Thursday, June 28, 2007

Repub Grip on Rural voters in doubt in '08.... except for cowardly Democrat's ability to snatch defeat from jaws of victory....

Repub Grip on Rural voters is in doubt for 2008.... except for cowardly Democrat's infinite ability to SNATCH DEFEAT FROMT THE JAWS OF VICTORY with their
corruptly complicity lobbyists/AIPAC/neo-con/defense-industry/bow-before-media-moguls agenda....

Note, too, another, in a similar NY Times article "YOUNG AMERICANS ARE LEANING LEFT" - which voter group (along with Rural voters) the damn cowering Democrats WILL ALSO BE ABLE TO ALIENATE by election time, November 2008)...

Young Americans Are Leaning Left, New Poll Finds
By Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee
June 27, 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/washington/27poll.html

Young Americans are more likely than the general public to favor a government-run universal health care insurance system, an open-door policy on immigration and the legalization of gay marriage, according to a New York Times/CBS News/MTV poll. The poll also found that they are more likely to say the war in Iraq is heading to a successful conclusion.


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


Republican Grip on Rural America in Doubt for '08

By Greg Giroux,
CONGRESSIONAL QUARTERLY
June 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/cq/2007/06/26/cq_2968.html

Although the 2004 presidential election was relatively close, those color-coded maps of voter preference showed most of the nation as a sea of Republican “red” — a graphic representation of President George W. Bush’s dominance in the sprawling but sparsely populated rural areas of the United States.

That was then. But in the past three years, Bush’s standing in rural America has slipped — raising questions whether the 2008 nominee of his Republican Party will be able to repeat the dominance Bush enjoyed in those regions in his 2000 and 2004 presidential victories.

If next year’s Democratic nominee were able to make inroads in normally conservative-leaning rural areas, it would seriously compromise the Republican Party’s efforts to win a third consecutive presidential election — and hinder its attempts to reclaim control of one or both chambers of Congress, which the GOP lost in a 2006 electoral debacle.

The possibility that rural America could be a battleground sector in the 2008 election was a major finding of a bipartisan poll sponsored by the Center for Rural Strategies and conducted recently by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner in consultation with the Republican media firm Greener and Hook.

The survey’s good news for Democrats included a finding that 52 percent of rural respondents disapprove of President Bush’s job performance, compared with 44 percent who approve.

That suggests that Bush is actually somewhat less unpopular in rural areas than in the nation at large, where roughly two-thirds of the respondents in a series of recent polls disapproved of how he is handling his job.

Yet Bush’s rural dropoff has arguably been at least as steep: While the president won re-election over Democrat John Kerry by a national margin of just more than 2 percentage points, rural respondents favored him by 19 percentage points in 2004.

The survey found that rural voters prefer an unnamed Democratic presidential candidate over a Republican candidate by 46 percent to 43 percent. A Democratic congressional candidate leads a Republican on a generic ballot test by 46 percent to 44 percent. And survey respondents, by a 45 percent to 33 percent margin, say that Democrats have done a better job than Republicans in paying attention to “rural issues.”

The Iraq war is a major issue of concern in rural America, as it is in non-rural areas. According to the survey, 25 percent identified the Iraq war as the issue they think Bush and the Democratic-controlled Congress should be paying the most attention.

Yet rural America is not as hostile to the Bush administration on its Iraq policy as are suburban or urban voters.

“Both Democrats and Republicans will need to navigate their approach to the war carefully in rural America,” Democratic consultant Anna Greenberg and Republican consultant William Greener wrote in a memorandum that accompanied the poll data.

Survey respondents also identified illegal immigration (12 percent) and energy and gas prices (12 percent) as among the most difficult issues they want policymakers to tackle. Many rural communities lack access to basic health care, which they also rate as a top priority.

One potential advantage for Republicans is that rural America by and large is socially conservative. Rural residents report a higher degree of gun ownership than non-rural areas, and they resist efforts to restrict gun rights. This helped Bush in 2000 and 2004.

When survey respondents were read descriptions of two unnamed presidential candidates — a Democrat who supports redploying troops from Iraq and backs abortion rights and civil unions for same-sex couples and a Republican who takes the opposite positions — the Republican candidate was preferred by a margin of 54 percent to 39 percent.

“Values matter here and, in fact, voters prefer to choose a candidate for president committed to ‘family values’ than a candidate who will end the war in Iraq,” the memo said. “Republicans still have an opportunity to revive the conservative instincts of this region and reclaim their lost base.”

Democratic strategists want economic issues to trump social issues in rural America, and the survey showed that the region is anxious about its economic future. Rural voters by and large see suburbs and cities benefiting far more from national economic growth than they are. Some Democratic candidates — even liberal ones — have sometimes prospered in rural areas by echoing populist themes that call attention to this disparity.

“Rural voters will weigh both economics and values in making their decisions in the next year and a half,” Greenberg and Greener wrote. “The degree to which they stress one more than the other could well determine the outcome.”

© 2006 Congressional Quarterly

Faced with CRUMBLING APPROVAL RATINGS, the Dem leadership FINALLY decides to go after the crimes and corruptions of Bush-Cheney co....

Faced with CRUMBLING Congressional FAVORABILITY RATINGS, House and Senate Democrats have begun a full-scale campaign to pin responsibility on the GOP for the failure to either enact key domestic legislation or to stem the bloodshed in Iraq.,
(article by Thomas B. Edsall at HuffingtonPost.com)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/27/democrats-looking-to-make_n_54083.html

FINALLY the Democratic 'leadership' notices - Americans have been UNDER ASSAULT by the jobs-outsourcing, education-slashing, disaster-ignoring, benefits-denying, wages-hacking, criminal-indictments, crony-corruption Bush-Rove-Cheney-Abramoff-DeLay-Libby-Cunningham White House and Republican Party, and Americans WANT their elected government to REIGN IN those criminal and abusive executive powers and policies of Bush-Cheney co.
That is, after all, the CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY of Congress, however much the corporate media whores try to spin the Congress's sole job as doing nothing more than empowering corporate greed and tax cuts for billionaires.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/06/27/democrats-looking-to-make_n_54083.html

Democrats finally notice reality, SUBPOENA Cheney and his White House...

In a LONG OVERDUE indication that the Democratic Party has a pulse, and that America actually has some form of democracy.... some form of opposition party - (the Demcorats only 'won' majority control of the Congress and the Senate in 2006 because of a tide of breaking Republican scandals and criminal convictions, which is to say, not so much because of any great leadership on the part of Congressional Democrats), well the Democratic 'leadership' has FINALLY noticed that it is their responsibility, as LAW MAKERS, to make sure that the LAWS congress makes are actually ENFORCED. Without ENFORCEMENT, laws become nothing but propaganda decrees, and the US Constitution explicitly set up CONGRESS as the MOST IMPORTANT BODY OF GOVERNMENT, explicitly to REIGN IN and HOLD ACCOUNTABLE any unlimited, dictatorial powers exerted either by a king or more common political would-be dictator.

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


White House, Cheney's Office Subpoenaed

LAURIE KELLMAN
June 27, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070627/eavesdropping-subpoenas/??

WASHINGTON — The Senate subpoenaed the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office Wednesday, demanding documents and elevating the confrontation with President Bush over the administration's warrant-free eavesdropping on Americans.

Separately, the Senate Judiciary Committee also is summoning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to discuss the program and an array of other matters that have cost a half-dozen top Justice Department officials their jobs, committee chairman Patrick Leahy announced.

Leahy, D-Vt., raised questions about previous testimony by one of Bush's appeals court nominees and said he wouldn't let such matters pass.

"If there have been lies told to us, we'll refer it to the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney for whatever legal action they think is appropriate," Leahy told reporters. He did just that Wednesday, referring questions about testimony by former White House aide Brett Kavanaugh, who now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.


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The escalation is part of the Democrats' effort to hold the administration to account for the way it has conducted the war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The subpoenas extend the probe into the private sector, demanding among other things documents on any agreements that telecommunications companies made to cooperate with the surveillance program.

