Cowardly Democrats

More on rumors Congress THREATENED WITH MARTIAL LAW if No Bailout Billions passed in September....

2008-11-21T18:34:00.001-05:00

More on rumors Congress THREATENED WITH MARTIAL LAW if No Bailout Billions passed in September
http://www.prisonplanet.com/paulson-was-behind-bailout-martial-law-threat.html

Postscript: Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Ca) explains THREATS OF MARTIAL LAW if Pelosi didn't pass the Bush-Paulson $700 BILLION Wall St. BAILOUT

2008-11-01T07:02:00.007-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8

Post-script to our previous post: California Congressman Brad Sherman explains how the Bush-Cheney White House STAMPEDED the cowering Pelos-Reid-Hoyer "Democratic" Congress into pushing Treasury Secretary Paulson's TRILLION DOLLAR ("$700 billion") _SOCIALIZED WELFARE BAILOUT of Wall St._ bill past the Pelosi 110th Congress:

"The only way they can pass this bill is by creating and sustaining a panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is not justified. MANY OF us WERE TOLD in private conversations, THAT IF WE VOTED AGAINST THIS BILL ON MONDAY, that the sky would fall the market would drop two or three thousand points the first day, another couple of thousand points the next day, AND A FEW MEMBERS WERE EVEN TOLD that THERE WOULD BE MARTIAL LAW IN AMERICA if we voted no."

David Swanson explains more:
http://www.davidswanson.org/?q=node/1513

Democrats Pass Bush's Despised "Criminal Bankers Bailout" atrocity... despite OVERWHELMING PUBLIC DISAPPROVAL....

2008-10-05T07:57:00.009-05:00

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Foaming At The Wallet
by Aden Nak
Oct 1st, 2008
http://adennak.com/blog/wordpress/?p=95

Listen, Democratic Party. . . we need to talk. Really. Just sit down for a moment. Just listen.

Have you guys ever noticed that whenever you are up for reelection, it’s the same old rhetoric being used against you? You know the stuff I’m talking about. Democrats are weak. They are spineless. They won’t keep America safe. And even though you guys actually do a pretty good job in terms of managing government agencies, that narrative get gobbled up by the public. It kicks your ass every two to four years. And you can never figure out why.

Here’s why. Currently on the docket in Congress is a $700 billion giveaway to the most irresponsible, greedy, ignorant short sighted buch of assholes to ever dip their fingers into the public purse since the last time we had to bail out the banking industry due to their own excessive cockery. The public hates the bailout. It’s a George W. Bush project, so they already don’t trust it. Members of Congress are receiving thousands of phone calls, letters and emails per day telling them all the same thing. That this bailout is a steaming load of horse shit. It’s actually more unpopular than Bush himself. Hell, it’s more unpopular than freakin’ Dick Cheney.

And you assholes voted for it. Knowing it was an awful plan. Knowing it wasn’t going to fix the core issue. Knowing it was going to reward the very people who got us into this mess. Knowing that the law was unconstitutional. You asked for tiny little changes to the most inconsequential portions of the bill, and then you voted for it. And it was only thanks to grandstanding Republicans that this travesty of a bill got shot down.
And now you’re sitting on Capitol Hill with your knickers in a twist because you think, despite all evidence to the contrary, that you absolutely need to get this legislation passed. You’ve been shown some cock-eyed numbers about one theorhetical economic future and you’ve wet yourselves like the little pansies you are. Never mind the fact that the administration screaming doom from the rooftops is the same one that lied their way into an illegal war using the exact same application of the Shock Doctrine. Lied their way into a gutted Bill of Rights using the same technique. Tried to lie their way into privatizing Social Security
(which, if they had succeeded, would have turned this major disaster into an out and out clusterfuck).
So what do you do? Do you tell the President that you control both houses of Congress, and you will not have the terms of this bill dictated to you by the very administrators who failed to predict or prevent this crisis? Do you dare him to veto an actual piece of legislation that would save these institutions from ruin without just handing them free money for fucking up? Do you remind the Republican minority that they are, in fact, a minority, and that their options are to fall in line or be marginalized?

Nope. Apparently, you go crawling back to the petulant GOP minority and offer to include new language for tax breaks and deregulation into the current bill if twelve of them will just pretty please sign it into law. You pussy out. You negotiate a compromise between a Republican President and a Republican Congress because, well. . . shit. I was willing to give you half a pass when the country was in the depths of Terror Panic and disagreeing with the President made you a terrorist. But now? With the entire country rejecting this law? You’ve shown no bloody leadership of any kind. You haven’t even made the half-assed attempt to propose your own plan. Nancy Pelosi can make as snarky a speech as she wants. But unless she backs that speech up with a better plan, it’s just empty partisan bullshit.

But it’s not bad enough that you haven’t shown any initiative on this issue. Instead, your solution to this problem is to add a tax cut to a bill that is going to drain the government of $700,000,000,000.00. The national debt is going to break the ten trillion mark on this bailout, and you want to add a tax cut to the legislation just to sweet-talk a handful of Republicans into passing a law so heinously wrong headed that, if you were doing your fucking jobs, would have been voted down into oblivion in the same breath that it was first proposed.

So the next time you all get painted like spineless little shits in an election year? Maybe it’s because you are.

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

2007-01-10T18:43:00.000-05:00

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...!

2007-01-05T01:03:00.000-05:00

[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_. >>

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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.
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[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
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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?

2007-01-03T21:38:00.000-05:00

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.

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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

2007-01-03T21:37:00.000-05:00

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.)

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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...

2007-01-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

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"!

2007-01-02T15:07:00.000-05:00

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.)
__________________________________________________________________________________

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.

2007-01-02T14:37:00.000-05:00

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).
______________________________________________________

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.

The Heart of American democracy today: Democrats AFRAID of the "RUSH (and big biz) will say BAD THINGS ABOUT YOU" smear-machine....

2006-12-27T08:36:00.001-05:00

Dave Johnson over at HuffingtonPost hits the HEART OF THE MATTER as to how millions of us Americans have found ourselves stuck in this NIGHTMARE we are in, pouring our blood and treasure into the Iraq war bloodbath, quagmire and corruption nightmare with practically NO consistent and coherent OPPOSITION to Mr. Bush's disastrous leadership, especially in Congress and in the "Major Media" (with the sole exception in the "Major Media" being Mr. Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" news show, and the comedy of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert's fake-news shows).

Here's what Mr. Johnson says about "The RUSH LIMBAUGH affect," or more simply the DEMAGOGUERY, SMEAR, SLANDER, IGNORANCE, BIGOTRY, and ATTACK-POLITICS RULE AMERICA" effect:

<< In the 90's the Clinton administration offered a comprehensive health care plan that involved private insurers instead of a "Medicare-For-All"-style national health plan, hoping to ward off industry opposition. This was an example of what I call the "Afraid Rush Will Say Something Bad About You" syndrome - the point being that Rush will say something bad about you anyway, no matter what you do. And of course the private insurance companies did oppose the Clinton plan anyway, putting so much money into opposing it that it never even came up for a vote. The effort went beyond just opposing the plan and became personal, with smears and take-no-prisoners tactics directed against anyone involved in trying to bring health care to the public. So much of that money and venom was left over that it helped bring in a Republican congress the following year. >>

IN A NUTSHELL, THIS PARAGRAPH EXPLAINS HOW the Rethuglican Right-Wing has HIJACKED AMERICA, and turned the PEACE, PROSPERITY, PROGRESS, and BOOMING ECONOMY of the Clinton years into the nightmare of RISING POVERTY, RISING CRIME, DECLINING ECONOMIC standards, and the trashing of Civil Rights, privacy, and Constitutional rights marked by the Bush 43 administration.

What is EVEN MORE AMAZING than that Democrats are now effectively "ruled" by the smear-and-slander demagoguery of a blowhard, pill-popping, ignoramus of a Right-Wing radio talk show host, BUT THAT SIX YEARS after George Bush stole the election of 2000, THE DEMOCRATS __STILL__ have NO REAL COUNTER to the news-bias FOR the Rush Limbaugh talking points besides the Air-America and Jones Radio network "liberal" talk show hosts!

Republicans and the Bush administration can STILL count on FOX 'news' network, ABC, CBS, CNN, and ALMOST ALL the network news and cable TV shows to PRESENT THEIR TALKING POINTS, while Democrats do NOT have a SINGLE media outlet dedicated to putting forth a coherent Democratic vision of past triumphs and successes (the New Deal defeating the Depression and President Roosevelt leading America to victory in W.W.II; President Harry Truman laying the foundation of European recovery and the eventual success against the "Cold War"; President John F. Kennedy laying the foundation for winning the space race; President Linden Johnson actually trying to ELIMINATE POVERTY in America, to be sidetracked only by the Vietnam war; and of course President Clinton REVERSING the HUGE REPUBLICAN DEFICITS, brought on by the TRILLION DOLLAR S&L scandal.

Indeed, (partly because so many Democratic leaders were complicit), Democrats can't even spell out to the American people that it was the FAILURE OF PRIVATELY HELD Savings and Loan institutions THAT LED TO THE Bush1 RECESSION of the late 1980s/early 1990s, including the economic despair that in part contributed to Timmy McVeigh's attack on the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. (McVeigh and millions of other Americans were still unemployed in late 1994 during the tail end of the Bush1 recession.)

NEVER has the saying "THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT" been more true. It is NOT enough for Democrats to be on 'the right' side of WINNING economic policies and social programs - THEY MUST HAVE IN PLACE a media communication channel that can COMMUNICATE WITH AMERICAN VOTERS, UNFILTERED by the Rush Limbaugh DEMAGOGUE "spin" imparted by so many of today's networks.

In the 2000 election, Al Gore WON THE MAJORITY OF VOTERS NATIONWIDE by OVER 500,000 votes... yet still the RUSH LIMBAUGH TALKING POINTS determined who would sit in the White House in January.

SIX YEAR LATER, the Democrats STILL have NO ANSWER to the Rush/Fox DEMAGOGUERY, IGNORANCE, SCORN, and DERISION network.

[note: Hillary's bureaucratic boondoggle, known as "Hillary-care" and, according to Dave Johnson's article fashioned in a manner to try to win over the Insurance companies, was a MONSTROSITY that attempted to FORCE SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS to become responsible for their worker's heath insurance policies. While thousands of small businesses DO try to provide health insurance to their workers, Hillary-care would have FORCED tens of thousands more small employers to go into the healthcare/health insurance business. Small businesses, and particularly small employers (up to 10 workers), can barely afford paying into social security, providing unemployment insurance, WORKERS COMPENSATION insurance, and the accounting for all the above and federal taxes. MUCH LESS GOING INTO THE HEALTH INSURANCE business!

"Hillary-care" is, as Dave Johnson points out, a TYPICAL example of Democrats PREFERRING TO DO A POLICY or program HALFWAY, rather than CONFRONTING the Right-Wing media demagoguery, smear, and slander machine.

Compare also Al Gore's timid and tepid "Social Security lock-box" campaign of 2000, to his articulate, impassioned, and FORCEFUL comments when he was on the campaign trail with Clinton in 1992, "What is up should be down, what is down should be up!" criticisms of the Bush1 administration.

IF DEMOCRATS DO NOT CONFRONT the radical, reactionary, destructive, and divisive rhetoric of the Republican Right-Wing media machine, WE DO NOT HAVE GENUINE two-party (much less multiparty) DEMOCRACY.

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

News For Democrats: Health Insurance Companies WILL Oppose Your Plan Anyway
by Dave Johnson
12.26.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/news-for-democrats-healt_b_37181.html

With a Democratic Congress coming in January, obviously several health care plans are going to be introduced. Here is some free advice to legislators. Don't even bother including private insurance companies in your plans.

Conventional Wisdom thinking is that you have to include private insurance companies in any plan, or they'll put so much money and effort into opposing your plan - and you - that nothing can pass.

In the 90's the Clinton administration offered a comprehensive health care plan that involved private insurers instead of a "Medicare-For-All"-style national health plan, hoping to ward off industry opposition. This was an example of what I call the "Afraid Rush Will Say Something Bad About You" syndrome - the point being that Rush will say something bad about you anyway, no matter what you do. And of course the private insurance companies did oppose the Clinton plan anyway, putting so much money into opposing it that it never even came up for a vote. The effort went beyond just opposing the plan and became personal, with smears and take-no-prisoners tactics directed against anyone involved in trying to bring health care to the public. So much of that money and venom was left over that it helped bring in a Republican congress the following year.
So here is some news for Democrats who are offering health care plans that offer tribute to private insurance companies: They are going to oppose your plan.

Do you think that it is more efficient to use a private insurance company to provide health insurance? Then take a look at what the big corporations do when offering health insurance to large numbers of employees. The big companies "self-insure." They set up their own little internal national-health-care plans for their employees and administer them themselves rather than use private insurance companies because private insurance companies cost too much. Face it: Medicare-For-All is the only plan that will work. These days the private insurance companies are designed to deliver profits and enormous CEO salaries, while delivering the absolute minimum benefit to the public that they can get away with without personally being put in jail -- fines and civil judgments being already factored in.

Do I have a low opinion of insurance companies? You bet. Am I alone? Discuss.

The Heart of the matter: Democrats AFRAID of the "RUSH will say BAD THINGS ABOUT YOU"

2006-12-27T08:36:00.000-05:00

Dave Johnson over at HuffingtonPost hits the HEART OF THE MATTER as to how millions of us Americans have found ourselves stuck in this NIGHTMARE we are in, pouring our blood and treasure into the Iraq war bloodbath and quagmire with practically NO consistent and coherent OPPOSITION to Mr. Bush's disastrous leadership.

Here's what Mr. Johnson says about "The RUSH LIMBAUGH affect", or more simply the DEMAGOUGERY, SMEAR, SLANDER, IGNORANCE, BIGOTRY, and ATTACK-POLITICS RULE AMERICA" affect.

<< In the 90's the Clinton administration offered a comprehensive health care plan that involved private insurers instead of a "Medicare-For-All"-style national health plan, hoping to ward off industry opposition. This was an example of what I call the "Afraid Rush Will Say Something Bad About You" syndrome - the point being that Rush will say something bad about you anyway, no matter what you do. And of course the private insurance companies did oppose the Clinton plan anyway, putting so much money into opposing it that it never even came up for a vote. The effort went beyond just opposing the plan and became personal, with smears and take-no-prisoners tactics directed against anyone involved in trying to bring health care to the public. So much of that money and venom was left over that it helped bring in a Republican congress the following year. >>

IN A NUTSHELL, THIS PARAGRAPH EXPLAINS HOW the Rethuglican Right-Wing has HIJACKED AMERICA, and turned the PEACE, PROSPERITY, PROGRESS, and BOOMING ECONOMY of the Clinton years into the ngihtmare of RISING POVERTY, RISING CRIME, DECLINING ECONOMIC stanndards, and the trashing of Civil Rights, privacy, and Constitutional rights marked by the Bush 43 administration.

What is EVEN MORE AMAZING than that Democrats are now effectively "ruled" by the smear-and-slander demagoguery of a blow-hard, pill-popping, ignoramus of a Right-Wing radio talk show host, BUT THAT SIX YEARS after George Bush stole the election of 2000, THE DEMOCRATS __STILL__ have NO REAL COUNTER to the news-bias FOR the Rush Limbaugh talking points besides the Air-America and Jones Radio network "liberal" talk show hosts!

Republicans and the Bush administration can STILL count on FOX 'news' network, ABC, CBS, CNN, and ALMOST ALL the network news and cable TV shows to PRESENT THEIR TALKING POINTS, while Democrats do NOT have a SINGLE media outlet dedicated to putting forth a coherent Democratic vision of past triumphs and successses (the New Deal defeating the Depression and President Roosevelt leading America to victory in WWII; President Harry Truman laying the foundation of European recovery and the eventual success against the "Cold War"; President John F. Kennedy laying the foundation for winning the space race; President Lyndon Johnson actually trying to ELIMINATE POVERTY in America, to be side-tracked only by the Vietnam war; and of course President Clinton REVERSING the HUGE REPUBLICAN DEFICITS, brought on by the TRILLION DOLLAR S&L scandal.

Indeed, (partly because so many Democratic leaders were complicit), Democrats can't even spell out to the American people that it was the FAILURE OF PRIVATELY HELD Savings and Loan institutions THAT LED TO THE Bush1 RECESSION of the late 1980s/early 1990s, including the economic dispair that in part contributed to Timmy McVeigh's attack on the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. (McVeigh and millions of other Americans were still unemployed in late 1994 during the tail end of the Bush1 recession.)

NEVER has the saying "THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE DOOMED TO REPEAT IT" been more true. It is NOT enough for Democrats to be on 'the right' side of WINNING economic policies and social programs - THEY MUST HAVE IN PLACE a media communication channel that can COMMUNICATE WITH AMERICAN VOTERS, UN-FILTERED by the Rush Limbaugh DEMAGOG "spin" imparted by so many of today's networks.

In the 2000 election, Al Gore WON THE MAJORITY OF VOTERS NATIONWIDE by OVER 500,000 votes... yet still the RUSH LIMBAUGH TALKING POINTS determined who would sit in the White House in January.

SIX YEAR LATER, the Democrats STILL have NO ANSWER to the Rush/Fox DEMAGOGUERY, IGNORANCE, SCORN, and DERISION network.

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

News For Democrats: Health Insurance Companies WILL Oppose Your Plan Anyway
by Dave Johnson
12.26.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/news-for-democrats-healt_b_37181.html

With a Democratic Congress coming in January, obviously several health care plans are going to be introduced. Here is some free advice to legislators. Don't even bother including private insurance companies in your plans.

Conventional Wisdom thinking is that you have to include private insurance companies in any plan, or they'll put so much money and effort into opposing your plan - and you - that nothing can pass.

In the 90's the Clinton administration offered a comprehensive health care plan that involved private insurers instead of a "Medicare-For-All"-style national health plan, hoping to ward off industry opposition. This was an example of what I call the "Afraid Rush Will Say Something Bad About You" syndrome - the point being that Rush will say something bad about you anyway, no matter what you do. And of course the private insurance companies did oppose the Clinton plan anyway, putting so much money into opposing it that it never even came up for a vote. The effort went beyond just opposing the plan and became personal, with smears and take-no-prisoners tactics directed against anyone involved in trying to bring health care to the public. So much of that money and venom was left over that it helped bring in a Republican congress the following year.
So here is some news for Democrats who are offering health care plans that offer tribute to private insurance companies: They are going to oppose your plan.

Do you think that it is more efficient to use a private insurance company to provide health insurance? Then take a look at what the big corporations do when offering health insurance to large numbers of employees. The big companies "self-insure." They set up their own little internal national-health-care plans for their employees and administer them themselves rather than use private insurance companies because private insurance companies cost too much. Face it: Medicare-For-All is the only plan that will work. These days the private insurance companies are designed to deliver profits and enormous CEO salaries, while delivering the absolute minimum benefit to the public that they can get away with without personally being put in jail -- fines and civil judgments being already factored in.

Do I have a low opinion of insurance companies? You bet. Am I alone? Discuss.

Bush THE MOST DISASTROUS president in US history, his administration marked by SCORN, IGNORANCE, CONTEMPT, DEMAGOGUERY, CRUELTY, and INCOMPETENCE...

2006-12-26T10:09:00.000-05:00

Bush is THE MOST DISASTROUS president in US history, his terms marked by SCORN, CONTEMPT, DERISION, INCOMPETENCE, IGNORANCE, CORRUPTION, LIES. Mr. Bush's signature way of dealing with critical national problems is marked by scorn for those who have spent entire lifetimes in the service of America in their respective professions, whether National Security, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals warning about the strong possibility of an Al Qaida attack against America in the summer of 2001; or Mr. Bush's ABJECT FAILURE to PREPOSITION thousands of disaster recovery personel as Hurricane Katrina swirled in the Gulf of Mexico; or Mr. Bush allowing Osama bin Laden to ESCAPE at Tora Bora; and of course Mr. Bush and his team having SUCH A LOUSY PLAN for the post-invasion phase of the US war in Iraq that US commanders had American troops doing KP duty less than 20 miles from Saddam's huge Al Qaaqa ammunition complex, as looters and insurgents backed trucks up to the abandoned bunkers to remove high explosives and ammunition day after day for almost two full weeks - the whole while, International weapon's inspectors desperately trying, in both Washington and Iraq, to get the US command to secure the facility.

EVERY DAY that Mr. Bush remains in office, and that his policies remain UNCONFRONTED and UNOPPOSED by the American press, media, public, and political leadership (Congress), marks another day of IGNORANCE, STUPIDITY, and COWARDICE on the part of America's leadership, whether in the Democratic Party or Republican Party.

While it is difficult to improve on Mr. Budowsky's article, we will try to do so by inserting [words] or phrases that add some zip to his observations:

------------------------------------------------

American Deaths In Iraq Surpass American Deaths On 9-11 and President Bush Wants To Escalate Again
by Brent Budowsky
Submitted by BuzzFlash
Tue, 12/26/2006
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/659

The decision by President Bush to launch a preemptive invasion of Iraq was the biggest military misjudgment in the history of the American Presidency.

The decision by President Bush to show contempt for his commanders in not using enough troops was the single most catastrophic military decision by any commander in chief in the history of the Republic.

The decision by President Bush to not supply our troops with adequate body armor, protected vehicles, bandages and helmets and other essential equipment led to more preventable casualties among our troops than any other President in the history of the Republic.

The decision by President Bush to justify the use of torture and try to cover it up, was the single most morally mistaken [REPREHENSIBLE] action by any leader of the free world.

The decision by President Bush to put partisan Republican operatives in key positions of the Iraq Reconstruction was the most incompetent [and CORRUPT] action in the history of the American programs.

The decision by President Bush to allow more than $10 billion of Iraq Reconstruction money to be stolen, lost, robbed, and wasted made this financially the single most corrupted program in the history of American Presidents.
[Given that the BOTCHED RECONSTRUCTION of Iraq was THE STRAW that turned the Iraqi people against the US occupation and FUELED THE INSURGENCY, Bush's legacy of CORRUPTION in Iraq contracts DIRECTLY LED TO THE BLOOD SPILLED of American troops in that country.]

The decision by President Bush to surround this war with unprecedented claims of unilateral presidential power to overrule or ignore laws, statutes, provisions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights was the single worst abuse of the idea of faithfully executing the law in the history of the American presidency.
[As a Texas hard-Right neoConfederate, Mr. Bush lusted after the the wartime powers of President Lincoln in the Civil War, without any of Lincoln's appreciation for rights and freedoms.]

The decisions by President Bush from the beginning of this war to this day, have done more preventable damage to the structure, readiness, deterrence and stability of the American military than any previous president in American history.

The decision of President Bush to treat Congress as a virtual vassal and not a co-equal branch of government in the conduct of this war was one of the most constitutionally disastrous decisions in the history of wartime Presidents.

The decision of President Bush to use this war as a partisan political attack strategy did more damage than every other American president combined in corrupting both the integrity of our democratic process, and the national unity, that previous presidents have sought to maintain, and this President deliberately sought to destroy.

He calls himself the Decider, as though he sits on a regal perch, above the rest of our people, our laws, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our allies, our Congress, our Courts and our commanders who he has disrespected more than any previous President in the history of the presidency.

He organizes his Party TO ATTACK WAR HEROES because they warned against his policies, to demean generals because they warned against his war plan, to attack our NATO allies who were demeaned as Old Europe, even to blame the American people suggesting we are traumatized by the result of his catastrophe.

The President's decision to be the only American President since 1948 not to lead a genuine search for Middle East peace was catastrophic and allowed the Iraq conflagration to spread further and further across the entire region.

Middle East peace is a hard mission, but the decision of President Bush to refuse to even make the effort, has allowed the arc of chaos and death to widen without any American effort to appeal to the aspirations of the generation of young people in the Middle East and around the world.

The contempt for different opinion, the torture policies that led to Abu Ghraib and detention policies that led to Guantanamo, the arrogance of power and ignorance of foreign culture, the corruption of Reconstruction, the defamation of political opponents, the monarchical claim of unilateral power, these wrongs and more have led to the creation of more terrorists, more insurgents, more antagonism towards America than any other President in our history.

And now the President, having looked at the landscape of this disaster, has decided: keep doing the same things, only do more of them, and escalate. In his world our allies are wrong; our people are wrong; our Joints Chiefs of Staff are wrong; our elections were wrong; the Baker Hamilton bipartisan group was wrong; everyone is wrong except those who have been so wrong for four deadly years of this war.

It is imperative for the Democratic Congress to remember that the voters voted for wholesale change in our policy towards Iraq; they did not vote to escalate this war and repeat these mistakes.

It is imperative for Democratic candidates for President and leaders in Congress to emerge who will return American to our traditional role of leadership and renew the hard search for a broader peace in the Middle East. Why not begin today by calling on former Presidents George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton to spearhead a truly American seach for Middle East peace?

It is imperative to know how deadly things have gone wrong, and how urgently we must change to set things right.

More Americans have now died in Iraq, than on 9-11.

This is not a policy we want to double up.

This is a policy we want to end.

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

On top of all the above (!), we do not believe that Mr. Bush won EITHER of his presidential election "wins", either in 2000 or in 2004, where he was able to "win" in Florida and Ohio, respectively, ONLY BY MASSIVE VOTER SUPPRESSION EFFORTS and possibly (probably) RIGGED voting tabulators. Given his suspicious electoral "wins" Mr. Bush was asking millions of American voters who certainly voted for his opponent - Al Gore won the popular vote by over 500,000 votes in 2000, and even by Republican counts John Kerry won almost 48 million votes in 2004 - to TRUST and NOT verify his election "wins" - WHICH IN BOTH ELECTIONS HE PROCEEDED TO TREAT AS LANDSLIDE "MANDATES"!!!!

As if tossing MILLIONS of us Americans who voted against him on the trash heap of "the DISAPPEARED" - their voices DO NOT COUNT!" in Republican policy formulations - Mr. Bush then showed his COMPLETE and ABJECT SCORN for the office he had just stolen, going on a FOUR WEEK VACATION in August of 2001 just some thirty-odd weeks after stealing that election!

As if THAT wasn't bad enough!, Mr. Bush then NEGLECTED HIS DUTIES AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Early in January of 2001, shortly after being inauguerated, Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney directed a full-house effort to SMEAR the legacy of the Democratic White House staffers of the Clinton-Gore administration (with MADE-UP and FABRICATED charges of "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING!" - WITHOUT ONE PHOTOGRAPH OF PROOF!); and as well Bush instructed his PR staff to detail how he GOT HIS CIA BRIEFINGS IN PERSON, DAILY, while that dastardly President Clinton only got his CIA briefings on paper, every other day.

Yet we now know that when INFORMED BY his CIA briefers that "BIN LADEN WAS DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA," most likely by hijacking vulnerable US airliners, Mr. Bush did... EXACTLY NOTHING. Michael Moore is derided for putting too much of himself - his own "spin" - in the documentary movie "Farenheit 9-11," but Moore's scenes of what President Bush did on THE_VERY_DAY that the CIA briefed him on Al Qaida's desire to attack in America have never been refuted: Mr. Bush, INSTEAD OF ALERTING THE PUBLIC and AIRLINES ABOUT THE THREAT OF HIJACKINGS, instead discussed his dog Barney chasing armadillos.

- Not one, but TWO STOLEN ELECTIONS.

- A complete SCORN and CONTEMPT for the office of the presidency, and specifically the office of the commander in chief, after he stole the election in 2000.....

- a PREFERENCE for SUMMER VACATIONS over protecting the American public from a KNOWN TERROR THREAT.

- a COMPLETE FAILURE of the US multi-billion dollar law enforcement/national security/military/intelligence agencies to BRING THE ANTHRAX TERRORIST TO JUSTICE. (In the entire world, there are only so many people with the training and expertise to handle weaponized anthrax, and they ALL have long academic and research records behind them)

- the FAILURE to capture Bin Laden in Afghanistan, which was only a symptom of the administration's dismal post-war planning for that country....

- which foreshadowed the DISMAL PLANNING for the occupation of Iraq, including (we couldn't even make this up!) ALLOWING INSURGENTS to cart of TONS and TONS of ammunition from Saddam's massive ammunition bunkers, WHILE AMERICAN SOLDIERS DID KP DUTY, as INTERNATIONAL WEAPONS INSPECTORS in Iraq and in the United States desperately called the Defense Department to try to have the Al Qaaqa ammunition complex secured....

- leading up to the TORTURE prisons and SCAPEGOATING of PRIVATES and FEMALE VOLUNTEERS for FOLLOWING ORDERS, specifically "THE GUANTANAMO METHOD" of dehumanizing prisoners with stressful positions, sexual assaults, sleep deprivations, beatings, threats, and other tortures, the "Guantanamo methods" SPECIFICALLY BROUGHT TO Iraq and Afghanistan by the PROMOTION of General Miller from Guantanamo to oversee those prisons in the Mideast.

- and, finally, the corrupt, botched occupation of Iraq, which gave even families that hoped for a successful American led occupation to turn against the occupiers.

Senator Chriss Dodd (D-CN) stands up for EXTRICATING US troops from the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz nightmare....

2006-12-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

Note to Senator Dodd and ALL the other Democrats: NEVER miss an opportunity to present the Iraq quagmire as a NIGHTMARE of the making of the BUSH-CHENEY-RUMSFELD-WOLFOWITZ (Kristol, Krauthammer, Kurtz, Safire, Sulzeberger, et all) nightmare.

We hate to say this, but it is GROSS POLITICAL INCOMPETENCE that THE DEMOCRATS, with all their consultants, fundraisers, "policy experts," strategists, "media experts," (not to mention the Democrat's own political veterans) DO NOT HAVE a GREATEST HITS video of the Bush administration's GREATEST FOLLIES, especially Mr. Bush's BLATANT LIES leading up to the war.

For example, Mr. Bush claiming that "Saddam WOULD NOT LET INSPECTORS in, that is why we had to go to war" when there are literally volumes of video reels and documentation showing that it was THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION that ORDERED the international Weapons Inspectors OUT of Iraq on the eve of the Bush-Cheney-Rusmfeld-Wolfowitz "SHOCK AND AWE" follies.

Or Mr. Cheney's "it is beyond dispute" that Iraq had a WMD program primed to attack America.

Or Mr. Bush declaring "NO ONE COULD ANTICIPATE THE LEVEES BREAKING."

Or National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice similarly proclaiming "NO ONE COULD ANTICIPATE AIRLINERS BEING USED AS FLYING BOMBS", when in fact the ITALIAN POLICE and security forces DID EXACTLY THAT when Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld attended the G8 economic summit in Genoa, Italy, in July of 2001.

This is a full-scale PROPAGANDA WAR, and UNTIL THE DEMOCRATS DECIDE TO GO ON THE OFFENSIVE against the RANK INCOMPETENCE, CORRUPTION, and LIES of the Bush administration's use of the "War on Terror" as a propaganda bully-stick, the Republicans WILL ALWAYS PORTRAY DEMOCRATS as "CUT AND RUNNERS."

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

Begin withdrawing, redeploying troops now
By CHRISTOPHER DODD
SPECIAL TO THE REGISTER
December 24, 2006
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061224/OPINION01/612240313/1035/archive

The time has come for the United States to begin the process of getting our troops out of Iraq.

In Baghdad last week, I joined in a conversation with a West Point graduate who is serving in Iraq. He said, "Senator, it is nuts over here. Soldiers are being asked to do work we're not trained to do. I'm doing work that State Department people are far more prepared to do in fostering democracy, but they're not allowed to come off the bases because it's too dangerous here. It doesn't make any sense."

After spending six days in the Middle East last week - which included visits with the top leaders in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel - it's hard not to come to the same conclusion: Our strategy in Iraq makes no sense. It never really did. It is as bad in person as it appears on television. There are literally dozens of sects, militias, gangs, warlords, foreign terrorists and others killing one another for dozens of reasons in Iraq today, and American troops are caught in the crossfire.

Our brave men and women have done everything asked of them with great courage and honor, but searching for military solutions in Iraq today is a fool's errand. True peace and security in Iraq will not come at the end of an American gun. It will only happen to the degree that Iraq's leaders are willing to take responsibility for governing their own country and securing their own future. America's position should be clear: Iraqis must show they want a country now, or American troops should begin to withdraw.

The good news is that Iraq has leaders who can make a difference. The bad news is that the Iraqi government feels no sense of urgency. I met with the Iraqi president, prime minister and minister of defense last week - my third such visit to Iraq - and once again, I didn't hear Iraq's leaders speak of any timetable for when they will take over. As long as America is there, they can defer responsibility.

The proposal being considered by the administration to add between 15,000 and 30,000 soldiers in a "surge" of American troops will do nothing to address this issue. If anything, "surge" is a tactic in search of a strategy. How does it lead to victory? It won't solve any problems; it won't force the hands of Iraq's leaders; at best, it will simply be one more reason for delay - a delay that will be paid with American blood. That's a price our troops and our nation shouldn't be asked to pay any longer.

Instead, the president should announce in January that we will begin withdrawing and redeploying our troops - to the Syrian border, to stop the flow of terrorists; to the north of Iraq, to better train Iraqi security forces; to Qatar, to form a quick-strike force if necessary to defend our vital interests; to Afghanistan, to resume the hunt for Osama bin Laden; and for those who have already over-extended their tour of duty by one or two years - home. If the Iraqis don't demonstrate the political will to unite, we should begin this process - in consultation with our military leadership - of reducing troop levels within weeks, not months.

We should then undertake a new American policy of intense diplomatic and political engagement with the entire Middle East.

The war in Iraq has lasted longer than our involvement in World War II and left nearly 3,000 Americans dead. If continuing this sacrifice held the promise of achieving American goals, I would support it. But our presence there has become a barrier to our goals. American troops have demonstrated the courage to fight. Now, Iraq's leaders must summon the will to lead. It's the only solution that makes sense.

Sen. CHRISTOPHER J. DODD is a Democrat from Connecticut.

Cowardly Democrats Lieberman, Landrieu, seek to UNDO democratic government in America...

