More military spending?

Take a look at this chart (click to expand).

Now read this paragraph (from wikipedia):

The current (2005) United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than China's, which places second. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the US is responsible for the majority), and spend 57 times more than the six rogue nations combined (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria). Military spending accounts for more than half of the United States' federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. government's money not spoken for by pre-existing obligations.

In fact the US military budget is just a few billion short of that of the rest of the world combined.

Now keep this in mind and consider this news, the president wants to expand the military even further (from the CS Monitor):

Ground forces may not be as glamorous as high-tech weaponry, but they are expensive nonetheless. Each increment of 10,000 soldiers added to the Army costs just a tick over $1 billion, according to a service estimate.

Thus, adding 30,000 troops a year for two years, as proposed by a recent American Enterprise Institute study co-written by military expert Robert Kagan, would add more than $6 billion to the military budget at a time when the cost of the Iraq conflict is exceeding $6 billion per month.

In addition, more troops mean more long-term spending on equipment, training, and future benefits, says Gordon Adams, senior White House official for national security budgeting under President Bill Clinton.

Now, no military expert I, I am not willing to say whether additional troop strength is wise militarily or not, though given BushCorp™'s penchant for doing exactly the wrong thing at the exact wrong time, I have my doubts.

Regardless.

This is an excellent opportunity for congress to excersize pay as you go rules.

If more troops are critical to national defense then they should be approved, but only if the costs are offset my cuts in other military spending, or with additional taxes from the wealthy and the corporate masters whose interests our soldiers are protecting.

Any other move will be a tax (in the form of borrowing) on our children, or a tax (in the form of reduced social services) on the poor.

Neither is acceptable.

Image source: Wikipedia

The futility of the surge

Over at The Moderate Voice (always a valuable place to check out), Brij Khindaria has a nice rundown on why the much ballyhooed "surge" into Baghdad is a bogus hope at best.

Washington is giving serious thought to sending more than 20,000 troops to Baghdad mainly to militarily defeat the [60,000 man]Mahdi militia of the nationalist Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. This could be America’s greatest blunder so far and also cause the world to see it as an act of desperation.

Supporters of this option hope it would strengthen Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s hands by removing a main obstacle to political deals among Iraqis. That would help to stabilize the country within two years, allowing the US to depart gracefully.

These supporters should take a slow breath and think through the issues. There is a real risk that the US troops will be held to a draw like the Israelis were by Hizbullah. The political effects would be the opposite of the supporters’ hopes. [Emphasis mine - CK]

Brij gives an excellent, plain English rundown on why the "surge" is folly. You should read the whole post.

And as I pointed out in my comment:

I see no hope of eliminating the Mahdi army threat without eliminating their base of support in Sadr city and elsewhere.

And I see little hope of that.

The Mahdi army is estimated at about 60,000, and as mentioned enjoys the support of the local community.

We're considering a 20,000 to 30,000 man force to combat them? (Although I suppose that would be in addition to whatever combat troops we have already stationed in and araound Baghdad: Does anyone know that number?)

It ssems to me that any US military options that might accomplish the goal of eliminating the Mahdi army are either unpalatable or impossible.

The type of house to house fighting essentially eliminates US technical superiority, I agree that airstrikes into Sadr City are entirely unacceptable.

The only option that it seems to me would work would be a massive and truly overwhelming clear and hold operation which would also disarm the entire non-military population of Baghdad as well as clear the entire country of hidden weapons caches and secure its borders.

No military expert I, but I suspect that would take rather more than 20-30 thousand additional troops.

And since NO-ONE (with the possible exception of Bill Kristol) could conceivably countenance a mission requiring, what, half a million troops?

It'll never happen.

As I've written elswhere, the "surge" is pure politics. Devoid of any strategic or tactical value beyond extending Bush's chimeric hope for "victory".

Military Intelligence...

...really is an oxymoron.*

The DoD posted its counterinsurgency manual on the internets.

Here.

In fragging credible.

Do you get the feeling sometimes that we deserve to lose the GWoT?

Do you sometimes get the feeling we're too stupid to win?

The terrorists apparently believe so.

Then again, perhaps the manual is just a clever bit of disinformation, like we would ever actually use counter-insurgency tactics against them.

That'll show 'em.

*Thank you George Carlin

Worst. President. Ever.

And dangerous to boot.

James Wolcott has a nice round-up of opinions as to why we're totally f**ked under the current administration.

And unless Cheney goes too, impeachment gets us nowhere.

More's the pity.

Bayh out, Edwards in

I've mostly shied away from talking too extensively about 2008, but I wanted to take note of Sen. Evan Bayh's announcement that he would not be seeking the 2008 Democratic nomination, as well as John Edward's spokesman's intimation that he will.

Clearly this is an example of the Obama effect of clearing out second tier candidates, at least those who haven't already been infected by the presidential campaign virus.

I call this the Obama effect rather than the Clinton/Obama effect because Hillary's been running since she cleared out the first lady's suite in 2000.

That 600 lb. gorilla's been in the room for 6 years, and didn't deter feelers from potential Bayh, Feingold or Warner campaigns.

But while a plausible case can be made for running against one gorilla, as the anti-gorilla candidate, who in their right mind would want to run against two?

And while Obama may not be up to 600 lbs. yet, I hear he's on one of those all-carb diets so loved by growing sumo wrestlers.

Though it doesn't show in his face.

Presidential parallels

The news that our OPEC masters are planning to lower oil production took me back to my youth in the early 70's, to bad haircuts, mediocre rock and roll, and gas lines around the corner.

Ahh, the good old days.

It also brought to mind the political situation back then and its present-day parallels.

President Bush is, apparently, fond of comparing himself to another president, Harry S Truman, which, given Bush's penchant for wishful thinking (e.g. his entire foreign and domestic policy), is hardly surprising.

From the Washington Post:

He led the United States into war and saw his popularity plummet, yet some 60 years later his reputation has never been higher: It's small wonder Harry S. Truman seems to hold a special fascination for President Bush these days.

I'll leave it to others to discuss why that comparison is a load of horses**t, but I would like to put forward my own, and I believe original presidential comparison.

The modern presidency which most closely parallels that of George W. Bush is that of

...

wait for it...

Gerald R. Ford.

Huh?

Let me explain.

Gerald Ford took over the presidency after Nixon resigned in disgrace.

At that point in time Viet Nam was lost, Democrats controlled congress, and US and Republican credibility was at an all time low.

Ford himself was, by all accounts, a likeable guy, totally out of his depth, and totally ineffectual as president.

He was much more comfortable on a golf course than in the oval office.

Substitute the ranch for the links and he was, essentially, George W. Bush.

At least as Bush might have been had 9/11 not happened.

But 9/11 did happen. And Bush mislead us into war in LB Johnsonian fashion, and gathered the reigns of the imperial presidency in a manner that no doubt had Nixon smiling even as he burns in hell.

As I view it George W (though he might question the possibility) has evolved, albeit involuntarily, and has now become, after the last election, Gerald R. Ford: a (to some even still) likeable, ineffectual non-entity, marking time until he has to vacate the whitehouse in a few years.

How's that for a legacy?

The cost of war on the cheap

As I've mentioned, I don't know, about a gazillion times, the US spends almost as much on its military as THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED.

But, in a clear example of the hoary Republican axiom that throwing money at a problem doesn't solve it, the US Army is near breaking.

From the Washington Post:

Warning that the active-duty Army "will break" under the strain of today's war-zone rotations, the nation's top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation's main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today's Pentagon policies is "not right."

