In Chicago

This Saturday

On Saturday, October 27th there will be 11 massive demonstrations for peace throughout the United States. In Boston, Chicago, Jonesborough, Tennessee, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle, people from all walks of life will join together to express their anti-war sentiments and to call for an immediate end to the conflict in Iraq.



With each passing day the human and financial cost of this unnecessary war grows more and more painful. It’s time for the American people to speak out; to collectively let our government know that it’s time for this war to end. October 27th provides just that opportunity and the world will be watching.



Take a look at the mobilization web site to get details on the marches October 27th and join your family, friends and neighbors in making sure that your voice is heard. It’s time.



Working together with our partners at United For Peace And Justice, Brave New Films has demonstrated again just how effective an advocacy tool video can be. As this video spreads throughout cyberspace, help it on its essential journey by spreading the word to friends and family. The power is in your hands, please use it and help the cause of peace now.

Cunti Rice Is A War Criminal

Rice was preparing to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee when she encountered Farooz inside the hearing room. Farooz had painted her hands red, apparently to symbolize her group’s claim that members of President Bush’s cabinet have blood on their hands because of the way they’ve waged war in Iraq.

More Soldiers Going AWOL

THESE are the REAL hero's!

George Carlin On Countdown

A Skeleton In Rudy's Closet

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims’ groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.

“This man did unjust things, and he’s being protected and employed and taken care of. It’s not a good thing,” said one of the accusers, Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.

At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39 years.

Hmmmmmm.......I wonder how "close" they really are.

The Lyin' King

When Democrats accuse bush of being a liar, Republicans -- and until recently, the media -- have responded that Bush is a man of integrity whom you can trust at his word. It was the evil Bill Clinton who lied. Remember him wagging his finger at us?

That bastard!

Well, yes, Bill Clinton did indeed lie to us. He lied to us about a blow-job. It sure is good that we spent nearly $100 million to find out how semen reacts on a cotton blue dress from the Gap. Of course, it turned out that he was telling the truth to us about Whitewater and filegate and travelgate and campaign finance-gate and gate-gate and more. I'm sure we could find better uses for that money today. But, Clinton certainly did lie about that hummer. Imagine that, a man lying about sex. In America no less.

Of course, unlike another president, Clinton's lies didn't kill anyone.

Anyway, I decided to put just a short list together of lies by America's asshole president bush.

These are not banal lies about one's sex life, these are big lies, whoppers and tall tales about his own record, who he is, what he's done and what he stands for.

1. The Iraq War.
We could really start and end with this one, since this lie has killed and wounded thousands of American soldiers and countless Iraqi men women and children. But this one certainly does not stand alone.

Let's break this out into subcategories as well, such as:
a) "The smoking gun could be a mushroom cloud." Iraq didn't even have shitake mushrooms.

b) "Saddam would not let the inspectors in." bush has now made this claim twice. It came as quite a surprise to the hundreds of U.N. inspectors that were in Iraq in 2003 and were told by the U.S. to get out or get bombed.

c) Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. All right, I cut them some slack on this one as

EVERYONE thought that he still possessed some WMD capability. The difference is that no one else felt that Hussein was any sort of credible military threat to the rest of the region, much less the United States. And, by "no one" else, I mean C.I.A., the U.N. and anyone else not named Wolfowitz, Rice, Libby, Rumsfeld, Cheney or Pearle.

d) "We know exactly where they are." So said Rumsfeld shortly after the war ended. I wonder if he's shared that bit of information with his boss yet?

e) The laundry list. Both Bush in his 2003 State of the Union speech and Colin Powell at the United Nations read through a laundry list of horrors that was quantified down to the milliliter. Powell called these charges "facts" that were unassailable. Yet we have still not found a drop.

f) "We believe that, in fact, Saddam Hussein has reconstituted nuclear weapons." Dick Cheney said this on Meet the Press in 2003. Even as Bush and others were careful of going overboard, Dick "Goebbels" Cheney kept going for not just the Big Lie, but the Grandaddy of them all.

g) Drones that could attack the United States. True, if they were launched from Padre Island. The truth is that little Timmy down the block has a more sophisticated remote control airplane than Saddam did.

h) Yellow cake uranium. The Italian press thought those documents were fake. Let me repeat that: the ITALIAN PRESS thought they were forgeries!

i) We will be welcomed as liberators. Those are bullets, roadside bombs and RPGs, not roses fellas.

j) Imminent? Who said imminent? Well, Ari Fleischer, Donald Rumsfeld and others. But, apparently bush never said the words himself. He just used every other phrase he could think of to scare the crap out of us. And, as a point of order, isn't it the bush Administration? When someone is speaking for the administration, don't they speak for bush?

k) Al Qaeda and Saddam had close ties. Well, both he and bin Laden are Sunni Muslims, they both have moustaches and, to quote Cliff Clavin, neither of them have ever been in my kitchen. They must be like brothers.

l) "We have found WMDs in Iraq." bush and others have made this claim regarding an ever so dangerous weather tracking truck.

m) "They could have been destroyed by Saddam. Or moved out of the country." I know bush doesn't read the papers or watch the news, but does he even listen to his own staff? David Kay, his hand-picked inspector, said there obviously weren't any weapons in the first place. But, what if bush is right and they were moved, shipped out of the country? Well, then the whole purpose of the war -- to keep Hussein from giving his WMDs to terrorists -- was a failure. Well, George, which one is it?