2006-12-23T10:46:00.000-05:00

We hate to get personal here at C-dems.blgspt.com.
Heck, we hate publishing this blog, and wish we could publish something like "HeroicDemsSaveTheWorld.com" or some other positive blog.

But this fine op-ed by Bob Geiger (at his own blog) highlights the perils faced by Democratic voters and ALL democratic Americans ("small d" democracy) in these past few years and coming years: namely, the attempt by Right-Wing ideologues to UNDO deliberative, two-party (much less multi-party) democracy and to REASSERT ONE-PARTY RULE in America, as existed throughout the American Deep South ALL THROUGH the Segregation era. (For the 100 years from the end of the Civil War until Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" defection from the Democratic Party in 1948, ALL Southern office holders were Democrats, and the Voting Rights and Civil Rights bills did not pass Congress unitl 1964 and 1965 respectively.)

Of course up until this November's election of 2004, the REPUBLICAN PARTY had MONOPOLY CONTROL of the US Congress (House), Senate, Executive office (presidency), and as well dominant control over the Supreme Court, federal judiciary, many state governments (eg. Florida's), and the "Fourth Estate" major press/media. What we here at c-dems call "the Super-Trifecta" of American politics and power.

Heck, not only was Republican dominance in Congress so complete that Democrats WERE EXCLUDED from even witnessing the drafting of bills (much less contributing to them), BUT SENATOR MARY LANDRIEAU CAN NOT EVEN STAND UP FOR HER OWN CONSTITUENTS, victimized first by Hurrican Katrina and then by the GROSS INCOMPENTENCE, CORRUPTION, and GRAFT of the Bush administration's recovery "leadership" in New Orleans. With the COMPLICITY of the corrupt, corporate media, good old fashioned GRAFT - "we give you big contracts, you KICK BACK some cash to our campaigns" - is now established as THE model for business in the American economy under George Bush and Dick Cheney.

In reality, the RIGHT WING AGENDA is one of unbridled HATE, IGNORANCE, SCORN, BIGOTRY, CONTEMPT, DERISION, DENIGRATION, and more HATE, all thinly disguised under a layer of "Religious Values."

By no means do we intend to imply that all religious "values" are scornful and derisive - just those that the Right-Wing concentrate their political identity on.

It has gotten SO bad, that not only does the "God Hates Fags" precher and his flock disgrace themselves by demeaning the funerals of American soldiers KILLED IN IRAQ!, but SO TO DO THE JERRY FALWELLS and PAT ROBERSTON _state_ (not merely imply) THAT THE TERRORIST ATTACKS ON AMERICA WERE GOD's PLAN!

"LIFTING THE VEIL" is how Pat Roberston phrases it... by "LIFTING THE VEIL of PROTECTION" on America, according to Robertson, God ALLOWED the terrorist attacks to succeed.

VERY GOOD, PAT, you miserable piece of human scum! YOU APPROVE OF TERRORIST ATTACKS ON AMERICA if it furthers your self-righteous political objectives. (Of MORE power, more wealth, more selfish greed, your insecurity and lack of faith masked by aggression and hate.)

You have HIT the ideological NAIL ON THE HEAD!

Extend your logic a little further... the HOLOCAUST, the mass-murder of MILLIONS, occured ONLY BECAUSE God ALLOWED IT.

ALL the wars, rapes, murders, mass-murders, famines, starvations, EVERY plight, blight, scourge, pandemic, tragedy, and genocide that EVER occurred in human history has happened ONLY because GOD ALLOWED THOSE TERRIBLE ATROCITIES to take place, if we extend Pat Robertson's "lifting the veil" approving of terrorist attacks to the full logical extension.

And, by agreeging with Republicans that PARTISAN Democratic politics is someone vile, Senator Landrieu, and Lieberman, are TRYING TO UNDERCUT _ANY_ opposition to the dictatorial, demogogic ONE-PARTY RULE of the Rethuglican bible-thumpers such as Robertson, Fallwell, Cheney, Frist, DeLay, Bush, and Gingrich.

Would that God would perform a little space/time warp, and allow Mr. Lieberman to witness, first hand, some of those "RELIGIOUS one-party MORAL VALUES" in Germany, circa the late 1930s.

note below: The official platform of the Texas Republican Party has long be an underpinning of the DEMAGOGUE identity of America's right-wing politics, a political identity and foundation effectively CENSORED from open discourse in America's "major media" by the corporate news barons.

--------------------------------------
example:
Texas GOP _OFFICIAL_ Republican Party Platform declares "America is a CHRISTIAN nation" and should dispense with separation of Church and State. We hope to see Mr. Lieberman and his trophy second wife IN CHURCH soon, with all his Christian demagogue friends.

<< The party platform, adopted Saturday, declares "America is a Christian nation" and affirms that "God is undeniable in our history and is vital to our freedom."
"We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church and state," it says. >>
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/religion/stories/DN-gopreligion_04tex.ART.State.Edition1.903cb29.html

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

On Snowe-Landrieu Bipartisan Initiative: Kiss My Democratic Ass
Bob Geiger
Friday, December 22, 2006
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2006/12/on-snowe-landrieu-bipartisan-initiative.html

Nausea alert: Do not read this on a full stomach if you're a Progressive, who has had it up to your eyeballs with some elected Democrats regularly accepting prison shower-room, Ned-Beatty-in-'Deliverance' treatment from Republicans and then meekly saying "Thank you, sir, may I have some more?"

Because what you're about to read is the Washington, D.C. version of just that.

Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Mary Landrieu (D-LA) issued a joint press release yesterday announcing that they want to convene a group of Republicans and Democrats in the new Senate to "build on the success of 'Gang of 14'" and "forge bipartisan consensus on key issues in the 110th Congress."

“I couldn’t be more pleased to join with Senator Mary Landrieu to build upon the success of the bipartisan Gang of 14 with a group committed to bringing comity, consensus and legislative achievements back to the halls of the Senate,” said Snowe. “The American people are tired of partisan attacks and intransigence from the Congress; they are rightly demanding results. And Senator Landrieu and I believe this group will serve as a productive catalyst to bring the Senate together across party lines.”

Not to be outdone, Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) also heralded the arrival of a similar entity yesterday, also issuing a joint statement saying they are forming a "Bipartisan Members Group to create an opportunity for Senators to know one another better across party lines."

Landrieu and Lieberman have sidled right up alongside Alexander and Snowe, making grand statements about how it's time to come together and guessing -- incorrectly -- what message the American people delivered in a loud, clear voice on election day. And, like the weak-kneed centrists they are, their capitulation is very much akin to the wife who reunites with her abusive husband because he mumbles "I'm sorry, baby" after breaking her nose for the third time.

Isn't it convenient for Snowe, Alexander and other Republicans to initiate this transparent maneuver and now extend a hand across the aisle for something other than slapping Democrats? Isn't it just freakin' amazing that this change of heart comes right when they are voted out of the majority on a clear mandate of the people and now have to themselves face the legislative life Democrats have lived for years?

And true to their ongoing status as political followers and not leaders, Landrieu and Lieberman -- putting aside the fact that Holy Joe can no longer even be considered a Democrat -- lap it right up and forget who it is that over the last few years would not have pissed across the aisle if a Democrat was on fire.

These two want to snuggle up to the same people who forced the formation of the "Gang of 14" by threatening to remove the filibuster as the minority party's only vestige of procedural control -- and thus create a Senate where Republican dominance would be so non-negotiable that Democrats might as well stay home every day and watch "Judge Judy."

The best former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) could ever do for the Democrats was to threaten the legislative equivalent of cutting their last life-line and making the confirmation of some onerous right-wing judges the only option to drowning.

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) said earlier this month of the Republicans' filibuster extortion that "it was so anti-Senate and it was so anti-American" and vowed he would never do something that despicable in his new role leading the Senate.

Republicans who suddenly want to make nice are the party of incoming Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-MS) who sneered "I thought we were having global warming" right into the Congressional Record as Democrats fought earlier this year to fund the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) for the elderly and disabled.

And this same Republican party behaved in an ongoing partisan fashion so extreme that they simply abandoned their Constitutional responsibility to perform oversight on the executive branch of government, in favor of rigid, party-line tribute to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and zero loyalty to the American people.

Pat Roberts (R-KS), the GOP's empty suit who warmed the lead chair in the Senate Intelligence Committee for the last two years, would not have investigated this White House if the FBI showed him video of Bush and Cheney delivering a dozen roses and a Whitman Sampler to Osama bin Laden's cave. This highly-partisan malfeasance eventually forced Reid to invoke Senate Rule 21 in November 2005 and shut down the Senate entirely, in a desperate attempt to get Republicans to act responsibly and at least begin investigating Bush's shady use of pre-war intelligence to start the Iraq war.

The Republican party's newfound bipartisan spirit didn’t seem to exist when they shoved through ultra-conservative Supreme Court nominees in lieu of forcing Bush to nominate moderates that both parties could rally around. Their consensus-filled hearts weren't apparent when they swift-boated Max Cleland and John Kerry and, most recently, did the racist "Harold, call me" number on Harold Ford Jr. in this year's Tennessee Senate contest.

Is there a thinking Democrat in the country who believes we can expect even the slightest derivation from that slimy game plan in 2008?

In addition to shooting down almost 75 percent of the few Democratic-sponsored bills that even made it to the Senate floor, the Republicans have previously duped Democrats into supporting the bogus No Child Left Behind scheme -- only to refuse full funding for the program -- questioned their patriotism when some refused to support the Patriot Act and the stupid flag-burning amendment and, of course, lied to get authorization for the Iraq war.

Famed Republican guru Grover Norquist once said that "bipartisanship is another name for date rape" and, far from being extreme invective, this is exactly the creed that the Republican party has lived at least since the old-school King of Slime, Lee Atwater, race-baited the 1988 presidential race by springing Mr. Willie Horton on Michael Dukakis. People like Lieberman and Landrieu will never understand that Republicans see true bipartisanship not as a strength, but as a weakness to be despised and exploited.

In a joint letter to their Senate colleagues, Snowe and Landrieu tried to speak for the country and said that Americans "… are tired of the extremes on both sides pulling us apart, paralyzing effective action. That was a clear message of the 2006 elections."

Nonsense.

By voting for such a colossal shift in the House of Representatives and giving Democrats control of the Senate in a massive and rare six-seat pickup, Americans said one thing and one thing only to Republicans: "We want Democratic leadership and we don't want you in charge any longer." Period.

They didn’t say we like some of what you've done the last few years -- they said we like none of what you've done. So why in the world would any Democrat interpret that landslide endorsement for complete change as such a watered-down, half-and-half order?

Harry Reid did a superb job keeping Democrats together as Minority Leader and one of his biggest challenges in the next two years will be to honor the voters' mandate and move real Democratic change through the Senate without any traces of the Republican hangover that Americans have so strongly rejected.

If Reid remembers the lessons of the last few years -- on where the GOP truly stands on bipartisanship -- and shows leadership on the ideals he fought for in vain in the last Congress, look for a lot of howling and hypocritical whining from the Republican side of the aisle.

And they can all just flat-out go to hell.

Republicans made this bile-filled, partisan stew long ago -- now they can damn well eat it.

Dems flim-flammed AGAIN by Bush: Robt. Gates is a STAY-the-course warhawk, given a big KISS of APPROVAL by the Hillary/Biden/Kerry/Lieberman/Reid Dems

2006-12-19T18:31:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, the name of this blog (cowardly democrats) STILL holds true, even despite the somewhat miraculous Dem. "election win" this November, BECAUSE NOT ONE OF THE LEADERSHIP DEMOCRATS is willing to CALL GEORGE BUSH A LIAR, and DEMAND that he be HELD ACCOUNTABLE for WRECKING the US military, leading an ILLEGAL, POORLY PLANNED, and CORRUPT invasion and occupation of Iraq, and leaving the city of New Orleans IN TATTERS as a "smart" way of ETHNICALLY CLEANSING New Orleans of its black voting majority.

For FAILING to STAND UP TO the george bush White House, we MUST maintain the title of this blog as "Cowardly Democrats".

Robert Gates Lines Up with Bush

By Robert Parry
December 19, 2006
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/121806.html

In early December, when Senate Democrats politely questioned Robert M. Gates and then voted unanimously to confirm him as Defense Secretary, they bought into the conventional wisdom that Gates was a closet dove who would help guide the United States out of George W. Bush's mess in Iraq.

The thinking was that Gates, a former member of the Iraq Study Group, would represent the views of James Baker and other "realists" from George H.W. Bush's administration. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee praised Gates for his "candor" when he acknowledged the obvious, that the war in Iraq wasn't being won.

Since the Gates confirmation vote on Dec. 6, however, Bush and Gates have signaled that they have no intention of extricating the U.S. military from the Iraq quagmire. They still insist on nothing short of "victory" or "success," no matter how unlikely those ends and no matter how much blood must be spilled over the next two years to avert defeat.

At his swearing-in ceremony on Dec. 18, Gates endorsed Bush's contention that a U.S. military withdrawal without victory in Iraq and Afghanistan is unacceptable.

"All of us want to find a way to bring America's sons and daughters home again," Gates said. "But, as the President has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East. Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility, and endanger Americans for decades to come."

Gates also made clear that U.S. forces would remain indefinitely in Afghanistan despite the eroding military position of the U.S.-backed government there.

"The progress made by the Afghan people over the past five years is at risk," Gates said. "The United States and its NATO allies have made a commitment to the Afghan people, and we intend to keep it. Afghanistan cannot be allowed to become a sanctuary for extremists again."

Gates rejected the notion that the U.S. military intervention in either country would wind down as long as Bush is President.

"How we face these and other challenges in the region over the next two years will determine whether Iraq, Afghanistan and other nations at a crossroads will pursue paths of gradual progress towards sustainable governments, which are allies in the global war on terrorism, or whether the forces of extremism and chaos will become ascendant," Gates said.

Closet Hawk

In his brief speech, Gates also went out of his way to echo Bush's call for a more aggressive U.S. military that can intervene quickly around the world.

"I was impressed by how deployable our military has become since I last served in government" as CIA director in 1991-93, Gates said. "The President said that one of his top priorities was to help our military become more agile, more lethal and more expeditionary. Much has been accomplished in this; much remains to be done. This remains a necessity and a priority."

So, Gates is onboard with Bush's "stay-until-victory" plan for Iraq and is enthusiastic about having a "more lethal and more expeditionary" U.S. military.
Though soft-spoken and mild-mannered – especially when compared to his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld – Gates sounds in substance more like a closet hawk than a closet dove.

But the Democrats failed to probe any of Gates's inclinations at his Dec. 5 confirmation hearing. They failed to nail down his precise thinking on any aspect of the war strategy or even secure a guarantee that the Pentagon would turn over documents for oversight hearings.

Among many gaps in the questioning, the Democrats didn’t press Gates on whether he shared the neoconservative vision of violently remaking the Middle East, whether he endorsed the Military Commissions Act’s elimination of habeas corpus rights to fair trials, whether he supports warrantless wiretaps by the Pentagon’s National Security Agency, whether he agrees with Bush’s claim of “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as a Commander in Chief who can override laws and the U.S. Constitution.

When Gates did stake out substantive positions at the hearing, he almost invariably lined up with Bush. Though insisting that “all the options are on the table,” Gates rejected any timetable for military withdrawal as some Democrats have recommended.

Desperate to present themselves as "bipartisan," the newly victorious Democrats also avoided any impolite questions about Gates's history of deceptiveness or his role in politicizing the CIA's analytical division in the service of right-wing ideologues in the 1980s. [See Consortiumnews.com's "The Secret World of Robert Gates," "Why Trust Robert Gates on Iraq," and "Robert Gates: Realist of Neo-con?"]

'Wobbly' Rumsfeld

The Democrats may have given Gates a free pass, in part, because they had been so adamant about removing Rumsfeld. Ironically, however, Bush dismissed his long-time Defense Secretary on Nov. 8, two days after Rumsfeld sent Bush a memo calling for a “major adjustment” in Iraq War strategy.

In that Nov. 6 memo, Rumsfeld proposed a troop pullback plan similar to one recommended by Democratic Rep. John Murtha to “withdraw U.S. forces from vulnerable positions” to safe areas of Iraq or to Kuwait. Rumsfeld also suggested “an accelerated drawdown of U.S. bases from 55 now to 10 to 15 by April 2007 and to five by July 2007.”

Though the conventional wisdom has been that Bush ousted Rumsfeld on Nov. 8 as a recognition of the Democratic congressional victory on Nov. 7, it's also possible that Bush realized that Rumsfeld was “going wobbly” on the Iraq War, no longer willing to tolerate the escalating U.S. death toll with American troops caught in the middle of a sectarian civil war.

In other words, the Democrats might have cheered the removal of a Defense Secretary who was repositioning himself closer to their phased-withdrawal strategy on Iraq – and hailed his replacement, someone more in line with Bush's "stay-until-victory" thinking.

So, instead of getting the pro-withdrawal ally that they had hoped for, the Democrats may have ended up with a fresh Bush operative ready to carry out Bush's Iraq War policies though to the end of his term, without Rumsfeld's doubts and regrets.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

Bush has created a "COMPREHENSIVE CATASTROPHE" in the Middle East

2006-12-15T08:59:00.000-05:00

Bush has created a COMPREHENSIVE CATASTROPHE across the Middle East. We wish Senator Tim Johnson the very best and hopefully he will make a full recovery from his surgery, but the sudden, unexpected illness of Senator Johnson highlights just how TEPID and ANEMIC has been the Democratic OPPOSITION to the Bush juggernaut of lies-to-war, use of National Security as a political weapon or club, and demagogue control over the press & media these past two or three years.

Senator Johnson's illness also illustrates how very fragile, despite the Democrat's 35-to-0 gains in the Congress, would be the Democrat's ability to ADVISE, CONSENT (or oppose), and OVERSEE the administration's policies and agenda should even one senate seat be turned over to the Republicans, thereby giving Dick Cheney the majority vote in the US Senate.

NOTE: ALREADY the Republican (soon to be) _MINORITY_ in the US Senate is talking about an ENERGETIC USE OF THE FILIBUSTER to derail, sidetrack, and OBSTRUCT some possible future Democratic legislation and bills.

After SIX YEARS of playing DEFENSE, the damn Democrats have AN OBLIGATION, a NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY, to exercise ENERGETIC OPPOSITION to the disastrous, chaotic, CATASTROPHIC policies of George W. Bush, the president who lost the majority of popular votes by over 500,000 in the 2000 presidential election, and whose 2004 election "win" is suspect as well.

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

Bush has created a comprehensive catastrophe across the Middle East

In every vital area, from Afghanistan to Egypt, his policies have made the situation worse than it was before

Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1971749,00.html

What an amazing bloody catastrophe. The Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East over the five years since 9/11 is culminating in a multiple train crash. Never in the field of human conflict was so little achieved by so great a country at such vast expense. In every vital area of the wider Middle East, American policy over the last five years has taken a bad situation and made it worse.

If the consequences were not so serious, one would have to laugh at a failure of such heroic proportions - rather in the spirit of Zorba the Greek who, contemplating the splintered ruins of his great project, memorably exclaimed: "Did you ever see a more splendiferous crash?" But the reckless incompetence of Zorba the Bush has resulted in the death, maiming, uprooting or impoverishment of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children - mainly Muslim Arabs but also Christian Lebanese, Israelis and American and British soldiers. By contributing to a broader alienation of Muslims it has also helped to make a world in which, as we walk the streets of London, Madrid, Jerusalem, New York or Sydney, we are all, each and every one of us, less safe. Laugh if you dare.

In the beginning, there were the 9/11 attacks. It's important to stress that no one can fairly blame George Bush for them. The invasion of Afghanistan was a justified response to those attacks, which were initiated by al-Qaida from its bases in a rogue state under the tyranny of the Taliban. But if Afghanistan had to be done, it had to be done properly. It wasn't. Creating a half-way civilised order in one of the most rugged, inhospitable and tribally recalcitrant places on the planet was always going to be a huge challenge. If the available resources of the world's democracies, including those of a new, enlarged Nato, had been dedicated to that task over the last five years, we might at least have one partial success to report today.

Instead Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld drove us on to Iraq, aided and abetted by Tony Blair, leaving the job in Afghanistan less than half-done. Today Osama bin Laden and his henchmen are probably still holed up in the mountains of Waziristan, just across the Afghan frontier in northern Pakistan, while the Taliban is back in force and the whole country is a bloody mess. Instead of one partial success, following a legitimate intervention, we have two burgeoning disasters, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

The United States and Britain invaded Iraq under false pretences, without proper legal authority or international legitimacy. If Saddam Hussein, a dangerous tyrant and certified international aggressor, had in fact possessed secret stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, the intervention might have been justified; as he didn't, it wasn't. Then, through the breathtaking incompetence of the civilian armchair warriors in the Pentagon and the White House, we transformed a totalitarian state into a state of anarchy. Claiming to move Iraq forward towards Lockean liberty, we hurled it back to a Hobbesian state of nature. Iraqis - those who have not been killed - increasingly say things are worse than they were before. Who are we to tell them they are wrong?

Now we are preparing to get out. After working through Basra in Operation Sinbad, a reduced number of British troops will draw back to their base at Basra airfield. We will sit in a desert and call it peace. If the White House follows the Baker-Hamilton commission's advice, US troops will do something similar, leaving embedded advisers with Iraqi forces. Three decades ago, American retreat was cloaked by "Vietnamisation"; now it will be cloaked by Iraqisation. Meanwhile, Iraqis can go on killing each other all around, until perhaps, in the end, they cut some rough-and-ready political deals between themselves - or not, as the case may be.

The theocratic dictatorship of Iran is the great winner. Five years ago, the Islamic republic had a reformist president, a substantial democratic opposition, and straitened finances because of low oil prices. The mullahs were running scared. Now the prospects of democratisation are dwindling, the regime is riding high on oil at more than $60 a barrel, and it has huge influence through its Shia brethren in Iraq and Lebanon. The likelihood of it developing nuclear weapons is correspondingly greater. We toppled the Iraqi dictator, who did not have weapons of mass destruction, and thereby increased the chances of Iran's dictators acquiring weapons of mass destruction. And this week Iran's President Ahmadinejad once again called for the destruction of the state of Israel. Those American neocons who set out to make the Middle East safe for Israel have ended up making it more dangerous for Israel.

We did not need an Iraq Study Group to tell us that resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict through a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine is crucial. In its last months the Clinton administration came close to clinching the deal. Under Bush, things have gone backwards. Even the Bush-backed Ariel Sharon scenario of separation through faits accomplis has receded, with the summer war in Lebanon, Hamas ascendancy in Palestine (itself partly a by-product of the Bush-led rush to elections), and a growing disillusionment of the Israeli public.

Having scored an apparent success with the "cedar revolution" in Lebanon and the withdrawal of Syrian troops, the Bush administration, by its tacit support of sustained yet ineffective Israeli military action this summer, undermined the very Lebanese government it was claiming to support. Now Hizbullah is challenging the country's western-backed velvet revolutionaries at their own game: after the cedar revolution, welcome to the cedar counter-revolution. In Egypt, supposedly a showcase for the United States' support for peaceful democratisation in the Bush second term, electoral success for Islamists (as in Palestine and Lebanon) seems to have frightened Washington away from its fresh-minted policy before the ink was even dry. On the credit side, all we have to show is Libya's renunciation of weapons of mass destruction, and a few tentative reforms in some smaller Arab states.

So here's the scoresheet for Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt: worse, worse, worse, worse, worse, worse and worse. With James Baker, the United States may revert from the sins of the son to the sins of the father. After all, it was Baker and George Bush Sr who left those they had encouraged to rise up against Saddam to be killed in Iraq at the end of the first Gulf war - not to mention enthusiastically continuing Washington's long-running Faustian pact with petro-autocracies such as Saudi Arabia. I'm told that Condoleezza Rice, no less, has wryly observed that the word democracy hardly features in the Baker-Hamilton report.

Many a time, in these pages and elsewhere, I have warned against reflex Bush-bashing and kneejerk anti-Americanism. The United States is by no means the only culprit. Changing the Middle East for the better is one of the most difficult challenges in world politics. The people of the region bear much responsibility for their own plight. So do we Europeans, for past sins of commission and current sins of omission. But Bush must take the lion's share of the blame. There are few examples in recent history of such a comprehensive failure. Congratulations, Mr President; you have made one hell of a disaster.

timothygartonash.com

Ignorance and Incompetence in the Dem. Party, especially re National Security....

2006-12-14T14:52:00.000-05:00

We here at c-dems respect and admire Mr. Lawrence O'Donnell, and have said so on this blog, which makes this a difficult post to write. But this post addresses a huge, serious problem in the Democratic Party, and helps to illustrate why "CowardlyDemocrats" has been the title of the blog up to now.

In his latest post at HuffingtonPost.com, Mr. O'Donnell writes:
<< The war in Iraq is a mistake, entered into for mistaken reasons involving suspected but nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. (I WAS NOT AN EARLY CRITIC OF THE WAR. I did not support it OR OPPOSE it during the ramp up to war. I ACCEPTED the evidence Colin Powell presented to the United Nations, but I was not convinced war was necessary. I was very slow to conclude the war was a mistake even after finding no weapons of mass destruction. For a long time, I thought comparisons to Vietnam were hasty and oversimplified, especially since the first person I heard compare Iraq to Vietnam was the Vegas comedian-magician, Penn Jillette. How could a guy who juggles and cracks jokes for a living be smarter than the Secretary of State?) How should we expect wars that are mistakes to end? Our Vietnam experience tells us that they end very badly. >>

O'Donnell did not "support OR OPPOSE [the war] DURING THE RAMP UP TO WAR."

AND WHY THE HELL NOT? As we have written here before, go to NewAmericanCentury.org, click on "Letters/Statements" and read the list of those who signed the PNAC Statement of Principles (June 1997) and letter to President Clinton about Iraq (Jan. 1998). The latter states that "even with inspectors... it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production.... Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a SERIOUSLY DESTABILIZING EFFECT on the entire Middle East." The letter concludes << Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a WILLINGNESS TO UNDERTAKE MILITARY ACTION as DIPLOMACY_IS_CLEARLY_FAILING. In the long term, IT MEANS REMOVING SADDAM HUSSEIN AND HIS REGIME FROM POWER. That now needs to become THE AIM of American foreign policy. >>

Although the above is, in retrospect, a TEXT-BOOK EXAMPLE OF FAULTY LOGIC, it did indeed become "THE AIM OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY" _IMMEDIATELY_ upon the Supreme Court awarding George W. Bush the Presidency in December of 2000. (See Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's comments that priority One of the incoming Bush administration in January of 2001, of which he was a big part, was prepping for a future war with Iraq.) The "Iraq letter to Clinton" was signed by Paul Wolfowitz and a whole raft of incoming neo-con War Hawks including Perle, Abrams, Armitage, Bolton, and Rumsfeld. The "Statement of Principles" which preceded by only a few weeks the "Iraq letter to Clinton (which was merely a thematic preamble to the "let's USE our more muscular foreign policy options" of the latter letter) was signed by DICK CHENEY and JEB BUSH in addition to Rumsfeld and the other above signers (and more).

This ignorance of the intentions and policy plans of the PNAC neo-cons is not the only Democratic IGNORANCE following the 9-11 attacks.
#1. The ANTHRAX ATTACKS were suspect, anyone who thinks that A-rab terrorists would send deadly letters to Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, well, we have some prime oceanfront property they will want to look at in Tennessee. Most of the other LIES-TO-WAR were debunked as well, including
#2. the "Niger Yellowcake Uranium Ore for Iraq" fib debunked (at great personal cost) by Ambassador Joe Wilson (an Iraq war hero of the Bush1 administration);
#3. including the "aluminum tubes for uranium centrifuges" story deunked by all experts in the centrifuge business (the tubes were annodized, making them useless for centrifuges);
#4. and the "Iraq Mobile Bio-Weapons Lab" story was equally farcical, using as "proof" - nothing more than ARTIST ILLUSTRATIONS of an alleged mobile bio-lab! (Which echoed the January 2001 Bush White House buildup of "Democratic Clinton-Gore staffers TRASHED THE WHITE HOUSE!" "scandal" WITHOUT ONE PHOTOGRAPH OF EVIDENCE.)

And finally, despite his heroic status at the apex of the US military after Gulf War1, Colin Powell had a longstanding reputation as being a military company-man, Powell having been in on the Mai Lai coverup that saw only a small handful of convictions for the Army's pre-meditated ethnic-cleansing/mass executions in the Mai Lai region (and later, after Nixon became President, the extra-legal invasion of Cambodia).

Mr. O'Donnell, if Democratic leaders and strategists can't sort the wheat from the chaff in "intel" and national security issues, and can't even protect their own fellow Democratic staffers from unfounded Republican attack-and-smear campaigns... HOW THE HELL can they be trusted with the nation's defense and security???

Even compared to the rank incompetence and corruption of the Bush-Cheney White House (much less the more subtle and sophisticated illegalities of the Bush Sr. White House), it is easy to see how so many voters might have so little faith in the Democratic leadership on national security and counter-terror issues.

On top of all that is the critical problem of MEDIA SPIN - if Republicans can continually foul-up international issues, but get the media to blame Democrats, then again the Democrats become part of the problem and not the solution.

http://newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm
http://newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
(Treasury Sec. Paul O'Neill comments that war against Iraq was a top priority of incoming Bush-Cheney administration, long before 9-11) http://thepriceofloyalty.ronsuskind.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/rush-is-right_b_36325.html
<< The war in Iraq is a mistake, entered into for mistaken reasons involving suspected but nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. (I was not an early critic of the war. I did not support it or oppose it during the ramp up to war. I accepted the evidence Colin Powell presented to the United Nations, but I was not convinced war was necessary. I was very slow to conclude the war was a mistake even after finding no weapons of mass destruction. For a long time, I thought comparisons to Vietnam were hasty and oversimplified, especially since the first person I heard compare Iraq to Vietnam was the Vegas comedian-magician, Penn Jillette. How could a guy who juggles and cracks jokes for a living be smarter than the Secretary of State?) How should we expect wars that are mistakes to end? Our Vietnam experience tells us that they end very badly. >>

Fla. senator defies Bush, visits Syria. George Bush and crew are INCOMPETENT administrators of America's government, and he should be impeached...

2006-12-13T18:57:00.000-05:00

George Bush and crew are INCOMPETENT administrators of America's government, and he should be impeached and removed from power. George W. Bush is everything that Al Gore said about Bush's father during the Clinton-Gore campaign of 1992. In one of the last scenes of the docu-movie "The War Room," Al Gore gives an impassioned stump speech in the final days of campaign 1992: "Everything that SHOULD BE DOWN IS UP, everything that SHOULD BE UP IS DOWN!" and Gore drove his points home to enthusiastic voters with passion and gusto. But at least the Senior Bush was strategically competent (if you overlook his allowing Yugoslavia to descend into chaos, and his Ambassador, April Gilespi, giving Saddam Hussein a 'green light' to invade Kuwait with her infamous "we have no position in intra-Arab fueding."

George W. Bush can not point to ONE THING that has improved in America, unless one looks at the inflated portfolios of America's wealthiest top 2%, as for example the $16 billion profits posted by Goldman Sachs and other investment bankers this year. But G-S's profits are not entirely "free market" and not entirely "profit" - they come at the expense of the TRILLION dollar DEFICITS racked up by the Bush (W) administration, and at the expense of America's working families who can no longer afford health care. Indeed, the Goldman-Sachs profits are only the most visible proof of how profitable it is to OUTSOURCE AMERICAN JOBS.

Economic policy, domestic policy, foreign policy, and especially national security policy: in ALL respects except the rising wealth of America's top 2%, George W. Bush has been a disaster for America, and if the other Democrats in the House and Senate do not follow Senator Nelson's lead to provide SOME ALTERNATIVES to the Bush-Cheney march to disaster, then the Bush legacy of wreckage will only get worse for America.

Fla. senator defies Bush, visits Syria
By Anne Plummer Flaherty, Associated Press Writer
13 Dec. 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061213/ap_on_go_co/us_syria

WASHINGTON - In a direct affront to the Bush administration, a Democratic senator spent an hour Wednesday with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus, emerging from the meeting to say Assad was willing to help control the Iraq-Syrian border.

Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record) of Florida, a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, met with Assad after the State Department said that it disapproved of his trip. The United States has limited diplomatic ties with Syria because of its support of Hezbollah and Hamas, which the U.S. deems terrorist organizations, and President Bush has expressed reluctance to seek help from Damascus on Iraq until the Syrians curb that support and reduce their influence in Lebanon.

"Assad clearly indicated the willingness to cooperate with the Americans and or the Iraqi army to be part of a solution" in Iraq, Nelson told reporters in a conference call following the meeting. The U.S. says foreign fighters often enter Iraq across that boundary.

Syrian officials have indicated a willingness before to engage the U.S. in discussions about Iraq, which the Bush administration has treated with skepticism. Nelson said he viewed Assad's remarks as "a crack in the door for discussions to continue. I approach this with realism not optimism."

Nelson said he reported the information to embassy officials and will brief his congressional committees on the trip. Also expected to visit Syria is Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa..

"We don't think that members of Congress ought to be going there," White House press secretary Tony Snow said, adding that the United States continues to denounce Syria's meddling in Lebanon and its ties to terrorist groups.

Snow noted the existing diplomatic ties between U.S. and Syria. "I think it's a real stretch to think the Syrians don't know where we stand or what we think," he said.

The diplomatic push from Congress comes on the heels of a recommendation by a bipartisan panel that the U.S. engage Iran and Syria on the war in Iraq. Bush has remained cool to the proposal by the Iraq Study Group, which was led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind.

Nelson said he ultimately received logistical support from the State Department in what he called a "fact-finding trip" across the Middle East, being transported by embassy officials from Jordan's capital city of Amman to Damascus. Prior to heading to Damascus, Nelson met with top Israeli and Palestinian officials; in coming days, he plans to visit Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq.

Nelson said he was not interested visiting Iran "at this time" and did not say why.

However, the senator did say that he raised the issue of a nuclear-armed Iran to Assad, saying "he ought to understand that that's not only a threat to him, Syria, but to the entire world. . . . He took note," Nelson said.