In particularly blunt testimony, Schoomaker said the Army began the Iraq war "flat-footed" with a $56 billion equipment shortage and 500,000 fewer soldiers than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Echoing the warnings from the post-Vietnam War era, when Gen. Edward C. Meyer, then the Army chief of staff, decried the "hollow Army," Schoomaker said it is critical to make changes now to shore up the force for what he called a long and dangerous war. [Emphases mine-CK]

So much for the all-volunteer army.

So much for war on the credit-card cheap.

And in fact, as the redoubtable EJ Dionne points out (also in today's WaPo), the two are not unrelated:

Now we know that the decision to put the war on a credit card is not simply a moral question. The administration's failure to acknowledge the real costs of the war -- and to pay them -- has put it in a corner.

The president's options in Iraq are severely constrained because our military is too small for the foreign policy he is pursuing. Sending more troops would place even more excruciating burdens on members of our armed forces and their families. And the brass fears that an extended new commitment could, quite simply, break the Army.

Yet, instead of building up our military for a long engagement and levying the taxes to pay for such an enterprise, the administration kept issuing merry reports of progress in Iraq. Right through Election Day this year, the president continued to condemn anyone who dared suggest that maybe, just maybe, we should raise taxes to pay for this war.

But Bush will never raise taxes, or re-institue a draft for that matter.

To do so he would have to truly convince, not just the American public, but his backers among the US' financial elites, that the war in Iraq is worth the cost.

That he will never do.

Because even his staunchest supporters are beginning to realize (at last) that the war in Iraq really isn't worth the cost.

And never has been.

[UPDATE: And, as Kevin Drum points out, Schoomaker's request for a bigger army would make sense if the Army had a credible plan for using them to turn things around in Iraq. Which to his knowledge and mine, and anyone else's, it does not.]

BushCorp™'s cynical Iraq scheme

A few recent news items have finally congealed in my brain to the point where (God help me) I think I understand what Bush is doing.

Item 1: Democrats take over congress in January.

Item 2: BushCorp™ is floating trial balloons hinting of an actual escalation in Iraq, with troop increases ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 being bandied about.

Item 3: Bush postpones his post-ISG report response until the new year.

Item 4: Bush is continuing to mouth his brilliant reasoning to the effect that he wants to justify the deaths and maimings that have already crippled and killed 10s of thousands of American troops, by sending in more troops to be killed and maimed.

So, what does this all mean?

Bush (or Rove) realizes that Iraq is lost and that all those deaths will inevitably weigh on the legacy he seems so concerned about.

How to salvage the situation?

Ask the new Democratic congress for massive levels of funding to support an enormous escalation in Iraq.

Democrats will then have the choice: either capitulate to Bush's demand for fear of being accused of not supporting the troops and despite the public's opposition to just such an escalation, or refuse and take the blame when Iraq decends, as surely it must, into further chaos.

I can already hear the Bushies (i.e. John McCain) 2 years hence whining that we could've won if only that cowardly Democratic congress had OKed one last big push.

So there you have it folks, that's my prediction for Bush's new grand strategy, which, you'll not be surprised, has nothing to do with dealing with Iraq, and everything to do with domestic politics.

Grown-ups back in charge in congress?

Once upon a time Republicans liked to characterize themselves as the daddy party, the stern, clear-sighted paterfamilias who could defend our borders and balance our budgets and keep the nasty little kid nations in line.

Democrats where, of course, as belonging to the mommy party, sympathetic and well intentioned, but not hard-nosed enought to DO WHAT MUST BE DONE in this cold, cruel world.

Now I'm not EVEN going to get into a discussion of the sexism underlying those perceptions, except to point out, that like all such dunderheaded mis-characterizations, they are simply not true.

Regardless, the Republicans have clearly abandoned any claim to fiscal responsibility, and so I was very happy to read that Democrats are taking up the slack.

From the Washington Post:

Democratic leaders declared a temporary moratorium on special-interest provisions known as earmarks as they attempt to cope with a budget crisis left by the outgoing Republican-led 109th Congress.

What an incredible move. Seriously.

Not only are the Dems showing that they're serious about addressing the GOP-created budget crisis, they are also curtailing one of the most corruption-prone practices in government.

And, as Kevin Drum points out:

Since most of the earmarks are probably slated for Republican districts, this is both good policy and good politics.

Nice.

And since the budget crisis was caused by GOPers in a snit about losing the last election, I find it quite appropriate that their pork projects are now off the table.

Ah schadenfreude, sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

A dictator bites the dust

Bush's place in history is still (allegedly) up for grabs: bad president or Worst. President. Ever.

But Pinochet's is, I believe, quite solid.

And not in a good way.

The best thing I can say about Pinochet is that, like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, he is still dead.

LA-2nd Re-elects Corruption Plagued Representative

Striking a blow for corrupt politics as usual, Loisiana voters re-elected one of the nations most (non-Republican) congressmen, William Jefferson.

From the invaluable New Orleans Times-Picayune:

Guilty pleas by aides and associates who admitted to bribing the New Orleans Democrat, and the revelation in court documents that FBI agents had found $90,000 in marked bills in Jefferson's freezer, had prompted pundits to begin inking his political obituary.

Instead, Jefferson, 59, scored a decisive win largely by routing Carter in Jefferson Parish. That may have attested less to his appeal than to the power of Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, whose bitter attacks on the challenger appeared to have been a factor in sharply suppressing turnout that Carter needed, especially among white voters.

I guess this is one for the, "sure, but he's OUR crook" file.

But then, I suppose, in Louisiana, a scandal just involving money isn't hardly any scandal at all.

(And by the way, be sure to follow the link to the NPR article on Harry Lee who's a true piece of work and no kidding.)

Doomed from the start

I was sipping my first cup of coffee, the calming sound of a neighbor's leaf-blower wafting through my windows and clicking through Washingtonpost.com when I came upon an article analyzing Iraqi reaction to the Baker Report.

The Iraq Study Group's prescriptions hinge on a fragile Iraqi government's ability to achieve national reconciliation and security at a time when the country is fractured along sectarian lines, its security forces are ineffective and competing visions threaten to collapse the state, Iraqi politicians and analysts said Wednesday.

They said the report is a recipe, backed by threats and disincentives, that neither addresses nor understands the complex forces that fuel Iraq's woes. They described it as a strategy largely to help U.S. troops return home and resurrect America's frayed influence in the Middle East. [Emphasis mine-CK]

Which last sentence engendered this reaction.

No duh. We're acting in our perceived national self-interest?

No.

Frigging.

Duh.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but nations ALWAYS act in their own perceived best interest, even when that perception or the perceiver (let's call him the decider for example) is dead wrong.

Which is why the US expedition in Iraq was doomed from the beginning.

In a nation where public opinion really does matter, (and despite valid questions about corporate control of the media and voting irregularities US public opinion does still matter) public opinion must be reflected, however imperfectly, in national policy.

So, in the US, especially in an undertaking as costly as war, public opinion is vital to successfully conducting said war.

And the only way the US public could have supported THIS war is if the leadership is both honest about why it perceives a need to go to war, is willing to make an honest case to the American people about that need, and is willing to accept the public's judgment should they fail to make that case.

BushCorp™, of course, did none of these things.

WMD claims aside, the real, overwhelming need this administration perceived for invading Iraq was the belief that regime change was necessary to effect a democratic, pro-western transformation in the middle-east. The neo-con wet dream.

The WMD threat, it's since been shown, was just the excuse they could agree on with which to sell the war.

That being the case, the American public never had an opportunity to decide whether it had the stomach to support the real goals of this war, or an opportunity to recognize the potential real costs inherent in this war.

Now it can, I believe, truly be said, that the highest levels of this administration never truly understood those costs themselves. But it is also apparent that many elements of the government did.

But by falsely positing the reasons for war BushCorp™ avoided that debate.

