A cesspool by any other name

As you probably know by now, the "War on Terror" has become the "Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism".

Theories abound about the reason for the change. Some say it's to make the war seem more Christian without actually calling it a crusade which got Bush in trouble with American Muslim groups and Europeans at the beginning of the war. Others say it's to take the focus off militarism even though there are people in uniform over in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting a war and non-military Americans and their leaders have really sacrificed nothing for the effort except the tax burden on the poor and middle class and the debt awaiting their children.

I think the change is for more simple reasons. The war and Bush himself have grown unpopular. Since the republicans have already proved that the truth never substitutes for PR, they are just repositioning their brand to make it popular again. Sort of like when New Coke came out and no one liked it, Coca Cola Co. hurried to make more classic Coke and changed the slogan to "America's real choice", but Coke was smarter than Bush because they actually brought Classic Coke back. Bush just changes the slogan.

For those of us who hate the sell job, I have a few more realistic alternative names for the war:

1. The war on reason.
2. The facade for raiding the US coffers.
3. Global effort to keep 'em scared and obedient.
4. Hidden corporatization of the military (boy will they be sorry later, but it will be too late).
5. Fake religion = real power.

Do looks matter?

When I see depressing creatures with unprepossessing features,
I remind them on their own behalf to think of celebrated heads of state or specially great communicators.
Did they have brains or knowledge?
Don't make me laugh.
They were all popular please--
It's all about popular!
It's not about aptitude.
It's the way you're viewed.
So it's very shrewd to be very popular,
Like Me!~~Glinda, Wicked

Chris Matthews characterized the Democrats' requests for documentation on Bush Supreme Court nominee John Roberts a witch hunt causing Media Matters to speculate that Matthews must chose appointees for important federal positions by eye color. There has been a lot of talk about politicians looks lately. I heard on the radio yesterday morning that The Hill named Barack Obama the 2d hottest person on Capitol Hill. It's been one year since Obama's speech at the 2004 DNC that qualified him in my book for hotness status (read my July 2004 posts from the 2004 DNC).

Here is Barack with my also cute politician cousin, 15th District Congressional Candidate David Gill:


Obama and Gill

Then, there was a contest for the Hottest senator not counting Obama (they took out Obama because he was sure to wipe the floor with the rest of the Senate). Bayh of Indiana won that, probably by default because it's slim pickin's in the Senate since John Edwards left. Hillary has a great smile, but personally, I'd go for Ted Kennedy, circa 1978.


1970s Teddy

At risk of getting myself into big trouble, I'll tell my mom's Ted Kennedy story. She met him in an elevator back in the late '70s or early '80s. Ok, she didn't really meet him; she was speechless from his good looks when he walked in the elevator and she never actually spoke to him; just gawked and poked my dad in the arm. Teddy still qualifies for hotness status because he sponsored portable health care and was nice to me when I met him in Iowa campaigning for Kerry. Good legislation and nice goes a long way towards hotness.

So, do looks count at election time? All the evidence so far is in the negative. My cute cousin lost to not-so-cute Tim Johnson. Kerry was way better looking than Bush and got better and better looking throughout the campaign. Who was cuter than John Edwards who would look at you with his piercing eyes when he talked to you. But, you tell me. Do looks count in politics? See the blogpoll to the right.

At risk of getting myself into even bigger trouble, if I can get at least 5 nominations for hottest 10th District Politician, I'll run a mini contest. Put your nominations in the comments. You don't have to be an elected official or candidate, just someone who works in our political community. You can nominate yourself. (I'll never tell!)

At least someone in the building knows what credibility is

Man: Fox has finally seen the light and determined that they need to investigate her. It's all over CNN too.

Woman: Oh, really!

Man: Yup, they think the country deserves the truth.

Woman: Finally.

Man: Sure, they just had to do their own investigation and look at the facts for a while. Then, they came to the right conclusion; an investigation is absolutely necessary.

Woman: I’m glad they finally understand that the American people deserve the truth.

Man: Of course, the American people deserve the truth and we’re sick of all the lies.

Woman: I know I am.

Man: Sick of the consequences too.

Woman: You know it!

Man: It will be rough though…another independent counsel.

Woman: It cost the American people a bundle and we are probably still paying for Ken Starr to determine that Bill Clinton got some from Monica, but did nothing illegal in Whitewater. What a waste!

Man: But this is definitely worth it.

Woman: Of course it is.

Man: The outcome could really change things to come.

Woman: agreed

Man: But you have to admit, she was cute!

Woman: I guess she’s ok, but I never really thought of her that way.

Man: Loved to watch her dance.

Woman: Condoleezza Rice dances?

Man: I don't know. What are you talking about?

Woman: Didn't you say that Fox News finally agrees that there needs to be an investigation in the Rove outing Plame matter. I just heard today that Secretary Rice was involved in the lies about Niger.

Man: Who cares about that. Paula Abdul is being investigated by Fox TV for her alleged affair with an American Idol contestant. Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori said Thursday, "Any allegations against this show we take quite seriously." [The competition's credibility is] "extraordinarily important to us."

Woman: Ironic, isn't it?

Man: Huh? She sure is cute, isn't she?

Lies du jour with a side of beef

Last Friday of the month, work is going to be tough today, so here's a little potpourri of lies to get us through the weekend.

From Huffingtonpost.com: Under oath, SEC Chair nominee, Cox said he was only slightly involved in the First Pension investment scam that bilked small investors out of about $130 million and was found not liable. Truth is that he was very involved, his involvement mostly in holding off angry investors and hold off an investigation. Linda Frykholm staved off angry bilked investors here in Lake County and Wisconsin and got 12 years.

From Media Matters: Hardball, host Chris Matthews allowed Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) to lie about the increase in the tax rate. Santorum said that the "average family" currently pays 27 percent of its income in federal taxes when in 1955, it only paid 2 percent. Truth is that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported the total effective federal tax rate for households in the middle income quintile to average 14.4 percent -- not 27 percent -- in 2002, the most recent year for which CBO has examined such data. The Tax Policy Center, found that in 1955, a family of four earning the median income of all such families paid an average combined tax rate of 7.35 percent -- not 2 percent.

From ThinkProgress.org: Bolton lied about being part of a State Department investigation. Then, State Department spokesperson Scott McCormack lied when he said "Mr. Bolton, in his response on the written paperwork, was to say no. And that answer was truthful then and it remains the case now." Later, John Marshall stated: "John Bolton, the nominee for U.N. ambassador, inaccurately told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years." What was the truth? John Bolton failed to tell senators that he was interviewed in the joint State/CIA IG probe into the US government's use of the forged Niger papers.

