IMPEACH NOW

July 16, 2007

Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy

Impeach Now

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.

Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of "executive orders" that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, "terrorist" events in the near future.

Many attentive people believe that the reason the Bush administration will not bow to expert advice and public opinion and begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq is that the administration intends to rescue its unpopular position with false flag operations that can be used to expand the war to Iran.

Too much is going wrong for the Bush administration: the failure of its Middle East wars, Republican senators jumping ship, Turkish troops massed on northern Iraq's border poised for an invasion to deal with Kurds, and a majority of Americans favoring the impeachment of Cheney and a near-majority favoring Bush's impeachment. The Bush administration desperately needs dramatic events to scare the American people and the Congress back in line with the militarist-police state that Bush and Cheney have fostered.

William Norman Grigg recently wrote that the GOP is "praying for a terrorist strike" to save the party from electoral wipeout in 2008.
Chertoff, Cheney, the neocon nazis, and Mossad would have no qualms about saving the bacon for the Republicans, who have enabled Bush to start two unjustified wars, with Iran waiting in the wings to be attacked in a third war.

The Bush administration has tried unsuccessfully to resurrect the terrorist fear factor by infiltrating some blowhard groups and encouraging them to talk about staging "terrorist" events. The talk, encouraged by federal agents, resulted in "terrorist" arrests hyped by the media, but even the captive media was unable to scare people with such transparent sting operations.

If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance.

A series of staged or permitted attacks would be spun by the captive media as a vindication of the neoconsevatives' Islamophobic policy, the intention of which is to destroy all Middle Eastern governments that are not American puppet states. Success would give the US control over oil, but the main purpose is to eliminate any resistance to Israel's complete absorption of Palestine into Greater Israel.

Think about it. If another 9/11-type "security failure" were not in the works, why would Homeland Security czar Chertoff go to the trouble of convincing the Chicago Tribune that Americans have become complacent about terrorist threats and that he has "a gut feeling" that America will soon be hit hard?

Why would Republican warmonger Rick Santorum say on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that "between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public's (sic) going to have a very different view of this war."

Throughout its existence the US government has staged incidents that the government then used in behalf of purposes that it could not otherwise have pursued. According to a number of writers, false flag operations have been routinely used by the Israeli state. During the Czarist era in Russia, the secret police would set off bombs in order to arrest those the secret police regarded as troublesome. Hitler was a dramatic orchestrator of false flag operations. False flag operations are a commonplace tool of governments.

Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?

Only a diehard minority believes in the honesty and integrity of the Bush-Cheney administration and in the truthfulness of the corporate media.

Hitler, who never achieved majority support in a German election, used the Reichstag fire to fan hysteria and push through the Enabling Act, which made him dictator. Determined tyrants never require majority support in order to overthrow constitutional orders.

The American constitutional system is near to being overthrown. Are coming "terrorist" events of which Chertoff warns and Santorum promises the means for overthrowing our constitutional democracy?

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts07162007.html

Voter cagng in PBS's NOW

PBS Now, great show with Greg Palast interviewed by David Brancaccio.
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/330/video.html

College Rethuglican chickenhawks

The Power of Nightmares

If you have not seen this, please find time to do so. We showed part of it awhile ago, at our home. Here is the rest.

Impeach!

I tried to add this direct from Youtube without success, so here it is now. Bill Moyers on Impeachment. It is very well done and I hope you get time to watch. IMHO, it is high time the Bush administration, all of them (Bush, Cheney, Rice) get what they deserve for stomping on our constitution.

Hold Miers and Taylor in inherent contempt, now!

Bush Orders Miers Not to Testify

LAURIE KELLMAN | July 11, 2007 11:03 PM EST |

Compare other versions »
WASHINGTON — President Bush ordered former counsel Harriet Miers to defy a congressional summons, even as a second former aide told a Senate panel Wednesday she knew of no involvement by Bush in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors. Contempt citations against both women were a possibility.

House Democrats threatened to cite Miers if she refused to appear as subpoenaed for a Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. The White House said she was immune from the subpoena and Bush had directed her not to appear, according to Miers' lawyer. Democrats said her immunity ended when she left her White House job.

Across the Capitol, meanwhile, former White House political director Sara Taylor found out what Miers may already have known: It's almost impossible to answer some committee questions but not others without breaching either the subpoena or Bush's claim of executive privilege.
------------------------------snip

Hold them in Inherent contempt, which means.......


Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation.)

-------------snip

It means they will be tried in the House or Senate, outside of the jurisdiction of the Justice Department, which likely would not try the case as they are Bush appointees. It is the only way it can be done. Now, do the Dems have the balls to do it? I certainly hope so.

Bush adminstration fails the troops again

Pentagon criticized for armor contracts
By RICHARD LARDNERandANNE FLAHERTYWed Jul 11, 7:10 PM ET
The Defense Department put U.S. troops in Iraq at risk by awarding contracts for badly needed armored vehicles to companies that failed to deliver them on time, according to a review by the Pentagon's inspector general.

The June 27 report, obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press, examined 15 contracts worth $2.2 billion awarded since 2000 to Force Protection Inc. and Armor Holdings Inc.

The contracts were issued without the normal competition for government work because the military determined these companies were the only ones capable of supplying the vehicles fast enough to meet the demands of deployed troops.

Yet the inspector general's report concluded otherwise.

Overall, Force Protection of Ladson, S.C., received 11 contracts from the Army and Marine Corps worth $417 million for a variety of vehicles, including its Buffalo and Cougar mine-resistant trucks.

Force Protection failed to meet all delivery schedules, according to the report, and acquisition officials knew there were other manufacturers that might have supplied some of the vehicles in a more timely fashion. The report does not provide the names of those possible alternative sources

pink bubbles for a wedding

pink bubbles
Originally uploaded by skystone461

It was a hot, steamy Sat. but, it was 07/07/07, an auspcious day for a wedding.
So, the "bubble girls" set out to impersonate flower girls for the wedding. All that was required were matching outfits, bubble guns, and moxy!
At the appointed hour, they moved out, shooting bubbles, and laughing.
Soon they arrived in their appointed location, followed by the remainder of the bridal party. It was a piece of cake!
The rain held off, but lurking in the San Antonio Botanic Gardens were lovely slippery areas of grass and mud, which they promptly got into and soon were splotched in mud, but they were still smiling. Their mission was accomplished!

Why we need national healthcare

As an RN with a husband who is a Respiratory Therapist, we support national health care. We have seen and will continue to see the heartbreaking problems that occur to those who have health insurance, that blocks access to care, and the results of what happens when access to care is denied to those without insurance. This is a middle class issue. It's not just about the poor. Can you afford to pay the deductibles should you have a major illness? Likely not. Please watch the movie, and then email your representatives, write a letter to the editor, do SOMETHING!

"SiCKO Brings to Life the RN's Everyday Experience"

-Michael Moore

Michael Moore’s latest film, “Sicko” brings to cinematic life and details in unsparing and vivid imagery the everyday experience of all nurses as they care and advocate for their patients in the confines of a health care industry that long ago abandoned its caring mission in favor of the pursuit of profit at any cost. Nurses experience first hand the pain and terror of every patient and their families as they are forced to confront a callous and uncaring health care industry when at their most frail and vulnerable, and the inevitable personal tragedies when they can't receive needed care due to escalating costs and the ‘care containment’ damage endemic to the industry’s medicine-by-spreadsheet credo. It is nurses, of course, who are there to bear witness to these horrendous moments every day of every shift in every hospital across the U.S., and who are often the last and best hope for these patients and families.

it's official, 40 days and 40 nights of rain

Now that we are so soggy, we need something to bring smiles to our faces.
Here it is:

Hold Cheney in "Inherent Contempt"

Inherent contempt

Under this process, the procedure for holding a person in contempt involves only the chamber concerned. Following a contempt citation, the person cited for contempt is arrested by the Sergeant-at-Arms for the House or Senate, brought to the floor of the chamber, held to answer charges by the presiding officer, and then subject to punishment that the House may dictate (usually imprisonment for punishment reasons, imprisonment for coercive effect, or release from the contempt citation.)

Statutory proceedings

Following a contempt citation, the presiding officer of the chamber is instructed to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia[2]; according to the law it is the "duty" of the U.S. Attorney to refer the matter to a grand jury for action.