And if you say that BushCorp™ had to mislead us, that the US would never have backed this war if it knew the real reasons for its inception or the terrible losses of blood and treasure it would entail, I would say that's exactly my point.

We'd never have started this mess in the first place.

And wouldn't that have been a good thing?

All the finger-pointing being done now that the Iraqi adventure has devolved into chaos worse than civil war, all the earnest analysts pointing out how we could have won if we'd dont this thing or that thing are missing the most important point.

By failing to be honest about the goals and reasons for this war, by failing to enlist public support for those goals and reasons,BushCorp™'s Iraqi expedition was doomed from the start.

And failure to recognize that truth would be the worst mistake of all.

Man on the Moon

I can't seem to help myself. If there's one thing that still kicks my imagination and optimism for mankind into high gear it's the thought of space exploration.

Perhaps it was all that sci-fi I've read and watched over the years.

Or perhaps it's that as a child of the '60's my early childhood was bathed in the grainy glow and staticky radio of TV shots from space, and in 1969 those pictures from the moon.

And that first stunning picture of the big blue marble earth.

It may well be no undersatement that much of my perspective on life has been since informed by the spectacle of the stunning swirl of cloud and sea that is our home planet.

Its beauty.

Its fragility.

Its solitude.

So you can perhaps forgive, or at least comprehend my almost irrational enthusiasm when I heard that NASA plans to go back to the moon.

NASA unveiled plans yesterday to set up a small and ultimately self-sustaining settlement of astronauts at the south pole of the moon sometime around 2020 -- the first step in an ambitious plan to resume manned exploration of the solar system.

The long-awaited proposal envisions initial stays of a week by four-person crews, followed by gradually longer visits until power and other supplies are in place to make a permanent presence possible by 2024.

But while I am convinced such operations are more than worthwhile, I find myself doubting whether we can truly accomplish such goals any longer.

The space development of the 1960's was fueled largely by our competition with the Soviet Union for the dominance of space. Without the support of the DoD I wonder whether any US administration will really be interested in the enormous expenses involved, and counting on international support can be tricky indeed.

I'm also concerned that this project will come at the expense of other worthwhile, but more pure science projects.

And, frankly, this first step in Bush's proposed moon-Mars project, is endangered because of the president's current and past policies.

The massive debt he has accumulated over his term of office amounts to an enormous tax burden on future generations. The same generations which would also have to fund NASA's undertaking.

The press and the president are increasingly worried about the historical view of this presidency.

Wouldn't it be ironic if, seen by future generations, BushCorp™'s greatest failure was not the debacle in Iraq, but the debt burden that doomed mankind's exploration of space?

In other news, dog bites man...

I'm with Arianna on the shocking, shocking revelation in the NYT that, you'd better take a seat, that HILLARY CLINTON IS CONSIDERING RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT!

OK, take a few deep breaths before we continue.

...
...
...

Better?

Actually the NYT article is a case in point on one (though not all) of the problems with Hill.

Hillary strikes me as Kerry redux, without his warm fuzzy charm.

My worry is that the Hill machine will suck all the air out of the nominating process, limiting the Democratic choices and chances.

I may or may not support Bayh, Vilsack, Obama, Richardson et al., but I'd damn well like to hear what they have to say and see how they respond to the pressures of a national campaign.

If she wins the nomination I'll vote for her (given the character of the potential Republican field to date I don't foresee any options there), but I'll do so with a weary sigh at best.

An Intelligent Choice for Intelligence

Nancy Pelosi's choice of Sylvestre Reyes to head up the House Intelligence Committee strikes me as the right move for several reasons.

First and foremost is that Mr. Reyes, a former Border Patrol agent and Vietnam combat veteran, is also a stunch opponent of the Iraq war and can be expected to provide the one thing so sorely lacking in the current congress, rigorous oversight of BushCorp™.

Whatever else the 110th congress does, and given the very slim Democratic majority in the Senate chances for significant legislation seem slim, one thing the majority party can do, by virtue of its majority, is provide oversight for an administration that, for the last 6 years, has gone without.

And while Ms. Harmon, a backer of the Iraq debacle, may have expertise in intelligence, she has never demonstrated an ability or inclination to use that expertise to question BushCorp™'s most egregious behavior.

Further, by rejecting Alcee Hasting's bid for the chairmanship, Mrs. Pelosi has defined the one litmus test anyone should care about in a leader, personal integrity.

And several additional personal factors also recommend Mr. Reyes. As a combat veteran, Mr. Reyes represents the sort of personal acquantance with the military so successfully groomed in the various "fighting Democrats" the party has cultivated over the last election cycle. While as a former border patrol agent Mr. Reyes also has first hand experience dealing with this nation's problematic borders.

And finally, to be bluntly political, as an hispanic, Mr. Reyes represents an increasingly important growing voting bloc which is both desparately needed by Democrats and desparately coveted by Republicans, especially in the growing battleground states of the mountain west.

When BushCorp™ begins its inevitable pushback over the questions and criticism it will no doubt face from Mr. Reyes' committee, it can revert to the sort of personal attacks which have been heretofore its modus operandi.

But only at the Republican party's electoral peril.

Maybe Kim Jung Il is a Supporter?

Another item for the you knew this already file.

A university researcher has found a correlation between insanity and support for Bush.

From the New Haven Advocate:

The thesis draws on a survey of 69 psychiatric outpatients in three Connecticut locations during the 2004 presidential election. Lohse’s study, backed by SCSU Psychology professor Jaak Rakfeldt and statistician Misty Ginacola, found a correlation between the severity of a person’s psychosis and their preferences for president: The more psychotic the voter, the more likely they were to vote for Bush.

But before you go thinking all your conservative friends are psychotic, listen to Lohse’s explanation.

“Our study shows that psychotic patients prefer an authoritative leader,” Lohse says. “If your world is very mixed up, there’s something very comforting about someone telling you, ‘This is how it’s going to be.’” [Emphasis mine - CK]

I can't wait to see the wedge issues the GOPers will drum up to cater to their new special interest group.

A constitutional amendment to put the "straight" back into straight jackets?

Unintended honesty watch

From Dan Froomkin's column today talking about the meeting between Bush and al-Maliki he quotes that infamous SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: "...And I also wouldn't agree with your characterization of tinkering. These are the, as I said, sort of the nuts and bolts of getting the tools in place to deal with the security situation. There was, as I mentioned, quite a fulsome conversation about the situation in Baghdad..." [Emphasis mine-CK]

From Answers.com: ful·some adj.
1. Offensively flattering or insincere. See synonyms at unctuous.

I had a vision of Bush and al-Maliki tossing spin and platitudes at each other and thought, yeah, that sounds about right.

A long strange trip

Well, it's been a week now and past time to gather my thoughts on the election.

It's been a long time coming.

Wow.

To put things in proper perspective I should note that I've been interested in politics since I was a young lad following the exploits of McGovern v. Nixon.

And, as you might have guessed from that, shall we say, inauspicious beginning, seldom have my political desires been much more than disappointing.

I was pleased when tricky dicky go this comeuppance, but seeing a president go down in disgrace was hardly a booyah sort of moment.

I suppose I might have been more excited over Jimmy Carter if a) I wasn't so suspicious of his evangelical roots and b) I wasn't at the time a hormonal 17 year old male with much more important things on my, er, mind.

Then Ronald Reagan happened. The dangerous dolt who'd been my governor was now the dangerous dolt who ran the country.

A cold cheerless morning in America indeed. 8 years of cold cheerless mornings.

Then it was on to Bush 41 and the videogame war in Iraq. Fear sets in that America will never see a Democratic president. Which fear is confirmed by the election of...

Bill Clinton.

Bill, Bill, Bill.

