Peace sign Christmas wreath banned

DENVER - A homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan.

Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

“Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up,” he said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Continued...

Source: Peace sign Christmas wreath banned - U.S. Life - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: peace, rights, freedom, politics, news, opinion

Today's Cartoon

© Cartoonist Group, 2006

Source: Today's Cartoon

Technorati tags: American Progress, cartoons, political cartoons, Iraq

Outstanding way to show support for our Troops!

Outstanding way to show support for our Troops!

Something very cool that Xerox is doing..

If you go to this web site, http://www.letssaythanks.com/, you can pick
out a thank you card. Xerox will then print it and it will be sent to a
soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets
the card, but it will go to some member of the armed services. How AMAZING
it would be if we could get everyone we know to send one!!! This is a great
site. Please send a card. It is FREE and it only takes a second. Wouldn't
it be wonderful if the soldiers received a bunch of these? Let our soldiers over there

know we are behind them.

We, The People Of The United States...(a joke)

We, The People Of The United States...

While walking down the street one day a US senator is tragically hit by a truck and dies.
His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.
"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."
"No problem, just let me in," says the man.
"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."
"Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the senator.
"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."
And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.
Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.
They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.
Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes.
They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.
Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises...
The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.
"Now it's time to visit heaven."
So, 24 hours pass with the senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.
"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."
The senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."
So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.
Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.
He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.
The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. "I don't understand," stammers the senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable.
What happened?"
The devil looks at him, smiles and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning...today you voted."

"Alliance of Wimpiness" by Mark Fiore

"Alliance of Wimpiness"

by Mark Fiore

Demoralizing the Troops

By Dwane Powell
© © Cartoonist Group, 2006

Source: Demoralizing the Troops

Technorati tags: troops, war on terror, political cartoons, political satire, humor, cartoons

Quitting Iraq Is the Only Brave Thing to Do

By Michael Moore, MichaelMoore.com. Posted November 27, 2006.

We should demand to the Democrats that we get out of Iraq now and ask the Iraqi people for their forgiveness.

November 27 marks the day that we will have been in Iraq longer than we were in all of World War II.

That's right. We were able to defeat all of Nazi Germany, Mussolini, and the entire Japanese empire in LESS time than it's taken the world's only superpower to secure the road from the airport to downtown Baghdad.

And we haven't even done THAT. After 1,347 days, in the same time it took us to took us to sweep across North Africa, storm the beaches of Italy, conquer the South Pacific, and liberate all of Western Europe, we cannot, after over 3 and 1/2 years, even take over a single highway and protect ourselves from a homemade device of two tin cans placed in a pothole. No wonder the cab fare from the airport into Baghdad is now running around $35,000 for the 25-minute ride. And that doesn't even include a friggin' helmet.

Is this utter failure the fault of our troops? Hardly. That's because no amount of troops or choppers or democracy shot out of the barrel of a gun is ever going to "win" the war in Iraq. It is a lost war, lost because it never had a right to be won, lost because it was started by men who have never been to war, men who hide behind others sent to fight and die.

Let's listen to what the Iraqi people are saying, according to a recent poll conducted by the University of Maryland:

** 71% of all Iraqis now want the U.S. out of Iraq.

** 61% of all Iraqis SUPPORT insurgent attacks on U.S. troops.

Yes, the vast majority of Iraqi citizens believe that our soldiers should be killed and maimed! So what the hell are we still doing there? Talk about not getting the hint.

There are many ways to liberate a country. Usually the residents of that country rise up and liberate themselves. That's how we did it. You can also do it through nonviolent, mass civil disobedience. That's how India did it. You can get the world to boycott a regime until they are so ostracized they capitulate. That's how South Africa did it. Or you can just wait them out and, sooner or later, the king's legions simply leave (sometimes just because they're too cold). That's how Canada did it.

The one way that DOESN'T work is to invade a country and tell the people, "We are here to liberate you!" -- when they have done NOTHING to liberate themselves. Where were all the suicide bombers when Saddam was oppressing them? Where were the insurgents planting bombs along the roadside as the evildoer Saddam's convoy passed them by? I guess ol' Saddam was a cruel despot -- but not cruel enough for thousands to risk their necks. "Oh no, Mike, they couldn't do that! Saddam would have had them killed!" Really? You don't think King George had any of the colonial insurgents killed? You don't think Patrick Henry or Tom Paine were afraid? That didn't stop them. When tens of thousands aren't willing to shed their own blood to remove a dictator, that should be the first clue that they aren't going to be willing participants when you decide you're going to do the liberating for them.

A country can HELP another people overthrow a tyrant (that's what the French did for us in our revolution), but after you help them, you leave. Immediately. The French didn't stay and tell us how to set up our government. They didn't say, "we're not leaving because we want your natural resources." They left us to our own devices and it took us six years before we had an election. And then we had a bloody civil war. That's what happens, and history is full of these examples. The French didn't say, "Oh, we better stay in America, otherwise they're going to kill each other over that slavery issue!"

The only way a war of liberation has a chance of succeeding is if the oppressed people being liberated have their own citizens behind them -- and a group of Washingtons, Jeffersons, Franklins, Gandhis and Mandellas leading them. Where are these beacons of liberty in Iraq? This is a joke and it's been a joke since the beginning. Yes, the joke's been on us, but with 655,000 Iraqis now dead as a result of our invasion (source: Johns Hopkins University), I guess the cruel joke is on them. At least they've been liberated, permanently.

So I don't want to hear another word about sending more troops (wake up, America, John McCain is bonkers), or "redeploying" them, or waiting four months to begin the "phase-out." There is only one solution and it is this: Leave. Now. Start tonight. Get out of there as fast as we can. As much as people of good heart and conscience don't want to believe this, as much as it kills us to accept defeat, there is nothing we can do to undo the damage we have done. What's happened has happened. If you were to drive drunk down the road and you killed a child, there would be nothing you could do to bring that child back to life. If you invade and destroy a country, plunging it into a civil war, there isn't much you can do 'til the smoke settles and blood is mopped up. Then maybe you can atone for the atrocity you have committed and help the living come back to a better life.

The Soviet Union got out of Afghanistan in 36 weeks. They did so and suffered hardly any losses as they left. They realized the mistake they had made and removed their troops. A civil war ensued. The bad guys won. Later, we overthrew the bad guys and everybody lived happily ever after. See! It all works out in the end!

The responsibility to end this war now falls upon the Democrats. Congress controls the purse strings and the Constitution says only Congress can declare war. Mr. Reid and Ms. Pelosi now hold the power to put an end to this madness. Failure to do so will bring the wrath of the voters. We aren't kidding around, Democrats, and if you don't believe us, just go ahead and continue this war another month. We will fight you harder than we did the Republicans. The opening page of my website has a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, each made up by a collage of photos of the American soldiers who have died in Bush's War. But it is now about to become the Bush/Democratic Party War unless swift action is taken.

This is what we demand:

1. Bring the troops home now. Not six months from now. NOW. Quit looking for a way to win. We can't win. We've lost. Sometimes you lose. This is one of those times. Be brave and admit it.

2. Apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security. We must commit to taking care of them so that they suffer as little as possible. The mentally and physically maimed must get the best care and significant financial compensation. The families of the deceased deserve the biggest apology and they must be taken care of for the rest of their lives.

3. We must atone for the atrocity we have perpetuated on the people of Iraq. There are few evils worse than waging a war based on a lie, invading another country because you want what they have buried under the ground. Now many more will die. Their blood is on our hands, regardless for whom we voted. If you pay taxes, you have contributed to the three billion dollars a week now being spent to drive Iraq into the hellhole it's become. When the civil war is over, we will have to help rebuild Iraq. We can receive no redemption until we have atoned.

In closing, there is one final thing I know. We Americans are better than what has been done in our name. A majority of us were upset and angry after 9/11 and we lost our minds. We didn't think straight and we never looked at a map. Because we are kept stupid through our pathetic education system and our lazy media, we knew nothing of history. We didn't know that WE were the ones funding and arming Saddam for many years, including those when he massacred the Kurds. He was our guy. We didn't know what a Sunni or a Shiite was, never even heard the words. Eighty percent of our young adults (according to National Geographic) were not able to find Iraq on the map. Our leaders played off our stupidity, manipulated us with lies, and scared us to death.

But at our core we are a good people. We may be slow learners, but that "Mission Accomplished" banner struck us as odd, and soon we began to ask some questions. Then we began to get smart. By this past November 7th, we got mad and tried to right our wrongs. The majority now know the truth. The majority now feel a deep sadness and guilt and a hope that somehow we can make make it all right again.

Unfortunately, we can't. So we will accept the consequences of our actions and do our best to be there should the Iraqi people ever dare to seek our help in the future. We ask for their forgiveness.

We demand the Democrats listen to us and get out of Iraq now.

Source: AlterNet: War on Iraq: Quitting Iraq Is the Only Brave Thing to Do

Technorati tags: Iraq, war on terror, news, politics, opinion

Iraq is a Civil War: Media Dominoes Falling

NBC's decision to call the violence in Iraq a "civil war" has launched civil wars within a number of news outlets. But are they ready to challenge Bush Administration?

For months, the media have been torn over use of the term "civil war" to describe the descent into outright murder and torture in Iraq. Apparently the utter chaos and carnage of the past week has finally convinced some to use "civil war" without apology -- with NBC News and MSNBC joining in today in a major way -- but many still hold back, an E&P survey today shows.

The Los Angeles Times was one of the first newspapers to flatly describe the conflict as a "civil war" -- without the usual qualifiers of "approaching" or "near" -- and did again in the first paragraph of a news report on Saturday. The Christian Science Monitor today refers to a "deepening civil war."

But the main Washington Post story today continued to use "sectarian strife." A widely-published Reuters dispatch today adopted "sectarian conflict" and McClatchy in a report from Baghdad relied on "sectarian violence." Other papers declared that Iraq is on the verge of civil war, but has not gotten there yet, with an Associated Press story calling Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's visit to Iran an effort to prevent "Iraq's sectarian violence from sliding into an all-out civil war."

In a bombshell, however, Matt Lauer on the Today show this morning revealed that NBC had studied and perhaps debated the issue anew, and then decided that it will now use "civil war" freely. "For months the White House rejected claims that the situation in Iraq has deteriorated into civil war," he said. "For the most part news organizations like NBC hesitated to characterize it as such. After careful consideration, NBC News has decided the change in terminology is warranted and what is going on in Iraq can now be characterized as civil war."

Source: AlterNet: War on Iraq: Iraq is a Civil War: Media Dominoes Falling

Technorati tags: civil war, war on terror, Iraq, Bush, politics, news

Olbermann: 'Civil War' naming is Iraq's Walter Cronkite moment [VIDEO]

Noting that "it's the media's job to cut through [the administration's deceptive language] and call things what they are," Congressional Quarterly's Craig Crawford quipped that "If these guys were designing road signs they'd probably want to call a 'dead end' sign 'outlet free.'"

Such is the flood of tragically humorous commentary unleashed by White House winging over (MS)NBC's decision to call it a Civil War. The Daily Show also had its way with the administration's (and therefore the media's) linguistic pilates with respect to the Civil War in Iraq [VIDEO].

In the clip above, Keith Olbermann compares his employers' decision to call it a Civil War to Walter Cronkite's shift in Vietnam reporting in 1968 when he began to speak of the war as unwinnable. Many believe that was the beginning of the end for America's involvement in Vietnam...

To read more about the media conflict see today's front page story on AlterNet HERE.

Source: AlterNet: Blogs: Video: Olbermann: 'Civil War' naming is Iraq's Walter Cronkite moment [VIDEO]

Technorati tags: Iraq, civil war, war on terror, war, politics, news, Bush

I Can Miss This One...

DVD
By now, you’ve surely heard about the Michael Richards meltdown at the Laugh Factory in L.A. Suffice to say it wasn’t his career highlight. Some of the hecklers in the audience pointed that out, in fact, suggesting he really only had one successful venture in his career and that was “Seinfeld.” While Michael hires a crisis management consultant to deal with the fallout, it might be the ideal time to remember him in better days. “Seinfeld: Season 7” is out on DVD with enough extras to fit into a big salad, including Larry David’s reflections on his final season with the show. This set includes the last wave of great episodes before the series sagged in the post-David era, including “The Wink,” “The Secret Code” and, of course, “The Soup Nazi.” After watching this, I think you’ll agree that Kramer was a lot more fun when he wasn’t hurling racial epithets. (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)

Source: Can't Miss: This week's entertainment musts - Entertainment - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Micheal Richards, racism, news

War on Iraq: The Perils of Escalation in Iraq: A Grim History Lesson

Arlington West: A weekly memorial constructed byVeterans for Peace Los Angeles in San Monica, CA. Each cross represents a US soldier killed in Iraq, with new crosses added each week.

The gruesome lesson from the Korean War and Vietnam show that nothing will be accomplished by sending more troops to Iraq, other than adding to the 2,876 soldiers killed and leaving more dead civilians.

Editor's Note: Despite the clear reality that the American public is completely fed up with the occupation of Iraq demonstrated in the November 7 election, we are witnessing the shocking reality that increasing our troops and commitment, not setting the stage for withdrawal, is receiving much attention in policy discussions and media coverage post election.