The criminal offense of "contempt of Congress" sets the penalty at not less than one month nor more than twelve months in jail and a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $1,000. Those penalties are enforced upon conviction, even if the Congress which initiated the contempt citation has expired.

The statutory procedure has generally been used by Congress since 1935. While the law pronounces the "duty" of the U.S. Attorney is to impanel a grand jury for its action on the matter, dispute exists over whether the Congress can properly compel the U.S. Attorney to take this action, as the U.S. Attorney is a member of the Executive Branch who ultimately reports to the President. (The Courts have been reluctant to decide this question, claiming it is a "political question" for resolution by the elected branches of government.)


Go here and make your voice heard.


P.S. You can add your own message to the petition if you want to. Please look up "INHERENT CONTEMPT" and urge Congress to consider using it instead of Contempt of Congress.
Inherent Contempt is LEGAL, the SCOTUS has upheld it as a Judicial, Congressional right. It by-passes the US Attorney's office...aka...Alberto Gonzales.

Our anniversary was covered by independent news!

Obama Turning Passive Supporters into True Believers
This is Not 2004
By TOMBARI BONKOO
Takeaways
The buzz around Mr. Obama may not fade away as the media forecasted
Passive supporters turning into believers
Obama has won the first battle that ended Dean's campaign in 2004--Fear
The buzz around the candidacy of Senator Barack Obama for the presidency may not fade away anytime soon, as his passive supporters are now turning into believers. Yesterday, under the steamy heat of San Antonio Texas, a lady named Sally and her husband of 35 years celebrated their wedding anniversary by volunteering for Senator Obama's "San Antonio Kickoff" event.

The event which is estimated to have a whopping audience of over 1,000, dutifully stood under the humid heat just to hear from a presidential candidate that they so believe in.

They were not disappointed as Mr. Obama fired them up with his trademarked message of uniting, turning the page, bringing the government back to the people, ending the war in Iraq and ending the unwarranted divide in the country.

Sally and her husband participated fully in making sure the senator received a warm welcome. They are both members of a group called "Alamobama," a group in South Texas that are not staffed by the Obama campaign, but are coordinating the Obama movement in San Antonio.

Both Sally and her husband stood under the steamy heat directing cars to their respective parking areas. They were both pleased by the messianic message of Senator Obama. In the word of Sally, "We worked as volunteers at the event with AlamObama. It was our 35th wedding anniversary, but nevertheless, we decided that this event and our participation in it, was more important than a fancy dinner out, or anything else." She continued: "He gave us great hope for the future...we will continue to work for the campaign, hot weather or not. We need a man in office who sees hope."

Many pundits in Washington are saying that the buzz around Obama's candidacy may soon fade away, but throughout the country-from Washington to Texas, the buzz is even turning into multitude of believers, who may no longer be persuaded from supporting the man they see as their savior. It is not easy for a couple of 35 years to forfeit their wedding anniversary and stand under a humid heat for a presidential candidate. But that was the situation in San Antonio yesterday.

During Mr. Obama's speech at the United Church of Christ Synod in Hartford, after his message titled "God is still Speaking," he shows his sense of humanity by first thanking the sign language translator and acknowledges the deaf members in the audience-character that may not be seen by most of the politicians.

At yesterday kickoff event in San Antonio, Mr. Obama humanly congratulates Sally and her husband on their 35th anniversary. In the word of Sally, "He spent time talking to us and shaking hands. In the process, when I told him that we felt honored to spend our 35th wedding anniversary with him, he signed my shirt and congratulated us on our 35 years of marriage."

Yes, sometime politicians do whatever it takes to get the attention of voters, but Obama is not one of those mindless and robotic politicians that are familiar to us today. He is such a peculiar and decent politician that may end be the needed hope for America.

Sally and her husband were not alone, there were hundreds of others who attended the event that shares the same hope and comfort in the man they so love. Pollsters and members of the elites media compared his aura at this early stage of the campaign with that of Howard Dean, but they don't know that during the 2004 election, the Republicans were good at using patriotism as a weapon against anyone that question the war in Iraq-the media and the Democrats consciously or unconsciously bought into the plan-a strategy that ended Howard Dean's campaign.

In this year election, many voters are hungering for change. They want to be hopeful and not fearful as it was in 2004. This presidential election is about change-moving past self-complacency to inspired compassion.

Senator Obama in his speech to the hungering crowd, pledged to work side-by-side with the rest of the world on issues like poverty, economic development in Latin America, nuclear proliferation and the genocidal violence in Darfur.

He also spoke about the war in Iraq. Obama said, "There is one thing that we can still get right in the Iraq war-to bring our young brave men and women home. They have done every single thing that we asked of them, with bravery and valor, they should not have to beg when they come home to get the services they need."

The crowd went crazy-encoring their supports-by thunderous applauses. link

Barack Obama San Antonio Kickoff

That's my poster in the background (SA (heart) Obama).

Excerpt from Truthout

Despite these serious crimes, Libby will spend less time in prison than Paris Hilton, Martha Stewart and Susan MacDougal. The same Republicans who championed the impeachment of Bill Clinton now celebrate Libby's liberation from the consequences of the very same acts they accused Clinton of committing.

Beyond Bush's two-faced blather about potential pardons are details and possibilities of vast complexity.

By commuting the prison sentence, Bush left Libby's 5th Amendment rights intact. Thus, any Congressional committee or prosecutor wishing to call him to testify will have to immunize him from any potential legal repercussions arising from his testimony. If Bush chooses to fully pardon Libby, those 5th Amendment protections will go right out the window.

Libby has repeatedly stated his intention to go on with the appeals process so he can clear his name. If he does this and an appeal is granted, Patrick Fitzgerald will suddenly be back in business, because a granted appeal opens the way for a whole new trial. Libby, if granted this appeal, may well be tried and convicted all over again.

Appeals are commonly granted only if a mistake was made during the initial trial, a difficult standard to meet, which is why most appeals are not granted. Should Libby's team decide to base their appeal on the spurious claim that Patrick Fitzgerald was not properly authorized to prosecute the case to begin with, however, the playing field would be changed dramatically because Fitzgerald would no longer be in a position to retry the case. If the appeals court grants an appeal based on this argument, one would be forced to wonder if that court acted in collusion with the administration.

Hovering above all this is one all-encompassing question: did George W. Bush commit a dead-bang impeachable offense by commuting Libby's sentence?

A Texan's review of the movie "Sicko"

Sicko Spurs Audiences Into Action
By Josh Tyler: 2007-07-01 17:15:27

Long time readers of this site no doubt know that I live in Texas. As everyone knows there's no more conservative state in the Union than here. And I don't just live in Texas; I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. Dallas isn't some pocket of hippy-dippy behavior. This isn't Austin. Dallas is the sort of place where guys in cowboy hats still drive around in giant SUV's with "W" stickers on the back windshield, global warming and Iraq be damned. It's probably the only spot left in America where you stand a good chance of getting the crap kicked out of you for badmouthing the president.

So when I went to see Sicko for a second time this afternoon, I wasn't sure what to expect from the audience. I wasn't watching it downtown, where the city's few elitist liberals congregate and drink expensive lattes. I went to a random mall in the mid-cities, where folks were likely to be just folks. As I sat down, right behind me entered an obligatory, cowboy hat wearing redneck in his 50s. He announced his presence by shouting across the theater in a thick Texas drawl to his already seated wife "you owe me fer seein this!"

Sicko started; the stereotypical Texas guy sat down behind me and never stopped talking. He talked through the entire movie. and I listened. The first ten to twenty minutes of the film he spent badmouthing Moore to his wife and snorting in disgust whenever MM went into one of his trademark monologues. But as the movie wore on his protestations became quieter, less enthusiastic. Somewhere along the way, maybe at the half way point, right before my ears, Sicko changed this man's mind. By the forty-five minute mark, he, along with the rest of the audience were breaking into spontaneous applause. He stopped pooh-poohing the movie and started shouting out "hell yeah!" at the screen. It was as if the whole world had been flipped upside down. This is Texas, where people support the president and voting democratic is something only done by the terrorists. Michael Moore should be public enemy number one.