12 years in the wilderness and "Don't ask, don't tell" is the best we can come up with? Triangulation? A healthcare plan destroyed by its own efforts to appease unappeasable insurance companies? Reforming welfare on the backs of the poor?

Sigh.

And then there was Bush 43. Our naked emperor.

I'll not even get started on BushCorp™'s bumbling CEO, I've written plenty elswhere.

But the last straw was the 2004 election when despite the fact that George II's faults were clearly on display for all with eyes to see, he was none the less re-elected.

And it was that election that convinced me to start this blog, so that I could a)keep my head from exploding and b)do my small part to educate, to cheerlead, and to encourage those who might be tempted to join the reality-based community to do so.

So to my vast readership, thank you for your patience.

And you're welcome.

And Congratulations

to Majority Leader Reid.

Speaker Pelosi

Has a nice ring to it doesn't it?

Cornered Dogs Part 3: Election Night Edition

Just thought I'd spend election night keeping track of all the GOP vote suppression activities. (I know, I know, keep track of ALL the GOP dirty tricks?!)

If you happen to hear of anything I've missed please let me know.

Here we go:

• George Allen's Campaign Attempts to Supress Democratic Votes


• Wingnut talkshow host encourages phonejamming scam


• RoboPhone Harrassment


• Voter disenfranchisement in Wisconsin


• Attempted Voter Suppresion in Yonkers


• Denver seeing massive problems - 2 Hour Extension DENIED by judge

And the ugliest so far:


• Men With Guns Harass Latino Voters

Like I said, cornered dogs.

Please don't vote

I know it's standard practice to encourage everyone to vote on election day.

So I know it's borderline unpatriotic, but I wanted to take a moment to encourage some of my fellow Americans not to vote tomorrow.

If it doesn't bother you that the world's fisheries will be gone in a few decades 'cos, well, you don't like tuna anyway please don't vote.

If you think that it's important to preserve the right of blastocysts the size of the period at the end of this sentence to be thrown in the garbage rather than used to cure disease please don't vote.

If you're proud that your government believes it's OK to torture please don't vote.

If you think the US should invade some country every few years just on general principles please don't vote.

If your main source of information is either Fox News or your local TV news please don't vote.

If you don't believe in global warming, but do believe in the rapture. If you don't believe in survival of the fittest in biology, but do believe it in business. If you believe in doing whatever it takes to protect our children except making sure they're properly fed, clothed, educated or have a clean environment and a debt free future. If you believe anything said by the lying sack of shit currently occupying the whitehouse or any of his enablers please, please, I beg you please stay away from that voting booth tomorrow.

Please don't vote.

Nuke Primer Published by GOP

Oh great.

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war. The Bush administration did so under pressure from Congressional Republicans who had said they hoped to “leverage the Internet” to find new evidence of the prewar dangers posed by Saddam Hussein.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

So, in a vain effort to prop up their illusory claims that Saddam had WMDs, and over the objections of then DNI John Negroponte, congressional Republicans, with whitehouse backing, got these docs up on the internets.

Just great.

I suppose Bush discovered the error while using the google.

I did not have sex with that man

Just a paraphrase mind you, but the jist of monstrous hypocrite Rev. Ted Haggard's clarification of his relationship with an admitted male prostitute.

And for today I'm not going to rail on about the hypocrisy of it all or wonder about Haggard's close ties to the whitehouse.

No, today its just a little snark.

When I saw the WaPo headline: Minister Admits to Buying Drugs and Massage, the only thought that popped into my head was to wonder whether the story had a happy ending.

Army Times to call for Rumsfeld's resignation

Stunning.

One of the true greatnesses of the American experiment is the subsurvience of the military to its civilian leadership.

And make no mistake, this is a value more deeply ingrained in the US military than any other: that they serve at the discretion of the civilian leadership.

And it is a tribute to both the wisdom of our founding fathers, and the unparalleled discipline of our uniformed military that the US has never succumbed to easy choice of military dictatorship, even at the very worst of times.

We may believe our present difficulties in Iraq and with terrorists are a trial. But I cannot believe they come even close to the disasters of, say, the Civil War, or World War II. But even in those most potentially disasterous of times our military has kept faith and served the dictates of its civilian leadership.

But now, though we face a lesser threat than those two disasters, the greater disaster, the more real threat is the leadership of George W. Bush. The failure of leadership I should say.

And it is evidence of the magnitude of that failure that the US military feels the need to call for the replacement of its civilian leadership.

Let us hope that BushCorp's incompetence doesn't provoke a more devastating response.

Yawn, another day, another right wing scandal

Is it me, or does it seem that all the most vehemenent GOP gay-bashers are closeted homosexuals?

Poor GOP still can't catch a break.

On a day which they'd clearly planned the news cycle around Alberto Gonzales latest dragnet, the Haggard story breaks.

It's too bad that the stories on the end of the world's fisheries as well as the kidnapped GI in Iraq will also get overwhelmed as well.

On the bright side, I guess this is the end of the Kerry foot-in-mouth episode.

Attention pop-psychologists!

If, like myself, you've heard the latest of Bush's latest protestations of unwavering support for the likes of Don Rumsfeld and wondered, what's wrong with the man, Lance Mannion has a suggestion:

What I used to think of as monstrous vanity and arrogance I now suspect is actually delusion. Wolfe writes that for Bush believing a thing to be true is as good as its being true. Reality for him is what's inside his head. Wolfe attributes this to a combination of Bush's own character flaws and the tendency of the sycophants and machiavellians around him to keep him isolated. He's trapped inside a bubble of his own and his aides' making and he is too vain and too stubborn, and too weak, to see it or want to break out of it.

But I can't help thinking that he was born trapped inside that bubble. There is a clinical term for people who live inside their own heads, who can't interact completely and normally with other people, who seem to have no empathy with others and no sense that what they think is going on might not be what in fact is going on, who get angry and act out when the reality intrudes and they are forced to choose between the world inside their heads and the world outside.

That word begins with an A.

And I'm not thinking of alcoholic, although Bush's behavior is in many ways that of one still, even though he has supposedly sobered up. The dry drunk syndrome is an established fact.

You'll have to read the entire (two) oustanding posts for the answer, something I highly recommend.

Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.

Know thine enemies

At the General's suggestion I'm posting some helpful links for the various Republicans running for election this year.

They all provide useful information that somehow escaped the attention of the webmasters of their official websites. I guess they're just too busy slandering their opponents to keep up.

Senate races:

• WA-Sen: Mike McGavick
  
• VA-Sen: George Allen
  
• TN-Sen: Bob Corker
  
• RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee
  
• MT-Sen: Conrad Burns
  
• MO-Sen: Jim Talent
  
• MD-Sen: Michael Steele
  
• AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

House races:

• WA-08: Dave Reichert
  
• VA-10: Frank Wolf
  
• PA-10: Don Sherwood
  
• PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick
  
• PA-07: Curt Weldon
  
• PA-04: Melissa Hart
  
• OH-18: Joy Padgett
  
• OH-15: Deborah Pryce
  
• OH-02: Jean Schmidt
  
• OH-01: Steve Chabot
  
• NY-29: Randy Kuhl
  
• NY-26: Tom Reynolds
  
• NY-20: John Sweeney
  
• NY-03: Peter King
  
• NV-03: Jon Porter
  
• NM-01: Heather Wilson
  
• NJ-07: Mike Ferguson
  
• NH-02: Charlie Bass
  
• NC-11: Charles Taylor
  
• NC-08: Robin Hayes
  
• MN-06: Michele Bachmann
  
• MN-01: Gil Gutknecht
  
• KY-04: Geoff Davis
  
• KY-03: Anne Northup
  
• KS-02: Jim Ryun
  
• IN-08: John Hostettler
  
• IN-02: Chris Chocola
  
• IL-14: Dennis Hastert
  
• IL-10: Mark Kirk
  
• IL-06: Peter Roskam
  
• ID-01: Bill Sali
  
• IA-01: Mike Whalen
  
• FL-22: Clay Shaw
  
• FL-16: Joe Negron
  
• FL-13: Vernon Buchanan
  
• CT-04: Christopher Shays
  
• CO-07: Rick O'Donnell
  
• CO-05: Doug Lamborn
  
• CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave
  
• CA-50: Brian Bilbray
  
• CA-11: Richard Pombo
  
• CA-04: John Doolittle
  
• AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth
  
• AZ-01: Rick Renzi
  

If you have a blog or website and would like to help spread this information read Chris Bowers' article here.