While there were other factors which influenced election results like Republican corruption and economic fears brought on by neo-liberal trade policies, exit polls showed little doubt that large majorities of voters want out of Iraq... and soon, and surely not an escalation of the war, as John McCain is calling for.

This anti-Iraq occupation sentiment comes amid rising US military casualties and extraordinarily violent daily events. Public disgust with US Iraq policy comes against the backdrop of 2,876 American soldiers killed, as well as the highly professional study of Iraq civilian deaths published in the journal Lancet -- a study praised by leading epidemiologists -- which shockingly concluded that between 400,000 and 700,000 Iraqis have died in the conflict.

What will escalation do to our troops and to the people of Iraq?

The answer seems pretty clear. Escalation, as Greg Zachary points out in the following article, is often a step of military and political desperation. And as Zachary writes, when more troops get sent in they invariably get worse.

-- Don Hazen, AlterNet Executive Editor

Source: AlterNet: War on Iraq: The Perils of Escalation in Iraq: A Grim History Lesson

Technorati tags: Iraq, war on terror, politics, History, War on Iraq

Democrat pledges array of investigations

WASHINGTON - The incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is promising an array of oversight investigations that could provoke sharp disagreement with Republicans and the White House.

Rep. John Dingell (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., pledged that Democrats, swept to power in the Nov. 7 elections, would govern "in the middle" next year. But the veteran lawmaker has a reputation as one who has never avoided a fight and he did not back away from that reputation on Sunday.

Among the investigations he said he wants the committee to undertake:

_The new Medicare drug benefit. "There are lots and lots and lots of scandals," he said, without citing specifics.

_Spending on government contractors in Iraq, including Halliburton Co., the Texas-based oil services conglomerate once led by Vice President Dick Cheney.

_An energy task force overseen by Cheney. It "was carefully cooked to provide only participation by oil companies and energy companies," Dingell said.

_A review of food and drug safety, particularly in the area of nutritional supplements.

Meanwhile, the incoming chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee said his committee would not take on contentious issues, such as extending expiring tax cuts or overhauling Social Security, at the beginning of the year. Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said Democrats do not want a fight with President Bush and want to prove they can govern.

"The first thing we're going to do is try to work together on things we know we can accomplish," Rangel said. "Rather than have the committee against the president, it's not going to happen," Rangel said.

Rep. Barney Frank (news, bio, voting record), set to lead the House Financial Services Committee, said issues such as raising the minimum wage will be popular, even thought the idea has been identified with liberals.

"In my own committee, the biggest difference you're going to see is we're going to return to try to help deal with the housing crisis that blights so many parts of our country socially and economically," said Frank, D-Mass.

Frank, who in 1987 became the first member of Congress to voluntarily make his homosexuality public, also said he wants to modify the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The current policy prohibits officials from inquiring about the sex lives of service members and requires discharges of those who openly acknowledge being gay.

"One of things I do want to address, yes, is discrimination based on sexual orientation," Frank said.

"In fact, what we have is a shortfall in the military. I think when you have people being fired who can read Arabic and understand Arabic, because of what they do when they're off duty, that that's a grave error. But that's not what we're going to begin with."

A report in 2005 by the investigative arm of Congress estimated it cost the Pentagon nearly $200 million to recruit and train replacements for the nearly 9,500 troops that had to leave the military because of the policy. The losses included hundreds of highly skilled troops, including translators, between 1994 through 2003.

Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record), who will become the Senate's second-ranking GOP leader, said Republicans still have enough clout to block legislation "if it's really bad, not in the country's best interest." But he also said he wanted to find areas where the two sides can compromise.

"The people, I think, sent us a message. I think we've got it," Lott said. "We're going to be working hard together."

Continued...

Source: Democrat pledges array of investigations - Yahoo! News

Technorati tags: politics, government, news, opinion, democrats

"Only politicians can end nation's bloodbath"

I agree. Afterall, it's politicians that started it all.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Sunday characterized the situation in Iraq as a "political crisis" and said politicians are the only ones who can stop the further security deterioration and bloodshed of innocent people.

There is no hope to save Iraq and stop the bloodbath unless politicians "realize there are no winners or losers in this battle," he said, speaking to reporters at the Political Council for the National Security.

He said acts of terrorism are a reflection of political disagreements and Iraq's government is about to "tackle" those people who are against the will of Iraq, the Iraqi people and the national reconciliation among the people.

Iraq's leaders promised Sunday to track down those responsible for the war's deadliest attack by insurgents, the string of bombings that killed at least 200 people in Baghdad's mainly Shiite Sadr City on Thursday, according to The Associated Press.

The leaders urged the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians to stop fanning sectarian violence by arguing with one another, the AP reported.

A government spokesman read the statement on national television, surrounded by al-Maliki, a Shiite; Parliament speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, a Sunni; and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, the AP said.

Source: Iraqi leader: Only politicians can end nation's bloodbath - CNN.com

Technorati tags: politics, Iraq, news, opinion, war

Mother Teresa Quotes

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Mother Teresa

Source: Mother Teresa Quotes

Technorati tags: peace, quotes, quotations, Mother Teresa

Photo: Ex-spy accuses Putin after radiation death

Photo: Ex-spy accuses Putin after radiation death

Saturday November 25, 02:50 AM

Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-KGB spy, is seen lying in his hospital bed in this photograph taken November 20, 2006. Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin of his murder on Friday in a statement read out after his slow death from radiation poisoning, but the Russian president brushed off the accusations as "political provocation". REUTERS/Handout

Source: Photo: Ex-spy accuses Putin after radiation death

Technorati tags: politics, news, Putin, Russia

Poisoned ex-spy blames Putin before death - Europe - MSNBC.com

“You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed,” Litvinenko said in the statement read by his friend and spokesman Alex Goldfarb. The former spy said “the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr. Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life.”

Goldfarb said Litvinenko had dictated the statement before he lost consciousness on Tuesday, and signed it in the presence of his wife, Marina.

Litvinenko’s father, Walter, said his son “fought this regime and this regime got him.”

“It was an excruciating death and he was taking it as a real man,” Walter Litvinenko said.

Source: Poisoned ex-spy blames Putin before death - Europe - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: politics, news, Russia, ex-spy, Putin

Daily Kos: Massachusetts

I think you're right! They hate us for our freedom. Pretty scary thought, huh?

Massachusetts

by wwwdeadissuecom

Wed Nov 22, 2006 at 11:14:56 AM PST

Someone on the Control Congress board hit a nerve in me today, talking trash about my state. The population numbers from 2000 and 2005 show almost a 1% rise, but according to him people are leaving because of the STD infected, homosexual agenda being pushed on kids in schools. So many people in this country hope for my state to crumble, yet when it doesn't, the tactics of deception and bunk spiritless voodoo take over. You know what I think? I think they hate us for our freedom!

Source: Daily Kos: Massachusetts

Technorati tags: Massachusetts, Daily Kos, blogs, opinion, politics, news

"Thanksgiving Symbols and Traditions"

The biggest Thanksgiving symbol is the turkey, of course. Most likely, this connection goes back to Thanksgiving's very beginning. At the time of the first Thanksgiving, Governor William Bradford commented on "the great store of wild turkeys." Turkey is such a major part of the Thanksgiving holiday that more than 90 percent of Americans eat it on that day (Scripps Howard News Service).

Every year the President of the United States pardons a turkey on the night before Thanksgiving. This tradition began more than 50 years ago with Harry Truman and has continued ever since. The pardoned turkey lives its remaining days at the Kidwell Farm, a petting zoo in Virginia.

After turkey, the most significant dish on the table is corn. Most likely, the Pilgrims wouldn't have survived if the Native Americans hadn't taught them about this native crop, so corn is a symbol of the survival of the colonies, as well as the harvest and the fall season.

Cranberries were probably on the first Thanksgiving table. The American Indians taught the Pilgrims to make a cranberry sauce called "ibimi," meaning bitter berry. When the colonists saw the berry, they re-named it "crane-berry," because its flowers resembled the long-necked bird called the crane. Cranberries are still grown in New England.

Thanksgiving Stats

• Americans consume about 18.5 pounds (8.4 kg) of turkey each year.
• There are three U.S. cities named after the turkey: Turkey, TX, Turkey Creek, LA, and Turkey, NC.
• There are eight cities in the U.S. named after the cranberry.
• There are 20 U.S. cities named Plymouth.

*Source: United States Census Bureau

Apart from food, the biggest Thanksgiving traditions are football and parades. In ancient harvest festivals, people usually celebrated with games and sports, so you could argue the football tradition has very deep roots. The traditional American Thanksgiving football game was usually between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but as football has become more popular, there are now more games on Thanksgiving day. The tradition of Thanksgiving parades goes back to the early 20th century, when urbanites started to see Thanksgiving as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. In order to attract customers, stores like Macy's sponsored elaborate parades.

Finally, because Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November and thus falls on a different date each year, the President of the United States issues a yearly proclamation to establish the date of the celebration. In 1863, President Lincoln began the tradition, and every president since has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

For more information on Thanksgiving and other holidays, check out the links on the next page.

Turkey Facts

• At one time, both the turkey and the bald eagle were national symbols of America.
• According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, one-sixth of the 300 million turkeys sold each year are sold for Thanksgiving.
• A turkey under 16 weeks old is called a fryer; a roaster is usually five to seven months old.
• Turkeys have great hearing, but no external ears.
• Age is the most important factor in the taste of a turkey. Old males are preferable to young ones. The opposite is true for female birds.
• Turkeys are the only breed of poultry native to the western hemisphere.

*Sources: Scripps Howard News Service and FactMonster

Source: Howstuffworks "Thanksgiving Symbols and Traditions"

Technorati tags: Thanksgiving

MassResistance Watch: Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have lots of things to be thankful (and hopeful) for:

• That no one was seriously hurt in that blast in Danvers
• That Deval Patrick will be the next Governor of Massachusetts
• That Governor Mitt Romney will only be governor for about 42 days (and probably only in the state for 5 of those days)
• For those 109 Legislators who voted to recess until January 2nd and raised the ire of the absentee governor.
• That our troops in Iraq will be coming home sooner rather than later
• Massresistance: The Radio Show because next to American Idol it's one of the finest forms of entertainment today.
• That we live in the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Feel free to add your own!

posted by Boston Bud @ 5:30 AM

Source: MassResistance Watch: Happy Thanksgiving!

Technorati tags: Thanksgiving

Lebanon Mourns Slain Politician

Lebanon Mourns Slain Politician

Lebanon began three days of mourning on Wednesday for an anti-Syrian cabinet minister who was gunned down on Tuesday. Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a Christian, was the sixth anti-Syrian politician to be killed in nearly two years. The killing will heighten tensions between the anti-Syrian government and the pro-Damascus opposition led by Hezbollah, the powerful Shi'ite Muslim guerrilla group.More on the subject...

Source: Refdesk.com ... Reference, Facts, News ... Free and Family-friendly Resources

Technorati tags: Lebanon, Syria, Hezbollah, news, politics

Still Decidin'! 11/22/06 by Mark Fiore

Link to Still Decidin'! 11/22/06

Technorati tags: political humor, political satire, political cartoon, cartoons, Mark Fiore

more Bushit...

San Francisco-area couple calls for global orgasm for peace

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two peace activists have planned a massive anti-war demonstration for the first day of winter.

But they don't want you marching in the streets. They'd much rather you just stay home.

The Global Orgasm for Peace was conceived by Donna Sheehan, 76, and Paul Reffell, 55, whose immodest goal is for everyone in the world to have an orgasm Dec. 22 while focusing on world peace.

"The orgasm gives out an incredible feeling of peace during it and after it," Reffell said Sunday. "Your mind is like a blank. It's like a meditative state. And mass meditations have been shown to make a change."

The couple are no strangers to sex and social activism. Sheehan, no relation to anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, brought together nearly 50 women in 2002 who stripped naked and spelled out the word "Peace."

The stunt spawned a mini-movement called Baring Witness that led to similar unclothed demonstrations worldwide.

The couple have studied evolutionary psychology and believe that war is mainly an outgrowth of men trying to impress potential mates, a case of "my missile is bigger than your missile," as Reffell put it.

By promoting what they hope to be a synchronized global orgasm, they hope to get people to channel their sexual energy into something more positive.

The couple said interest appears strong, with 26,000 hits a day to their website, www.globalorgasm.org.

"The dream is to have everyone in the world (take part)," Reffell said. "And if that means laying down your gun for a few minutes, then hey, all the better."