I could go on and on, but we've got even more real hardcore, honest to goodness, Grade A lies to address.

2. Taxes (part 1)
bush has consistently claimed that he is against tax increases. Yet, as Governor, his 1997 tax plan would have forced tens of thousands of business to pay franchise taxes that previously did not have to pay. According to the GOP School of Taxes playbook, that's a tax increase, no if ands or buts about it.

3. Taxes (part 2)
Throughout the 2000 campaign and through 2001, bush claimed that his mega tax cut for the mega rich was actually a tax cut for the working folks. In fact, he said "the vast majority" would go to "the bottom." As Al Franken has so ably pointed out, "by far the vast majority" usually means more than 14.7 percent that the bottom 60 percent received. Consider that "fuzzy math."

4. Taxes (part 3)
In 2003, bush claimed his latest sop to the uber-wealthy would create jobs. In fact, the special interest, Rockefeller tax cut was -- in true Orwellian fashion -- named the Jobs and Growth Act of 2003. Someone wake me when those 2.6 million jobs bush promised in 2004 start being created. He needs to create around 300,000 jobs a month through Election Day to reach his pledge.

5. Taxes (part 4)
bush, who tried to extend taxes to thousands of businesses and not call it a tax increase, now claims that if his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts are not made permanent, that is a tax increase. Now, remember, the law as written says those taxes automatically phase out if nothing is changed. bush now says if the law as written -- the law he signed -- is not changed, that is a tax increase.

6. "I fulfilled my duty."
"He didn't take his flight physical because his doctor was in Houston." The entire National Guard spin is falling apart before our eyes. The facts of the issue have remained the same, but the Bush Team's laughable responses become "inoperable" by the day. Despite their ever-angrier denials, the issue won't go away. Last Friday night's document dump and run still hasn't answered the key question: where were you during the war, George? At least 1972. You can say it's "trolling for trash" all you want, but you can't make the issue go away without some proof.

7. "I'm a uniter not a divider"
bush's 2000 mantra -- bought hook, line and sinker by much of the media -- was that only he could come to Washington and end the partisan bickering. Within weeks, this proved to be completely untrue. His heavy-handed partisanship even cost him control of the U.S. Senate for a time, as Republican Jim Jeffords bolted the party.

In 2002, bush showed his unifying skills by saying that Democrats who disagreed with his behemoth vision for the Department of Homeland Security -- a plan he had opposed for nearly a year -- "didn't care about the security of the country." You know, guys like Senator Tom Daschle, who was actually a terrorist target. He then thanked Max Cleland and Mary Landrieu for their steadfast support by targeting them and backing opponents who questioned their patriotism and, in Louisiana, sent out mailers to black neighborhoods with the wrong election date.

Well, bush is a uniter in one way: He has united the Democratic Party like never before, and is driving independents back to the Democratic Party in droves. Please, keep uniting us.

8. The 2004 budget.
From front to back, the latest bush budget is one of the most fraudulent documents ever created by the U.S. government. Well, at least since the last budget. Like 2003, bush doesn't count the cost of Iraq or Afghanistan into his fantasy land accounting. He also counts in billions of spending cuts that are flat out pipe dreams that even the GOP won't support. According to the White House, the deficit -- which has gone from hundreds of billions in the black to $518 billon in the red in just three short years -- will be cut in half. This from an administration that has overestimated growth and underestimated projected deficits each year. But, according to George, prosperity truly is just around the corner.

9. "I won't run a deficit."
During the 2000 campaign, bush responded to those who -- quite correctly -- said his voodoo economic plan would drive us right back into the gutter that he would not operate a deficit. He said that he was "a governor. I believe in balanced budgets." Yes, the same way kids believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny.

10. "I hit the trifecta."
Following our steady plummet back into deficit land, bush used the handy excuse of "the trifecta": war, national emergency and recession. He explained away his past statements that he wouldn't run a deficit by claiming he had made an exception for those three things. Of course, he never actually said that. Paul Begala, Al Franken, Paul Krugman, Joe Conason and others have all reviewed every statement printed during the 2000 campaign and Bush never made any such qualification. Of course, why should we hold them to what he actually said? As Larry Speakes, Ronald Reagan's press secretary once said, "No it wasn't true, but it sure sounded good."

11. "I released all my National Guard records in 2000."
On Meet the Press, bush once again fell back to his standard behavior when confronted with an uncomfortable subject: he lied his ass off. Four years after reporters first asked him to release his records -- and a nearly a week after he promised to -- bush finally followed in the footsteps of John F. Kennedy, John McCain, John Kerry, Bob Kerrey and Wes Clark and released his full military record.

12. "I'm spending less than Bill Clinton."
On Meet the Press, an interview that will go down in history as one of the stupidest decisions Karl Rove has ever made, bush claimed that government spending has actually dropped under his tenure. Even GOP stalwarts ran away from this one faster than Rush Limbaugh runs to a bowlful of Oxycontins. The truth of the matter is that federal spending has exploded under George W., just as spending exploded in Texas while he was governor. This fella just ain't your daddy's fiscal conservative.