The White House contends that its search for would-be terrorists is legal, necessary and effective _ pointing out frequently that there have been no further attacks on American soil. Administration officials say they have given classified information _ such as details about the eavesdropping program, which is now under court supervision _ to the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress.

Echoing its response to previous congressional subpoenas to former administration officials Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor, the White House gave no indication that it would comply with the new ones.

"We're aware of the committee's action and will respond appropriately," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. "It's unfortunate that congressional Democrats continue to choose the route of confrontation."

In fact, the Judiciary Committee's three most senior Republicans _ Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, former chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa _ sided with Democrats on the 13-3 vote last week to give Leahy the power to issue the subpoenas.

The showdown between the White House and Congress could land in federal court.

Also named in subpoenas signed by Leahy were the Justice Department and the National Security Council. The four parties _ the White House, Cheney's office, the Justice Department and the National Security Council _ have until July 18 to comply, Leahy said. He added that, like House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., he would consider pursuing contempt citations against those who refuse.

Gonzales, in Spokane, Wash., on Wednesday to discuss gang issues with local officials, said he had not seen the subpoena documents and could not comment on them directly.

"There are competing institutional interests," Gonzales said.

The Judiciary committees have issued the subpoenas as part of a look at how much influence the White House exerts over the Justice Department and its chief, Gonzales.

The probe, in its sixth month, began with an investigation into whether administration officials ordered the firings of eight federal prosecutors for political reasons. The Judiciary committees subpoenaed Miers, one-time White House legal counsel, and Taylor, a former political director, though they have yet to testify.

Now, with senators of both parties concerned about the constitutionality of the administration's efforts to root out terrorism suspects in the United States, the committee has shifted to the broader question of Gonzales' stewardship of Justice.

The issue concerning Kavanaugh, a former White House staff secretary, is whether he misled the Senate panel during his confirmation hearing last year about how much he was involved in crafting the administration's policy on enemy combatants.

The Bush administration secretly launched the eavesdropping program, run by the National Security Agency, in 2001 to monitor international phone calls and e-mails to or from the United States involving people the government suspected of having terrorist links. The program, which the administration said did not require investigators to seek warrants before conducting surveillance, was revealed in December 2005.

After the program was challenged in court, Bush put it under the supervision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established in 1978. The president still claims the power to order warrantless spying.

The subpoenas seek a wide array of documents from the Sept. 11 attacks to the present. Among them are any that include analysis or opinions from Justice, NSA, the Defense Department, the White House, or "any entity within the executive branch" on the legality of the electronic surveillance program.

Debate continues over whether the program violates people's civil liberties. The administration has gone to great lengths to keep it running.

Interest was raised by vivid testimony last month by former Deputy Attorney General James Comey about the extent of the White House's effort to override the Justice Department's objections to the program in 2004.

Comey told the Judiciary Committee that Gonzales, then-White House counsel, tried to persuade Attorney General John Ashcroft to reverse course and recertify the program. At the time, Ashcroft lay in intensive care, recovering form gall bladder surgery.

Ashcroft refused, as did Comey, who temporarily held the power of the attorney general's office during his boss' illness.

The White House recertified the program unilaterally. Ashcroft, Comey, FBI Director Robert Mueller and their staffs prepared to resign. Bush ultimately relented and made changes the Justice officials had demanded, and the agency eventually recertified it.

Fratto defended the surveillance program as "lawful" and "limited."

"It's specifically designed to be effective without infringing Americans' civil liberties," Fratto said. "The program is classified for a reason _ its purpose is to track down and stop terrorist planning. We remain steadfast in our commitment to keeping Americans safe from an enemy determined to use any means possible _ including the latest in technology _ to attack us."

____

Associated Press Writer Nicholas K. Geranios in Spokane, Wash., contributed to this report.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Nancy Pelosi is swiftly going down as the most feeble, complicit, and enabling Speaker of House in American history....

FINALLY! The 'buzz' is starting to sink in to the American consciousness... The Bush-Cheney administration are like abusive, violent parents... and Nancy Pelosi is like the mother in Florida who was so desperate for the approval and company of her boyfriend, that she did nothing to protect her daughter from violent abuse, and eventually was complicit in the post-murder burial and false "missing" story that her boyfriend gave to police to avoid suspicion.

Nancy, the Vice President and President are HARMFUL to America, as you well know... They put the profits of their corporate cronies above the welfare of America's combat troops (much less, heaven forbid, the combat-wounded veterans of that war).... Hell, they put the TAX CUTS for their BILLIONAIRE CRONIES ahead of the welfare of combat troops and veterans, much less the citizens of New Orleans who didn't have second homes to run to, much less the millions of Americans who have no health insurance, much less the millions of seniors DENIED cross-border trips to purchase discount drugs by the Big Pharma "Prescription Drug Reform" bill pushed by the Bush White House.... much less thousands of investors and workers ROBBED by Enron fraud (with Senator Joe Lieberman complicit in the smothering of the 2002 Enron investigation in his committee), much less the MILLIONS of California rate-payers EXTORTED by Enron, with the blessings and cover of the Bush-Cheney White House.

ALL that Americans (and future history books) need to realize is that the Democrats did NOTHING to rectify those serial, chronic, appalling, and atrocious abuses to the body of American society... which is why Mr. Dave Lindorff is CORRECT - by the time this 110th Congress runs for re-election, they will be fully AS DESPISED as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove now are.

Well, at least Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats have given us a 6 month moratorium on the nuclear war against Iran... but that, too, will be gone with the wind as this Congress degenerates into apathetic mush.




Dave Lindorff: Nancy & Harry: Bringing Down the House (and Senate)
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Tue, 06/26/2007
by Dave Lindorff
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1102

Vice President Cheney says he doesn't have to obey the law relating to national security records held in the executive office because as vice president, he's not part of the executive branch.

Cheney is reported to be actively lobbying the president to pardon a convict, L. "Scooter" Libby, his former right-hand-man, his "Cheney's Cheney," whom everyone knows took the fall and lied to a federal prosecutor to protect his boss. That is, the vice president is seeking a pardon for a man who, if he got tired of sitting in jail, could send him to jail.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the nation's top law enforcement official, has lied repeatedly to Congress.

President Bush has openly and audaciously on over 1,200 occasions refused to enact all or parts of hundreds of laws passed by the Congress of the United States, claiming for himself a non-existent "unitary executive authority" that purportedly makes him an extraconstitutional tyrant whose office comprises all executive, legislative, and judicial power in the government, thus rendering Congress and the Judiciary merely vestigial bodies much like the tiny hip and bones buried deep inside the body of a whale.

Bush continues to expand a war in Iraq, adding tens of thousands of overstretched and exhausted troops and producing hundreds of new dead American bodies, despite a clear call in last November's election for an end to a conflict that has now lasted longer than World War II. He also continues to claim that the war is legal, despite overwhelming evidence that both he and the vice president lied brazenly and repeatedly about the reasons for it.

The president continues to insist that Americans and captives in various American wars can be held in violation of International Law and the Constitution, with no trial, no habeas corpus rights, no right to a lawyer, and no protection from torture.

The president refuses to talk about or explain the details of an extra-judicial spying program against Americans that he authorized, even after it had been declared a serious felony and violation of the First and Fourth Amendments. It is a program that was so offensive that even his one-time attorney general John Ashcroft, a man who saw nothing wrong with organizing 20 million Americans to spy on the rest of us, refused to sign on, and indeed threatened to resign.

And the president, in myriad ways, continues to obstruct global and domestic efforts to begin to seriously address the mounting disaster of global heating -- a crisis that threatens the survival not just of the nation, but of the human race.

In the face of all these crimes and abuses of power, what have the Democrats done? The easiest way to show the Democratic response to all this criminality is to leave what we writers call a double-space break:


That's it.

Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

When Democrats won the 2006 off-year election, and when they assumed control of the 110th Congress, there was big talk about pressing ahead with investigations of administration wrongdoing and bungling, and of pushing forward a progressive Democratic agenda. There was talk of investigating the president's assault on civil liberties, of ending the Iraq War, of dealing with a national health care crisis that now leaves 45 million Americans with no insurance and no access to decent medical care, of funding a gutted educational system, of passing legislation to begin cutting back on America's prodigious and unconscionable production of global warming gases, and of fixing an electoral system that is a national embarrassment and an invitation to theft and manipulation.

And what have they actually done? Unfortunately, the answer here is not "nothing," which might have been better.

No. Instead, they funded the Iraq war for months to come, in full with no strings attached, and passed a minimum wage hike that is so minimal most workers won't even know it happened, because their own states already have higher pay mandates.

Little wonder that support for Democrats in Congress has cratered, plunging from a euphoric 65 percent right after the last election to 23 percent today.

The Democratic Congress, incredibly, has managed in five short months of inaction and diddling around to become less popular than this most loathed and ridiculed of presidents!

Like Laurel and Hardy near the end of a disaster skit, in which their antics have caused nothing but mounting chaos and ruin, the only challenge left for the great leadership team of Speaker Nancy "Impeachment's-off- the-table" Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is to see if they can succeed in driving Democratic support numbers down below even the 9 percent level enjoyed by Vice President Cheney.

I have no doubt that this sorry duo can manage this feat, given enough time. All they have to do is keep funding the war, keep ignoring the president's crimes and the mounting popular calls for his impeachment, keep bottling up the Cheney impeachment bill submitted by Rep. Dennis Kucinich and co-sponsored, now by seven other House members, and keep yakking about wanting to work "across the aisle" and "with the president."

The president has his legacy. He is all set to go down in history as the most wretched, debased, ignorant, mean-spirited, and treasonous chief executive in the nation's history. He really need do nothing more to lock in his title.

Pelosi and Reid are well on the way, though, to being able to claim the companion title of lamest opposition leaders in the nation's history.

DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for
Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, 2006), now available in paperback. His work is available at thiscantbehappening.net.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Hillary's lying and cowardly Iraq war stance - she denies her own responsibility and blames the victims. By Senator Mike Gravel

Democratic presidential candidate and former Senator Mike Gravel hits a home run with this 10 paragraph commentary on Hillary Clinton's role - and responsibility - in the major disaster that is the Iraq invasion and occupation, and the Congessional Democrat's abject failure to hold the Bush administration accountable for anything - much less actually restrain the Bush-Cheney White House from any of their worst impulses.

<< In an indignant voice she [Hillary in a campaign speech] decried the Bush administration's ''stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok. . . It is everything our founders were afraid of, everything our Constitution was designed to prevent.'' ACTUALLY, our CONSTITUTION GRANTS CONGRESS THESE POWERS to PREVENT these ills.. BUT HILLARY AND HER COLLEAGUES WEREN'T UP TO THE TASK.

In the same frightening speech, Hillary went on the blame the Iraqis for the mess in their country: "The American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions that are important for their own people.''

Let me get this straight. The Iraq disaster is not the fault of the DELUSIONAL neo-cons, the GREEDY OIL COMPANIES, or THE GULLIBLE and COWARDLY CONGRESSIONAL WARHAWKS. (Most senators including Clinton didn't even bother to read the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate). According to Hillary, the real culprit is the Iraqi government that we created virtually overnight and left to govern a fractured, impoverished society. Talk about blaming the victim! >>

Hillary CLAIMS to be a leader, a leader in Congress and on the national stage as well. But while Senate Republicans can SHUT DOWN the senate's debate of any bill in moments (via the filibuster), Hillary and her fellow Democratic senators could never exercise a filibuster in the minority, and now that they are in the majority, they STILL cower behind the Republican Party's filibuster-setting agenda.

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

Why Hillary Scares Me
Sen. Mike Gravel
Posted June 25, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-mike-gravel/why-hillary-scares-me_b_53586.html

During one of the debates I mentioned that my fellow Democratic candidates scare me. Hillary's speech last week to the Take Back America conference gives me yet another reason to be afraid.

In an indignant voice she decried the Bush administration's ''stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok. . . It is everything our founders were afraid of, everything our Constitution was designed to prevent.'' Actually, our Constitution grants Congress the power to prevent these ills but Hillary and her colleagues weren't up to the task.

Our founders' legacy did not stop Hillary from voting for the Patriot Act and then supporting its renewal in 2006 despite revelations that the government was using it to infringe on the very liberties that our founders held sacred. Where was her commitment to our founders when she voted to gut our habeas corpus protections?

As for cronyism -- Hillary has repeatedly authorized billions that the Pentagon gave in no-bid contracts to Halliburton. Even though the Democrats have been in control of Congress for months, they still haven't summoned Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld and the other usual suspects to account for the missing millions in reconstruction funding.

When I think about how Congress enabled Bush's corruption and cronyism, I'm reminded of the lines from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

- And why should Caesar be [not] a tyrant then?
- Poor man! I know he would not be a wolf,
- But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:
- He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.

In the same frightening speech, Hillary went on the blame the Iraqis for the mess in their country: "The American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions that are important for their own people.''

Let me get this straight. The Iraq disaster is not the fault of the delusional neo-cons, the greedy oil companies, or the gullible and cowardly Congressional warhawks. (Most senators including Clinton didn't even bother to read the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate). According to Hillary, the real culprit is the Iraqi government that we created virtually overnight and left to govern a fractured, impoverished society. Talk about blaming the victim!

Hillary, as an active supporter of the war, you are one of many Americans who are guilty. And now all Americans are left responsible, regardless of whether we supported or opposed he war. When we pull out, our hands will drip with the blood of the tens of thousands of American casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead. The Iraqi government didn't start this, we did.

Of course we can continue to compartmentalize ourselves from the truth, remove the troops and blame the rubble on the Iraqis. We can feed the collective fantasy that our good intentions and heroic efforts were thwarted by the cowardice and incompetence of others. But if that's what we take from our experience in Iraq, we will never learn the true lessons and we will be condemned to repeat the same mistakes.

The inability to admit a mistake and assume responsibility is not just a morally bankrupt way to walk through life; it is a dangerous and deadly way to lead a nation. When I am president, I will open up all secret files relating to the Iraq war and expose all officials who lied to the public in promoting it. (That's right, Dick, your files too.) My Justice Department will prosecute everyone who lied under oath or ripped off the American taxpayer by exploiting the Iraq reconstruction effort. And I will pardon to no one.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Cowardly Democrats leave anti-war combat Veterans out to hang in the breeze....

Demonstrating yet again that the Democratic Party is totally corrupted and owned by the AIPAC and military-industrial-complex lobbies (aka "the war machine") the Democrats ALLOW war protesting veterans to be INTIMIDATED and possibly prosecuted by the military. The military CLAIMS that "if [uniformed veternas] had been at a pro-war rally, they would have faced the same punishment," but this claim is of course absurd, given that the favorite PR (propaganda) technique of Karl Rove and President Bush's is t have Mr. Bush announce some war policy or "war on terra" news - WITH A FULL BACKDROP OF UNIFORMED MILITARY PERSONAL APPLAUDING HIS SPEECHES at every military base that Mr. Bush appears at to chastise his critics and demand more blank-check funding for his gross incompetence in conducting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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

Veterans: Military curbing free speech
Protesters in uniform could be downgraded, lose their benefits

By Kirsten Scharnberg
Tribune national correspondent
Published June 24, 2007
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-protest_bdjun24,1,3980880.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true


1996 rule prohibits protesting in uniform

According to a Department of Defense directive issued in 1996 and renewed in 2003, "members of the Armed Forces are prohibited from participating in off-post demonstrations when they are onduty, in a foreign country, when their activities constitute a breach of law and order, when violence is likely to result, or when they are in uniform."

The military has said the three Marines who have faced less-thanhonorable discharges for violating the uniform portion of that code at a war protest would have faced the same punishment had they been at any other kind of rally.

