We're SIGNING OFF, and transferring over to DEMOCRATICnationUSA.blogspot.com

See you there! (Click our headline link.) Here's hoping the Democrats lead a COURAGEOUS, OPEN, and (small-d) DEMOCRATIC 110th Congress in these two critical years until election 2008.

JUBILANT DEMOCRATS.... vow to FIGHT for bills demanded by American people...!

[note to Nancy and the Democrats: Get a copy of that magnificent 2nd photograph in the Rich Lipski/Washington Post series (click our headline link click then click "next photo"), and PLASTER IT ALL OVER your own websites and PR notices! That Lipski photo, which we can't grab, is far better than the one above.)

Sen. Ted Kennedy: Ten Priorities Of New Dem Agenda… Sen. Charles Schumer: The People Want Us To Go To Work For Them…..Rep. John Murtha: I Will Be Recommending Extensive Hearings On Iraq…..Rep. Jan Schakowsky: Minimum Wage Increase…..Sen. Tom Harkin: Lift Bush’s Restrictions On Stem Cells…..Rep. Jane Harman: Put Iraq War “On Budget”…
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Our Comments: We here at c-dems SALUTE the incoming 110th Congress, and we are so giddy we are shamelessly stealing Huffington Post's lead photo and headlines! (What the heck, HuffPost leading photos vanish in the wind within hours of their posting, HuffPost offering no archives of their front page).

AND we hope the Democrats make good on ALL their pledges, starting with the "BIG 5" or "BIG 10" mentioned immediately below. Not to grouch, but one item is glaringly missing: the call for substantive OVERSIGHT and ACCOUNTABILITY on America's deeply flawed "HAVA Voting Act," which in effect amounts to little more than (what else) no supervision, no oversight concessions to REPUBLICAN VOTING MACHINE COMPANIES to LOOT American voters of their taxes... and more importantly, OF THEIR VOTES. (Which in turn allows the Republican Congressional beneficiaries of those LOOTED VOTES to stick taxpayers with EVEN MORE EGREGIOUS taxation & spending priorities, such as no-bid contracts for Halliburton in both Iraq and New Orleans, as New Orleans residents are effectively "cleansed" from their native city.)

And one other comment: Like many tens of thousands of Democratic activists, we here at c-dems were gnashing our teeth when we heard all that talk about "BIPARTISANSHIP" today, after no less than THREE national elections (2000, 2002, 2004) where Republicans SNEERED at Democratic voters and any concept of fair play, much less bipartisan, reach-across-the-aisle good faith.

Having heard Ms. Pelosi's comments on attaining one of the top most powerful jobs in American government (see below), we will Give SPEAKER Pelosi an "A+" for sounding both Bipartisan... AND firmly determined to honor the intent of MILLIONS of Democratic voters who gave their all (and loaded their credit cards) to demand SOME kind of OPPOSITION to the Bush administration lust for war.

BUT we will note that THE ONLY REASON Ms. Pelosi is Speaker, which is to say THE ONLY reason the Democrats are in the majority, is the Bush administration HAS FOULED SO MUCH UP, and are _SO BLATANTLY, IN-YOUR-FACE arrogant, corrupt, and condescending. We remind yet again, Mr. Bush gave Roman Emperor NERO a run for the money in the "Nero fiddles while Rome BURNS" category, Bush alternately EATING CAKE and STRUMMING GUITAR, on camera at REPUBLICAN PHOTO-OPS, as TWO THOUSAND New Orleans citizens DROWNED when the FEDERAL DIKES FAILED after absorbing rains from THE HURRICANE with the LOWEST RECORDED PRESSURE (closely corresponds to greatest strength) ON RECORD in the Atlantic basin. (Hurricane Katrina set the lowest recorded pressure in the Atlantic basin before it headed north to the American gulf-coast shores and New Orleans.)

Again, it is only MONUMENTAL levels of incompetence, corruption, and arrogance on the part of President Bush that have allowed Democrats to gain their slim majorities in the House and Senate.

And again we remind, it was AN ENTIRE DECADE of Republican PARTISAN ATTACK POLITICS that delivered them the "Super Trifecta" of POWER in American government, control of the 1.) the House; #2.) the Senate; #3.) the White House; #4.) the majority of the federal judiciary; #5.) the majority on the US Supreme Court; #6.) ruthless control of entire swaths of US government that are nominally "nonpolitical," for example SUBORDINATING the EPA and existing LAWS ON THE BOOKS regarding environmental regulations (such as permissible MERCURY and ARSENIC levels in drinking water!) to Republican ANTI-REGULATORY hit-men. (Much as President George H.W. Bush (Sr.) FIRED the San Francisco federal banking district bank examiner, replacing him with S&L super-lobbyist (Republican big-donor) M. DANNY WALLS, thereby allowing Charles Keating's Lincoln S&L to rip-off taxpayers for ANOTHER BILLION DOLLARS, for a TOTAL of TWO-BILLION-DOLLARS that Keating's S&L cost American taxpayers.)

In short, ATTACK POLITICS WORK, even when Republicans conjure up FALSE SCANDALS OUT OF THIN AIR ("Lincoln bedroom scandal," "Vince Foster suicide," the ENTIRELY FABRICATED "White House TRASHING scandal," etc.).... and even Democrats WIN when THEIR ATTACKS are based on the truth.