By the time the movie was over, public enemy number one had become George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and John F. Kennedy all rolled together. When the credits rolled the audience filed out and into the bathrooms. At the urinals, my redneck friend couldn't stop talking about the film, and I kept listening. He struck up a conversation with a random black man in his 40s standing next to him, and soon everyone was peeing and talking about just how fucked everything is.

I kept my distance, as we all finished and exited at the same time. Outside the restroom doors. the theater was in chaos. The entire Sicko audience had somehow formed an impromptu town hall meeting in front of the ladies room. I've never seen anything like it. This is Texas goddammit, not France or some liberal college campus. But here these people were, complete strangers from every walk of life talking excitedly about the movie. It was as if they simply couldn't go home without doing something drastic about what they'd just seen. My redneck compadre and his new friend found their wives at the center of the group, while I lingered in the background waiting for my spouse to emerge.

The talk gradually centered around a core of 10 or 12 strangers in a cluster while the rest of us stood around them listening intently to this thing that seemed to be happening out of nowhere. The black gentleman engaged by my redneck in the restroom shouted for everyone's attention. The conversation stopped instantly as all eyes in this group of 30 or 40 people were now on him. "If we just see this and do nothing about it," he said, "then what's the point? Something has to change." There was silence, then the redneck's wife started calling for email addresses. Suddenly everyone was scribbling down everyone else's email, promising to get together and do something. though no one seemed to know quite what. It was as if I'd just stepped into the world's most bizarre protest rally, except instead of hippies the group was comprised of men and women of every age, skin color, income, and walk of life coming together on something that had shaken them deeply, and to the co
In all my thirty years on this earth, I have never ever seen any movie have this kind of unifying effect on people. It was like I was standing there, at the birth of a new political movement. Even after 9/11, there was never a reaction like this, at least not in Texas. If Sicko truly has this sort of power, then Michael Moore has done something beyond amazing. If it can change people, affect people like this in the conservative hotbed of Texas, then Sicko isn't just a great movie, seeing it may be one of the most important things you do all year.

Progressivegrannie's comment.....You will laugh, cry and cheer. It's a great movie and not to be missed!

The Right Sharpens Knives for "Sicko"

By Jay Diamond
June 27, 2007


In this guest essay, radio personality Jay Diamond writes that Sean Hannity and other right-wing voices are trying to scare Americans with horror stories about "socialized medicine" while ignoring the valuable services performed by VA hospitals and Medicare:

Do a search on "Hannity 'Sicko'" or "Romney 'Sicko''' on any search engine and you will find an assortment of You Tube excerpts of Sean Hannity recycling talking points off the panicked presses of the Heritage Foundation, CEI, AEI, Manhattan Institute, etc., bearing dire warnings of the health care terror Michael Moore and other evil progressives are preparing to inflict on America.

But in all their truculent and fear-mongering invocations of the purported evils of "socialized medicine," there is curiously something that Romney, Hannity, and all the other American rightists consistently omit; and in that deliberate omission is an important lesson in the way America's hard right works their deceptions.

They never mention that there are more individuals right here in the United States who receive their health coverage on what you call "socialized medicine" than there are people in the entire country of France.

Add up all the people on Medicare and the Veterans Administration.

Hey Sean, Hey Mitt, Did you forget about those interesting little nuggets....Medicare and the VA ?

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/062707a.html#When:10:40AM

Go see Sicko this weekend at the Bijou at Crossroads

Think about it. We have maternal child death rates that rival a third world country. And for us older folks, we need to think about the fact that our longevity rates are the lowest for developed nations. Worse yet, if you have a long term illness or an acute illness, you may not be able to pay for the medical care and could end up losing everything. Why should a nation that can afford to spend BILLIONS of dollars a day in war, not spend money to ensure the health, safety and longevity of its citizens? Well, I guess because we are disposable to the 2% of our population that are rich. It's a feudal system. Stand up, be counted and notify your legislators that this will not stand!

This is exactly how I felt!

William Rivers Pitt put in words what I could barely articulate to my husband when I got home last Thursday. In fact, I can barely state my angst to this day. Our constitution has been dissed by Cheney and Bush AGAIN! This time, it's beyond belief, really. The same constitution that I swore to uphold and defend (with my life) as they did (only not with their lives, actually), was being put away, put down, thrown away, because Cheney, the evil Emperor, will not be questioned, at all, period, the end. It was astounding to me.

So thank you William Rivers Pitt for stating this so eloquently for me.

How Dick Cheney Broke My Mind By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t Columnist
Tuesday 26 June 2007
I was absolutely savaged by an unexpected emotional detonation on Thursday. Every rough emotion I am capable of experiencing - anger, fear, sorrow, rage, bitterness, despair, loathing, astonishment, woe, regret, horror, fury - erupted within me at the same time that day. I spent hours in the aftermath trying to type an accurate description of what had happened to me and why, but I failed. For the first time in a long, long while, I was completely unable to write.
What could have been powerful enough to huff and puff and blow my house down? What manner of mind bomb could hurl me so far off kilter that I was incapable of explaining it on paper?
It was, of course, Dick Cheney.
The news story that started it all was just another report on Dick being Dick, doing his Dick thing the way Dick always does. If they ever hold a contest to decide which politician has the most appropriate first name, you should bet the farm, the barn, the house, the cow, every crop, every truck, and throw in all your shoes besides, on Dick winning in a walk. Dick would win in such a dominant fashion that the NBA Finals would appear competitive by comparison.
It was Dick, and he got me on Thursday but good. You've probably heard the news story by now, and maybe you reacted to it like I did.
The National Archives is basically the federal filing cabinet where all governmental paper records are stored and organized. The Archives is an invaluable repository of our governmental history. These documents are publicly available, and are a giant treasure trove for historians, biographers or anyone who loves to feel a bit of history between their fingers.
So the Archives people had asked Cheney's office for his papers, because it was time to do so, because doing so is the law, because those papers are the property of the people. We pay for their printing and we pay for their storage, and the return on our investment can be found in the History/Biography/Politics section of any bookstore in America.
Dick turned the National Archives down flat, and this is what destroyed me on Thursday. Not only did he turn them down, his office wrote - actually wrote on paper in a letter to the Archives - their amazing explanation for refusing to hand over the papers. If you've not heard this, brace yourself.
Dick had the fire-breathing gall, the awe-inspiring temerity, the light-bending arrogance to put forth the argument - which was actually written down - that the office of The vice president of the United States is not actually part of the executive branch of the federal government, and is therefore not required to give any papers to anyone, ever.
Breathe. Breathe. It'll pass.
I could use a thousand words to describe what this thing did as it ripped through me. I tried all Thursday to do it, and failed time and again. I have finally fixed upon the one word that truly explains how I felt once the shock had passed.
I was offended.

Full article: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062607Q.shtml

Friends keep sending pictures

We are blessed to have so many friends who sent pictures taken on our anniversary. Thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate in style! Special thanks to Sen. Obama who made it a very special day.

To Senator Hutchison

Sen. Hutchison, you were quoted as saying the following with regard to Vice President Cheney's statement that he is not part of the Executive branch: "I don't think that the vice president, with all due respect to everyone, is saying that the law doesn't apply to him or that he's above the law," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas. "I think there are some legal interpretations. We have to look at those."
Now, you swore to uphold and defend the Constitution of the USA, as I did when I was in the military. When was the last time you re-read the Constitution?

The Vice President's office is indeed part of the executive branch. There is no quibbling, and no interpretation required. I suggest you correct yourself madam. Some of us remember what we learned in government classes.

This media ignored event, as Vice President Cheney declares that he is not a member of the Executive Branch, is a constitutional crisis. If Cheney is not a member of the executive branch, then what is he? A sovereign nation or Emperor?

To refresh my memory on the subject I read many resources, but this one is most telling, and it is from the White House website.

According to the President's own website, the members of the executive branch include:

"Executive Branch

http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/exec.html
The power of the executive branch is vested in the President, who also serves as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The President appoints the Cabinet and oversees the various agencies and departments of the federal government.

In order for a person to become President, he or she must be a natural-born citizen of the United States, be at least 35 years of age, and have resided in the United States for at least 14 years. Once elected, the President serves a term of four years and may be re-elected only once.

To learn more about the Executive Branch please visit the President's Cabinet page on the White House web site.