Here is a great quote on bush's spending:
"His dramatic increase in the size and spending of the federal government with a record deficit. With his $2.23 trillion budget, his administration will complete the biggest increase in government spending since Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society." The budget deficit predicted by the House Budget Office will hit a record $306 billion. Spending on government programs increased 22% from 1999 to 2003. A Washington Post report said, "The era of big government, if it ever went away, has returned full-throttle under bush." Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey commented that under President Bush, the federal government is "out of control."" The source? Liberal media publication Intellectual Conservative in an article entitled "Why Christians Should Not Vote for bush", February 15, 2004.

13. Free Trade.
bush supports free trade. That's why he slapped tariffs on imported steel. Of course, had the potentially affected steel mills been located in New York instead of Pennsylvania -- a state he hopes to win in 2004 -- bush would still be a pure free trader.

14. Outsourcing.
Last week, the Bush Administration claimed that the outsourcing of high-paying U.S. jobs to other countries "is a good thing." N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of bush's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote a report saying exactly that. He then reiterated his belief in the wonderful attributes of Americans losing their jobs at a press briefing on the report. Once again, Republicans are fleeing from this statement as fast as they can. So is bush, who immediately ran to Pennsylvania to promise 2.6 million jobs by the end of the year. Unfortunately, Mankiw is bush's hand-picked employee -- and the president has already signed the report.

As Senator Tom Harkin said: "bush, America has a new #1 export: jobs."

15. "No one could have imagined them hijacking airplanes."
Of all the lies, this one might be the most annoying. National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice made this claim repeatedly during the summer of 2002. Nevermind that Ramsey Yousef, one of the masterminds of the original attack on the World Trade Center, had his plot to hijack and crash 12 airplanes foiled by U.S. and foreign intelligence agents...in 1995. It was big news then, but apparently didn't make it all the way out to Stanford University. Rice's deceit was completely exposed in 2002 when details of the President's Daily Intelligence Briefing in August 2001 revealed that CIA and other sources warned the administration of just such hijackings. But she is never called on this or other lies when she makes her media rounds.

16. Air Force One was a target.
While everyone remembers and praises bush's appearance with firefighters in New York City, the White House -- and the press -- conveniently ignore the actual timeline of events. That meeting took place on September 14, 2001. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, the entire New York congressional delegation and, of course, Rudy Gulliani, had been on the scene for days, Rudy and Bill since almost minute one. On September 11, 2001, after he was notified of both the first and second plane crashes, it took nearly an hour for Bush to depart Florida. But, he did not go to Washington, or even make a statement in Florida. No, first he flew to an Air Force Base in Louisiana; then, to the safety of a bunker in Nebraska. He told Americans it was safe, while he was entombed.

Many criticized his absence, most notably Peter Jennings who asked "Where is the President." To combat such criticism, the bush White House claimed that they zig-zagged across the country because of a "credible threat" against Air Force One. Nearly a year later, they were forced to admit that they had, in fact, received no such threat.

Now, I am not necessarily criticizing bush's flight itinerary on 9/11/01. Keeping the President safe was the top priority and they rightly took steps to ensure his safety. So why not just say that and be done with it? Why did the White House have to put out another lie to try to make themselves look heroic?

Because that's what they do.

17. Bill Clinton pillaged the White House as he walked out the door.
Well, according to the General Accounting Office in yet another investigation that spent our tax dollars, the allegations of looting just weren't true. Was there some damage and pranks? Of course, just as there are in every transition. But widespread damage? No, it wasn't true, but it sure sounded good.

18. Leave No Child Behind.
The president's key education initiative is a well-intentioned attempt to change education in the United States. It could lead to real changes, if bush had actually funded the plan rather than treat it as a nice photo op to show he really cared.

According to Senator Edward Kennedy, the author of the legislation and bush's main prop in 2001, "in the two years since the No Child Left Behind Act was passed, the Bush Administration has cut its funding, reneged on promised resources for better teachers and smaller classes, and worked to divert millions of dollars to private school vouchers... bush's new budget for 2005 will leave over 4.6 million children behind. Still pending before Congress is bush's 2004 budget which provides schools with over $7.5 billion less than promised in the No Child Left Behind Act. And there is every expectation that the President will propose again not only to cut resources for public school reform, but to divert scarce public education dollars to private schools."

Enough said.

19. Cost of the Medicare Bill.
Oops! They must have forgot to carry the one...or they are just liars. In fall 2003, Bush sold his Medicare budget with some interesting numbers: it would only cost $400 billion over 10 years. Now keep in mind that passage of this plan was in extreme doubt, as Democrats opposed the plan as a joke that would cost too much and do too little, while Republicans complained that, well, it cost way too much. The bush Team assured everyone that it would cost no more than $400 million and the plan passed the House by a razor thin margin.

Lo and behold, they snookered us again. Just a few months later, the plan now costs $540 billion, with more sure to be added as the plan actually begins the implementation process.

20. Ken Lay.
After the Enron scandal hit full force, bush tried to downplay his relationship with Ken Lay by saying "he gave money to my opponent" Ann Richards. Suddenly Lay, whom Bush had previously called "Kenny Boy," didn't' ring a bell. Despite the fact that Enron was Bush's #1 contributor from 94-00, the fact that Bush was flown around the campaign trail in 1998 on Lay's private plane, and Lay's status as a Pioneer (and serious contender for Commerce Secretary) Bush and he really weren't that close. Maybe that's why Martha Stewart went to jail and not Ken Lay.

(By the way, does it strike anyone as odd that Martha went to jail for almost exactly what bush did when he left Harken Energy?)