The senator said he also expressed to the Syrian leader the problems caused by Hezbollah and Hamas and urged Assad to support the release of captured Israeli soldiers. Nelson said the Syrian president responded by saying Israel had 20 Syrians in captivity, one of whom died recently from leukemia.

The senator shrugged off suggestions he was challenging Bush's authority by sidestepping administration policy that the U.S. have no contact with Syrian officials.

"I have a constitutional role as a member of Congress," Nelson said.

Meanwhile, Bush criticized Damascus anew and called on it to free all political prisoners.

In a statement, the president expressed support for the Syrian people, and said they "deserve a government whose legitimacy is grounded in the consent of the people, not brute force."

The U.S.-backed government in Lebanon led by Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is being challenged by the Hezbollah-led, pro-Syrian opposition. Bush said Syria should disclose the fate of the many missing Lebanese citizens who disappeared following their arrest in Lebanon during decades of Syrian military occupation.

"The Syrian regime should immediately free all political prisoners, including Aref Dalila, Michel Kilo, Anwar al-Bunni, Mahmoud Issa, and Kamal Labwani," Bush said. "I am deeply troubled by reports that some ailing political prisoners are denied health care while others are held in cells with violent criminals."

Hillary SAT ON her millions $$ in last days of Election 2006... the SAME sin that Carville foamed-at-mouth at DNC Chair Howard Dean for!!

2006-12-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

If James Carville directed one-tenth the outrage at his wife for espousing "THEY'RE WRONG" Republican atrocious policies that he directs at DNC Chairman Howard Dean for running WINNING Democratic grass-roots campaigns, he would be booted out of his own home in a New York minute!

In an earlier post, "JAMES CARVILLE, WTF?!' we wrote
http://cowardlydemocrats.blogspot.com/search?q=James+Carville%2C+WTF%3F
that James Carville was a blooming, craven IDIOT for shouting (in that Carville ragin' cajun style of his) that DNC Chair Howard Dean should be FIRED for (according to Carville) not digging deep enough into the DNC's credit line to pump additional funds to a few critically close races in the last days of Election 2006.

Well, now it turns out that not only is Carville a CRAVEN, BLOOMING IDIOT for his comments back then, BUT he is a HYPOCRITE and liar as well!

For, you see, Hillary Clinton in the final days of Election '06 (days leading up to November 7th) wasn't just sitting on a huge, commanding, insurmountable lead in the polls, but she was also SITTING ON TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS of cash-in-hand campaign funds!

HOW can Carville explain his ferocious, outspoken condemnation of Howard Dean for not using IMAGINARY (credit-line) funds, while PRETENDING IGNORANCE of HILLARY'S UNSPENT cash-in-hand war chest??!!

Our thanks to Paul Rogat Loeb and Buzzflash.com for pointing all this out.

Of course, ANYONE who has been paying ANY attention to the Right-Wing since they lost their Cold-War "evil empire" as adversaries and enemies (when the USSR and 'Iron Curtain' collapsed in late 1990s) understands that the HARDER THE RIGHTIES SHOUT about some alleged sin, crime, and scandal by the Democrats and "left," THE MORE THEY ARE DESCRIBING their OWN dark hearts and conduct.

AS we write this, MSNBC is playing the media "GOTCHA!" story, incoming Democrat House Intel. Committee Chairmen Reyes apparently is not fully conversant in Al Qaida facts, stats, and briefing info.

BUT, the SAME MSNBC news whores (including former Congressman Joe Scarborough) GIVE A FREE PASS, not only to two outgoing (SITTING) Republican members of the House Intel Committee who failed the SAME question, but of course they CONTINUE to give George W. Bush a FREE PASS for IGNORING pre-9-11 "Al Qaida wants to hijack airliners in America" warnings from the CIA, FBI, Mossad, Egyptian security forces, and even the ITALIAN POLICE, who stationed surface-to-air missiles around Genoa Italy in July of 2001 specifically to deter the threat of a hijacked airliner. That is, the American whore media (in this case MSNBC) gives the US president a FREE PASS for being MORE IGNORANT and INCOMPETENT than the Italian police and security forces! And then tries to make incoming Dem Intel. Committee Chair Reyes look ignorant and incompetent for not having his own pat answers to a media pop-quiz.

James Carville is completely in the same boat as MSNBC and the WHORE media: he is trying to make Howard Dean's WINNING leadership of the DNC in election 2006 into a SCANDAL, while SITTING on the info. that shows that Hillary Clinton is guilty, in spades, of EXACTLY what Carville accuses Dean of doing (or not doing)!!

WHY is Carville such a hollow, shrill, has-been?

In a word, he has become exactly the DC insider he DESPISED when he came up with the Clinton-Gore unofficial campaign motto in 1992, "It's the economy, STUPID!" Carville is now married to Mary Matlin, who has not only been a longtime PR campaign aide to the Bush Sr. White House, but she is now THE head spin-meister for Dick Cheney, the Vice-President (and some say acting co-president) of the United States. It simply doesn't get any more "Washington DC INSIDER" than being the spinmeister/PR advisor for the sitting Vice President/godfather of so many appalling administration policies and directions.

In 1992 Carville channeled his RAGE and OUTRAGE against the economic policies of the Bush Sr. administration into winning tactical and strategic (media) plans for the 1992 dark horse (outsider) Democratic candidate.

Since then, Carville has written the book, "WE're right, THEY're Wrong." But apparently his REPUBLICAN INSIDER wife didn't get the message... she continues to champion the OUTRAGEOUS Republican policies such as torture, unlimited spying, and TAX CUTS FOR BILLIONAIRES while sticking the rest of us Americans with the not only the costs of Bush's disastrous wars, job outsourcing, soaring healthcare and drug prices, and DEFICITS..... _AND_ INTEREST ON those deficits - but the portion of the federal taxes that billionaires no longer pay!!!

James Carville is, clearly, STILL a man of OUTRAGE.

Except, INSTEAD of CHANNELING THAT OUTRAGE at the appalling policies HIS WIFE ESPOUSES... he HYPOCRITICALLY channels them at Howard Dean, a small-state governor who, until his 2004 presidential campaign, was the quintessential DC outsider.

THANKS, Paul Loeb, for the TEXT BOOK example of DC Democrat INSIDER HYPOCRISY by James Carville and the Hillary camp, and their Republican-esque "POT CALLING KETTLE BLACK" "projection."

<< I just got my Visa bill for my final election donations-all those click-and-donate appeals in my email box and on the Web. I gave more than I thought I had, more than I'd intended to spend, and more than I'd ever given before. You make enough $25 to $50 contributions, and soon you're talking REAL MONEY, a tenth of my annual income.
But I feel just fine about my giving. I'm proud to have helped support Dean's 50-state strategy by donating to the Democratic National Committee early enough to help build key infrastructure, and then again and again as new opportunities emerged. I felt great about giving to Jon Tester six times, including for his final election week push. Between my donations and my volunteering with MoveOn's CallforChange program, I felt like I'd personally helped elect Tester, Jim Webb, Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Whitehouse, and half the Congressional candidates from the NetRoots Act Blue page. I'd have felt proud to do my part even if the close races had gone the other way.

What DOESN'T please me, in fact DISTURBS ME IMMENSELY, is discovering that Hillary Clinton raised $52 million dollars for her Senate campaign and allied leadership PAC, HILLPAC. She spent $36 million of it on a race that she could have won staying home in her pajamas, not spending a dime. Now she's SITTING ON a $13.5-million-dollar war chest, which she'll roll over to her presidential campaign. I know political money is hard to raise, particularly with the new contribution limits, and that some of Hillary's spending went to build a grassroots donors' list that she'll tap in the future. But according to the wonderful site of the Center for Responsive Politics, the entire Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised only $107 million, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign $103 million. Hillary spent a third as much as either of these, more than any candidate in America, for a race that was never in doubt. She did distribute $2.5 million to various Democratic institutions and candidates, but imagine if she'd transferred $20 million into the dozen Congressional campaigns that Democrats lost by margins as close as a few hundred votes. Or into Harold Ford's Senatorial campaign, to close the gap between the $10 million spent by Ford and the $15 million that Republican Bob Corker spent. Hindsight's always easy, but by late summer it was clear that the Democrats had a huge opportunity and were scrambling for the funds to respond to it. A few more ads would almost certainly have tipped the balance for some of the under-funded candidates who came heartbreakingly close. That's why so many of us were digging deep to contribute, and then digging deeper, EVEN WHEN IT HURT. Evidently Hillary had other priorities.

But she had a chance to make a major difference in this critical election -- and she blew it. >>
==============================

Hillary Clinton and My Visa Bill

by Paul Rogat Loeb, author of "The Impossible Will Take a Little While"
Tue, 12/12/2006
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/625

I just got my Visa bill for my final election donations-all those click-and-donate appeals in my email box and on the Web. I gave more than I thought I had, more than I'd intended to spend, and more than I'd ever given before. You make enough $25 to $50 contributions, and soon you're talking real money, a tenth of my annual income.

But I feel just fine about my giving. I'm proud to have helped support Dean's 50-state strategy by donating to the Democratic National Committee early enough to help build key infrastructure, and then again and again as new opportunities emerged. I felt great about giving to Jon Tester six times, including for his final election week push. Between my donations and my volunteering with MoveOn's CallforChange program, I felt like I'd personally helped elect Tester, Jim Webb, Claire McCaskill, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Whitehouse, and half the Congressional candidates from the NetRoots Act Blue page. I'd have felt proud to do my part even if the close races had gone the other way.

What doesn't please me, in fact disturbs me immensely, is discovering that Hillary Clinton raised $52 million dollars for her Senate campaign and allied leadership PAC, HILLPAC. She spent $36 million of it on a race that she could have won staying home in her pajamas, not spending a dime. Now she's sitting on a $13.5-million-dollar war chest, which she'll roll over to her presidential campaign. I know political money is hard to raise, particularly with the new contribution limits, and that some of Hillary's spending went to build a grassroots donors' list that she'll tap in the future. But according to the wonderful site of the Center for Responsive Politics, the entire Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee raised only $107 million, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign $103 million. Hillary spent a third as much as either of these, more than any candidate in America, for a race that was never in doubt. She did distribute $2.5 million to various Democratic institutions and candidates, but imagine if she'd transferred $20 million into the dozen Congressional campaigns that Democrats lost by margins as close as a few hundred votes. Or into Harold Ford's Senatorial campaign, to close the gap between the $10 million spent by Ford and the $15 million that Republican Bob Corker spent. Hindsight's always easy, but by late summer it was clear that the Democrats had a huge opportunity and were scrambling for the funds to respond to it. A few more ads would almost certainly have tipped the balance for some of the under-funded candidates who came heartbreakingly close. That's why so many of us were digging deep to contribute, and then digging deeper, even when it hurt. Evidently Hillary had other priorities.

When Bill Clinton first surfaced as a leading Presidential contender, I asked a mutual friend what he thought. "He's smart," said my friend. "He reads good books. He wants to do the right thing." Then he paused and said, "But he won't go to the mat for anything except his own political future." To me, that was Bill's core flaw (even more than his pursuit of Monica Lewinsky). Hillary seems to share Bill's hunger for power. You can always rationalize dubious choices by the good you'll do when you gain just a little more clout, and I'm sure she truly believes her candidacy will benefit the United States. But she had a chance to make a major difference in this critical election -- and she blew it.

Hillary is far from the only Democrat vulnerable to the charge of hoarding scarce resources: As of mid-October, John Kerry with $13.8 million in his campaign account, and Evan Bayh had $10.6 million. But Kerry transferred over $3.5 million to Democratic candidates and used his networks to raise almost $10 million more. Between his inept 2004 campaign and the damage done by his foot-in-the-mouth military joke-telling, I don't want him as a Presidential candidate; but compared to what Hillary transferred from five times the resources, Kerry at least dug deeper to help. I have even more respect for potential contenders like John Edwards and Wesley Clark, who campaigned throughout the country to support Democratic candidates, but did relatively little fundraising for their own campaign committees and PACs, mostly to maintain basic infrastructure. Their top priority was to help other Democrats to win this 2006 election

I'm sure Hillary would say she did all she could, and then some, and she definitely lent major star power to the campaigns and fundraising efforts of many worthy candidates. But I think about all the ordinary citizens who gave more time and money than anyone would have expected and as a result made a critical difference. In comparison, Hillary falls short. The money she spent may have gained her a few extra points of electoral margin in a race she won by 36 points, and buttressed her already massive frontrunner status. But it did nothing to increase the Democratic victory. Those of us at the grassroots aren't going to stop volunteering and donating merely because some of our most prominent political leaders fall short. But it's a measure of their character that I hope we'll remember when the Presidential primaries begin.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

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

Neo-cons retreat from Bush's war at 100mph. Vanity Fair's David Ross taking names...

2006-12-09T19:22:00.000-05:00

Neo Culpa
Please don't call them "architects of the war": Richard (Prince of Darkness) Perle, David (Axis of Evil) Frum, Kenneth (Cakewalk) Adelman, and other elite neoconservatives who pushed for the invasion of Iraq are beside themselves at the result.
by David Rose January 2007
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/01/neocons200701?printable=true¤tPage=all
(click our headline link)

Bush approval plummets further, to below 30%. Dem "leaders" in Senate STILL bow to MSM "conventional wisdom"....

2006-12-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

Even as Bush's approval rating for handeling the Iraq war plummets to below 30%, Senate Democrats (the Biden/Bayh/Lieberman/Clinton, Kerry clique, et al) continue to SOFT-PEDAL the need to confront the White House with responsibility the mess that they have created.

Over at the NYT editorial page, Krugman gamely continues to be one of two of the Times' in-house editorial writers (along with Frank Rich) not taken in by the Times' "of the establishment, by the establishment, for the establishement" editorial and reporting screed. (Over on the Times' news page, this story by the Times staff BURIES the "American corporations CONTROL Iraqi oil" comment in the last paragraphs of a long article.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/world/middleeast/09oil.html

Paul Krugman: They Told You So.
(BURIED by the Lyin' Times must-pay firewall)
<< Shortly after U.S. forces marched into Baghdad in 2003, The Weekly Standard published a jeering article titled, “The Cassandra Chronicles: The stupidity of the antiwar doomsayers.” Among those the article mocked was a “war novelist” named James Webb, who is now the senator-elect from Virginia.
[IRONICALLY] The article’s title was more revealing than its authors knew. People forget the nature of Cassandra’s curse: although nobody would believe her, all her prophecies came true. >>

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

Released: December 08, 2006
Bush Job Approval: 30%
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1217

President slips to all-time low in the Zogby Poll as key demographic groups jump ship

The national job approval rating of President Bush has plummeted to 30%, an all–time low in the latest Zogby International telephone poll, sinking below the 31% approval rating he dropped to in early June.

The President’s positive job rating is down from 36% in late October, in the weeks heading into the congressional midterm elections. Since then, the Democrats swept to control of both houses of Congress, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned and was replaced by Robert Gates, who said the U.S. is not winning the war in Iraq. Release of the Iraq Study Group’s report calling for significant change in the way the U.S. is conducting the Iraq war came as this latest Zogby poll was in the field.

Sixty–eight percent said they believe Bush is doing only a fair or poor job leading the nation.

Support for the President waned in key demographic groups, the Zogby poll shows. Among all Republicans, just 60% gave him a positive job rating, while 39% gave him negative marks. Just 9% of Democrats and 22% of political independents gave him good marks for his work. Among married respondents – typically a group who favors Republicans – just 35% said Bush was doing a positive job. Among men, another favorable GOP demographic, just 31% gave him positive marks, while 69% gave him a negative rating. Even among stalwart Born Again respondents, just 43% had positive ratings for the President on his overall job performance.

The survey of 982 likely voters nationwide was conducted Dec. 5–8, 2006, and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.2 percentage points.

The poll showed that Bush’s troubles clearly stem from trouble with the war in Iraq. Just 24% give him positive marks for his handling of the war, down from 39% who gave him a positive rating six months ago for his handling the way. Even among Republicans, a minority – 47% – think he has handled the war well (52% of Republicans gave him negative marks for his leadership on the war in Iraq). Not a single demographic group in the Zogby poll gave the president a majority positive rating for his handling of the war.

Asked whether the Iraq war has been worth the loss of American lives, just 34% responded positively, equally the lowest percentage recorded in a long series of Zogby polls on the question. The poll comes on the heels of the announcement that more than 2,900 Americans had been killed in the war.

Bush’s management of the overall war on terror received somewhat better marks – 40% said he is doing a positive job handling the worldwide conflict, which is almost identical to the 41% positive marks he won in a survey six months ago.

Asked whether the nation was headed in the right direction or was off on the wrong track, just one in three (32%) said things are going in the right direction, while 57% said things were amiss in the nation. Another 11% said they were unsure.

Congress Job Rating Also Hits New Low

The latest Zogby poll shows the nation is apparently ready for some new leadership on Capitol Hill. Just 16% gave the Congress positive marks for its work, while 80% gave it negative ratings. This marks an all–time low rating for Congress, as the Republicans prepare to hand the control of both houses of Congress over to the Democrats for the first time in 12 years.

Among men, just 14% gave positive marks to Capitol Hill, while women were a tiny bit more generous – 20% said Congress had done a “good” or “excellent” job. Even Republicans had trouble mustering support for the GOP–led national legislature, as just 25% affixed positive ratings to Congress.

But, the survey shows, Americans hold the Capitol Hill partisans in equal disdain – both Republicans and Democrats received positive marks from just 21% of respondents, while 74% gave both Democrats and Republicans negative job performance ratings. Among Republican respondents, 38% gave the Republicans in Congress positive marks, while just 24% of Democrats gave Democrats in Congress positive marks.

For a detailed methodological statement, please visit:
http://www.zogby.com/methodology/readmeth.dbm?ID=1156

Democrats FINALLY respond to America's broken, corrupt, "privatized" voting system.... (bravo..)

2006-12-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

Changes Are Expected in Voting by 2008 Election
By IAN URBINA and CHRISTOPHER DREW
Published: December 8, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/washington/08voting.html

By the 2008 presidential election, voters around the country are likely to see sweeping changes in how they cast their ballots and how those ballots are counted, including an end to the use of most electronic voting machines without a paper trail, federal voting officials and legislators say.

New federal guidelines, along with legislation given a strong chance to pass in Congress next year, will probably combine to make the paperless voting machines obsolete, the officials say. States and counties that bought the machines will have to modify them to hook up printers, at federal expense, while others are planning to scrap the machines and buy new ones.

Motivated in part by voting problems during the midterm elections last month, the changes are a result of a growing skepticism among local and state election officials, federal legislators and the scientific community about the reliability and security of the paperless touch-screen machines used by about 30 percent of American voters.

The changes also mean that the various forms of vote-counting software used around the country — most of which are protected by their manufacturers for reasons of trade secrecy — will for the first time be inspected by federal authorities, and the code could be made public. There will also be greater federal oversight on how new machines are tested before they arrive at polling stations.

“In the next two years I think we’ll see the kinds of sweeping changes that people expected to see right after the 2000 election,” said Doug Chapin, director of electionline.org, a nonpartisan election group. “The difference now is that we have moved from politics down to policies.”

Many of the paperless machines were bought in a rush to overhaul the voting system after the disputed presidential election in 2000, which was marred by hanging chads. But concerns have been growing that in a close election those machines give election workers no legitimate way to conduct a recount or to check for malfunctions or fraud.

Several counties around the country are already considering scrapping their voting systems after problems this year, and last week federal technology experts concluded for the first time that paperless touch-screen machines could not be secured from tampering.

Having stalled for over two years, federal legislation requiring a shift to paper trails and other safeguards, proposed by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, has a better chance of passing next session, several members of Congress and election officials say.

They say that fixing the voting system is viewed as a core issue by the new Democratic leaders, and the bill already has the bipartisan support of more than a majority of the current House. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who will be the new chairwoman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, said she planned to introduce a similar bill in January.

But it is also clear that the changes will not come without a struggle. State and local election officials are still reeling from the last major overhaul of the country’s voting system, initiated by the Help America Vote Act in 2002, and some say that the $150 million in federal aid proposed by Mr. Holt would not be enough to pay for the changes.

Advocates for the disabled say they will resist his bill, because the touch-screen machines are the easiest for blind people to use. And the voting machine companies say they will argue against making the software code completely public, partly out of concern about making the system more vulnerable to hackers.

Paul S. DeGregorio, the chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, which was created by Congress in 2002 to set voting standards, also cautioned against rushing to make changes, especially since some counties also ran into problems with printers in this year’s elections. “All of the implications have to be looked at carefully,” Mr. DeGregorio said in an interview.

Still, the changes are rapidly gaining momentum, partly because the Help America Vote Act did not go far enough in establishing clear guidelines for the type of machines that should be used, many critics have said. It took so long for the federal guidelines to be established that many local voting officials bought new equipment without the full benefit of federal research and standards.

“Everyone was getting intense pressure to comply by January 2006, and so they went ahead and bought,” said Alysoun McLaughlin, who was a lobbyist for the National Association of Counties at the time.

Now some local and state officials are paying the price as they shelve machines that have problems or that could soon be out of compliance.

In Maryland, legislators say they plan to replace the more than $70 million worth of touch-screen machines the state began buying in 2002 with paper optical scanners, which officials estimate could cost $20 million.

Voters in Sarasota, Fla., where the results of a Congressional race recorded on touch-screen machines are being contested in court, passed a ballot initiative last month to make the same change, at an estimated cost of $3 million. Last year, New Mexico spent $14 million to replace its touch screens. Other states are spending millions more to retrofit the machines to add paper trails.

New York has been slow to replace its old lever voting machines, and the state has required counties to buy screens with printers or optical scanners. New Jersey has passed a law requiring its counties to switch to machines with paper trails by 2008, and Connecticut is buying machines that can scan paper ballots.

This week, the Technical Guidelines Development Committee, a federal panel of technical experts that helps set voting standards, adopted a resolution that recommends requiring any new electronic voting systems to have an independent means of verification, a move that could eventually prevent paperless touch-screen machines from being federally certified.

Touch-screen machines with paper trails give voters a chance to check their choices on a small piece of paper before casting their ballots, while large rolls of paper keep a running tally and can be used to check the vote count made by the machine’s software. Localities can also use optical-scan systems, in which paper ballots marked by voters are counted by scanning machines and remain available for recounts.

Over the last two years, 27 states have passed laws requiring a shift to machines with paper trails, and 8 others do not have such laws but use the machines statewide. Some counties have attached rolls of paper to touch-screen machines, at a cost of $1,000 to $2,000 for each device, while others have bought optical-scanning devices.

Five states — Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana, South Carolina and Delaware — still use only the paperless machines, and 10 states have counties that use them and have not made plans to change.

State and local election officials say they have been overwhelmed by the changes since 2002, and they are worried about how much they may have to pay to meet new requirements. Many have already spent millions in state and local money to buy and operate new machines, and Mr. Holt’s changes would require retraining poll workers as well as add the recurring costs of buying paper ballots and conducting election audits.

Because some printers malfunctioned last month, election commissioners in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, which includes Cleveland, said last week that they were considering scrapping their new $17 million system of touch-screen machines and starting over with optical scanning devices.

In Harris County, Tex., which includes Houston, electronic machines can print a paper tally, but do not give voters a paper record, meaning they would not comply with Mr. Holt’s bill. Beverly Kaufman, the county clerk, said she and other election officials elsewhere disliked the paper requirement.

“Every time you introduce something perishable like paper, you inject some uncertainty into the system,” Ms. Kaufman said. She said she was skeptical that Congress would come up with enough money for replacements by 2008. “You show me where you can pry the cold, bony fingers off the money in Washington, D.C., that fast,” she said.

Another significant change that will affect how votes are counted involves the recording and tallying software embedded in each electronic machine. Under changes approved by the Election Assistance Commission yesterday, voting machine manufacturers would have to make their crucial software code available to federal inspectors. The code is now checked mainly by private testing laboratories paid by the manufacturers. Mr. Holt would go even further, requiring the commission to make the code publicly available.

Computer experts and voting rights groups have long advocated such openness, arguing that the code is too important to be kept secret and would allow programmers to check for bugs and the potential for hacking. But manufacturers are resistant. Michelle Shafer, a vice president at Sequoia Voting Systems, said that while the industry was willing to give the source code to state and federal officials, “we feel that just putting it out there would give it to people with an intent to do something malicious or harmful.”

Because election technology is changing so quickly, it is not clear that the new requirements, particularly the demand for a paper trail, will stand the test of time, and advocates for change are already worried about a jury-rigged solution for 2008.

“We’re confident that the accuracy and integrity of voting is going to take some big steps forward with the legislation in Congress right now,” said Warren Stewart, policy director of VoteTrustUSA, an advocacy group that prefers optical scanners to touch screens. “But our big concern is to avoid replacing old problems with new ones.”

The Bipartisan Myth: Democrats WON 35-0. The Dave Broder/George Will/WP 'conventional wisdow' for bipartisan Status-quo is BS!

2006-12-06T11:59:00.000-05:00

Words fail us here at C-Dems.blogspot.com to convey our ongoing disgust at how the DC media whore punditocracy CONTINUES to UNDERCUT American democracy for their "enrich our elite, entrenched ruler-class" agenda.

The punditocracy is SO whorrific, that for the past 6 years they have continually pooh-poohed public awareness and dismay at the privatized, computerized, no audit, no verification voting system. AS IF it is right & proper for America's electoral process to be a worldwide JOKE, a farce of 3rd-world banana Republic proportions. By contrast, INDIA _is_ a third-world nation, is a far bigger voting population that America, yet THEY can count ALL THEIR VOTES to the satisfaction of all parties... within a day (or two at the most) without even using computers.

Just as the whore punditocracy tries to spin that America's horrific voting system is FINE AND DANDY, so to the DC punditocrats are now trying to spin the "BIPARTISAN" myth.

The Bipartisan Myth: Democrats Won 35-0
Cenk Uygur
12.06.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/we-do-have-options-for-ir_b_34985.html

I keep reading in the mainstream press about how the 2006 election was about the American electorate wanting more bipartisanship. Really? Based on what?

I haven't seen any exit polls from the elections that showed that anyone voted based on bipartisanship or centrism. I have seen many polls that said they voted based on corruption, Iraq and change.

But the real proof is in the numbers. Twenty-nine House seats and six Senate seats changed from Republican to Democrat. None changed from Democrat to Republican. Not one.

That's not bipartisanship. That's a 35-0 blowout.

The American people spoke loud and clear - we want to go in the direction of the Democrats. There were no mixed messages about the Democrats going halfway to meet the Republicans. If anyone has to move towards the middle it is clearly the Republicans.

I don't want to see one more "news" story about how the Democrats should move toward the Republicans or meet them halfway because that's what "people" want. What people? The voters were clear and that is not what they said.

This would seem to be an ironic post since I am a centrist. I want the country to be in the center. And I think the press is also quite centrist and their inclination is to try to bring the country into the center. This is partly because of their neutrality fetish but partly because they have a sense of where the American people stand generally.

But here is the big difference. I recognize that the center is NOT between where the Democrats and the Republicans stand now. The center has stayed the same but both political parties have moved way to the right. So, now the center stands squarely where the Democratic Party is currently. That's partly why many liberal activists complain about the Democratic Party these days.

You know who understands this best? The American people. That's why they gave the Democrats the 35-0 victory last month. Because the Democrats are now exactly in the center, where the American people want to be.

This is why I have written in the past that the American people are not dumb, as many claim, but they are a little slow sometimes. In time, they know exactly where they want to be and always find a way to punish extremism and get back to the sensible center.

Unfortunately, the press is a lot slower. The people have spoken and they still haven't heard it. They are still under the delusion that the midpoint must be between the two parties and have not noticed the political landscape shift underneath them.

I have made the sports analogy before on media neutrality, but it is perfectly fitting here. It would be unacceptable for sports journalists to have the same kind of nonsense neutrality fixation that political news coverage has these days. You can't say the Cowboys and Redskins were both just as good if the Cowboys blew out the Redskins. You have to report the actual score.

Saying the Cowboys won doesn't mean you have a Cowboys bias. It means you watched the game. In this case, I watched the 2006 elections. The Democrats won 35-0. Reporting anything other than that is misleading at best. There was no tie -- or bipartisanship -- here. Stop pretending there was and report the damn score, please.

Dem. Sen. Joe Biden gives text-book example for why "Cowardly Democrats" is the title of this blog....

2006-12-06T09:40:00.000-05:00

Senator Joe Biden seeks to follow the lead of ZELL MILLER and JOE LIEBERMAN, in UNDERCUTTING the Democratic Party message, by ENCOURAGING Republican regressive, anti-democratic tendencies - including even NOSTALGIA for SLAVERY and SECESSION!!!!

THE GREAT SENATOR JOE BIDEN, from the _SLAVE_STATE_ of Delaware, pinning like Trent Lott for the 'good ol' days' when slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a man, solely for the benefit of their masters.

(note: Lieberman, Biden, Senator Ben Nelson, and other Democratic Senators - a tiny minority of three or 4 or 5 Americans - could easily UNDO the Democrat's resounding 2006 election gains, by siding with the Republican Senate caucus to continue the war, eliminat oversight of war contracts and profiteering, and continue the draconian powers of the national security state dismissing of Civil Rights, habeas corpus, prisoner rights, privacy rights, and (eventually) even voting rights.)

=======================
Joe Biden's Trent Lott moment
blog entry Submitted by lambert on
Sun, 2006-12-03
http://www.correntewire.com/joe_bidens_trent_lott_moment

Will this be Joe Biden’s Trent Lott moment?

26 days after Democrats win the mid-terms, [DEMOCRATIC SENATOR] Joe Biden EXHORTS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY to “get back up.” Then, Biden (D-Hair Club for Men) claims that, just because the country voted Democrats back into power, that doesn’t mean the country really endorsed them. And then, Biden uses South Carolina’s pro-slavery past as a “humorous” talking point, to pander to Republicans who think viewing South Carolina’s Articles of Secession is the ideal way to celebrate a white Christmas. Even for testing the waters in a Southern state with an early 2008 primary, this is beyond absurd. And oh—this was all before a Republican audience, who lapped it up:
-------------------------
Biden charms local GOP
The speaker was U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, a likely candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

This Yankee senator quickly disarmed his conservative audience, many of whom came expecting partisan attacks on President Bush and Republicans in general. …

“America needs, and I need, for the Republican Party to get back up,” [Biden] said.

The Republicans have been “up” arguably since Gingrich, certainly since Bush took power in 2000, and have controlled all three branches of government since 2002. And look where we are. So, 26 days after the Republicans lose power, Biden thinks they need to be “up” again? Why does America need that? More to the point, why does Biden?

But it gets better. Then Biden—before a Republican audience, remember—goes on to claim that the 2006 midterms weren’t really a Democratic victory at all:

“The mid-term election may have been a rejection of the policies of this administration,” Biden said. “But it was not an embrace of the Democratic program or the Democratic Party. We’re in a state of flux right now and have a lot of problems that need to be resolved.”

Sure, a person wants to be gracious. There’s no reason to go down there, talk to the losers who led the Republican Party to loss of their status as a national party, and rub their noses in it. But why trash your own party?

But now it gets much better. If you think that’s bad, here’s what Biden has to say about slavery and Southern secession:

The audience: predominantly Republican.

Biden humorously took note of that in his opening remarks.

“I want to thank you all for allowing me a trip here to speak to only Republicans. It’s like my hometown. I just won every district in my state except the one I live in,” he quipped.

The crowd howled.

The senator then pounced on a member’s announcement that the [Columbia Rotary Club] would hold its annual Christmas party at the state Department of Archives and History where members could view the original copy of the state’s Articles of Secession.

Biden asked, “Where else could I go to a Rotary Club where (for a) Christmas party the highlight is looking at the Articles?”

Probably not many places, no. More yuks:

Biden was on a roll.

Delaware, he noted, was a “slave state that fought beside the North. That’s only because we couldn’t figure out how to get to the South. There were a couple of states in the way.”

The crowd loved it.

I’m sure they did.

Oh, and just in case anybody forgets what the Civil War was all about, here’s what South Carolina’s Articles of Secession have to say about slavery. This is what these guys are going to look at in the spirit of “Peace on earth, good will towards [3/5s of] men”:

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

Yep, that’s why the the Civil War was fought, alright. Over slavery. Dreaming of a white Christmas, indeed….

But why on earth would a Democratic Senator, in 2006, help enable Republicans to feel nostalgic for the “lost cause” of the slave market and the lash?

What is wrong with this guy?

Pelosi: A NEW TRUMAN COMMISSION to investigate contracts Iraq War, Katrina rebuilding, and contract abuse! BRAVO!

2006-12-06T09:10:00.000-05:00

<< Democrats must not fear to [hold hearings]. The right wing beneficiaries of [contract abuse] in Iraq will call the onset of hearings a "witch hunt" or retribution. The only way Democrats could fail the nation is to fail to inquire. I want to watch from the front row while Mr. David Lesar, the Chairman and CEO of Halliburton, answers questions under penalty of perjury about how he and his company rose to among the wealthiest in the nation during the course of the war in Iraq. In just the three years or so since the war started, David Lesar's total compensation exceeded $100 million. And Eric Prince, the billionaire owner of Blackwater, that brought us the death of four Americans and a war that fanned out from Fallujah thirty months ago, should have the privilege of explaining to Congress how he gained more government contracts after the death of his men. >>

Pelosi to America: Truman Commission Will Find Waste, Fraud and Abuse
by Rick Jacobs
12.06.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-jacobs/pelosi-to-america-truma_b_35659.html

Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi today said "there will be a Truman Commission to investigate waste, fraud and abuse" perpetrated by military contractors in the course of President Bush's war in Iraq. While it is not the first time Democrats have called for such hearings, it rang out as a Christmas gift of freedom coming from the mouth of the next speaker.

For those who have not seen "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers," a Brave New Film by Robert Greenwald, do yourself a favor and take a look. The movie, along with T. Christian Miller's excellent, if jarring, book "Blood Money," demonstrates the myriad abuses by Halliburton, CACI, Titan, Blackwater and others who thought they had a green light to the American treasury. Sadly, it appears that for the past six years, that's just what they've had.