But Don't Take OUR word for it! -
(See our Pelosi links at bottom of this post)

Pelosi Becomes Speaker, Preparing to Confront Bush
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20070104/pl_bloomberg/alnutnzmtq6k_1

<< Pelosi's ATTACK ON BUSH WHILE MINORITY LEADER _ARE CREDITED BY MANY Democrats WITH HELPING THEM WIN CONTROL of Congress for the first time since 1994_. >>

----------------------------------------------------
Magnificent RIch Lipski/WashPost photograph of Nancy Pelosi immediately after being sworn in on Speaker's diaz, go to this WP series and click second photo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2007/01/04/GA2007010401438_index_frames.htm?startat=1


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Put the Iraq War "On Budget"
Rep. Jane Harman
01.04.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jane-harman/put-the-iraq-war-on-budg_b_37861.html

No issue is more pressing than Iraq. The voters made that clear last November, and Democrats got the message. The war must be at the top of the to-do list.
__________________________________________
[We, the new Democratic majority, will institute] Extensive Hearings on Iraq
by Rep. John Murtha
01.03.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-john-murtha/extensive-hearings-on-ira_b_37732.html

I will be recommending to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that we begin extensive hearings starting on January 17, 2007 that will address accountability, military readiness, intelligence oversight and the activities of private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will be demanding substantive answers to questions that have gone unanswered for far too long.

The war in Iraq and its effect on our military and our nation's future remains the most crucial issue facing the new Congress. I will be recommending an aggressive pursuit of action that will allow us to reduce our military presence in Iraq at the soonest practicable date.
_________________________________________

Priorities for the 110th Congress
by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy
01.04.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-edward-m-kennedy-/priorities-for-the-110th-_b_37870.html
_________________________________________

Bringing the Hopes of Stem Cell Research One Giant Step Closer to Reality
Sen. Tom Harkin
01.04.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-tom-harkin/bringing-the-hopes-of-ste_b_37833.htm
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Back to Work on the Issues that Matter
Sen. Charles E. Schumer
01.04.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-charles-e-schumer/back-to-work-on-the-issue_b_37811.html

From strengthening our homeland security to making college more affordable, this is what we're all here to do and must get done, starting right now. Take, for example; the War in Iraq.
_____________________________________________

Minimum Wage Increase in the First Hundred Hours
Rep. Jan Schakowsky
01.04.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-jan-schakowsky/minimum-wage-increase-in-_b_37795.html

Nearly 15 million Americans go to their jobs every day caring for our children and frail old people, cleaning other people's mess, serving us food in restaurants, and for their efforts receive $5.15 an hour, the Federal minimum wage. If they work 52 forty-hour weeks, their annual income adds up to $10,712 -- $4,367 under the poverty level for a family of three.
_____________________________________________


FIRST DAY OF NEW Democratic Congress
Pelosi Elected First Female Speaker
By John Aloysius Farrell
Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief
 01/04/2007
http://www.currentargus.com/ci_4951313

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) smiles and flexes her muscles after being elected as the first female Speaker at a swearing in ceremony for the 110th Congress in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 4, 2007 in Washington, D.C. (photo by Getty / Chip Somodevilla)

Washington - On a day that even her Republican colleagues called welcome and overdue, the U.S. House of Representatives elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California as the first female speaker Thursday on the opening day of the new Democratic Congress.

Claiming the speaker's gavel after 12 years of Republican rule, Pelosi PROMISED TO WORK "IN THE SPIRT OF PARTNERSHIP, NOT PARTISANSHIP..... _BUT_ SHE QUICKLY CHALLENGED President Bush to "COME UP WITH A NEW PLAN FOR IRAQ" that will allow the U.S. to "responsibly redeploy our troops."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pelosi Becomes Speaker, Preparing to Confront Bush
(Bloomberg) Jan. 4 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20070104/pl_bloomberg/alnutnzmtq6k_1
-- Nancy Pelosi, making history today as the first female speaker of the House, is taking office with two goals: becoming an effective counterweight to President Bush and proving that a woman can thrive at the summit of U.S. political power.

Pelosi's ATTACK ON BUSH WHILE MINORITY LEADER _ARE CREDITED BY MANY Democrats WITH HELPING THEM WIN CONTROL of Congress for the first time since 1994_. As speaker, she'll be dealing with a narrow majority and a president with veto power, making decisions about when to work with Bush and when to confront him.
Pelosi won election as speaker today by a vote of 233-202.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Democrats Take Control on Hill
New Speaker Pelosi Shepherds Ethics Bills To Passage in House
By Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, January 5, 2007; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010400802.html?sub=AR

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was elected America's first female speaker of the House yesterday in a raucous, bipartisan celebration of a historic breakthrough, and hours later she presided over passage of the broadest ethics and lobbying revision since the Watergate era.

"NO EASY WAY OUT" of Iraq war for Democrats & America in 2007. Are Dems UP to the responsibility?

A TERRIFIC op-ed by Mathew Yglesias at The Prospect.org; an op-ed that says everything we Americans who distrust and oppose the malignant Bush administration know to be true:

There is NO honor in the Bush adminstration....

There is NO "compassion" in the Bush adminstration....

There is NO urgency in the Bush adminstration to PROTECT the livelihoods, jobs, communities, and futures of working-class or even middle-class Americans...

And there certainly is NO intent in the Bush administration to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for the debacle that is the Iraq war, the Righties just keep force-feeding the notion that professional army of 125,000 (or even 200,000 or more) troops is somehow going to "STABILIZE" the nation where Americans are despised by our Shiite "allies" as much as we are despised by the Sunnis we are helping the (Shiite) government "ethnically cleanse" from entire chunks of Iraq.

EVERY issue in America politics (and in world power-projection) is seen by the Bush administration as a means to assert DICTATORIAL, unrestrained, unsupervised POWER over Americans (much less foreigners), MUCH AS SEGREGATION-ERA Southern ELITES RULED THE Deep South with an IRON FIST.