21. I'm against Nation Building.
Throughout the 2000 campaign, bush assailed Clinton's successful military forays in Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo, saying he opposed "nation building." Today, see Afghanistan; see Iraq. In fairness, when you look at the deteriorating situations in both countries, it is clear that bush is not really doing any nation "building" right now. He has ignored the reconstruction of Afghanistan (famously forgetting to fund it in his 2003 budget. Sorry about that Mr. Karzai!) and he has, to put it diplomatically, completely screwed the pooch in Iraq by ignoring the possible resistance to a U.S. occupation, handing over the reconstruction to corporate cronies like Halliburton and the reigns of power to unpopular sycophants like Ahmed Chalabi. Disaster looms where we can least afford to fail.

22. "I remember that sign from the Old West: Wanted Dead or Alive."
Following the 2001 terrorist attacks, Cowboy bush repeatedly strapped on his star and gave us his best John Wayne impersonation, essentially guaranteeing that we would take out Osama bin Laden. Now, bush says of capturing bin Laden: "I have no idea" (Meet the Press, February 8, 2004). What would John Wayne say?

23. We're safer now that Saddam is dead.
Howard Dean was ridiculed for questioning this platitude, but he is right. Hopefully we will be safer, but that outcome is certainly not assured. Not if Iran is stronger in the region and Iraq splits apart, divided into three warring factions, any of which could destabilize Turkey, Syria or Saudi Arabia. In the meantime, scores of Al Qaeda fighters have streamed into Iraq since the war began, an outcome we had sought to avoid by taking Hussein out.

For the present, I think we should ask the boys and girls being shot at if they feel more or less safe since December.

24. I was never arrested after 1972 -- unless you count that DWI. Err, those two DWIs.
bush reportedly told the Dallas Morning News in 1999 that he was never arrested after 1972. Of course, as we all learned, he was arrested for drunk driving in 1978, with his younger sister and Australian tennis star John Newcombe, in the car. According to NBC News, Bush was also arrested for another DWI in Midland after 1972. Are his arrests the big deal? No, but his constant lying about them sure goes to character, don't you think?

25. I supported the Patient Protection Act.
During the 2000 presidential debates, bush claimed he supported the Patient Protection Act and the Patient's Bill of Rights. I almost fell on the floor, especially since Al Gore, standing mere feet away, did not call him on one of the most obvious lies in campaign history. This one was actually well-explored by the media, but Gore let this meatball glide harmlessly over the plate without taking the bat off of his shoulder.

The truth is Bush vetoed the Patient Protection Act in 1995 and let the Patient's Bill of Rights -- landmark legislation that became the model for other states and the federal government --become law without his signature. So, if by support you mean "opposed and tried to kill", then yes, you supported them.

26. "I signed the hate crimes bill".
Another juicy whopper. Now bush had won re-election mere months before with nearly 70 of the vote. If he wanted a bill passed, he got it. But, bush ordered his legislative minions to kill the James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, less than one year after the most gruesome hate murder of the post-Civil Rights era. The guy who was the leader in killing the bill? State Senator David Sibley (R-Waco), a man who had supported the same legislation just a few years earlier. You might recognize Sibley; he's the guy you see driving bush's golf cart whenever Bush is back in Crawford playing golf.

27. I want to get to the bottom of the Plame leak.
Following the sliming of Ambassador Joseph Wilson for exposing the Nigerian "yellow cake" lie, and the outing of his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, Bush said it was "a very serious matter" and that he wanted to get to the bottom of it. But he never ordered his staff to do anything about it. Since very few members of the White House would have had the clearance to even know that Plame was an operative, and even fewer are even allowed to make eye contact with, much less to talk to the media, it shouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to find the culprit here. Instead, he actually lamented that "we may never know" who did it because Washington is full of leakers. Thankfully, after cajoling from Democrats forced Attorney General John "Inspector Clouseau" Ashcroft to recuse himself from the investigation, it appears that we may actually discover who is behind this act of treason. Scooter Libby, your lawyer is on the line.

28. "I will fight the war on terror."
This claim, unfortunately, is also debatable. Just when we had "smoked them out of their holes and got them on the run" our intelligence services and our military were forced to change their focus from fighting Al Qaeda to invading Iraq, letting bin Laden off the hook. In addition, despite numerous reports on the vulnerability of our ports, little has been done to make them more secure from terrorism. Also, despite a serious congressional study, media scrutiny and an on-going non-partisan investigation, little has changed regarding how our intelligence is gathered and analyzed to avoid making the same mistakes. In fact, little has changed beyond making several bureaucracies into one huge bureaucracy under the banner of the Department of Homeland Security. And, in perhaps the most bizarre example of sleeping at the wheel, the 2004 Bush budget offers no funding for biothreat detection at Post Offices. This after the White House said they foiled a mail attack to the White House last year and days before Ricin was mailed to Senator Bill Frist's office.

Its Time To Grow Some Balls

Where is Congress?

It's way past time for members to stand up.

Historic matters are at stake.

The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our government is being perverted, and nothing less than American democracy itself is endangered - a presidential coup is taking place.

I think of Barbara Jordan, the late congresswoman from Houston. On July 25, 1974, this powerful thinker and member of the House Judiciary Committee took her turn to speak during the Nixon impeachment inquiry.

"My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total," she declared in her thundering voice. "And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution."