"If it had been a pro-war rally, it would still have been a violation," Col. Dave Lapan, a Marine Corps spokesman, said of one of the cases earlier this month.

The young combat veteran stared at the letter in disbelief when it arrived in his mailbox a few months ago.

The Marine Corps was recommending him for "other than honorable discharge." The letter alleged he had violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice by wearing part of his uniform during an anti-war rally. Furthermore, the letter accused him of being "disloyal," a word hard to swallow for a man who had risked his life to serve his nation.

"All this because I have publicly opposed the war in Iraq since I came back from it," said former Marine Sgt. Liam Madden, 22.

Madden is not alone.

At least two other combat veterans who have returned from tours in Iraq and become well-known anti-war advocates have seen the military recommend them for less-than-honorable discharges. One of them is a young man 80 percent disabled from two tours who was threatened with losing his veteran's disability benefits if he continued to protest in uniform.

Critics — including some groups that have been the most supportive of the war—say the crackdown on these men constitutes a blatant attempt to quiet dissension in the ranks at the very time more and more members of the armed forces are publicly questioning the war they are being sent to fight.

"I may disagree with their message, but I will always defend their right to say it," Gary Kurpius, national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said in a scathing statement this month under the headline, "VFW to Corps: Don't Stifle Freedom of Speech."

"Trying to punish fellow Americans for exercising the same democratic rights we're trying to instill in Iraq is not what we're about," he said.



'We don't restrict free speech'
The military defends its decision to punish the men, stating that its policies regarding acceptable forms of protest are clear. Military guidelines state that troops may attend demonstrations only in the United States, only when they are off base and off duty, and only when they are out of uniform.

"We don't restrict free speech," Maj. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said. "It's the uniform that gets people in trouble. When you wear the uniform, you are representing the armed service behind that uniform, and it is against the military code of justice to protest in uniform."

Madden and the two other Marines were clearly documented wearing at least part of their uniforms at public protests. (Though all three had completed their active-duty service, they remained reservists; the military argued that the Pentagon's conduct codes still applied to them, an assertion that seems likely to make its way to federal court.)

The military, with its hierarchical rank structure and absolute adherence to following orders, has never been an institution that takes kindly to debate from within. But today, as an increasingly unpopular war drags on and troops are being sent on multiple combat tours, the criticism from veterans and even those on active duty is reaching a fevered pitch.

Perhaps the most telling part of such criticism is how open disgruntled troops are becoming despite the risk to their careers—signing their names to furious letters printed in military-owned newspapers; speaking on the record to reporters in Iraq about how badly the mission is going; writing members of Congress. And then there are the protests in uniform, a throwback to the Vietnam War, when veterans such as Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) denounced the war in weathered fatigues.

Many of the protests involving vets in uniform are all-out street theater, like one in Washington last spring where protesters staged a mock patrol, manhandling people at simulated gunpoint in order to illustrate how they say Iraqis are treated by American troops. Just last week in Chicago, a similar protest took place. The intended subtext of the uniformed protests is apparent: that protesters have additional credibility because they have witnessed the war, that the uniforms now being used in protest have walked the real-life battlefield.

"Guys like us—veterans who served but then came to believe the war is not only wrong but illegal—are not who the military wants speaking on a national stage," Madden said.

If Madden and the other Marines initially feared their high-profile discharge cases would serve to silence protest, the opposite seems to be slowly and quietly happening. The men's cases have spurred dissenters to voice their disapproval of the war while remaining within military guidelines.

Take, for example, DOD Directive 7050.6. It provides the right of service members to complain and to request redress of their grievances, including to members of Congress. Some 2,000 active-duty and reserve troops have used the protection of that directive to sign "An Appeal for Redress," an initiative that sends troops' demand to end the war to Congress.

The wording of the appeal is intended to be patriotic and respectful while unequivocally anti-war: It begins, "As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform …" It ends, "Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home."

Senators Levine and Stabenow typical of Democrats CORRUPTED by CORPORATE LOBBYING....

To understand why the Democrats point to their abject failures, their inability to reign in the grossly incompetent President Bush on the funding and handeling of the Iraq war as almost a point of pride - ("WE DON'T HAVE THE VOTES!" Democrat primary front-runner Hillar Clinton scolds citizens on why she and every other Senator can't do what Republicans IN THE MINORITY do every day - GRIND THE SENATE BUSINESS TO A HALT with a filibuster if they don't like what they see)- one need look no farther than this Arianna Huffington column (at her successful website, HuffingtonPost.com). Arianna exposes the two Democratic senators from Michigan as COMPLETELY OWNED by the US AUTO INDUSTRY. Even though Japanese manufacturer Toyotay ALREADY HAS LUXURY HYBRID vehicles in its fleet, much less the 50 mpg Prius hybrid, American automakers are crying "WE CAN'T IMPROVE FUEL ECONOMY" - and getting their hired-hand senators to regurgitate those lying, STUPID talking points verbatim.

Hillary, Stabenow, Levine, the entire pack of Democratic senators - revelling in their IMPOTENCE, not a damn one of 'em has the muscle, committment, or cajones to lead a protest filibuster against ANY Bush-Rove-Cheney illegal policies or outright crimes (or even merely nation-gutting routinely bad policies, such as no increase in CAFE gas mileage standards and other policies that increase America's energy dependence.)

JUST IMAGINE if the STUPID, COWERING Democrats had funded $700 billion for solar panels throughout the United States - a "Manhatten project" scale effort to put solar panels on every roof in America - instead of playing ENABLERS to the Bush-Cheney war in Iraq...

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

Dysfunction Junction: How the New Energy Bill Adds Fuel to a Bloomberg Candidacy

by Arianna Huffington
June 20, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/dysfunction-junction-how_b_53238.html

In laying the groundwork this week for a possible independent run for the White House, Michael Bloomberg has been making the case that "Washington is sinking into a swamp of dysfunction."

Exhibit A in his argument should be the debate currently underway in the Senate over raising fuel efficiency standards for the auto industry. It's a perfect example of the fetid D.C. bog at its most dysfunctional.

Raising CAFE standards should be a no-brainer. It's the fastest and most efficient way to reduce our dependence on oil -- especially foreign oil. An increase of just 3 mpg nationwide would save one million barrels of oil per day. But for close to 25 years, the U.S. auto industry and its allies in Congress have repeatedly fought back any and all efforts to raise mileage standards.

That's right, despite all that has happened in the last quarter century in terms of the environment and shifting world politics, the mileage requirement for cars, truck, and SUVs hasn't changed a lick since A Flock of Seagulls was a hot band and Rubik's Cubes were all the rage. Passenger cars are still required to get just 27.5 miles per gallon, while SUVs and light trucks only have to get 21 mpg.

But due to mounting concern over climate change, our dependence on Middle East oil, and skyrocketing gas prices, the political wind has at long last shifted, and an increase in fuel standards is an idea whose time has finally come -- embraced not just by environmentalists but by groups like SAFE, a coalition of top corporate and military leaders that see this as a foreign policy issue.

Even President Bush -- an oilman who has spent the last six and a half years turning the White House into a full-service fueling station for Big Oil -- has jumped on the CAFE bandwagon and is supporting a proposal that would require both cars and trucks to reach 35 miles a gallon by 2020.

To put this modest increase into perspective, automakers have already managed to comply with much tougher mileage standards all over the world, including 46 mpg in Japan and 44 mpg in Europe. And that is what they are doing today, not 13 years from now.

Nevertheless, Detroit is still fighting progress tooth and nail. Automakers originally were sticking to their guns and pushing for no increase at all but, after finally seeing the writing on the wall, are now desperately trying to water down the already watered down CAFE provision in the energy bill currently under debate. And they are getting help from a group of lawmakers that includes Michigan's two Democratic Senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. They are pushing a compromise amendment that would require cars to get 36 mpg by 2022, while allowing trucks and SUVs to continue lagging behind, required only to get 30 mpg by 2025.