Source: San Francisco-area couple calls for global orgasm for peace - USATODAY.com

Technorati tags: Global Orgasm Day, Global orgasm, peace, event, love, unity

Global Orgasm Day - December 22nd, 2006 - Peace through Global Ecstasy

GlobalOrgasm.org Mission Statement

The mission of the Global Orgasm is to effect change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy. Now that there are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti- submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW! Read more about the fleet buildup here.
The intent is that the participants concentrate any thoughts during and after orgasm on peace. The combination of high- energy orgasmic energy combined with mindful intention may have a much greater effect than previous mass meditations and prayers.
The goal is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world.
Global Orgasm is an experiment open to everyone in the world.
We hope the results will register on the worldwide monitor system of the Global Consciousness Project.
This is the First Annual Solstice Synchronized Global Orgasm for Peace, leading up to the December Solstice of 2012, when the Mayan Calendar ends with a new beginning.
More! Science-backed Dating and Sex! Women have permission to seduce men.Redefining FeminismInfo/workshops/book www.RedefiningSeduction.com

Link to Global Orgasm - December 22nd, 2006 - Peace through Global Ecstasy

Technorati tags: Global Orgasm, Global Orgasm Day, peace, love, unity

Teacher loses job for saying peace

National School Board Association (NSBA) silences all teachers

by Deb Mayer

Global Research, October 19, 2006

Global Research Editor's note
We bring to the attention of our readers the case of a community school teacher who has being fired for raising the issue of the war in Iraq in her classroom. The National School Board Association is arguing that First Amendment rights do not hold in the classroom:
1.A public school teacher’s curricular speech is per se not speech on a matter of public concern and therefore is not protected by the First Amendment
2. A teacher’s classroom speech is part of his or her official job duties and therefore is not protected by the First Amendment.
The conclusion of the amicus brief filed by the National School Board Association with the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of the school district in Indiana is as follows:
"Permitting K-12 teachers to express personal opinions in class under the guise of academic freedom is less justifiable, because elementary and secondary students are more likely to be a captive audience with significantly less individual choice and control over the instruction to which they are exposed than college students. Stated more concretely, college students are better able to avoid through course selection and class attendance a professor who exercises his or her academic freedom rights in a manner the student finds offensive. In the public K-12 school district context, school boards consider parental input in setting curriculum and may allow parents to opt their children out of certain classes, such as sex education. But in general, parents and students who choose to attend public schools have more limited flexibility in selecting teachers and courses than college students. School boards and administrators assign teachers to teach specific subjects to specific grades at specific schools. In many instances, school administrators assign students to particular schools—and often particular classes and teachers. And, as the facts of this case illustrate, schools are not always able to grant parents’ requests to transfer their children from a particular teacher’s class, regardless of the parents’ reasons. It would be both impractical and impolitic for school districts to accommodate parental requests that their children only be taught by teachers who share the parents’ ideology. Not only would school districts have to spend countless hours rearranging students’ schedules, they might also be reduced to hiring teachers based on ideological viewpoint rather than professional competence. In short, a K-12 teacher deviating from the curriculum and injecting classroom discussion with personal opinions disregards parents’ expectations and robs school boards of their authority to implement a uniform curriculum of their choosing.
To date, this court has not recognized any academic freedom rights for elementary and secondary school teachers. Palmer, 603 F.2d 1271 (holding a teacher had no First Amendment right to refuse to participate in various patriotic activities); Webster, 917 F.2d 1004 (holding a teacher had no First Amendment right to teach non-evolutionary theories of creation). Even in the higher education context, this court has stated that deviating from the curriculum is not protected by academic freedom rights. Clark v. Holmes, 474 F.2d 928, 931 (7th Cir. 1972) (denying college professor’s claim that academic freedom allows him "to override the wishes and judgment of his superiors and fellow faculty members as to the proper content of the required health course"). This court should similarly decline to give constitutional significance to speech in the K-12 context where no academic freedom rights are established.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons explained above, Amici urge this court to affirm the district court decision and to preserve the authority and discretion of school boards to determine and implement curricula and ensure that teacher expression advances the adopted program of studies."

For the complete transcript click: http://www.nsba.org/site/pdf.asp?TP=/site/docs/39200/39151.pdf
The implications of this case are farreaching and we call upon people across the US to take a stand to protect freedom of speech in America's classrooms.

For details on how you can support Deb Mayer, click here

Source: No First Amendment Rights in America's Classrooms: Teacher loses job for saying peace

Technorati tags: freedom of speech, education, first amendment rights, peace race, peace

May I Quote You, Mr. President?

•A man lost in his geography:

1-"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a part of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a part of Europe."

George W. Bush

2-"It's time for the human race to enter the solar system."

George W. Bush

3-"The vast majority of our imports come from outside the country."

George W. Bush

•A man lost in his logic:

4-" It isn't pollution that's harming the environment.

It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it. "

George W. Bush

5-"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."

George W. Bush

6-"These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave..."

George W. Bush

7-"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family."

George W. Bush

8-"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."

George W. Bush

9-"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

George W. Bush

10-Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness.

George W. Bush

•A man lost in space:

11-"For NASA, space is still a high priority."

George W. Bush

•A MAN WITH HEAVEN ON HIS SIDE:

12-"I believe God wants me to be president."

George W. Bush

13- [I was] "chosen by the grace of God to lead at that moment."

George W. Bush

14-"God told me to strike at al-Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East."

George W. Bush

15-"I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."

George W. Bush

•The man lost in his vocabulary:

16-" Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."

George W. Bush

17-"The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for 'entrepreneur'."

George W. Bush

18-"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any Governor, and that one word is, 'to be prepared'."

George W. Bush

19-'There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'

George W. Bush

• Thoughts coming straight from George Orwell's '1984':

20-"Iraq and Afghanistan ...are now democracies and they are allies in the cause of freedom and peace."

George W. Bush

21-"Ariel Sharon ... is a man of courage and a man of peace."

George W. Bush

22-"See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda."

George W. Bush

•THE DECEIVING PACIFIST:

23-"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

George W. Bush

24-"This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. And having said that, all options are on the table."

George W. Bush

25-"Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."

George W. Bush

26- “Governments accountable to the voters focus on building roads and schools—not weapons of mass destruction.” (N.B.: The U.S. has 10,000 nuclear weapons)

George W. Bush

•The Theologian:

27-"Islam, as practiced by the vast majority of people, is a peaceful religion."

George W. Bush

28-"The Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through The Holy Qur'an. It teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace."

George W. Bush

•THE Flip-Flopper:

29-"I favor leaving up to a woman and her doctor the abortion question."

George W. Bush

30-"I am pro-life."

George W. Bush

31- "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."

George W. Bush

32- "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."

George W. Bush

33-"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories...for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them."

George W. Bush

•The forecaster of things to come:

34-"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties [in Iraq]."

George W. Bush

35-"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur. "

George W. Bush

36-"I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future."

George W. Bush

37-"Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you."

George W. Bush, (speech of March 17, 2003)

38-"To the C students, I say you too can be president of the United States."

George W. Bush

•The astute observer:

39-"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."

George W. Bush

40-"Brownie (Michael Brown of FEMA), you're doing a heck of a job."

George W. Bush

•A man and his environment:

41-"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

George W. Bush

•The double-talker:

42-"There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory, because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy." (N.B.: The Hamas government was elected)

George W. Bush

43-"We look forward to analyzing and working with legislation that will make—it would hope—put a free press's mind at ease that you're not being denied information you shouldn't see."

George W. Bush

•THE WOULD-BE DICTATOR:

44-"In a time of war, the president must have the power he needs to make the tough decisions, including, if need be, the decision to grant himself even more power."

George W. Bush

45-"I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."

George W. Bush

46-"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

George W. Bush

47-"I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president."

George W. Bush

48- "I will not withdraw [from Iraq], even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me."

George W. Bush

49- "I'm the decider, and I decide what's best."

George W. Bush

•And, last but not least, CONSIDERING THE MESS IN IRAQ:

50-“I don’t have the foggiest idea about what I think about international, foreign policy.”

George W. Bush
Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and a frequent contributor to Global Research. He is the author of 'The New American Empire'.
The above article was first published on Professor Tremblay's blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog

Source: May I Quote You, Mr. President?

Technorati tags: quotes, quotations, funny, humor, political humor, political satire, Bush

Impeach Bush

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

The case for impeaching Bush

Press the play button to start the video

"The Misconduct of Public Men"

The Founding Fathers were crystal clear on the subject of presidential wrong doing:

The president is not above the law. Not only can a president be removed from office, he must be removed from office if he is found guilt of crimes like treason and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Has George Bush committed impeachable offenses?

John Bonifaz, co-founder of the group "After Downing Street," asks these questions at a recent Congressional hearing on the Iraq War:

1. "Is it a high crime to engage in a conpiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for taking the nation into war?

2. Is it a high crime to manipulate intelligence so as to allege falsely a national security threat posed to the United States as a means to try to justify a war against another nation?

3. Is it a high crime to commit a felony via the submission of a report to the United States Congress falsifying the reasons for launcing military action?"

To learn more, visit this site: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/.

Source: Impeach Bush

Technorati tags: Impeachment, video, Bush

Stop Unlawful Government Spying on U.S. Citizens Petition

Urgent update: President Bush just announced his plans to use the "lame duck" session of Congress to push through legislation authorizing the U.S. government to spy on unknowing citizens without a warrant.
In two months, we may be losing our right to privacy every time we write an email or call a friend. But we still have time to prevent this nightmare "Big Brother" bill from passing.
The legislation, crafted under Dick Cheney's supervision, would authorize the U.S. government to spy on unknowing citizens, even if they have not committed a crime. A federal judge already ruled that the President's surveillance program violates the Constitution, yet President Bush continues to advocate for the right to spy on unknowing Americans.
The character of our nation will be redefined if this measure passes. We must raise our voices to protect our privacy and the rule of law.

TELL CONGRESS NOT TO CONSIDER THE "BIG BROTHER" BILL ON ILLEGAL DOMESTIC SPYING!

Source: Stop Unlawful Government Spying on U.S. Citizens Petition

Technorati tags: petitions, government spying, law, privacy, unlawful government spying

Increase Resources to Combat Child Sex Tourism Petition

For many children around the world, their early years are far from the safe, supportive environment they require to give them the best possible start in life. As well as the threats from poverty, disease, violence and war, children face commercial exploitation by adults.

More than two million children are enslaved in the global commercial sex trade, and alarmingly US tourists account for quarter of child sex tourists worldwide.
Sexual exploitation is a terrible thing. These children are severely wounded physically and emotionally. Many acquire diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and almost all experience rejection by their families and communities in addition to fear, shame and despair.
Congress passed The Protect Act of 2003 that made it illegal to sexually exploit children overseas. However, this a global problem that cannot be solved by just making it illegal. Without increased resources to support efforts to identify and prosecute perpetrators sex trafficking of children will continue.
Help give children the best possible start in life - ask Congress to increase resources to combat child sex tourism.

Source: Increase Resources to Combat Child Sex Tourism Petition

Technorati tags: petitions, human rights, children, sexual abuse, child predators

Lebanese Cabinet Minister Shot and Killed

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- A Christian Cabinet minister who had stood against Syrian interference in Lebanon was shot to death today, increasing the animosities in a nation already pushed to the brink of violence.

Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, 34, was gunned down as he drove through a crowded intersection in the predominantly Christian outskirts of

read more digg story

Simpson book, TV plan dropped - Los Angeles Times

News Corp. acts after resistance from stations and advertisers. Rupert Murdoch apologizes.

By Martin Miller, Meg James and Gina Piccalo, Times Staff Writers
November 21, 2006

A brewing rebellion by Fox affiliate television stations, coupled with resistance from the advertising world, prompted Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. on Monday to abandon its plan to publish a book and air a two-part TV interview with O.J. Simpson.
The interview and the book, both titled "If I Did It," were announced last Tuesday and were widely viewed as a device to bolster Fox's flagging ratings during the important November sweeps. The project had been promoted as revealing how the former football star would have killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Lyle Goldman.

Source: Simpson book, TV plan dropped - Los Angeles Times

Technorati tags: OJ Simpson, news, Fox, News Corp

War on terror could last 30 years

THE fight against terrorism could last 30 years or more, according to a report published by a British think tank that specialises in international security.

"There is every prospect of the 'war on terror' extending for 30 years or more," said the report by the Oxford Research Group.

"What is required is a complete re-assessment of current policies but that is highly unlikely, even with the recent political upheavals".

The US Democrats triumphed in legislative elections on November 7 in which they reclaimed the House and the Senate, at the expense of President George W. Bush's Republicans.

"Most people believe that the recent elections mark the beginning of the end of the Bush era but that does not apply to the war on terror," said Professor Paul Rogers, who wrote the report, in a statement.

"In reality there will be little change until the United States faces up to the need for a fundamental re-think of its policies".

The report showed that the United States is now faced with a dilemma: if it withdraws from Iraq, insurgent groups will be able to operate freely in the biggest oil reserve in the world.

"If it stays, though, then US soldiers become an increasing magnet for radical factions, with Iraq becoming a training ground for new generations of paramilitaries, just as Afghanistan was in the 1980s against the Soviet occupying forces," the report said.

It said that the "fundamental mistake" was to remove the regime of president Saddam Hussein by force, which was a "gift" for Al-Qaeda and extremist groups because the deployment of 150,000 US soldiers in the heart of the Arab world is considered by many to be "an occupation force".

Source: War on terror could last 30 years: report The Daily Telegraph

Technorati tags: terrorism, war on terror, war

Police probe Bush suicide bomber reports

Police were probing unconfirmed reports that a suicide bomber was planning an attack during US President George W. Bush's visit to Indonesia, where thousands rallied against American foreign policy in the Middle East and the Iraq war.

Hundreds of anti-Bush students also tried to seal off McDonalds, Pizza Hut and Dunkin' Donut restaurants in two cities in the world's most populous Muslim nation, at times clashing with police.

A massive security cordon was thrown around Bogor, a presidential retreat on the Jakarta's southern outskirts, where Bush is scheduled to meet President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a close ally in Washington's war on terror.

Thousands of police and rifle-toting soldiers patrolled the streets, barbed wire fences were set up along the roads and several trucks were mounted with water cannons for Bush's six-hour state visit.