President's Cabinet
source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/cabinet.html
The tradition of the Cabinet dates back to the beginnings of the Presidency itself. One of the principal purposes of the Cabinet (drawn from Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution) is to advise the President on any subject he may require relating to the duties of their respective offices.

The Cabinet includes the Vice President and the heads of 15 executive departments-the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General. Under President George W. Bush, Cabinet-level rank also has been accorded to the Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency; Director, Office of Management and Budget; the Director, National Drug Control Policy; and the U.S. Trade Representative."

At what point do we plan to throw out our constitution, and allow Bush, Cheney, et al to take over our government? They swore to uphold and defend the constitution, but instead they shred it at every opportunity, to their benefit. This illegality must stop. Impeach!

Celebrating 35 years!!!

Celebrating 35 years!!!
Originally uploaded by jen romo aligatorgar

We were blessed that Sen. Obama met with all the volunteers after the event, and we got to meet him. For my husband and I, it was even a more momentous occasion when Sen. Obama signed the back of my shirt, when he noted that we were celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary with him today. My husband greatly appreciated the Senator's congratulations as well. We will always treasure our anniversary wishes from Sen. Obama. It just made a special day even more special.
although....a bit of a sweaty day....as you can see.

As one So. Texas bumper sticker we noted said, make tacos not war

So, here is the taco recipe:

• 16 flour tortillas


• 1 large can refried beans


• 1 cup or more shredded cheddar cheese


• 6 eggs


• 1/2 cup cooked, cubed potatoes


• 4 strips bacon, cooked


• salt and pepper


• Cholula or tabasco sauce or picante sauce

1. Heat a frying pan or griddle or comal


2. Place your tortilla, store bought or home made on the comal or pan, and heat over medium high heat until it puffs a little, but is still plyable, put in a tortilla warmer, or on a plate lined with a paper towel then cover with a lid


3. After heating all the tortillas.


4. Put the refried beans on to heat, in a saucepan


5. Scramble the eggs


6. Put oil in a pan (canola) and cook the cubed potatoes


7. Add the eggs and scramble them


8. Place small amount of egg/potato mixture in a tortilla and fold in half, wrap in foil and place in a slow cooker on low heat. Repeat until all the egg mixture is used up.


9. Now, take the refried beans and place a little in each tortilla, add shredded cheddar cheese, fold in half, wrap in foil and place in a slow cooker


10. Serving: potato/egg tortillas are served with cholula, picante or tobasco; home made picante sauce is the sauce of choice. Bean and cheese tacos are served directly from the crock pot.


11. This is efficient when making breakfast tacos for a large crowd, like our extended family of 15. We just fill the crock pot (slow cooker) and we can let it sit until everyone, including the teenagers, get out of bed. It helps to crumble a bit of foil in the bottom of the slow cooker, then put the tacos on top, so nothing gets too heated and the tacos don't get too tough.


12. So, make tacos, not war. Make tacos for the family, and sit down and read the Sunday paper.

South Texas Breakfast Tacos 2 Variations @ Group Recipes

From the Young Turks

I like them both, but combined? Could be great, but will Gore run at the last minute?
Basically, what I have learned since the Howard Dean campaign (which I worked on) is that the media and the corporations decide. We can work, campaign and even pray, but unless a miracle occurs, we will lose. To win, it will take a TON of commtted folks to get to the polls and vote. We must overwhelm the Rethuglican's machinery or we lose.

The propaganda I grew up with, not unlike today

Duck and Cover


You Can Beat the A-Bomb


One World or None


and then, watch the movie the US vs John Lennon, which we did last night and you can see more fully the propaganda we were subjected to, and why we RESISTED!

Rather, Nixon and Rove

See Rove working for Nixon's re-election campaign just before Watergate.

We need Arabic translators, so why do we fire them?

Oh wait, we fire them for being gay. How stupid. As a person who has served in the military, with gay people, I might add, I see no problem in letting everyone serve that wants to serve. I personally have showered in "gang showers" those big open shower rooms, with gay people, and all we did was shower for crying out loud. You are hot, sweaty and tired and a shower is the biggest deal when you have been the field for a long time. That, and flush toilets. Gay or not, who cares?

Randi Rhodes and Greg Palast on the vultures

More on voter caging from Palast and BBC

We need to be aware and make this stop!

Palast's email today noted the following:
The Tears of a Clone
Conyers Closes in on Karl and his Rove-bots ...

By Greg Palast | June 18, 2007
Special to BRAD BLOG

Boo-hoo! I made Tim Griffin cry.

He cried. Then he lied.

You remember Tim. Karl Rove's right hand (right claw?) man. The GOP's ragin' cagin' man.

Griffin is the Rove-bot exposed by our BBC Newsnight investigations team as the man who gathered and sent out the infamous 'caging' lists to Republican state chairmen during the 2004 election.

Caging lists, BBC discovered, were used secretly as a basis to challenge the right to vote of thousands of citizens - including the homeless, students and soldiers sent overseas. The day after BBC broadcast that the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, John Conyers, sought our evidence on Griffin, Tim resigned his post as US Attorney for Arkansas. That job was a little gift from Karl Rove who made room for his man Griffin by demanding the firing of US prosecutor Bud Cummins.

Last week, our cameras captured Griffin, all teary-eyed, in his humiliating kiss-off speech delivered in Little Rock at the University of Arkansas where he moaned that, "public service isn't worth it."

True. In the old Jim Crow days in Arkansas, you could get yourself elected by blocking African-Americans. (The voters his caging game targeted are - quelle surprise! - disproportionately Black citizens.)

But today, Griffin can't even get an unemployment check. When he resigned two weeks ago following our broadcast, the cover story was that the voter persecutor-turned-prosecutor had resigned to work for Presidential wannabe Fred Thompson. But when Thompson's staff was asked by a reporter why they would hire the 'cagin' man,' suddenly, the 'Law and Order' star decided associating with Griffin might take the shine off Thompson's badge, even if it is from the props department.

For more, go to Brad Blog

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps

From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all

Tuesday April 24, 2007
The Guardian


Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down: the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel, and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy - but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.
As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree - domestically - as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government - the task of being aware of the constitution has been outsourced from citizens' ownership to being the domain of professionals such as lawyers and professors - we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security - remember who else was keen on the word "homeland" - didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable - as the author and political journalist Joe Conason, has put it, that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realise.
complete article

-------------
I have been saying this for months and months. We need to understand the roots of fascism and realize it is here, now.

A cooking blog from Iraq

It is fascinating. This link is to a section regarding 10th century cooking rules, amazing how we still follow many of these rules.
http://www.iraqicookbook.com/contents/intro/tidbits.html

Free Genarlow Wilson

Free Genarlow Wilson. Sign the petition, write the Georgia state legislature, do something. Teens will have sex, we know that. Imprisoning them or calling them sex offenders is just ridiculous. The racists in Georgia (as I well remember from my experience of living in Georgia) should not prevail. Genarlo deserves to be free.

http://www.wilsonappeal.com/index.php#whatcanyoudo

legislation for veterans healthcare

A step in the right directon. If only the troops could be covered for traumatic brain injury treatment at some of our nations large civilian head injury center. Guess they did not consider that to be important, but all in all, this should be a vast improvement.

snip---

Legislation to ensure quality care for wounded troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan was unveiled in the Senate Thursday, winning instant praise from veterans organizations.


"The days of not paying attention to our service members are over," declared Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a leading force behind the legislation for the Senate Democratic leadership.


The bipartisan legislation, called the Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act, follows reports of deplorable housing for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.


But similar conditions and bureaucratic red tape interfering with the treatment of troops injured on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan were found at facilities around the country.


The legislation requires a comprehensive policy on the care of veterans as they move from active military duty into Department of Veterans Affairs facilities, including adoption of the VA standards for assigning disability levels.

WORK for peace

Stop the war now.