It's modern politics at its worst. Instead of embracing a big idea that is long overdue and seizing a moment of national consensus on one of the biggest issues of the day -- energy independence -- Levin, Stabenow, and their cohorts are giving in to the lobbyists and the special interests that have defined Washington for decades now. It should come as no surprise that Levin and Stabenow have been major recipients of auto industry largess -- Levin taking in $104,000 from Big Auto since 2001, and Stabenow pocketing over $115,000 from automakers, auto dealers, and auto worker unions.

According to Stabenow, the proposed mileage increase "doesn't do anything to help us." Which makes me wonder: which "us" is she referring to -- the American people or the auto industry?

Either way, she's dead wrong. It goes without saying that raising fuel standards would be good for the American people. (As Southwest Airlines chairman Herb Kelleher, a member of SAFE, put it: "We concluded that the overall dependence of the United States on oil was a great vulnerability, and by continuing it we were helping the people who opposed us.") But it would also be good for Detroit.

For far too long, Washington has been an enabler of the auto industry's refusal to get with the times. Detroit missed the boat on hybrid technology and so many other innovations because, instead of forcing auto makers into corporate rehab to clean up their act, our leaders in Washington have acted as a dysfunctional parent -- not only turning a blind eye to Detroit's wild ways but actively encouraging it by creating outrageous loopholes like the one that allows buyers of extra-large gas-guzzling SUVs to take extra-large deductions on their taxes. It would be like Lindsay Lohan's mom leaving a vial of crack on her daughter's pillow at night.

Washington needs to adopt a zero tolerance policy for Detroit -- and for business-as-usual political maneuvers like the one Levin and Stabenow are attempting.

It's behavior like this that could fuel a "drain the swamp" candidacy like Bloomberg's.


UPDATE: So Levin, Stabenow, and the auto industry's efforts to water down the increase in CAFE standards failed. Late last night, the Senate passed a comprehensive energy bill that included the first significant increase in fuel efficiency standards in 24 years. The measure for the first time puts SUVs, van, and light trucks under the same regulation as passenger cars. An automaker's entire fleet will have to average 35 mpg by 2020 -- an overall increase of 40 percent (though still lagging behind the standards already in place in much of the world). John Kerry, a longtime proponent of raising mileage standards, called the legislation "a great step toward addressing record gas prices, reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, and breaking the stranglehold of foreign oil." Of course, the House -- where Big Auto's best pal John Dingell, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee has, long been a human roadblock to raising mileage standards -- has yet to begin debate on its energy package, so it's way too early to be declaring victory. It may be "a great step," but it's all-but-guaranteed that Detroit will continuing trying to trip up this legislation before it becomes law.


The ongoing debate over raising fuel efficiency standards is a perfect example of Washington at its most dysfunctional.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Hillary agrees wit Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Rusmfeld: ALL THOSE DEAD IRAQIS? - It is THEIR fault for US invasion & occupation!

We don't even have the link, but trust us: last night on MSNBC's "Countdown" news show Kieth Olberman ran a video clip of Hillary in all her smug, regal finery. She feels that she has MASTERED her Rove/Limbaugh/DLC talking points, and in a speech to a Democratic primary audience, she asserted "It is not the fault of our soldiers that Iraq is such a bloodbath, our soldiers are brave and valient and well trained - IT IS THE FAULT OF THE IRAQIS themselves."

Yes, Hillary Clinton - UNREPENTENT for her vote to ENABLE GEORGE W. BUSH TO BOMB, INVADE, and OCCUPY Iraq with NO SUPERVISION whatsoever, now blames - THE IRAQI PEOPLE for their 600,000 dead!

Hmmm... what is AIPAC's quibble with Goebbels again?


(note in the below article that Hillary thinks she has her "triangulation" and Rove/Limbaugh/DLC talking points down to perfection: blame Bush, generically, for "corruption" - but on the SIGNATURE ISSUE of the Bush administration - the WAR in IRAQ - Hillary JOINS Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol, Perle, Feith, Abrams, and the entire cabal of Bush/Republican/neo-cons, by BLAMING THE IRAQIS for the war the US unleashed to get control of the oil there.)

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

Clinton Assails Bush to Win Liberals
[aka "Hillary polishes her AIPAC neo-con talking points]

NEDRA PICKLER
June 20, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070620/clinton-party-activists/


WASHINGTON — Trying to win over her party's liberal activists, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday accused President Bush of disregarding the Constitution and promised to bring a new progressive vision to the White House.

Bush's government has "a stunning record of secrecy and corruption, of cronyism run amok," she said in one of the more partisan speeches of her campaign. "It is everything our founders were afraid of, everything our Constitution was designed to prevent."

Clinton returned to the Take Back America conference where she was booed last year for opposing a set date for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq. This time, she said she is working to deauthorize the war.

Her comments on Iraq at the end of her 30-minute speech drew heckles, but she also won applause for promising to get out of Iraq and for embracing liberal positions on domestic issues such as health care, worker rights, education and stem cell research.
Bush vetoed a bill later in the day that would have eased restraints on federally funded embryonic stem cell research. Clinton, who spoke about six hours before the veto, promised to lift the restrictions if elected.

"This is just one example of how the president puts ideology before science, politics before the needs of our families, just one more example of how out of touch with reality he and his party have become," she said. "And it's just one more example as to why we're going to send them packing in January 2009 and return progressive leadership to the White House.

One audience member yelled, "Impeach him!"

After his veto, Bush said he will not allow human life to be destroyed to save others.

On Iraq, Clinton said the military has succeeded by removing Saddam Hussein from power, giving Iraqis the chance for free and fair elections and to govern themselves.

"The American military has succeeded. It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions that are important for their own people," Clinton said, although a loud chorus of boos cut off the end of her sentence.

"You know, I love coming here every year," Clinton said with a smile while the crowd continued to boo, with her supporters trying to drown the protesters out in cheers.

Members of the anti-war group Code Pink stood up throughout the audience, raising signs and holding up their fingers in a peace sign.

"I see the signs _ 'Get us out of Iraq now.' That is what we are trying to do," she said. She said she is working with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., to sponsor legislation to deauthorize the war.

One of the protesters was Laurie Meier of St. Louis, who was wearing a police-style cap and shirt that said "Pink Police" on the back. She said Clinton is responsible for her vote to authorize the war and for repeatedly voting to fund it, until the most recent spending bill that she voted against.

"To blame it on the Iraqis is a cop out," Meier said.

Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, another presidential candidate, also spoke Wednesday. He said Vice President Dick Cheney should be impeached and won enthusiastic applause from the audience.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Democrats Kennedy, Whitehouse demand answers to Dept. Justice links to VOTER CAGING and other illegal election intimidations.....

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4701#more-4701

SENATORS DEMAND Department of Jusice INVESTIGATION INTO VOTER SUPPRESSION ALLEGATIONS
from the United States Senate
for IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 18, 2007

CONTACT:
Laura Capps/Melissa Wagoner (Kennedy), 202-224-2633
Alex Swartsel (Whitehouse), 202-228-6293


Kennedy, Whitehouse Ask Whether Justice Officials Knew Former Rove Aide Allegedly Engaged in Illegal “Vote Caging” Before Naming Him Interim U.S. Attorney

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) today called for a Justice Department investigation into allegations of illegal voter suppression tactics by Republican political operatives, including former Karl Rove aide Tim Griffin, during the 2004 elections. Griffin is now serving as interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

“At a time when the Department’s political independence and its commitment to enforcement of civil rights statutes have been called into doubt, it is vitally important that the Department thoroughly investigate these allegations of unlawful voter suppression, and the apparent failure of Department employees to forward to the appropriate authorities information they had about this practice,” the senators wrote in a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The letter cites voter suppression incidents by the Republican Party in the 1980s. During the 2004 elections, e-mail evidence suggests that Tim Griffin, then a political operative at the Republican National Committee, knew and approved of a program to “cage” voters – sending a political campaign mailing to targeted voters and challenging the right to vote of those whose mail was returned undelivered – in predominantly African-American neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Florida. Last year, Griffin was appointed interim U.S. Attorney without Senate confirmation, displacing a federal prosecutor who has testified he was told he was fired to make the job available for Griffin.