Demonstrations by Islamic hard-liners, students, housewives and taxi drivers have been staged every day this month and nearly 10,000 turned out in Bogor, some holding banners that said, "Bush is a terrorist."

Source: Police probe Bush suicide bomber reports - World - smh.com.au

Technorati tags: Bush, politics, news

Today's Cartoon

Today's Cartoon: Making a Change in Iraq
© Cartoonist Group, 2006

These cartoons represent the opinions of their authors and not necessarily the official position of the Center for American Progress.

Source: Today's Cartoon

Technorati tags: political cartoons, political humor, satire, politics

I love today's quote...

Quote of the Day (November 19, 2006)
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
Charles De Gaulle
Visit The Quotations Page for more quotes.

Clarification for the Uses of Impeachment | Democrats.com

THERE seems to be some misapprehension about the use of impeachment in government. Impeachment is not the absolute last resort. It is not something that is to be used only when a situation has gotten so far out of hand that it’s almost a irretrievable. It is a tool to be used to keep individuals from committing breaches of public trust in the exercise of their various offices.

When our nation was founded, the founding fathers were well acquainted with the use of absolute power by despots and Kings. Europe was full of them. In forming their new government they were giving enormous power to individuals; power which could be misused if not kept in check. One of those checks was impeachment.

To get an idea of how important this was, look at the Constitution of the United States:

Article I Section 2, last paragraph
“The House of Representatives shall chuse [Sic] their Speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power of impeachment.

Article I Section 3, the last two paragraphs,
“The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.
“Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States, but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to law.”

Article II Section 2,
“...and he [the President] shall have the power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” [my emphasis]

Article II Section 4,
“The President, Vice president, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed form Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

We have seen a great deal of nitpicking as to what constitutes a high crime and misdemeanor, but it is obvious from the context that one of the greatest high crimes and misdemeanors is a breach of public trust. Bribery is mentioned. What can we consider bribery to be? Could it be a lobbyist influencing a government official, say a Senator or a Representative, or even someone in the Executive, to give special consideration to their particular cause, in return for perhaps an all expense paid “fact-finding” trip to Monaco to study the administration of casinos, or perhaps the “gift” of a new home, or property in a beautiful scenic area, or a generous contribution to the person’s campaign fund or the “charity” of their choice?

When this country was founded and the government was instituted, the representatives were to be selected from the common man. At that time it was not expected to be a growth industry for the wealthy and powerful. A man who was qualified or had good ideas was chosen by his peers to represent them in Washington. He went to Washington and he served for a term or two terms or perhaps three terms, then he returned to his home and picked up his life where he left off and continued on as an honored citizen of his community. This person was expected to truly represent his people and to work for their good, not his own, when in office. If he was found violating this trust then impeachment was a way to remove him not only from that office of trust, but from any office of trust in the United States. Impeachment is a serious step but it’s not a step to be held back or shunned until the absolute last-ditch. In recent years we’ve seen impeachment used as a political weapon; for instance with Clinton, who should have been quickly censured by the Senate for embarrassing himself, his family, and the United States, by acting like a damn fool. Then the business of the country should’ve continued on. The whole thing should have occupied no more than a few days at best. Instead it dragged on for years and millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours of government time.

A true breach of trust; a violation of the Constitution; bribery; breaking a treaty, starting a war with another country, taking of the federal treasury and passing it on to one’s wealthy friends for instance; there should be no question that these are high crimes and misdemeanors and they should be quickly punished by impeachment.

In cases where impeachment is required there should be no opportunity for resignation to avoid punishment as in Nixon’s case.

If impeachable offenses have been committed, impeachment should be carried out swiftly, followed by the civil trials necessary to punish individuals. This should not be a process taking so long and being so costly that it is easier to let the miscreant finish his term and leave with his ill-gotten gains than it is to correct him.

Impeachment is a major tool to keep our government honest. If impeachment, dismissal and trial loomed in the background for anyone committing a breach of public trust, the lobbying industry would dry up and public projects would be initiated only for the public good.

To make this happen, transparency must be returned to the government. Breaches of public trust are much easier when everything is classified secret and the public cannot find out what is happening to them without great difficulty. The only things classified secret in a Democracy or Republic should be things that are unquestionably of strategic value and that doesn’t mean hiding the location of toxic waste dumps or power plants, or classifying the location of pork barrel “bridges to nowhere.” The operation of the government must be transparent. Any citizen should be able to see where his tax money is going, and if it seems wasteful, he should be able to bring it up to his representative with the expectation that it will be looked into and followed up.

Our representatives in government should be required to read and evaluate what they are voting into law. Part of this evaluation should be if the proposed law lies within the framework of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If not, it should be rejected. Hearings should be open to the public. Votes on issues should be in front of the entire House or Senate, not the largely empty chambers where votes are done late on Friday nights, so no one will notice what has been done to them until it is too late.

Congress should not be reluctant to reverse bad legislation, nor to override Presidential vetoes of good legislation. If that is done regularly, soon there will be no bad legislation. It won’t be worth the time.

“I’ll vote for your pork if you’ll vote for mine,” should be censurable the first time and impeachable the second. Then we can get down to the question of, “Is this legislation beneficial to the people, or is it detrimental?” Then, once again, we may have “government of the people, by the people and for the people,” guided by our wisely and carefully written Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Source: Clarification for the Uses of Impeachment Democrats.com

Technorati tags: Bush, Impeachment, politics, news, opinion

Polls: 7 in 10 Americans Oppose Reinstatement of the Draft

Polls: 7 in 10 Americans opposed
Repeated polls have shown that about seven in 10 Americans oppose reinstatement of the draft and officials say they do not expect to restart conscription.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress in June 2005 that “there isn’t a chance in the world that the draft will be brought back.”

Yet the prospect of the long global fight against terrorism and the continuing U.S. commitment to stabilizing Iraq have kept the idea in the public’s mind.

The military drafted conscripts during the Civil War, both world wars and between 1948 and 1973. An agency independent of the Defense Department, the Selective Service System, keeps an updated registry of men age 18-25 — now about 16 million — from which to supply untrained draftees that would supplement the professional all-volunteer armed forces.

Rangel and Graham appeared on “Face the Nation” on CBS.

Source: Rangel seeks to revive draft - Military Affairs - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: politics, war, news, opinion

Time for Another Body Count in Iraq

Last month there was very little discussion of the study published in the Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, which estimated that 650,000 Iraqis have died since 2003 as a result of the war. The Lancet study too was dismissed as an "October surprise," and it disappeared from the news within days of its publication. But now that the election is over, can we finally discuss it?

I was shocked myself when I saw the figure of 650,000. It seemed huge, much larger than I had imagined possible. It is approximately four times the Iraqi Health Ministry's recent estimate, and twice the figure of 300,000 that is often given as an estimate of the number of people killed by Saddam Hussein during his 23 years of brutal rule.

The Lancet study, with Gilbert Burnham as its lead author, was conducted by some of the same researchers from Johns Hopkins University and Al Mustansiriya University in Baghdad who conducted a previous study in 2004 which estimated that 98,000 people had died. The earlier study was attacked at the time by supporters of the war and was largely ignored by the mainstream news media in the United States, as John Stauber and I noted in our recent book, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq (for an excerpt, see the Third Quarter 2006 issue of PR Watch). The new study suggests that some half a million additional lives have been lost in the subsequent two years.

As the Lancet paper explains, this number is an estimate based on statistical sampling of Iraq's population, and due to limitations in the number of people surveyed, it has a fairly wide margin of error. The researchers followed standard scientific procedure and reported their findings using a "95% confidence interval" — a minimum and maximum value derived from statistical analysis which finds a 95 percent probability that the two limiting values enclose the true number. The minimum value in their confidence interval was 392,979, and their maximum value was 942,636, which means that although 650,000 is their most likely estimate, the true number could be substantially lower or higher. Even so, the low end of this range is nearly 400,000, while the high end is nearly a million.

Are these numbers credible? I looked at reactions to the Lancet study from several groups: American political pundits, scientists with expertise in health and mortality research, and Iraqis (as reflected in the views of Iraqis with English-language weblogs). Many of the political pundits (even those with anti-war views) either rejected the study or questioned its conclusions and methodology. The scientists, however, gave it high marks, and most of the Iraqis thought the number sounded like it was in the right ballpark.

What the Study Says

The full Lancet study is available online. Although it is a scientific paper, I found it easy to read and jargon-free. However, a couple of terms might need explanation.

The study uses a "cluster sampling" methodology that is commonly used in health and mortality research, especially in places hit by war or other humanitarian disasters such as floods or earthquakes. The methodology is somewhat less precise — but more cost-effective and practical — than simple random sampling, in which individual members of the population being studied are selected and interviewed at random. Rather than individuals, researchers interview randomly-selected clusters of individuals and use standard statistical techniques to reach conclusions about the entire population. As Daniel Engber explains in Slate magazine, "It's the same basic method used for political polls in America, which estimate the attitudes of millions of people by surveying 1,000 adults."

A survey of this type, in which researchers go out and methodically sample the population being studied, is called "active surveillance" as opposed to "passive surveillance," which relies on information collected by external sources such as government or news reports. Passive surveillance generally tends to produce unrealistically low estimates, because they miss cases in which someone has died but the death has simply gone reported. Consider, for example, the difference between the results that you would get if you attempted to estimate the health impact of tobacco smoking using passive rather than active surveillance. Epidemiologists have repeatedly and conclusively demonstrated that tobacco smoking causes several hundred thousand deaths per year in the United States, but individual cases of smoking-related death are rarely reported as such in newspapers, so you would get a much lower number if you attempted to compile statistics based on newspaper reports alone.

Currently the most comprehensive attempt to compile statistics on Iraqi death using passive surveillance is being done by the Iraq Body Count website, which as of this writing (November 2, 2006) has tallied 45,061 to 50,022 deaths — less than a tenth of the Lancet result. As the Lancet paper itself notes, "Our estimate of excess deaths is far higher than those reported in Iraq through passive surveillance measures. This discrepancy is not unexpected. Data from passive surveillance are rarely complete, even in stable circumstances, and are even less complete during conflict, when access is restricted and fatal events could be intentionally hidden. Aside from Bosnia, we can find no conflict situation where passive surveillance recorded more than 20% of the deaths measured by population-based methods."

Source: AlterNet: War on Iraq: Time for Another Body Count in Iraq

Technorati tags: war, Iraq, news, politics, opinion

Rep. Rangel Will Seek to Reinstate Draft

I already don't like this guy. I have a 15 y/o son and if we reinstate the draft then he and I are seeking refuge in Canada.

Rep. Rangel Will Seek to Reinstate Draft

By JOHN HEILPRIN

The Associated Press
Sunday, November 19, 2006; 4:11 PM

WASHINGTON -- Americans would have to sign up for a new military draft after turning 18 if the incoming chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has his way.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said Sunday he sees his idea as a way to deter politicians from launching wars and to bolster U.S. troop levels insufficient to cover potential future action in Iran, North Korea and Iraq.

U.S. soldiers knee next to a wall in Baqouba, an increasingly violent, mostly Sunni city about 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, Saturday, Nov. 18, 2006. Fierce fighting between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi forces sent many residents fleeing inside as the sound of machine gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades rocked the city. Three Iraqi policemen were killed and three wounded, and one insurgent was killed and two suspected ones detained, the coalition said. (AP Photo) (AP)

Source: Rep. Rangel Will Seek to Reinstate Draft - washingtonpost.com

Technorati tags: war, politics, news, opinion

OJ: "If I Did It"

If I did it? We know you did it!

Source: OJ: "If I Did It"

Technorati tags: humor, satire, funny, OJ Simpson

Iraq Study Group Cartoon by Daryl Cagle

Embittered insiders turn on Bush

very typically republican...

By Peter Baker

Updated: 1 hour, 31 minutes ago

The weekend after the statue of Saddam Hussein fell, Kenneth Adelman and a couple of other promoters of the Iraq war gathered at Vice President Cheney's residence to celebrate. The invasion had been the "cakewalk" Adelman predicted. Cheney and his guests raised their glasses, toasting President Bush and victory. "It was a euphoric moment," Adelman recalled.

Forty-three months later, the cakewalk looks more like a death march, and Adelman has broken with the Bush team. He had an angry falling-out with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld this fall. He and Cheney are no longer on speaking terms. And he believes that "the president is ultimately responsible" for what Adelman now calls "the debacle that was Iraq."

Adelman, a former Reagan administration official and onetime member of the Iraq war brain trust, is only the latest voice from inside the Bush circle to speak out against the president or his policies. Heading into the final chapter of his presidency, fresh from the sting of a midterm election defeat, Bush finds himself with fewer and fewer friends. Some of the strongest supporters of the war have grown disenchanted, former insiders are registering public dissent and Republicans on Capitol Hill blame him for losing Congress.

Source: WP: Embittered insiders turn on Bush - washingtonpost.com Highlights - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Bush, war, Iraq, politics, news

Iraqi Deputy Health Minister Kidnapped

uh oh...

Iraqi deputy health minister kidnapped from Baghdad home

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- At least 24 gunmen -- some dressed as national police -- stormed the house of Iraq's deputy health minister Ammar al-Saffar on Sunday and abducted him, a Baghdad emergency police official told CNN.