Orwell Rolls in His Grave, part 2

Orwell Rolls In His Grave: Doc. On Corporate Media In U.S. part2

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Support independent films, buy the DVD of this movie here

Enchiladas Suizas

• 2 cups or so shredded chicken


• Green salsa, like Herdez or Goya (salsa verde) to taste


• corn tortillas, about 8-10


• 2 cups white sauce


• cheese, either Monterrey Jack or a combination of Monterrey Jack and manchego


• Canola oil

1. Heat canola oil in frying pan.


2. When hot, dip tortillas in one by one, until limp and almost puffy


3. Drain.


4. Make white sauce.


5. Add salsa verde to taste, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup.


6. Spray 9 x 13 pan with Pam.


7. Lay one tortilla in the pan, fill with shredded chicken, a little cheese, roll as for enchiladas.


8. Continue until the pan is full.


9. Cover with the mixture of white sauce and salsa verde.


10. Cover top with cheese.


11. Bake at 350 for 30 to 45 minutes until bubbly.


12. Hint: Here in Texas our HEB grocery store stocks shredded chicken, and it works quite well and saves a lot of time. Otherwise, just shred a whole rotisserie chicken from your store.

Enchiladas Suizas @ Group Recipes

Imagine How the Media Would Cover the Divorced Rich Republican Presidential Candidates, If They Were Democrats

This article was sent to me by a friend, and it's oh so appropriate. The media calls Edwards the "$400 dollar haircut boy," and they have worse to say about Clinton and Obama. Of course the voter caging, outed by the great sleuth Greg Palast, will never see the news, but if there is a democrat to bash, the "liberal" media will have a field day. I am sick of it. There is no real news, just propaganda. Like the so-called terror plot over the weekend. Baloney! It was a way to misdirect the attention of the sheeple, and believe me, it will only get worse the closer we get to the election. Why, we might have the terror level raised to Ernie. Even now we still remain at Bert.

Enjoy reading another article from Media Matters; the link to the complete article will be at the bottom of this post.

By Jamison Foser, Media Matters for America
Posted on June 4, 2007, Printed on June 4, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/52958/

Imagine how the media would react if a multimillionaire, East Coast, big-city, thrice-married presidential candidate who was a progressive Democrat said his most recent music purchase was opera, his favorite fitness activity, golf, and added that he doesn't drive -- he navigates.

Or if a progressive Democratic candidate who had launched his political career by marrying into a wealthy and politically connected family, and then promptly ran for Congress, revealed that he has pet turtles named "Cuff" and "Link."

Or if a progressive Democratic candidate who was the son of a governor, who has a net worth of around $200 million, whose own campaign staff was concerned he is seen as not tough enough and that his hair looks too perfect ... imagine if such a candidate said that if he weren't running for office, he'd probably be chief executive of an auto company and that his staff boasted that the difference between him and the president is "intelligence."

The media would have an absolute field day, yammering endlessly about how the candidate is too "soft" and is an elitist, an arrogant know-it-all with a misguided sense of entitlement who is hopelessly out of touch with the rugged regular-folk who live in Michigan and enjoy NASCAR and country music and drive pickups. There would be a real danger of Chris Matthews literally exploding on live television, unable to contain his incredulity that such a clueless candidate could possibly think a Pennsylvania steelworker would care what he has to say. (Then, with the Klieg lights turned off, Matthews would head off to one of the glitzy balls that he frequents, maintaining his place on Washington Life's "Social List" -- or perhaps he'd take a quick trip to relax by the pool of his vacation home nestled among the dunes of Nantucket. Railing against cultural elites on behalf of the Working Man is tiring, after all.)

But when the three leading (for now) Republican presidential candidates reveal their fondness for opera (Giuliani), have their pets named after fashion accessories (McCain), and boast that if they weren't running for president, they'd probably be running an auto company (Romney), it passes without notice.
link

Senator Palpatine and Darth Vader

Bush has issued a directive that would place all governmental powers in his hands in the case of a catastrophic emergency. If a terrorist attack happens before the 2008 election, could Bush and Cheney use this to avoid relinquishing power to a successor administration?

As my daughter says, Does this mean that Bush will be like Senator Palpatine and Cheney like Darth Vader, in the movie Star Wars episode 3? Could be. link

When are we going to get out of here?

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather? ......

Then Lieberman walked in, wearing a pair of sunglasses newly purchased from an Iraqi market that the military had taken him to in southeast Baghdad. He'd been equipped with a helmet and flak vest when he toured the market, which he described as bustling.

Earlier, Lieberman had met briefly with Iraqi soldiers and Iraqi police at a Joint Security Station; there are 31 throughout the city now. The senator, who's steadfastly supported the Iraq war along with the current surge of more than 28,000 additional American troops, said things were better.

"I think it's important we don't lose our will," he said. "To pull out would be a disaster."

The soldiers smiled and greeted him, stood with him for pictures and sat down to a lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches. It was unclear if they ever asked their questions.

As Lieberman walked out, he said that congressionally mandated withdrawal would be a "victory for al-Qaida and a victory for Iran."

"They're not Pollyannaish about this," he said referring to the young soldiers he ate lunch with. "They know it's not going to be solved in a day or a month."

It isn't clear whether Williams mentioned the last line on his note card, the one that had a star next to it.

"We don't feel like we're making any progress," it said.


McClatchy papers link

Mass funerals for soldiers at Ft. Lewis

This is tragic, and why in the world would they consolidate funerals? If it was my family member, I be really pissed that I could not have a private funeral.

---snip----

Too many Iraq deaths, so Fort Lewis consolidates memorial services


Associated Press - May 30, 2007 1:35 PM ET

FORT LEWIS, Wash. (AP) - So many Fort Lewis soldiers are being killed in Iraq the Army base will no longer hold individual memorial services.

Starting next month Fort Lewis says it will hold one memorial a month for all the dead soldiers.

Nineteen Fort Lewis soldiers have been killed this month -- the most of the war, so far.

The Fort Lewis acting commander, Brigadier General William Troy, told staff last week that the number of soldiers in harm's way will preclude individual services.

About 10,000 Fort Lewis troops, including two Stryker brigades, are now in Iraq, the most since the 2003 invasion.

Some other Army posts have already consolidated services.

A memorial service planned for tomorrow for one soldier will go on as scheduled at Fort Lewis, and the first consolidated service for four soldiers will be held on June fifth.

A total of 127 Fort Lewis soldiers have died in overseas deployments since Nine Eleven.

An article about Cindy Sheehan's farewell

Second weekend in Crawford Aug. 2005 {apologies, I can't find the photos from the week before with the Veterans for Peace bus, and the survivor of Hiroshima. If I find them I will add them.

I will always thank Cindy for being active and getting the peace movement noticed. I had found it so disheartening to march with 12 people or less in various spots in Texas, without media coverage, and with people yelling rude things, like "traitor" to us. Why peace is so frightening I will never understand. So it was with great pleasure that I drove to Crawford that first day when Cindy brought her lawn chair to sit outside Georgies ranchette. I will miss her, but I think some breathing and healing room will be excellent for her.



This was a nice article about Cindy's work.....

Cindy Sheehan's Farewell
by JOHN NICHOLS

[from the June 18, 2007 Nation Magazine issue]

Cindy Sheehan never set out to be the face of the antiwar movement. She was a mom thrust by an ugly circumstance and a lovely faith to the forefront of a movement that was struggling to find its voice. She gave it that voice as an honest player who spoke her mind--sometimes intemperately, often imperfectly, always sincerely--and backed up her words with actions. Her unscripted activism allowed her to succeed where others had failed in touching hearts and calling the disengaged, the disenchanted and the downright angry to believe once more in the prospect that citizens can make real the promise of the American experiment.
full article

Thoughts on Memorial Day

I remember my Dad, my Uncles, my sister, and all the others who have given their lives in service to our nation. Some wars justified, some not. Vietnam killed my sister psychologically, she never got over it.

So, here is what we need to do. March, write, work for peace. Get on the peace train.

ViDEO: Greg Palast Finds 'Lost E-Mails' Revealing Karl Rove and New US Attorney Griffin Integrally Involved

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4551
Says New Information Exposes Criminal Intent Behind US Attorney Scandal...

It was all about vote caging in order to win the 2008 elections. Iglesias even notes that he was asked to arrest voters for voter fraud in the last election, and was told he could just let them go later. The publicity of voters arrested for voter fraud was what the ReThugs wanted.