Daily Show as Substantive as Network News

From the "I always thought as much" file, a study by Indiana University shows that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart contains as much news as a big 3 network news show:

Julia R. Fox, assistant professor of telecommunications at Indiana University isn't joking when she says the popular "fake news" program, which last week featured Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf as a guest, is just as substantive as network coverage.

While much has been written in the media about The Daily Show's impact, Fox's study is the first scholarly effort to systematically examine how the comedy program compares to traditional television news as sources of political information.

Like I said, I don't find this too surprising, given TDS' fondness for using real news segments as foils for its satire.

And frankly, given the rank hypocrisy and corruption of so much of today's news and today's newsmakers, it seems to me that satire is a much more honest and accurate way to depict the news than the repetitive, "he said/she said" blather so frequently practised by straight journalism.

Perhaps there's hope for this country yet.

State of Denial

Many of us on the left, myself included, criticized Bob Woodward's previous books about the Bush administration. Too chummy, too cocktail party gossipy, too inside the beltway.

Well we were right, but then so too was Bob Woodward. With his latest book, Woodward uses all those inside connections we so rightly criticized, and puts them to devastating use against the Whitehouse.

(Some review and analysis here, here, and here).

In retrospect I have to wonder whether Woodward was consciously or unconsciously setting BushCorp™ up. Perhaps his reporter's instincts simply told him that to ultimately get to the evil heart of the Bush crime family he would have to go into deep cover, if you will, by pretending to buy their load of bull, and convince them that he was indeed buying sincerely.

But regardless, as the flurry of Whitehouse denials indicates, Woodward has indeed struck a nerve.

Torture

As the congress of the United States of America, representing YOUR interests and wishes, decides this week to approve the President's use of torture, it would be well to consider what your silent acquiessence to this decision says about your own character.

Sorry if you'd rather not think about it, but really you ought to.

And for those of you who think torture is a necessary evil in these frightened times, ponder the words of some military leaders here: Why Retired Military Brass Don't Want Torture

Or some words from a first hand witness of torture's effects here.

And think of this, even if you ignore the fact that torture doesn't work, and that iti is an evil that souldn't be inflicted on ANY human, no matter how evil, think of this: what does your approval of torture say about you?

9/12

When you think abput it, the things that piss so many Americans off about BushCorp™ are not its myriad sins in their details, but one big sin, the missed opportunity of the day after 9/11.

On 9/12, echoing JFK's words beside the Berlin wall, the world as one said, "we are all Americans".

What Bush and cohorts have done with that missed opportunity is beyond criminal.

To get a real feel for the then and now of it watch first Jon Stewart's first broadcast after 9/11, then watch Keith Olbermann's broadcast today.

The saddest thing is that both are true.

And for that I will never forgive George W. Bush.

[Videos courtesy of the ever necessary Crooks and Liars blog]

A few thoughts on 9\11

As we remember those who lost their lives that day, let us also remember those who suffer as a result of this administration's misguided attempts to continue to reap political benefit from the tragedy of 9/11.

Let us remember the thousands of troops whose deaths now outnumber those who died that day.

Let us remember the 10s of thousands maimed as well.

Let us remember their families and friends.

Let us also remember the 10s of thousands of Iraqi souls, civilians whose reward for surviving Saddam was to become the "collateral damage" of the US occupation.

Let us remember their families as well.

And let us finally remember that, since the goal of terrorism is to inspire fear, both BushCorp and the American press are now doing their best to do bin Laden's work for him.

Let us remember that this November.

Patriotic Liberals

NO it's not an oxymoron, nor should it be, as Geoffrey Nunberg points out in his LA Times op-ed:

POLITICAL ATTACKS that sounded sinister in the McCarthy years now sound merely outlandish, as conservatives try to explain liberals' lack of patriotism as just another one of those blue-state lifestyle traits, like an aversion to Lynyrd Skynyrd or macaroni and cheese. Writing shortly after the 9/11 attacks, the National Review's John O'Sullivan explained that liberals' anti-Americanism was the reaction of snobs who believed that "the patriotism of ordinary people is something simplistic, vulgar and shameful," which is why liberals are more comfortable taking the side of "medieval Islamists" than of "a hard-hat construction worker or a suburban golfer in plaid pants."

You can't trivialize love of country more than that. If liberals are capable of bailing out on patriotism simply because it's tacky, how strong a hold could it have on any of us?

But then patriotism has never been so low-maintenance as now. Time was when "supporting the troops" obliged you to buy war bonds or go out on scrap drives. Now you merely have to slap a bumper sticker on the back of your Hummer. And even for the able-bodied, it's enough to support the troops from afar — you don't see conservative young women out in the streets handing out white feathers as emblems of cowardice to men who aren't in uniform.

The less it costs to proclaim yourself a patriot, the less someone else has to do to be accused of being unpatriotic — it's enough that he questions the wisdom of a policy or leaves his lapel pin on his other suit. That isn't how it was going to be.

Item: ABC (a Disney company) to air pro-GOP 9/11 "documentary"

With friends like these...

So, it seems that Pakistan, W's good friends and "allies" in the Glorious War on Terror©, are giving safe haven to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

Imagine that, BushCorp™ betrayed by a military dictator who from the beginning has had no other goal than to save his own skin. If this doesn't rate a Rumsfeldian "heavens to betsy!" I don't know what does.

Then again the Bushies have never been too lucky in their choice of friends, Putin, the House of Saud, even the bin Laden family itself.

On the other hand it does support the BushCorp™ theory that questioning its ability to wage the Glorious War on Terror© plays into our enemy's hands.

I mean seriously, can pointing out that the leader of the free world is an idiot really be good for our country?

Especially since the rest of the world knows that it's true?

The Morality of Total War

I've been following a very interesting thread prompted by a post by sideways over at Donklephant (h/t to The Moderate Voice though I can't find a link to the original post).

A snippet from sideways:

I need someone to explain something to me. It’s a moral question, so naturally I need help.

Sixty five years ago we fought a war with Japan following their attack on Pearl Harbor. Within a matter of a few months we were burning down Japanese cities. The Japanese of that era favored wood construction and we dropped incendiary bombs. Later, when the technology became available, we dropped atomic bombs.

You can argue one way or the other whether there were significant, legitimate military targets in each and every case, but let’s take it as granted that there were. Nevertheless, incendiaries in packed cities full of wood houses, I think we knew what would result. I think we knew the firestorms might suck the oxygen from the lungs of children as well as adults, women as well as men, opponents and supporters of the regime alike.

Fair enough so far?

Question: were we right or wrong to do it?

Some thoughts on the initial question of the "morality" of US targeting of civilian poulations in Japan (and Allied targeting in places like Dresden I would suppose) I think its helpful to view war as a tactic, a tool for the acheivement of some goal (many have also suggested that this is exactly how terrorism should be viewed as well).