From Seeing the Forest: Mr. "stay in Iraq until the job is done" Bush actually plans to cut and run in Iraq.

From the Pioneer Press: Kirk claims to care about the impact of new Navy housing on local communities and schools, but he failed to show up to a meeting scheduled for this week to provide information about the Ft. Sheridan project. Given his failure to speak to his district for the past 4 years, why would anyone be surprised?

Bush, Rove, Kirk and Co. think they are entitled to lie to stay in power. The people don't matter, just cogs for them to use in their game of global Chutes and Ladders: rewards all to them, counsequences all to us.

For a little truth and livestock too, don't forget to go to the Democratic Party table at the Lake County Fair. As WDTO Chair, Susie Krasnow said: "Support Democrats and see livestock in the same day."

If you give up your rights, where do they go?

We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel.... The message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart. ~U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour on the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam, the Millenium Bomber

Ressam is the man stopped by the FBI under Clinton's administration without the Patriot Act, without Gitmo, without military tribunals, without losing habeas corpus and without losing our Constitution.

Clinton proved that American's don't have to give up their rights for safety. Those rights actually ensure our safety because they force government to act responsibly.

Bush, Rove and their buddies like Kirk are taking not giving. You give your rights, but you get no safety, no truth, no captured Osama Bin Laden, no democracy in Iraq, no morality and no rights. So, for what have you given up your rights? For their right-wing extremist corporate domestic plan. You vote against your own economic, moral and cultural self interest in exchange for their fake sale job on safety.

If you give up your rights, where do they go? Half into Halliburton. Half into Exxon.

Who has the body now?

Out with the old. In with the new.

One term to which we have granted a new status is unlawful combatant. The term can only be defined by what it is not. Under the Third Geneva Convention a combatant or enemy combatant is a person who wages war as a member of the armed forces or militia of a party to the conflict or a member of the armed forces of a government or an authority not recognized by an occupier or an inhabitant of non-occupied territory who spontaneously takes up arms to resist invading forces and openly carries arms and respects the laws of war. An unlawful combatant is someone who is not a defined combatant. The term was historically reserved for spies, mercenaries, uncategorized militias, and those who have violated the laws and customs of war. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, one who is not a lawful combatant is still protected until convicted at a "fair and regular trial". Not until Bush's War on Terror did we decide to deny a trial to an unlawful combatant.

Then, there is the new term person of interest. I have to admit that even though I am an attorney, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what that is. I never heard the term until recently and cannot find any legal authority for it and the reason that I cannot find legal authority is that there is none. A person of interest is neither a suspect nor a material witness and is afforded none of the protections as such. He is just a poor schnook that the police want to finger but whom they have no evidence against. There is no way to take away the taint of having been a person of interest because there is no way to exonerate oneself from something that does not exist. One famous person of interest was Richard Jewell who named as a person of interest in the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing. He was innocent, but his name is still connected to the incident.

So, we've created two new ways to help us to deny people their rights and now we are finding a way to erase one of the oldest and most basic legal terms, a Constitutional right, that generated from over 300 years of old English law, the writ of habeas corpus.

The first time I ever heard the term habeas corpus, I was a child in grade school social studies. Our teacher defined the term as literally meaning "you have the body" and basically meaning that a person cannot be jailed if there are no charges against him. I was a little confused about what exactly it meant back then, but the point is that it was taught in the grade schools. They must have stopped that lesson since because our congress, the members of which presumably completed at least 8th grade, has decided to severly limit the federal courts ability to hear habeas corpus petitions in H.R. 3035 and S. 1088.

Here's the lesson:

Habeas corpus is a writ sought by a prisoner seeking to be brought before the court where it will determine whether or not the prisoner is held lawfully. It was determined so important by the framers of the Constitution that it got its own line Section 9 of Article I and did not even have to wait to be included in the Bill of Rights:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Alright, critics out there will hurry to point out the exception, but, so far, that has only been used during the Civil War. Wilson and FDR were able to get through two entire world wars without suspending habeas corpus.

Why is it such a bad idea to so severly restict habeas corpus? One reason that comes to mind is that there have been many DNA exonerations of death row inmates and habeas corpus has been used to save them from execution and get them released. Another is that the definitions of terrorist in those rushed to passage anti-terrorist laws have been so vague that we risk imprisoning as a terrorist someone who simply vocalizes disagreement with the Bush administration.

The writ of habeas corpus has been called "the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action." Harris v. Nelson, 394 U.S. 286, 290-91 (1969). Bush administration scare tactics have led to arbitrary and unconstitutional limitations on individual freedom. Without habeas corpus, those unjustly imprisoned have no way of getting out of jail and into court to be heard.

In Federalist No. 84, Alexander Hamilton declared that the "ex post facto law and "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." Hamilton then quoted Sir William Blackstone (a well known 18th century legal commentator):

To bereave a man of life [says he] or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism as must at once convey the alarm or tyranny throught the whole nation; but confinement of the person by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten is a less public, less striking, and therefore more dangerous engine of arbitrary government (emphasis his).

Congressional proposals to severly limit habeas corpus are attacks on the nitty gritty protections intended for us by our founders and developed over hundreds of year of legal experience including many many wars. This is a legal tradition we should not allow to be scraped by the one-party congress. Blackstone once called habeas corpus the Bulwark of the British Constitution (Idem, Vol. 4, Page 438) and it is the Bulwark of our Constitution.

Let's keep the bulwark and keep out the floodwaters of tyranny.

Kirk for CAFTA, NOT the Environment

CAFTA is a free trade agreement based on NAFTA, extending NAFTA to central America. Kirk is in favor of CAFTA because it favors big business, hurts the small businessman and farmer and laborer.

Under CAFTA, big business will be able to challenge environmental laws, worker safety and trade protection laws. While intellectual property laws and investor protection laws are strongly protected under CAFTA, there is no similar protection for labor and environmental protection laws. This is a disaster for developing countries with little tradition of labor and environmental protection. CAFTA will also make it easier for big business to purchase public services, so developing countries are at risk of being owned by corporations.

Pay will go down under CAFTA because localized markets will be opened up to the cheapest labor and lowest production costs. Labor standards set by the Generalized System of Preferences or GSP under Clinton will be abandoned.

Kirk is generally for legislation that hurts the American worker and there is no reason to believe he cares about workers in other countries either, but he does claim to be an environmentalist. Guess not so much of an environmentalist when party calls. Kirk's no environmentalist. Kirk's no moderate. Let's not send Kirk and his far-right votes back to Washington in 2006.