Where are the likes of Barbara Jordan in today's Congress? While the BushCheney regime continues to establish a supreme, arrogant, autocratic presidency in flagrant violation of the Constitution, members of Congress largely sit there as idle spectators - or worse, as abettors of Bush's usurpation of their own congressional authority.

Separation of powers. Rule of law. Checks and balances.

These may seem to us moderns to be little more than a set of dry, legal precepts that we had to memorize in high-school history class but need not concern us now. After all, the founders (bless their wigged heads!) established these principles for us back in 17-something-or-other, so we don't really have to worry about them in 2007. Think again. These are not merely arcane phrases of constitutional law, but the very keystones of our democracy, essential to sustaining our ideal of being a self-governing people, free of tyrants who would govern us on their own whim.

The founders knew about tyranny.

The monarch of the time, King George III, routinely denied colonists basic liberties, spied on them and entered their homes at will, seized their property, jailed anyone he wanted without charges, rounded up and killed dissidents, and generally ruled with an iron fist. He was both the law and above the law, operating on the twin doctrines of "the divine rule of kings" and "the king can do no wrong."

At the front of the founders' minds was the necessity of breaking up the authority of their new government in order to avoid re-creating the autocracy they had just defeated. The genius of their structure was that legislating, administering, and judging were to be done by three separate but coequal branches, each with powers to check the other two, and none able to aggregate all three functions into its own hands (a result that James Madison called the very definition of tyranny). Just as important, to deter government by whim, all members of the three branches were to be subject to the laws of the land (starting with the Constitution and Bill of Rights), with no one above the law.

As Thomas Paine said, "The law is king."

These were not legal niceties but core restraints designed to protect citizens from power grabs by ambitious autocrats. Such restrictions also make our country stronger by vetting policies through three entities rather than one. This balanced authority helps avoid many serious policy mistakes (or at least offers a chance to correct them later), and it is intended to prevent the one mistake that's fatal to democracy - allowing one branch to seize the power to rule unilaterally.

Of course, sound schemes are oft screwed up by unsound leaders, and we've had some horrible hiccups over the years. John Adams went astray early in our democratic experiment by claiming the unilateral authority to imprison his political enemies; Abe Lincoln took it upon himself to suspend habeas corpus during the Civil War; Woodrow Wilson launched his notorious Palmer Raids; FDR rounded up and imprisoned Japanese-Americans; J. Edgar Hoover and the infamous COINTEL program spied on and arrested thousands in the Vietnam War years; and Ronnie Reagan ran his own illegal, secret war out of the White House basement.

In all these cases of executive excess and abuse, however, outrage flowed from the public, courts stood up to the White House, congressional investigations ensued, and the American system regained its balance relatively quickly. As Jefferson put it when he succeeded Adams and repealed the Alien and Sedition Acts, "Should we wander [from the essential principles of our government] in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety."

This Time Is Different

Now, however, come two arrogant autocrats like we've never seen in the White House. George W and his snarling enabler, Dick Cheney, are making a power grab so unprecedented, so audacious, so broad and deep, so secretive, so stupefying, and so un-American that it has not yet been comprehended by the media, Congress, or the public. The dictionary defines "coup" not just as an armed takeover in some Third World country, but as "a sudden and decisive action in politics, especially one affecting a change of government illegally or by force."

Constantly waving the bloody flag of 9/11 and swaggering around in commander-in-chief garb, the bush/cheney duo are usurping authority from Congress, the courts, and the people, while also asserting arbitrary power that does not belong to the presidency. Their coup is changing our form of government, rewriting the genius of the founders by imposing a supreme executive that functions in secret and insists that it is above the law, unaccountable either to congressional oversight or to judicial review.

As Al Gore pointed out in a powerful speech he gave last year (read it here), the BushCheney push for imperial power is much more dangerous and far-reaching than other presidential excesses for a couple of big reasons. First, the bushites make no pretension that they want these powers only temporarily, instead contending that a super-powerful presidency is necessary to cope with a terrorist threat that they say will last "for the rest of our lives." Second, they are not merely pushing executive supremacy as a response to an outside threat, but as an ideological, right-wing theory of what they allege the Constitution actually meant to say.

Called the "unitary executive theory," this perverse, antidemocratic construct begs us to believe that the president has inherent executive powers that cannot be reviewed, questioned, or altered by the other branches. bush himself has asserted that his executive power "must be unilateral and unchecked." Must? Extremist theorists aside, this effectively establishes an executive with arbitrary power over us.

It creates the anti-America.

The list of bushite excesses is long ... and growing:

Their sweeping, secret program of warrantless spying on Americans - in direct violation of a long-standing federal law intended to forestall such flagrant intrusions into people's privacy.
The usurpation of legislative authority by attaching "signing statements" to laws passed by Congress, openly asserting bush's intention to disobey or simply ignore the laws. He has used this artifice to challenge over 1,150laws, even though the Constitution and the founders never conceived of such a dodge (signing statements were concocted by Ed Meese, Reagan's attorney general, and were pushed at that time by a young Reaganite lawyer who is now ensconced for life on the Supreme Court, Sam Alito).

Suspension of habeas corpus for anyone whom bush deems to be an "enemy combatant"-allowing innocent people to be detained indefinitely in prison without charges or civil trial, subjected to abuse and even torture, and denied access to judicial review of their incarceration (thus usurping the power of the courts). The routine and illegal assertion of "executive privilege" to stonewall Congress's legitimate efforts to perform its constitutional obligation of executive oversight and to prevent the questioning of top officials engaged in outright violations of American law.