We fought WWII using the specific sort of tool known as "total war", wherein we sought not just to win mere strategic geographical objectives, but to entirely eliminate our enemies' capacity to wage, or even contemplate waging war. We were seeking to crush our enemies' wills.

Now total war is a terrible thing, a sloppy and dangerous tool indeed, which, once released, will neccesarily will inflict horrendous casualties on civilian populations.

But if you accept that the defeat of the agressively militaristic and expansionist regimes of Hitler's Germany and Hirohito's Japan was an existential imperative for the Allies, and that the tool called total war was the only way to achieve this imperative, then its use was inevitable.

Is the inevitable subject to "morality"? Can it be?

I posit that moral considerations were on point primarily in the decision whether to wage this war, and this sort of war, or not.

And it seems to me that this applies today, that the overarching moral decisions are made (consciously or not) at the outset of a war.

Whether to wage war at all. And if so how it should be waged.

Which is one of the reasons our current adventure in Iraq so pisses me off.

The decision to go to war is an enormously important moral decision.

And in a democracy that aspires to morality (and makes rather a point of crowing about it) shouldn't such a decision be made on the best available information?

I, and I suspect many Americans feel they were mislead.

That the administration purposefully exagerrated the immediate threat posed by Saddam's Iraq.

That the administration purposely conflated (Bush's recent disingenuous denials not notwithstanding) Iraq with the attacks of 9/11.

That the administration consistently low-balled the costs of this war, to our soldiers, to our treasury, and, ironically I suppose, to our moral standing in the world.

And whether these last were done in good faith or not, I find it particularly galling that NONE of the leadership responsible have been held to account.

I also find it extremely worrisome that, faced with electoral defeat, Republicans are ratcheting up their rhetoric by conflating our WWII and Cold War struggles, with our current need to defend ourselves against the tactic of terrorism.

If such comparisons are being made disingenuosly (frankly my hope) then they are merely despicable.

But if they are being made in earnest then our country is facing a moral decision akin to that which we faced at the outset of WWII.

I hope the decisions we make are ones our children and grandchildren can live with.

Cornered dogs, Part 2

And with rabid dogs, sometimes you have no choice but to put them down (Crooks @ Liars video).

The text of Keith's speech is at his blog here.

More on Keith Olbermann channeling Edward R. Murrow by dmsilev at DailyKos.

Kudos to Keith Olbermann who has truly earned the right to use Murrow's famous sign-off.

My letter to the PTB at MSNBC:

If you believe, as do I, that the press serves no higher purpose than when it speaks truth to power, then Keith Olbermann has fulfilled that duty with his brave and unflinching expose this evening of the intellectual and moral corruption that permeates the current administration.

On rare occasions what I view on the news moves me.

But never have a newsman's words moved me to the extent that Keith's did tonight.

Good night and good luck.

Cornered dogs

With recent polls showing an ever increasing possiblity that the GOP will lose one or both houses of congress this fall, it's not at all surprising that those most endangered by this shift are becoming a little desparate in their attempts to defend their indefensible behavior.

And at the top of the GOP's endangered imcompetent list has to be Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

And though his latest remarks are little more than the usual BushCorp™ "with us or against us" formulation, his rhetoric clearly reflects his increasing desperation:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces "a new type of fascism" and warned against repeating the pre-World War II mistake of appeasement.

Rumsfeld alluded to critics of the Bush administration's war policies in terms associated with the failure to stop Nazism in the 1930s, "a time when a certain amount of cynicism and moral confusion set in among the Western democracies."

-snip-

"I recount this history because once again we face similar challenges in efforts to confront the rising threat of a new type of fascism," he said.

"Can we truly afford to believe that somehow, some way, vicious extremists can be appeased?" he asked.

"Can we truly afford to return to the destructive view that America _ not the enemy _ is the real source of the world's troubles?"

Ah yes, appeasement, fascism. Two hot button words designed to put those who oppose BushCorp™'s disastrous policies on the defensive.

And quibble's about the admin's inaccurate use of the historical term fascist aside (Bushies seem to think it's a synonym meaning "bad people": imagine that, Bushies ignoring history!), the appeasement accusation is as insulting as it is plain old wrong.

Last time I checked no-one was suggesting sending Osama bin Laden a fruit basket in the hopes he would then just go away (though we could perhaps try setting him up on a date with Whitney Houston, hey it's worth a shot). Such an assertion is simply a typical BushCorp™ strawman misrepresentation.

What Bush's opponents really argue is that Bush's continued black and white, "stay the (wrong) course" policies, and especially Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq adventure, have left the US in a weaker position to fight terrorism.

And Rumsfeld knows this.

He also knows that if Democrats win either the house or the senate he (as will many BushCorp™ lackeys) will spending 2007 and 2008 on Capitol Hill in front of congressional committees trying to explain just what the f**k went wrong.

Buffoons

Why spend any time excoriating the press as sensationalist corporate hacks when they do such a good job proving it themselves?

What Bushworld Is Really Like

Washington Post cartoonist Tom Toles nails it:

You don't need any other reasons, but, in case you'd forgotten:

• Iraq
  
• Aghanistan
  
• Iran
  
• North Korea
  
• Katerina
  
• Health care
  
• Wage gap
  
• Neo-cons
  
• Cheney
  
• Rumsfeld
  
• Corruption
  
• Incompetence

BushCorp™ and its enablers in congress have ceased to be a disaster waiting to happen.

They've happened.

Self-fulfilling prophesy

Why, oh why would one ever even bother reading neo-con pundits like Charles Krauthammer as they beat their drums for war with Iran?

Seriously, when every prediction the man (and neo-con fellow travelers like William Kristol) has proved not just wrong, but disasterously wrong, why waste your time?

Such folk, you may recall, served as the braintrust (such as it is) behind the BushCorp™ misadventure in Iraq.

Let's take a quick peak at just how well that's going (and this is just from today's paper).

Sadr's Militia and the Slaughter in the Streets:

BAGHDAD -- In a grungy restaurant with plastic tables in central Baghdad, the young Mahdi Army commander was staring earnestly. His beard was closely cropped around his jaw, his face otherwise cleanshaven. The sleeves of his yellow shirt were rolled down to the wrists despite the intense late-afternoon heat. He spoke matter-of-factly: Sunni Arab fighters suspected of attacking Shiite Muslims had no claim to mercy, no need of a trial.

"These cases do not need to go back to the religious courts," said the commander, who sat elbow to elbow with a fellow fighter in a short-sleeved, striped shirt. Neither displayed weapons. "Our constitution, the Koran, dictates killing for those who kill."

His comments offered a rare acknowledgment of the role of the Mahdi Army in the sectarian bloodletting that has killed more than 10,400 Iraqis in recent months. The Mahdi Army is the militia of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, now one of the most powerful figures in the country.

Great, an army of Shi'ite Judge Dredds. (Actually one wonders if, typing away furiously amid stacks of comics in their mother's basements, the cheetoh stained denizens of the 101st pee-stained keyboarders are actually pleased by this thought.)
Disavowed by Mahdi Army, Shadowy 'Butcher' Still Targets Sadr's Foes:

BAGHDAD -- In a dirty war where shadowy death squads claim victims daily and leaders on all sides deny blame, there's one killer to whom Iraqis can attach a name, if not a face.

Abu Diri, or Father of the Shield, is the nom de guerre of a Shiite Muslim man. Sunni Arabs of Baghdad also know him as "the Butcher." Like countless other killers in Iraq's capital today, Abu Diri and his followers dump their victims in the streets bearing bullet wounds and sometimes the smaller holes made by electric drills.

But U.S. military officers, Sunnis and even many Shiites say they believe Abu Diri kidnaps and kills Sunnis and other rivals with a zeal that has made him notorious, even in Baghdad's daily carnage.