The Truman Commission to which Mrs. Pelosi refers was named for the Senator who became president during World War II. Mr. Truman found literally billions of dollars of abuses by the private sector in the conduct of that war. Punishment was meted out and the abuses slowed, or so it seemed. But somewhere deep in the recesses of the Rumsfeld/Bush/Frist mind, the idea of questioning parallel abuses in this more amorphous war, though documented thoroughly by the Rumsfeld Pentagon, by Senator Byron Dorgan's Democratic Policy Committee hearings , by our film and by such indefatigable leaders as Henry Waxman, became anti-patriotic. Somehow, it was okay to send men and women to Iraq to sleep in moldy tents or to shower in filthy water while Halliburton brass stayed at four star hotels. Somehow, the disappearance of billions of dollars in cash did not rise to the level of curiosity, sufficient that the Frist-Hastert Congress thought inquiry worthy.

Democrats must not fear to hear. The right wing beneficiaries of whoring in Iraq will call the onset of hearings a "witch hunt" or retribution. The only way Democrats could fail the nation is to fail to inquire. I want to watch from the front row while Mr. David Lesar, the Chairman and CEO of Halliburton, answers questions under penalty of perjury about how he and his company rose to among the wealthiest in the nation during the course of the war in Iraq. In just the three years or so since the war started, David Lesar's total compensation exceeded $100 million. And Eric Prince, the billionaire owner of Blackwater, that brought us the death of four Americans and a war that fanned out from Fallujah thirty months ago, should have the privilege of explaining to Congress how he gained more government contracts after the death of his men.

The time is fast arriving to ask the real questions of this war: how could corporate America and its executives make billions and billions while nearly 3,000 of our brave soldiers have been killed, while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died and all the while our national security deteriorates?

How we got into this mess: A review of Lies-to-War and the message given to the media's echo/amplification machine by Rove, Libby, Bush & Cheney

2006-12-04T15:18:00.000-05:00

HOW WE GOT INTO THIS MESS in one brief page:

Here, in a brief and concise Wikipedia entry (reprinted below our comments) is a review of how the press & media echoed and amplified the WMD lies-to-war, and how they have muffled, mixed, confused, distorted, distracted, and ultimately CENSORED, from the mainstream-media, this simple story of how the WMD-lies were indeed presented to the American public as a premeditated con job by the Bush administration, to take America to war on false pretenses.

Note the CENTRAL ROLE played by the NEW YORK TIMES (and especially their "star" international security reporter, JUDITH MILLER) in the LIES-to-war echo and amplification, and the supporting role played by Tim Russert and NBC's "MEET THE PRESS," as well as supporting contributions by CBS and CNN in creating the drumbeat of WMD stories that were picked up, repeated, echoed and amplified throughout America by local news papers, reporters, TV, and talk radio. Fox 'news' doesn't even rate an entry in this brief Wikipedia compilation, although of course they were the most ardent advocates in the entire media for the need to rush to war based on the 'evidence' supplied by the WHIG group and White House. Notice too how the WHIG group was set up by Andrew Card and Karl Rove, Card was President Bush's Chief of Staff and Rove had been George W. Bush's lead campaign strategist through every one of the younger Bush's major political campaigns.

Over at the Project for a New American Century ("PNAC") notice how Jeb Bush, I. Lewis Libby, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz all signed the PNAC "statement of principles" calling for a more muscular US foreign policy in June of 1997, ("Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today..."), and how a few short months later (in January of 1998), the group specifically called for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power in a letter to President Clinton. (The link is even titled "IraqClintonLetter".) Thus we clearly see how the "MORAL CLARITY" of death squads, torture, mercenaries, (both our own and hiring or bribing foreign warlords), and a neo-con economic system imposed under almost farcical extremes of profiteering and no-bid, no-oversight contracts & monopoly resource looting (the later monopoly resource extortion termed, in true Orwellian fashion, "FREE MARKET ECONOMICS," of course); and all the other attributes of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq are all sprung from the PNAC manifesto and neo-con ideology as early as 1998, and how the Vice President, Secretary of Defense, Chief of Staff to the President, Chief of Staff to the Vice President (Lewis "Scooter" Libby), Assistant Secretary of Defense (Wolfowitz), and the president's brother (Florida Gov. Jeb Bush) were all signers of either the PNAC statement of principles or the letter to Clinton advocating an Iraq war, in 1997 & 1998 respectively.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

(Note some of the FALSE ASSUMPTIONS inherent in the PNAC documents and neo-con manifesto from the get-go. For example, despite the "US military strength and MORAL CLARITY" avowed by PNACers to President Reagan, it WAS REAGAN who RETREATED from Lebanon following the terrorist bombings of the US embassy and Marine barracks there in 1983. While the neo-cons and PNAC like to GLOSS OVER Reagan's RETREAT from those terrorist actions, there is an IR (internationals relations) theory that holds that by withdrawing from Lebanon, Reagan greatly REDUCED the confrontational pressures in that region, and that Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachov was able to go to his military and politburo leaders and push his Glasnost and Perestroika policies throughout the 1980s without more opposition than he would have faced had the US been pursing large military bases in the mideast. Historical "what ifs" are always dangerous, but given that Gorbachov's "openess" policies were anathema to the secretive bureaucrats of the Politburo (much less the demigod chiefs of the Red Army and Soviet military), it is not hard to imagine a scenario where Gorbachov's _liberalizing_ policies would have been rejected_outright had the US been invading and occupying Mideast nations at the time. Reagan's "RETREAT FROM TERRORISTS" in Lebanon might therefore have been an ESSENTIAL element in the string of events to led to America's bloodless victory collapse of the Iron Curtain. We would also include President Carter's putting a "White Hat" back on America's worldwide image (following the debacle of the Vietnam war and America's previous support of blood-soaked dictators such as Markos and Noriega) as contributing to that groundswell of events leading to Glasnost, Perestroika, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Speaking of, there is more professional speculation that Carter WOULD HAVE WON RE-ELECTION in 1980 if not for the machinations of the "October Surprise" efforts by REPUBLICANS, COOPERATING WITH IRAN's Revolutionary government (i.e. "terrorists") TO HOLD THE KIDNAPPED US HOSTAGES _PAST_ the November 1980s election, in order to give Republican candidates Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush (Sr.) elected in that election. Given that George H.W. Bush (Senior) was a former DCI (Director of Central Intelligence, i.e. the CIA), he is at the very center of speculation that Republicans ILLEGALLY set up a PARRALLEL foreign policy apparatus - a PARRALLEL, ILLEGAL GOVERNMENT - TO DEAL WITH AMERICA's ENEMIES behind President Carter's back. Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews.com is the leading expert on the events leading up to the Republican's "October Surprise" efforts of the 1980 election, but what is important (dodging, that is, the question of treason), is that Republican "MORAL VALUES CLARITY" was rooted from the early 1980s, before even Reagan's election that year, IN DEALING WITH TERRORIST REGIMES in covert, two-timing, back-door fashion.

Note: President Bush continues to talk about staying the course in Iraq until "THE MISSION IS ACCOMPLISHED."

What the president actually means by "WINNING THE WAR ON TERROR" and "UNTIL THE MISSION IS ACCOMPLISHED" is THE IMPOSITION here in America (and throughout the world) of a draconian, dictatorial national security state answering to no one but the president and the inner clique of the Republican Party.

(i.e., the Communist China secular model, or the Saudi Wahabi state sectarian model, both of which are no more apologetic for their use of the death penalty than George W. Bush was when he was governor of Texas, book of which exert absolute control over their press/media, and neither of which will ever apologize for summary arrest and indefinite detention or torture powers. Stripped of academic, intellectual, or rhetorical niceties, the Right-Wing neo-con agenda is thus some variation between either sectarian or secular dictatorship.)

The election of a Democratic House and Senate majority may have temporarily DELAYED the reactionary-right's consolidation of one-party rule here in America, BUT the administration's _gutting_ of HABEAS CORPUS continues on only marginally or tokenly impeded. Incoming Judiciary Committee Chairman Senator Patrick Leahy has pledged to hold hearings limiting or overseeing the government's pervasive, unlimited electronic data and telephone surveillance (aka spying on American citizens and compiling extensive data profiles) but Leahy himself has all but announced that he will rubber-stamp Robert Gates' confirmation to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense.

Gates (as former DCI, or Director of the CIA), James Baker, and even Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton were all at the nexus of the Democrat's abject FAILURE to effectively prosecute the Iran-Contra scandal in the early 1990s, and just as importantly (as supplying Central American death squads and Iran's military in the 1980s) the other huge SCANDALS of the 1980s era Republican administrations, including BCCI, Iraq-gate, and the Savings & Loan scandal. All of which, to be sure, included Democratic players enmeshed in the scandals, the most famous of whom was Senator John Glenn who, along with Senator John McCain, were two of the "Keating Seven" senators who, in return for contributions from Charles Keating, effectively LOBBIED their fellow senators on behalf of legislation favorable to Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan.... which ultimately collapsed requiring two billion dollars of taxpayer financed bailouts.
See chapter one of Robert Parry's "Secrecy and Privilege", which outlines how the Democrat's failure to prosecute the criminal web of Republican participation in the Iran-Contra/Iraq-gate/BCCI and S&L scandals helped the Republicans CREATE THE MYTH of Republican "moral values" superiority, and thereby paved the way for the Republican super-Trifecta of one-party rule controlling the entire US government from 2002 to 2006.
(www.ConsortiumNews.com)
Senator Leahy has pledged to conduct hearings to oversee the data-mining and spying on American travelers (and, presumably, non-traveling citizens just as easily),
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/12/02/leahy_to_scrutinize_traveler_screening/
but Leahy's passive reluctance to strenuously investigate the Gates nomination, and this article "Killing Habeas Corpus" by the New Yorker's Jeffrey Toobin,
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061204fa_fact
suggest that Leahy and the rest of the Democratic Party leadership may be unaware about the true extent of the nexus between the electronic surveillance state and the aggressive co-mingling of an aggressive foreign policy and dictatorial police-state powers here in America.

At any rate, here (below) is Wikipedia's brief review, outline and timeline of the premeditated and orchestrated deceptions, prepared from July 2002 to the launch of the US war in Iraq in March 2003, by the WHITE HOUSE INFORMATION GROUP, seeking to justify and bolster support for the US invasion of Iraq. The WHIG (group) was headed by Douglas Feith out of Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense as an ALTERNATE INTELLIGENCE SERVICE to the existing Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the State Department's own intelligence service, the NSA and the president's own National Security Advisor (then Condoleeza Rice). Undoubtedly the Defense Department's own Intelligence Agency (DIA) was subordinated by Rumsfeld to the WHIG group to support the political objective of justifying the launch of the war. The fact that an intel operation based in the Department of Defense, whose main task was to convince the American media and public of the necessity for war in Iraq (i.e. a propaganda function), was named the WHITE HOUSE Information Group, indicates just how central this propaganda function was to the Bush-Cheney White House.
------------------------------------------
(Today on MSNBC at 11:49 am est. MSNBC reporter Andrea Mitchell asked Wayne Downing "What changes will Robert Gates bring to the Department of Defense when he replaces Don Rumsfeld there" - clearly implying that the Gates confirmation is a forgone conclusion. Mitchell, who is married to former Fed Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and thereby one of the penultimate Washington insiders, didn't even waste her breath mentioning the possibility that Gates would not be confirmed.)

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

White House Iraq Group
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Iraq_Group

The White House Iraq Group (aka, White House Information Group or WHIG) was the MARKETING ARM of the White House whose purpose was to sell the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the public. The task force was set up in August 2002 by White House Chief of Staff ANDREW CARD and chaired by KARL ROVE to coordinate all the executive branch elements in the run-up to the war in Iraq. One example of the WHIG's functions and influence is the "escalation of rhetoric about the danger that Iraq posed to the U.S., including the introduction of the term 'mushroom cloud'"[1].

Similar in name and function, was the 1967 White House Information Group under President Lyndon B. Johnson.
----------------------------------------------
- - "Up to the Invasion"

Soon after WHIG was formed, the Bush Administration's CLAIMS ABOUT THE DANGER IRAQ POSED ESCALATED SIGNIFICANTLY:

* July 23, 2002: The Downing Street Memo was written, in which British intelligence said "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD.

* August, 2002: White House Iraq Group formed

* September 5, 2002: In a WHIG meeting, chief Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson proposes the use of a "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" metaphor to sell the American public on the supposed nuclear dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. According to Newsweek columnist Michael Isikoff, "The original plan had been to place it in an upcoming presidential speech, but WHIG members fancied it so much that when the Times [NEW YORK TIMES] reporters contacted the White House to talk about their upcoming piece [about aluminum tubes], one of them leaked Gerson's phrase — and the administration would soon make maximum use of it." (Hubris, p. 35.)[2]

* September 6, 2002: In an interview with the New York Times, Andrew Card did not mention the WHIG specifically but hinted at its mission: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." On September 17, 2002, Matt Miller stated on NPR that the above quote from Andrew Card was in response to the question: "... why the administration waited until after Labor Day to try to sell the American people on military action against Iraq" [3]

* September 7, 2002: JUDITH MILLER of the NEW YORK TIMES reports Bush administration officials said "In the last 14 months, Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes, which American officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium."[4] In fact, many government officials had concluded the tubes were unsuitable for uranium refinement. [note: the tubes had a chromate or anodized finishes that made them entirely unsuitable for use as high-speed centrifuge separation vessels. ed]

* September 7-8, 2002: President Bush and nearly all his top advisers BLANKETED THE AIRWAVES, talking about the dangers posed by Iraq.[5]

* On NBC's "MEET THE PRESS," Vice President Richard Cheney CITED THE NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE, and accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past fourteen months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms.
* On CNN, Condi Rice acknowledged that "there will always be some uncertainty" in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but said, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
* On CBS, President Bush said U.N. weapons inspectors, before they were denied access to Iraq in 1998, concluded that Saddam was "six months away from developing a weapon." He also cited satellite photos released by a U.N. agency Friday that show unexplained construction at Iraq sites that weapons inspectors once visited to search for evidence Saddam was trying to develop nuclear arms. "I don't know what more evidence we need," Bush said.

* October 14, 2002: President Bush says of Saddam "This is a man that we know has had connections with al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward army." [6]

* January 21, 2003: Bush says of Saddam "He has weapons of mass destruction -- the world's deadliest weapons -- which pose a direct threat to the United States, our citizens and our friends and allies." [7]

* February 5, 2003: Colin Powell addresses the United Nations, asserting that there was "no doubt in my mind" that Saddam was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear weapons.

* March 19, 2003: The U.S. invades Iraq.

NBC's Tim Russert: Bush should aknowledge "WE WERE WRONG about WMDs, about troop levels, about the length of war, about...."

2006-12-03T18:36:00.000-05:00

Newt Gingrich, in a video clip aired on the NBC "Meet the Press" show hosted by Tim Russert: "THE WAR IS A FAILURE."

NBC's Tim Russert: << Could the president step forward and say, “I acknowledge we were wrong about WMD, we were wrong about troop levels, we were wrong about the length of the war, we were wrong about the cost of the war, we were wrong about the financing of the war, we were wrong about the level of sectarian violence, we were wrong about being greeted as liberators. We made some fundamental misjudgments, and they were wrong, but now we’re all in this together”? Could he do that? >>
------------------------------------------

This is perhaps the most credible episode by Tim Russert on Meet The Press we have ever seen, which of course isn't saying much, but in today's show Russert really grills those at the center of America's government policy establishment. For example, Russert grills Dem. Senator Leahy, (paraphrasing) "IF you voted AGAINST the nomination of Bill Gates to CIA in 1991 [because Gates was less than forthcoming about his role in the huge Iran-Contra scandal] WHY ARE YOU APPROVING OF HIM today?"

Well, the obvious answer to that question is because Democrats want to AVOID BLAME for the trainwreck that is the US war in Iraq, and opposing Bush's pick to replace Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense could and would be painted by the Republicans and media as "OBSTRUCTING" America's options in the quagmire war. Indeed, REPUBLICAN Senator John Warner was LESS prepared to voice unconstrained approval of Gates' nomination than his Democratic co-guest (Leahy) on the show, Warner PROMISING A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION of Gates.

Russert: << Could the president step forward and say, “I acknowledge WE WERE WRONG about WMD, WE WERE WRONG about troop levels, WE WERE WRONG about the length of the war, WE WERE WRONG about the cost of the war, WE WERE WRONG about the financing of the war, WE WERE WRONG about the level of sectarian violence, WE WERE WRONG about being greeted as liberators. We made some fundamental misjudgments, and they were wrong, but now we’re all in this together?" Could he do that? >>
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15936711/page/2/

Note: The transcript of this one-hour video is well worth reading, all four pages, both for the video clips, Russert's analysis, and the guest's comments on America's course at this critical moment at the start of the 110th Congress this January. MSNBC also provides an online video at the Meet the Press site http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005066/

Fightin' Dem wants to slug presidency-stealing POTUS (Bush) in nose...!

2006-11-29T09:10:00.000-05:00

It is our belief here at C-Dems.blgspt.com that George Bush won neither the popular vote majority OF ALL THOSE WHO VOTED ON ELECTION DAY in Florida in 2000, nor the popular vote majority of Ohio voters in 2004 (and other states as well), which if true would mean that Mr. Bush never truly 'won' the true electoral college majorities in either of his presidential elections.

As to whether Mr. Bush is a squatter in the White House, the jury (on those uncounted votes) may be out for years or decades. But one thing IS CERTAIN: in 2000 Texas Governor Bush made a campaign pledge to run "A MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY," to run as a "UNITER, NOT DIVIDER," and he pledged to bring "A MORE BIPARTISAN TONE TO WASHINGTON" if he won the election.

On all three signature themes of his 2000 campaign, Mr. Bush was lying at his very core. We now know that Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and even Jeb Bush had all three personally signed the PNAC "Project for a New American Century" statement of principles in 1997 (a statement that also included the signatures of Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Paul Wolfowitz), and in 1998 the think-tank formalized its call for US military force in Iraq to displace the Iraqi dictator there (Saddam Hussein) and assert American authority over the area in a letter to then President Bill Clinton- - - what foreign policy academic/intellectual/policy leaders call a "MUSCULAR" or "HARD" foreign policy.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Thus while Governor Bush was PLEDGING a "MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY" on the campaign trail, he already had his core foreign policy staff assembled around him, those who would soon be the nation's very top foreign policy architects, men who PROUDLY and PUBLICLY advocated a "hard" or military "solution" to "the problem" posed by Saddam' Hussein's rule over Iraq - and, not so incidentally, secretly harbored the desire to extend the same hard-edged unilateralism to ALL of America's other strategic and economic problems in the region.

Today we call adherents to this foreign policy vision (the call for US unilateralism overseas) "neo-cons," although the term "neo-conservative" hardly applies to Dick Cheney and others like him. Cheney has been a through-and-through "conservative" his entire career, no "neo" about it. Even the term "CONSERVATIVE" is a misnomer in this context, because "conservative" implies 'to conserve,' and in actuality the agenda of Dick Cheney and many of those around him - the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond/Jesse Helms/Texas oil billionaire-tycoon school of American 'conservatism - do not want to "CONSERVE" the America we know today - the America of high wages, upward mobility, race and cultural integration, public education and job safety standards and even the mass enfranchisement of mass-participation democracy - but want to REVERT to the America of the pre-New Deal Era, the decades when not only did America have NO "social safety net," but SEGREGATION was the "rule of law" throughout a dozen state, and very cheap, nonunion labor was an essential component of not only agricultural plantations (read sharecropping) but of northern industry as well. (Pennsylvania's steel and mining industries, for example, welcomed new waves of immigrants who all worked for less than those who had preceded them, creating resentments as new minorities displaced established ones.) Note: the 15th Amendment is one of the clearest and most concise amendments to the US Constitution, and thus SHOULD be the "supreme law of the land." But since segregation for over 100 years _did_ "ABRIDGE" or deny the right of citizens of the United States to vote, what we had was a situation where millions of Americans PLEDGED themselves to upholding the CONSTITUTION of the United States, while actually putting LOCAL laws (state laws decreeing segregation) OVER and ABOVE (the 15th amendment to) the Constitution.

This slight digression into constitutional amendments and voting rights _denied_ merely to illustrate that "CONSERVATIVES" often have NO interest in "CONSERVING" the America we know today - the America that nominally abides by the Bill of Rights and the Amendments, voting rights, and constitutional law - and instead the adherents of the radical-right agenda and philosophy prefer a REGRESSION to an earlier, less sophisticated era. In short, far from being "conservative" the ideologues of the Dick Cheney wing of the Republican Party are REACTIONARY, and it has only been because of the massive media BIAS _FOR_ this reactionary right-wing (fusion of corporate and fundamentalist) agenda that that the full extent of that agenda has not been disclosed to the American public more fully and explicitly. (For example, just as the PNAC agenda is the manifesto of the neo-cons and radical-right foreign policy acolytes, the PLATFORM of the TEXAS REPUBLICAN PARTY is practically a manifesto of the reactionary-right social agenda, a platform and agenda which the media/press does NOT disclose fully to the American public.)
http://www.texasgop.org/site/PageServer?pagename=library_platform

In Sum: Mr. Bush probably did NOT "win" the White House in either of his two presidential elections, the "conservative agenda" in America is often REACTIONARY, not "conservative," and despite PLEDGING "A MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY," Mr. Bush and his radical-right/neo-cons have ALWAYS INTENDED TO EMBARK ON A "MUSCULAR" exertion of US foreign policy abroad. All they needed (after winning the election of 2000) was a significant provocation to embark on a war with Iraq, which the PNAC neo-cons of course painted as a mere prelude to invasions of Iran and other countries.

The usefulness of a "new Pearl Harbor" to justify a muscular exertion of the US military (US hegemony) was actually even mentioned somewhere in neo-con circles, but more importantly, within DAYS of 9-11, Donald Rumsfeld (as Secretary of the War Department) was demanding of his aides and advisors that they prepare ways to use the attack on America as a means to launch a war with Iraq. A sentiment that was seconded in other testimony as well, including Paul O'Neill writing after he resigned as Treasury Secretary that the intention to ATTACK IRAQ was one of THE FIRST policy considerations discussed by the new, incoming Bush-Cheney administration early in 2001... That is, months before 9-11 provided the justification for a US war in Afghanistan that would be hijacked to justify the war in Iraq as well.

Mr. Bush's 2000 pledge to exert a "MORE HUMBLE FOREIGN POLICY" was a premeditated lie, with Mr. Bush intending at the early possible moment to "undo" his father's policy of not invading Baghdad to eliminate Saddam Hussein at the end of the first US Gulf War against Iraq (1991). In the five years since his "humble" pledge, Mr. Bush has sought to USE American troops and service members as PAWNS in his "GREAT GAME" of extending US HEGEMONY overseas, into regions that empires have fought and bled for over centuries. For example, despite its vaunted greatness, the Roman empire never extended its reach into the far Mideast - into Iraq and Persia and Arabia - though Alexander the great had done so, at least temporarily, centuries before.

Up until this past month, Mr. Bush has avoided any personal responsibility for misleading American citizens into this great scheme, because so many Americans have bought into the notion that the US invasion of Iraq was an urgent necessity and not a premeditated agenda. The pain and trauma of those whose lives have been impacted by Mr. Bush's "untruths" and callow leadership are FINALLY starting to be felt, even within the walls of the stolen White House.

=====================================
Note: One of the laws that Mr. Bush, his neo-cons, and his Reactionary Right-WIng supporters despise and consistently try to undermine:

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

=============================
Note 2: Eleanor Clift reports that Senator-elect Jim Webb's son narrowly missed being hit or killed by a bomb (IED) in Iraq, the explosion killed 3 Marines in another vehicle next to Webb's.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15990689/site/newsweek/
==============================
Note 3: New Yorker columnist Jeffrey Toobin reports that the 1,000 year principle of Habeus Corpus - that even kings and dictators must show and prove just cause to arrest and detain citizens or subjects - is now all but dead in America, waiting only for the next national emergency to be formally buried and dispensed with.
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061204fa_fact

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

Son also rises in testy Webb-Bush exchange
By Emily Heil
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/UndertheDome/112906.html

President Bush has pledged to work with the new Democratic majorities in Congress, but he has already gotten off on the wrong foot with Jim Webb, whose surprise victory over Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) tipped the Senate to the Democrats.

Webb, a decorated former Marine officer, hammered Allen and Bush over the unpopular war in Iraq while wearing his son’s old combat boots on the campaign trail. It seems the president may have some lingering resentment.

At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t. It’s safe to say, however, that Bush and Webb won’t be taking any overseas trips together anytime soon.

“Jim did have a conversation with Bush at that dinner,” said Webb’s spokeswoman Kristian Denny Todd. “Basically, he asked about Jim’s son, Jim expressed the fact that he wanted to have him home.” Todd did not want to escalate matters by commenting on Bush’s response, saying, “It was a private conversation.”

A White House spokeswoman declined to give Bush’s version of the conversation.

Bush and the Republicans ENDANGER AMERICA's SECURITY. Dems who FAIL to point this out ARE COMPLICIT.

2006-11-27T08:22:00.000-05:00

The Bush-Republicans are so marked by greed, arrogance, incompetence, and corruption, that at every turn they ENDANGER AMERICA's SECURITY.

By now this should be obvious to everyone. The Bush-Republicans hammered away for years that the Clinton White House was dismantling the US military.... then the Bush-Rumsfeld Department of War took that very same Clinton military, and went into Iraq on false pretenses, with a deceptive goal (their ultimate goal, of course, was to establish a huge military presence and control Iraq's oil and other strategic assets in the area), which implied NO_EXIT_STRATEGY.

As a result, the US is now engaged in a CLASSIC guerrilla war/insurgency, where even the most impoverished local young men become EMPOWERED if they become successful at engaging (killing) the occupier. That is, the occupation effectively pits a professional army of less than 200,000, against potentially millions of local insurgents.

Democrats who FAIL TO POINT OUT the Bush administration's DISASTROUS impact on America's national security are COMPLICIT with those massive failures and deceptions.

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

Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sun, 08/13/2006 - 7:03am. Guest Contribution

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/354

A BUZZFL ASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and Fog Facts

Say it loud, say it often, "Republicans are bad on national security." Every Democrat running for national office – and local offices too, why not? – should say, "I'm running because Republicans are bad on national security."

Then they should go on to say, here's why I’m saying it:

1. 9/11 happened on their watch. Of course, we can’t say, absolutely, that it would not have happened if they had not been asleep at the wheel. But we can say that they did not do all they could have done to prevent it. We can say that Bush literally pushed away the warnings.

2. George Bush and the Republicans failed to get Osama bin Laden. We got both Hitler and Hirohito in less time than we’ve been chasing bin Laden. Every day that bin Laden’s out there, he’s proof that you can attack the United States and get away with it. That’s a bad message to send, and believe me, people in the terrorist world have heard it loud and clear. That’s very bad for national security.

3. George Bush and the Republicans gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted. Bin Laden wanted the US to get into a quagmire. He wanted our troops tied down in an Islamic country so that an insurgency could do to them what the Afghanis did to the Russians and to the British before them.

A modern, hi-tech army is very good at invasions. It’s also good for fighting back against other armies. But a modern hi-tech army is not good at occupying a country against the will of the population. Even if the army is as violent and ruthless as the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan were.

4. George Bush and the Republicans squandered America’s power and prestige. Before 9/11 most people in the world probably thought that America’s intelligence services were able and astute, agencies to be feared. The Bush administration has made them appear bumbling and inept. They did this, first, by ignoring their warnings and then, second, by making them the fall guys for 9/11.

After 9/11 most of the world feared America's wrath and America's might. By failing to get bin Laden and his gang, then by attacking the wrong country, unleashing chaos, and getting our armed forces into a situation that they can’t win, the administration showed the world they have less to fear than they imagined.

5. The Bush administration empowered Hezbollah. The 'insurgency' in Iraq was Hezbollah's textbook and their inspiration. If Iraqis could do that to Americans, surely they could do the same to the Israelis. And they have. It's not yet on the record, but it's clear from everyone's conduct, that the administration encouraged the Israelis to 'unleash' their forces against Hezbollah. They probably thought Israel's modern hi-tech armies would quickly smash their enemy.

6. The Bush administration radicalized Hamas. Hamas was elected. Sworn to the destruction of Israel or not, they should have been encouraged to become responsible players with carrots as well as sticks. Instead the administration put them up against the wall, hoping to starve the Palestinian people into voting for a different group. Would that work if someone tried to do it to us?

7. Bush and the Republicans tied down our forces in Iraq while Iran and North Korea invested in nuclear technology. That made North Korea feel secure enough to test ICBMs. If they had been successful, they would have had a delivery system for their nuclear weapons. That would be incredibly bad for national security. Iran, with American forces tied down in Iraq, feels secure enough to defy the UN as well as the US. Very bad for national security.

8. By the way, every major European nation has had successful arrests and real trials of real, dangerous terrorists. People on the level of this group that the British just took down. The most ferocious terrorist arrested in the United States since 9/11 has been the shoe bomber. Ten, twenty, forty, a hundred billion dollars, a trillion dollars, and the best we have to show for it is the shoe bomber?! Republicans are bad on national security.

9. We have trashed the bill of rights. We have trashed the Geneva conventions. We have a president and a vice president willing to go the mat to fight for the right to torture people.

We have spent a fortune on illegal wiretaps.

We have spent a fortune on collecting everyone’s telephone data.

And what have we achieved by all of this?

A quagmire in Iraq. Dishonor. Debts. An empowered al Qaeda. A new war in Lebanon. The inability to stand up to Iran and North Korea. Osama bin Laden at large, an inspiration to extremists everywhere.

Republican are unimaginably bad on national security. Say it loud. Say it often, it’s the truth, Republicans are bad on national security.

NY Times & "Some" (DLC) Democrats whoring that muddled-middle "CONSERVATIVE" election 2006 win again. NOT!

2006-11-26T09:52:00.000-05:00

To steal a phrase from Ronnie Reagan, "THERE THEY GO AGAIN!"

Election 2006 isn't even two weeks old, some close congressional seats haven't even been resolved... and ALREADY the New York whore Times and DLC Democrats are out there banging away at their "CONSERVATIVE VALUES WON THE ELECTION!" drums.

Only thing is... "conservative values" most certainly DID NOT win Election '06!

We need no better proof our our assertion than this excellent by Jeffrey L. Austin about one of those still up-in-the-air races, the one for North Carolina's 6th District, where dark-horse, underfunded, wa-ay outsider Democratic challenger is within 329 votes of OUSTING, FOUR-TERM Republican Rep. Robin Hayes.

In case you missed it, that was NORTH_CAROLINA, home of huge tobacco companies, NASCAR race culture, an often rural, conservative ethos, and as many gospel & salvation churches as you can shake a stick at.

<< A social studies teacher and former factory worker, Kissell was a distinct underdog who emerged as the Democratic nominee only after the first choice of party insiders quit the race before the May 2 primary. As of Oct. 18, Hayes had outraised Kissell by $2.1 million to $451,000, and the challenger had expended all but $35 of his campaign treasury.
Yet Kissell, RUNNING ON A PLATFORM OF ECONOMIC POPULISM and OPPOSITION TO THE IRAQ WAR, tied Hayes closely to President Bush and became a serious contender for one of the biggest upsets of the year. >>
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20061123/pl_cq_politics/chanceofupsetremainsinnc8withhandcountsettobegin

GET THAT, DLC 'Dems" and NY TIMES ??

DESPITE a $2.1 million to $450,000 campaign funding disadvantage, going up against the name recognition of a FOUR term incumbent, and despite the POLITICAL INEXPERIENCE of his challenger campaign, Democrat Lawrence Kissell is within 329 votes of kicking out the incumbent, and our guess here at C-Dems is that Kissell would win IF ALL THE VOTES ARE COUNTED CORRECTLY.

SO, how does the NY Times write up the first two weeks of Democratic preparations for their majority in the next (110th) Congress?

ans.- By defining Steney Hoyer and other DLC/Beltway INSIDER positions as being "CENTRIST", and therefore by default the positions of Pelosi, Miller, and successful challengers such as Lawrence Kissell as "LEFTIST" or some degree "to the left."

Even though the VAST MAJORITY of Americans APPROVE of Social Security, the 40 hour work week, a raise in the minimum wage, job safety and health care, stock market oversight and pension security, public education and access to higher education.... despite the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of Ameicans support ALL these programs and more, the Times, the DLC/DC insider Democrats, and most of the "mainstream media" CONTINUE TO PAINT Democratic leaders and challegers who support a CONTINUATION of this moderate but progressive agenda as "LEFTISTS."

THE DEMOCRATS DID NOT WIN election 2006 by running as "REPUBLICAN LITE" which is what the statement "many say... Pelosi [in] carefully nudging her party to the center... helped the Democrats retake the majority" implies.

Notice the Times' use of WEASEL WORDS to butress their notion that Pelosi and Miller are "too leftist":

"SOME SAY"
"RAISED FEARS"
"more centrist candidate" (e.g. the same old DLC Rethuglican lite Lieberman/Zell Millers are "centrists")
"concerns of some Democrats" (here we see the REPETITION of "some say")
"far left would dominate and DESTABILIZE"

OUR advice to Ms. Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership: IGNORE the weasel-words of the Times and MSM ("mainstream media"), stick to the programs that have made America GREAT over the past 100 years... and as PRIORITY NUMBER ONE, make sure that EVERY AMERICAN _KNOWS_ that his or her vote, for even the most rural, out-of-the-way district, is COUNTED CORRECTLY, today and in the future.

(PS: "IGNORE" the weasel-words of the NY Times" is not the correct term at all: "Liberal" Dems must REDEFINE themselves as PROTECTING THE MIDDLE, and that "conservative" Dems such as Lieberman and Zell Miller and Bush-Republicans are actually REACTIONARY Righties who intend to ROB American citizens and Democratic voters of 100 years of hard fought progress.)