What it's all about

Reuters: "Lockheed Martin profit up on missile system sales"
Tue Jul 26, 2005 8:44 AM ET

Reuters itself is another story. Today it's stock took a tumble and its debt rating was cut. It also plans job cuts.

Less knowledge, more weapons.

Shoot first, talk later.

The new way of the world.

The worst thing a leader can do to his people

Perhaps the biggest argument relied upon by the religious in attacking atheism is that religion is what keeps right and wrong from becoming meaningless — in effect, that without God, what remains is nihilism. But what could be more nihilistic than a government that believes it creates its own reality?

See this article on Bush being worshiped as God. Then see this, and this, and even scarier this. Then see this article on the use of the term "liberal elite" by Bush even though his followers are among the most elitist in the world, both "do as I say and not as I do" Christian and the real elite, the very wealthy.

Prior to and during WWII, Hirohito of Japan, was worshiped as a god. That sure made the Japanese feel elite, but didn't turn out so great for them or for the rest of the world, not to mention Jim Jones and David Koresh who both led their "we're better than everyone else" followers to their untimely deaths for absolutely nothing but their own egos. Koresh also had an "I think God just told me to have sex with your 14-year-old daughter" complex, and that also didn't work out to well for the several "chosen" young girls. Then, there's the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh who just stole from and poisoned a few people. I still have no idea what that was all about, but he had a lot of expensive cars.

Bush, like charlatans before him, simply uses religion to appeal to the masses and argue that the opponents of his policies are godless elitists seeking to do the true believers harm. In doing that he uses religion in the most cynical of ways and becomes no more than a Hirohito, Jones, Koresh or Bhagwan and that is the worst thing a leader can do to his people.

Memories all alone in the moonlight

Bush's appointee to the Supreme Court, John Roberts, doesn't remember being a member of the Federalist Society. I'd be most worried that the guy can't remember back to the late '90s. Remember the old saying about the '60s, " if you remember it, you weren't there"? or maybe he was sick that day or got promoted in to their leadership when he was in the bathroom.

Anyway, so you don't forget, here's how they see themselves (right off their website):

Our Purpose

• Law schools and the legal profession are currently strongly dominated by a form of orthodox liberal ideology which advocates a centralized and uniform society. While some members of the academic community have dissented from these views, by and large they are taught simultaneously with (and indeed as if they were) the law.


• The Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies is a group of conservatives and libertarians interested in the current state of the legal order. It is founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.


• The Society seeks both to promote an awareness of these principles and to further their application through its activities. This entails reordering priorities within the legal system to place a premium on individual liberty, traditional values, and the rule of law. It also requires restoring the recognition of the importance of these norms among lawyers, judges, and law professors.


• In working to achieve these goals, the Society has created a conservative and libertarian intellectual network that extends to all levels of the legal community.

Our Background

In its mission and purpose, the Federalist Society is unique. By providing a forum for legal experts of opposing views to interact with members of the legal profession, the judiciary, law students, academics, and the architects of public policy, the Society has redefined the terms of legal debate. Our expansion in membership, chapters, and program activity has been matched by the rapid growth of the Society's reputation and the quality and influence of our events. We have fostered a greater appreciation for the role of separation of powers; federalism; limited, constitutional government; and the rule of law in protecting individual freedom and traditional values. Overall, the Society's efforts are improving our present and future leaders' understanding of the principles underlying American law.

Funny, that's not what the rest of the world sees. According to People for the American Way, the Federalist Society is more like this:

Federalist Society's Principal Issues:

• FS hopes to transform the American legal system by developing and promoting far-right positions and influencing who will become judges, top government officials, and decision-makers. FS is “dedicated to reforming the current legal order.”
• The FS is an well established network of right-wing lawyers, politicians, pundits, and judges.
• Many members of the FS advocate a rollback of civil rights measures, reproductive choice, and generally support conservative morality being enshrined in federal and state laws. FS advocates school vouchers.
• In FS’s guide to forming and running a chapter of the society, FS says it “creates an informal network of people with shared views which can provide assistance in job placement.”
• FS has 15 different “practice groups” that focus on particular legal issues, such as civil rights and labor and employment law.

Some Federalist Society Members are:

• John Ashcroft
• Justice Antonin Scalia
• Orrin Hatch
• Kenneth Starr
• Robert Bork
• Linda Chavez
• Don Hodel, former Christian Coalition president

Strange, this case of characters and their pet issues really don't remind me of a group of people who are interested in freedom, dissenting views, separation of powers. They seem more like a right-wing cabal of guys and gals who want to take us back to the good old days of Plessy v. Ferguson, Haymarket Square, backroom abortions, no labor movement, environmental laws, health care or social security, but with some modernization that includes unconstitutional searches and imprisonments without charges being made.

I think the Federal Society needs to re-do their website. Maybe they meant to and forgot.

We have engaged the Borg

Remember in Star Trek's second series there was a species of alien called the Borg. Not Swedish, they were part human, part android and sought out a strange form of perfection seeking to obtain it by physically assimilating other species and their technology. They ignored the heros of the Starship Enterprise in early encounters thinking them harmless, even allowing them to freely roam the Borg cube undisturbed. Only after the heros became a real threat did the Borg take notice and fight back.

Well, since 2000, the republicans have pretty much been the Borg and the Democrats pretty much unthreatening. The gop never thought Kerry was a real threat because they owned the voting machines in many states, so they didn't really have to pull out all the stops. Democrats were just a bunch of pesty gnats that could easily be brushed aside.

Enter Joe Wilson. Enter Patrick Fitzgerald (actually a republican, appointed by our "he's looking pretty good now" former republican senator Peter of the same name but no relation).

Far from gnats, they stuck around to bring out the truth about the Bush administration. A truth we all knew, but could not prove well enough to get the corporate new media to pick it up. Now, we can prove it. Now, they pick it up.

So, now the Borg feel threatened and, as reported in Kos, they intend to harass Fitzgerald and seek to pass the blame to the CIA for the Plame outing.



Question is will the Democrats rally and save the universe, or back off and face assimilation. The republicans hope, and have a pretty good shot because it's worked for them before, that "resistance is futile."

Stessed out worms die young

A great headline out of Reuters.

Applied to today's situation, the stressed out worms among the regular folks in the nation don't have long under the Bush administration.