We've said the same before (see our previous post), Mr. Yglesia just says it better. And kudos for Mr. Yglesia for bringing WILLIAM SAFIRE, and his "_WRONG_ 10 out of 13 times" editorializing discussions, back to the fore. Last we recall, the LYING Mr. Safire, Brownshirt New York Times Nixon criminal-conduct apologist (and former staff member of the Nixon administration) pledged that "INDICTMENTS ARE COMING DOWN THIS WEEK" for the Clintons, and that "Wen Ho Lee is guilty of TREASON!", and that a modest $2,000 donation from a Buddhist temple was a "beyond the pale!" example of Democratic corruption, allowing godless furinners to (gasp!) "INFLUENCE American elections."

NEVER MIND that AIPAC, (the Jewish Israel lobby) or the Vatican (ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH), ALONE, were responsible for George W. Bush's stolen "victory" in Ohio (and other states) in 2004.

(That is, take away EITHER the AIPAC lobby influence, or the relentless anti-Kerry influence from the Rome-based Catholic Church in the 2004 campaign and elections, and John Kerry would have won Ohio, and thus the US presidency, in a WALK in 2004.)

SO BRING IT ON, NEW YORK LYIN' TIMES! BRING ON YOUR LYING, BROWNSHIRT, THUGGISH APOLOGIST for CRIMINAL presidential administrations, in the person of FORMER NIXON SPEECH-WRITER WILLIAM SAFIRE.

We here at MediaWHORESusa.blogspot.com look forward to GOING AFTER Mr. Safire's EVERY THUGGISH COMMENT.


===============================================

No Easy Way Out
Democrats need to realize that the Iraq war is likely never going to end without them doing something to end it.
By Matthew Yglesias
01.02.07
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12352

Predictions are a tough business, as William Safire conceded in his December 29 return to The New York Times's op-ed page, opening his annual predictions column with the observation that his "predictions took a beating in 2006." As Daniel Radosh points out, that's actually a bit of an understatement: "Out of the 14 predictions Safire made last year at this time, 3 came to pass." That's a lot of bad predictions. The first was especially awful:
U.S. troops in Iraq at 2006 year's end will number: (a) current ''base line'' 138,000; (b) closer to 100,000; (c) closer to 90,000; (d) 80,000 or below.
Safire answered (d), which was, of course, wrong. More to the point, readers playing at home were destined to miss the mark as well -- the truth, that there would be more troops in Iraq twelve months later -- wasn't even an option. Iraq, of course, has been a wellspring of terrible predictions from hawks like Safire ever since they began turning attention to the issue in 2002, with talk of cakewalks and nuclear weapons programs thick in the air. The interesting thing about Safire's miscue is how many of the Bush administration's political opponents have gotten this wrong as well.

Ever since the dog days of the 2004 election campaign, one has usually been able to find one liberal critic or another prepared to charge the Bush administration with a cynical plan to "declare victory and go home," relieving his party of the political problems of Iraq without solving any of the substantive issues there. This, we were told, would happen before Bush's electoral showdown with John Kerry. Or maybe it would happen before or during the 2006 campaign. Neither, of course, came to pass. Then the thinking held that the Iraq Study Group's "real" mission would be to provide "political cover" for a withdrawal the administration was presumed eager to effectuate.

But a funny thing happened between Election Day and the New Year. Jim Baker and co. didn't wind up endorsing withdrawal. And Bush didn’t wind up endorsing Baker's baby steps in the direction of reconfiguring American policy in the region. The suggestion that it was time for a New Diplomatic Offensive was rejected out of hand. Syria and Iran will continue to be subject to American efforts to isolate them. Russian and Chinese hesitance to embrace isolating Teheran will be met by a campaign of hectoring rather than persuasion and deal-making.

As for Iraq itself, the president won't quite tell anyone what his new policy is going to be yet, but all indications are that he intends to escalate the conflict by embracing a plan devised by Fred Kagan at the American Enterprise Institute for a so-called "surge" of American troops into Iraq. The term is a pretty serious misnomer. As Kagan explained in a December 27 op-ed, he's talking about "a surge of at least 30,000 combat troops lasting 18 months or so." A two-month increase is a surge. An 18-month increase -- in the context of a war financed by supplemental appropriations that don't even cover whole years -- might as well mean forever.

Bush remains, in short, committed to some kind of notion of victory in Iraq, though neither he nor anyone else can offer a plausible explanation of what that might mean or how it could be achieved. Indeed, in a fundamental way Bush seems to regard "winning" as simply equivalent to "not losing" and "losing" to be the same as "leaving." No matter how bad things get, that will never, to him, be a reason to give up and go home. Nor will apparent successes be a pretext for declaring victory and going home. The war will just continue -- if not forever, then at least until he's out of office.

Interestingly, the persistent inability of Bush's political opponents to understand his approach in this way reflects very much the same kind of wishful thinking that has hawks perennially believing that victory is right around the corner. Democrats want the war to end, but they don't want to be the ones who end it. They fear, not unreasonably, a reprise of the revisionist take on the Vietnam war, which blames the American debacle there not on the hawkish architects of the policy but on the doves who eventually forced the country to abandon its futile efforts in Southeast Asia. Under the circumstances, the convenient thing would be for Bush to wrap the war up and let the Democrats reap the political dividends.

It's not, however, going to happen. Politically, the party's best hope is that a Republican wannabe presidential nominee will decide to see if there's political space for an anti-war Republican, that candidate wins the GOP nomination, the 2008 election goes forward between two candidates who agree that the war should end, and American troops are withdrawn sometime in 2009. It could happen, but it's a long-shot, and so far we've seen no indication that things are heading in that direction. Sooner or later -- either this year or next in Congress, or else during the 2008 presidential campaign -- Democrats are going to need to face the reality that this war won't end unless they step up and do something to end it.

Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.

If "The Decider" decides to ESCALATE the war in Iraq WITHOUT ANY INPUT from Congress - even his own party! - then we Americans DO NOT have a democracy

We generally "Agree" with a decade or so of Democratic idealism, that becoming a Democratic elected official and representative leader should NOT have to mean GOING TO WAR against the stubborn dictatorial impulses of a president who CONTROLS the ENTIRE corporate media.

HOWEVER, FIGHTING for the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills was NOT "easy work," nor was FIGHTING to PROHIBIT the EXPANSION of slavery (as President Lincoln pledged to do) an easy path, NOR WAS SIGNING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE an easy task. In fact, many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence saw only PERSONAL RUIN for their brave and bold signatory acts; including one of the Representatives from Virginia who during the battle of Yorktown personally instructed General Washington to have the American artillery demolish HIS home, that the British were using as headquarters. (The home was never rebuilt, and that leader died never having recouped his wealth.)

So it is with Democrats in Congress this eve of the 110th Congress. Let's face it, the way you RISE in the Democratic Party today is BY BEING A GOOD FUNDRAISER. *RAISING FUNDS* today is SYNONYMOUS with being a political leader, because without (for example) Rahm Emmanuel's FIERCE drive to raise funds for Democratic congressional candidates in 2006, many of those candidates would NOT have been elected, and the Democrats would not be controlling the House this coming Tuesday.

BUT fundraising is NOT the be-all and end-all of POLITICAL LEADERSHIP.

As President Kennedy wrote (while a freshman senator, or even before his senate election win) in "PROFILES IN COURAGE," sometimes BEING A LEADER means doing the HARD or unpopular task.

What is amazing is that, with President Bush's popularity in the toilet, with volumes of his administration's lies, deceptions, and close ties with corrupt officials forever engraved in video and news files, and with the WHITE HOUSE's OWN WEBSITE posting the transcripts to Mr. Bush's "Osama bin Laden... I REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT HIM THAT MUCH ANY MORE, HE DOESN"t CONCERN ME that much anymore..." on the 'net for the whole world to see, Mr. Bush STILL commands considerable influence and (choke) respect from the American press/media, much of the public, and most of the government.

It is about time that the DEMOCRATS _STOPPED_ taking DICTATION from the RUSH pill-popping gas-bag LIMBAUGH MICROPHONE (and his direct feed from CIA-agent-outer Karl Rove's desk), and started STANDING UP to the whore media, and CONFRONTING Mr. Bush on his DISMAL FAILURE to capture Osama bin Laden (much less wage an effective PEACE in Afghanistan), and the simple bottom line is, the longer we stay in Iraq, the MORE we help our Maliki government Shiite "ALLIES" KILL SUNNIS, the American death-squad model from Central America in the 1980s having been exported to Iraq just as surely as the "GUANTANAMO METHODS" were exported from the American prison on Guantanamo to Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib. (Note: Sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and betings are THE START of the torture-abuse regime at American run prisons.)

=======================================

The Decider Lays Down The Law, Reid and Pelosi Should Lay It Right Back
Brent Budowsky
01.03.2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brent-budowsky/the-decider-lays-down-the_b_37710.html


Americans awoke today to read the President in the Wall Street Journal call for bipartisan cooperation and then threaten Democratic Leaders against what he called stalemate.

While the President was claiming to initiate a new period of bipartisan cooperation, and while Democratic Leaders were preparing to meet with the President to consult about Iraq, news media were widely reporting that the President


had made a firm and final decision to escalate the war, and send more troops.
Presumably when the Decider meets with the Congressional leaders to consult, he will inform them of his firm and final decisions taken before the meetings. Presumably if they do not agree with his firm and final decision to escalate the war, without consultations with Democratic or Republican leaders, he will then remind them of his warning against stalemate.

The Democratic Leaders should state clearly, unequivocally and immediately that in the American system of government, there are three coequal branches of government, the executive is one of them, the legislative branch is another.

In fact, Republican leaders such as Senator Lugar, are saying today that the President must consult with Congress, and not ignore the Congress as Senator Lugar correctly said, this past Sunday, that he has for six years,

The Democratic Leaders might remind the President that this past November America had what is called an election, America voted in that election to deescalate and not escalate the war, and Americans chose the Democratic Party to control both Houses of Congress.

Senator Lugar, in fact, tried to remind the President of this as well, on Sunday.

Democratic Leaders might remind the President that bipartisanship does not mean the President makes unilateral and preemptive decisions to escalate the war, and then open the New Year by threatening the Party the people elected, with charges of stalemate, if the Party upholds what the voters decided.

Democratic Leaders might remind the President that consultation means they sit down, before decisions are made, for intelligent discussions about policy options, not for the leaders of the Congress to be informed by the Decider what He has decided.

Before the election the President said he would consult with and respect the Baker Hamiltion group. After the election he gave Baker and Hamilton the back of his hand, and then said he would consult with military leaders whose advice he always claimed to follow and respect.

Then, he discovered what he knew before, that our Joint Chiefs of Staff and commanders oppose the troop surge, so after "consulting" with them, he disregarded and disrespected our military leaders as well.

At the beginning of this misbegotten war, the President disregarded and disrespected General Eric Shinseki. Today there are twenty General Shinsekis and he disregards and disrespects them all.

Then the President said he would "consult" with Democratic and Republican Leaders in the Congress, and now, before these so-called "consultations", the media is informed, that Congressional leaders will be informed, what the Decider has unilaterally decided.