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

Pelosi’s Ascendancy in House Puts a Close Liberal Ally in the Spotlight
By KATE ZERNIKE
November 25, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/25/us/politics/25miller.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 — In a friendship stretching over 30 years and many plane trips to Washington from their neighboring California districts, Representatives Nancy Pelosi and George Miller have become so close that, as colleagues say, they finish each others’ sentences.

So it was not surprising that, when Mrs. Pelosi faced the first test of her role as speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, Mr. Miller was in the background, pushing her to back Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania to replace her as Democratic leader over the more centrist candidate, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who had been her No. 2 for four years.

In the week since Mr. Hoyer won the position, Democratic leaders have played down any disharmony created by the leadership struggle. But Mr. Miller’s role raised fears that after carefully nudging her party to the center, which many say helped the Democrats retake the majority, Mrs. Pelosi would let her liberal allies have too much influence.

In the concerns of some Democrats — and the I-told-you-so’s of some Republicans — Mr. Miller represents Mrs. Pelosi’s true liberal soul, and his pushing for Mr. Murtha a sign that the far left would dominate and destabilize the Democrats, after they have emerged from 12 years in the minority.

There is no doubt that Mr. Miller remains one of Mrs. Pelosi’s most trusted advisers. But those who know them both say that he, and his influence, have been wrongly judged.

Now one of the 10 most senior members of Congress, Mr. Miller has proven himself both a liberal lion — an early advocate of an increase in the minimum wage and a champion of the environment — and savvy about working both sides of the aisle. An agitator for higher teacher standards, he was one of the chief negotiators with President Bush on the No Child Left Behind legislation. (Mr. Bush nicknamed Mr. Miller, a burly and now white-haired former high school football player, Big George.)

After Hurricane Katrina, he enlisted Republicans to reverse Mr. Bush’s order that allowed federal contractors working to rebuild the Gulf Coast to pay workers less than the prevailing local wage.

“He is liberal, and that pragmatism is always difficult to achieve when you’re passionate about something,” said Representative Ellen O. Tauscher, Democrat of California and a leader of the party’s more moderate wing in the House.

But, Ms. Tauscher said, Mr. Miller understands what she calls the “very difficult kabuki dance” facing Democrats.

Party members have gritted their teeth for 12 years, she said. And now, “on a napkin, on the back of an envelope, in their BlackBerry, they’ve got lists of what they want to do, and they think their priorities are everybody’s priorities.”

“But in the end, this is about securing a majority for more than two years,” she said. “I don’t expect him to be thrilled about it. But I think he’s sanguine; he’s pragmatic and realistic.”

Mrs. Pelosi, 66, and Mr. Miller, 61, share similar pedigrees. Her father was a Baltimore mayor and congressman; his father served 25 years in the California legislature. When the elder Mr. Miller died in his 50s, his son ran for his seat and lost.

Five years later, after law school, Mr. Miller ran for Congress from a largely working-class district east of San Francisco and won. He arrived in 1975 as one of the Watergate babies, the idealistic Democrats elected on a reform platform.

Mrs. Pelosi, meanwhile, rose through California politics and became chairwoman of the state Democratic Party. She would later take the Congressional seat that had been held by Phillip Burton, who was Mr. Miller’s mentor.

Mr. Burton advised Mr. Miller to pick a committee and stay on it; this, he said, was how Southern Democrats had amassed power. Mr. Miller listened, staying on the House Interior and Education committees, becoming chairman of Interior (now named House Resources) in 1991. (Mrs. Pelosi congratulated him with a gift of Mr. Burton’s chair and a small model of a Burton statue that had been placed in San Francisco.) He has been the senior Democrat on the education committee since 2001 and is expected to become its chairman in January.

He is also known more informally as the dean of the town house on Capitol Hill that has served as a kind of fraternity house for a succession of Democrats. Mr. Miller lived there with his family before they moved back to California; his roommates now are Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Charles E. Schumer of New York, the second- and third-ranking Democrats, and Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts. In long-running Tuesday dinners with a group that included Mrs. Pelosi and other now-senior Democrats, it was Mr. Miller, other members say, who was the first to declare that Mrs. Pelosi would become the nation’s first female speaker.

Mrs. Pelosi calls him “a valued friend and tremendously talented legislator.”

As chairman of the Democrats’ steering and policy committee, he helped shape the platform the Democrats ran on in the midterm elections — including raising the minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans and expanding stem cell research.

“He has guided Democrats’ policy agenda that unified the caucus and spoke to the dreams and aspirations of the American people,” Mrs. Pelosi said.

Some who know both lawmakers say that Mr. Miller’s counsel continues to be important to her. “Not only can George give her good advice, but he can also tell her things she doesn’t want to hear,” Ms. Tauscher said. “Sometimes you can only take tough news from somebody that is very close to you.”

But others say that if the relationship was once defined as one of complete trust, it is now more like trust, but verify.

Mr. Miller says his influence over Mrs. Pelosi has always been overstated, showing a misunderstanding of her talent and strength. He calls her “the toughest person you’ve met in politics.”

He backed Mr. Murtha, he said, because he was impressed by his turnaround on the war in Iraq.

“To watch this man take his knowledge, his career, his experience in the military and to see him start to understand the damage that was being done to the soldiers and the institution, was really quite remarkable,” Mr. Miller said.

“When he decided to go public, which is not generally his character,” Mr. Miller said of Mr. Murtha, “he immediately changed the national debate. And then when you saw the role the debate on the war took during the campaign, I think there is a serious debt of gratitude. You were saying back to the voters, ‘We heard you.’ ”

But the other message from voters, he said, is that they want Congress to work in a bipartisan manner, after years of Republican rule.

“There was a conscious decision by Tom DeLay and Dennis Hastert to turn the House into a winner-take-all,” he said, where no legislation would be brought for a vote without most of the majority supporting it.

Having seen that, he said, he understands the role Mrs. Pelosi must assume.

“The speaker made a horrible miscalculation that he was the speaker of the Republican Party as opposed to the difference Nancy has drawn, that Tip O’Neill drew — that you are the leader of the Democrats, and speaker of the House,” he said. “That simple understanding can allow a lot of things to happen that provide opportunities for the minority to participate.”

The CIA, Robert Gates, James Baker, Iran-Contra and Carlyle connection: Will Democrats REPEAT the failures of Lee Hamilton's Iran-Contra WHITEWASH??

2006-11-18T10:21:00.002-05:00

Because the Democrats FAILED to prosecute the IRAN-CONTRA trial aggressively in Congress and IN THE COURT of PUBLIC OPINION, the Repuglicans were able to storm back in 1994 under the banners of "Democratic corruption," "term limits!" and...."MORAL VALUES"!!

(Notice the STOMPPED, CRUSHED and killed Democratic donkey trampled under foot... is that a malevolent glare in the elephant's eyes?)

-----------------------------------------

This terrific article by William Rivers Pitt manages to tie together most of the sad, sorry details of the top layer of Republican-corporate MISRULE over America these past three decades. His article reveals the nexus between the CIA, the Carlyle group, the Iran-Contra scandal (which should be, make no mistake, the preference of America's right-wing foreign policy elements for DEATH SQUAD DICTATORSHIPS over democratically elected governments), and the tendency of THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, in this case as represented by LEE HAMILTON, to COVER UP, WHITEWASH, BURY and help the Republicans CENSOR the true stories behind America's aggressive, ruthless, and often illegal foreign policy.

If, as Mr. Pitt details in his report, Carlyle does now commands _$44_BILLION_ in assets, then they are obviously a tremendously powerful political adversary who will CONTINUE to use every means possible to CENSOR in depth coverage of their influence, over the government of these United States, from discussion or even mention in the 'mainstream media'.

For an example of the DESTRUCTIVE, censorship powers the players at the top tier of Republican foreign policy making can exert over the 'news', witness simply the destruction of the career of journalist Gary Webb, the reporter who first broke and and reported the story of how the CIA was permitting COCAINE to be smuggled into America airports on the same covert aircraft that were running (flying) guns, supplies, and other illegal assistance to the Contra anti-Sandinista rebels and other armies (America's surrogate death-squad allies) in Nicaragua, Honduras, and throughout South America.

Indeed, not only did journalist Gary Webb's career end in tragedy with his suicide while the "mainstream media" scoffed at his reporting and implied that his stories were loony conspiracy theories, (he was, in the words of this new book "BETRAYED [and fired] by his editors... despite mounting evidence that his stories were correct"), but there is even speculation that he might have been murdered to squelch his bringing attention to the issue - of the CIA's role in IMPORTING COCAINE INTO AMERICA to support a ROGUE, ILLEGAL, covert foreign army in Central America.

(Kill the Messenger: How the CIA's Crack-Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb)
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/402

note: From the perspective of those secretive operatives and administrators at the top tier of the CIA and America's covert foreign policy, allowing cargo planes returning from illegally supplying Contra armies in Central America to bring in a cargo of cocaine is/was practically a no brainer. Cocaine is an agricultral product whose output is measured in tons (most ag products are measured in millions of metric tons); but a product, due to US prohibition and criminal law, that on the streets in America is valuable as gold to US consumers. This transition, the huge jump in value of an agricultaral semi-commodity to precious substance, occurs during the transportation phase, i.e. after successful importation into the US. Given that illegal gun-running flights to Central and South America were returning empty, and given that the American organizers and suppliers of the Contra armies were in an almost "holy war" frame of mind to exterminate the socialist / communist / Sandanista regime and other assorted guerrilla/insurgent armies in Latin America (upwards of 200,000 Guatemala villagers and indigenous natives killed during the death-squad '80s alone), ALLOWING RETURNING FLIGHTS from Central America TO BRING COCAINE back to the United Sates, and thereby earn tens of thousands of dollars to defray fuel costs and other expenses of running a secret air force, WAS A NO-BRAINER.

The other big side of the story - besides the illegal, rogue elements of ultra-right/conservative/Republican foreign policy elements and policies themselves - was the role that DEMOCRATS and official Washington (press, government bureaucrats, media networks) had in DISMISSING THE TRUE EXTENT OF THE SCANDALS, and wet-blanketting, whitewashing, and burying the reports and any efforts at more thorough investigations. This effort BY DEMOCRATS and official Washington TO BURY the TRUE story of the CIA's Iran-Contra cocaine connection led to Gary Webb's disgrace in the journalism field, and of course would contribute greatly to the Republican's presumption of a self-proclaimed "MORAL VALUES" high-ground in the coming decade's elections.

The THIRD branch of the story, not connected in William River Pitt's article, is the SAVINGS and LOAN scandal - the TENS of BILLIONS of dollars LOST BY AMERICAN TAXPAYERS to fraud, corruption, and incompetence in America's S&L and banking industries. While there were of course Democrats involved in the huge S&L scandal (John Glenn, along with John McCain, were two of the most prominent members of the "Keating 7" senators paid large sums to lobby on behalf of failed S&L operator Charles Keating), it was the impact of the S&L scandal on the American economy, more than any other factors, which led to George H.W. Bush's failed re-election campaign in 1992. And even then, the Republican sense of entitlement, power, and corporate fundraising were so entrenched that it took Ross Perot's evening TV lecture charts on busted budgets and deficits, AND Bill Clinton's amazing dark-horse campaign, to oust the elder Bush and his Republicans from the White House and executive office.

As we see here in William Rivers Pitt's article, Mr. Bush (Sr.) and many of his former senior officials (James Baker, George Schultz, and even former British Prime Minister John Major) are now part of a holding company THAT IS MORE POWERFUL than many small countries, a group of senior officials who are only ONE-HALF-STEP-AWAY from the US presidency itself- especially with former Secretary of State and former Carlyle board member JAMES BAKER now heading up the "Iraq Study Group" to offer policy alterantives to America's most important current foreign policy debacle. That is, Mr. Baker probably has almost as much authority over the course of America's foreign policy as the Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who has been all but FROZEN OUT of policy determinations by the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis, and is now notably absent from the discussions over conduct of the Iraq war in the week before and after election 2006.

CARLYLE, James Baker, the Iraq War... it is not "conspiracy theory" to say there is a very short line between these three connections, and that the former Carlyle board member probably has MORE influence over the future conduct of the Iraq war than the current Secretary of State. That the Iraq war has been VERY, VERY, VERY PROFITABLE to Carlyle and other defense contractors, a company at the very apex of what REPUBLICAN President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about, an overly powerful and anti-democratic MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

We here at C-dems would like to transition over to "Democrats2008" or some other website, BUT the danger that Democrats will BUCK UNDER to the power of Carlyle and ohter Republican anti-democratic tendencies (so well funded by corporate America) is so strong, we find ourselves continually adding posts to this blog.

NEXT: we promise to post Chapter 1 of Robert Parry's Secrecy and Privilege", detailing how President Clinton and the Democrats underfunded, undercut, and disbanded several on-going investigations into Republican criminality in the Iran-Contra, S&L, and other scandals early in 1993, thereby paving the way for the "Contract on America" Republican House in 1994.

- John Major Appointed European Chairman of The Carlyle Group
http://www.carlyle.com/eng/news/l5-news716.html

- Here's a good introduction to Carlyle member's _extraordinary_ connections-
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Carlyle_Group

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The CARLYLE WHITE HOUSE
by William Rivers Pitt
Wednesday, 15 November 2006, 8:23 pm

The Carlyle White House

It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin' Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its formidable portfolio of acquisitions.

The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.

Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42 different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12 billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in 2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship. One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001 sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.

How has Carlyle managed to acquire the White House? The newest edition of Newsweek begins to tell the tale in a story titled "The Rescue Squad": "Bush Senior has been relegated to watching all those political talk shows his son refuses to watch, wincing each time he hears his son's name being mocked or criticized. George H.W. Bush has been, in effect, sidelined by nepotism. He has repeatedly told close friends that he does not believe it is appropriate or wise to second-guess his son, or even offer advice beyond loving support. This time, however, was different. A source who declined to be identified discussing presidential confidences told NEWSWEEK that Bush 41 left 'fingerprints' on the Rumsfeld-Gates decision, though the father's exact role remains shrouded in speculation."

There is much more to this than Big George simply trying to shove Little George in a different direction, because Big George never travels alone. All of a sudden, two of the elder's main men - James Baker III and Robert Gates - are back in the saddle. Baker has spent the last weeks riding herd over the Iraq Study Group, a collection of old foreign policy hands tasked to come up with a solution to the Iraq debacle. Gates was a member of this group until he was tapped to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The Iraq Study Group is slated to produce some tablets of wisdom come December.

A third member of the Iraq Study Group, former congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious historical package together. During the Reagan days, Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan's presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In essence, Hamilton took Reagan's people at their word when they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were "in the loop" regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.

History and investigation have proven this to be quite separate from the truth, and Hamilton later admitted he should not have bought what Reagan's people were selling. The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress to be "bipartisan" and avoid a protracted investigation was then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney.

One of the men spared prosecution in the Iran/Contra scandal, thanks in no small part to the gentility of Mr. Hamilton, was Robert Gates. Gates, then a senior official within the CIA, was widely believed to have been neck-deep in the plot. During the investigation into the scandal, Gates parroted Reagan and claimed not to remember when he knew what he knew about everything that was happening down in Ollie North's office. In 1991, he was nominated and eventually appointed to be the head of CIA by Bush Sr. During his confirmation hearings, according to the New York Times, it was revealed that "Mr. Gates [had] distorted intelligence reports so they would conform to the political beliefs of his superiors."

That sounds familiar.

Gates's nomination to the post of secretary of defense was field-generaled behind the scenes by James Baker III, who has suddenly taken on a muscular role within the Bush White House since the spectacular Republican wipeout during the midterm elections last Tuesday. Baker's return, along with the new prominence of Bush Sr., has been hailed in the mainstream press as a healthy step toward stability and sanity.

One is forced to wonder, however, which masters Mr. Baker is actually serving. Baker's Carlyle Group has profited wildly from the conflict in Iraq, which begs the question: will the bottom line, augmented by Carlyle's defense contracts, trump any attempts to establish a just and lasting peace? It must also be noted that Baker's law firm, Baker Botts, is currently serving as defense counsel for Saudi Arabia against a suit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. The connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royals has been discussed ad nauseam, and Mr. Baker is so closely entwined with the Bush clan that he might as well be a blood relative.

The weakening of George W. Bush, in short, has opened the door for an alumnus of the Iran/Contra scandal, Robert Gates, to gain control of the Pentagon - his nomination, as yet, has met with little Congressional resistance. This process was managed by James Baker, whose Carlyle Group made billions off the Iraq occupation and whose fealty to the American people has all too often taken a back seat to the needs and desires of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. These two, along with Hamilton, have been instrumental in crafting, by way of the Iraq Study Group, what by all accounts will soon be America's foreign policy lynchpin in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

Behind it all is George H.W. Bush, former employee of Carlyle, who has somehow managed to refashion his reputation into that of a grandfatherly, level-headed, steady hand, a foreign policy "realist" whose mere presence will soothe and calm the troubled waters we sail in. Unfortunately, his "realism" is a significant reason the United States finds itself in its current mess - until the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was a boon confederate of both the Reagan and Bush administrations in their fight against Iran - and the team of experts he has brought with him have done more to undermine the national security of the country than any other three people one could name.

The winner in all this, of course, is the Carlyle Group. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Sen. Webb STANDS UP FOR WORKING American FAMILIES! Exec pay inequity is gross and costs American families their health-care....

2006-11-17T05:01:00.001-05:00

In the early days, WAL-MART made some of their workers rich. But 2 or 4 generations downstream from founder Sam Walton, there is now an entire DYNASTY of Wal-Mart heirs seeking to ride the gravy-train of their good fortune... and, in the case of Wal-Mart workers forced to seek STATE-FUNDED HEALTH CARE, receive some of their inheritance income AT THE EXPENSE of BOTH their own workers AND TAXPAYERS!

This is an ABSURD and GROTESQUE distortion of "American values," made possible ONLY by the horrific disparity in the media, i.e. the conservative bias of the media which has made "liberal media" into a dirty word.

(An example of the media's RIGHTWARD BIAS that enables the grotesque executive compensation, often at taxpayers expense, is found in this HuffingtonPost article about how TIME magazine tries to DISTORT the Democratic victory of Nov. 7th as a "centrist" agenda.)

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard. ]
BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain immigrant groups have the "right genetics" and thus are natural entrants to the "overclass," while others, as well as those who come from stock that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply don't possess the necessary attributes.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

Mr. Webb is the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia.

Sen-elect Webb STANDS UP FOR America's WORKING FAMILIES! He states that pay inequity in America is grotesque and costs families their health-care...!

2006-11-17T05:01:00.000-05:00

In the early days, WAL-MART made many of their employee-stockholders rich. But 2 or 3 generations downstream from founder Sam Walton, there is now an entire dynasty or clan of Wal-Mart heirs seeking to ride the gravy-train of their good fortune... and, in cases of Wal-Mart workers forced to seek STATE-FUNDED HEALTH CARE, those Walton heirs receive some of their inheritance income AT THE EXPENSE of BOTH their own workers, and at the expense of state and national TAXPAYERS!

This is an ABSURD and GROTESQUE distortion of "American values," made possible ONLY by the horrific disparity in the media, i.e. the overwhelming conservative bias of the corporate "mainstream media' which has helped right-wing conservatives turn the very label "liberal media" into a dirty word.

An example of the media's RIGHTWARD BIAS that enables the grotesque executive compensation rampant in America today, often at taxpayers expense, is found in this HuffingtonPost article about how TIME magazine tries to DISTORT the Democratic victory of Nov. 7th as a "centrist" agenda, even those those winning Democratic candidates, every single one, believed in such "liberal" policies as raising minimum wage, enforcing environmental regulations, and providing some means to certify and audit America's chaotic voting process.
- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-em_b_34246.html
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090003
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200611130001?src=newsbox-atrios.blogspot.com

We SALUTE Senator-elect James Webb, and ferverently hopes that he and other Democrats of the Class of 2006 lead Americans to review the bias inherent in America's "money is its own god" agenda - an agenda that if left unchecked, will see America's standard of living DECLINE to that of South America and other regions where average (median) per capita income is only $200 per month - TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS per MONTH.

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

Class Struggle
American workers have a chance to be heard. ]
BY JIM WEBB
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110009246

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century. America's top tier has grown infinitely richer and more removed over the past 25 years. It is not unfair to say that they are literally living in a different country. Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars. They own most of our stocks, making the stock market an unreliable indicator of the economic health of working people. The top 1% now takes in an astounding 16% of national income, up from 8% in 1980. The tax codes protect them, just as they protect corporate America, through a vast system of loopholes.

Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year, while the minimum wage for workers amounts to about $10,000 a year, and has not been raised in nearly a decade. When I graduated from college in the 1960s, the average CEO made 20 times what the average worker made. Today, that CEO makes 400 times as much.

In the age of globalization and outsourcing, and with a vast underground labor pool from illegal immigration, the average American worker is seeing a different life and a troubling future. Trickle-down economics didn't happen. Despite the vaunted all-time highs of the stock market, wages and salaries are at all-time lows as a percentage of the national wealth. At the same time, medical costs have risen 73% in the last six years alone. Half of that increase comes from wage-earners' pockets rather than from insurance, and 47 million Americans have no medical insurance at all.

Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Many earned pension programs have collapsed in the wake of corporate "reorganization." And workers' ability to negotiate their futures has been eviscerated by the twin threats of modern corporate America: If they complain too loudly, their jobs might either be outsourced overseas or given to illegal immigrants.

This ever-widening divide is too often ignored or downplayed by its beneficiaries. A sense of entitlement has set in among elites, bordering on hubris. When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate. Some shrug off large-scale economic and social dislocations as the inevitable byproducts of the "rough road of capitalism." Others claim that it's the fault of the worker or the public education system, that the average American is simply not up to the international challenge, that our education system fails us, or that our workers have become spoiled by old notions of corporate paternalism.
Still others have gone so far as to argue that these divisions are the natural results of a competitive society. Furthermore, an unspoken insinuation seems to be inundating our national debate: Certain immigrant groups have the "right genetics" and thus are natural entrants to the "overclass," while others, as well as those who come from stock that has been here for 200 years and have not made it to the top, simply don't possess the necessary attributes.

Most Americans reject such notions. But the true challenge is for everyone to understand that the current economic divisions in society are harmful to our future. It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life. Workers already understand this, as they see stagnant wages and disappearing jobs.

America's elites need to understand this reality in terms of their own self-interest. A recent survey in the Economist warned that globalization was affecting the U.S. differently than other "First World" nations, and that white-collar jobs were in as much danger as the blue-collar positions which have thus far been ravaged by outsourcing and illegal immigration. That survey then warned that "unless a solution is found to sluggish real wages and rising inequality, there is a serious risk of a protectionist backlash" in America that would take us away from what they view to be the "biggest economic stimulus in world history."

More troubling is this: If it remains unchecked, this bifurcation of opportunities and advantages along class lines has the potential to bring a period of political unrest. Up to now, most American workers have simply been worried about their job prospects. Once they understand that there are (and were) clear alternatives to the policies that have dislocated careers and altered futures, they will demand more accountability from the leaders who have failed to protect their interests. The "Wal-Marting" of cheap consumer products brought in from places like China, and the easy money from low-interest home mortgage refinancing, have softened the blows in recent years. But the balance point is tipping in both cases, away from the consumer and away from our national interest.

The politics of the Karl Rove era were designed to distract and divide the very people who would ordinarily be rebelling against the deterioration of their way of life. Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet. But this election cycle showed an electorate that intends to hold government leaders accountable for allowing every American a fair opportunity to succeed.
With this new Congress, and heading into an important presidential election in 2008, American workers have a chance to be heard in ways that have eluded them for more than a decade. Nothing is more important for the health of our society than to grant them the validity of their concerns. And our government leaders have no greater duty than to confront the growing unfairness in this age of globalization.

Mr. Webb is the Democratic senator-elect from Virginia.

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

We include here backup for Senator-elect Webb's notions that this election was far more "liberal," and that gross income disparity is indeed a concern of millions of Americans, than Republicans and their conservative media allies portray.
Here is the MediaMatters.Org SURVEY of those 2006 candidates that some writers in the press (and Republican Party) portray as "CONSERVATIVE Democrats" but who in this survey OVERWHELMINGLY, unanimously SUPPORT "liberal" progressive polices.
(note- only 5 of 27 of these candidates supported the anti-reproductive-health "Right to Life" anti-abortion agenda.)

-------------------------------

2006 Survey of "liberal" and "Conservative" policies for Democratic Election Candidates
http://mediamatters.org/items/200611090003

Following the November 7 midterm elections, Media Matters for America examined the policy positions of those Democratic House candidates who, as of the morning of November 8, had defeated Republican incumbents or been elected to open seats previously held by Republicans. This survey of the Democrats' campaign websites, candidate questionnaires, and statements in news reports found that these incoming lawmakers agree on a set of issues central to the Democratic platform, including raising the minimum wage, changing course in Iraq, and protecting Social Security:

All 27 candidates support raising the minimum wage.
All 27 candidates advocate changing course in Iraq.
All 27 candidates oppose efforts to privatize Social Security.
Only two of the 27 candidates do not support embryonic stem cell research.
Only five of the 27 candidates describe themselves as "pro-life."

WTF?? Senate - SENATE DEMS!! - OK sale of US nuclear tech AND MATERIALS to India's civilian AND "secret" MILITARY reactors!

2006-11-16T23:24:00.000-05:00

India, according to this New York Times aricle, is a NON-SIGNER of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and will immediately be using the materials and technology provided by the US this $5 billion deal for MILITARY REACTORS that WILL NOT BE OPEN FOR INSPECTIONS.

Now it is true that you certainly can not believe everything you read in the New York Times, but when the Times reports "India has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," you can be reasonably certain that that particular statement is true.

Which can only lead to the question, "WHAT_THE_**** WERE THEY THINKING?"!

HOW can the United States go before the United Nations, and demand that warlike policies (military enforced embargoes) be implimented against Iran (and, past tense, Iraq) for alleged NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS, while we, the USA, are making a profit SELLING NUCLEAR WEAPONS TECHNOLOGY TO a nation that can't bother to sign the NPT...?

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

Senate Approves Nuclear Cooperation With India
By THOM SHANKER
Published: November 16, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/washington/16cnd-nuke.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 — The Senate gave overwhelming approval late Thursday to President Bush’s deal for nuclear cooperation with India, a vote that expressed that a goal of nurturing India as an ally outweighed concerns over the risks of spreading nuclear know-how and bomb-making materials.

By a vote of 85 to 12, senators agreed to a program that would allow the United States to send nuclear fuel and technology to India, which has refused to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The agreement, negotiated by President Bush and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India in March, calls for the United States to end a decades-long moratorium on sales of nuclear fuel and reactor components. For its part, India would divide its reactor facilities into civilian and military nuclear programs, with civilian facilities open to international inspections.

Critics have been unwavering in arguing that the pact would rally nations, such as North Korea and Iran, to press ahead with nuclear weapons programs despite international complaints and threats. Opponents of the measure also warned the deal would allow India to build more bombs with its limited stockpile of radioactive material, and could spur a regional nuclear arms race with Pakistan and China.

Senator Richard G. Lugar, the Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, hailed the measure’s passage as “one more important step toward a vibrant and exciting relationship between our two great democracies.”

His endorsement was significant, coming from a Senator respected for efforts in nonproliferation and whose name is part of sweeping legislation to secure nuclear bomb-making materials in the former Soviet Union. He also expressed “thanks for a truly bipartisan effort” to Senator Joseph R. Biden, the Delaware Democrat set to become Foreign Relations chairman with the new Congress.

While advocates of the measure said it would be an incentive for India to refrain from further nuclear tests, denunciations came quickly from a minority of Senators who opposed it, as well as from critics in the House.

“It is a sad day for U.S. national security when the Senate passes a sweeping exemption to our nonproliferation laws that will allow India to increase its annual bomb-production capacity from 7 to over 40 bombs a year,” said Rep. Edward J. Markey, co-chair of the House Bipartisan Taskforce on Nonproliferation. He said the measure “sends the wrong signal at a time when the world is trying to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.”

After the vote, the White House issued a statement from President Bush praising passage of the bill.

“The United States and India enjoy a strategic partnership based upon common values,” the statement said. “The U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Cooperation agreement will bring India into the international nuclear nonproliferation mainstream and will increase the transparency of India’s entire civilian nuclear program.”

As an afternoon debate spun out into the evening, the Senate rejected several amendments that sponsors said would clarify or narrow the deal, including one that would have required India to halt all military relations with Iran. The legislation, as passed, does contain a new provision that requires the president to certify that India has joined multinational efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program in advance of the U.S.-India nuclear deal moving forward.

The Senate legislation now must be matched to the House version, which passed in July by a vote of 359 to 68; both chambers then must approve that final language. Even with Senate approval, the package will not move forward until both houses agree to specifics of a nuclear cooperation accord with India. A complementary deal between India and the International Atomic Energy Agency also must be reached.

At the time the plan was announced, India pledged to classify 14 of its 22 nuclear power reactors as civilian facilities. That would put those reactors under international inspections for the first time. But other reactors would remain under Indian military jurisdiction, and not open to inspectors.

After India and Pakistan conducted surprise nuclear tests about eight years ago, the Clinton administration imposed economic sanctions on both countries. But the Bush Administration’s effort to enlist allies for its global counter-terrorism campaign after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, brought an end to those sanctions, in particular those leveled against Pakistan, viewed as critical in the war in Afghanistan to rout Al Qaeda.

Bravo! Senator Schumer Grills Asst. Atty Gen. Wan Kim about Voting Fraud and discrimination of Voting Rights...

2006-11-16T16:17:00.000-05:00

Assistant Attorney General Wan Kim is really on the hot seat today at the Senate hearing on the Justice Department's ovesight of voting fraud and voting rights.

By our count in a five minute period, Mr. Kim invoked "I don't know" or "I'll have to get with my staff on that" at least a dozen times. Fortunately, Senator Schumer refused to take "no" for an answer, and even Republican Committee Chair Arlen Sepcter was not the least impressed with Mr. Kim's testimony.

We hate to be blunt, but Mr. Kim possibly tops President Bush in blatant duplicitousness. On practically every single point, issue, and concern, he espoused justifications for rule and policies of his department that are clearly 100% the opposite of the real intentions of those policies and rules.

A TRIO of PHENOMENAL segments on (liberal) Talk Radio today: Franken, Schultz, and Randi Rhodes.....

2006-11-15T21:27:00.000-05:00

Today we saw a trio of phenomenal segments on the airwaves, two on Air-America radio, and one by Big Ed Schultz (www.WeGotEd.com) of the Jones Radio network.

Al Franken had Dem consigliere LAWRENCE O'DONNELL on his show today, O'Donnell a rare Democrat who has mastered the arcane worlds of BOTH Capital Hill back offices and hallways, AND Hollywood/TV production & shooting lots. (O'Donnell was the senior staff member of the Senate Finance Committee, and the producer of the TV series "West Wing.") In short, not only is O'Donnell conversant in show business, but O'Donnell could give Bill Clinton a run for the money in policy wonkishness and budget arcana, if not beat him in one or both. Elsewhere, O'Donnell has written (in HuffingtonPost.com) that the Democrats cold gain a twenty-year majority starting with this term, but NOT if they select John Murtha to be the House (Majority) Whip, a selection that would give right-wing talk show hosts (O'Donnell specifically mentions Sean Hannity) the opportunity to portray Democrats as cravenly corrupt as the DeLay Congress at its worst, i.e. Jack Abramoff's bribery "donations" (which was enforced by the threat of DeLay congressional extortion) or Duke Cunningham's bribery menu. ANYWAYS, Today O'Donnell repeated his strident call for the Democrats to reject Congressman Murtha for such a senior leadership post, but what is even more important is what O'Donnell CHALLENGED Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party to do: to REJECT _ALL_ CORPORATE DONATIONS, DEMAND PUBLIC FINANCING of elections, and COMPELL media outlets (networks, cable, radio) to provide FREE AIR TIME in election season to fulfill their civic duty as gatekeepers of America's democracy. WE HEARTILY SECOND Mr. O'Donnell's challenge, and SHARE his peeve that Democratic voters, activsts, and candidates MUST ENRICH the corporate media barons (or lose elections) EVERY ELECTION CYCLE, by spending MILLIONS on campaign advertisements. Not only MUST Democratic candidates and donors ENRICH the media corporations every election, BUT to CHALLENGE this status-quo is to INVITE AN AVALANCHE OF NEGATIVE MEDIA COVERAGE to BURY YOU, as for example the shameless, wanton, and corrupt coverage of the so-called "White House Trashing Scandal" WITHOUT A SINGLE PHOTOGRAPH of EVIDENCE by the media (led by the Washington Post and New York Times, and followed by all the networks, cable outlets, and other papers across the nation) - a virtual TIDAL WAVE of negative 'news' coverage that tens of millions of dollars could not undo.

From the time of the founding fathers and up to the Civil War, ANYONE could start up a printing press and reach (through the enlistment of at most a few hundred or so volunteers) almost the total population, at least in the towns and cities. Today, because the population is so much larger, candiates MUST use the 'mass media' to reach citizens and voters... and this need has become a CASH COW for the media barons, who used LEVEREGED BUY OUT techniques to GOBBLE UP ALL COMPETITION. (The compettion of the Hearst and Pulitzer papers marked the beginning of the dominance of "major media" outlets.) American business schools teach that, in all cases, PROFIT is the first and sole mission of any business. But this shortsighted and superficial outlook is not always the case, as for example those businesses set up to combat a given disease, organizations that would happily go out of business were that disease to be eradicated. A more "here and now" refutation of "profit uber alles" school of business citizenship would be the US automakers, who for decades enjoyed selling cars with 5 year loan terms, and three year (36 month) warranties. We personally know of THREE women who have been driven into debt by their American auto purchases, cars less than five years old that have required thousand-dollar services. GM chairman ____ is the posterboy of this nearshighted and mercenary outlook, he still hasn't figured out that American auto buyers pick up on this predatory cynicism, and are turning to foreign built cars with 5 year, 100,000 mile warranties.