How bad do you have to be when even the Shi'ite Judge Dredds are aghast at your violence?

British Leave Iraqi Base; Militia Supporters Jubilant:

BAGHDAD, Aug. 24 -- British troops abandoned a major base in southern Iraq on Thursday and prepared to wage guerrilla warfare along the Iranian border to combat weapons smuggling, a move that anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called the first expulsion of U.S.-led coalition forces from an Iraqi urban center.

"This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupier!" trumpeted a message from Sadr's office that played on car-mounted speakers in Amarah, capital of the southern province of Maysan. "We have to celebrate this occasion!"

Well, the British may have been Bush's lapdogs, but they ain't stupid.

But back to Krauthammer.

Why should we heed his rants about the inevitability of war with Iran?

Because, judging from their behavior, the chickenhawks of BushCorp™ still do.

The current US policy of "diplomacy" by ultimatum has no more chance of success for all that it seeks UN cover.

Iran, I must point out for any history-impaired readers, is the latest incarnation of one of the world's oldest and greatest civilizations.

And if you don't know that I can guarantee the Iranians do.

And we won't even talk with them?

But talks are only a delaying tactic while the Iranians pursue their own nulear development programs, right?

Maybe.

The problem is, we don't really know:

A key House committee issued a stinging critique of U.S. intelligence on Iran yesterday, charging that the CIA and other agencies lack "the ability to acquire essential information necessary to make judgments" on Tehran's nuclear program, its intentions or even its ties to terrorism.

And incredibly GOPers are using this lack of intelligence as a reason to go to war.

Quick question: Does anybody else recall any recent experience where going to war based on faulty intelligence has proved, um, unfortunate? Quick show of hands please.

Thanks.

And so, yeah, talking with Iran might be delaying inevitable conflict.

But it also might be delaying another disastrous engagement that might also be quite avoidable.

We don't know.

But as we talk one thing is certain. Nobody's dying.

And that's for sure.

Sad State of the Media

This cartoon says it all.

Kudos to John de Rosier

CRIMINAL!

[x-posted at DailyKos]

Yesterday's ruling (text here) that BushCorp™'s warrantless wire tap schemes violate both the FISA statute, as well as the constitution comes as no surprise to anybody passingly familiar with the aforementioned legal documents. But has that been Bush's worst crime?

From the ruling:

"Article II of the United States Constitution provides that any citizen of appropriate birth, age and residency may be elected to the Office of President of the United States and be vested with the executive power of this nation.

"The duties and powers of the Chief Executive are carefully listed, including the duty to be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and the Presidential Oath of Office is set forth in the Constitution and requires him to swear or affirm that he 'will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'

"The Government appears to argue here that, pursuant to the penumbra of Constitutional language in Article II, and particularly because the President is designated Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress but the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution, itself.

"We must first note that the Office of the Chief Executive has itself been created, with its powers, by the Constitution. There are no hereditary Kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution. So all 'inherent powers' must derive from that Constitution." [Enphasis mine-SK]

And aside from such specious reasoning, even most of BushCorp™'s ardent apologists (including Tony Snow, including Bush himself) can't seem to dispute the ruling in legal terms.

All they really seem capable of is arguing that following the law and the constitution they took an oath to defend make the Glorious War on Terror© more difficult.

But why sould freedom be easy?

History books are filled with pages upon pages of stories of tyrants who took the easy way, tyrants who ignored their own laws when push came to shove facing a violent enemy, tyrants whose road to security was paved with the liberties and corpses of laws and citizens crushed beneath the steel-shod boots of fear. Nothing is more common.

And it is little to be wondered that when faced with a threat George the Unimaginative would seek to take the easy way out, he has done so all his life.

Those of us who truly believe in America's greatness, its uniqueness in history and among the family of nations, must understand from whence that greatness arises: our dedication to the rule of law and the freedom that law protects, even in the face of crisis.

And while a willingness to put aside those laws and freedoms is understandable in time of crisis, to do so violates all that makes this country the beacon it had become. It makes America common.

And that George W. Bush and his enablers are so eager to do just that is perhaps their greatest crime.

George Allen is a rascist

Let's not mince words here: George Allen is a rascist.

For those of you not familiar, George Allen is a US Senator currently running for re-election in Virginia. Please note, he also has serious presidential ambitions.

Here's the video:


Here's the story in the Washington Post:

"MY FRIENDS, we're going to run this campaign on positive, constructive ideas," Sen. George F. Allen told a rally of Republican supporters in Southwest Virginia last week. "And it's important that we motivate and inspire people for something." Whereupon Mr. Allen turned his attention to a young campaign aide working for his Democratic opponent -- a University of Virginia student from Fairfax County who was apparently the only person of color present [S.R. Sidarth]-- and proceeded to ridicule him.

After repeated denials by his campaign manager that he had anything to apologize for, Senator Allen has, of course, apologized:

Reached Monday evening, Allen said that the word had no derogatory meaning for him and that he was sorry. "I would never want to demean him as an individual. I do apologize if he's offended by that. That was no way the point."

Oh, all right then, nevermind. Right?

Well no, not all right. In fact this an example of precisely the sort of rascism that permeates America.

This is not the "Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations".

This is the unconscious rascism of privileged Republicans.

Keep in mind, Allen's remarks were public, designed I would guess, to elicit a chuckle from his all-white (except for Mr. Sidarth) audience, which it did.

Who knows what he says in private, and God only knows what he believes in his heart.

But I strongly suspect that Mr. Allen, his wife, friends, acquantances would swear on their mother's graves that Mr. Allen doesn't have a rascist bone in his body. And they would (and I expect will) do so quite honestly, believing in the truth of their words.

But they would be wrong.

One of the main effects of the civil rights revolution has been to drive obvious rascism underground, especially among the educated, and very especially among politicians. And so, those pols muzzle themselves, falling back into a kind of code, a wink-wink, nudge-nudge that indicates to white audiences that a politician isn't referring to "our" kind of people. As Mr. Allen might put it "real (white) Americans". Chuckle, chuckle.

And the worst thing is, they do this unconsiously, not even admitting to themselves the rascist attitudes behind their words.

Try this syllogism on for size: Rascists are bad people. I am not a bad person. Therefore I am not a rascist.

The only way to stop such insidious behavior is to call it by its name.

So let us not mince words: George Allen is a rascist.

And so are millions of Americans.

Whether we admit it or not.

[UPDATE: Mr. Allen's words may not have been quite as innocent as he claims]

Ah, yes, that darn liberal press

Here's a pop quiz.

A pro-arab photographer fo a major news organization doctors photos to enhance their emotional impact. A news anchor for a major news organization fabricates "news" to imply a Democratic politician is pro-al Qaeda.

One has been fired.

Can you guess which?

I knew that you could.

Arianna has the call.

A New Direction in the GWoT©

I don't post as much as I used to over at DailyKos (though I give it a look daily). When I first started blogging Kos was a great place to try out my writing chops, get feedback, and develop my own voice. And it still serves as a great place to get a feel for up-to-the-second progressive thought. But too much of the discussion there is of the echo chamber variety to be useful for a real clash of ideas.

So, for a while now your CaliBlogger has been of late wandering about the web. One of the best places for relatively reasonable discussion is over at Joe Gandelman's site, The Moderate Voice which, incredibly, attracts posters from both the right and left.

In light of the recent clashes between Israel and Hezbollah, the UK transatlantic plot, and the unending undercurrent of disaster in Iraq, the discussions over at TMV have been, shall we say, quite lively.

One recent discussion questions whether it would be fruitful to re-examine some of our assumptions about fighting terror.