In the hours before the new Congress is even sworn in, the President is engaging in a power play reminiscent of the one party state that the voters rejected last November. He falsely tells the nation in the Wall Street Journal that he favors bipartisan cooperation, while he secrely makes final decisions to escalate before the consultations even begin, then threatens the Democratic Congress with charges of stalemate if they do not take dictation, as he demands.

My advice is: Senate Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi should make it abundantly clear immediately:

* co-equal branches of government mean co-equal branches of government;

* consultation requires consulting, not treating Congress like subordinates to be informed of what decisions are dictated;

* bipartisan government means both parties collaborate before decisions are made,

* elections are elections and the American people have spoken;

* a lame duck President who has lost both houses of Congress and created a catastrophe in Iraq , is in no position to make threats.

* here in America, we believe in democracy, not Deciders.

The President has laid down the law.

The Majority Leader and Speaker should lay it down, right back.

The Democat's FAILURE OF NERVE allowed the Repub. super-trifecta of politics & power, from 2002 to present...

Terrific editorial by Paul Loeb over at HuffPost... BUT!

Substitute "DEMOCRATS" for "Gerald Ford" and you get THE REAL accurate snapshot review of today's balance of power, in a very succinct nutshell. Remember: the Democrats ONLY won the majority in the House, and a squeaky "one heart-attack away from losing it" majority in the Senate; only because the Bush administration and Rethuglican Party were SO_BLATANTLY CORRUPT, INCOMPETENT, and monumentally scornful of American citizens (not to mention Iraqi war victims) in the past 5 years.

We mean, for jimmy's sake, President Bush gave decadent Roman EMPEROR NERO a run for the money in the "fiddle while Rome burns" department, Bush not only IGNORING the category 5 hurricane bearing down on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in August of 2005, but attending REPUBLICAN_PHOTO-OP_FUNDRAISERS where he
a.) literally ate cake (John McCain's birthday cake) and
b.) strummed guitar... ON CAMERA, as New Orleans residents too poor to flee their homes before the hurricane DROWNED when the _FEDERALLY BUILT and MAINTAINED dikes FAILED from constant hurricane rains!
As if THAT wasn't bad enough, Mr. Bush's pick for the nation's multibillion dollar FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY was a.... was an executive whose previous job was running Arabian horse shows, a job he was FIRED from by disgruntled horsemen!

As if that wasn't bad enough, the emergency agency was AWOL at the New Orleans Superdome emergency shelter... while national network news trucks DROVE UP to the Superdome UNIMPEDED! As if THAT wasn't bad enough, the FEMA incompetent administrators TURNED AWAY Walmart donated water trucks, as seniors and vulnerable storm survivors DIED from thirst, poor sanitation, and lack of medication in the shelter turned hellish morgue!

On all of the above, the BEST explanation for Mr. Bush's ABJECT FAILURES to LEAD a quick and thorough recovery was that he was INCOMPETENT and corrupt - more concerned with REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISING than with the welfare of American citizens and taxpayers who paid into the federal tax base that pays FEMA's salaries and operating budget.

BUT THERE IS A MORE SINISTER EXPLANATION as to how New Orleans disaster recovery could be so terribly botched: Mr. Bush and his hard-core right-wing supporters see the disaster as AN OPPORTUNITY to ETHNICALLY CLEANSE New Orleans, the city, of its Black, Democratic voting majority.

Which brings us back to Mr. Loeb's article. Here is the money quote:

<< Dealing with such fundamental threats to our democracy isn't pleasant. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, if we'd come to grips with the lessons of Nixon, Iran-Contra, Jeb Bush's Florida disenfranchisements, and the Swift Boat lies of 2004. I believe Gerald Ford was an honorable man and that he'd have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. But we're still paying for his failure to let the full ugly truths about Nixon be publicly displayed, just as we're still paying for the failure of so many to speak out with their better judgment and question this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases Ford could have helped--and didn't. >>

As we have said, REPLACE "Gerald Ford" with "_DEMOCRATS_" and we get to the heart of the matter >

<< Dealing with FUNDAMENTAL THREATS to our democracy ISN'T PLEASANT. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, IF WE HAD COME TO GRIPS WITH THE LESSONS OF NIXON, IRAN-CONTRA, Jeb Bush's FLORIDA DISENFRANCHISEMENTS, and the SWIFT-BOAT LIES [LIARS] of 2004. I believe _THE DEMOCRATS were_ honorable [men], and that [they] would have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. BUT WE ARE STILL PAYING for the FAILURE of _SO MANY TO SPEAK OUT_ with their better judgments and QUESTION this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases, FORD [DEMOCRATS} could have helped [DONE SOMETHING!] - - and didn't."

LOOK HOW PATHETIC this assessment is! The DEMOCRATS _COULD HAVE_ asked MORE QUESTIONS, and SPOKEN OUT, both before and after the Bush administration's fraudulent march to war in 2003... by they REFUSED TO DO SO in any meaningful way (like sustaining a FILIBUSTER).

The DEMOCRATS of the Senate COULD HAVE CONFRONTED the Republican VOTE THEFT of 2004 (ILLEGAL DISENFRANCHISEMENT of LEGAL voters; i.e., STEALING VOTES from American citizens!); BUT the damn Democrats REFUSED TO DO SO!

The Democrats COULD have VOCALLY, PUBLICLY, and PASSIONATELY STOOD UP for Bush administration CRITICS, from Ambassador Joe Wilson to General Eric Shinseki to Colleen Rowley to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill (to mention only a few of dozens of outspoken critics and whistleblowers) BUT REFUSED TO DO SO, Dem. 2000 Vice Presidential nominee JOE LIEBERMAN leading the charge to EMBRACE ALL THINGS BUSH.