GM and American automakers are going the way of the dodo, while Toyota and other companies are building factories.. right here in America! And American democracy is also going the way of the dodo, IF Democratic voters and candidates MUST enrich Rupert Murdoch and General Electric Co. (And never, ever say anything that would raise the ire of these companies, such as pointing out that Murdoch makes MILLIONS PROPOGATING Chinese Communist Party PROPAGANDA to China's TV viewers, and that GE has just signed a deal to supply FIVE_BILLION_DOLLARS worth of the MOST UP TO DATE NUCLEAR_PROCESSING_TECHNOLOGY TO INDIA, with the "understanding" that India WILL BE ALLOWED to operate her _SEVENTEEN_ "secret military reactors FOR WEAPONS ENRICHMENT and PRODUCTION!!

As these examples illustrate, IF Democrats CONTINUE to go "business as usual" forcing their own candidates to RAISE MILLIONS each and every election, then Democrats WILL ALWAYS be vulnerable to the NEXT "ABSCAM," "KEATING SEVEN," ABRAMOFF (Abramoff is reported to have mentioned Senator HARRY REID as a "player" in the extended Abramoff pay-to-play scandals), ENRON, & other scandals. (Senator Joe Lieberman may have SABOTAGED the Democratic Senate Majority in 2002, by WET-BLANKET smothering the Senate ENRON investigation in his committe, depriving mid-term Democratic candidates of the opportunity to TIE President Bush to his biggest campaign donors through 4 elections, ENRON Chairman KEN LAY.)

#2. Over on the Big Ed Schultz radio show, host Ed Schultz called in from Washington to discuss the new House and Senate leadership votes, and explained that not only did Senator Trent "We wouldn't have these problems in America if Strom Thurmond has won the presidency in 1948 as leader of the Dixiecrat [segregation] Party" Lott regain a measure of his previous power as the new Republican Senate Whip, but the fact that he could line up those votes meant that Senate Republicans are repudiating President Bush's choice. For some "fly on the wall" background, Schultz explained that Lott and Bush can't stand each other... So much for Mr. Bush's proclaimed desire to "sit on the porch of Lott's Mississippi gulf-coast home, sipping lemonade when they are both in retirement!

AND FINALLY on tonight's show Randi Rhodes bitch-slapped the Bush administration into yesterday. We will confess that at times Randi seems insufferable. Apart from her everpresent tendency to divert into subjects female (in far more intimate detail than Ed Schultz discusses a hunting or fishing trip), Randi has a regretable tendency to make the subject... herself. We can't count the times Randi has had an excellent, informative guest on the show, only for her to rush in and talk all over her guest (about herself being first to an issue), quickly smoothering any extended insight into that particular issue from her guest. But on today's subject, Randi has been so prescient, so clearly vocal, and so solo in her reporting, that we really must forgive her her (at times insufferable) shortcomings. And that subject would be John NEGROPONTE and DEATH SQUADS_in-IRAQ. As Randi points out, the mere selection of Negoponte to be the nations National Security Director means that the Bush-Cheney White House EMBRACE the legacy of DEATH SQUADS from the historical era of when Negroponte was Ambassador to Honduras. Randi explains the history, policy, and consequences far better than we, but what is amazing is that her efforts point out how shallow, ignorant, and biased is the rest of America's media, which are too cowardly and/or stupid to point out that the Bush-Cheney administration has, in the space of one or two years, UNDONE THIRTY YEARS of US policy in Iraq and the Mideast, namely the use of Iraq's Sunni minority (under Saddam's Baathist regime) as a restraint and counterbalance to the Shiite majority... which is now (and this was always the great fear) allied with (synonymous with?) Iran's Shiite theocratic dictatorship.

Randi Rhodes Show today: How Negroponte, Rumsfeld, Gen Miller, and the Bush-Cheney neo-cons have EMPOWERED SHIITE DEATH SQUADS in Iraq, and how every day that we remain in Iraq we ENCOURAGE the fury and savagery of those Shiite death squad leaders, who are now relentlessly exterminating the Sunni minority there.
http://server7.whiterosesociety.org/content/rhodes/RhodesShow-(15-11-2006).mp3

Lawrence O'Donnell on the prospects of a Democratic Permanent Majority.. and HOW IT CAN BE DESTROYED AT INFANCY by the Democrat's abject dependence on CORPORATE campaign donations (the everpresent temptation to CORRUPTION).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-odonnell/a-permanent-majority_b_34114.html

Chicago Tribune's long story on how Rep. Rahm Emanuel relentlessly & mercilessly whipped Democratic candidates to raise the massive campaign funds needed for election 2006....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0611120215nov12,1,1560300,print.story?coll=chi-news-hed

Big Ed reports from Washington on Republican Senators spurning Bush-Rove's leadership nominees...
http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/111506SchultzEd.mp3

Big Ed's guest host, attorney Norman Goldstein, on the case for impeachment, (or) the case for JUSTICE...
http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/111506ShowOpen.mp3

Vote Fraud Florida REMINDS: Dem TOP priorities are to RESTORE RULE OF LAW and US Constitution by INSURING VERIFIABLE elections, and INVESTIGATING

2006-11-15T08:11:00.000-05:00

The ongoing Vote Recounting DEBACLE in FIVE Florida counties reminds that the Democrats FIRST order of business... before even choosing party leaders - is to ENSURE THE RULE OF LAW and the primacy of the US Constitution in American politics and jurisprudence. The fact that 13 states in America use voting machines WITH_PAPER_TRAILS, while the other 47 states do NOT use paper trails, indicates that 47 secretaries of state, governor's offices, and state legislatures are guilty of GROSS DERELICTION OF DUTY, if not criminal negligence, if not premeditated COMPLICITY with FRAUD, for NOT insisting that those states have VERIFIABLE, AUDITABLE, RECOUNTABLE vote totals.

This GROSSLY FLAWED voting system across the nation is ONLY there because Republican vote-machine companies and state legislators (& execuctive offices) practically WALLOWED in their ability to NOT provide verifiable, recountable machines and a secure voting process. (With, we are sure, some incompetence or negligence on the part of Democrats in some of those states as well.)

RESTORING THE HONESTY and ACCOUNTABILITY of the American voting process SHOULD BE PRIORITY ONE of the new congressional majorities.

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

As 5 counties recount votes, candidate files legal petition
by Mark K. Matthews | Washington Bureau
Posted November 14, 2006
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-voteprobs1406nov14,0,7173615.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL RACE: In 3 other counties using the same ES&S touch-screen machines as Sarasota, an even higher percentage of ballots failed to show any vote cast in the race.

Election supervisors in five Florida counties began recounting votes Monday to confirm the winner in a razor-thin race for Congress -- with the most intense focus on Sarasota County and more than 18,000 disputed ballots there.

But as the review approached the end of its first day, lawyers for Democratic candidate Christine Jennings filed an emergency petition that could draw out the dispute for an indefinite period of time.

Jeffrey Liggio, an attorney for Jennings, said he does not trust the Sarasota County supervisor of elections, the state of Florida or even the sheriff's officials guarding the recount. He wants a completely independent review of the election that does not involve state or local government.

Last week, unofficial returns showed that Republican Vern Buchanan edged Jennings by 373 votes in the House race , triggering an automatic recount under state law because the difference was less than one-half of 1 percent.

For some reason, about 13 percent of all voters in Sarasota County did not cast ballots in that hotly contested race. This high number of "undervotes" dwarfs the 1 percent of Sarasota County voters who skipped races for the governor and U.S. Senate.

Voters immediately complained, and the statistical oddity sparked an audit by state officials, a review by Congress and led at least two groups -- Common Cause and the nonpartisan People for the American Way -- to demand that supervisors scrap the recount and hold another election.

"Clearly, votes were lost, and those voters deserve a chance to have their voices heard," said Ben Wilcox, executive director of Florida's branch of Common Cause.

Ron Labasky, an attorney for the top election official in Sarasota County, Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, deflected calls for a re-vote, noting there was little precedent for that action. Meanwhile, both candidates were in Washington, D.C., attending an orientation for new members.

Jennings has not conceded, and the action filed by her campaign late Monday seeks to secure all voting machinery and data for possible further investigation beyond what state and local authorities are undertaking this week.

Sally Tibbetts, spokeswoman for Buchanan, said it was unfortunate that Jennings was trying to "litigate our victory."

One potential culprit for the high number of undervotes is the touch-screen voting machines used by Sarasota County. On Monday, state investigators began looking into whether a software glitch caused so many voters to miss the race.

To do that, investigators planned to extract an Election Day log from several machines that registered a large number of undervotes. Officials then plan to use the log to re-create Election Day by duplicating every button pressed by each voter in an effort to find an error.

Jenny Nash, a spokeswoman for Florida's Department of State, said Monday that she doesn't expect Jennings' legal action to affect the audit or recount.

She also said there were no plans to examine similar problems with touch-screen voting machines in other counties, but she would not rule out such a review, either. In Sumter, Lee and Charlotte counties, there were undervotes between 18 percent and 22 percent for the state attorney general's race -- numbers described as "monstrous" by Rice University psychology professor Mike Byrne.

"Twenty percent undervoting is unbelievable," said Byrne, who heads the Computer-Human Interaction Laboratory at Rice. "When I heard that, I thought it was a mistake."

The counties with a high number of undervotes each used touch-screen machines manufactured by Election Systems and Software. A spokesman for the company said Monday that it was providing technical support for Sarasota County, adding that the ES&S equipment "worked well."

The congressional race was listed on the same screen as the governor's race, which dominated most of the page under the boldface heading "State." The word "State" also was highlighted in blue.

It also could be that the 13 percent undervote number in Sarasota was artificially low because it includes absentee paper ballots. Undervotes among those who used absentee paper ballots was 2.5 percent.

When only touch-screen ballots are considered, the percentage of undervotes in the Sarasota congressional contest rises to almost 15 percent.

It was under this cloud that officials in Sarasota County started their recount. At a warehouse normally reserved for traffic equipment, volunteers and observers checked vote tallies among stacks of black boxes with election results.

A machine recount of the House race is expected to be completed Wednesday.

Under this type of recount, counties with touch-screen machines are required to re-tabulate their figures from Election Day to ensure the numbers are correct. In the Buchanan-Jennings race, Sarasota and Charlotte counties used touch-screen machines. The other type of voting method in Florida is optical-scan ballots, in which voters mark their picks with pencil. For this recount, officials in Manatee, Hardee and DeSoto counties will re-run these ballots through a machine. A manual recount, if needed, would start later in the week.

Optical-scan machines allow election officials to physically examine the paper ballots that voters marked before putting them into the machine. Having such a paper record allows officials to check if any mistakes were made by voters.

The touch-screen machines used in Sarasota County have no such paper trail, so there is no way to show voter intent.

Jim Stratton of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report. Mark K. Matthews can be reached at mmatthews@orlandosentinel.com or 202-824-8222.

---------------------------------------
RELATED STORIES
Unclear ballot? Glitch? Maybe both, experts say
Nov 12, 2006
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/state/orl-voterprobs1206nov12,0,6657404.story?coll=orl-news-headlines-state

VOTES: NOT CAST -- OR NOT COUNTED?
HOUSE DISTRICT 13 RACE: In Sarasota County, 13% of voters did not cast ballots or did not have them tallied.

The RACE is on: Dems must INVESTIGATE the Bush admin, before THEY bear the brunt of media and right-wing BLAME for Bush's disatrous policies

2006-11-14T08:06:00.000-05:00

Can anyone say "BACKLASH"??!
The RACE is on: Dems must INVESTIGATE the Bush admin, before THEY bear the brunt of media and right-wing BLAME for Bush's disatrous policies.
Already, one element of the media/Right-Wing BACKLASH is on: on the Immus in the morning radio show they were busy rehabilitating GEORGE H.W. Bush (Sr.), and casting HIM in a "Great Leader" light.

What did George H.W. Bush in was his ARROGANCE, his "Read my lips, no new taxes" SNEAR.

Where, we wonder, did W (junior) get _his_ SNEAR of Democrats and non-top 10% Republicans? Well, that one comment ALONE ("read my lips...") indicates that Junior didn't get his scorn and contempt of the unwashed masses from Barbara Bush (his mother) alone.

MORE TO THE POINT, the IRAQ WAR is JUST NOW Starting to unravel.... like any classic INSURGENCY, which is to say GUERRILLA WAR, the INSURGENTS GET BETTER AND BETTER AND BETTER with time, even if the American forces get better with time as well. PART of the reason that so many in America were so quick to support the miserable excuses for the invasion of Iraq was because we Americans WHITEWASHED the TRUE nature of the counter-insurgency war in Vietnam, i.e. the war against the VC (and to a lesser extent the Khmer Rouge), where TORTURE, ASSASSINATIONS and near genocidal "ETHNIC CLEANSING" (aka "free-fire zones") were the order of the day. These tactics (assassinations, torture, and ethnic cleansing) were how Saddam maintained HIS rule over Iraq (with considerable American financial and military assistance), for example, read the first-hand reports of Sadddam's ANFAL campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s as written by Peter Galbraith in his book, "The End of Iraq."

What is important is that Iraq, itself, has been a HORNET's NEST for at least two dozen years, and Rumsfeld, the Neo-Cons, Cheney, and Bush REALLY THOUGHT they could waltz in there, assassinate (or capture) a few Baathist leaders (remember Bush's deck of cards, "Top 50 Iraq's most wanted"?), terrorize "the insurgents" (via torture at US "privatized security interrogator" hands), and in general lord it over the humbled and awed Iraqis like the Wizard of Oz or something.

Indeed, the FIRST thing the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz INVASION of Iraq did was to UNDO TWO DECADES OF US POLICY IN THE REGION, the policy to USE SUNNIS in Iraq (the Saddam Sunni-manned Baathist Party) as a RESTRAINT or constraint on the SHIITE MAJORITY.

THAT is the NIGHTMARE that Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz have CREATED in Iraq, and don't forget, Bush senior's term saw the US first provoke (or at the very least ENCOURAGE) the Shiite REVOLT against Saddam after the '91 war... AND THEN DID NOTHING as Saddam's death squads CRUSHED the rebellion, with estimates of up to 300,000 killed in gunship attacks and mass executions AS THE AMERICANS DID NOTHING, NOT EVEN compel Saddam to STOP using his helicopter gunships. (Again, Peter Galbraith has the short and ugly first-hand details in his book.)
All through the past six years, we have seen the American "major" or "Mainstream Media's" tendency to spin RIGHT-WING TALKING POINTS. (Special mention: Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter whose articles were SO slanted towards justifying the war as to lead to speculation that she is one of the reporters on the CIA's multi-million-dollar US payroll, is now decrying the excesses and trashing of American freedoms by the Bush Republicans.)
http://www.cjonline.com/stories/111106/kan_miller.shtml

The Democratic congressional wave is NOT EVEN A WEEK OLD, and ALREADY the Mainstream Media is casting about in a desperate search for a NEW right-wing savior, and they are HAPPY to REHABILITATE the record of the Bush Sr. administration to do so.

IF they Democrats DO NOT AGGRESSIVELY PORTRAY the Republican record, they will suffer a BACKLASH as the Republicans and media BLAME THE DEMOCRATS for those Republican follies.

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

Dems Should Act Like They Have A Mandate And Then They Will Create One
Miles Mogulescu
11.14.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/miles-mogulescu/dems-should-act-like-they_b_34065.html

The Democrat's wave-like victory was based in large part on rejection of Bush and Republicans, rather than wide-spread support for Democrats. It was also a resounding vote for change.

Now, to accomplish real change, and to solidify support among the broad middle class, the Democrats need to act like they have a mandate on a wide-range of issues, particularly those that focus of poor and middle class voter's anxieties about their future place in the global economy.

By acting quickly and decisively on such programs, the Democrats will give voters positive reasons to vote Democratic in '08.
Many of the easiest measures to pass quickly also unite progressive and so-called "centrist" democrats and can maintain substantial party unity for quite some time. They can receive enthusiastic support from Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Rahm Emanuel and Dennis Kucinich.

First, Democrats' goal for the Republican lame duck session of Congress should be to do no harm. They need to prevent Republicans from passing bad legislation that will be hard to undo.
Among other things, Congressional Democrats should:
--Turn down John Bolton's nomination as UN Ambassador--If there's any single message coming out of the election, it's rejection by voters of the neo-con foreign policy that Bolton represents.
--Block, and filibuster if necessary, any Republican legislation to authorize Bush's domestic wiretapping without a warrant. In the incoming Congress, Democrats can then pass a bill which both defends the nation against terrorists and upholds the Constitution and America's basic liberties.
--Do not allow Bush's energy plan to pass, particularly those portions which subsidize oil companies. In the new Congress Democrats can then focus on a serious program to move America towards energy independence and prevent global warming.
--Strip away earmarks from the spending bills which need to be passed, demonstrating Democrat's determination to stop political corruption, reduce the deficit and use the taxpayers' money responsibly.
--Use the hearings on Robert Gates appointment as Defense Secretary to highlight Bush administration failures in Iraq, and to explore Gates' history of cherry-picking intelligence to suit political needs.
--Reauthorize the special inspector general's office to monitor US spending on Iraq reconstruction.

Then as soon as the new Congress opens for business in January, the Democrats need to sprint out of the gate. For the very beginning, Speaker Pelosi's 100 hour program is a good place to start.
--Raise the minimum wage.
--Cut the interest on student loans in half.
--Allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower Medicare drug prices, possibly saving enough to eliminate the so-call "donut hole".
--broaden the type of stem-cell research financed by the federal government.
--clean up Congress and break the link between special interest lobbyists and legislation.

Imagine how the momentum will shift to the Democrats if, by the end of their first week or two in power, the Democrats manage to accomplish almost all of this agenda. These measures are widely supported by both the progressive and "centrist" wings of the Democratic Party and will be popular among the American people. The Democrats can afford to dare senate Republicans to filibuster these programs or Bush to veto them.

That picks off the lowest hanging fruit, but there's much more a Democratic
Congress can accomplish in its first term.
--Pass an Apollo type energy program to make America substantially energy independent within a decade, address global warming, and create tens of thousands of high quality jobs.
--Take the first steps towards national health care. Make everyone eligible to buy into the Medicare program and provide financial assistance to those who cannot afford the full premiums.
--Repeal Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans
--Pass a wiretapping bill that will allow law-enforcement to listen in when necessary to terrorists who wish to harm bus, but will not infringe on the constitutional the liberties of theAmerican peoplle--require the government to get a warrant from a special court and in exceptional cases, allow the wire-tapping to begin immediately but require the government to get a warrant within a few days.
--Restore the full right of habeas corpus.
--Stop the construction of permanent military bases in Iraq.
--Block the nomination of right wing judges.
--Reform federal election law to require that electronic voting machines provide paper back-up which can be used for audits and recounts.

Again, most Democrats, progressive or "centrist", can support such measures and a large-part of the electorate will respect the Democrat's boldness and gain positive reasons to back Democrats in 2008. The Democrats need to create the pressure on Republicans in the Senate not to filibuster such measures and on Bush not to veto them. If the Republicans and Bush do, Democrats have a large part of their program to run on in '08.

Finally there is the questions of Congressional investigations of the Bush administration's misdeeds, including the dishonest use of pre-war intelligence, war profiteering, Cheney's energy task force, the handling of Hurricane Katrina and the appointment of industry lobbyists to head government regulatory agencies. Already, there are some in the mainstream media who are pressing Democrats to forego such investigations on the grounds that they will turn off mainstream America. If carried out responsibly, nothing could be further from the truth. Americans want the light to shine into to the deepest recesses of government. Such investigations are the right thing to do and they will only strengthen Democrat's chances in '08, particularly when coupled with passage of the type of progressive legislation suggested above.

This blog is running long so I will leave Iraq and national security for another blog. The only thing I do want to say is that Democrats must decide what their goal is in Iraq. Is it simply to change tactics in the hope of achieving "victory" (i.e. a stable, secular, unified, democratic and free market capitalist Iraq)? Or is it to admit "victory" cannot be achieved and the goal is to find a rapid way out of Iraq which will leave the least possible damage behind?

In any case, if Democrats act like they have a mandate, they can move quickly to pass important legislation, undo some of the damage of the last six years, move the country in a progressive direction, and reinforce the support of the poor and middle class for the '08 elections.

How the Democrats won '06... report of DSCC Chair Rahm Emanuel's year-long battles..

2006-11-13T17:12:00.000-05:00

A long, detailed report by ChiTrib about how Chicago pol Rahm Emaneul quarterbacked the DCCC and Democrats to campaign victory on November 7, 2006.
___________________________________________________

SPECIAL REPORT: THE HOUSE THAT RAHM BUILT

Rahm Emanuel, Chicago's profane, ruthless, savvy operative, remade the Democrats in his image--and helped the party overcome 12 years of humiliation Story by Naftali Bendavid
Tribune staff reporter
November 12, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/chi-0611120215nov12,1,1560300,print.story

Rahm Emanuel was seething.

He was hurtling down an asphalt road in upstate New York on the 47th trip of his ferocious campaign to win back the House. A lecture, even from political consultant James Carville, was the last thing he needed.

In just 12 days, his campaign would end in a historic victory--a triumph that almost no one believed possible when he took the job nearly two years ago--or in colossal failure.

And here were Carville and pollster Stan Greenberg telling him he had to make each of his handpicked candidates shift from attack mode and strike a conciliatory note in their final campaign ads.

"James. No James, YOU LISTEN," Emanuel barked into a cell phone, about to release a string of profane invectives more intense than usual. "Can you listen for one [expletive] minute? I'm working these campaigns all the time. The campaigns all have different textures."

His wiry body tensed, his voice breaking with stress. Emanuel shouted, "If you don't like what you see, I highly recommend you pick up the ... phone and do it yourself."

The moment captured Rahm in full, a portrait in power of a brutally effective taskmaster.

During the past year, the Tribune had exclusive access to the strategy sessions, private fundraisers and other moments that shaped this victory. The newspaper agreed not to print any of the details until after the election. Now that the votes have been counted, the story of how Emanuel helped end an era of Republican rule can be told.

He did it, in large measure, by remaking the Democratic Party in his own image.

Democrats had never raised enough money. Emanuel, a savvy fundraiser who shaped those skills under Richard M. Daley and Bill Clinton, yelled at colleagues and threatened his candidates into generating an unprecedented amount of campaign cash.

Democrats had a history of appeasing party constituencies. Emanuel tore up the old litmus tests on abortion, gun control and other issues. With techniques that would make a Big Ten football coach blush, he recruited candidates who could mount tough challenges in some of the reddest patches of America.

Democrats had blanched at hardball. Emanuel, jokingly called "Rahmbo" even by his mother, muscled weaker Democrats out of races in favor of stronger ones, and ridiculed the chairman of his own party.

In January 2005, when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi asked Emanuel to head the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, or DCCC, experts predicted that the party would take perhaps three seats. On Tuesday, it picked up at least 28, changing the course of the Bush presidency.

In a world where congressmen refer to each other as "my distinguished colleague," Emanuel, 46, is sometimes unable to get through a single sentence without several obscenities. His politics are centrist, but his style is extremist. The top of his right middle finger was severed when he was a teenager, adding to his aura of toughness--especially when he extends that middle finger, which he does with some regularity.

For all his forcefulness, Emanuel was not responsible for the political climate, either the failing war or the sex and corruption scandals racking the Republican Party. But with creative recruiting, unremitting fundraising and a national message, he positioned the Democrats to exploit that collapse.

In doing so, Emanuel had to be familiar with roughly 50 individual races--the candidates, the interest groups, the voting blocs. It resembled a game of three-dimensional chess, in that what happened in one district could affect dozens of others.

From the outset, there could be only one measure of success: the number of seats the Democrats won. Bill Paxon, a former New York congressman who held Emanuel's job for the Republicans when they seized the House in 1994, explained the unforgiving math.

"Unlike a lot of things in government where there is compromise, there is only one result--you either win or you lose--and you are judged on that," Paxon said. "You can look at fundraising, candidate recruitment and other things, but they are meaningless. The only thing that matters is if you win or lose."

This is the story of how Rahm and the Democrats won.

KILLER INSTINCT

The Republicans always had killers on their side, ruthless closers like Karl Rove, Tom DeLay and Lee Atwater, the late mudslinging mastermind credited with getting the first President Bush elected.

In Emanuel, Democrats had their counterpart, a tactician of a caliber the party had not seen since the young Lyndon Johnson converted the DCCC into a power base.

Emanuel's thin, unimposing frame still hints at the teen and college years devoted to ballet; his voice sometimes screeches, and his words can get jumbled in public speeches.

But his political style--honed in Chicago and on the presidential campaign trail with Clinton--isn't gentle or uncertain. His reputation as a political street fighter inspires respect and more than a little fear.

Some Republicans coped by employing humor. Spotting Emanuel in the House gym last July, Rep. Christopher Shays of Connecticut told him he knew that he'd been targeted. Emanuel was planning to spend $3 million to defeat the popular moderate.

"I'll tell you what," Shays said. "Just give me the $3 million, and I'll retire voluntarily."

Emanuel's strategy was to keep the opposition uncomfortable. If a Republican congressman took a vote that he hoped no one in his district would notice, such as supporting a Bush budget cut, Emanuel immediately issued a press release and sent it to the Republican's hometown newspaper. He then sent it to the lawmaker's office to, as he said, "[mess] with their heads."

He had the DCCC designate one Republican as the "rubber stamp of the week" and another as the "crony of the week," a gimmick that generated a surprising amount of local coverage. Republicans who received money from drugmakers or oil companies were ridiculed as lackeys of special interests.

Last fall, a Democratic takeover of the House was laughable. Emanuel faced a merciless political map. Computer-assisted gerrymandering had made it possible for Republicans to draw congressional boundaries with increasing precision, ensuring a maximum number of GOP-leaning districts.

And yet Emanuel worried the GOP. "I think there is a lot of angst on our side," Rep. Tom Cole, an Oklahoma Republican, said late last year.

The popularity of the war in Iraq already was declining, and the president's poll numbers weren't good. If things got worse, GOP strategists sensed that Emanuel was someone who could take advantage of the opportunity. "If you are in a lead-pipe cinch Republican district, it's easier. But if you are in a marginal district, it's tough," Cole said. "The shark looks beautiful when you are outside the tank. But inside, it's a little different."

One of Emanuel's top targets, Rep. E. Clay Shaw of Florida, was 67, had served in the House for a quarter-century and had no desire to end his career with an embarrassing loss. One day last summer, when Emanuel was walking from his office to the Capitol, he passed Shaw. He nodded, saying "Clay" by way of greeting. Shaw stared ahead icily and kept walking. "See how he didn't say hello?" Emanuel said.

He knew he was despised. "Look, this is not for the fainthearted," Emanuel said. "Their job is important to them, and I am seen as a threat to their job security. And that's life. And I didn't come here to win a popularity contest with them."

He added, "I wake up some mornings hating me too."

None of Emanuel's relationships with Republicans was testier than the one with Rep. Tom Reynolds, the upstate New Yorker who was his Republican counterpart. A stocky 56-year-old, Reynolds sometimes flinched when Emanuel's name was mentioned. Reynolds tried to be sportsmanlike, even when Emanuel targeted him for defeat--breaking the usual gentlemen's deal not to go after whoever was running the other party's campaign.

"If this was a tennis game, I would say he's a good tennis player and he makes my game better," Reynolds said grudgingly late last year. "He's a good pol. He's from Chicago." Then Reynolds added that he was a good pol too, from New York. Good enough, it turned out, to just hold on to his own previously safe seat--but losing his party's majority.

Central to Emanuel's ability to unnerve his political enemies is his fierce intensity, a quality that wasn't initially apparent as he grew up on the North Shore of Chicago. He played peacemaker between his older brother Ezekiel and his younger brother Ari, and he pirouetted around the house. "Ari would be wrestling, Zeke would be pondering deep thoughts, and Rahmmy would be leaping down the stairs and doing ballet dance twirls," his mother, Marsha, recalled.

Ari even got the top bunk bed when he and Rahm shared a room, even though Rahm was older and could have laid claim to it. "I was physically stronger," Ari Emanuel explained.

But when their parents sent Rahm to study ballet, his single-mindedness emerged. "Intense would be a word I would have used even then," said Kerry Hubata, a former ballet teacher of Emanuel's in Evanston. "I've seen kids with physical talent but didn't work as hard. Others, who weren't as gifted physically but had the desire and didn't mind the pain, succeeded more. He had the drive."

That drive only increased when Emanuel suffered an accident just before his 1977 graduation from New Trier West High School. Working at an Arby's, Emanuel badly cut the middle finger of his right hand. He insisted on going to prom festivities anyway, including a swim in Lake Michigan, and the finger became badly infected. Emanuel, his family recalled, lay near death in Children's Memorial Hospital with a fever of 106 degrees, as antibiotics were pumped into him. In the end, doctors removed half his finger.

"That was a big turning point in Rahm's life," said his mother, sitting in the kitchen of the Emanuels' modest two-story home in Wilmette. "It was touch-and-go, and finally when he came out of it he was more serious. . . . I honestly think that was his existential moment of near-death and realizing that you have to do something with life."

Emanuel was not the only brother with a drive to succeed. Ezekiel, the eldest, became an oncologist, joined the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University, and is now a prominent medical ethicist at the National Institutes of Health. Ari went to Hollywood and has become an enormously wealthy agent, not to mention the inspiration for the bombastic Ari Gold character on HBO's "Entourage." (Emanuel, too, partly inspired a TV character: Josh Lyman on "The West Wing.")

The accomplished brothers came from parents with strong personalities. Emanuel's father, Benjamin, worked for the Jewish underground in pre-state Israel--he was smashed on the head by a British officer's baton, which left a dent in his skull--and became a well-known pediatrician in Chicago. Emanuel's mother was a civil rights activist who sometimes did not come home at night because she had been arrested. The Emanuels also adopted a daughter, Shoshana, who had a difficult youth and has kept a low profile.

Ezekiel Emanuel attributes the congressman's drive to their father. "He was notorious for seeing twice as many patients as the next guy on this list," Ezekiel said. "He would be personable, but just `Get to the meat of things and get it done.'

"That obviously is a trait that people can see in Rahm, and it's quite clear where it came from, in my opinion."

Personable, however, is not a word many would use to describe Benjamin Emanuel's middle son. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen once said of catcher A.J. Pierzynski: "If you play against him, you hate him. If you play with him, you hate him a little less." Though Emanuel has his die-hard loyalists, he could be the Democratic Party's A.J. Pierzynski.

PARTY CRASHER

On a late-spring day in 2006, Emanuel and Charles Schumer, the New Yorker in charge of winning the Senate for the Democrats, walked into the office of party Chairman Howard Dean.

Emanuel, once again, was ready for a fight.

For months, Emanuel and Schumer had been imploring the iconoclastic former presidential candidate to channel more money into congressional campaigns. Dean had been pushing a "50-state strategy" to build a Democratic operation in every corner of the country.

The national party usually spent millions to help House candidates, but Dean was instead using the money to build this far-flung operation, to Emanuel's immense frustration. He felt Dean's strategy wasted money in unwinnable places.

According to Emanuel, the meeting devolved into a confrontation over resources. Emanuel said that the Republicans planned to heavily fund key races and that if Dean refused to do the same, it would amount to unilateral disarmament. Dean replied that he was fielding activists in every corner of every state.

Ridiculing those efforts, Emanuel told Dean that he had seen no sign of such an effort. "I know your field plan. It doesn't exist," he recalled saying. "I've gone around the country with these races. I've seen your people. There's no plan, Howard."

The tongue-lashing was another example of how Emanuel took a sledgehammer to intraparty niceties, making plenty of enemies along the way.

The gravitational center of Democratic antagonism toward Emanuel was the Congressional Black Caucus. Many of the caucus' 43 members complained that Emanuel had not hired enough African-American staffers. They also protested that when he harangued lawmakers to pay their DCCC dues, he did not recognize how hard it was for black politicians, many of whom represented poorer areas, to raise money. The protests often erupted into shouting matches. "If a person says, `Danny Davis, where are your dues?' I may have a particular difficulty getting my dues that you don't know about or you don't relate to," Rep. Danny Davis, the West Side Democrat, said last summer. "Rahm don't take no prisoners."

Emanuel was privately contemptuous of such complaints. He saw the Black Caucus as one more party faction, like conservative Democrats, that would rather complain than work. Asked about the number of black staffers at the DCCC--two African-Americans were on his senior staff of about 10 people--he waved his hand dismissively. "You know that every [DCCC] chairman has faced the same criticism?" he said. "OK. So I don't give a [expletive]," he added, literally spitting.

Then he began ranting about his conservative party colleagues. "They hate me too, because I'm arrogant and pushy with them. . . . Because they've never, ever WORKED! NOBODY! NONE OF 'EM!"

Little enraged Emanuel as much as a fellow Democrat who didn't share his unrelenting drive to win. In January 2006, Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Florida Democrat, was quoted in a local newspaper speaking sympathetically of Republican Clay Shaw. Because of his longtime friendship with Shaw, Hastings pointedly declined to endorse Shaw's Democratic challenger.

Hastings was a colorful figure. A former federal judge, he was removed from the bench by Congress in 1989 for corruption and perjury, only the sixth U.S. judge in history to suffer this fate. He took revenge by winning a seat in Congress. A forceful speaker, Hastings chastised Emanuel in a closed meeting of House Democrats for not recruiting more candidates.

"He's great on lectures," Emanuel said later. "Phenomenal lecturer. I'm getting a lecture on recruitment when A, you haven't done a . . . damn thing, and B, we've got a [Republican] target and you're out there kissing his [behind] in the press?"

Hastings refused to back down, saying he was close to both Shaw and his Democratic rival, Ron Klein, and could not in good conscience take sides. "Ron Klein is my friend. I have known Clay Shaw for nearly 40 years," he said. "Far be it from me to insert myself in a race of that kind."

Hastings was hardly the only Democrat who Emanuel thought was not pulling his weight. Many of his colleagues were doing great work, he said, but dozens of others declined to help him take on their Republican friends.

"You've got to have a thirst for winning," he said. "You know what our party thinks? `We're good people with good ideas. That's just enough, isn't it?' Being tough enough, mean enough and vicious enough is just not what they want. . . . They just want to be patted on the back for the noble effort. No."

