Almost immediately, the troops demanded to be paid. As would be expected after any long war, ther e were no funds to meet the salaries. As a result, the soldiers threatened to overthrow the new government and put Washington on the
throne as a monarch.

All the members of Congress ran for their lives, leaving Hanson as the only guy left running the government. He somehow managed to calm the troops down and hold the country together. If he had failed, the government would have fallen almost immediately and everyone would have been bowing to King Washington.

Hanson, as President, ordered all foreign troops off American soil, as well as the removal of all foreign flags. This was quite the feat, considering the fact that so many European countries had a stake in the United States since the days following Columbus . Hanson established the Great Seal of the United States , which all Presidents have since been required to use on all official documents. President Hanson also established the first Treasury Department, the first Secretary of War, and the first Foreign Affairs Department.

Lastly, he declared that the fourth Thursday of every November was to be Thanksgiving Day, which is still true today. The Articles of Confederation only allowed a President to serve a one year term during any three year period, so Hanson actually accomplished quite a bit in such little time.

Seven other presidents were elected after him -
1. Elias Boudinot (1782-83),
2. Thomas Mifflin (1783-84),
3. Richard Henry Lee (1784-85),
4. John Hancock (1785-86),
5. Nathan Gorman (1786-87),
6. Arthur St. Clair (1787-88), and
7. Cyrus Griffin (1788-89) -
.....all prior to Washington taking office.

So what happened?

Why don't we hear about the first eight presidents? It's quite simple -- The Articles of Confederation didn't work well. The individual states had too much power and nothing could be agreed upon. A new doctrine needed to be written - something we know as the Constitution.

And that leads us to the end of our story. George Washington was definitely not the first President of the United States . He was the first President of the United States under the Constitution we follow today.

And the firsteight Presidents are forgotten in history.

Oh Johnny, We Hardley Knew Ye

Senator John McCain likes to present himself as the candidate of the “Straight Talk Express” who does not pander to voters or change his positions with the political breeze.

But the fine print of his record in the Senate indicates that he has been a lot less consistent on some of his signature issues than he has presented himself to be so far in his presidential campaign.

Mr. McCain, who derided his onetime Republican competitor Mitt Romney for his political mutability, has himself meandered over the years from position to position on some topics, particularly as he has tried to court the conservatives who have long distrusted him.

For its part, the McCain campaign told the Times that the senator “has evolved rather than switched positions in his 25-year career.” That’s a perfectly sensible spin — when a politician holds one position, and then, for apparently political reasons, decides to embrace the polar opposite position, it’s only natural for his or her aides to say the politician’s position has “evolved.”

But in McCain’s case, the spin is wholly unfulfilling. First, McCain sells himself as a pol who never sways with the wind, and whose willingness to be consistent in the face of pressure is proof of his character. Second, Republicans have spent the last four years or so making policy reversals the single most serious political crime in presidential politics. The dreaded “flip-flop” is, according to the GOP, the latest cardinal sin for someone seeking national office.

And if we’re playing by Republican rules, McCain’s “inconsistencies” should be a fairly serious problem.

For a list of McCain's oopsey's, CLICK HERE!

What's Turd Blossom Cooking Up Now?

Karl Rove played a leading role in the demise of the Republican party, and now as a FOXNews pundit he has been desperately trying to rewrite history and on yesterday's Fox News Sunday, he was laying down some of his patented fact-free spin on Iraq, Al Qaeda and the 2008 presidential campaigns.

Wallace pointed out that the American people are solidly against this war by every poll known to man, but Rove acting as a propagandist frames it this way.

Rove: "If we were to give up Iraq with the third largest oil reserves in the world to the control of an Al Qaida regime or to the control of Iran, don’t you think $200 a barrel oil would have a cost to the American economy?"

Rove calls Senator Barack Obama a “Neo-Isolationist” for daring to say that we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq in the first place (repeatedly misrepresenting Obama’s withdrawal plans) then goes on to say that we must stay in Iraq because we can’t let the third largest oil reserves in the world to fall into the hands of an Al Qaeda-led Iraq — which is a giant red herring considering Iraq’s government is dominated by Shiites who would never allow a few thousand Sunnis who call themselves Al Qaeda to take over their country under any circumstances. There’s absolutely no data to suggest this could ever happen and in fact, our presence there is merely perpetuating the problem.