• Publicly funded private schools for the wealthy, warehousing the rest of the students in what’s left of the public schools.
• Employer expects unpaid overtime and uncompensated, unused vacation time? Well, Jesus says you're supposed to be charitable, didn't he?
• Health care and prescription drugs for the wealthy, you don’t have enough money to make it through your retirement anyway for the rest.
• Speaking of which. No more social security. If you were smart enough to live long, you’d be rich enough not to need it.
• Low-wage, no-benefit service jobs for most Americans with wages taxed heavily to make up for tax breaks for the wealthy.
• Don’t worry if you cannot get that shelf stocker job at Wal-mart, we’ve got a job for you in Iraq.
• Women's health care is too much like abortion besides they don’t really need it…they’re too busy taking care of their children and men folk to use it.
• Need an advanced medical procedure, don’t expect to get it here in the US. The science needed to do it could be somehow remotely related to abortion, so we would never invest in it.
• Science exists to justify our political agenda, so don’t expect any breakthroughs other than military any time soon.
• Your kid has autism? Sorry, the mercury in the immunization we forced you to give him had nothing to do with it and don’t read or watch anything about that either.
• Can’t afford college? Don’t worry, we’ll train you in Iraq.
• Global warming is great because now we can vacation in Minneapolis in the winter.
• We’re into fossil fuel for the long haul, no matter that other countries are way ahead of us on energy technology. Car companies can blame their employees for low sales.
• Don’t follow our religion, suffer the consequences. We don’t have to follow our religion because we’re above it.
• Injured by a corporation? Too bad for you. We cannot risk their profits to compensate you.
• Kids shooting each other in schools? Problem is they aren't using the latest gun technology.
• Kids out of control, dose them up on drugs. The pharmaceutical companies need the profits and you don't have time to deal with kids anyway (see above re unpaid overtime).
• HMO failed to approve a procedure you needed. Too bad. See above re profits more important than you.
• Leaders having affairs, sexually abusing spouse, lying, breaking laws, torturing prisoners harming the meek and poor? What are you complaining about? Religion, morals and laws don’t apply to them, only to you.

Enough to stress out any worm, toad or person.

Where the toad lives

In lawsuits, courts often have tests of how to apply a law. The Commerce Clause of the US Constitution determines when the federal government can regulate commerce:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...

So, basically, laws of the federal government such as the environmental laws are to be applied to international and interstate commerce. The question or test has always been, does the particular business in question affect interstate commerce?

In Rancho Viejo, LLC v. Norton, 323 F.3d 1062, a case involving the protection of a rare Californian toad under the Endangered Species Act, John Roberts, Bush's nominee for Supreme Court, wrote a dissenting opinion that asked the court to decide upon the affect of Rancho Viejo's business upon interstate commerce, not by looking where Rancho Viejo does business, but by looking at the toad. He instructed that the court should ask where the toad lives.

Fortunately, thinking members of the court's majority determined that toads should not determine whether or not the federal environmental laws applied to businesses and what mattered was whether or not Rancho Viejo conducted interstate commerce.

Perhaps Roberts would be better suited working at the zoo scooping up after toads when they "do their business".


Rib-bit!

Can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you can scrap the sow's ear

Al Sharpton said that in reponse to Bush's "Bring it on" comment 2 year ago and it still holds true. The US has acted badly since 9/11 and now nothing it does can make it right, unless it decides to...well, make it right.

So, far it's a no go on that. We just didn't have the right people in power at the time of that attack. We needed a George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, but we had a George W. Bush and thugs. They took the opportunity to enrich their already rich friends and play worldwide bully.

Sharpton was saying that bad begets bad and here what we begot:

• an unfinished job in Afghanistan with a Unocal rep for its President;
• Pat Tillman dead of friendly fire (covered up too), not to mention Lori Pietsewa;
• High-priced mercenaries causing trouble and getting themselves into trouble making the job tougher for our US Troops;
• Contract abuse by Iraq War contractors;
• Meet the Wilsons, an outed CIA agent and smeared hero(too may cites to cite);
• Possible evidence destruction ok'd by Justice Department;
• Cover-up a la Watergate;
• Casualties in Iraq--who knows how many because they are lying;
• Shades of Vietnam;
• Torture;
• Unconsitutional searches in NYC (and folks are going for it);
• More than 50 dead in London and two separate incidents of bombings;
• An innocent shot in London;
• Bags of cash sent to Iraq for who knows what purpose and paid to who knows who;
• Patriot Act allowing unconstitutional searches extended;
• Information on people compiled illegally;
• Penatgon collecting information on your children;
• Environment foresaken;
• A cover-up on immunization's link to autism;
• Two questionable elections, questionable that Bush really won either;
• Loss of Debt relief, but no regulation of predatory lenders;
• Tax cuts for the wealthy, but Alternative Minimum tax (meant for the wealthy) gouges the middle class.

There's more, but I'm getting tired and no, the illegal searches and FBI investigations are not ok because we need to be protected. We need to be protected more from the Bush administration that wants them. Face it America, giving up freedom for protection is serf mentality and it never did much for the serfs...they mostly died in the king's wars or toiling in the king's fields.

The point is that we have the wrong guys and gals in power at a critical time when we needed the right ones. Mark Kirk can call himself a moderate till the cows come home, but he says and does nothing about any of this because he doesn't want to get out of the gop campaign financing loop.

Time for a change. Time to look at new faces.

Hey, I've got one for you, Zane Smith for Congress in the Illinois Tenth.

Kirk votes in favor of unconstitutional searches

The Chicago Tribune reports on the extension of sunset provisions of the Patriot Act:

The bill passed on a largely partisan vote of 257-171 after the Republican-controlled House--over Democrats' objections--limited debate to less than half the proposed amendments.

Again, Mark Kirk votes under direction from Washington rather than his own district. Republicans limited debate over renewal of Patriot Act provisions deemed so anti-American that even in the wake of September 11th, were given short sunset periods. Again, a troubling law passes in haste and secrecy.

One of the more troubling provisions of the Patriot Act is Section 215 which allows for unconstitutional searches without a warrant or showing of probable cause. This does not just apply to terrorists. It applies to you and me. What, you disagree because the FBI needs to specify that its order to search is "for an authorized investigation . . . to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities" and you say you don't engage in "international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities"? Well, Joe Wilson didn't think he was doing that either. He simply disagreed with the Bush/Rove/Kirk administration out in the open. Wilson did not think a war should be based on false information. If you don't think so either, watch out.

The republicans equate their power to national security. To them, anything that risks their power is a risk to national security. That has been evident since Watergate and is even more evident now. All the lying, stealing and killing in Iraq and voter fraud and supression in our elections cannot be questioned and those who question are called traitors. That is why Section 215 of the Patriot Act is so dangerous. It will be used by republicans to keep power and it will be used against regular Americans.