This no-holds-barred politics came naturally to Emanuel. In the 1980s he joined the campaigns of Sen. Paul Simon and Mayor Daley, proving adept at raising money. (Daley would later return the favor by fielding city patronage workers to help Emanuel win his first congressional election in 2002; that get-out-the-vote operation is now part of a federal investigation.)

Political consultant David Axelrod remembers Emanuel as a young Chicago political operative. "The first word that comes to mind is chutzpah," Axelrod said. "He redefined the term."

Emanuel brought that chutzpah to Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton's improbable presidential run. "He was then a little more brash and less polished than now, but he clearly had loads of ability and drive," the former president recalled in an e-mailed response to questions. "My first impression was, `This guy is going to help us win.' And he did. I doubt we could have done it without him, especially in those critical early months."

When Clinton did win, Emanuel became his White House political director. But this time, his confrontational style failed him, as he clashed with other staffers and was quickly demoted to "director of special projects." The humiliation tempered his sharpest edges.

"He was devastated by what happened," said his mother, Marsha. "He told us that he had to sit back and rethink his methodology. And like with the finger, he took a deep breath and saw what direction he should go in."

Something of the relationship between the undisciplined president and his hard-hitting aide can be gleaned from an inscription on a photo Clinton gave Emanuel on his 38th birthday. Clinton signed it as though he were Emanuel: "Now Mr. President, how many times do I have to tell you, say it this way?" Clinton wrote. "And, by the way, wish me a happy birthday. Always gently, Rahm 11/29/97."

Emanuel's passion and loyalty won him the allegiance of others as well. Anna Greenberg, a friend of Emanuel's as well as his pollster, asked him to officiate at her wedding earlier this year. Emanuel studied hard, read sacred texts and consulted a rabbi.

He could not resist cracking a few political jokes at the ceremony; the audience was heavily Democratic. But the wedding highlighted Emanuel's attachment to Judaism. "It's not as much about going to synagogue," Greenberg said. "But having ritual and tradition and teaching Jewish values are really, really important to him."

It was a side of Emanuel not seen by many people, including many of his fellow Democratic congressmen.

On a warm night last May, Emanuel summoned them to a colorless conference room at Democratic headquarters. He had walked a fine line for a year and a half, hoping to excite Democrats without unduly raising expectations. But now he felt the time had come to convince them that they could actually win.

As several dozen House members settled into hard chairs, Emanuel cited polls suggesting that voters were ready for change. He also showed a video that included a quote from Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio confessing, "These numbers are scary." Images of Tom DeLay and other Republicans felled by scandal flashed on the screen to the pumping rhythm of the Queen song "Another One Bites the Dust."

Demoralized by defeat, many Democrats had begun to think that they would lose no matter how favorable the political winds. Al Gore and John Kerry appeared to have the momentum in their races, only to suffer crushing losses. The Republicans always seemed to outflank them. The GOP had more money, well-organized armies of social conservatives and an entire region of the country, the South, almost uniformly in its camp.

But with his mastery of details, Emanuel gradually convinced even his most jaded colleagues that the Democrats could reach more than the 15-seat net gain they needed to seize the House for the first time since 1992.

Emanuel was constantly on the phone to candidates--coaching, reassuring, tormenting. In an August call to candidate Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, Emanuel promised that Bill Clinton would help him raise money. "Joe Sestak, this is your rabbi, Rahm," he intoned playfully. "Clinton. I'm close to having him do an event for you in Philly. . . . Clinton will put his arm around you and say, `He's my man.'"

In a fairly typical sign-off, he concluded another call to Sestak: "Don't [mess] it up or . . . I'll kill you. All right, I love you. Bye."

He warned another Pennsylvania hopeful, Chris Carney, about negative ads the GOP was about to unleash. "They're going to come after you," Emanuel said. "You haven't said anything stupid on the hustings, have you?

"Well, don't waste your time with me. Go raise some more money."

A MACHO MAKEOVER

All of Emanuel's scolding, cajoling and profane outbursts would have meant nothing if he fielded weak candidates. After yet another devastating loss in 2004, he and other Democratic leaders quickly determined that the party needed a machismo implant. Emanuel looked for candidates with strong backgrounds, from sheriffs to soldiers, to counteract a Democratic image of softness.

This is why he badly wanted Heath Shuler, a former football star, to run for Congress as a Democrat in North Carolina. An evangelical Christian who opposes abortion, Shuler couldn't easily have his views caricatured by the GOP.

But Shuler was worried that if he ran and won, he would never see his two young children. To prove that congressmen do spend time with their children, Emanuel started calling Shuler in early 2005 whenever he was with his own family.

Shuler would pick up the phone and hear, "It's Rahm. I'm at a soccer game with my kids. Just wanted you to know that." Or "It's Rahm. I'm at a kindergarten play now. Talk to you soon." Shuler received perhaps 10 such calls. Of course, this also illustrated that whenever Emanuel was with his family, he was working.

In any case, Shuler agreed to jump in the race, challenging a 16-year incumbent and becoming one of the Democrats' hottest candidates. "I was recruited from high school to play college football, I was recruited by almost every college in the country, and then I was recruited into the NFL," said Shuler, a former Washington Redskins quarterback.

"I know all the angles that people use to recruit you," he added. "Nobody does it as well as Rahm Emanuel."

Emanuel believed in being tough. In September 2005, he described a Vietnam veteran he was trying to recruit this way: "I don't know if he's going to win, but I'll tell you this: I don't want to cross [him]. I think he would take out a knife and kill you. I think he would kill you." Emanuel viewed this as an asset.

Emanuel's goal was to recruit 50 credible challengers. He had one criterion: people who could win. That may sound obvious, but it's not. Many Democrats did not believe in recruiting overly conservative candidates, no matter how promising. In the past, those like Shuler who opposed abortion were not welcome in the party.

"We don't have an ideological purity test," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Emanuel's top lieutenant for recruiting. "If you believe in the basic gut principles of the Democratic Party--opportunity, fairness for all--we're not going to hold people to a litmus test."

Emanuel's recruiting effort had its share of failures; his top two candidates to challenge Rep. Richard Pombo, a vulnerable California Republican, turned him down, and his third candidate lost in the primary. (Pombo lost anyway, reflecting the magnitude of the Democratic victory.) Republicans mocked many of his recruits as "B-list."

But in the election's aftermath, it is clear that Democrats won several races, including Shuler's, that they would have lost if not for Emanuel's tireless recruiting. He had put enough legitimate challengers in place to exploit the unexpected opportunity.

Eclipsed by the election night euphoria was the fact that one of Emanuel's few disappointments came in his own back yard. Tammy Duckworth, a captain in the Illinois Army National Guard, lost to state Sen. Peter Roskam despite being one of the Democrats' highest-profile candidates.

Initially recruited by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Duckworth was the only wounded Iraq war veteran running for Congress. And she proved an irresistible news story, as Emanuel knew she would: A brave woman volunteers to serve in Iraq, loses both legs in combat and returns to seek office.

Her candidacy also showed Emanuel's sometimes-callous pragmatism. When Duckworth entered the race, another Democrat, Christine Cegelis, was already running for the same seat. Cegelis had run two years earlier, done surprisingly well and built a loyal following. But Emanuel and Durbin did not believe she was working hard enough or raising sufficient money, and they settled on Duckworth as better-suited to the centrist district.

Between the appeal of her story and the power of her patrons, Duckworth won the backing of nearly every influential institution in Illinois. The state AFL-CIO announced its support for Duckworth -- even though Cegelis, not Duckworth, was a former union member.

Emanuel used his connections to get Duckworth an appearance on the Sunday talk show hosted by George Stephanopoulos, his friend and former colleague in the Clinton White House. Another Emanuel ally, Axelrod, became Duckworth's media consultant. Cegelis could not compete with this, losing 44 percent to 40 percent to Duckworth in the March primary, with a third candidate getting the rest.

In the general election campaign, Roskam cast Duckworth as a puppet of Emanuel. "My opponent, in her name-calling, has called me a rubber stamp," Roskam said during one debate. "But I challenge my opponent to come up with one issue on which she differs from Congressman Rahm Emanuel."

Days before the election, Roskam's campaign gave Emanuel and the Duckworth camp a little of their own business. Just as organized labor had supported her in the primary even though Cegelis was the former card-carrying union member, the VFW endorsed Roskam even though Duckworth was the wounded war veteran.

Ultimately the district was too Republican, and Duckworth was too green, to pull off a win.

`DIG DEEP DOWN'

Emanuel walked into the offices of Prince, Lobel, Glovsky & Tye, a top Boston law firm, early one morning last August. The mission: extract as much money as possible from the 20 lawyers chewing bagels around a 30-foot conference table.

"I've been in politics for 20 years. This is the first time I've seen the stars aligned like this," Emanuel told them. "People know the party in power has messed things up."

For all his phrasemaking, Emanuel was not a great speaker; he could lapse into a confusing shorthand on politics or legislation. But his message was clear. He held up a $12,000 check he had just written to New Hampshire Democratic candidate Jim Craig. "I'm in for 12, folks," Emanuel said. "I want you to dig deep down. . . . For the first time, this is within our grasp."

Several listeners pulled out checkbooks on the spot, and the event raised $20,000. Someone asked Emanuel how he planned to spend the money he was raising nationally. He would not distribute funds based on which candidates he liked, he said, nor on who were the most loyal Democrats.

"I'm cutthroat about this," he said. "I don't give a crap where I pick up seats. I plan on winning. There is no emotional attachment."

Emanuel had arrived at the DCCC with a reputation as a world-class fundraiser. As finance director for Bill Clinton's first presidential run, Emanuel jumped on a table to exhort his staff to work harder. He yelled at donors, refusing to accept checks he considered too small. He probably saved Clinton's candidacy by keeping the cash flowing even after embarrassing reports of Clinton's affair with Gennifer Flowers.

Democrats always trail Republicans in fundraising, but in his fight for the House, Emanuel was determined to keep the money race close. No matter how good candidates were, it meant little if they did not have cash to advertise and pay campaign workers. Emanuel's first goal, as he traveled the country asking for money, was to raise $95 million. But as the Democrats gained momentum, contributions surged and Emanuel raised his target to $105 million. By the campaign's end, the Democrats had brought in close to $120 million, easily surpassing all previous records.

Emanuel and his staff judged a candidate almost entirely by how much money he or she brought in. If the candidate proved a good fundraiser, the DCCC would provide support, advertising and strategic advice. If not, the committee would shut him or her out.

Emanuel's demands were specific. Democratic challengers, for instance, had to raise $320,000 by March 31. At a staff meeting a year ago, talk turned to a Pennsylvania Democrat named Andy Warren who had raised a meager $38,662 in the previous three months.

Emanuel ordered the staff to drop Warren and back his Democratic opponent. "Eliminate him," Emanuel said curtly.

As for other candidates who had not met their goals, Emanuel said, "We'll just take three hours tomorrow, and I'll call the idiots who need to be pushed."

THE FINAL SPRINT

The story of the 2006 campaign was ultimately that of an overreaching Republican coalition that imploded over sex and corruption scandals as well as Iraq's descent into chaos. With astounding speed, Republicans found themselves out of sync with the voters, falling from grace in nearly unprecedented fashion. Emanuel did not know that would happen any more than anyone else did. His goal at the outset had been simply to win more seats than expected.

The effort exacted a toll on Emanuel, a father of two girls and a boy. After he voted for himself in the Illinois Democratic primary in March, his 8-year-old daughter Ilana had said she hoped he would lose so he would not travel so much. She could imitate Emanuel's conversations with people such as Schumer, New York's senior senator.

"Chuck," she would say. A pause, and then, louder, "CHUCK!" Emanuel's son, Zach, 9, stopped talking to him when he called from the road. When Emanuel was home, Zach implored him to stop talking on his cell phone while they were tossing a football.

Emanuel called his wife, Amy Rule, several times a day from the road. They had met on a blind date in 1990 and married four years later. An MBA from Wharton, Rule worked at the Art Institute of Chicago but is now a stay-at-home mom, raising their children on the North Side.

In the car after an August fundraiser in Boston, Emanuel told her that he hadn't slept much the night before, kept awake by all the details of the campaign.

"How are the kids?" he asked.

After listening to her response, he said wistfully, "I'm so sorry I'm missing two little girls in the bathtub. Sounds peaceful."

His hair turned whiter during the campaign and he lost 14 pounds, his clothes hanging on a scarecrow frame. As Election Day neared, he awoke every morning at 3, agitating and strategizing. By day's end, his fingers would be trembling and his nose running from fatigue.

Most stressful for Emanuel was his lack of control over certain decisions. Campaign finance laws required him to create an "independent expenditures" group to oversee the vast majority of Democratic TV ads. Its independence was limited because it was run by John Lapp, who had spent much of the campaign as Emanuel's top aide. But Emanuel had to dump half the $120 million he had raised into the group's coffers, with no say over how it was spent.

As the campaign drew to a close, Lapp and his deputy, Ali Wade, were signing off on dozens of advertisements each day in an office across the street from the DCCC. The office was filled with chaotic activity--phones ringing, staffers charging in, ads playing on computers. A board on the wall listed districts where the DCCC was airing TV spots. One day in October, another call from James Carville prompted Wade to say in exasperation: "Can we change our number so he doesn't keep calling?"

This was a fast-moving game, especially for Emanuel. He took his 48th and final campaign trip to Las Vegas five days before the election. This visit to Nevada candidate Tessa Hafen was symbolic of how the landscape had shifted; just weeks earlier, her cause was thought to be hopeless, but now she had a chance, albeit a slim one.

Emanuel careened between overwhelming anxiety and giddiness. At a fundraiser for Hafen that night, Emanuel seemed tense. But by the next morning, preparing for his final news conference, he was in an expansive, almost joyful, mood as he gulped two cups of black coffee in the lobby of Las Vegas' monstrous Mandalay Bay hotel and casino.

"We have a seat in New Hampshire we are going to . . . steal," he chortled.

And in a final spurt of generosity, Emanuel ordered cheesecake sent to all the Democratic candidates he had been coaching for nearly two years. Back in early 2005, when he was recruiting candidates, Emanuel sent cheesecakes to particularly desirable prospects. The next day, 70 cakes went out from Eli's Cheesecake in Chicago to Democratic challengers from Nevada to Connecticut.

BIG NIGHT

A large erasable board, divided into some 80 squares for various House districts, dominated one wall in the DCCC offices on election night. Interns rushed to update results, prompting cheers or moans from the assembled staffers.

When a winner was declared in a race, the interns outlined the square in red marker. As the number of red squares grew, the magnitude of the Democratic gains became clear and an unfamiliar mood of jubilation overtook the staffers.

For Emanuel--ensconced in an office with friends and family--the board represented the culmination of two years' work. Every number reported the fate of a candidate he had recruited, cultivated and come to know.

Televisions were scattered throughout the DCCC offices and common areas. At 11:08, CNN's Wolf Blitzer intoned, "We can now project that the Democrats will be in the majority in the House of Representatives." Emanuel seemed momentarily dazed, hugging his brother Zeke and kissing his wife. Six minutes later, Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi, looking jittery and happy, walked from the room where she had been watching the returns into Emanuel's office.

Emanuel roared, "Fellas--Madame speaker!" Pelosi and Emanuel hugged, rocking gently together for a few seconds. Brian Wolff, a staffer who worked for both Emanuel and Pelosi, called out, "Mission accomplished!"

At that moment, Sen. Barack Obama, who had campaigned relentlessly for House candidates, called to offer congratulations. "Barack," Pelosi said. "Thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you did." She walked back to her office muttering, "I gotta call my brother."

As Pelosi made her way through the DCCC staffers, some applauded, then more joined in and everyone rose in a whooping standing ovation. "This is so much better than losing," a staffer said to no one in particular.

Emanuel walked out of his office into the ecstatic throng and hopped on a desk.

In a few minutes, in front of the cameras, he would strike a conciliatory note about his opponents, and in the days that followed he would stress how both parties needed to work together for what was best for the country.

But at that moment, Emanuel would not, could not censor his glee, or restrain his distaste for the defeated Republicans.

For weeks they had been boasting that their program for turning out voters in the campaign's final 72 hours would swamp all his work. The voters had made those statements look ridiculous.

"I'll tell you this," Emanuel shouted out to his staff. "The Republicans may have the 72-hour program. But they have not seen the 22-month program!"

"Since my kids are gone, I can say it: They can go ---- themselves!"

nbendavid@tribune.com

Iraq Study Group: Situation Iraq WORSE than previously believed....

2006-11-13T09:10:00.000-05:00

Over at the UK Independent, historian Andrew Roberts makes the case that President Jimmy Carter "was the worst US president ever, there's no question of that." Continuing with Mr. Robert's appraisal (as published in the UK Independent on-line:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1963227.ece
<< People who look at the situation on a historical basis will see that {Bush] overthrew Saddam Hussein with the loss of 2,000 men. You would get that on a bad weekend on the Western Front in the First World War. It was a glorious victory.
As long as America stays the course it will win. The real danger is that it will wind up electing a different route. >>

Yet Mr. Roberts glosses over a lot of history and facts with his casual assertions. #1. It was not Ronald Reagan who was the core of the support for the Afghan resistance to Russia, it was Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China, with Reagan and America playing Johnny-come-lately. (For example, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida group was already coordinating resistance battles against the Red Army in Afghanistan before US aid started arriving, and Al Qaida itself never got much US backing even then.) Indeed, the title of the book "Charlie Wilson's War," about how Congressman Charlie Wilson was the most ardent proponent of support for the Mujahadeen resistance, indicates that it was Wilson more than Reagan who deserved 'credit' for the eventual US/CIA support for the Mujahadeen fighters which finally broke the back of the Red Army there.

Which brings up another point: Roberts should see the parallel between the US in Iraq and Russia in Afghanistan. One might suppose that the initial Russian invasion of Afghanistan was 'brilliant,' too. For a relatively small loss of life, Russia expanded its empire by thousands of square miles! But that is obviously not only an "incomplete" story, but, in total, a COMPLETELY ERRONEOUS ONE.

The fact is, one of the VERY FIRST THINGS the Bush-Rumsfeld-Cheney administration do upon assuming the White House and DoD in early 2001 was to DISBAND the US Army's Department of PEACEKEEPING in the Pentagon. For those paying attention, this was a dreadful case of hubris, arrogance, and foreshadowing. Even a single college-level examination of "Peacekeeping" reveals that KEEPING THE PEACE is often far more difficult than winning the combat phase of a given war, indeed, the combat phase is often brute simplicity, simply drop bombs and big guns on a target until you get a local surrender. Any decent study of "Peacekeeping" as a subcategory of International Conflict (or International Relations) will compare the US's Haiti mission with the US's Somalia "Blackhawk Down" mission. The former was an example of humility and relentless dedication NOT to employ US firepower, because the leaders of the mission realized that ANY success by the "bad guys" to put US troops in a bad light, would make the mission look like a US occupation, and would empower the opposition to hire snipers and protesters and possibly even instigate a massacre by the US of locals. AWARE and conscious of these restraints, and the deadly consequences of a massacre by US firepower, the US command AVOIDED that basic trap. Getting the more powerful invaders to MASSACRE your own people is TACTIC #1. of ALL guerrilla wars and commanders! Following these constraints, the US mission in Haiti was a remarkable success, WITH NOT ONE US COMBAT FATALITY. The Somalia mission, on the other hand, has been described by IR experts as a textbook example of "HOW NOT to conduct an intervention." The FIRST thing Warlord Mohammed Aideed did was PROVOKE American forces into attacking his militias, CULMINATING in the wholesale massacre of Mogadishu residents (of Aideed's clan) as US gunships suppressed entire crowds seeking to kill or capture American soldiers during the exit phase of that chaotic mission.

One of the international conflict magazines published a cover photo which summed up the US debacle in Somalia, a picture of a huge, muscular US Sergeant kicking at a wry Somali boy who was obviously pestering the American.

Which brings us back to Jimmy Carter. It may be easy to deride Carter as "WEAK" for his lack of a massive, confrontational response to Russia's invasion of Afghanistan or Iran's Islamic revolution and holding of US prisoners, but 30 years later the US is in almost exactly the quagmire that Russia was in back in 1980. In his four short years as US president, Carter succeeded in putting a WHITE HAT back on international perceptions of America, and American image that had been TARRED by the Vietnam war and support of such murderous dictators as Marcos, Noriega, and even a blind eye (support!) for Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. (Thanks to Henry Kissinger, aka 'Dr. Death.') By fighting for HUMAN RIGHTS and DEMOCRACY and OPEN GOVERNMENTS, Carter SUCCEEDED in broadcasting the POSITIVE image of America that would, ironically, become the foundation of Ronald Reagan's "defense of freedom" PR projection, even as Reagan was supporting death squads (Iran-Contra) in Latin and Central America.

As well, some IR experts have theorized, Reagan's DEPARTURE - running away from - Beruit after the US Marine corps barracks were suicide-bombed there, may well have LAID THE FOUNDATION for the COLLAPSE of the Soviet Union. According to this theory, IF Reagan had instead STAYED in Lebanon, and RATCHETED UP the US military presence there, it would have signaled an expanding neocolonialism that Russia (the Soviet Union) and the Arab nations would have been FORCED to react to. Instead, America RETREATED, the Marines were withdrawn, a crisis flashpoint was destressed, and in 1991 Gorbachov DID NOT VETO the US-UN resolution against Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. As a result, the US was able to create a GENUINE COALITION, including ARAB states! against Saddam's aggression, and the USA was able to capitalize on the collapse of the Soviet Union with the quick, almost bloodless victory in Iraq,

ALL of that might have been impossible - including the rapid and bloodless collapse of the Soviet Union - had Reagan committed to a US military presence in Lebanon, which would have been seen as a provocation by Russians, Arabs, and non-Arab Muslims alike.

We will concede that all the above is conjecture, but returning to Mr. Robert's characterization of the invasion of Iraq as a "GLORIOUS VICTORY," at the very, very least the US occupation has created a breeding ground for guerrilla warfare and terrorist training, and has EMPOWERED unemployed Iraqis to make a name for themselves by simply killing American soldiers. This is ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE at its clearest: a dozen unemployed Iraqis become the match for the professional soldiers of the US military, at the end of long supply lines, and with thousands of dollars of training and equipment behind them. It would be like rewriting the American-Injun wars, except instead of bows and arrows the Injuns have an almost unlimited supply of AK-47s, RPG, and high-explosive bombs. Not only was Saddam Hussein "OUR MAN" in Iraq all through the 1980s, but HE was only able to maintain his control through RUTHLESS SUPPRESSION and genocide: see the "Anfal" campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Iraqi Kurds (and marsh Arabs). The Bush1 administration TWICE assisted or enabled Saddam in his campaigns against Kurds, Shittes, and other separatists, the second time immediately after the 1991 war, when the US command ALLOWED Saddam to use helicopter gunships to suppress the armed revolt, which many in Iraq thought President Bush had encouraged. Body count from that campaign, alone, 300,000, with Peter Galbraith ("End of Iraq") describing multiple executions of captured rebels, their nooses tied to tank barrels which when elevated hung several victims at one time.

Perhaps it is fitting that the younger Bush has stirred up the hornet's nest glossed over by history of the elder Bush's support for Saddam's repressive regime. And if Mr. Andrew Roberts thinks the US-British presence in Iraq is so "glorious", maybe he can set up a news bureau there and report, in person, all the good news!

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

The situation in Iraq is "even worse than we thought''
Iraq Study Group Meets with Bush Monday
By Frank Davies
MediaNews Washington Bureau
http://www.thestate.com/mld/mercurynews/news/15987947.htm

WASHINGTON - The situation in Iraq is ``even worse than we thought,'' with key Iraqi leaders showing no willingness to compromise to avoid increasing violence, said Leon Panetta, a member of the high-powered advisory group that will recommend new options for the war.

The Iraq Study Group, including Panetta, plans to meet with President Bush and his national security team Monday at the White House, and gather more data on the war through briefings and interviews next week. Panetta was chief of staff in the Clinton White House.

The blue-ribbon group, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, plans to make recommendations to the Bush administration and Congress next month on new ways to handle the war. Members said they wanted to wait until after the election, to remove a debate about Iraq from campaign pressures.

After the election, their influence grew and their job became more urgent.

Fueled by discontent over the war, the Democrats scored a sweeping victory, retaking the House and the Senate. U.S. casualties have mounted in recent weeks. Bush signaled new flexibility on Iraq this week by replacing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with former CIA chief Robert Gates -- a member of the Iraq Study Group before accepting his new job.

Many officials in Washington hope that this group of insiders will offer a way out of Iraq, and give some political cover to Bush and a Democratic Congress.

``This week, the pressure on us just went up a few hundred degrees,'' Panetta said Friday. He is a former Democratic congressman who heads the Panetta Institute at California State University-Monterey Bay.

Panetta would not discuss the options the group is considering, noting that members have not reached a consensus yet, but talked about what he has learned about Iraq. The group spent three days in Baghdad in early September and has been briefed by military, intelligence and diplomatic officials.

Private assessments by government officials are much more grim than what is said in public, Panetta said, ``and we left some of those sessions shaking our heads over how bad it is in Iraq.''

U.S. forces can't control sectarian violence and powerful militias. One of the most disturbing findings, Panetta said, is that many Shiite religious leaders who are a big part of the government have no interest in deals or compromises with Sunnis and other groups, and are ``playing for time because they say it's their show.''

After years of Bush administration rhetoric about establishing democracy in Iraq, Panetta said the only achievable goal is a rough stability, ``which can't be done by the military. It requires political reconciliation.''

One scaled-down goal, he added, is ``how do you maintain a low-level civil war so it doesn't blow up into a full-scale civil war?''

The Iraq group is looking at an array of options, including a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces, an accelerated training of Iraqi forces, and diplomatic efforts to involve Iraq's neighbors, according to several media accounts.

Some congressional leaders and retired generals criticized Rumsfeld for arrogance and an inability to admit mistakes and make adjustments in Iraq. Gates will be different, Panetta said.

``He's an old-school pragmatist, like Baker and Brent Scowcroft,'' Panetta said. ``He's flexible and wants to get the job done. He always asked incisive questions, and knows what went wrong in Iraq.''

Gates expressed his frustration with the administration's Iraq policy during a visit last year to the Bay Area.

He shared the stage with former Clinton administration national security adviser Samuel ``Sandy'' Berger at a May 2005 lecture at the Panetta Institute.

Both men expressed surprise that resentment of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and elsewhere had not resulted in suicide bomb attacks inside the United States.

``I too am puzzled by the fact that there haven't been suicide bombers,'' Gates said. ``That's not an invitation, just an observation. We should count ourselves very fortunate.''

Berger and Gates both were critical of the intelligence apparatus that allowed President Bush to receive false information concluding that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

``Fundamentally, it was just a lousy piece of work,'' Gates said.

The key to a new policy on Iraq, Panetta said, is whether Bush will be flexible, and whether Democratic leaders in Congress will try to work with a president who said during the campaign that voting for Democrats would help terrorists.

``Both sides have been in trench warfare for months, and the real question is whether they will be able to put down their grenades and bayonets and pick up the tools you need to get something done,'' he said.

The seismic shift in power this week reminded Panetta of 1994, when he was in the Clinton White House, rocked by the rejection of voters and the loss of Congress to the GOP.

``We were in a state of shock for days, and then we adjusted,'' he said. ``You can actually get things done in a divided government.''

The Democrats' big victory Tuesday also reminded Panetta of voter discontent in California during the 2003 recall election: ``Voters were angry over gridlock, extreme partisanship, the failure to deal with crises -- and they took it out on the party in power.''

Mercury News Staff Writer Ken McLaughlin contr

Senator Leahy determined to restore America's Bill of Rights & habeas corpus?!

2006-11-13T08:06:00.000-05:00

note: SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY was one of the two US senators targetted by the deadly ANTHRAX LETTERS just a week or two after the 9-11-2001 terrorist hijackings; anthrax attacks that KILLED five US postal workers when the deadly bacteria escaped the envelopes they were sent in while going through postal handling equipment.

So it is not suprissing to see that Senator Leahy, a leader who was NOT protected by the the billions and billions of dollars and great secrecy of America's national security apparatus, is among the first COURAGEOUS Democratic leaders to CONFRONT the "Military Commissions Act", aka the "Torture and Dictatorship law", drafted and signed into law at the insistence of the Bush White House.

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

Senator Leahy aims at restoring habeas corpus
Nov. 11, 2006
by UPI/Washington Times
http://washtimes.com/upi/20061111-111429-7560r.htm

A battle is shaping up between Democrats and the White House over the Military Commissions Act, signed into law last month by President George W. Bush.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is expected to take over as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and The (Calif.) Daily Journal reports that Leahy is drafting a bill to undo portions of the new law in an effort to restore habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants.
A spokeswoman for Leahy told the newspaper the bill would be intended to repeal portions of the law that prevent some detainees from pursuing federal court challenges to the government's authority to hold them indefinitely.
Spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler told the newspaper the goal is to "try and do something to reverse the damage."
Scott L. Silliman, Director of the Center for Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University School of Law, told the newspaper an attempt to amend the law could set up a partisan showdown in Congress, and possibly a presidential veto.
Civil rights attorneys filed a constitutional challenge to the act after Bush signed it Oct. 17, the Journal said.

Florida 13th district: THOUSANDS of suspicious UNDERVOTE totals on DIEBOLD machines. America's "PRIVATIZED" voting is an international DISGRACE

2006-11-12T21:47:00.000-05:00

Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent talks to the media about the results of the 13th Congressional Disctrict race Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2006 outside her office in Sarasota, Fla. (AP)

[note: America's "privatized" voting process is a national disgrace and international farce, which is to say a case of CRIMINAL FRAUD of potentially vast proportions. Which is to say, INTENTIONAL criminal fraud on the part of Republican 'leaders', who INSIST that their vote-machine companies - Diebold, ES&S, Sequoi, and Hart-Intercivic - NOT be required to provide the CODE INSPECTION audits that EVERY electronic slot machine in the nation MUST undergo! Electronic "slot" machines as used in Vegas and other gambling locations are RIGOROUSLY AUDITED for code (software) flaws, because the temptation to "skim" some of the electronic proceeds of gambling are so high (Even a minute .01% "skim" could rob the state of thousands of dollars of taxes over the life of a computerized gambling machine.) For Republicans to defend their Frankenstein creation of a voting nightmare- the HAVA voting laws of 2002 - is a clear and present case of INTENTION to CONDUCT FRAUD.]

==============================================
Florida Recount, 2006-Style
Large 'Undervote' In Hot House Race Raises Voting Machine Concerns
CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian and producers Phil Hirschkorn and Michael Rey.
11 November 2006
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/11/11/cbsnews_investigates/main2174376.shtml

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the voting machines used in Manatee, Hardee and DeSoto counties. Those machines are made by Diebold.

On Monday Florida will begin its first recount for a federal election since the botched 2000 presidential contest, but this time there will be no hanging chads. It is the reliability of touch screen electronic voting machines that will be in the spotlight.

The disputed race in Florida's 13th Congressional District, south of Tampa, is one place where the kind of machines used by 40% of American voters this week may have malfunctioned significantly enough to alter the outcome of a seat in Congress.

The CBS News Investigative Unit has obtained an E-mail by a key election official indicating she may have known well before Election Day the machines weren't working properly.

Republican Vern Buchanan beat Democrat Christine Jennings by 373 votes with 237,842 counted, according to unofficial results from the Florida Division of Elections.

That tiny margin – less than one-half of one percent – triggered an automatic recount under Florida state law.

But the Jennings campaign believes thousands of votes in the district's most populous county went unrecorded. If they had been counted, the campaign says, Jennings would be on her way to Washington.

The red flag rose in Sarasota County, the heart of the district, where, if the results are to be believed, nearly one in every six (16%) Election Day voters either skipped or missed the hotly contested House race and were not counted in the final tally.

(Sarasota Herald-Tribune)
The Jennings/Buchanan race was hard to miss on the touch screen iVotronic machines supplied by ES&S. It was the second contest listed on the ballot, right between high profile races for Senator and Governor.

During two weeks of early voting prior to Nov. 7, election officials noticed that an unusually high number of voters using the machines – one in five – seemed to miss the House race.

"Please remind every voter to make sure they do not overlook the 13th congressional race at the top of the second page of voting," wrote Kathy Dent, Sarasota's Supervisor of Elections, to poll workers on Friday, Nov. 3.

"Some voters are overlooking the Buchanan/Jennings race until they get to the review screen," Dent continued in the E-mail obtained by CBS News. "This is critical."

One poll worker who requested anonymity told us how she received the message and reminded people about the House race on Election Day. Her theory: "I am thinking people touched the square and didn't notice the X didn't come out."
Read Kathy Dent's pre-election e-mail.
The results in her precinct showed a huge "undervote" in the House race. "We thought, 'Oh man, we're in trouble," the poll worker says.

As our team investigated voting machine glitches around the country, including Sarasota County on Election Day, Supervisor Dent wrote us: "Voters are simply overlooking the race. There is not a calibration problem."

Dent has since not returned phone calls or replied to questions we posed by E-mail. (In a press conference Wednesday, Dent stood by her view it was the intent of nearly 1 in 6 voters to skip the House race).

Jennings is now crying foul. The Democrat won 53% of the vote in Sarasota County, and her campaign says, had even half the 17,811 "missing" machine votes been recorded, the she would have overcome her margin of defeat.

Compare the Election Day numbers to Sarasota's paper absentee ballots: only two-and-half percent of absentee ballots ignored the House race.

Would six times as many people from the same place do so on Election Day?

They didn't anywhere else in the district, and less than two percent of Sarasota's voters skipped the senatorial and gubernatorial contests.

"I'm suspicious. Something's funny. I wish knew what," says Doug Jones, a University of Iowa computer scientist and expert on voting machine technology.

"Let's assume they were reminding people. That makes it even harder to believe voters weren't expressing an opinion in the race," Jones says.

Voters in one other county in the district, Charlotte County, also used iVotronic touch screen machines made by ES&S, the nation's second largest voting equipment supplier. But of 29,000 voters there, just 226, or under one percent, skipped various House races.