Rove also floats the notion that oil prices will soar to $200 per barrel if we redeploy, but the reality is that our invasion of Iraq is the reason oil prices have now breached the $100 mark in the first place and our continued destabilizing presence in the Middle East will continue to drive prices higher.

From the Democratic standpoint, we can only hope that Senator McCain is stupid enough to continue to support Bush’s failed policies in Iraq all the way to November.

Imagine

A haunting, modern twist to an old classic.

Will we never learn?

Revisiting Stagflation

Along with disco music, bushy sideburns, angry ayatollahs and other things we'd just as soon forget, the 1970s brought us a new word: stagflation.

Stagflation describes a miserable combination of economic stagnation and inflation. Now, thanks to some scary headlines in the financial press, the word is making a comeback.

Consumer prices jumped 4.1 percent last year, the biggest jump in 16 years. The economy began wheezing and sputtering. Gross domestic product grew at a barely-visible 0.6 percent rate in the fourth quarter. Job creation is down, and gasoline prices are up. Does all that mean the '70s are coming back?

Hardly. Inflation is nowhere near the double-digit levels of the disco years, and chances are that it soon will be headed down, not up. Still, a little deja vu is probably helpful at the moment, if only to remind banks and businesses what's at stake. The financial markets, stung by the credit crisis, are crying for the Federal Reserve to further lower interest rates to stimulate the economy. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday indicated that he's in a mood to comply. He's already cut rates several times since summer.

But the Fed must make sure that in encouraging spending, it also keeps prices under control. The word "stagflation" reminds us of what can happen when the government ignores inflation.

That's what happened in the 1970s. The guns-and-butter federal policies of the Vietnam War years started inflation rising and the Fed let it happen.

Then came the oil shocks, pushing prices up while stalling economic growth. An inflation psychology took hold, with wages racing to keep up with prices and vice versa.

It took the severe recessions of the early 1980s - the worst since the Great Depression - to finally get inflation under control. Unemployment hit 10.8 percent. No one wants to go through that again.

Oil prices play half the role in the U.S. economy that they did in the 1970s. Still, oil and food prices account for the bulk of recent inflation. Lately, there have been signs that other prices are rising as well, and that's worrisome. Core inflation, a measure that excludes food and energy, is running at a 10-month high, up 2.5 percent over the past year.

Right now, the Fed is betting that the slowing economy will bring inflation back to earth. After all, it's hard to raise prices when jobs are getting scarce and credit is hard to come by. So the Fed is busy cutting interest rates to head off a recession.

"In the short run, you've got to pay attention to the predominant factor, and that's the downturn in the economy," says Jack Strauss, economist and director of the St. Louis University's Simon Center for Regional Forecasting. "I wouldn't worry about inflation at the moment."

That moment could pass quickly. Some economists, including former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, think the inflation battle could be tougher in the future. Some unique factors - such as the explosion of cheap imports from China - helped keep American prices down over the past few years. Now those trends are leveling off. If inflation doesn't ease as expected over the next few months, the Fed will have to do something about it. The memory of stagflation will haunt the moment. If the choice is between a mild recession and rebounding inflation, recession is the lesser evil.

What's Going On With John Edwards These Days

After he left the presidential race, one could have forgiven John Edwards if he just wanted to go back home to enjoy a period of semi-retirement. Spend time with his wife and kids, kick back, relax after running for president for pretty much seven years straight.

Fortunately for the rest of us, that's not what John Edwards is doing:

A coalition announced Monday and called Iraq Campaign 2008 seeks to tie anxiety over the faltering economy to anxiety over the duration of the war. Part of its agenda is targeting what it calls "obstructionist" members of Congress--Democrats as well as Republicans--that don't seek a rapid withdrawal from Iraq. The campaign has an attention-getting front-man: former presidential candidate John Edwards. The effort, however, is not without problems--not least of which is the conundrum of whether antiwar activism turns out to be counterproductive to ending a war.