BECAUSE the Democratic "leadership" FOLLOWED THE PATHETIC, (not to say treacherous) LEAD of Joe Lieberman, in 2006 Paul Loeb says it was the OCTOGENARIAN President Gerald Ford who should have stood up to the Bush administration's lies and deceptions to war.

Mr. Loeb, your article is MOSTLY correct in identifying the turning points that ENABLED the Bush admin. march to war.

But IF it was _Gerald Ford's_ RESPONSIBILITY to LEAD the OPPOSITION to the war, then ENTIRE SWATHS of the Democratic House and Senate should HAND THEIR PAYCHECKS OVER to the Gerald Ford charity trusts.

Pa-thetic, then, that the larger portion of the American population has practically NO REPRESENTATION at CONFRONTING the atrocious, corrupt, incompetent, and even murderous agenda of the George Bush and Dick Cheney administration.

(Much less with all the CONVICTED Republican felons who were closely aligned with the Bush White House, MUCH LESS the charges of OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE, PERJURY to FBI investigators, and "OUTING" an entire CIA operation from within the Bush White House, the Scooter Libby trial set to start soon.)

==============================================

Gerald Ford's Failure of Nerve
by Paul Loeb
Jan. 2, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/gerald-fords-failure-of-_b_37664.html

Compared with Nixon and the Republicans who followed him, Gerald Ford looks like the embodiment of Main Street decency and prudence. Ford's judgment seems even better when we learn that he told Bob Woodward that the Iraq war was "a big mistake," concluding, "I just don't think we should go hellfire damnation around the globe freeing people, unless it is directly related to our own national security." Ford's words should give strength to all of us who've questioned the war and were attacked as unpatriotic in the process.


They reflect well on his common-sense willingness to acknowledge discomforting truths. But because he'd told Woodward to keep the interview private until after his death, they don't represent courage, but in fact a failure of nerve.
Think of the impact had Ford spoken out, on the record, to question the war in July 2004, when he conducted the interview with Woodward. Or acknowledged that he was "dumbfounded" when Bush initiated his domestic surveillance program. Had Ford publicly questioned the war, it would have opened up room for others to dissent, across political lines, at a time when the administration and its media allies were calling dissenters "allies of terrorism" for speaking up. It would have made possible a real discussion about the cost of our actions and the options available, when media gatekeepers were largely still insisting that the war was justified and saying it was being won. Had Ford voiced his reservations aloud, it might even have shifted the 2004 elections, at least in some of the Senate races that Democrats lost by the smallest of margins after being baited for not falling in line. Ford might well have taken some political heat for raising his reservations, but as a Republican ex-president he'd have been hard to attack, and any challenges would have let him elaborate further on his principles and conclusions.

Instead Ford responded with silence, echoing those whom Hannah Arendt, in her book Eichman in Jerusalem, called "inner immigrants," good Germans who claimed to have always abhorred Nazi actions but publicly said nothing. I'm not equating Bush's regime and the Third Reich, but in a time of profound crisis people have a responsibility to speak out. If you have the podium of a former Republican president but bury your deepest apprehensions about the current Republican administration, you're doing America a disservice. That's also true for the rest of us, whatever our visibility. The more we know things are wrong and stay silent, the more we allow destructive actions to prevail.

I suspect Ford stayed silent because he didn't want conflict. From all accounts he was a decent man who believed in compromise politics over slash and burn. So why create a firestorm if he didn't have to? The same avoidance of controversy may have fed Ford's decision to pardon Richard Nixon, as Ford talked of wanting to avoid "polarization," "ugly passions," and "years of bitter controversy and divisive national debate." Yet Nixon gained and regained office through spearheading an approach of "positive polarization" based on demonizing those who disagreed with him--an approach developed still further by key Republican strategists like Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Ford's pardon allowed America to evade seriously grappling with the destructive implications of this approach. It removed a chance to unequivocally reject the premise that, as Nixon said in May 1977, "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." The pardon created precedent and encouragement for further abuses, like Bush Senior pardoning his own defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, 12 days before a scheduled perjury trial in which Weinberger was likely to implicate Bush in Iran-Contra. Or the illegal surveillance of ordinary citizens undertaken by both the Reagan administration and the current Bush regime. By pardoning Nixon, Ford removed the chance for our nation to learn from the most profoundly destructive actions of the Nixon administration, and avoid even skating close to their edge in the future.

Dealing with such fundamental threats to our democracy isn't pleasant. Sometimes the public conversations and disagreements are discomforting. Our country would be stronger, I believe, if we'd come to grips with the lessons of Nixon, Iran-Contra, Jeb Bush's Florida disenfranchisements, and the Swift Boat lies of 2004. I believe Gerald Ford was an honorable man and that he'd have rejected taking power through such dubious methods. But we're still paying for his failure to let the full ugly truths about Nixon be publicly displayed, just as we're still paying for the failure of so many to speak out with their better judgment and question this administration on Iraq, both before and after the war started. In both cases Ford could have helped--and didn't.


Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his monthly articles email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles

USSC Chief Justice Roberts captures right-wing sense of ENTITLEMENT: $165,000 "NOT ENOUGH for GOOD QUALITY JUDGES"!

Oh, you have to love that Right-Wing sense of ENTITLEMENT! The peons are MEANT to work the farms and factories and menial labor for pennies per hour, not nearly enough to fund health care and pensions much less holidays and children's higher education... but to get TOP QUALITY JUDGES, $175,000 per year just ain't enough to keep that top talent!