In three other counties in the district – Manatee, Hardee and DeSoto – voters cast paper ballots counted by optical scanners, made by Diebold, the nation's top supplier of election equipment.

In Manatee County, the district's second most populous, where more than 94,000 people voted, there were only 2,300 blanks for the House race, around two percent.

"The vote was fair and accurate," says Buchanan communications director Sally Tibbets. "It does appear that many people chose for whatever reason not to vote in this race. That doesn't mean there is problem with these voting machines."

Dozens of Satasota County voters called "election protection" hotlines. Some did catch their "undervote" when they had the chance.

"I punched in all my candidates including the congressional candidates, and when it came to the review page, I looked up and I noticed that my vote for Christine Jennings hadn't registered," postal worker Joe Betits said.

He tried again, and the vote showed up on the summary page – which is what ES&S says anyone should expect with its machines.

"According to the Supervisor of Elections, undervotes were a result of an intentional choice not to make a selection in the congressional race or unintentional omission of a selection," says ES&S spokesman Ken Fields. "The touch screen system used in Sarasota County provides unlimited opportunity for a voter to make and change selections before a ballot is cast."

ES&S has yet to examine the machines at issue but is sending technicians to assist the recount.

But what will happen in Sarasota and Charlotte counties, is less of a recount than a re-tally of the same results, because Florida is among the 15 states that do not allow touch screen machines to produce a paper trail – a plastic-covered scroll visible to voters summarizing their choices before they hit the "vote" button. (The paper is stored inside the machine; voters don't get an ATM-style receipt).

Virginia, where 78% of voters used touch-screen machines, according to Election Data Services, also does not require a paper trial – a possible factor in Republican Sen. George Allen's decision not to seek a recount in his failed race against Democrat Jim Webb.

"It won't uncover what happened," Jones says of the pending Florida recount. "It really does matter to all of us around the country who use touch screen machines why such a preposterously large percentage of the population didn't have their votes counted."

In a bit of irony, a majority of Sarasota county voters Tuesday passed a referendum requiring the county to use a paper-based ballot system in the future.

What's more, the House seat is being vacated by Katherine Harris, the former Florida Secretary of State who notoriously presided over the 2000 election recount. Harris was trounced in her run for Senate this week.

By Armen Keteyian, Phil Hirschkorn and Michael Rey
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.

OK! Pelosi backs fightin' Marine JOHN MURTHA for Dem. Majority Leader!

2006-11-12T21:09:00.000-05:00

Whether the Democrats realize it or not, they are in a state of PERMANENT CAMPAIGN against the much better funded Republican Party, and, worse, the clock is already ticking as the Republicans seek to gain the advantage to throw back ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY for THEIR OWN FAILED POLICIES back on the Democrats. It is the primal political trick in the book... BLAME YOUR ENEMIES!

Dem. Minority Leader, soon to be Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is reported in this article to be supporting Pennsylvania Representative Jack Murtha for the position of MAJORITY LEADER. We wholeheartedly endorse this move in the "post election power struggle" because, frankly, the other front-runner for the job, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, has done not much to make the news these past 5 years, which is to say he has not distinguished himself in OPPOSITION to the radical, reactionary agenda of the Bush White House and right-wing elements of the Republican Party.

Jack Murtha, on the other hand, HAS stood up and CONFRONTED the Republican leadership, specifically on their ABUSES of the US military for partisan political purposes in the lead up to, and execution of, the Iraq war.

We remind again the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush defeated the Iraq army (and Taliban in Afghanistan) WITH BILL CLINTON's ARMY, regardless of how much Rumsfeld pouted about "you go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." Mr. Rumsfeld, that is the most abjectly chicken**** statement we have ever heard from the Pentagon: almost NO army or navy in history has ever gone to war with all the forces they desired, and in wartime most military units operate at 1/2 strength.. OR LESS. The fact is that Bush-Rumsfeld came into office in early 2001 and immediately proceeded to DISMANTLE the Army's department of PEACEKEEPING, and instead demanded BILLIONS of federal dollars for... STAR WARS. (The militarization of space with whatever kind of weapons anyone can dream of.) Secretary Rumsfeld should bear as much responsibility for the 9-11 attacks as anyone else... not just as the ultimate head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, but in particular because NOVICE National Security Advisor SPECIFICALLY INSISTED that the CIA memorandum "Al Qaida DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA" was personally briefed to Secretary Rumsfeld, who proceeded to do that whole bureaucratic "box of rocks" act.

That is at least TWO MAJOR FAILURES of the Bush adminstration and Secretary of Defense - an abject FAILURE to DO ANYTHING, NOT_ONE_THING to prevent the 9-11 attacks; and a myopic, blind, arrogant approach to the occupation of Iraq. (And a completely tardy effort to provide sufficient body-armor and other basic supplies for troops in that on-going battle.)

IF the Democrats DO NOT DEFINE the Republican's shortcomings and failures, THEY (the Democrats) WILL BE BLAMED FOR THEM.

Congressman Murtha has demonstrated that he is not afraid to confront those failures, although he is far too willing to concede confirmation to Robert Gates as head of the Department of Defense. Gates a former CIA Director who has played bodyguard to the secrets of the Bush 1 papers locked away from public view in the Texas A&M library.

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

Pelosi backs Murtha for majority leader
By DAVID ESPO, AP Special Correspondent 45 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Rep. Nancy Pelosi, next in line to become speaker of the House, stepped into a postelection power struggle among fellow Democrats on Sunday with a letter of support for Rep. Jack Murtha in the race to pick a majority leader.

"Your presence in the leadership of our party would add a knowledgeable and respected voice to our Democratic team," Pelosi, D-Calif., wrote Murtha. The Pennsylvania lawmaker is widely viewed as an underdog in a two-man race with Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record) in this week's leadership elections.

Murtha issued a statement saying, "I am deeply gratified to receive the support of Speaker Pelosi, a tireless advocate for change and a true leader for our party and our country."

Hoyer has been second-ranking in the Democratic leadership behind Pelosi the past four years. He issued a statement saying he was confident he would win the race.

"Nancy told me some time ago that she would personally support Jack. I respect her decision as the two are very close," Hoyer's statement said.

Pelosi and Hoyer have long been rivals within the party caucus, while she and Murtha are allies of long standing.

Murtha, a former Marine who is respected for his knowledge of defense issues, gained national attention last year when he said U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq.

Murtha announced last fall he intended to run for majority leader if Democrats won control of the House, a pre-election jab at Hoyer at a time the Marylander was pledging support for Pelosi.

Both Hoyer and Murtha traveled on behalf of Democratic candidates during the campaign. Hoyer's office said he visited 82 congressional districts and raised or contributed $8.2 million to the party's candidates in the months leading to the elections. No comparable figures were immediately available for Murtha's efforts.

Since the election, Hoyer has released letters of support in the leadership race from senior Democrats as well as from more than half of the incoming lawmakers who won their seats last week.

In her letter, Pelosi began by noting that Murtha had requested her support. Noting his opposition to the war, she added, "Your leadership gave so many Americans, including respected military leaders, the encouragement to voice their own disapproval at a failed policy that weakens our military and makes stability in that region even more difficult to achieve."

One of Hoyer's supporters, Rep.-elect Baron Hill of Indiana, depicted Pelosi's letter as good news for the Maryland lawmaker. Hill said the letter was a statement of personal intent, adding, "She's not asking other members to vote for Murtha."

Pelosi approval at 34%, Bush at 31%. Dems must DEFINE THE NARRATIVE over next 2 years....

2006-11-12T09:46:00.000-05:00

Can They Work Together? Pelosi has 34 percent approval ratings, slightly better than Bush's 31 percent

With Bush's approval ratings plummetting to 31%, Americans are looking for reassurance and direction in confusing and possibly dangerous times. This well written MSNBC/Newsweek article lays out the statistics that a 2/3rds majority of Americans believe that Republicans and the Bush administration LOST the election, more than the Democrats won it. But we here at C-Dems take exception to the last last line of our highlighted paragraph: << Tellingly, just 27 percent said a major reason the Democrats won was because they had better candidates. >>

We feel that the OUTSIDE the BELTWAY Democratic candidates are the STARS AND HEROES of Election 2006, and it is THEY who took the mushy, vacillating, indecisive message of the DLC Democras and REJECTED IT, in favor of more CONFRONTATIONAL LANGUAGE that American voters could respond to without watching the filtered 'news' spin and Sunday morning gab-shows. Even former Republican (!) Secretary of the Navy JAMES WEBB, presumably a former Washington "insider," started his campaign against incumbent VA Senator George Allen with odds of winning that campaign (as reported by a friend) of only 15% ! (Sen. Allen in early 2006 was actually prepping a campaign for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.) When John Tester (TesterForSenate.com) started his campaign 18 months ago against entrenched Right-Wing ideologue, 3-term Republican Senator Conrad Burns, it was an uphill battle from the start. (Burns was an EIGHTEEN YEAR incumbent!) And of course when Ned Lamont took the advice of his public school students to run for office and provide Connecticut votes with SOME alternative to another inevitable term of Republican-in-Democrats clothes Joe Lieberman, no one could have predicted that Lamont's campaign would define the Republican's loss of the House and Senate majorities, even though Lamont would himself lose to a Lieberman who changed his spots back to the Democratic side of the aisle.

So, we disagree with the notion that Democrats did not field BETTER candidates. We believe that the fact that these candidates started against prohibitive odds, many of them with no Washington recognition, that they took on entrenched incumbents, and that they won running against the Republican's inherent fundraising (corporate donations) advantage, AND agains the "major media's" inherent pro-Republican (corporate) bias, demonstratest that they were and are TERRIFIC candidates. Indeed, the Mainstream Media is ALREADY back to its old tricks, trying to SUBORDINATE the WINNING, CONFRONTATIONAL message of these outside-the-beltway Democratic campaigns, to the "INSIDE THE BELTWAY" narrative so favored by the media and their Republican masters. Witness over-paid media bloviator Tim Russert choosing for his first post-election Sunday show Joe Lieberman and John McCain - HARDLY representative of the insurgent, OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY winning candidates this election.

IF Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to be on the winning side in 2008, they will heed the OUTSIDE the Beltway message that gave them their majority leader positions, and NOT go back to business as usual and suffer the fate of Tom Daschle and Dick Gepherdt.

________________________________________________________________

<< Just about everyone believes the Republicans lost the 2006 midterms more than the Democrats won it. Presented with a list of factors that may have contributed to the Democrats’ success, 85 percent of Americans said the “major reason” was disapproval of the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, 71 percent said disapproval of Bush’s overall job performance, 67 percent cited dissatisfaction with how Republicans have handled government spending and the deficit, 63 percent said disapproval of the overall performance of Republicans in Congress, 61 percent said Democrats’ ideas and proposals for changing course in Iraq. Tellingly, just 27 percent said a major reason the Democrats won was because they had better candidates. >>

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

Feeling Blue?
After the Democratic sweep of Congress, President Bush's approval reaches a new low. But voters want Democrats to chart a moderate course.
By Marcus Mabry, Newsweek
Nov. 11, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15667442/site/newsweek/

President George W. Bush’s response was swift and decisive—if a little late. After voters gave Republicans “a thumpin’” at the polls, handing Democrats control of both houses of Congress, Bush banished his contentious defense secretary; invited the presumptive leaders of the new House and Senate to lunch (would-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had pasta; the president ate crow, a Bush aide joked); and suffered through two pained photo-ops with Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Nevada Senator expected to become Majority Leader. And what did the president get for listening to the voice of the American people? The worst approval rating of his presidency.

President Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to just 31 percent, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll. Bill Clinton’s lowest rating during his presidency was 36 percent; Bush’s father’s was 29 percent, and Ronald Reagan’s was 35 percent. Jimmy Carter’s and Richard Nixon’s lows were 28 and 23 percent, respectively. (Just 24 approve of outgoing Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s job performance; and 31 percent approve of Vice President Dick Cheney’s.)

Worst of all, most Americans are writing off the rest of Bush’s presidency; two-thirds (66 percent) believe he will be unable to get much done, up from 56 percent in a mid-October poll; only 32 percent believe he can be effective. That’s unfortunate since 63 percent of Americans say they’re dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country; just 29 percent are satisfied, reports the poll of 1,006 adults conducted Thursday and Friday nights.

But the new poll carries sobering news for Democrats, too, still on their post-victory high. Just about everyone believes the Republicans lost the 2006 midterms more than the Democrats won it. Presented with a list of factors that may have contributed to the Democrats’ success, 85 percent of Americans said the “major reason” was disapproval of the administration’s handling of the war in Iraq, 71 percent said disapproval of Bush’s overall job performance, 67 percent cited dissatisfaction with how Republicans have handled government spending and the deficit, 63 percent said disapproval of the overall performance of Republicans in Congress, 61 percent said Democrats’ ideas and proposals for changing course in Iraq. Tellingly, just 27 percent said a major reason the Democrats won was because they had better candidates.

"Bipartisan" and "Lean to middle" midterm... NOT! Dems won POPULAR VOTE majority of 12.6% in combined Senate races

2006-11-11T18:50:00.000-05:00

<< Look how EASILY the MEDIA MANIPULATES EVERYONE'S PERCEPTIONS, including our own. An hour of vote tabulation reveals a stunning fact: Democrats won the popular vote for the Senate by an overwhelming 12.6% margin - 55%/42.4%. "Bipartisanship" and "compromise" are today's buzzwords, when the phrase on everybody's lips should be "mandate for dramatic change" - especially in Iraq. >>
________________________________________________

What a Mandate! Popular Vote For Senate Was 55%-43% Democratic
RJ Eskow
11.11.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/what-a-mandate-popular-_b_33882.html

Look how easily the media manipulates everyone's perceptions, including our own. An hour of vote tabulation reveals a stunning fact: Democrats won the popular vote for the Senate by an overwhelming 12.6% margin - 55%/42.4%. "Bipartisanship" and "compromise" are today's buzzwords, when the phrase on everybody's lips should be "mandate for dramatic change" - especially in Iraq.

Contrast the media's performance this week with its reaction to the 2004 election results. The overwhelming catchphrase that November was "political capital." Bush had squeaked through with the tiniest popular vote margin of any postwar President, yet was hailed as a leader with a popular mandate to continue his extremist policies.
(For Bush and the media, apparently not actually losing before being appointed was exciting enough.)

What a short road from "political capital" to "need for bipartisanship." Nobody lectured the Bush team in '04 about the need to act in a bipartisan manner - even though, as I pointed out then, the Democratic popular vote mandate in the Senate was as great as Bush's. (Only the Senate's highly unrepresentative form of democracy resulted in a GOP victory that year.)

The other catchphrase on everyone's lips this week is "conservative Democrat." Chris Bowers effectively demolished the myth that Democrats won because of Emanuel's push to recruit conservatives, or that this election somehow represents a victory for the right.

Here's a brain-teaser for the pundits and those who read them: We've just spent an entire election season being lectured about the Lieberman/Lamont primary. We were told that it proved Democrats were Stalinist, overly leftist, and would purge anyone who "deviated from the party line on Iraq."

Now we're being informed that the only reason Democrats won was because they ran a slate of right-wingers. Think about it: Both statements can't be true. Then again, the spinmeisters and thought-shapers don't need to be consistent. They just need to keep the drumbeat going, so that everyone ends up believing it through sheer repetition.

The conservative media machine is the one force in American politics that has proven to be truly "bipartisan."

Now James Carville wants to overthrow Howard Dean, chief architect of this week's success, for right-wing Democrat Harold Ford. That would be the same James Carville who never won a popular-vote majority for President with Bill Clinton, the most gifted politician of his generation. (He's also the same Carville who leaked Kerry strategy secrets to the GOP in 2004.) It would be a grave mistake to listen to him now.

Don't get me wrong: Bipartisanship has its place. But the public and the politicians need to understand that the voters have spoken clearly for change. It's incumbent on our leaders to work in a bipartisan way - to make that change happen.

For a nation bogged down in Iraq, voters have just delivered the 12-and-a-half percent solution.

A Night Light

POSTSCRIPT: You're welcome to double-check my figures. I counted Bernie Sanders as a Democrat, since he said he would caucus with them. I also counted Lieberman as a Dem, since he represented himself as one. Neither candidate altered the percentages significantly given the relatively small population of their states. (Chris Bowers caught one error - that margin's 12.6%, not 11.6% as I'd originally written.)

Democrats busy, FIGHTING for our troops in Iraq??! TOP 20 oversight OUTRAGES from Iraq war....

2006-11-11T11:53:00.000-05:00

Top TWENTY Iraq Oversight Outrages Uncovered by the DPC
by The Democratic Policy Committee
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new2.cfm?doc_name=inv2
October 27, 2006

Republicans in Congress Refuse to Demand Accountability in Iraq;
Billions of Dollars Wasted, Our Mission Undermined

Over the last three years, Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) hearings have uncovered massive waste, fraud, and abuse relating to government contractors operating in Iraq. This report presents twenty of the worst oversight outrages, as documented in testimony and evidence presented at DPC hearings:

1)      Halliburton billed taxpayers $1.4 billion in questionable and undocumented charges under its contract to supply troops in Iraq, as documented by the Pentagon’s own auditors. More…

2)      Parsons billed taxpayers over $200 million under a contract to build 142 health clinics, yet completed fewer than 20. According to Iraqi officials, the rest were “imaginary clinics.” More…

3)      Custer Battles stole forklifts from Iraq’s national airline, repainted them, then leased the forklifts back to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) through a Cayman Islands shell company — charging an extra fee along the way. More…

4)      Halliburton allowed our troops in Iraq to shower, bathe, and sometimes brush their teeth with water that tested positive for e. coli and coliform bacteria. One expert has said that the troops would have been better off using the highly polluted Euphrates River. Halliburton has admitted that it lacked “an organizational structure to ensure that water was being treated in accordance with Army standards and its contractual requirements.” More…

5)      Halliburton served the troops food that had spoiled or passed its expiration date. Halliburton managers ordered employees to remove bullets from food in trucks that had come under attack, then saved the bullets as souvenirs while giving the food to unwitting soldiers and Marines. More…

6)      Halliburton charged taxpayers for services that it never provided and tens of thousands of meals that it never served. More…

7)      Halliburton double-charged taxpayers for $617,000 worth of soda. More…

8)      Halliburton tripled the cost of hand towels, at taxpayer expense, by insisting on having its own embroidered logo on each towel. More…

9)      Halliburton employees burned new trucks on the side of the road because they didn’t have the right wrench to change a tire — and knew that the trucks could be replaced on a profitable “cost-plus” basis, at taxpayer expense. More…

10)   Halliburton employees dumped 50,000 pounds of nails in the desert because they ordered the wrong size, all at taxpayer expense. More…

11)   Halliburton employees threw themselves a lavish Super Bowl Party, but passed the cost on to taxpayers by claiming they had purchased supplies for the troops. More…

12)   Halliburton chose a subcontractor to build an ice factory in the desert even though its bid was 800 percent higher than an equally qualified bidder. More…

13)   Halliburton actively discouraged cooperation with U.S. government auditors, sent one whistleblower into a combat zone to keep him away from auditors, and put another whistleblower under armed guard before kicking her out of the country. More…

14)   Halliburton sent unarmed truck drivers into a known combat zone without warning them of the danger, resulting in the deaths of six truck drivers and two soldiers. Halliburton then offered to nominate the surviving truck drivers for a Defense Department medal — provided they sign a medical records release that doubled as a waiver of any right to seek legal recourse against the company. More…

15)   Halliburton’s no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure was the worst case of contract abuse that the top civilian at the Army Corps of Engineers had ever seen. She was demoted after speaking out. More…

16)   Under its no-bid contract to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure contract, Halliburton overcharged by over 600 percent for the delivery of fuel from Kuwait. More…

17)   Halliburton failed to complete required work under its oil infrastructure work, leaving distribution points unusable. More…

18)   Iraq under the CPA was like the “Wild West,” with few limits and controls over how inexperienced officials spent — and wasted — millions of taxpayer dollars. More…

19)   Cronies at the CPA’s health office lacked experience, ignored the advice of international health professionals, failed to restore Iraq’s health systems, and wasted millions of taxpayer dollars. The political appointee who ran the office had never worked overseas and had no international public health experience. More…

20)   Administration officials promoted construction of a “boondoggle” children’s hospital in Basra, which ended up more than a year behind schedule and at least 100 percent over budget. More…

Democrats FIRST responsibility is to uphold the US Constitution and restore the rule of law and open government...

2006-11-11T09:20:00.000-05:00

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer at a January 2001 press briefing, fanning the flames of the bogus "White House TRASHING" 'SCANDAL'.

Dear Democrats: Based on some degree of equal amounts of DNC/DCCC/DSCC party money, and the fighting efforts of NEW, outsider (from Congressional Dems) candidates, the Democratic Party has retaken the US House and Senate from Republican rule. "Rule" as in 'rule' - NOT a bipartisan MAJORITY, but from the fiercely partisan, divisive, and EXCLUSIONARY _RULE_ of the Bush-Republican party.

The Rove-DeLay-Frist dominated Republican Congress had NO problem with LOCKING DEMOCRATS OUT of committee hearings.

The Bush-Cheney White House had NO PROBLEM concocting the "WHITE HOUSE TRASHING SCANDAL!" out of THIN AIR against the Democratic staffers of the outgoing Clinton-Gore administration.

It was a terrifically effective political tactic: it effectively SMEARED not just the Democratic staffers - throughout the entire nation, American citizens were aghast and disgusted at the low, sore-loser, vandalistic nature alleged of the Clinton-Gore staffers as reported by the whore media — but national POPULAR VOTE WINNER and Vice President Al Gore was SMEARED AS WELL!

Indeed, THE_ENTIRE_DEMOCRATIC PARTY was SMEARED by association from the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Hughes-Fleischer orchestrated SMEAR campaign, a story that was so willingly picked up by a whore DC press corps primed and voracious for new tidbits of CLINTON SCANDALS fed to them by the GOP leadership.

That was then... early January 2001. The effectiveness of the "White House Trashing" SMEAR campaign gave George W. Bush and his White House, and the Republican Party, the POLITICAL CAPITAL they needed to ram FIERCELY PARTISAN nominees past the somnolent and quiescent Democratic Senate 'leadership.' Nominees like Attorney General John Ashcroft, so partisan in his view of "Moral Values" that he ordered statues at the Justice Department to be covered with draperies to hide the sensuous features that had been on display there for DECADES!

The effectiveness of the "White House Trashing" SMEAR campaign also ALLOWED President Bush to ram his controversial budget-busting TAX-CUTS for billionaires through Congress, an economic policy so fraught with problems that the president's first Secretary of Treasury, Paul O'Neill, was also the administration's first cabinet official to resign... under a moniker of "loose canon" as portrayed by the White House, even though it was the monster tax cuts that were the "loose canon" on the national economy.

(Note: Paul O'Neill had a tremendously effective and illustrious career in private business, he OWED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to George W. Bush or even George H. W. Bush (Sr.) for that career, and neither O'Neill or his wife wanted the job in the incoming Bush administration. He allowed himself to be talked into the post by Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, on the assumption that the Republican's "business friendly policies" would be good for America, and the Bush team could use some experienced, creative corporate leadership in the cabinet. Despite that reluctance O'Neill's entire lifetime career will forever be framed and capped in terms of his brief tenure as Secretary of Treasury, and indeed the title of O'Neill's autobiographical tenure as Secretary is "The PRICE OF LOYALTY" - AS IF self-made success story Paul O'Neill owed President Bush or the Bush administration ANYTHING!)

This has already been a long post, devoted to merely REMINDING about the false accusations of the "White House TRASHING 'scandal'" and other Republican tactics and means at denigrating, disempowering, and delegitimizing the Democratic Party, the Democratic agenda, and even (illegal) DISENFRANCHISEMENT of Democratic voters.

Which brings us to the point of this post: THE FIRST PRIORITY of the new Democratic Congressional majority is TO UPHOLD the LAWS of the United States, and to UPHOLD the United States Constitution.

IF, down the road, that means the IMPEACHMENT of the President and Vice President for gross and/or criminal abuses of powers, there is NO NEED to make that the focus of Democratic efforts today. (Neither does that mean that impeachment should be categorically disavowed.)

The answer to press inquiries - from BOTH the "Left" and the "right" is that the Democratic Majority of the 110th Congress is simply dedicated and determined to UPHOLD US LAWS, and to hold EVERYONE in government ACCOUNTABLE TO THOSE LAWS.

We here at C-dems.blogspot.com have NO doubt that, if President Clinton's response to the Ken Starr/Paula Jones PERJURY TRAP warranted THE IMPEACHMENT of President Bill Clinton, then the wrongs and abuses of the Bush 43 White House- from intentional, premeditated lies to war; gross, criminal negligence before the 9-11 terror attacks; the failure to capture and prosecute the anthrax terrorist; the failure to protect America's ports, chemical plants, and nuclear facilities from future attacks (witness FEMA and Homeland Securities appalling failures re Katrina); the failure to provide a master environmental recovery plan for New Orleans (spurred in part, we feel, by the desire of the Bush administration to permanently DISENFRANCHISE New Orleans's minority voters); the close connections of the Bush White House to ENRON fraud and Halliburton profiteering; the instigation of Torture and the promotion of the Torture generals; and of course the administration's own efforts to "PRIVATIZE" the nation's voting process with computerized machines that would not pass ANY state's slot-machine code inspections - on these and a dozen other issues, the administration has, in our estimation, FAR exceeded the threshold of the Clinton Impeachment.

What is important is that the Democratic 'leadership' NOT fall into the abyss of RUNNING AWAY FROM THOSE ISSUES (and scandals) that have so typified the party since the Republicans orchestrated the lame-duck congress impeachment.

Again, the focus of the Democratic Party should be on the RESTORATION of the RULE OF LAW, and defense of, and UPHOLDING of, the United States Constitution.

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

The White House vandal scandal that wasn't
How the incoming Bush team nudge-nudged a credulous press corps into swallowing a trashy Clinton story.
By Kerry Lauerman and Alicia Montgomery
Salon.com, May 23, 2001

| WASHINGTON -- The "scandal" broke benignly enough, with an item in Lloyd Grove's dishy Reliable Source column in the Jan. 23 Washington Post, three days after the inauguration of George W. Bush.

"Incoming staffers of the Bush White House," Grove wrote, were "apparently victims of a practical joke." Bush aides in the Old Executive Office Building (EOB), adjacent to the White House, discovered that "many computer keyboards in their work spaces are missing the W key -- as in President Bush's middle initial."

Some W keys were discovered "taped on top of the doorways," while others were broken.

The report was more CUTE than cutting, with Grove quoting former Al Gore spokesman Chris Lehane, who quipped: "I think the missing W's can be explained by the vast left-wing conspiracy now at work."

But within two days, Grove's playful item had MORPHED INTO ONE MORE FULL-BLOWN Clinton SCANDAL. Suddenly NEWSPAPERS and TV _'NEWS'_ shows were featuring extensive reports of Clinton administration "vandalism," stretching from the EOB offices of former Vice President Gore to the West Wing. Reports alleged expletive-ridden graffiti, sliced computer and telephone wires, file cabinets glued shut, presidential seals steamed off doors, stolen pictures and so-called porn bombs, which were never exactly described.

The technological problems the vandals wrought were so severe that, according to a report in the New York Daily News, "a telecommunications staffer with more than a quarter-century of service was seen sobbing."

"Phone lines cut, drawers filled with glue, door locks jimmied so that arriving Bush staff got locked inside their new offices," a disapproving Andrea Mitchell reported on NBC News. The message seemed clear: The trailer-trash Clintons and their staff had enjoyed one last bacchanal at taxpayer expense.

Now it seems those closely detailed stories were largely bunk. Last week it was revealed that a formal review by the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative agency, "had found no damage to the offices of the White House's East or West Wings or EOB" and that Bush's own representatives had reported "there is no record of damage that may have been deliberately caused by the employees of the Clinton administration."

While cautious GSA staffers won't issue a blanket exoneration of the Clinton team, Bernard Ungar, the agency's director of physical infrastructure, told Salon the media clearly exaggerated the extent of the damage. According to the terse GSA statement that formed the basis of Ungar's conclusion, "the condition of the real property was consistent with what we would expect to encounter when tenants vacate office space after an extended occupancy."

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., the ardent Clinton foe who requested the GAO review, has tried to interpret the agency's findings to mean no "record of damage" had been compiled, not that no damage had occurred. But the lack of records "cataloging" any damages -- which Bush press secretary ARI FLEISCHER promised in January the White House would compile -- would seem to suggest one thing: Widespread acts of vandalism never occurred.

So how did the vandal scandal that wasn't get blown into a MEDIA FIRESTORM?

"Certainly PEOPLE INSIDE the [Bush] administration FED THIS STORY," says an angry John Podesta, Clinton's former chief of staff. "At least they got what they wanted out of it."

A close look at the way the scandal mushroomed bolsters Podesta's view: The BUSH ADMINISTRATION HELPED THE 'VANDAL SCANDAL' ALONG, publicly appearing to try to douse the flames, while PRIVATELY FANNING THEM with detailed, off-the-record allegations of damage. On Tuesday, after the GAO's review was made public, Fleischer was left trying to spin himself out of a very deep hole, insisting he had tried to "knock down" the vandal story when it first emerged.

But [an official WH] TRANSCRIPT of Fleischer's Jan. 25 briefing on the issue contradicts him. It shows the Bush spokesman coyly encouraging reporters' suspicions about the vandal scandal, while refusing to confirm or deny the reports of damage. According to one leading White House reporter, the story was also nudged along by two unnamed Bush aides.

Fleischer and the off-the-record Bush staffers, meanwhile, got a lot of HELP from a PRESS CORPS EAGER for early scoops from a new administration. For some reporters and pundits, the White House vandalism story was just too good to pass up.
(p.1 of 3, http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/05/23/vandals/index.html )

James Carville, WTF?!! Carville joins the DLC BACKSTABBING of Howard Dean mere days after Dean's "50 state" strategy vindicated in election '06

2006-11-10T15:10:00.000-05:00

James Carville (left) with Paul Begala, co-leaders of the winning 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. Carville also wrote his book, solo, "We're Right, They're Wrong" about how the Right-Wing Republican agenda destroys the fabric of America.
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The last time we saw James Carville was on the eve of the 2000 election, when he and his wife, Mary Matlin, took their dog-and-pony show to a South Florida Univesity to talk poltics about the upcoming election. Since there were only about 200 students, faculty, staff, and locals at the event (out of a body of thousands), there was something of a scandal over the Carville's enormous speaking fees. The defining aspect of the the tag-team speech was that Carville REFUSED to go after the record of Texas Governor George W. Bush, despite Bush saddling Texas with (even back then) billion-dollar deficits, and despite Bush's every campaign promise being either an outright lie or a severe distortion. (e.g., Gov. Bush bragging about his "education" credentials, DESPITE SLASHING PUBLIC EDUCATION FUNDS in that state for - what else - Tax CUTS for Texas' wealthiest corporations.)

As Mr. Carville well knew in 2000, Democrats ONLY win campaigns when they AGGRESSIVELY GO AFTER the RECORD of their Republican opposition. FAILURE of Dems to AGGRESSIVELY counter Repub. propaganda means that Republican fundraising and donations will trump wishy-washy Democratic campaigns.

SO, essentially, James Carville, the ring-leader of the Clinton-Gore "War Room" in 1992, and the campaign strategist who came up with "IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID" unofficial motto of that 1992 campaign, was advocating that Gore run a 2000 "politics as usual" campaign, talking POLICY and not personality (can you say "BORING"?) and we can only surmise that he did so out of deference to his wife, A LEADING Republican CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST.

As James Carville well knows, The Republican Congress and the Bush administration are SYNONYMOUS with CORRUPTION, INCOMPETENCE, and at times almost treasonous betrayal of the principles that have made America great. (For example, #1. In 2000 Gov. Bush campaigned as a "Uniter, NOT Divider" and as a "More BIPARTISAN leader," yet in early 2001, Bush NEGLECTED his duties to defend America from known Al Qaida threats, and instead spent the ENTIRE SUMMER of 2001 either on vacation, or at REPUBLICAN PHOTO-OPS, FUNDRAISERS, and BASH-DEMOCRATS media campaigns, including the ENTIRELY FABRICATED "White House TRASHING scandal." #2. Where has Carville been on the subject of DIEBOLD secret voting machines, and their INHERENT inaccuracy and untrustworthiness of those "privatized" no audit, no verification machines?)

Mr. Carville, by TOLERATING this Republican thuggishness.. by NOT GOING TO THE MAT to DEFEND Democrats WRONGLY ACCUSED by Republican bullying, fear-mongering, SMEAR-MONGERING, and DISENFRANCHISEMENT, you are as COMPLICIT with those Repub. smear-campaigns as the Washington Post, New York Times, and other "major media" have been.

There are FORMER REPUBLCIANS **DISGUSTED** with the Bush White House and Tom DeLay's corrupt, Lame-Duck Congress.. but you won't get a LICK OF THAT OUTRAGE from the guy who was NOTHING BUT OUTRAGE in 1992.

Instead, Carville reserves his outrage.. and long knives.. for HOWARD DEAN, the outsider (like Gov. Clinton was in 1992) who was pretty much robbed of the Democratic '04 nomination by the "ain't Kerry a hero!" DLC and Democratic DC machine, which JUMPED ALL OVER DEAN in '04... without giving Democratic votes a FIGHTING alternative!

(check here for Joe Conason's short-but-sweet take on Dean's WINNING strategy...)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2006/11/10/dean_dems/

PS: Harold Ford kept running so far to the RIGHT to woo Tennessee voters, that if the RNC had offered him a job as a Republican candidate, we can imagine him considering the offer.)
_________________________________________________________________

A PUTSCH AT THE DNC?:
http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=56467

Some big name Democrats want to oust DNC Chairman Howard Dean, arguing that his stubborn commitment to the 50-state strategy and his stinginess with funds for House races cost the Democrats several pickup opportunities.
The candidate being floated to replace Dean? Harold Ford.
Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager."

--Ryan Lizza