"People don't understand why we're spending $500 billion and counting in Iraq," Edwards said in a Monday conference call, "when at the same time we've got 40-plus million Americans with no health care coverage, 37 million-plus living in poverty. It doesn't make sense to them."

The effort is the brainchild of a group of liberal organizations: MoveOn.org, the Service Employees International Union, the VoteVets progressive veterans network, USAction and the Center for American Progress.

Good for him. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: John Edwards is a talented man, and he deserves a place in whatever Democratic administration comes next. In the meantime, it's nice to see him working to raise awareness of the fact that our economic woes are in no small part tied to the bottomless pit of blood and treasure that we continue to feed.

March 13 -16

U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries. "The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Let's get the betting pool going on what will dominate the mainstream media on March 13-16. I am thinking six school lockdowns, an explosion/shootup of an Illinois shopping mall, the release of a new 'bin Laden' videotape, or the 'killing' of the 548th 'al-Qaeda number two' in the 'resistive Anbar province.

No End In Sight

Away With bush

WOW!

This song made me cry.

Hillary's Inner Republican

HOUSTON (AP) - A stark new Hillary Rodham Clinton ad portrays her as the leader voters want on the phone when crisis occurs in the middle of the night, “while your children are safely asleep.” Barack Obama retorted that his Democratic rival already had her “red phone moment” and it helped draw the U.S. into a misbegotten war.

The ad, with its visuals of sleeping children, prompted an immediate denunciation Friday from Obama, who said it’s meant to scare people. The Obama campaign rolled out testimonials from national security supporters that the Illinois senator has the temperament and judgment for perilous times.

Clinton adviser Howard Wolfson contended the ad “speaks to what people really know in their hearts” about his candidate’s experience and, by inference, her opponent’s lack of it. “This is a legitimate matter for a presidential campaign,” he said. “We would be derelict if we didn’t raise it.”

The commercial stirred waters heading into the final weekend of the campaign for Ohio and Texas presidential primaries Tuesday that could make or break Clinton’s campaign.[..]

Obama responded that he called it right on the war, “the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, and that’s the kind of judgment I’ll show when I answer that phone in the White House as president of the United States.”

“We’ve had a red phone moment,” he added. “It was the decision to invade Iraq. And Senator Clinton gave the wrong answer.”

If the phone was ringing in the white house someday at 3 AM I sure hope that someone actually would WAKE UP unlike these sleepy little dunderheads in Billary's desperate ad.

Is she actually thinking that a man that's half black would be too lazy to wake up?

See Hillary, playing the race card can work both ways.

Why don't you take off the donkey mask and reveal the elephant that lives within your soul.

Liar, Liar, Pants On Fire

As the House of Representatives takes the time it needs to negotiate a bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), the White House has launched a public assault on the legislative body.

The administration is poniting their pudgy little fingers in false claims that the House has endangered the country by letting the Protect America Act (PAA) expire and should pass the bill already approved by the Senate.

The Senate bill, however, is unconstitutional and contains immunity for the telecommunications companies that aided the president’s warrantless wiretapping program.

In a February 22nd letter to the House Permanent Select Committee Chairman Silvestre Reyes, Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell made several misleading claims.

Here, the ACLU refutes some of the administration’s arguments.

The Administration claims that:

• FISA's requirements, unlike those of the Protect America Act and the bipartisan Senate bill, impair our ability to collect information on foreign intelligence targets located overseas.

• …"because of the hurdles under FISA's emergency authorization provisions and the requirement to go to the FISA Court within 72 hours, our resource constraints limit our use of emergency authorizations to certain high-priority circumstances and cannot simply be employed for every foreign intelligence target” and that "our intelligence professionals need to be able to obtain foreign intelligence from foreign targets with speed and agility."

The Facts:

• The NSA and CIA have unfettered authority to wiretap at will outside the United States. FISA only regulates domestic spying. No matter what, in an emergency situation, the government can begin a wiretap immediately. Probable cause is a very low evidentiary threshold, so if the government does not have enough of a justification to obtain a judge’s approval (within 72 hours) there is probably not a very good reason for them to believe there’s an emergency in the first place.