Believe it? I don't Bush lies and I am not afraid

"Buying the War," Part II - Now It's Iran
By Will Bunch
The New York Daily News

Monday 21 May 2007

You would think that after after all the official and unofficial lies that came out of the Washington spin machine during the 2002-03 run-up to the war in Iraq, newspapers would be a little more skeptical about similarly unsupported, high-level but anonymous and bellicose allegations about Iran (or anyone else).

And you would doubly think that about a newspaper that, day in and day out, is one of the best in the world: Britain's Guardian.

You'd think...but you would be wrong:

Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces," a senior US official in Baghdad warned. "They [Iran] are behind a lot of high-profile attacks meant to undermine US will and British will, such as the rocket attacks on Basra palace and the Green Zone [in Baghdad]. The attacks are directed by the Revolutionary Guard who are connected right to the top [of the Iranian government]."

The story does have another source - another anonymous U.S. official, but in Washington:

"Tehran is behaving like a racecourse gambler. They're betting on all the horses in the race, even on people they fundamentally don't trust," a senior administration official in Washington said. "They don't know what the outcome will be in Iraq. So they're hedging their bets."
Boo! Scared yet?

Look, I think that reporting of the Iraq crisis should be as aggressive as possible, and that obviously includes talking to American officials in Washington and in Baghdad. And, the situation in the region has become quite volatile since our decision to invade it, and no doubt Iran is a player, but...

I can also tell you as a journalist with 26 years of experience behind me that this story is the biggest load of crap - and that's not a phrase I would use loosely - I've ever seen in my life. Two unnamed government officials as sources, and a perfunctary denial from an Iranian officials in the last paragraph - and that's it?

This is a stunning allegation - so stunning because it really makes no sense. Iran's government does have close ties with some of Iraq's Shiite leaders that we also seem to be propping up these days, but it is the bitter enemy of the Sunni forces that these unnamed Bush spinmeisters now claim they are also supporting. If such a bizarre reversal had taken place, and I were to write a story about it, I would be sure to talk to outside experts on the region and to non-U.S. government sources - and quite them by name - to prove such an unlikely premise was in fact true.

That did not happen. And in fact, the story is so "out there" that it would be best ignored - except that you can't ignore it. For one thing, it's highlighted on the Drudge Report, and since Matt Drudge rules the world of Beltway media, it's going to become part of the public discourse. Also, in spite of its lack of even truthiness, let alone truth, it does prove - just like the top-selling "Christian book" calling for an American jihad against Tehran - the lengths that some of our leaders are still willing to go in formenting Armageddon.

But the fact that one of the world's better newspapers was willing to play along - or that my own colleagues in the mainstream media seem to never learn - is the saddest development of all. Didn't anyone watch "Buying the War"?

Iglesias speaks out

Iglesias says a whole lot in these few sentences. If only the TV put on all the real nformation instead of celebrity crap!
Here it is from truthout:


Loyalty is a virtue with limits. That was one of the many hard lessons from Watergate. In that scandal, some of President Nixon's staffers carried their loyalty to the president all the way to federal prison.

All federal prosecutors take a public oath when they assume office. I personally swore in about 30 new federal prosecutors during my tenure as U.S. attorney for New Mexico. The oath is to the U.S. Constitution, not to the president or his Cabinet.

Somehow Goodling did not understand this keystone concept. She appears to have placed her loyalty to the Bush administration and the Republican Party above any allegiance to the Constitution - which may have led her to believe that Bush acolytes would make the best federal prosecutors. Paradoxically, she knew enough of the Constitution to claim the protections afforded by the 5th Amendment - the right against self-incrimination.

I trust she now understands what is at stake in the U.S. attorney scandal: the rule of law, the independence of the prosecutor and the apolitical calculus of who should be prosecuted. Now, her immunity deal secured, she needs to seek redemption by clearly testifying about how my colleagues and I came to be placed on the to-fire list. It will demand moral courage, but she must name the political operatives regardless of where they sit in the West Wing of the White House. She needs, in the words of Isaiah the prophet, to "maintain justice and do what is right."

And what of the embattled attorney general? Will Gonzales stay on to be the only Cabinet officer to receive a no-confidence vote? I once said that I found Gonzales to be a personal inspiration. No one can deny him his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.

Will he "cowboy up," as we say in New Mexico - that is, find the courage to do the right thing? Or will he make the Senate go right up to the precipice of a no-confidence vote?

The new Monica

Oh. My. God. Did You Hear Monica Goodling's Voice?

She's a Valley Girl; who could
Have forseen a
Thing like this? Gag me with
A subpoena.

Tell Dems get a spine and stop Iraq funding

Grieving Moms vs. Washington Pols
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/052207.html#When:01:15PM

By Robert Parry
May 22, 2007

Every other month, Gold Star mother Teresa Arciola drives from her home in Westchester County, New York, to Arlington Cemetery in Virginia, sits on her son’s grave and reads aloud from “Corduroy,” his favorite baby book. Another mother spent winter afternoons in a sleeping bag stretched across her son’s final resting place.

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The unspeakable suffering of these parents of dead soldiers stands in marked contrast to the maneuvering over the Iraq War now underway across the river in Washington. There, George W. Bush appears quietly planning another escalation of the Iraq War – possibly doubling U.S. combat troops by Christmas – and many members of Congress are frightened of the political repercussions if they stand up to him.

A possible compromise could come from a bill passed by the Democratic-controlled House granting Bush only two months of the additional war spending that he wants, rather than the full amount through the end of September.

At least requiring a second vote sometime in the summer might force serious thinking about alternatives to continuing the war indefinitely and creating many more fresh graves at Arlington Cemetery.

But Senate Democrats – faced with a near-solid phalanx of Republicans standing behind the President – appear eager to run up the white flag, give Bush pretty much whatever he wants, and break for the Memorial Day recess.

The Democrats didn’t help themselves when they started their “negotiations” with the White House by announcing that they would eventually give Bush a bill that was acceptable to him. That’s a bit like going into a car dealership, declaring that you intend to pay the full sticker price and then trying to bargain.

Knowing that the Democrats planned to fold – to avoid accusations that they weren't supporting the troops – Bush could confidently veto the first war spending bill, which had timelines for withdrawing U.S. combat forces, and threaten to veto any other bill that sought to limit his options.

Bush also has pleased some Democrats by dangling suggestions that he is taking a second look at the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s recommendations from last December. The ISG, which was headed by Bush family lawyer James Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, urged a drawdown in U.S. troops, a focus on training Iraqis and more regional diplomacy.

Annoyed at the implied criticism of his work as “war president,” Bush shelved the report and declared that U.S. troops would “stay in Iraq to get the job done.” He added, “This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”

Bush chose a different course. On Jan. 10, he announced a “surge” in U.S. forces, raising troop levels to 160,000 from 140,000. Since then, the administration appears to be inching the numbers even higher while hoping that the creeping escalation doesn’t get much attention.

Second Surge?

But the Hearst newspapers disclosed on May 22 that “the Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year,” to 98,000 from 52,500, boosting the total U.S. military presence to 200,000, according to an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders.

“The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there,” the Hearst newspapers wrote.

With this quiet escalation on the one hand and hints about an ISG-like Plan B on the other, the Bush administration appears to be playing a double game with the goal of securing about $100 billion more in war spending before Congress catches on to the expanded combat plans.

Helping to lull Official Washington into a pre-Memorial Day daydream, administration officials briefed pro-war Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on more peaceful plans for the “post-surge” period.

“The post-surge policy would, in many ways, track the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report, which senior administration officials say the President now supports,” Ignatius wrote. [Washington Post, May 22, 2007]

This notion of Bush finally entertaining the ISG recommendations is music to the ears of hopeful Democrats, such as Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman. They seem content with having sent Bush a message about Iraq rather than forcing him to accept an exit strategy.

In the House, however, other Democrats, such as Rep. John Murtha and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have resisted pressure to simply cave in to Bush. They favor, at minimum, putting some strings on the spending bill or keeping its time frame short so Congress would get a second shot at assessing the situation in July or August.

Since the Democrats have set the upcoming Memorial Day recess as the deadline for getting Bush a spending bill that he will sign, the odds favor an impending capitulation rather than an extended impasse. But the Democrats have to worry that they may discover, as they head back home, that Bush is set on escalating the war and that they've been hoodwinked again.