...and Mark Kirk thinks that's just A-OK!

A Riddle

What costs dearly, but is given away cheaply.

(answer in comments)

Friday Potpourri.

Skippy drew my attention to this one. The government is funding a project to learn how to microwave people as a crowd control device. Apparently, the dangers aren't too terribly concerning for the Bush Administration. Since terrorists don't usually congregate in large groups carrying signs that say, "Hi, I'm a terrorist", I'll leave it to your imagination for whom this is intended.

The Forest found this one. The court that decided the fates of Miller and Cooper in the Rove scandal made an interesting observation: the actual crime was in the reporting. Had Miller and Cooper reported on a whistleblower who was outing the plot against Joe and Valerie Wilson, that would be protected reporting. However, this was not the case. The reporters were actually participating in the crime by furthering the outing and smear campaign against the Wilson family. That agrees with my July 6, 2005 post wherein I argued that Miller did not deserve the protection of the First Amendment because the outing of Mrs. Wilson was not news. No, it was a crime.

Sheldon and Anita Drobny spoke to the Illinois Tenth Congressional District Democrats and guests from around the state. The room was packed, standing room only. The Drobnys talked about the birth of Air America Radio and a new project to purchase radio stations in smaller markets. The company they are creating is called Nova M Radio and capitalizes on the truth established by the Drobnys that there is a strong market for liberal radio.

Best line of the week: Randi Rhondes said that Bush would never fire Rove because that would be like Pinocchio firing Gepetto.

Road to Air America runs through the Illinois Tenth District

The road to Air America Radio started in Highland Park, Illinois. That is where founders of AnShell Media, Sheldon and Anita Drobny, conceived the idea for the 24 hour a day liberal radio network that became AAR. Sheldon Drobny describes the creation of AnShell and Air America in his book, Road to Air America.

According to his book, Drobny was inspired by his dad, Charles Drobny, and little known (because little reported) historical events like the nomination of Harry Truman over Henry Wallace as FDRs last VP, Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex speech and the 2000 election. Drobny grew up hearing stories from his dad about unreported facism in America, including American corporations that helped Hitler rearm Germany after WWI and those who spout off slogans of democracy while working to promote facist corporationism, merging corporate interests with those of the state. Later, he watched Eisenhower warn of the arms industry's power over America in his famous 1961 speech. But it was the treatment of Clinton by the press and the 2000 election that moved the Drobnys to action.

In his book, Drobny writes:

In fact, we noticed there were many things going on during the '90s that the press minimized or never reported, events that are coming out today--stories about terrorism, politics, and world events that should have been reported.

Given my view of the media handed down to me by my father, and my belief in its willingness to succumb to the direction of its corporate masters, I knew the scandals that swirled around the Clintons were fueled and kept alive by the media. I wanted to convey the lessons of the past to our political friends, but most of Washington was so enchanted and indoctrinated by media coverage and attention, that we could not convince people that the media was the problem. As the election of 2000 unfolded, all that would soon change.

By the way, it's not that I think there is a formal conspiracy. I just believe that endemic to the system today is a profound lack of intellectual independence. Even when you talk to distinguished reporters, many of them clearly think they are independent. But when I have asked them whether they have any control over what news is reported, they all admit that it's the editors that control the output. Reporters have little to say about what actually gets published; corporations are not democratic.

At one time editors possessed a mind of their own, and had the authority to make critical decisions, with the trust of the publisher behind them. But I believe, for the most part, the days of independent news organizations are long past. Today, too often the news is nothing more than a misture of entertainment and corporate press releases designed to manipulate viewers and satisfy sponsors. News reporting is all about profit and power for corporate interests and elites.

In the 1980s, when Reagan pushed for media deregulation and the end to public interest requirements, he convinced Americans that it would be competition that is good for business and the country. He told people that the deregulation would create jobs and more media technology, but he lied. He knew he was building a corporate media to serve republican party interests. Americans bought into the smiling, gladhanding Reagan lies and are now stuck with a few large corporations that own most of its media outlets and work only to creating consensus for the Bush agenda that increases their profits and reduces their costs. There is no independent investigation or analysis, just reiteration of gop talking points, sometimes so literal and direct that is is almost funny. How many media outlets reported this week on the Rove/Plame matter that it was time to "let the prosecutor do his job". If they were singing, it would be in perfect harmony.

We need Air America Radio to tell the real news. Thank you Sheldon and Anita Drobny.

Want to meet Sheldon Drobny. Stop by the Highland Park Library, 494 Laurel Avenue, Thursday night, July 21st at 7:00pm where Mr. Drobny will be addressing the Tenth Dems. All are invited.

Lower than we though was possible

Bush lowered his standards for firing a white house advisor for outing a CIA agent to having had to commit a crime, but he might have to lower it again:

White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove did not disclose that he had ever discussed CIA officer Valerie Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper during Rove’s first interview with the FBI, according to legal sources with firsthand knowledge of the matter.

The omission by Rove created doubt for federal investigators, almost from the inception of their criminal probe into who leaked Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, as to whether Rove was withholding crucial information from them, and perhaps even misleading or lying to them, the sources said.

How about this GW: the advisor has to commit a crime while wearing white shoes after Labor Day, talking with his mouth full and only if it's on the second Tuesday of the month and the wind is coming out of the west at 15 mph and the barometric reading is....

No surprise on court, but former intelligence officers are surprisingly in the open

It's no surprise that Bush would pick a guy like Roberts. But don't let this cause a collective left-wing loss of focus. Congress is off for 5 weeks and Bush's announcement tonight was just a move to take the pressure off the administration for the Rove leak that is making its way up to Cheney.

Former US intelligence officers haven't lost focus on this. They are concerned about republican talking points that outing Plame was somehow ok for various and sundry and ridiculous reasons. Click on the title link to read the former intelligence officers' open letter to Congress. In the letter, they express concern about comments in the right-wing media downplaying the seriousness of the outing: "These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover." They ask Congress to "speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue", urging,
"[I]ntelligence officers should not be used as political footballs."

Thanks for the letter, agents, but don't count on help from Illinois' Mark Kirk. He has no problem with the outing of Plame. It's OK with this former Naval Intelligence Officer. Anything to further the whims of the Bush Administration is just fine with Kirk.

Average Joe

If you watched Average Joe tonight, the reality series that is premised on the concept that only beautiful people deserve love, think about this: In real reality, the average joe is so wracked with expenses and debt that he cannot make it until his next payday. "No problem", say the owners of the ownership society, "we'll sell them Payday Loans!"