Actually, we here at this blog may agree with the notion that living in Washington, DC, and other major cities is far more expensive than living in more rural parts of the country; presidential counselor VINCE FOSTER went from making over $300,000 per year as a big fish in a small pond in Little Rock, Arkansas, to making less than half of that in DC, supporting two different households. (His wife, understanding the back-stabbing nature of Washington politics, refused to join him in DC after the Clintons won the election of 1992.) As a successful high-powered lawyer and self-made business man, Foster must have had some degree of "control freak" to his nature (as with all successful people in high-stress jobs), and he clearly wasn't prepared for the ferocious dog-eat-dog fishbowl of establishment Washington (please forgive the mixed metaphors), and he clearly went into depression at being unable to stop the relentless, often infantile (if sometimes self-inflicted) hounding of his friends in the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

But today we KNOW where Chief Justice Robert's sympathies lie.... WITH the Right-Wing attack dog politics that made "White House TRAVEL OFFICE FIRINGS" into a (gasp!) "SCANDAL," and set the course for the many other bogus scandals that bedeviled the Clinton White House for eight full years to its final days in office. (To list some important ones briefly, "White House Travel office scandal," "Filegate scandal," Vince Foster suicide/MURDER! "scandal," Buddhist Temple 'SCANDAL," China missiles "SCANDAL," nuclear secrets "SCANDAL," Whitewater real-estate flop "SCANDAL," "Lincoln bedroom SCANDAL,' "Pardon-gate SCANDAL," and the final act against the Clinton administration, the ENTIRELY BOGUS "White House TRASHING scandal" of January 2001, concocted by the incoming Bush/Rove/Cheney/Karen Hughes/Ari Fleisher/et al administration. )

It was FAKE SCANDALS such as the above that put Texas Gov. George W. Bush within STEALING RANGE of the 2000 election, and it was the last of the above fake "SCANDALS" (the "White House TRASHING scandal" of 2001) that gave the new president COVER to REPUDIATE his "more bipartisan tone in Washington" 2000 campaign pledge (by engaging almost exclusively in Repub. PHOTO-OP and FUNDRAISER partisan attack politics all through 2001) - at the expense of his SWORN DUTIES to "PRESERVE AND PROTECT" these United States. Mr. Bush in August of 2001 put his VACATION and REPUBLICAN FUNDRAISER parties __AHEAD__ of the national security of the United States, Mr. Bush DISREGARDED warnings that Al Qaida was hoping to attack in America to top their (al Qaida's) SUCCESSFUL coordinated attacks on US embassies in 1998 and the USS Cole in October of 2000, in favor of those fundraiser dinners and time out on his ranch outside of Waco, Texas.

Oh - and it was Mr. Bush's Republican anti-Democratic SCANDAL MONGERING that ULTIMATELY PUT JOHN ROBERTS up for nomination as... a US Supreme Court Chief Justice.

So today, Mr. Roberts is crying a tear for those "WELL QUALIFIED" lawyers who MIGHT make good candidates for the federal bench... but just couldn't see fit to go DOWN in salary to only $165,000 per year (WITH federal health care for lifetime tenure for family included, among many other juicy federal benefits.)

As we said at the top of this post, there's that RIGHT-WING MILLIONAIRE SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT coming screaming through.

And as to Mr. Robert's talking point that "the strength and INDEPENDENCE judges need to UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW... may be ERODED", well, maybe Mr. Roberts would like to speak to how the 15th Amendment _to the US CONSTITUTION_ ("the right to vote SHALL NOT BE ABRIDGED....") WAS not only IGNORED for _100 years_ from the end of reconstruction to the Voting Rights and Civil Rights bills of 1964 and 1965 (respectively), but as recently as 2000 and 2004, the states of FLORIDA and OHIO (among many others) saw fit to _ABRIDGE_ the voting RIGHTS of thousands of their voting citizens, (whose votes were DISENRANCHISED and ILLEGALLY DISCARDED) as well.

In TYPICAL Righty fashion, Mr. Roberts can't waste his breath (or USSC pen) defending VOTING RIGHTS and the US CONSTITUTION as it applies to voting law, but he will shed a tear for quarter-million dollar per year pay-scales and "upholding the rule of law" - laws that HE sees fit to uphold, that is.

(Note the CNN inflammatory headline, "Low pay THREATENS judiciary, Roberts WARNS." We wonder if we ever saw the CNN headline "FRAUDULENT vote-counting THREATENS American democracy." Nah, probably not.)
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Low pay threatens judiciary, Roberts warns
POSTED: 11:09 a.m. EST, January 2, 2007
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LAW/01/01/judges.pay.ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Pay for federal judges is so inadequate that it threatens to undermine the judiciary's independence, Chief Justice John Roberts says in a year-end report critical of Congress.

Roberts said the judiciary will not properly serve its constitutional role if it is restricted to people so wealthy that they can afford to be indifferent to the level of judicial compensation, or to people for whom the judicial salary represents a pay increase.

Issuing an eight-page message devoted exclusively to salaries, Roberts says the 678 full-time U.S. District Court judges, the backbone of the federal judiciary, are paid about half that of deans and senior law professors at top schools.

In the 1950s, 65 percent of U.S. District Court judges came from the practicing bar and 35 percent came from the public sector. Today the situation is reversed, Roberts said, with 60 percent from the public sector and less than 40 percent from private practice.

Federal district court judges are paid $165,200 annually; appeals court judges make $175,100; associate justices of the Supreme Court earn $203,000; the chief justice gets $212,100.

Thirty-eight judges have left the federal bench in the past six years and 17 in the past two years.

The issue of pay, says Roberts, "has now reached the level of a constitutional crisis."