There are some certainties, however, If the Democrats do run up the white flag: Bush and his advisers will enjoy one more high-fiving celebration at the White House; the anti-war Democratic base will be furious; and more mothers can expect to be spending time at Arlington Cemetery.

[For more on the new graves and new grief at Arlington Cemetery, see the Washington Post, May 20, 2007.]

It is all about the OIL stupid!

√Pentagon Making Preparations To Keep Tens Of Thousands Of Troops In Iraq For ‘Decades’
In testimony before the Senate Appropriations Committee this month, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace uttered a “carefully worded” statement revealing that the Pentagon had no plans to fully withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq if legislation passes Congress mandating troop redeployment:

PACE: Sir, we have published no orders directing the planning for the overall withdrawal of forces. We do have ongoing replacements of forces, and we do change the size of the force over time so that that system is available to either plus-up or draw down, but we have published no orders saying come up with a complete plan for total drawdown.

NPR investigated Pace’s statements and found one scenario being considered within the Pentagon would maintain a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq for several decades into the future.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/21/iraq-decades/

Bush gets testy with reporters

Link
All I can do is groan. This is our President? holy cow.

The true meaning of Mother's Day

Mother's Day History
From Jone Johnson Lewis,
Your Guide to Women's History.
FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870
by Julia Ward Howe
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup

As a Nebraskan, who grew up in tornado alley, I know how much we depended upon our National Guard troops. Now these poor folks in Kansas, can't depend on the National Guard. I feel so sorry for the folks in Greensburg, what a trauma to lose an entire town. When Xenia, Ohio was wiped off the face of the map several years ago, they had all the help they needed. Sadly, the folks in Greensburg won't get the help they need. At least the Red Cross showed up, so they can have food and water. Just think, no tents, no nothing. How horrible.


Iraq War Hampers Kansas Cleanup

GREENSBURG, Kan. (AP) -- The rebuilding effort in tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, likely will be hampered because some much-needed equipment is in Iraq, said that state’s governor.
Governor Kathleen Sebelius said much of the National Guard equipment usually positioned around the state to respond to emergencies is gone. She said not having immediate access to things like tents, trucks and semitrailers will really handicap the rebuilding effort.

The Greensburg administrator estimated that 95 percent of the town of 1500 was destroyed by Friday's tornado.

The Kansas National Guard has about 40 percent of the equipment it is allotted because much of it has been sent to Iraq.

Wal-Mart labels Boerne nuns a security threat

Believe it or not, our nuns are a "security threat" to Wal-Mart. Ridiculous. Their work for social justice should be applauded by all of us.

Wal-Mart labels Boerne nuns a security threat

Web Posted: 05/05/2007 01:41 AM CDT

Nydia Lopez
KENS 5 Eyewitness News
It's a David versus Goliath battle heating up in the Hill Country — a group of nuns from Boerne is taking a stand against Wal-Mart.

The corporate giant reportedly labeled the nuns a security threat after they raised questions about Wal-Mart's business practices.

Sister Susan Mika is part of the Benedectine Sisters, which is part of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. The center has been questioning Wal-Mart's business practices for years.

"We've been raising questions with them for about 17 years, so it's not like they don't know it," Sister Mika said.

Now, the sisters find themselves on Wal-Mart's security threat list. Sister Mika said the group has been wrongly labeled.

"In no way have we ever been a threat to the company in that sense. We might be a threat in the kind of question that we're asking, but not a security threat," Sister Mika said.

The sisters have raised questions on wages, human rights, health care and the pay disparity between CEOs and workers. They believe that's why Wal-Mart has launched a surveillance operation on the small church group.

"We wanted to find out more about what was actually happening, and did they do any surveillance on us, either personally or as a community, and to let us know what that would be, and to apologize to us," Sister Mika said.

Calls from KENS 5 to a Wal-Mart spokesperson went unreturned.

The nuns say they want an apology and will continue to raise concerns and issues until someone launches an investigation into thousands of allegations against Wal-Mart.

fascist America

I have been saying this for years, and this eloquent article lays out the facts beautifully.

Fascist America, in 10 Easy Steps
By Naomi Wolf, Chelsea Green Publishing
Posted on April 28, 2007, Printed on April 28, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/51150/

Editor's note: This is adapted from Wolf's forthcoming book "The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot."

Last autumn, there was a military coup in Thailand. The leaders of the coup took a number of steps, rather systematically, as if they had a shopping list. In a sense, they did. Within a matter of days, democracy had been closed down -- the coup leaders declared martial law, sent armed soldiers into residential areas, took over radio and TV stations, issued restrictions on the press, tightened some limits on travel and took certain activists into custody.

They were not figuring these things out as they went along. If you look at history, you can see that there is essentially a blueprint for turning an open society into a dictatorship. That blueprint has been used again and again in more and less bloody, more and less terrifying ways. But it is always effective. It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy, but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps.

As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated in the United States by the Bush administration.

Because Americans like me were born in freedom, we have a hard time even considering that it is possible for us to become as unfree, domestically, as many other nations. Because we no longer learn much about our rights or our system of government -- the task of being aware of the Constitution has been outsourced from citizens to professionals such as lawyers and professors -- we scarcely recognise the checks and balances that the founders put in place, even as they are being systematically dismantled. Because we don't learn much about European history, the setting up of a department of "homeland" security -- remember who else was keen on the word "homeland"? -- didn't raise the alarm bells it might have.

It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration are using time-tested tactics to close down an open society. It is time for us to be willing to think the unthinkable -- as the author and political journalist Joe Conason has put it -- that it can happen here. And that we are further along than we realize.

Conason eloquently warned of the danger of American authoritarianism. I am arguing that we need also to look at the lessons of Euro

A horrible case of "CRS"

Gonzalez' has "Can't remember shit disease." That is CRS.

As noted in this article:
Will Durst: The Curious Case Of The Amnesiac Attorney General
I'm afraid it is my duty to impart some bad news, and I advise you all to sit down before you fall down. The Attorney General of the United States apparently is suffering from a horrible disease. Best case scenario is we're talking a tertiary case of situational amnesia. For a lawyer, that can't be good. In his recent appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Alberto Gonzales was unable to recall anything...45 times, and that was before lunch. Maybe it's simply a case of hypoglycemia, since after lunch, he only couldn't recollect 29 times. I don't mean to minimize the critical nature of this crisis but the solution seems obvious to me: between meal snacks...
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/durst/048

Culture of Fear: Poetry Professor Becomes Terror Suspect

On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white Beetle, carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.
A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car, which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks. I later discovered that I, in my dark skin, am sometimes not even a person to the people who look at me. Instead, in spite of my peacefulness, my committed opposition to all aggression and war, I am a threat by my very existence, a threat just living in the world as a Muslim body.

Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white Beetle with out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has NY plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don't have the heart to take off these days, says, "Kerry/Edwards: For a Stronger America."...

One of my colleagues was in the gathering crowd, trying to figure out what had happened. She heard my description -- a Middle Eastern man driving a white Beetle with out of state plates -- and knew immediately they were talking about me and realized that the box must have been manuscripts I was discarding. She approached them and told them I was a professor on the faculty there. Immediately the campus police officer said, "What country is he from?"

What country is he from?!" she yelled, indignant.

"Ma'am, you are associated with the suspect. You need to step away and lower your voice," he told her.

At some length, several of my faculty colleagues were able to get through to the police and get me on a cell phone where I explained to the university president and then to the state police that the box contained old poetry manuscripts that needed to be recycled. The police officer told me that in the current climate I needed to be more careful about how I behaved. "When I recycle?" I asked.

link to article

Yeah, our culture of fear is working just great. Everyone is afraid of "brown" people, or hates "brown people" and they all want guns. WTF! This is not my country anymore.

watch the leather back turtles, root for Stephanie Colburtle

Get This Widget!Great Turtle Race

Controversial Michael Moore Flick "Sicko" Will Compare U.S. Health Care with Cuba's

Sicko, which will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is a comic broadside against the state of American health care, including the mental health system. The film targets drug companies and the HMOS in the richest country in the world -- where the most money is spent on health care, but where the U.S. ranks 21st in life expectancy among the 30 most developed nations, obviously in part due to the fact that 47 million people are without health insurance.