The kidnapping happened around 5:30 p.m. (9:30 a.m. ET) in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Adhamiya, a predominantly Sunni neighborhood, the official said.

Al-Saffar, a Shiite Muslim, is a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Dawa Party.

It is not the first time the deputy health minister has been targeted by assailants at his home.

In June 2004, gunmen opened fire on al-Saffar as he left for work. He escaped unharmed. (Posted 11:27 a.m.)

Source: Sunday, November 19 - CNN.com

Technorati tags: politics, war, iraq, news

Blair: Force alone can't beat terrorism - CNN.com

Oh my God, Tony Blair figured something out all by himself? I can't imagine GWB whispering this into his puppet's ear...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair said military force alone cannot defeat terrorism, acknowledging Sunday that solving the Mideast crisis was key to curbing violent extremism.

Pakistan's pro-U.S. President Gen. Pervez Musharraf admitted local militants were aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Sunday's meeting between the two leaders, crucial players in the U.S.-led war on terror, led to the signing of security, aid and education packages aimed at promoting a moderate brand of Islam and preventing Pakistan becoming a haven for extremists bent on attacking Western interests.

Blair's visit comes amid increased Taliban violence in Afghanistan, where 36 British soldiers have died this year.

In Pakistan, pro-Taliban and al Qaeda militants have been waging bloody attacks on Pakistani soldiers in semiautonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

Britain and its allies are supplementing the U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq with increased help for reconstruction projects, and a new impetus to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Blair said.

"We begin to win when we start fighting properly, and I think we are now fighting properly -- but we have got to do more," Blair told reporters in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore, in an apparent acknowledgment that a previous military-only strategy would not win moderate Muslims' support.

"What we have to realize is that where there are people standing up for a different way forward, we have to back them," Blair said.

His comments followed an interview Friday with Al-Jazeera's English-language channel, in which he appeared to agree with broadcaster David Frost's claim that operations in Iraq had "been pretty much of a disaster."

His office said Blair had made a "straightforward slip of the tongue," and had only "half-listened" to Frost's question. (Full story)

Source: Blair: Force alone can't beat terrorism - CNN.com

Technorati tags: politics, news, iraq, war, opinion

CNN.com - Anderson Cooper 360° Blog

Friday, November 17, 2006

'Comic Relief' on Katrina, politics and Mickey Mouse

This video is from tonight's "360" and features the comedians of "Comic Relief" -- Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. They got together with Anderson to discuss politics, comedy and why they are raising money for Katrina victims. A full hour with these comedians airs tonight at 10 p.m. ET.

Source: CNN.com - Anderson Cooper 360° Blog

Technorati tags: humor, news, politics, cnn

Liberals make wish lists as Christmas, new Congress near - CNN.com

NEW YORK (AP) -- After years playing defense, liberal advocacy groups see the Democrats' takeover of Congress as a long-awaited chance to convert some of their goals into law. Their wish lists include workplace protections for gays, a broader hate-crimes law, and a multi-pronged push to reduce unplanned pregnancies.

A Republican president remains in the White House, armed with veto power, and Democratic control of the Senate is as slim as could be. Yet gay-rights, feminist and abortion-rights groups are nonetheless pleased by their brightest prospects for legislative victories since 1994.

"It's exciting to get off the defensive," said Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She hopes the new Congress will stay away from debate on abortion restrictions and instead work on a bipartisan basis to curtail unintended pregnancies.

Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said "common sense" initiatives might include requiring health insurance companies to cover birth control, requiring that emergency contraception be available at hospitals for rape victims, and ensuring that sex education for young people includes accurate information about contraceptives.

The president of the largest national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign, said he has high hopes for two long-pending proposals that failed to get through the GOP-controlled Congress. One would outlaw employment discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender people; another would include them among the groups protected in federal hate-crimes legislation.

Gay activists also would like to see Congress repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibits gay members of the military from being open about their sexual orientation -- but a push for this may come somewhere down the road.

"Everyone remembers the fight President Clinton had when he made this his first major political issue in 1993," said Aaron Belkin, director of a University of California, Santa Barbara think tank that studies gays and the military.

"While opinion on letting gays serve has moved leaps and bounds since then, the new Democratic Congress is not likely to come out strongly on this one from the get-go," Belkin said.

Solmonese indicated that leading gay-rights groups will be patient with the new Democratic leadership, not pushing to have their issues be at the very top of the 2007 agenda.

"What we've got is a new and respectful Congress that's open to our community, to learning the specifics of our issues," he said. "To stress right now -- 'This is what we want and this is when we want it' -- would be premature."

Feminist groups such as the National Organization for Women were generally at odds with the GOP leadership in Congress and have welcomed the power switch, which will include Rep. Nancy Pelosi serving as the first female speaker of the House.

NOW President Kim Gandy said her organization's legislative wish list includes adding gender to the existing federal hate-crimes law, tightening controls over silicone breast implants, and improving options for working mothers through enhanced family leave policies and child care options.

Some conservatives have expressed hope that -- on abortion issues, at least -- Democratic stances in Congress might be moderated by the election of several anti-abortion candidates. But other leaders on the right, such as Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, doubt these Democratic newcomers will sway policy.

"Instead, anticipate the fiercest assault of our time against abstinence, marriage, life, good judges, and religious freedom," Perkins wrote this week in the National Review. "Pro-life Democrats are likely to be marginalized in positions where they have little influence."

Another conservative leader, the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition, asserted that the gay-rights bills likely to advance next year will infringe on the rights of those who condemn homosexuality.

"All Americans must be prepared to endure serious threats to their freedom of speech, their right to make employment decisions as business owners and their religious freedom in the business world," Sheldon said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Source: Liberals make wish lists as Christmas, new Congress near - CNN.com

Technorati tags: politics, human rights, glbt, lgbt, news

Bush and Co. don't deserve impeachment?

another viewpoint...

And criminal prosecution won't follow impeachment -- you can't have both. Polls show that right now Americans favor accountability -- a majority says they're for impeachment because that's the only option they're given. But the process will be a wrenching one, and there won't be the stomach to drag the country through it twice. If Congress were to impeach, that would be that; the conventional wisdom would be that justice was served, the rule of law re-established and the Bush administration brought to heel.

Consider who that would let off the hook: Rumsfeld and Feith and Yoo and Cambone and Gonzalez and Ashcroft and Wolfowitz and a half dozen others. Bush and Cheney would be booted out of office a few months early and all of the rest of the cabal that brought us to where we are today would end up rehabilitated, only to reemerge in some future administration like so many of the veterans of Iran-Contra have.

Source: AlterNet: Blogs: PEEK: Bush and Co. don't deserve impeachment

Technorati tags: impeachment, Bush, politics, news, government

Murtha Loses--And So Does Pelosi

The vote count is in: Steny Hoyer defeated Jack Murtha 149 to 86 for the majority leader post in the House.

There's no way to spin this: this was a big loss for incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The vote wasn't close. Her ally was rejected. This reflects poorly on her. And it will be remembered by her political opponents--particularly those who want to undermine Pelosi's efforts to enact lobbying and campaign reform--that in this contest she endorsed a fellow who has long been accused of slippery ethics. (See the posting below.)

Moreover, Murtha, the candidate with the most ardent antiwar credentials, lost--and did so decisively. How will this be interpreted (or exploited) by pundits and politicos who oppose the Pelosi/Murtha call for the withdrawal of troops? Murtha champions did try to turn the majority leader race into a debate on the Iraq war. Can the vote be read as an indicator that many House Democrats don't support Pelosi all the way on her opposition to the war?

Source: Murtha Loses--And So Does Pelosi

Technorati tags: politics, Pelosi, Murtha, Democrats, news

Democrats, Don't Wimp Out

Democrats, Don't Wimp Out

Paul Waldman

November 15, 2006

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America and the author of the new book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Can Learn From Conservative Success, just released by John Wiley & Sons. The views expressed here are his own.

All over Washington, the sage barons of the establishment media are warning Democrats not to get cocky. Don’t move too fast, they say. Don’t push a bunch of wacky, left-wing ideas. Seek compromise, give ground, hew to the center, for only there lies the greatest prize of all: the praise of David Broder and Joe Klein, the nodding approval of the Washington Post editorial page, the admiration the Beltway cognoscenti reserve for those who know their place and know whose rings they should be kissing.
Bull. What Democrats need to do is spend the next two years crushing their opponents like bugs. It’s not about mercy, it’s not about manners, it’s about three fundamental goals: limiting the damage the Bush administration can do, passing whatever legislation they can in the short term to help the American public and laying the foundation for future progressive victories.
Democrats finally have the upper hand, and now’s the time to use it. Here are a few things they can do to get started.
1. Investigate—But Smartly
The combination of the most secretive administration in modern times and the most supine Congress in memory meant that Congressional oversight utterly disappeared over the last six years. Democrats have an obligation—to the people that elected them, and to democracy itself—to make up for lost time. Investigations should be rolled out on a carefully planned schedule, to maximize both news coverage and pressure on the administration.
But that doesn’t mean they should simply investigate anything and everything for no purpose other than laying siege to the White House. As the Boston Globe reported last November, when Bill Clinton was president the Republicans took 140 hours of sworn testimony on the pressing issue of whether the administration had mined the White House Christmas card list for potential donors. Yet they took only 12 hours of testimony on the Abu Ghraib scandal. “The government reform panel alone,” they wrote, “issued 1,052 subpoenas related to investigations of the Clinton administration and the Democratic National Committee from 1997 to 2002, and only 11 subpoenas related to allegations of Republican abuse.”
Democrats could distinguish themselves from the excesses and omissions of their predecessors by focusing on one new investigation to be started each month. Iraq, corruption and the administration’s unwillingness to abide by the Constitution are the three areas that most cry out for oversight—and it wouldn’t hurt to add an investigation of Republican dirty tricks during this past election (Rick Perlstein has a good rundown of the horrors that went on here.) Goodness knows, it won’t be hard to come up with 24 things to investigate between now and the 2008 election. Which leads us to…
2. Don’t Be Afraid to Pick Fights

The White House will resist any effort to subpoena documents and testimony on the matters Democrats want to investigate. So Democrats should let them. Let them proclaim that they are above the law. Let them initiate a constitutional crisis. Let them take it all the way the Supreme Court. The resulting controversy will help Americans understand the deep anti-democratic strain that rushes through the arteries of this administration like a virus.
And Democrats should find every opportunity they can to embarrass Republicans by forcing them into uncomfortable votes. On the first item on the Democrats’ agenda—raising the minimum wage—it looks as though President Bush is going to do what he often does when backed into a corner: surrender, then claim victory. Democrats should welcome his capitulation, but make sure to characterize it as such. Thanks for finally giving millions of hard-working Americans a break, Mr. President, but it’s too bad it took you six years and a thumping at the polls to be forced into it.
The prospects for another of their agenda items, enabling the federal government to negotiate lower prices for prescription drugs under Medicare, look far tougher. But Democrats should wage the fight anyway. Two outcomes are equally likely: Either they won’t be able to pass such a bill in both houses, or they’ll pass a bill and Bush will veto it. Either way, it shows whose side they’re on, and whose side the Republicans are on.
Bush also said he wanted to reintroduce his plan to partially privatize Social Security. The defeat he suffered the first time around on this issue was one of the key events leading to the Democrats’ victory. It showed them that when they stay united and make a stand on fundamental progressive values, they win. It also showed them that they could ignore the pleas of the “sensible” centrist talking heads scolding them for not having a “plan” of their own. So they should dare Bush to try again. “Let’s talk about your Social Security privatization plan, Mr. President. Bring it on.”
3. Boycott Fox
The Fox News Channel has been a reliable megaphone for White House talking points, a veritable RNC house organ proclaiming that Republicans are noble public servants and Democrats are whiny hippies who, if not engaged in an actual conspiracy with al-Qaida, are certainly serving the ends of America’s enemies. It has also functioned as a safe haven for Republicans to run to when things look bad. Shoot a guy in the face, and you can do your first interview with Brit Hume, secure in the knowledge that he won’t ask any tough questions.
So Democrats should say the following to Fox: You want to spread GOP propaganda all day? Be our guest. After all, it’s a free country. But don’t expect any Democratic newsmakers to legitimize you with their presence. We’ll go on every other network, be interviewed by every legitimate news organization. But we don’t consider ourselves under any obligation to pretend that buffoons like Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson are news professionals who deserve a moment of our time. We’re not going to try to fight you; we’ll just act like you don’t exist.
This can be a lesson to the rest of the media—not a threat, but an indication that they need to change the way they think about Democrats. For years, journalists have looked on Republicans as tough, smart and skilled—in short, winners. Democrats, in turn, were viewed as wimpy, stupid and weak—losers. If Democrats want the media to treat them like winners, they should start acting accordingly. Stop worrying about getting reporters to like you, and start thinking about getting them to respect you. And if the David Broders of the world start complaining that you aren’t playing nice, that’ll be evidence that you’re doing something right.
4. Attack Conservatism

After President Reagan left office, a group of his supporters formed the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, whose goal was to get something—a school, a bridge, a building—named after Reagan in every county in every state in America. Their goal was not just to honor a man they revered but to elevate Reaganism. If Reagan can become the name on every public works project, he moves out of the realm of contestation to achieve the kind of status accorded to figures like Kennedy and Roosevelt. We don’t argue about whether Kennedy was a good president, we just accept it.
Democrats should do the same thing in reverse to the current president. The Bush Legacy Project should seek to make George W. Bush an albatross that can be strung around the neck of every Republican for many elections to come. They should continue to write books about how awful his presidency was, to heap ridicule on him, to make his name synonymous with incompetence and stupidity and corruption.
The message is this: When George W. Bush was president, conservatism failed and conservatism was rejected. Apart from “small government,” conservatives enacted much of what they had been clamoring for for years. They slashed taxes on the wealthy. They ballooned defense spending. They got their war on Iraq. They ignored or cut back regulations on the environment and workers’ rights. And what happened? The American people recoiled in disgust.
Democrats need to understand that they are engaged in a war of ideas, one that stretches far beyond any one Congress or presidency. In order to not just win today’s victory but to make tomorrow’s more likely, they have to continually discredit the other side’s ideology. The fact is that conservative governance failed, not because of a run of bad luck or a few bad apples, but because it is deficient at its core.
Democrats can and should use the excesses of the Republicans they defeated as bludgeons against them. Katrina. Terri Schiaivo. Jack Abramoff. Mark Foley. George W. Bush. These names should be strung around Republicans’ necks as often as possible, so Americans don’t forget why they voted Democratic in the first place.
Democrats should wake up every day thinking, “How can we keep Republicans on the run?” Never give them a moment’s rest, never let them advance their agenda, keep them on the defensive so they have to apologize for being the standard-bearers of a discredited ideology and a disgraced president. Do that, and every legislative battle and election to come will be that much more likely to swing in your favor.