"Inadequate compensation directly threatens the viability of life tenure, and if tenure in office is made uncertain, the strength and independence judges need to uphold the rule of law -- even when it is unpopular to do so -- will be seriously eroded," Roberts wrote.

Legislation languished in Congress in 2006 that would have provided a 16 percent increase in federal judges' salaries. The bill was introduced by Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California, Patrick Leahy of Vermont and John Kerry of Massachusetts.

Leahy, incoming chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Roberts "is right that the issue of judicial compensation relations to the issue of the independence of the judiciary." Leahy said the chief justice "has tackled a touchy but timely topic that has been a chronic sticking point between the judicial and legislative branches."

Over the past 16 years, Congress has provided the judiciary occasional cost-of-living adjustments, but Roberts said the absence of salary increases is "grievously unfair."

Leahy pledged "to do what I can to convince Congress to fairly evaluate this issue and the chief's arguments so that we can see what solutions may be possible."

It is the first time in the two-decade history of year-end reports by Roberts and his predecessor, the late William Rehnquist, that the chief justice's message has focused entirely on a single subject.

There are "very good judges" in both of those categories, said Roberts, but a judiciary drawn more and more from only those categories "would not be the sort of judiciary on which we have historically depended to protect the rule of law in this country."

"It changes the nature of the federal judiciary when judges are no longer drawn primarily from among the best lawyers in the practicing bar," Roberts wrote.

The number of cases filed in the Supreme Court increased for the court's 2005 term, according to an appendix to the report. Supreme Court case filings rose by more than 1,000 to 8,521 from the previous term. Appeals court filings dropped by 3 percent to 66,618 in 2006 compared with 2005.

In federal district courts, the number of criminal cases filed in 2006 declined by 4 percent to 66,860 cases and 88,216 defendants, due to changing priorities directing more resources to combating terrorism.

The civil caseload rose 2 percent to 259,541.

Excluding a jump in asbestos-related cases which totaled 18,179, the civil caseload fell by 4 percent.

Courts use "SEALED FILES" to make SECRETS of public issues. If Dems CAN'T DEMAND OPEN and HONEST govt, we don't have genuine democracy in America.

We hate to pile on 1,001 issues on the fresh 110th Congress that won't even be sworn in until Thursday, but if Democrats can't help American citizens DEMAND that public government and courts be HELD ACCOUNTABLE TO THE PUBLIC, then America is a "democracy" only in the manner that the segregation-era Deep South was "a democracy" (where in many districts the MAJORITY of citizens were illegally and unconstitutionally barred from voting).
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After 'Seattle Times' SECRECY [in court motions] Series, Number Of Sealed Court Files Goes From 1,378 To Zero
By E&P Staff
Published: December 31, 2006 5:15 PM ET
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003526262


CHICAGO To kick off Sunshine Week 2006 last March, The Seattle Times published an investigative report showing that an astounding 1,378 cases that came before King County, Washington, judges were sealed in their entirety -- nearly all of them improperly.

The Times itself filed motions to unseal 18 of the most egregious examples, including cases involving an alleged pedophile priest, a state employee accused of molesting juveniles at a youth lockup and several medical malpractice suits.

Sunday, the Times reported on the power of the press to shame government into working transparently: Since the series "Your Courts, Their Secrets" was published not a single case has been sealed in King County courts.

"Instead of being hidden away, files are being opened up," said the article by the reporters who wrote the original series, Ken Armstrong, Justin Mayo and Steve Miletich.

In the past nine months, the courts have also gone back to unseal old cases. King County judges and commissioners unsealed 42 cases because of a court motion or formal request from the newspaper, the Times reported. In neighboring Snohomish County, at least 150 files have been opened, it said. There are similar stories in other Washington state counties, the paper said.

"Even narrow secrecy requests get scrutinized in ways unimaginable a year ago," the Times reported. "Before, parties routinely made settlement amounts confidential. The courts typically approved, even though a settlement's terms can provide the public valuable information. Was the amount a nominal figure easily dismissed as a nuisance settlement? Or was it something more?"

The series has literally changed the minds of some attorneys who routinely asked courts to seal cases. Attorney James Degel, for instance, is a professional guardian who, the newspaper reported, has asked the court to open nearly 50 cases previously sealed at his request. The newspaper said he credited the Times articles plus recent court decisions for changing his mind.

In March, the Times reported that at least 420 civil suits were sealed in their entirety since 1990. "Those sealing orders kept the public from knowing about wrongdoing or alleged negligence by local schools, hospitals, lawyers, churches, state agencies, manufacturers and others," the paper noted.

Another 266 guardianship cases were also sealed in that period -- secrecy that kept "conflicts of interest and questionable billing practices by court-appointed guardians from public eyes."

The most commonly sealed court cases involved divorce. Some 692 cases were hidden entirely, the paper found. "If the file is sealed, how can anyone know if the outcome was fair?" the Times said in its follow-up. "What's to keep a judge from being unduly swayed by one side's power or legal muscle?"

While Washington's constitution declares that "justice in all cases shall be administered openly," -- and rules established in 1980 restricted instances in which court secrecy was permitted -- the Times investigation last spring found that 97% of the sealed cases violated those regulations.

Unsealing the cases was expensive for the newspaper. It said the law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine moved to open 32 cases, putting in at least 800 hours of work. Lawyers fee to unseal each case averaged $6,000, the Times said.

"Extend that figure to all 420 of the sealed civil suits, and the cost to the Times -- the cost of public access-- would be a staggering $2.5 million. And that's for just one type of case, in only one county," the newspaper wrote.

The Times said it plans to keep writing about sealed cases. "Look for more stories in the months to come," the article concluded.