Today, Senators Kennedy and Whitehouse demanded an investigation by two DOJ watchdog agencies to determine whether Griffin may have violated the Voting Rights Act or other federal laws, and whether Justice Department officials knew of Griffin’s potentially unlawful activity when he was named U.S. Attorney.

Kennedy and Whitehouse are members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is conducting its own investigation into the unprecedented firing late last year of several U.S. Attorneys. Senator Kennedy, a longtime champion for voting rights, will chair a Judiciary Committee hearing this Thursday on oversight of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Whitehouse served as U.S. Attorney for Rhode Island from 1994-1998.

“It is very disturbing to think that Department officials may have approved the appointment of a United States Attorney knowing that he had engaged in racially targeted vote caging,” the senators wrote. “Moreover, it is very disturbing to think that senior officials were aware of this practice and did nothing to refer their information to relevant officials within the Department for investigation and a determination as to whether it was a violation of a consent decree or law within the Department’s jurisdiction to enforce.”

The full text of the letter is below.

June 18, 2007

Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General
United States Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20530

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

We write to request that the Department of Justice promptly investigate allegations that the Republican National Committee engaged in “vote caging” during the 2004 elections. We also ask that you investigate whether any Department officials were aware of allegations that Tim Griffin had engaged in caging when he was appointed United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas, and whether appropriate action was taken. Caging is a reprehensible voter suppression tactic, and it may also violate federal law and the terms of applicable judicially enforceable consent decrees.

Caging is a voter suppression tactic whereby a political campaign sends mail marked “do not forward” to a targeted group of eligible voters. A more aggressive version involves sending mail to a targeted group of voters with instructions to sign and return an acknowledgment card. The campaign then creates a list of those whose mail was returned undelivered and challenges the right of those citizens to vote – on the ground that the voter does not live at the registered address. There are many reasons why registered mail might be “returned to sender” that have nothing to do with a voter’s eligibility. A voter might be an active member of the armed forces and stationed far from home, or a student registered at his parents’ address. Even a typographical error during entry of the voter’s registration information might result in an address that appears invalid.

The Republican Party has a long and ignominious record of caging – much of it focused on the African American community. For example, in 1981 the RNC sent a mass mailing into predominantly African American neighborhoods in New Jersey and used the resulting 45,000 letters marked “undeliverable” to challenge those voters’ eligibility. In 1986, the RNC used similar tactics in an effort to disenfranchise roughly 31,000 voters, most of them African American, in Louisiana. These tactics led to litigation and the RNC’s eventual signing of two consent decrees, still in effect, which bar the RNC from using “ballot security” programs ostensibly intended to prevent voter fraud as a tactic to target minority voters.

In 2004, however, allegations of caging by Republican officials arose again – this time over an effort to suppress votes in Florida. Emails sent in August 2004 by Tim Griffin, then Research Director and Deputy Communications Director of the RNC, demonstrate his knowledge and approval of a spreadsheet listing caged voters in predominantly African American neighborhoods in Jacksonville, Florida. (See attached.) Two years later, Mr. Griffin was appointed, without Senate confirmation, as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Such actions appear plainly to violate the consent decrees signed by the RNC in 1981 and 1986. We ask that you investigate whether in these circumstances Mr. Griffin or others may also have violated the Voting Rights Act, the National Voter Registration Act, the mail fraud statute, or any other federal statute.

It also appears that high-ranking officials in the Department knew of Mr. Griffin’s involvement in caging. Monica Goodling recently testified to the House Judiciary Committee that she discussed concerns about Mr. Griffin’s involvement in caging with Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty during a session to prepare for Mr. McNulty’s Congressional testimony. It is very disturbing to think that Department officials may have approved the appointment of a United States Attorney knowing that he had engaged in racially targeted vote caging.

Moreover, it is very disturbing to think that senior officials were aware of this practice and did nothing to refer their information to relevant officials within the Department for investigation and a determination as to whether it was a violation of a consent decree or law within the Department’s jurisdiction to enforce.

We, therefore, ask the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility to conduct an investigation to determine who in DOJ knew about Mr. Griffin’s potentially unlawful activity before he was named interim U.S. Attorney, and whether appropriate action was taken on that knowledge, and to recommend whatever action is appropriate.

At a time when the Department’s political independence and its commitment to enforcement of civil rights statutes have been called into doubt, it is vitally important that the Department thoroughly investigate these allegations of unlawful voter suppression, and the apparent failure of Department employees to forward to the appropriate authorities information they had about this practice.

Sincerely,

Edward M. Kennedy
United States Senator

Sheldon Whitehouse
United States Senator

cc:
Paul D. Clement, Solicitor General
Alice S. Fisher, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division
Wan J. Kim, Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division
Glenn A. Fine, Inspector General
H. Marshall Jarrett, Director, Office of Professional Responsibility

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Cowardly Democrats CONTINUE to SURRENDER "Moral Values" agenda to Righties - Contraception DENIED to women on military bases..

There isn't one damn Democrat in the party's "LEADERSHIP" who has HALF the cajones of President Harry S. Truman, who INTEGRATED THE US MILITARY despite the stern, almost violent opposition of the Right-Wing Segregationists who then DOMINATED both the Democratic and Republican Party at the time.

By contrast, AL GORE in 2000 AVOIDED making an issue of George W. Bush's FRAUDULENT "I am the education governor" (of Texas) claim, for ONE REASON, and ONE REASON ONLY: Gore didn't want to be portrayed as being a "bleeding heart" for Texas' (and America's) poor MINORITY children.

Al Gore and his campaign chairman Donna Brazille (an African-American) made the conscious decision to SELL TEXAS POOR SCHOOLCHILDREN DOWN THE RIVER, rather than face up to - CONFRONT - George W. Bush's signature agenda, "SLASH education funding for ALL public schools in Texas, while giving HUGE TAX CUTS to Texas' wealthiest billionaires and corporations."

Al Gore probably doesn't even realize his monumental sell-out from 2000, which, unfortunately, has become THE PATTERN for the Democratic Party over the past 7 years - ALWAYS RETREAT from Republican bluster, ALWAYS RETREATE from Bush-Cheney LIES, ALWAYS COWER from Karl Rove DEMAGOGUING and ALWAYS PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE Swift-boat slime-balling.

Of course, the Democrats have good reason to be gun-shy of the (radical) Right-Wing agenda- the AUTHORTARIAN Catholic Church, and US evangelical Protestant churches, love nothing better than to whip their troops (incite their parishes) to VOTE against "liberals" on any of a dozen issues, none more compelling than "ABORTION IS MURDER!" issue - which of course extends even to BIRTH CONTROL and the attempt to outlaw the "morning after pill" and other contraception devices.

America is now in the grip of the Right-Wing rabble posing as the "Moral Virtues" squad. They are actually regurgitating the entire litany of innuendos and falsehoods that bible-thumping preachers once used to DEFEND SLAVERY, but the clueless Democrats - dependent on campaign donations and unwilling to confront the large churches - have no answer to this blatant DEMAGOGUING of "moral values" issues.

In this case, the Democratic "leadership" is AWOL as the Moral Values rabble-rousers seek to - BAN CONTRACEPTION from US military bases!

How very 13th Century of them! Can burning at the stake and the interrogation of witches (the "auto de fe" or trial by fire and torture) be far behind?

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

Democrats Shy Away From Emergency Contraception

By Beccah Golubock Watson
June 14, 2007
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3221/democrats_shy_away_from_emergency_contraception/

Did the Democrats leave military servicewomen without EC for political reasons?
Plan B: Wouldn't it be nice if military servicewomen could have one?
Tags gender medical health military military military Share Digg del.icio.us Reddit Newsvine On Wednesday, May 16, advocates were optimistic that legislation requiring emergency contraception to be stocked on all military bases would pass in the House. “We had the votes on Wednesday night. Things were looking good,” says Monica Castellanos, press secretary for Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine), one of the lead co-sponsors of the amendment that was scheduled for a vote the next day. But then, something mysterious happened.