In a recent AlterNet article, attorney Guy Saperstein explained,

"The World Health Organization ranks health care systems based on objective measures of medical outcomes: The United States' health care system currently ranks 37th in the world, behind Colombia and Portugal; the United States ranks 44th in the world in infant mortality, behind many impoverished Latin American countries. While infant mortality in the United States is skewed toward poor people, who have rates double the wealthy, the top quintile of the U.S. population has infant mortality rates higher than Canadians in the lowest quintile of wealth.

"The United States has fewer physicians, nurses and hospital beds than most developed nations. In the United States, 28 percent say it is "difficult to get care"; in most European countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, 15 percent say that. In terms of continuity of care (i.e., five-plus years with the same doctor), the United States is the worst of all developed nations. By every objective measure, the United States has a second-rate health care system."

_____________________
As a healthcare professional I can say for sure that our healthcare system stinks, and it's sinking quickly. My recent experience with my mother horrible care in the hospital brought it right home to me. We need to get our healthcare up to the standards of other industrialized nations. In the constitution it states...provide for the common welfare...doesn't that mean healthcare???

Gonzalez and the Mayberry Machiavellis

By Robert Parry
Consortium News

Friday 20 April 2007

"Watching the painfully inept testimony of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales brought to mind the memorable comment in 2002 by ex-White House insider John DiIulio, who described how politics dominated everything in George W. Bush's government.

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," said DiIulio, who had run Bush's office of faith-based initiatives. "What you've got is everything - and I mean everything - being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

The American people are finally waking up to the consequences of what DiIulio observed during his one-year stint on the inside. Everything is about the building and maintenance of power, not via sound policies but through political tactics - ranging from the conduct of the Iraq War to the handling of federal prosecutors. [For more on DiIulio's comments, see Ron Suskind's Esquire, January 2003, article.]"

For more head over to Truthout. Also, try to watch part of the testimony on Cspan, it is so worth watching Gonzo's convoluted testimony. Obviously it is harder to lie than to tell the truth.

oops!

Bush Almost Blows Himself Up
from The Huffington Post | Full News Feed

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.

Easter News, good grief!

From Think Progress » ThinkFast: February 8, 2007

Lieberman Says Pelosi Syria Visit Was ‘Bad For America,’ Suggests Syria Was Behind 9/11 Today on CNN, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) said he “strongly disagrees” with Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) bipartisan delegation ...

Gingrich: Gonzales needs to go. “The public would be much better served to have another attorney general,” said Newt Gingrich. “I cannot imagine how he’s ...

Kristol: Proper Response To Iran’s Kidnapping Of Soldiers Would Have Been Military Strikes Fox News pundit Bill Kristol has been an unceasing proponent of war with Iran. In the past year, Kristol has repeatedly beat ...

Robert F. Kennedy 1968

Read and contemplate this, and if you have time, go to the link and read the posted comments. I was so moved by them. I was a high school junior when RFK was murdered and I was involved in minor political actions, and very aware of his campaign. My Dad was counseling CO's (conscientious objectors) and I worked at the local hospital with Quakers and others who were performing alternative service. So I was quite aware of the war. This speech surely applies today.

Robert F. Kennedy (147 comments )
READ MORE: Robert F. Kennedy, United States, Vietnam, White House
In 1968, my father, running for President, addressed in a speech, the White House's proposal for a troop surge in Vietnam. Robert Kennedy had initially supported the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. Forty years later, as Congress and the White House debate the further escalation of yet another war that has already claimed the lives of an astounding 640,000 Iraqis, killed 3,256 U.S. soldiers and wounded another 50,000, his words should have special resonance to those of our political leaders who are still searching for the right course in Iraq:


"I do not want--as I believe most Americans do not want--to sell out American interests, to simply withdraw, to raise the white flag of surrender. That would be unacceptable to us as a country and as a people. But I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that the course we are following at the present time is deeply wrong. I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that we are acting as if no other nations existed, against the judgment and desires of neutrals and our historic allies alike. I am concerned--as I believe most Americans are concerned--that our present course will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the cause of peace in the world. I am concerned that, at the end of it all, there will only be more Americans killed; more of our treasure spilled out; and because of the bitterness and hatred on every side of this war, more hundreds of thousands of [civilians] slaughtered; so they may say, as Tacitus said of Rome: "They made a desert, and called it peace." . . .
"The reversals of the last several months have led our military to ask for more troops. This weekend, it was announced that some of them--a "moderate" increase, it was said--would soon be sent. But isn't this exactly what we have always done in the past? If we examine the history of this conflict, we find the dismal story repeated time after time. Every time--at every crisis--we have denied that anything was wrong; sent more troops; and issued more confident communiques. Every time, we have been assured that this one last step would bring victory. And every time, the predictions and promises have failed and been forgotten, and the demand has been made again for just one more step up the ladder. But all the escalations, all the last steps, have brought us no closer to success than we were before. . . . And once again the President tells us, as we have been told for twenty years, that "we are going to win"; "victory" is coming. . . . It becoming more evident with every passing day that the victories we achieve will only come at the cost of the destruction for the nation we once hoped to help. . . .

"Let us have no misunderstanding. [They] are a brutal enemy indeed. Time and time again, they have shown their willingness to sacrifice innocent civilians, to engage in torture and murder and despicable terror to achieve their ends. This is a war almost without rules or quarter. There can be no easy moral answer to this war, no one-sided condemnation of American actions. What we must ask ourselves is whether we have a right to bring so much destruction to another land, without clear and convincing evidence that this is what its people want. But that is precisely the evidence we do not have. . . .

"The war, far from being the last critical test for the United States, is in fact weakening our position in Asia and around the world, and eroding the structure of international cooperation which has directly supported our security for the past three decades. . . . All this bears directly and heavily on the question of whether more troops should now be sent--and, if more are sent, what their mission will be. We are entitled to ask--we are required to ask--how many more men, how many more lives, how much more destruction will be asked, to provide the military victory that is always just around the corner, to pour into this bottomless pit of our dreams? But this question the administration does not and cannot answer. It has no answer--none but the ever-expanding use of military force and the lives of our brave soldiers, in a conflict where military force has failed to solve anything yet. . . .

"But the costs of the war's present course far outweigh anything we can reasonably hope to gain by it, for ourselves or for the people of Vietnam. It must be ended, and it can be ended, in a peace of brave men who have fought each other with a terrible fury, each believing he and he alone was in the right. We have prayed to different gods, and the prayers of neither have been answered fully. Now, while there is still time for some of them to be partly answered, now is the time to stop. . . .

"You are the people, as President Kennedy said, who have "the least ties to the present and the greatest ties to the future." I urge you to learn the harsh facts that lurk behind the mask of official illusion with which we have concealed our true circumstances, even from ourselves. Our country is in danger: not just from foreign enemies; but above all, from our misguided policies--and what they can do to the nation that Thomas Jefferson once told us was the last, best hope of man. There is a contest on, not for the rule of America, but for the heart of America. . . . I ask you to go forth and work for new policies--work to change our direction--and thus restore our place at the point of moral leadership, in our country, in our hearts, and all around the world."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/robert-f-kennedy_b_45025.html

Vermont where will they go?

Will Vermont succeed? You go Vermont!
http://www.alternet.org/story/50056/

Trillions in Debt, Can the Middle Class Hang On?

How do we stop the credit industry's predatory business model and get Americans out of debt when incomes aren't rising as fast as the costs of healthcare and housing?

Interesting reading, go forth and read: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/49777/

Think about it.....

Bush buys property in Paraguay

The United States alleges that they have no plans for establishing military bases in Paraguay. Of course, they said they had no plans to establish military bases in Iraq. Not only are the locals concerned about the military taking up residence, there are substantial rumors that the Bush family has purchased land in Paraguay. News of George W. Bush purchasing 98,840 acres of land in the Chaco area of Paraguay was reported in Prensa Latino, the Latin American News Agency on October 18, 2006.

more about Paraguay

more from Wonkette

And more from Argentine newspaper which you can translate using babelfish. Basically, what it says is that the land the Bush family bought contains the largest water resource on the planet, is next to the Bolivian border and strategically located militarily.

Nothing like retiring to South America like the Nazis. Wonder what the extradition treaties are like? Hmmmmm. Guess they don't want him in Dubai, which has no extradition treaties with the US.