• Let’s not forget that this push to amend FISA started because the administration claimed that there was a simple “foreign to foreign” fix needed. There is substantial agreement that a FISA warrant should not be needed to intercept communications between foreigners in foreign countries. Since July, the administration and DNI have consistently asked for a mile under the guise of an inch. If the foreign to foreign fix is all that is needed, it would easily pass with overwhelming bipartisan and bicameral cooperation. The fact is the administration wants Congress to legalize the warrantless domestic wiretapping program that was disclosed over two years ago (to the outrage of many in Congress, it should be noted) and to make sure the phone companies emerge from their role in the program without a scratch.

The Administration claims that:

• The FISA Court requires a showing of probable cause before it will authorize surveillance and satisfying the probable cause requirement will result in unacceptable gaps and delays in monitoring communications of foreign terrorists overseas.
  
• …"it makes no sense to require a showing of probable cause for surveillance of overseas foreign targets who are not entitled to the Fourth Amendment protections guaranteed by our Constitution."

The Facts:

• Wrong again. In an interview last year with PBS’s “Frontline,” James Baker, head of the Justice Department's Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, said the following on the ability of FISA applications to move quickly:

  Frontline: “So you're saying FISA can move very rapidly.”

  Baker: “Very rapidly. Extremely rapidly. I just want to explain that the reason we do it that way is because we're under a 72-hour clock, and we don't want to start the clock running sooner than we need to. It is challenging to finish these applications within 72 hours, so we don't want to start the clock one minute sooner than we need to. It's just a very practical decision. ...

“The point is, there's been no loss of foreign intelligence information. That's the key thing. ... The American people have not been put at any risk because of this process going on. The collection was not ready until it was ready, and once it was ready, we went and got the attorney general's approval. I'm not saying that we can always do it in one minute, but we can do it pretty quick, and we know how to do it, and we've done it many, many times .”

The Administration claims that:

• …“we have lost intelligence information this past week as a direct result of the uncertainty created by Congress' failure to act."
  
• The Intelligence Community and Department of Justice have worked over the past week with our private partners – whose assistance is essential to our intelligence collection efforts – to mitigate this problem caused by Congress' failure to act, but we have nonetheless missed intelligence information that we could have been collecting to protect the country.

The Facts:

• The day after writing the letter to Congress cited above, Mukasey and McConnell backtracked and admitted that telecom cooperation with surveillance under existing orders is continuing. The fact that there is no FISA backlog, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said, is not challenged by the administration. Security experts Rand Beers, Richard Clarke, Don Kerrick, and Suzanne Spaulding wrote a letter to Mukasey and McConnell chastising them for their misleading statements about a loss of intelligence: “For new targets that are somehow not covered by the existing authorizations, the FISA court can issue an order, which the telecom companies are legally obliged to follow. Telecommunications companies will continue to cooperate with lawful government requests, particularly since FISA orders legally compel cooperation with the government.”

• Any delays or loss of intelligence rests squarely on the shoulders of the president who refused to sign another extension of the Protect America Act. The administration can’t have it both ways. It cannot flatly refuse to extend a law and then blame Congress for the consequences.

The Administration claims that:

• …"[e]ven prior to the expiration of the Protect America Act, we experienced significant difficulties in working with the private sector because of the continued failure to provide liability protection for such companies."
  
• According to a statement from the Department of Justice and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: "[A]lthough our private partners are cooperating for the time being, they have expressed understandable misgivings about doing so in light of the on-going uncertainty and have indicated that they may well discontinue cooperation if the uncertainty persists…Even with the cooperation of these private partners under existing directives, our ability to gather information concerning the intentions and planning of terrorists and other foreign intelligence targets will continue to degrade because we have lost tools provided by the Protect America Act that enable us to adjust to changing circumstances."

The Facts:

• If the government is having trouble compelling its “private partners” to help in its intelligence gathering, it is most likely because the government is asking them to do something that is not authorized under the law. These companies would have no choice but to comply with a legal directive. Any lack of cooperation or “loss of tools” the administration is bemoaning is its own fault. The fact is plain and simple: a warrant compels cooperation and provides immunity. If the government can’t come up with the probable cause it needs to satisfy the FISA court, then these “private partners” are probably correct to not go ahead with the administration’s wink and nod yet again.