Payday loans are cash advances secured by a personal check from an account that doesn't have the money to pay it back....well, yet. The theory is that the person will have the money next payday. The problems are many. There is no guaranty that the borrower will receive the funds on his expected payday because many of these folks are working temporary or part time or rely on unguaranteed overtime. There is also no guaranty that the borrower won't have additional debts to pay. What if little Sally need school supplies or mom breaks her hip? Also, payday loans are very expensive, another way the rich squeeze more and more out of the poor, and the borrower is on the losing end from the beginning because the fees are taken off the top immediately.

The FTC website gives an example of how this works:

A cash advance loan secured by a personal check - such as a payday loan - is very expensive credit. Let's say you write a personal check for $115 to borrow $100 for up to 14 days. The check casher or payday lender agrees to hold the check until your next payday. At that time, depending on the particular plan, the lender deposits the check, you redeem the check by paying the $115 in cash, or you roll-over the check by paying a fee to extend the loan for another two weeks. In this example, the cost of the initial loan is a $15 finance charge and 391 percent APR. If you roll-over the loan three times, the finance charge would climb to $60 to borrow $100.

Some payday loans offer first time free, but the catch is that it gets people into the habit of relying on payday loans and rollovers, so the first time free becomes pretty meaningless.

If you don't think this is an issue for the Illinois 10th, think again. There are payday loan companies thriving all over the district and yes, in places like Highland Park, Buffalo Grove and Wheeling.

Do you think Mark Kirk has done a thing about payday loan ripoffs?

Guess....

Of course not.

But...

Rod Blagojevich has. The Payday Loan Reform Act was signed into law by the Gov in June 2005. The new law:

• Limits the interest that can be charged for each loan to $15.50 per $100;


• Sets a cap on total loan amounts to $1,000 or 25% of a customer’s monthly salary, whichever is less;


• Prevents borrowers from having more than two loans at a time;


• Provides that payday borrowers cannot have payday loans for more than 45 days. Once they have reached the 45-day limit they must have at least a seven-day loan free period;


• Creates a new 56-day repayment period with no additional interest charges for borrowers who have trouble repaying their loans;


• Protects borrowers from facing criminal prosecution for unpaid loans, and from paying attorneys fees and court costs; and


• Extends special protections to members of the military, including a ban on garnishing wages, deferral of collections for deployed personnel, and a prohibition on contacting a borrower’s commanding officer.

Some disagree with the law complaining that it is too paternalistic. Problem is that the state has a very limited ability to regulate the lending industry which is mostly subject to federal law. Since the republican congress and our own Congressman, Mark Kirk, won't do anything about predatory lending practices, the states can only do what they can and Blagojevich is at the forefront of the movement to protect consumers.

If you are an average joe in Illinois who needs quick cash, you may be frustrated with the new restrictions, but think again because the cycle of debt can take over your life for the rest of your life. Blagojevich and your Illinois legislature did what they could to help. Think again when you vote in 2006 because our US Congressman, Mark Kirk, doesn't care about your financial situation, but federal regulation of predatory lending, regulating the lenders themselves with stiff penalties for violations, is really what is needed to end it.

Crops

We have a serious ongoing investigation here and it's being played out in the press. ~ George W. Bush, Monday July 18, 2005

Bush and his thug cronies sure didn't care about investigations when they smeared Bill Clinton and Al Gore.

Isn't it in the Bible that you reap what you sow. Bush must have skipped that line during his vast Biblical studies.

Facts are stubborn things

Now the President talked about how it's important for us to learn all the facts. We don't know all the facts, and it's important that we not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.~ Scott McClellan, Monday July 18, 2005

Now, they are worried about the facts. They weren't so worried when the Clintons were never found guilty of anything in Whitewater or when the conviction count per administration led a path, not to Clinton, but Reagan.

Seems to me they should have been more worried about the fact that Joe Wilson was the only republican who told the truth about Iraq; the fact that there was no nuclear sale in Niger; the fact that there were not WMD in Iraq; the fact that those who attacked us were Saudis trained in Afghanistan; the fact that Bin Laden was allowed to get away at Tora Bora; the fact that corporate mercenaries are stealing taxpayer money and putting our soldiers in danger in Iraq; the fact that Rove played politics with a covert CIA agent.

republicans are now worried about the facts, but the facts will come out.

So, they should be worried.

No good deed goes unpunished II

No good deed goes unpunished.
All helpful urges should be circumvented.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Sure. I meant well...
Well, look at what well-meant did....~Elphaba, Wicked

Illinoisans: Don't be so fast to throw out Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

It's become fashionable to badmouth Gov. Blagojevich, but think about from where the smear might be coming? Illinois republicans were relegated to Keyes vs. Obama and are hoping for a resurgence. Nationally, the gop is dying to turn Illinois red.

Blagojevich got the state in a George Ryan corruption mess, at a time when the federal government began its financial starvation of the states. He is doing what he can without raising the income tax. He cannot increase the income tax because the republicans will destroy him for it and our fellow Illinoisans will let them succeed.

BUT...

Blagojevich has done good things and is out there hanging all by himself when other Democrats should be behind him.

He tried to get cheaper pharmaceuticals for our seniors from Canada and Europe. The republicans sabotaged his plans and he got smeared for it. He has also done the job on stem cells that Mark Kirk thinks we believe he is doing with his bill that will never get signed by Bush and he knows it, but having done the job, Rod is getting smeared for it.

Don't punish Rod. Don't push him aside for some unknown republican to take our fine blue state and hand it to the Bush thugs. Don't show our state leaders that Elphaba was right when she concluded:

All right enough...So be it.
So be it then.
Let all Oz be agreed
I'm wicked through and through.
Since I cannot succeed...
I promise no good deed will I attempt to do again.~Elphaba, Wicked

We need to back our Democratic leaders, not punish them for everything while Bush gets away with far far far worse...

and we cannot give up on Rod now because we finally learned how to spell his last name....

No good deed goes unpunished

No good deed goes unpunished.
No act of charity goes unresented.
No good deed goes unpunished.
That's my new creed.
My road of good intentions
Led where such roads always lead.
No good deed goes unpunished....~Elphaba, Wicked

Like the people of Oz in Wicked (see my review of the musical posted 7/17/05), Americans are willing to give up their real heros for a group of corrupt thugs who stole the republican party out from under it. This evening, Randi Rhodes asked the question: How many real patriots are we going to sacrifice for these corrupt and evil Bush guys?