And though too extensive navel-gazing can have a deleterious effect, paralysis by analysis, given the continued threat of terror, and our relative inability to do much about it 5 years after 9/11, perhaps it would be wise to wonder whether the apparent flaws in our current efforts are based on incorrect assumptions about the nature of the threat.

One of the major mistakes I believe BushCorp™ makes, at least in its public statements, is the conflation of all those who use the tactics of terror, when it seems to me that most of the groups using such tactics have, each of them, unique characteristics which need to be addressed in different ways.

An Iraqi Shi'ite who blows himself up at an Iraqi Sunni funeral has, I would posit, very different motivations than a British national of Pakistani descent who conspires to blow up a transatlantic airliner.

As has been said over and over again, terror is a tactic, not an ideology.

Continuously portraying the Glorious War on Terror© as a fight against that monolithic bogeyman, the terrorist, may be good for electing Republicans, but it deludes the public as to the true, diffucult and multi-faceted problems we are facing around the globe.

I strongly suspect that truly addressing the threats posed by those who use terror as a tactic can not be addressed by the neo-con's grand imperial schemes, neither can it be eliminated building a wall around Fortress America.

A Modest Plan for the War on Terror

Many, and frankly not just GOPers, wonder out loud what Democrats would be doing differently than BushCorp™ to fight terrorism.

Now you can suggest 7 point plans and all the grand strategies you like, but let me sum up my feelings as to what Democrats can do to improve on the President's performance.

For one thing we stop doing stupid things. From Reuters:

U.S. Muslim groups criticized President George W. Bush on Thursday for calling a foiled plot to blow up airplanes part of a "war with Islamic fascists," saying the term could inflame anti-Muslim tensions.

U.S. officials have said the plot, thwarted by Britain, to blow up several aircraft over the Atlantic bore many of the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

"We believe this is an ill-advised term and we believe that it is counter-productive to associate Islam or Muslims with fascism," said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group.

"We ought to take advantage of these incidents to make sure that we do not start a religious war against Islam and Muslims," he told a news conference in Washington.

And be clear, I'm not just complaining about BushCorp™'s lack of ethnic sensitivity, though that, I suspect is why he says such bonehead things.

My point is this: our most important potential allies in the GWOT are the millions on Muslims who are not terrorists.

Witness the latest UK bombing plot: (Buried in a CNN article, but of critical importance):

Pakistani officials said the arrests of two British citizens and five Pakistanis last week directly contributed to terror arrests made Thursday in Britain. Intelligence sources identified one of the British citizens as Rashid Rauf.

The original information about the plan came from the Muslim community in Britain, according to a British intelligence official. [Emphasis mine-SK]

Given that the weakest link in the US GWOT is a dearth of human intelligence, one of our best hopes for discovering these plots come from the good, honest Muslims, among whom the terrorists choose to hike,

Instead of alienating Muslim communities we should be embracing them (and not just rhetorically) as brothers in arms in this fight.

You want a plan? How's about that for starters.

Code Red

Now let me be clear.

In now way am I denigrating the work of British police who have apparently broken up a plot by al Qaeda style terrorists to bomb US bound airplanes.

(Though I will point out that this is exactly the kind of police and intelligence, as opposed to military action, that the wisemen of BushCorp™ scoffed at when proposed by John Kerry).

But let us for a moment consider the timing.

We haven't seen an alert of ANY color since the 2004 election cycle. And now, just a few months before midterms the much mocked code system has yet again raised its particolored head.

Coincidence? Let us assume so.

For though Rove's marching orders are for GOPers to continue to howl in the same vein as the last two election cycles, all terror all the time, the situation on the ground is hardly the same.

In 2002 the electorate was still aching over the tragedy of 9/11, and GW hadn't (publicly) demonstrated the level of his incompetence.

And while in 2004 that incompetence was well evident to some, the Iraqi invasion had yet to reach its current level of chaos.

But in 2006, and ignore them GOPers might, facts on the ground are finally impacting American perceptions of this administration, as well as America's place in the world.

So today's news is rather more a mixed bag for the Bushies who couldn't shoot straight.

Sure it helps their usual message: be afraid, be very afraid.

But, after 1.5 seconds of thought, it also raises this question: Why, five years after 9/11, is al Qaeda still operational?

Why is bin Laden still wandering the hills of Pakistan?

And how, exactly, does our continuing misadventure in Iraq do ANYTHING to alleviate the real terrorist threat?

And if we're "fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here", shouldn't we be invading England?

Today's terrorists were, after all, British citizens of Pakistani birth (perhaps we should invade Pakistan?), who were recruited after, and quite possibly because of our invasion of Iraq.

In Iraq, in the Levant, and araound the world, BushCorp™'s "policies" are worse than ineffective. Thank God Americans are finally beginning to stand up and take notice.

Be careful what you ask for

For the last few weeks I've had the distinct feeling that BushCorp™ is doing Israel no favor by giving them free reign in Lebanon.

As has been increasingly the case, Billmon, I believe, has the right of it:

At some point very soon the IDF is going to have to deliver on the threat of an all-out offensive, and deliver it with overwhelming force. Otherwise, the world will assume that Hizbullah has successfully called their bluff, at which point they can kiss their "Boss Man" image goodbye. At this point, I'm not sure the Israelis, or their enemies, are ready to deal responsibly with the consequences of such a profound psychological shift.

In other words, what the Israelis, and the Lebanese, and the world desperately need right now is for someone to step in and call off the fight -- while the Israelis are still in a position to beat their chests and talk big talk about how badly they would have creamed the other guy if they'd only gotten a chance.

But the only ones who could possibly stop it are America, Syria and Iran, and the former isn't willing to talk to the latter two, much less ask them to make a deal. (Even if Bush were willing to bargain, it's not clear at this point that Sheikh Nasrallah answers to Damascus or Tehran any more. Things may have gone too far for that.) [Emphasis mine-SK]

As long as the US continues to feed Israel plenty of rope (and laser-guided bombs) Israel has no excuse to fail against Hezbollah except its utter inability to do otherwise short of the absolute destruction of Lebanon, if then.

And while this may be something that US neo-cons, cheering bravely from their air-conditioned offices, do indeed welcome, I do not believe that outcome will be anything near a good thing for the US or for Israel.

The best thing BushCorp™ can do for Israel is to demand Israel stop its doomed course of action and let Israel claim it would have finished the job if only the US had let them take the gloves off.

The General goes above and beyond

Braving the horrors of neo-cons, Ann Coulter, and (gasp) College Republicans, Jesus' General spends a night in Joe Lieberman's bunker.

Part 1

Part 2

The horror, the horror.

Reality check?

There's been a weird trend in the news over the last few day. And perhaps it's just coincidence, but have you noticed that as the news around the world gets worse and worse, the news on domestic politics seems to get better and better?

Here's what I mean:

World:

• Iraq continues to drown in civil war.
• Ahghanistan continues its relapse into Talibanism.
• Israel promises a broader offensive while Hezbollah's rockets continue to fall.
• And let's not even mention the latest evidence for global warming.

Meanwhile in the US:

• US military shows signs it might actually acknowledge the Iraqi debacle for the disaster it is.
• Kansas voters reject ID proponents' run for the state school board.
• Progressive, anit-war senatorial candidate Ned Lamont continues his startling run at the seat soon to be vacated by Fox News Democrat Joseph Lieberman.
• And Tom Delay will continue to be a poster-child for Republican corruption.

So what's going on?

My theory is that, finally, things have gotten so bad that even Americans are starting to pay attention to the realities surrounding them.

And reality, as Steven Colbert famously pointed out, has a decidedly liberal bent.

Or it could just be coincidence.

But a guy can hope.

"Whose permission would you need to get married to the person you love?"

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the heads up.