Source: TomPaine.com - Democrats, Don't Wimp Out

Technorati tags: democrats, politics, news, opinion

Take Action: Protests Against Romney

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Urgent: Take Action This Weekend!

Saturday November 18
Open Planning Meeting for a Protest Against Romney's Budget Cuts
When: 2PM
Where: Wainwright Community Room, next to Back Bay T Stop
What: Romney cut $735,000 in new HIV/AIDS Prevention Funding targeting people of color. He also cut money that could affect BAGLY, Gay Men's Domestic Violence Project, and many other queer support programs throughout Massachusetts. We have a tentative idea for a rally on World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) at noon at the state house. Come to this meeting and bring your ideas! All concerned people are encouraged to attend!
Homosexuality & The Bible
When: 4PM
Where: Arlington St. Church
What: GB-PFLAG and the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry present Homosexuality and the Bible with Rev. Jeff Miner and Tyler Connoley at Arlington St Church in Boston. Come participate in this timely forum!
Sunday November 19th
Crash Mitt Romney's Anti-gay Press Conference
When: 1:30PM
Where: State House
What: Bring signs condemning bigotry, and Romney's deadly budget cuts
Transgender Day of Remembrance

When: 7PM
Where: Arlington Street Church
What: Remembering and celebrating the lives of our trans brothers and sisters specifically those who were victims of violence. This is an emotional and life changing event every year. All LGBT people and allies are encouraged to attend.

Link to QueerToday.com

Technorati tags: protests, QueerToday.com, glbt, lgbt, politics, news

"DemoGlad" by Mark Fiore

Source: DemoGlad 11/15/06

Technorati tags: politics, political satire, political humor, Mark Fiore

Al Jazeera English

The long awaited Al Jazeera English has launched! This is the official launch video through to the first story...

read more digg story

Pakistan Votes To Amend Strict Sharia Laws On Rape

Until now rape victims had to have four male witnesses to the crime - if not they faced prosecution for adultery. The new bill allows prosecutions under secular rather than religious law. Religous parties boycotted the vote saying the bill encouraged "free sex". The reforms are being seen as a crucial test of President Musharraf...

read more digg story

Dems pick Hoyer as majority leader

WASHINGTON - House Democrats on Thursday chose Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer to be House majority leader over Rep. John Murtha, the choice of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in line to become speaker.

Hoyer was elected on a vote of 149-86.

The balloting marked a personal triumph for him, but also a snub to Pelosi, moments after the rank and file selected her unanimously to become speaker when the House convenes in January.

Source: Dems pick Hoyer as majority leader - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: politics, majority leader, Steny Hoyer

A Way Out Of Iraq

A Way Out Of Iraq

Sen. Russ Feingold

November 16, 2006

Russ Feingold is a United States senator from Wisconsin.

On Tuesday, I introduced legislation requiring U.S. forces to redeploy from Iraq by July 1, 2007. My legislation recognizes that a target date for the redeployment of U.S. troops from Iraq will help pressure the Iraqis to get their political house in order. Simply announcing when we will begin redeployment, without any end date, is unlikely to put adequate pressure on the Iraqis.

A target date isn’t just critical to our Iraq policy, it is essential for our national security policy. We cannot adequately focus on the pressing national security challenges we face around the globe when so many of our brave troops are in Iraq, and so many billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are being spent there. A timetable ensures that we can refocus our resources on fighting terrorist networks and on addressing trouble spots around the world that threaten our national security.

Because problems in Iraq won’t dry up overnight, my legislation would allow for a minimal level of U.S. forces to remain in Iraq for targeted counterterrorism activities, training of Iraqi security forces, and the protection of U.S. infrastructure and personnel.

But our current Iraq policy is making the United States weaker, not stronger. The president has continually refused to change our current approach in Iraq, despite a growing number of policymakers and experts, including many Republicans, advocating for a change of course. Voters responded to his failed policies by putting Democrats in control of Congress. They want to change course, and they have given Democrats the chance to finally put our national security policy right by proposing a timetable for redeploying U.S. troops from Iraq.

The president’s policy has us in Iraq with no end in sight. But the Iraqis need an end in sight to get their political house in order, and we need an end in sight so we can get back to fighting terrorist networks. Our disproportionate focus on Iraq has undermined our ability to confront the terrorist threat around the globe. Now Democrats can start to turn these wrong-headed policies around. But we won’t do that by continuing our open-ended commitment of troops on Iraq. And we won’t do it with tepid or muddled policies of our own. We will do it by setting a target date for redeployment, so that we can direct our resources to defeating the terrorist organizations that seek to harm this country.

Source: TomPaine.com - A Way Out Of Iraq

Technorati tags: politics, Iraq, war, opinion, Russ Feingold

Powerful Painkiller Detected in Human Saliva

this is funny...thinking of the old adage regarding the licking of one's own wounds.

Powerful Painkiller Detected in Human Saliva

According to new research, the human body produces a painkiller that could be several times more powerful than morphine. Researchers injected rats with opiorphin, a natural painkiller extracted from human saliva, to suppress pain for chemically-induced inflammation and acute physical pain. The results showed that the administered dose of 1 milligram of opiorphin provided the same painkilling power as 3 to 6 mg of morphine.More on the subject...

Source: Refdesk.com ... Reference, Facts, News ... Free and Family-friendly Resources

Technorati tags: pain, health, odd, news

Iraq Study Group seeks consensus

WASHINGTON - Bitterly divided on Iraq, lawmakers in both parties are eagerly awaiting recommendations from an advisory group led by Republican and Bush family friend James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton.

But even if the bipartisan Iraq Study Group is able to forge a consensus on how to deal with Iraq — a prospect that remains unclear — the panel is unlikely to offer a solution so groundbreaking it will stave off a brewing partisan feud.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., who is in line to be the chairman next year of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Monday the Bush administration didn’t see that “we’re getting deeper and deeper into a hole” in Iraq.

Source: Iraq Study Group seeks consensus - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: politics, Iraq, war, Bush

Dozens Are Kidnapped at College Office in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Nov. 14 — Several dozen employees of a university office were kidnapped here today, in a methodical daylight raid that prompted the minister of higher education to berate Parliament and threaten to shut the nation’s universities until security improves.

Wathiq Khuzaie/AFP — Getty Images

Several dozen employees of a government research institute were kidnapped today in Baghdad.

Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud/Reuters

Relatives of people kidnapped Tuesday from a government research institute in Baghdad waiting outside the compound of the department of higher education.

Estimates of the number of kidnapped varied widely, with a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior putting the number between 30 and 40 and the department of higher education saying that between 70 and 150 men were missing. An interior ministry spokesman said that he did not think the number of vehicles reportedly involved could have carried off both the gunmen — by some counts, as many as 80 took part — and the number of victims described by education officials.

(Continued...)

Source: Dozens Are Kidnapped at College Office in Baghdad - New York Times

Technorati tags: Iraq, kidnapping, Baghdad, news, war

Bishops call for change on Iraq policy - The Boston Globe

BALTIMORE -- The nation's Catholic bishops, saying the United States needs to move past the "shrill and shallow debate" of last week's midterm Congressional elections, declared yesterday that the goal in Iraq should be justice and peace, rather than victory, and that the nation should withdraw its forces at the earliest opportunity, consistent with a responsible transition.

Source: Bishops call for change on Iraq policy - The Boston Globe

Technorati tags: politics, war, peace, news, Iraq

Are Democrats Turning A Blind Eye to Civil Liberty? - by Paul Craig Roberts

Unless November's new blood improves the Democratic Party's civil liberties pedigree, the Democrats will have failed even before they are sworn in next January.

In its disregard for truth, public opinion, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Constitution, and statutory law, the Bush administration has been more of a regime than an administration. The Bush/Cheney executive branch has operated independently of all the constraints that provide accountability and prevent despotism.

The Bush regime was able to evade these restraints because Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and because Republicans wielded 9/11 as a weapon to forestall political opposition.

With signing statements and other unilateral declarations of presidential authority, the Bush regime asserted executive branch powers beyond the reach of Congress and the judiciary.

The Bush regime perpetrated a coup d'état against the Bill of Rights and the jurisdictions of Congress and the courts. Unless Democrats roll back this coup, Americans have seen the last of their civil liberties.

Source: Are Democrats Turning A Blind Eye to Civil Liberty? - by Paul Craig Roberts

Technorati tags: politics, civil liberties, human rights, democrats

Best 2006 Midterm Election Recap EVER!

I agree with Andy at Mass Revolution Now! Isn't it ironic?

"In an ironic turnaround, Iraq brought regime change to the U.S."

-- Amy Poehler, on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update."

Source: Mass Revolution Now! :: Best 2006 Midterm Election Recap EVER!

Technorati tags: blogs, opinion, politics, elections, news, SNL, Saturday Night Live

2006 Election...A Comedic Roundup

Source: YouTube - 2006 Election...A Comedic Roundup

Technorati tags: humor, comedy, political humor, politics

Impeaching Bush

Four-term congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman, who played a key role in the impeachment of Richard Nixon, isn't surprised that top Democrats aren't leading the way on impeachment.

According to her, after the election of 1972: "Nobody -- no Democrat was pushing for it. And, in fact, as the revelations came out, it still wasn't on the table. It took the American people, after the Saturday Night Massacre [Nixon's firing of the prosecutor investigating him], sending a clear message to the Congress..."

Her point: It didn't come from congress in 1973, it won't come from congress now:

It’s understandable that congressional leaders, members of Congress, will be very reluctant to take this enormous step to protect our Constitution and our democracy. But the American people still -- we have a democracy. You saw what happened at the polls. Members of Congress will get it, if the American people want it.

Source: AlterNet: Blogs: Video: Impeaching Bush [VIDEO]

Technorati tags: politics, impeachment, Bush, war, news

"Botched"by Mark Fiore

Link to Botched - Wednesday, November 8, 2006

Technorati tags: politics, political humor, news, satire, Mark Fiore

Veterans Day: Census Facts

24.5 million
The number of military veterans in the United States in 2004.

Female Vets

1.7 million
The number of female veterans in 2004.

16%
Percentage of Persian Gulf War veterans in 2004 who were women.

Race and Hispanic Origin

2.4 million
The number of black veterans in 2005. Additionally, 1.1 million veterans are Hispanic, 293,000 are Asian, 170,000 are American Indian or Alaska Native, and 28,000 are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. (The numbers for blacks, Asians, American Indians and Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders cover only those reporting a single race.)

When They Served

9.5 million
The number of veterans age 65 or older in 2004.

8.1 million
Number of Vietnam-era veterans in 2004. Thirty-three percent of all veterans served in Vietnam.

3.9 million
Number of World War II veterans in 2004. Sixteen percent of all veterans served during World War II.

412,000
In 2005, number of living veterans who served during both the Vietnam era and in the Gulf War.

Other living veterans in 2005 who served in two or more wars:
343,000 served during both the Korean and Vietnam wars.
80,000 served during three periods: World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War.
306,000 served in World War II and the Korean War.

Where They Live

6
Number of states with 1 million or more veterans in 2004. These states are California (2.3 million), Florida (1.8 million), Texas (1.7 million), New York (1.2 million), Pennsylvania (1.1 million) and Ohio (1.1 million).

Education

1.1 million
Number of veterans enrolled in college, as of the 2001-2002 school year.

25%
Percent of veterans 25 years and over with at least a bachelor’s degree in 2005.

89%
Percent of veterans 25 years and over with a high school diploma or more in 2005.

Income and Poverty

$33,973
Annual median income of veterans, in 2005 inflation-adjusted dollars.

5.8%
Poverty rate for veterans, as of 2005.

On the Job

11.3 million
Number of veterans ages 18 to 64 in the labor force in 2005.

Voting

17.4 million
Number of veterans who voted in the 2004 presidential election. Seventy-four percent of veterans cast a ballot, compared with 63% of nonvets.