Here's a start on the count of those who have been smeared by the Bush thugs (I know there are more--feel free to add the ones you think of):

1. Joe Wilson, the hero of Gulf War I for saving hundreds of people in face of Saddam Hussein without blinking.

2. Valerie Plame, trying to find out the truth about Iraq WMD.

3. Scott Ridder, weapons inspector also trying to find out the truth about WMD in Iraq.

4. General Shinseki (and several others) who told the truth about what it would take to not only win, but get Iraq under real control.

5. John Kerry, Vietnam War hero reduced to Swift Boat infamy while AWOL Bush gets false vindication.

6. John McCain, another Vietnam War hero, not my favorite person, but could have been way better than Bush had he not sold out to them after he saw first hand what they are.

7. Dan Rather, disgraced for using a true story not fully researched, but Novak is OK????

8. Dick Durbin, our IL Senator, so now it hits home and becomes personal. We shouldn't have let that one get by so easily.

9. John Conyers, hero of House Judiciary Committee during Watergate, and now.

10. Michael Schiavo, smeared for wanting to comply with his wife's wishes to die with dignity.

11. At the very least, 1768 American soldiers, not smeared, but dead. Since they are lying to us, we'll never really know how many.

Wicked in Chicago on every level

Called the most "overtly political musical since The Cradle Will Rock" with political references that sound very familiar to those of us commenting on the current regime, Wicked can be read on many different levels. For those of you who don't frequent Broadway or Broadway in Chicago, as Mayor Daley, in a very second city-ish sort of way, renamed Chicago's Theatre District, Wicked is a musical running completely sold out all summer and into the fall at the Oriental Theatre (not-so-strangely and for profit, renamed the Ford Center). It tells the back story of the Wizard of Oz, specifically the relationship between Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, and Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.

Although vehemently denied by its producers, one can easily see political messages and references to current events. Democrats will see the Wizard as Rove lying about everything and the robotic head he manipulates as Bush and republicans will see the Wizard as Bill Clinton lying about Monica and name the green witch Hillary without realizing that the green witch is the good witch, but the fact is that the musical is based on a book that was started in 1991 by a guy whose parents didn't even let him watch Leave it to Beaveras a child, so he read books, one of them being The Wizard of Oz. References to our current circumstances probably only mean that our experiences, although extraordinary to us, are still somewhat universal.

On another level, one easily sees the animal rights theme translating into minority rights. In Wicked, Elphaba (played in Chicago by SNL's Ana Gasteyer), different herself because of her green skin color, gets her start as a student animal rights activist. No, she's not trying to keep them from becoming dinner, but from losing their professorships and their political voice. Apparently, in Oz at one time, animals were as literate and articulate as people, and a little bit more. After some political strife caused by a drought, the animals begin to lose their political and literal voice and her beloved professor, a goat, is fired. Elphaba, seeing the injustice, tries to rescue a cowardly lion cub and her goat professor, but is dubbed the Wicked Witch as she unwittingly casts one of her first spells to make monkeys fly and dooms them to lives of servitude. (So that's where those flying monkeys that scared me as a child came from!). Once deemed Wicked by the impelled majority, the lies get bigger and stranger (one that she can be dissolved in water) and Elphaba is forced into hiding and covert political operations.

Yet another level of the story shows us how the governed are easily manipulated and used similar to the story of the original Wizard of Oz which, before watered down by Hollywood for kiddie consumption, was the tale of manipulation to the gold standard from the silver standard during the Populist Era. Wicked takes it further with its story of a people lied to and work up into a frenzy that causes them to destroy everything that doesn't conform to Wizard-approved Oz society. Worse, Ozzians seem to crave the lies and desire the destruction. Elphaba tries to live the truth and the people try to destroy her for it. Glinda the Good Witch eventually learns the complexity of the world and ultimately wants to reveal the truth and love Elphaba as a dear friend, but cannot because her people don't want the truth.

There is another level to Wicked that really interested me being the questions what is wicked and what is good. At school, shy and outcast Elphaba is forced to room with Galinda (who later changes her name to Glinda), a pretty and popular, goody-goody blonde who only wears white and thinks everything is wonderful and that she, herself, is the most wonderfulest. Pronouncing everything wrong is a Bushian sort of way, Galinda seems to be the proverbial good is really bad, but sometimes Galinda is really bad and then she's sort of good, at her best when bad, bad at least by Ozzian standards. Elphaba, the Wicked Witch, isn't wicked at all until she decides to be in a life changing scene called No Good Deed Goes Unpunished and then has trouble staying bad because it's not in her nature.

In No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, Elphaba realizes that good deeds are envied and suspected all at the same time and can go terribly wrong despite a good motive, or maybe the motive isn't solely for the good after all:

One question haunts and hurts too much. Too much to mention: Was I really seeking good or just seeking attention? Is that all good deeds are when looked at with an ice cold eye? If that's all good deeds are maybe that's the reason why...

The moral of the story seems to be that some bad is good and some good is bad and some good is really good and shouldn't be suspected and it's just hard to tell when exists which or which is witch. Ultimately good can be done, but only quietly and behind the scenes.

I enjoyed Wicked more for the message than the music. The producers shouldn't run away from the political themes because they are the piece's strong point. Ana Gasteyer is loaded with personality and owns the character of Elphaba through her insight and humor, but is not the best singer or dancer. Kate Rainders as Glinda has enough Broadway baby for the both of them, though and the ensemble is terrific. The songs are so so, but the dialogue is great, the costumes are great, the scenery and lighting are great and that means a lot to this former Niles East Theatre Jock.

Top Ten Rove Excuses for outing Plame

10. I never mentioned her name, just that her initials were VP and she was married to Joe Wilson (provided the wedding photos) and her last name rhymed with Flame.

9. I didn't know she was a covert agent, just that she was an agent that worked covertly.

8. I didn't tell the press, the press told me because I told them I needed to get Joe Wilson for revealing our lies about Iraq. Then, I told them so they could reveal me as their source.

7. I was in Niger at the time selling nuclear material.

6. What's good for the GOP is good for the nation (or is that General Motors or is General Motors the Nation...no, that's Halliburton....)

5. I did it under the advice of W during NASCAR eating pretzels.

4. I have a movie deal with FOX and cannot tell you until after the movie comes out.

3. Wilson didn't shut up after we outed her, so it's like he outed her.

2. Remember to pencil in Patrick Fitzgerald for revenge next Tuesday and don't forget that guy from Illinois who put him there, Peter (I knew those folks from Illinois were dangerous).

1. Bill Clinton made me do it.

A Real DemoCAT, but not much of a reader

Skippy has his kangaroo, Ellen has her DemoCAT. Happy 14th Birthday, Zoe!

They can check her library records all they want.