The assertion of a "state secrets" doctrine to prevent citizens and judges from pursuing legitimate lawsuits on the spurious grounds that even to have the executive's actions brought before the court would endanger national security and infringe on executive authority.

An ever-expanding grab bag of autocratic actions, including using "national security letters" to sidestep the courts and spy on American political groups and individuals with no connection at all to terrorism; censoring executive-branch employees and government information for political purposes and using federal officials and tax dollars to push the regime's political agenda; and, of course, outright lying to Congress and the public, including lying for the most despicable purpose of all - putting our troops, our public treasury, and our nation's good name into a war based on nothing but hubris, oil, and ideological fantasies (including bush's latest blatant lie that "progress" in Iraq warrants the killing and maiming of additional thousands of American troops - none of whom comes from his family).

What we have is a lawless presidency.

But our problem is not bush. He is who he is - a bonehead. He won't change, and why should he? He's getting away with his power grab! So he has no reason to step back, and every reason to keep pushing and to keep trying to institutionalize his coup.

Rather, our problem is those weak kneed pussy members of Congress who have failed to confront the runaway executive, who have sat silent or (astonishingly) cheered and assisted as their own constitutional powers have been taken and their once-proud, coequal branch has been made subservient to the executive.

In the first six years of bush/cheney, the Republican Congress operated as no more than a rubber stamp for the accretion of presidential power, shamelessly surrendering its own autonomy in a burst of mindless partisan zeal. Too many Democrats just went along, either buying the lies or being cowed by the unrelenting politics of fear and intimidation whipped up by bush and cheney. (The bushites are still using these bullying tactics, as when they demanded this past summer that Congress legalize their illegal domestic spy program and CIA chief Mike McConnell warned publicly that "Americans are going to die" if Democrats failed to pass it.)

Which brings us to the new Congress run by Democrats.

Where are they?

Yes, I know they have only slim majorities and that the GOP uses veto threats, filibusters, and demagogic lies to fight them - but, come on, suck it up! At least stop voting for "the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution." For example, the party now in charge did indeed cave in to bush's summer demand that it legalize his warrantless spying on Americans (a Lowdowner sent an email to me saying he hopes bush gets caught smoking pot, because then the Democrats will immediately legalize it).

The founders would be stunned that Congress has failed to assert itself.

The New Katrina?

The AP has a good story today contrasting the treatment of the Southern California wildfire evacuees who've been forced to take shelter at San Diego's Qualcomm Stadium with the notorious conditions at the Louisiana Superdome after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005:

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Like Hurricane Katrina evacuees two years earlier in New Orleans, thousands of people rousted by natural disaster fled to the NFL stadium here, waiting out the calamity and worrying about their homes.

The similarities ended there, as an almost festive atmosphere reigned at Qualcomm Stadium.
Bands belted out rock 'n' roll, lavish buffets served gourmet entrees, and massage therapists helped relieve the stress for those forced to flee their homes because of wildfires.

How can this happen in America in 2007? There's no one answer. It does appear that -- even with the raging fires -- access to the San Diego football stadium is easier than getting into and around flood-ravaged New Orleans. But mainly the Superdome fiasco was a failure on every level of government, from the grossly unprepared and clueless FEMA to the local government that should have known the Superdome was no good and put more poor people on buses before the storm hit.

Still, I can't help but think that other nations must look at these things -- the treatment of evacuees in one of America's richest cities (at least by housing price), and in one of its poorest -- and conclude that we're some kind of barbarians. The contrast between the wealth of water and food at Qualcomm, pictured at top of this post, with the scarcity at the Superdome is outrageous.
My biggest quibble with this AP article is the headline about "civility" -- which implies the contrast is the fault of the evacuees. That myth was pretty much punctured after Katrina.

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees — mass murders, rapes and beatings — have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know. "I think 99 percent of it is [expletive]," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong — bad things happened. But I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything ... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

They just weren't given food or water...let alone massage therapists. You have to be haunted by these words from Superdome survivor Phyllis Johnson, written shortly after Katrina and well before yesterday's evacuation:

Johnson said many of the people she met inside the dome thought they were going to die there. But she didn't want to lay down and die. She escaped the shelter, slogged through chest-high water and finally caught a ride on a stolen truck. She ended up getting onto a bus headed for Houston.

Even though President Bush said today that race played no part in the botched evacuation efforts, Johnson strongly disagrees. She is sure that if the people who were stranded in New Orleans after the storm were white, they would have been rescued immediately and treated with dignity.

"They portrayed us as savages," she said.

Stupid Republicans

As I was driving past a church last night I noticed that their well lit, obviously working normally sign said "sign broken come inside for message."

Has the Christian community stooped to lying to get people inside?

Apparently so.

And it seems that is a revered tactic among the republicans too.

At the GOP debate the other night, Mike Huckabee made an odd claim.

“When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom, by the way, were clergymen, they said that we have certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator.”

“Most” of the signers were clergy? Is that true?

Actually, no.

Only one of the 56 was an active clergyman, and that was John Witherspoon. Witherspoon was a Presbyterian minister and president of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
A few more of the signers were former clergymen, though it’s a little unclear just how many…. We’d like to give Huckabee every benefit of the doubt, but even if you consider former clergymen among the signers the best you could come up with is four.