Business Owners

14%
Percentage of business owners who were veterans, as of 2002. Seventy-three percent of these veteran owners operated with no paid employees.

7%
Percentage of veteran business owners who were disabled as a result of injury incurred or aggravated during active military service.

Benefits

$22.4 billion
Aggregate amount received in fiscal year 2004 by the 2.6 million living veterans receiving compensation for service-connected disabilities.

$59.6 billion
Total amount of federal government spending for veterans benefits programs in fiscal year 2004.

• More Veterans Day Features

Source: Veterans Day: Census Facts

Technorati tags: military, veterans day, soldiers, war, news, politics

Democrats.com Launches ImpeachForChange Mobilization for Impeachment | Democrats.com

Submitted by Bob Fertik on November 9, 2006 - 2:39pm.ImpeachForChange

On Saturday, Democrats.com and our progressive allies will launch a nationwide grassroots mobilization for impeachment in Philadelphia near Independence Hall, where the Constitution was signed on September 17, 1787. The mobilization is called ImpeachForChange. Our goals include:

1. A grassroots petition drive to collect 1 million signatures at ImpeachForChange.org
2. Form Impeachment Committees in all 435 Congressional Districts to lobby every Member of Congress by:
   delivering books & videos on impeachment
   collecting petitions and handwritten letters in front of their District Offices
   meeting with every Member to discuss the issues that require impeachment
3. Expand our Citizens Impeachment Commission to add prominent citizens, celebrities and bloggers
4. 12/10 Bush v. Gore Day:
   Hold Town Hall Meetings on impeachment around the country with Citizens Impeachment Commission speakers
5. 12/15-17 Bill of Rights Weekend:
   Collect petitions and handwritten letters at malls, libraries, post offices, and door-to-door
   Sell pocket Constitutions, bumper stickers, books, videos
6. 2007: Pass Impeachment bills in state legislatures

Our announcement is generating lots of buzz in the blogosphere - join in the debate!

• http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/11/9/16520/5760
• http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/11/9/145428/748

Source: Democrats.com Launches ImpeachForChange Mobilization for Impeachment Democrats.com

Technorati tags: politics, news, Bush, impeachment, opinion

The America I Believe In

Recently, the President signed the "Military Commissions Act of 2006", disregarding America's deep human rights tradition. Now the administration can detain people indefinitely without charge or trial, and use evidence obtained by cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

We're in a struggle for the soul of our nation. Amnesty International has launched a new campaign to restore our traditional American values of justice, rule of law, and human dignity.

Please join us to fight for the America we believe in, the America that leads the world on human rights. Be part of this campaign. Restore "The America I Believe In." Start now by signing the pledge. After you sign the pledge, find out what's next »

Host your own DVD House Party! Each registrant will receive their own DVD of "Outlawed", a short documentary about torture and disappearances (known as “rendition”) in the “war on terror.”

Source: Home The America I Believe In

Technorati tags: America, politics, human rights, opinion, Amnesty International

France test-fires unarmed nuclear weapon

PARIS - France successfully shot its new M51 submarine-launched ballistic missile over the Atlantic on Thursday in its first experimental test flight, the Defense Ministry said. The missile carried no nuclear weapon for the test flight, which was closely monitored by specialists at a test center in Biscarosse, in southwest France.

read more digg story

Al-Qaida in Iraq claims 12,000 fighters

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed in a new audio tape Friday to be winning the war faster than expected in Iraq and said it had mobilized 12,000 fighters, while the U.S. military reported the deaths of four more American troops.

Three U.S. soldiers and a Marine were killed Thursday in Iraq, the U.S. military said, bringing the number of Americans who have died in the country so far this month to 25. At least 105 U.S. forces died in October, the fourth highest monthly toll of the war.

Since the war started in March 2003, 2,845 members of the U.S. military have died, according to an Associated Press count.

Source: Al-Qaida in Iraq claims 12,000 fighters - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Al-Qaida, terrorism, politics, war, news

Queer Today: Historic LGBT Wins

Historic LGBT Wins & More!

New~A Hawaii woman won a seat on the state Board of Education and, according to national advocacy groups, a place in history as the nation's highest-ranking transgender elected official. (gay.com)
A record breaking sixty-seven openly gay and lesbian candidates were elected (365gay) to various offices nationwide yesterday. Arizona became the first state where voters rejected a ban on same-sex marriage.

More Victories...
Rumsfeld Steps Down
Democrats win house
Democrats win senate (Barring any recount changes)
Bernie Sanders becomes first socialist elected to senate
First Muslim elected to congress
Nancy Pelosi first woman speaker of house
record breaking 67 openly gay people elected nationwide
Deval Patrick nation's second black governor
Massachusetts and New York elect first pro same-sex marriage governors
Arizona defeats gay marriage ban
Missouri supports stem cell research
South Dakota defeats abortion ban
Several towns in California decriminalized marijuana use, and nationwide ballot questions show voters support legalizing medicinal use and small amounts for personal use
Democrats win majority of governorships
Democrats control most state legislators
Ballot questions nationwide show disapproval of war in Iraq and call for withdrawl
Victory over viciously right-wing Santorum
Democrats win every major statewide office in Ohio hopefully preventing another vote stealing situation
1/3 of evangelicals voted democrat this time

Source: Queer Today: Historic LGBT Wins & More!

Technorati tags: LGBT, human rights, politics, news

Democrats win control of Senate - Politics - MSNBC.com

We the People of the United States of America have spoken...

WASHINGTON - Democrats wrested control of the Senate from Republicans Wednesday with an upset victory in Virginia, giving the party complete domination of Capitol Hill for the first time since 1994, as NBC News reported that Democrat Jim Webb was the apparent winner.

Webb’s apparent squeaker win over incumbent Sen. George Allen effectively gave Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, an astonishing turnabout at the hands of voters unhappy with Republican scandal and unabated violence in Iraq. Allen was the sixth Republican incumbent senator defeated in Tuesday’s elections.

Source: Democrats win control of Senate - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Democrats, elections, politics, news

Bush to Democrats: Let's do Lunch

Lunch? Ok. I'll make sure I bring enough money along to buy you a ton of drinks so you can spill your guts on how you're such a criminal, and you've killed thousands of innocent people for your own personal gain. One thing I will never do is pat you on the back while you suffer the consequences of your & your cronies own actions.

Bush to Democrats: Let's do lunch
After voters delivered a sharp rebuke of his leadership, Bush made conciliatory gestures toward top Democrats on Wednesday, pledging to work with them and inviting them to lunch.

Besides conflict over Iraq, Democrats promised new scrutiny of the Bush administration and a top-to-bottom cleaning of Congress, an institution that has been plagued by scandal and bitterness in recent years.

“We certainly have a mandate for making this place more honest, making it operate in a more civilized way,” Pelosi said Wednesday, on the morning after voters made all but certain she would become the House’s first “Madame Speaker” and hours after she and Bush pledged to work together.

Source: Democrats win control of Senate - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Bush, Democrats, Victory, Politics, News, Elections

The Blue Wave

Posted 11/08/2006 @ 12:47am
Tom Engelhardt

The wave -- and make no mistake, it's a global one -- has just crashed on our shores, soaking our imperial masters. It's a sight for sore eyes. As all of us look ahead, here are five "benchmark" questions to ask when considering the possibilities of the final two years of the Bush Administration's wrecking-ball regime:

Will Iraq Go Away? The political maneuvering in Washington and Baghdad over the chaos in Iraq was only awaiting election results to intensify. Desperate call-ups of more Reserves and National Guards will go out soon. Negotiations with Sunni rebels, coup rumors against the Maliki government, various plans from James Baker's Iraq Study Group and Congressional others will undoubtedly be swirling. Yesterday's plebiscite (and exit polls) held an Iraqi message. It can't simply be ignored. But nothing will matter, when it comes to changing the situation for the better in that country, without a genuine commitment to American withdrawal, which is not likely to be forthcoming from this President and his advisers anytime soon. So expect Iraq to remain a horrifying, bloody, devolving fixture of the final two years of the Bush Administration. It will not go away. Bush (and Rove) will surely try to enmesh Congressional Democrats in their disaster of a war. Imagine how bad it could be if -- with, potentially, years to go -- the argument over who "lost" Iraq has already begun.

Is an Attack on Iran on the Agenda? Despite all the alarums on the political Internet about a pre-election air assault on Iran, this was never in the cards. Even the hint of an attack on Iranian "nuclear facilities" (which would certainly turn into an attempt to "decapitate" the Iranian regime from the air) would send oil prices soaring. The Republicans were never going to run an election on oil selling at $120-$150 a barrel. This will be no less true of election year 2008. If Iran is to be a target, 2007 will be the year. So watch for the pressures to ratchet up on this one early next year. This is madness, of course. Such an attack would almost certainly throw the Middle East into utter chaos, send oil prices through the roof, possibly wreck the global economy, cause serious damage in Iran, not fell the Iranian government and put US troops in neighboring Iraq in perilous danger. Given the Administration's record, however, all this is practically an argument for launching such an attack. (And don't count on the military to stop it, either. They're unlikely to do so.) Failing empires have certainly been known to lash out. As neocon writer Robert Kagan put the matter recently in a Washington Post op-ed, "Indeed, the preferred European scenario [of a Democratic Congressional victory] -- 'Bush hobbled' -- is less likely than the alternative: 'Bush unbound.' Neither the president nor his vice president is running for office in 2008. That is what usually prevents high-stakes foreign policy moves in the last two years of a president's term." So when you think about Iran, think of Bush unbound.

Are the Democrats a Party? If Rovian plans for a Republican Party ensconced in Washington for eons to come now look to be in tatters, the Democrats have retaken the House (and possibly the Senate) largely as the not-GOP Party. The election may leave the Republicans with a dead presidency and leading candidate for 2008 Senator John McCain is wedded to possibly the least popular war in our history; the Democrats may arrive victorious but without the genuine desire for a mandate to lead. Unlike the Republicans, the Democrats in recent years were not, in any normal sense, a party at all. They were perhaps a coalition of four or five or six parties (some trailing hordes of pundits and consultants, but without a base). Now, with the recruitment of so many ex-Republicans and conservatives into their House and Senate ranks, they may be a coalition of six or seven parties. Who knows? They have a genuine mandate on Iraq and a mandate on oversight. What they will actually do -- what they are capable of doing (other than the normal money-, career- and earmark-trading in Washington) -- remains to be seen. They will be weak, the surroundings fierce and strong.

Will We Be Ruled by the Facts on the Ground? In certain ways, it may hardly matter what happens to which party. By now -- and this perhaps represents another kind of triumph for the Bush Administration -- the facts on the ground are so powerful that it would be hard for any party to know where to begin. Will we, for instance, ever be without a second Defense Department, the so-called Department of Homeland Security, now that a burgeoning $59 billion per year private "security" industry, with all its interests and its herd of lobbyists in Washington, has grown up around it? Not likely in any of our lifetimes. Will an ascendant Democratic Party dare put on a diet the ravenous Pentagon, which now feeds off two budgets -- its regular, near-half-trillion-dollar Defense budget and a regularized series of multibillion-dollar "emergency" supplemental appropriations, which are now part of life on the Hill? What this means is that the defense budget is not what we wage our wars with or pay for a variety of black operations (not to speak of earmarks galore) with. Don't bet your bottom dollar that this will get better anytime soon, either. In fact, I have my doubts that a Democratic Congress with a Democratic President in tow could even do something modestly small like shutting down Guantánamo, no less begin to deal with the empire of bases that undergirds our failing Outlaw Empire abroad. So, from time to time, take your eyes off what passes for politics and check out the facts on the ground. That way you'll have a better sense of where our world is actually heading.

What Will Happen When the Commander-in-Chief Presidency and the Unitary Executive Theory Meets What's Left of the Republic? The answer on this one is relatively uncomplicated and less than three months away from being in our faces; it's the Mother of All Constitutional Crises. But writing that now, and living with the reality then, are two quite different things. So when the new Congress arrives in January, buckle your seat belts and wait for the first requests for oversight information from some investigative committee; wait for the first subpoenas to meet Cheney's men in some dark hallway. Wait for this crew to feel the "shackles" and react. Wait for this to hit the courts -- even a Supreme Court that, despite the President's best efforts, is probably still at least one justice short when it comes to unitary-executive-theory supporters. I wouldn't even want to offer a prediction on this one. But a year down the line, anything is possible.

So we've finally had our plebiscite, however covert, on the failing Outlaw Empire of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. But what about their autocratic inclinations at home? How will that play out?

Will it be: All hail, Caesar, we who are about to dive back into prime-time programming?

Or will it be: All the political hail is about to pelt our junior caesars as we dive back into prime-time programming? Stay tuned.

For more on these matters, see "Outlaw Empire Meets the Wave" at Tomdispatch.com.

Source: The Blue Wave

Technorati tags: Iraq, politics, news, democrats

Dems Take 20 of 36 Governor's Races

Democrats took 20 of 36 governors' races to give them a majority of top state jobs -- 28 -- for the first time in a dozen years. New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland and Arkansas went into the Democratic column.

Source: Dems pin hopes on Senate victory in Va. - Boston.com

Technorati tags: politics, elections, news, democrats, dems, governors

Deval Patrick addresses issues as Governor-elect

I'm so happy...