Rove Leak and Downing Street Memo all part of same

Daniel Schorr of The Christian Science Monitor reminds us what this is all about:

The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough to justify a war.

Homeless ownership

While Rove's denials and Limbaugh's defenses grow more bizarre and senate republicans join together to decide that leaks of CIA information are good, Bush continues to lie about issues that matter to real working Americans and he did it again at the Indiana Black Expo yesterday:

From the Progress Report:

THE NONEXISTENT HOMEOWNERSHIP SOCIETY: President Bush stated, "I like the idea of home ownership, and I hope you do, as well" before going on to praise the progress his administration has made on promoting homeownership in the African-American community. In reality, the increase in home ownership has slowed as housing costs have increased. During this past business cycle, "families have owned the smallest share of their own homes since the 1950s." Particularly in the African-American community, "the rise in home ownership rates that began in the mid-1990s has slowed markedly since early 2001."

What they have really created is an open market for speculators, not first time home owners. All the financing schemes from no-interest loans to 80/20s are geared for the speculator market because they are very bad for anyone who intends to live in the property for a length of time. No interest loans are being marketed as low low interest loans, but then are not because they are adjustible, meaning that the interest increases. It seems cheap because you are only paying interest, but because you pay no principal, the principal just continues to build up. One hundred percent loans or 80/20s mean, the borrower has no equity in the property. Maybe that is ok if a person if buying a property for investment to fix up and resell quickly making a profit, but for a homeowner that is just a means to disaster . If you cannot keep up the payments, you end up homeless with nothing.

With a market that encourages speculation, prices are going up and the increase does not represent true value, so the bubble can burst at any time and prices and the value of your house, could decrease rapidly.

Bush claimed to the Indiana Black Expo that his administration is creating more minority homeowners. That is simply not true and his administration's refusal to regulate predatory lending practices and planned HUD funding cuts and redistribution of funding to the Labor and Commerce Departments where it can be used for other projects will continue to favor the speculator's market that will hurt all homeowners in the end.

Christine Cegelis

Christine Cegelis is running for Hyde's seat in the 6th district. She got 44% of the vote in 2004 which is really a terrific start. I saw Christine tonight and she is looking great and working hard.

My friend asked Christine why she is running and she answered in two parts. First, Christine came from a working class family and worked her way through college on a minimum wage job. She sees that now something like that would be impossible and feels for the young people who want an education that has become out of their reach. She wants to change that.

Second, she is a computer programmer and has seen so many jobs going overseas that she is very worried about the loss of opportunity for people in the US, including her sons. She feels bad that they are growing up in a world with far less opportunity than the one in which she grew up.

I think Christine is talking about the effects of Bush's ownership society. As an employee and a mom, Christine has seen its effects and cares enough to want to do something about it.

Last year, I attended a conference run by the Revolutionary Women out of Boston. I attended a workshop for people who want to be candidates. One of the speakers was Marie St. Fleur, a state representative from Boston. She was asked what characteristics a person has to have to run for office. Rep. St. Fleur said that it required a fire in the belly and a strong desire to do something that means a lot to the person. I think Christine Cegelis has those attributes. She is one of the hardest working candidates that I have ever seen and she wants to open up opportunity for young people like her sons.

See this link to contribute to Cegelis for Congress.

Flesh wounds

I watched the 7/13 White House press briefing this afternoon courtesy of C-Span and heard Scott McClellan complain that the press had taken some flesh from him over the last several days. McClellan, mouthpiece of the chickenhawks, doesn't know what flesh being taken means. These men and women do. Not the mention the ones that have not even been counted. Not to mention their families. Not to mention these folks, many of them children and Rumsfeld says they are not worth counting.

So easy to talk about sacrifice and so easy to talk about the difficulties of war when you don't have to suffer any of it yourself.

Where is Kirk's outrage?

Dear Representative Kirk,

It is now admitted that the President's top aid, Karl Rove, leaked Valerie Plame's role in the CIA to Time reporter Matt Cooper in an act of revenge or threat of some kind for her husband's revelation that the Niger nuclear deal (upon which much of the administration's justification for the Iraq War was based) never happened.

I am wondering, where is your outrage? You were very concerned about Iraq's abilities to use WMD to hurt the US and supported the war for those reasons. Plame was a CIA operative looking for WMD in Iraq. You even flew missions over Iraq. I can only imagine that you believe the work of the CIA to be important and feel that its covert agents should be protected as much as possible. I would also imagine that you support the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 as you are sworn to uphold the laws of the United States.

This is what you said in 2003 in response to a question about your goals for your second term:

My primary goal is to help secure our country from attack by renegade regimes and the terrorists they sponsor. After 13 years as a reserve naval intelligence officer, I was optimistic that our security was assured following our victory in the Cold War. When I was elected, I planned on focusing my service on health care and education.

The events of September 11th demonstrated that we live in a dangerous world and each generation is called to defend our hard-won freedoms. My primary goals as a new member of the Appropriations Subcommittees funding the Justice, State, and foreign assistance programs are to boost support for homeland defense, enhance our intelligence and aid our allies that stand with us in the war on terror.

Why then are you not outraged by Karl Roves actions? Why have you said nothing on the subject, nothing to reassure your constituents that this behavior from a senior White House advisor is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.

Is your party loyalty that much greater than your loyality to your country which is in a shooting war in the very country Plame was investigating over the very issue she was investigating?

Actually paid the long distance charge

This morning I had on the Today Show. Katie was interviewing Newt Gingrich about the Rove scandal. Newt said that Rove had to do what he did because Joe Wilson was lying to the country.

Excuse me.

Gingrich is refering to the false allegations that there had been some sort of nuclear material deal between Iraqis and terrorists in Niger. That was proven to be fraudulent and the paper written in support of this had been plagiarized from a 12 year old student thesis paper

Joe Wilson was the only one who told the truth.

Katie asked Newt why he says Wilson was lying but never brought up the real issue.

So, I did something I have never done before. I called 411 and got the number for NBC News and called. Paid the long distance charge too. I was pretty optimistic when I got a person, but she just directed me into a voice mailbox.

Not challenging Newt on his lie was IRRESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM. In fact not journalism at all, but political operations for the republican party.

This is exactly what Thomas Jefferson was worried about.

Maybe more alike than they tell us

The reactionary republican far-right wants the public to think there are two very extreme sides that are splitting further apart. It helps their cause to perpetuate the idea of this rift to their side so their side gets the "us against them" syndrome and moves even further to the right. However, in this stunning video produced by AtCenterNetwork, Lee Goodman shows that the differences may not be so great on what most people view as a very polarizing issue.