A possible four out of 56?

That’s not “most,” that’s Liar-Liar-Pants-on-Fire wrong.

It’s a common problem at the Republican debates — why let facts get in the way of a perfectly good soundbite?

Do these delussional assholes really think they can slip this past a THINKING American population?

That seems to be the issue. Most Americans don't seem to think anymore.

Monday Protests In DC

It seems that civil disobedience, disrupting business and becoming a royal pain in the ass is FINALLY becoming a norm for the protestors. Standing around peacefully admiring each others signs are not getting politicians attention and protestors need a new strategy.

Civil disobedience is a very good thing.

U.S. Capitol Police arrested dozens of protesters who blocked Independence Avenue for short intervals during rush hour this morning, part of a demonstration intended to voice a broad list of complaints about global warming, war and sexism.

Demonstrators from an amalgam of organizations sat down in the road about 8:15 a.m. near Independence and New Jersey avenues, arms and legs intertwined, snarling the usual line of Monday morning commuters.

Police reopened the street after arresting 26 people, prying them apart and dragging them face down to the sidewalk, where they were searched, handcuffed and loaded onto a waiting bus. But a few minutes later, another small wave of demonstrators stepped onto the asphalt and blocked traffic again. Police took an additional dozen people into custody and reopened the street within about 30 minutes.

Demonstrations continued on sidewalks and green spaces nearby, but had shrunk considerably by 10 a.m. The protest -- involving an estimated 200 people at its peak -- was part of a series of disruptions and demonstrations that have taken place since Friday, the first day of the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Earlier today, police arrested about a dozen people who were blocking the entrance of the Cannon House Office Building.

The group on Independence Avenue was part of a "No Warming, No War" protest, which combined an environmental agenda with an antiwar stand. "War pollutes our democracy, sexism militarizes our bodies," read one protester's sign. Several protesters -- including some who were eventually arrested -- wore polar bear suits, a statement against global warming.

There was a person sporting a giant papier-mache likeness of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and another wearing a similarly oversized mask of bush. Yet another demonstrator lugged around an enormous cardboard windmill, erected on three bamboo poles.

The crowd chanted long-familiar street slogans such as "No justice, no peace," along with newer mantras like "Resistance is forming. No war, no warming."

As the police closed in, the demonstrators shouted, "Arrest bush, not kids."

Cost Of Care For Returning Vets

The current means of caring for returning vets is antiquated, compounding concern over the long-term cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Six years into the "global war on terror," the bush administration, Congress, and federal agencies are scrambling to address the health needs of battlefield veterans back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

bush acknowledges that the current means of caring for wounded and traumatized vets is "an antiquated system that needs to be changed." A bipartisan commission says the need for fundamental improvements in care management and the disability system "requires a sense of urgency and strong leadership."

As a result, the liar in chief has proposed administrative action and legislation that would streamline the system for providing postwar medical services and disability compensation to wounded veterans and their families.

As nice as this sounds for our wonderful men and women that support bush is his faux war on terror. Everything this idiot touches turns to shit and costs ME money. How dare they spend MY money without my approval or consent.

Of the more than 1.4 million service men and women who have served in the two war zones, nearly 700,000 have become eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care, of whom about 230,000 have sought such care since 2002.

Depending on future force deployments, VA medical costs associated with Iraq and Afghanistan could total between $7 billion and $9 billion over the next decade, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections. Disability compensation and survivors' benefits could add another $3 billion to $4 billion.

A total of about 30,000 troops have been wounded in action. The survival rate of those wounded is higher than it was in Vietnam and much higher than World War II, due to body armor, advances in battlefield medical procedures, and more rapid evacuation.

Put another way, this means the number of those killed is a relatively smaller portion of overall casualties. It also means concern is growing about injuries and ailments that have come to mark this war: amputations, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and the mental and emotional shock of combat.

"Of the [Iraq/Afghanistan] veterans who sought care from VA, about 38 percent have received at least a preliminary diagnosis of a mental health condition, and 18 percent have received a preliminary diagnosis for PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder], making it the most common, but by no means, the only mental health condition related to the stress of deployment," Michael Kussman, undersecretary of the Veterans Health Administration, told a House Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearing last week.

According to the Congressional Research Service, between 2003 and 2007 about 60,000 troops were diagnosed with either PTSD or TBI.

The VA is one of the largest federal bureaucracies, operating more than 1,500 facilities providing help for veterans and their families and employing about 200,000 people, including some 13,000 doctors and nearly 55,000 nurses.

Despite this, one concern is the growing need for medical specialists to help war veterans.

In recent congressional testimony, Joseph Wilson of the American Legion cited federal studies showing that by 2020, projected retirements will create a shortage of about 24,000 physicians and almost 1 million nurses nationwide.

"Another challenge [is] acquiring staff trained in certain specialty fields ... physical medicine and rehabilitation, blind rehabilitation, speech and language pathology, physical therapy, and certified rehabilitation nursing," warned Mr. Wilson. "Given the special rehabilitative and long-term care needs of combat wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan - especially those residing in rural areas - shortages in these specialty fields will have a lasting impact on these veterans as they attempt to resume independent functioning."

Linda Bilmes, who teaches at of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, estimates that the long-term costs of disability compensation and medical care to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan could be as high as $700 billion.