Wednesday, November 8, 2006

A smiling Patrick address issues as Governor-elect

By Andrew Ryan, Globe Correspondent

Hours after his sweeping 21-point election victory, Democrat Deval Patrick answered his first questions today as governor-elect, promising to build a diverse administration with a focus on reviving the economy, improving schools and advocating for patient-centered health.

Patrick, speaking at a 30-minute press conference in Boston, said he would appoint a special inspector general for the Big Dig and voiced concern about a plan touted by Governor Mitt Romney to remove tolls on the Massachusetts Turnpike. The Turnpike Authority hadn't done enough "homework," Patrick said, to persuade him that removing the tolls west of Route 128 was economically feasible.

"I think anybody would want to remove the tolls on the Pike," Patrick said at the press conference at the Omni Parker House hotel in Boston. "But roads don't plow themselves, they don't repair themselves."

Earlier today Patrick met with Romney and had a "very productive conversation with the governor" who "assured us a smooth transition."

Patrick reiterated his support of same-sex marriage on the eve of a state Constitutional Convention in which legislators are scheduled to debate the issue. The incoming governor, however, did not answer a question about whether he would directly lobby lawmakers.

Patrick appeared today with his running mate, Lieutenant Governor-elect Tim Murray, who said he would make an announcement in the next several weeks about when he will step down as mayor of Worcester. Most of the questions, however, were for Patrick, who was elected last night as the state's first black chief executive by defeating Republican Kerry Healey.

"It's a profound thing to be witness to and a central part of this historic moment," Patrick said. "If people around the country are looking at Massachusetts and thinking about Massachusetts differently than they have in the past, then good for us."

When asked by a reporter, Patrick recalled that the first thing his wife, Diane, said to him this morning was, "Is it time to get up already."

"We are trying to savor the moment and focus on the hard work ... ahead," Patrick said.

He added: "We have to perform brilliantly on multiple fronts simultaneous if we are going to move Massachusetts forward."

Posted by the Boston Globe City & Region Desk at 12:38 PM

Source: Local News Updates - A smiling Patrick address issues as Governor-elect -The Boston Globe

Technorati tags: Deval Patrick, governor, Massachusetts, news, politics

Bush congratulates Democrats on midterms

He better kiss ass (not like it will help even one little bit), because he's next to lose his job...

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday congratulated Democrats on their takeover of the House and strong gains in the Senate and announced he had selected a new defense secretary to oversee the increasingly violent conflict in Iraq.

Bush, reaching into the administration of his father, said that former CIA Director Robert Gates would replace Donald M. Rumsfeld as defense secretary.

To the end, Bush defended Rumsfeld's troubled tenure, calling him "a patriot who served this country with honor and distinction."

Source: Bush congratulates Democrats on midterms - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: democrats, elections, voters, politics, news, opinion

Dems edge toward Senate control - Politics - MSNBC.com

WASHINGTON - Democrats won a cliffhanger race in Montana on Wednesday that took them to the brink of control of the Senate, with Virginia the race yet to be decided.

“It was a thumpin’,” President Bush told reporters at a White House news conference after Americans sick of scandal and weary of war brought down the Republican House majority and pushed Democrats to a possible takeover of the Senate as well.

Source: Dems edge toward Senate control - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: politics, news, elections

Bush says Rumsfeld stepping down - Politics - MSNBC.com

Hallejulah!!!!! The world is beginning to make sense again!!!!

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped down as defense secretary on Wednesday, one day after midterm elections in which opposition to the war in Iraq contributed to heavy Republican losses.

President Bush said he would nominate Robert Gates, a former CIA director, to replace Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. The three were expected to appear in the Oval Office at 3:30 p.m. ET, according to NBC News.

Source: Bush says Rumsfeld stepping down - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Donald Rumsfeld, Bush, politics, war, Iraq

The FIRST woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi!!!

November 08

Talking about House goes Democrat, Senate in balance

The FIRST woman Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi!!!!

I wonder if this lady can take care of the kids in her house? Most women, especially those of us who're Moms, know that if they aren't her kids and they act up, then you kick them out of your house. Yet, with your own kids you need to set examples, use tough love, etc. until your house is nice and tidy like you want it to be...

Quote

House goes Democrat, Senate in balance

Nov. 8: The Democrats seize control of the House of Representatives and are very close to winning the Senate. NBC's David Gregory has a roundup of the midterm election results.

Source: ::uncomfortably numb::

Technorati tags: ::uncomfortably numb::, blogs, news, politics, opinion, Nancy Pelosi

Voter intimidation in Va.? FBI probes

RICHMOND, Va. - The FBI said Tuesday that it is looking into complaints that callers tried to intimidate or confuse Virginia voters in the hard-fought race between GOP Sen. George Allen and Democratic challenger Jim Webb.

State Board of Elections Secretary Jean Jensen said her office had forwarded several reports to the FBI of voters receiving phone calls intended to discourage them from voting or directing them to the wrong polling place.

“If something is going on that worries and alarms voters enough that I’m contacted to look into it, I have a responsibility to do that,” Jensen said.

Source: Voter intimidation in Va.? FBI probes - Voting Problems - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: politics, elections, voter intimidation, election fraud

Deval Patrick elected governor in Massachusetts

THANK YOU GOD!!!!! Thank you to the openminded voters of our wonderful state of Massachusetts!!! Finally, we have back what has long been missing in our state, a Democratic Governor that cares about the people and not his pockets!

BOSTON - Deval Patrick was elected governor of Massachusetts on Tuesday (NBC is projecting Patrick the winner), restoring the Democratic Party to the Corner Office after a 16-year absence, and putting himself into the history books as the first black to win the state's highest office in its 218-year history.

Patrick defeated Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, the Republican nominee, as well as independent Christy Mihos and Grace Ross of the Green-Rainbow Party, based on a statistical analysis of the vote from voter interviews conducted for The Associated Press by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.

In addition to the state distinction, the victory made Patrick just the second African-American governor in the nation since Reconstruction. The first, L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, left office more than a decade ago, in 1995.

Source: Patrick elected governor in Massachusetts - Politics - MSNBC.com

Technorati tags: Deval Patrick, elections, voting, Massachusetts, politics, election

The Democratic Party

To find your polling place, click on your state. You'll be taken to a webpage set up by your state government that provides either a search function, or a list of local officials that you can contact for more information.

Source: The Democratic Party

Technorati tags: politics, polling places, voting, elections

AlterNet: Bush's Election-Eve Message: Lies and Nonsense

The Nov. 7 elections are shaping up as not just a choice between Republicans and Democrats, but a test of how gullible -- and how divorced from reality -- the American people have become.

Source: AlterNet: Bush's Election-Eve Message: Lies and Nonsense

Technorati tags: politics, Bush, republicans, news

AlterNet Voter Protection

• Protect Our Votes
  The mission of ProtectOurVotes.org is to highlight the most serious violations as soon as they are discovered and to place them immediately in context for journalists along with all available trusted documentation.
• The People Choose 2006
  The spot to go for election-related video, with more than 350 videos about contested races, from both the candidates and everyday people.
• American Blackout
  Powerful documentary by Ian Inaba which looks at the disenfranchisement of the Black vote in America and voting irregularities in the 2000 and 2004 national elections.
• Everything you wanted to know about Diebold Voting Machine Vulnerabilities
• Voting 2006: Have we Solved the Problems of 2004?
  A comprehensive PDF report from Common Cause, the Century Foundation and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
• VoterStory.org
  An easy-to-install widget for your website or blog that allows visitors to submit stories on their voting experiences, and to report problems, to one central location.
• VOTE411.org
  Provides a nationwide polling place locator, as well as general and state-specific information on absentee ballot rules, early voting provisions, ID requirements, voting machine types, tools for overseas citizens, contact information for election offices.

• Advancement Project
  Works to eliminate legal and structural barriers to voting for potential voters in minority and low income communities.
• People For the American Way
  Mobilizing thousands of volunteers at polling places in multiple states. Staffing 500 lawyers onElection Protection's toll-free Voters’ Hotline: 1-866-OUR-VOTE
• Voter Protection Immediate Response Network
  Saving democracy through Working Assets' text messaging network. Sign up!
• Video the Vote
  Stopping voter suppression by making video documentation and sharing the results. Got a video camera? Join up!
• Verified Voting Foundation
  A nonpartisan nonprofit organization championing reliable and publicly verifiable elections.
• Election Defense Alliance
  Seeks coordinate a national strategy for the election integrity movement, in order to regain public control of the voting process, and to ensure that voting is honest, transparent, and secure.

• Checklist for a Fair Election
  12 ways you can protect your own vote—and the fairness of the system.
• Election Protection Hotline
  People for the American Way's election protection website and hotline, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, staffed by 500 lawyers.
• Election Protection Strike Force
  Velvet Revolution's national election watch site with facts, hotlines and resources. Report voting Incidents here -- toll-free: 866-OUR-VOTE
• Rewards offered for proof of voter fraud
  Whistle blowers: Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being offered to people who have conclusive proof that an election has been rigged and results in a conviction. 1-866-VOTETIP
• Video the Vote
  Stopping voter suppression by making video documentation and sharing the results. Got a video camera? Join up!
• Voting problems? Let these lawyers know!
  Instructions for reporting any and all issues you might have with voting on Election Day.
• Photograph your vote
  It's legal in Texas -- and elsewhere -- to take a camera into the voting booth with you. Document your vote!
• Do-it-yourself Exit Polls
  This project seeks to verify the vote counts on election day by, first, conducting simple Election Verification Exit Polls, and second, having "inside" people jot down the machine summary-report totals for the top 4 races and 1 issue.

Source: AlterNet Voter Protection

Technorati tags: elections, voting, politics

State Election Ballot Sample

 

GENERAL ELECTION

William Francis Galvin
PITTSFIELD

Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Ward 6 Precinct A

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2006

Please Note: This is NOT a valid Ballot.

---

SENATOR IN CONGRESS

---

EDWARD M. KENNEDY    50 Marchant Ave., Barnstable
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

---

KENNETH G. CHASE    87 Pine St., Belmont
REPUBLICAN

---

GOVERNOR AND LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

---

HEALEY, GOV AND HILLMAN, LTG   
REPUBLICAN

---

PATRICK, GOV AND MURRAY, LTG   
DEMOCRAT

---

MIHOS, GOV AND SULLIVAN, LTG   
UNENROLLED

Independent

---

ROSS, GOV AND ROBINSON, LTG   
GREEN-RAINBOW

Green-Rainbow

---

ATTORNEY GENERAL

---

MARTHA COAKLEY    46 Coolidge Rd., Medford
DEMOCRAT

---

LARRY FRISOLI    67 Bright Rd., Belmont
REPUBLICAN

---

SECRETARY OF STATE

---

WILLIAM FRANCIS GALVIN    46 Lake St., Boston
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

---

JILL E. STEIN    17 Trotting Horse Dr., Lexington
GREEN-RAINBOW

Green-Rainbow

---

TREASURER

---

TIMOTHY P. CAHILL    51 Grenwold Rd., Quincy
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

---

JAMES O'KEEFE    25 Moore St., Somerville
GREEN-RAINBOW

Green-Rainbow

---

AUDITOR

---

A. JOSEPH DeNUCCI    119 Warwick Rd., Newton
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

---

RAND WILSON    30 Hall Ave., Somerville
UNENROLLED

Working Families

---

REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS
FIRST DISTRICT

---

JOHN W. OLVER    1333 West St., Amherst
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

---

WILLIAM H. SZYCH    15 Old Stage Rd., Hatfield
UNENROLLED

Unenrolled

---

COUNCILLOR
EIGHTH DISTRICT

---

MICHAEL FRANCO    7 Primrose Ln., Holyoke
REPUBLICAN

---

THOMAS T. MERRIGAN    23 Plum Tree Ln., Greenfield
DEMOCRAT

---

MICHAEL T. KOGUT    92 Magnolia Ter., Springfield
UNENROLLED

Independent

---

SENATOR IN GENERAL COURT
BERKSHIRE, HAMPSHIRE & FRANKLIN DISTRICT

---

BENJAMIN BRACKETT DOWNING    123 Pomeroy Ave., Pittsfield
DEMOCRAT

---

MATTHEW W. KINNAMAN    165 Mandalay Rd., Lee
REPUBLICAN

---

DION C. ROBBINS-ZUST    20 Reservoir Rd., Richmond
UNENROLLED

Green-Rainbow Party

---

REPRESENTATIVE IN GENERAL COURT
THIRD BERKSHIRE DISTRICT

---

CHRISTOPHER N. SPERANZO    18 Thomson Pl., Pittsfield
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

---

DISTRICT ATTORNEY
BERKSHIRE DISTRICT

---

DAVID F. CAPELESS    38 West Center Rd., West Stockbridge
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

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CLERK OF COURTS
BERKSHIRE COUNTY

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DEBORAH S. CAPELESS    260 Pittsfield Rd., Lenox
DEMOCRAT

Candidate for Re-election

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REGISTER OF DEEDS
BERKSHIRE MIDDLE DISTRICT

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ANDREA F. NUCIFORO, JR.    14 Waubeek Rd., Pittsfield
DEMOCRAT

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QUESTION 1: LAW PROPOSED BY INITIATIVE PETITION

Do you approve of a law summarized below, on which no vote was taken by the Senate or the House of Representatives before May 3, 2006?

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"This proposed law would al