For reasons that remain unclear, Michaud withdrew the legislation the next morning. According to Castellanos, it was purely a logistical snafu: “Key supporters had to be in their districts.” But sources close to the issue tell a different story: The legislation, an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, with bipartisan support, was dropped by a Democratic leadership unwilling to go to bat for pro-choice issues. Despite Michaud’s confidence that the votes were there, Democratic leadership wasn’t so sure, and they didn’t want to hang around long enough to find out. The legislation might not have sunk, but they jumped ship anyway.

Emergency contraception, also known as Plan B or the morning-after pill, is available over-the-counter in all 50 states, but women in the U.S. military cannot count on accessing the medication on military bases. A 2003 survey financed by the Defense Department found that almost a third of military women reported being the victim of rape or attempted rape during their tenure in the military. Yet in return for their service, servicewomen are denied access to basic health care. “The situation is unconscionable,” says Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation. “If you are a military woman in Iraq, and you are raped, it is this country’s obligation to make sure you have access to emergency contraception.”

Apparently, the Department of Defense agrees. In April 2002, it added emergency contraception to its Basic Care Formulary, a list of 214 medications required to be stocked at all military treatment facilities. (The list includes Levitra, a medication that treats erectile dysfuction.) But one month later, the medication was quietly removed in direct response to pressure from the Bush administration. “The Defense Department agreed that it should be available—certainly, this is an issue we should have been able to win,” Saporta says.

For the past three congressional sessions, Michaud has worked to bring the medication back onto the Formulary. Michaud believes access to emergency contraception is a “major public health issue,” a “fair, common-sense step that everyone should be able to agree on.” After all of his work, it appeared that this was the legislation’s shining moment. “We’ve introduced three bills so far for emergency contraception, but in this Congress, it looked most probable that we would [succeed],” Castellanos says. Reproductive rights advocates say that the amendment presented a critical opportunity for Democrats to break from Congress’ conservative stance on choice. “This was the moment that Congress could signal that [they] were going to do business differently,” says Kirsten Moore, president of Reproductive Health Technologies Project.

Many women in the military rely on military treatment facilities for all of their health needs, and don’t always have access to basic care such as testing for pregnancy and STIs. Furthermore, they are only allowed to have abortions if they are the victims of sexual assault and are willing to report the assault.

In 2004 testimony to the Congressional Women’s Caucus, servicewomen who were sexually assaulted reported that they received faulty follow-up care after an abortion. Laurie (the women’s full names were not given), a sergeant in the Army returning from Afghanistan, testified that after her sexual assault by a coalition soldier, she was given “a lot of antibiotics, rather than emergency contraception” or testing for STDs or HIV. Beth, a major in the Army Reserves, served in Operation Iraqi Freedom and was sexually assaulted by a noncommissioned officer. She testified that she was given “a lot of [birth control] pills to take” instead of emergency contraception.

What’s also frustrating is that Congress has been paying more attention to the need to provide military men and women with better health care. The new budget for the Veterans Affairs Administration includes the largest single increase in veterans’ health care funding in history. On May 23, the House passed a group of bills to improve the care and screening processes of potential brain injuries for veterans, extend health care for combat veterans and improve outreach programs. Many of the female veterans who benefit from these new programs, however, will still suffer from a lack of reproductive health care while in the service.

The amendment’s disappearance is an ill wind. “You look at the vote, or the lack of the vote, and it sends a chill down the spines of reproductive rights advocates,” Moore says. “These votes can be controversial. We understand that there can be political heat. But the more we run away from these votes, the more momentum we give to our opposition.”

Monday, June 18, 2007

Corrupt, craven, Complict, cowering Dems can't even juxtapose "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" with INCREASED bombings, INDEFINITE "surge," and EXTENDED war

The Democrats in Congress have ROBBED American citizens of an OPPOSITION PARTY.

As one political scientist noted, "every incumbent and political candidate goes to bed knowing what his top 10 donors want, and wakes up thinking about how to give it to them."

The "Democratic" Party in Washington has made an art and science of this trend - they have bought into the Republican/Straussian (neo-con) notion that "the people" are too stupid to defend themselves from foreign, external threats, and must be led towards the promised land of some mythical "national security."

Thus "liberal" Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein openly and proudly represents the gargantuan California aerospace-defense industry (aka "the military industrial complex"), and her even more "liberal" fellow California senator - Barbara Boxer - is not exactly a towering voice calling for a reduced impact of the military/defense industry on national politics. More taxpayer billions for new nuclear warheads (Lawrence Livermore laboratories outside of San Francisco), new bombers and fighter aircraft (Boeing and Lockheed-Martin); new electronic surveillance systems (GE and General Dynamics) - there simply is NO OPPOSITION function to ever-increasing military/defense budgets within the Democratic Party, and thus there is no real opposition to the Alpha and Omega of the Bush-Cheney administration, the desire to turn America into a permanent war state on the verge of permanent wartime emergency powers. (Dictatorship.)

This trend of Democrat passivity in the face of Bush-Cheney ever-expanding wars in now so pronounced and awful, that the Democrats can't even try to throw Mr. Bush's infamous "MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS HAVE ENDED" back in his face - much less the even more egregious example of Bush White House arrogance, Mr. Bush's call for insurgents to "Bring it on."

Indeed, one Arkansas Republican leader - the Chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party no less - openly called for NEW TERRORIST ATTACKS ON THE UNITED STATES to justify the Bush-Cheney agenda - and the only sound Americans heard in response to that grotesque statement was - crickets. (No sound, NO RESPONSE by Democratic leadders to this awful formulation, a Republican leader CALLING FOR TERRORIST ATTACKS on the United States of America to justify the Bush-Cheney administration's misrule.)

Diane Feinstein, Harry Reid, Joe Biden, Steny Hoyer - the OPPOSITION PARTY function of the Democratic Party has disappeared under the inside-the-beltway complicity of these establishment 'Democrats.'


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


#1. President Bush Announces Major Combat Operations in Iraq Have Ended - May 2005
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030501-15.html

Oh what a difference four years makes...


#2. U.S. begins 'major offensive' in Iraq
UPI, June 16, 2007
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20070616-070318-5051

BAGHDAD, June 16 (UPI) -- U.S. forces have begun a major offensive against al-Qaida in Iraq, the U.S. commander in Iraq said Saturday.
Gen. David Petraeus, speaking at a news conference in Baghdad with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, said the offensive is designed to take the fight to al-Qaida and cut into the organization's ability to carry out its car-bombing campaign, The New York Times reported.



#3. Bush Says We’ll Be in Iraq for 50 Years, But Reporters Don't Bother to Ask
Iraqis to Comment
By Joshua Holland and Raed Jarrar, AlterNet
Posted on June 8, 2007, Printed on June 11, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/53469/

On May 25, George Bush signed a defense bill that outlawed the construction
of (new) permanent bases in Iraq. But only five days later, White House
press flack Tony Snow told reporters that the president is now modeling the
future of his bloody signature project on the half-century U.S. experience
in South Korea, with troops in Iraq for the long haul to provide, in Snow's
words, "a security presence" and to serve as a "force of stability."


#3. U.S. doubles air attacks in Iraq
http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/civilian-casualties-rise-sharply-as-us-doubles-airstrikes-on-iraq/
BAGHDAD - Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S.
warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than
twice the rate of a year ago.
The airpower escalation parallels a nearly four-month-old security crackdown
that is bringing 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and its
surroundings — an urban campaign aimed at restoring order to an area riven
with sectarian violence.

It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft
carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in
Iraqi civilian casualties.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Rumsfeld LIED TO CONGRESS when he denied knowledge of Abu Grhaib sadism and abuse. COWARDLY Democrats CONTINUE TO KISS neo-con butt...