"The cost of providing such care and paying disability compensation is a significant long-term entitlement cost that the US will be paying for the next forty years," professor Bilmes wrote in a research paper earlier this year. Reports early this year of inferior treatment and bureaucratic bungling at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center highlighted problems that still have not been fully solved despite steps to reform the massive and complicated system.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week cited "fundamental system weaknesses" on the part of both the Defense Department (DOD) and the VA in how they treat wounded vets - including not enough staff and staff training.

"Delayed decisions, confusing policies, and the perception that DOD and VA disability ratings result in inequitable outcomes have eroded the credibility of the system," the GAO reported.

It is these criticisms that Bush addressed last week in meeting with the "Wounded Warriors" commission headed by former Sen. Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. The President's proposals include:

New procedures for evaluating disabilities and compensating injured military personnel, including pensions for those who cannot return to active duty.

• Greater emphasis on diagnosing and treating PTSD - especially addressing any stigma associated with the disorder.


• Assignment of patient advocates to monitor progress, guide wounded vets through government bureaucracies, and help in the transition to civilian life.


• Providing six months unpaid leave for family members who want to help aid the recovery of wounded GIs.

As the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continues, policy makers - like most Americans - say it's vital to separate a divisive war from those who fought.

"No matter where we stand on the war in Iraq, we all stand together in our desire to make sure that our returning service members get the healthcare they need, and the benefits they have earned," says Rep. Bob Filner (D) of California, who chairs the veterans' affairs committee. "We cannot fund the war, but fail to fund the warriors."

For bush's Amusement

Last week Rep. Pete Stark said the words that MANY Americans feel. I APPLAUD you Rep. Stark and you should be awarded for your candidness.

The republican dick-snot have their frilly lace panties in a bunch however and are demanding Stark apologize. A recent CNN poll of Americans asked "should Stark apologize?" to which respondents replied with a resounding 80% NO!

Stand your ground Pete. Fuck these asshole republican warmongers. Its about time that an elected official has spoken with the voice of the people.

On my last blogtalk show, a caller only known as AMERICAFIRST on the Argue With Everyone forum said that no one agrees with what Stark said.

It show how out of touch with reality this PHONY SOLDIER really is.

Iraqi Police Tell How They Feel About bush

Protestors vs. DC Cops

It seems that the Nazi Stormtrooper DC cops are at it again.

This comes just weeks after protestors were arrested for putting up posters to bring attention to their march against the Iraq war.

Texas Lawmakers Vote Early And Often

Its hard to believe that this type of activity would take place in the great state of Texas where morals and legal standards are so very high.

Tsk-Tsk...Will you idiots never learn that We The People...

...ARE WATCHING.

Is This To Be The New Face Of America?

The calculus of living paycheck to paycheck in America is getting harder. What used to last four days might last half that long now. Pay the gas bill, but skip breakfast. Eat less for lunch so the kids can have a healthy dinner.

Across the nation, Americans are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle higher rent, food and energy bills. It’s starting to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor, and has reached the point of affecting day-to-day calculations of merchants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc. and Family Dollar Stores Inc.

Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time that they are seeing a surge of new people seeking their help.

And how do our friends in the Bush administration respond to these conditions?

By cutting funding for food pantries, and encouraging people to rely on the kindness of strangers.

“Compassionate” conservatism at work.

Gore Mania

Heading For A Resession

Jack Cafferty looks at a new CNN poll that tells us what we already know.

The American people believe that we’re in a recession.

All those Saturday morning stock shows that constantly beat the drum of a supposedly great economy is not being believed by the American people. I guess when the rich keep getting richer and the average American keeps piling up credit card debits and spending more time at work to make ends meet—that might be a possible reason for these negative feelings.

International Day for the Eradication of Poverty

Those wacky Catholics are at it again. This time targeting the poor.

But hey, it's not like there are actually any real poor people in America.

"...(as we saw in Katrina) today's so-called poor, with their dependent/entitlement/victim mentality, are a threat to national security."

This coming from a so-called "Catholic" woman who lived on government disability benefits for 4 years for one of the illnesses I have: lupus. Ah but she's different, you see. If she was "poor" then, it's because she had a legitimate illness/reason which, according to her, no one else who's poor really does.

On top of that:

In one of the most compelling essays in the book, she describes the frustration she felt while waiting for her first disability interview at a Family Benefits office in Toronto.

“I hated that office,” she writes. “And as ashamed as I am to admit it, most of all I hated the shabby, beaten-down clients.... When my interview was over, I hoped for a sudden lightning-flash vision that would reveal, through my tears, Christ in the faces of the frozen, unblinking clients I was leaving behind. But instead of God’s voice, the only sound was the scratchy bellow of another client’s name being mispronounced over the loudspeaker.”

Now, I'm sure I don't need to get into a deep theological or philosophical discussion here about how those clients were mirror images of herself - thus reflecting her own shame about being poor, sick and needy- but when someone like Shaidle (and she is hardly alone) rides with that self-hatred to the point where she can't even admit that poor people exist (and I urge you to read that first linked post to get into the mind of that right-wing "Christian" who would make Jesus* cringe), it's not hard to understand why there is still so much poverty on a global scale because the first step to eradicating it is for people to actually care about the poor.

You won't do that if you're busy hating them and yourself while standing on your mile-high pulpit of self-righteousness.