UNTIL the Democratic 'leadership' shakes their cowering fear and dread of CONFRONTING the Karl Rove / Dick Cheney / George W. Bush White House, they will go down in history as PATHETIC ENABLERS of the criminal abuses of that Bush White House - from sexual sadism, torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib, to lies-to-war, to the looting of New Orleans reconstruction funds, to illegal warrantless surveillance (often of Democratic campaigns), to the dead-end Anthrax attacks on Congress, to the administration's greatest fraud, the gross, in-your-face CORRUPTION of HALLIBURTON and other contracts in Iraq that have stoked and fueled ("BRING IT ON!") the US miltiary killing insurgency there.

To this point, the Democrats are SO INVESTED in the NEO-CON agenda of imperial conquest at the point of US military force, that they are, at best, ENABLERS of Bush-Republican CORRUPTION and criminality, and at worst COMPLICIT.

The Democrat's kid-gloves treatment of former Secretary of War Don Rumsfeld, who according to sworn testimony LIED TO CONGRESS when he said that he had NO KNOWLEDGE of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib (US run prison in Iraq)- is just the latest case in point.

PERJURY, FRAUD, CORRUPTION, turning American soldiers into sexual sadists - the Democrats ONCE AGAIN adopt their "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" and by no means, "CONFRONT NO EVIL" attitude towards gross Republican administration CRIMINALITY.

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

US defense chiefs denied knowledge of Abu Ghraib
[aka "Rumsfeld LIED TO CONGRESS in Torture testimony"]

AP news
June 17, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070616/pl_afp/usiraqmilitaryprison_070616234741


NEW YORK (AFP) - A general who investigated US troops sexually humiliating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison said in a report out Saturday that top Pentagon officials denied knowledge of lurid photographs of the acts.

Army Major General Antonio Taguba said he met with then secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top officials and described to them some of the contents of a report he had prepared on the notorious prison.

But Rumsfeld testified before Congress the following day that he had no idea of the extent of the abuse, Taguba told the New Yorker magazine in an interview.

"He's trying to acquit himself and a lot of people who are lying to protect themselves," the magazine quoted him as saying, referring to Rumsfeld's May 7, 2004 testimony.

The photographs taken by US jailers humiliating prisoners who were naked or hooded, on leashes or piled in a pyramid, rocked the world, becoming one of the few things President George W. Bush has said he regretted about the war.

Taguba said that he described to Rumsfeld what he termed the "torture" of "a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum," the magazine reported.

He said that all high-level officials had avoided scrutiny while the jail keepers were tried in courts-martial.

"From what I knew, troops just don't take it upon themselves to initiate what they did without any form of knowledge of the higher-ups," Taguba told the New Yorker, adding that his orders were to investigate the military police only and not their superiors.

"These (military police) troops were not that creative," he said. "Somebody was giving them guidance, but I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority," he told the magazine.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Harry Reid SELLS OUT FEC, minority voting rights, to put his hometown crony on FEC? SAY IT AIN'T SO, Harry!

Harry Reid is from the state of Nevada, which is the penultimate state in America at mixing free-wheeling rights of individual expression (legalized gambling, legalized prostitution, other vices legalized and even encouraged in "sin city") with the authortarian tendencies of the "establishment" to consolidate power and run a security-intensive business - what tendencies also happen to parrallel the heart-and-soul of the Bush-Cheney administration's unwarranted surveillance of American citizens. So while Harry Reid is a "Liberal Democrat," he also represents a state with very authortarian, concentration-of-wealth-and-power tendencies.

THAT is exactly why Harry is such an ANEMIC Senate Majority leader - in the mold of Tom Daschle, Harry would much prefer to make a back office compromise, than get out there and SHOUT and FIGHT and drum up public support on any of 1,000 different issues - even in the face of serious Republican corruption, if not outright criminality. (CONVICTIONS of SENATOR Bob Ney, CONGRESSMAN Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, CONVICTION of Bush confidant Jack Abramoff and number one supporter Ken Lay, CONVICTION of PERJURY and OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE of BUSH SENIOR ADVISOR Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, who was concurrently the Vice President's Chief of Staff; etc. etc. etc. ad naseum)

HARRY, taking after the SOFT SPOKEN, reticent, unwilling-to-call-a-pig-a-pig Tom Daschle WILL GET YOU THE SAME RESULTS he got - SCORN from right-wing and muddled-middle, and APATHY from your own voters - and a SWIFT EXIT at the hands of Karl Rove's Swift Boat mob!

For Christ's sake, Harry - WON'T YOU STAND UP FOR DEMOCRATIC, minority, and independent voters? WHY must the Democrat 'leadership' keep RAMMING the same old tired "RETREAT BEFORE WE FIGHT!" agenda down America's throats, even with Bush polling in 20s, Cheney polling in the teens, and the above list of Republican/White House CRIMES _already_ on the record?

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


Another Sorry Ascension
[aka "Another corrupt, partisan Bush nominee to high office"!]
New York Times Editorial
Published: June 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/opinion/14thu2.html

It apparently wasn’t enough for the Bush administration to pack the Department of Justice with political operatives. The White House has now nominated one of the most meddlesome of those partisans, Hans von Spakovsky, to a powerful post on the Federal Election Commission.

This is the agency charged with making sure elections are fair — an especially ludicrous perch for Mr. Spakovsky. As a voting-rights appointee in the Justice Department, he promoted Republican initiatives to crimp the ballot power of minorities and the poor who typically favor Democrats.

In one of his party missions, Mr. Spakovsky overrode the recommendations of the department’s staff professionals and approved a regressive law in Georgia that required voters to provide photo identification. The law, a voter suppression tool worthy of the Jim Crow era, was later blocked by the courts. A former G.O.P. county chairman in Georgia, Mr. Spakovsky failed to recuse himself from such an obvious conflict of interest. He also pushed for department approval of Tom DeLay’s Texas gerrymandering plan — the plan that the Supreme Court ruled violated the Voting Rights Act.

Feverish for the Republican edge, Mr. Spakovsky drove career lawyers from the Justice department and constantly parroted the (Karl) Rovian line that voter fraud is rampant, though studies have found otherwise.

Uncertain that even a Republican-controlled Senate would approve Mr. Spakovsky’s nomination to the F.E.C., President Bush gave him a recess appointment to the commission last year. The new Democratic-controlled Senate now has the opportunity to strike a blow against electoral skullduggery with a blunt rejection of Mr. Spakovsky’s nomination for a full six-year term.

The realpolitik problem with that is that the two-party machines traditionally stack the F.E.C. with loyal mediocrities and avoid confronting each other’s bad apples. Making it worse, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has nominated a hometown buddy and party ally to the commission and isn’t eager to jeopardize his own choice. But that’s no reason to look the other way when it comes to Mr. Spakovsky’s obvious unfitness for the job.

Democrats should make clear to the White House — and to Mr. Reid — that the F.E.C. is too important to be left in the hands of political hacks or to be sacrificed for the sake of a political deal.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Where oh Where is Nancy Pelosi? Are the Dems acting like cops on the take...? Purge-gate DIRECT LINK to Karl Rove....

Nancy Pelosi, Where are you?

The Democrats promised in the 2006 election campaign to PUT SOME LIMITS on the Bush administration's secretive, illegal doings; the Dems pledged to more aggressively curtail Republican corruption, and above all the Democrats promised NOT to expand the war - not to give a "blank check" to Mr. Bush and his Vice President, Dick Cheney, who engineered the Iraq invasion and occuption over the vocal and steadfast opposition of those in the military and defense establishment.(But, unfortunately, not enough of those in Congress, including many Democrats who were swept up in war fever.)

Well, to cut to the chase, it is now the middle of June, six whole months into the Democratic majority in Congress, and Mr. Bush's Attorney General has all but told the Democratic senate to go "F- yourselves!" The president himself in is full "expanded war powers" mode, pushing for a US missile intercept system on the very border of Russia with no debate with anyone besides our Czech and Polish allies, who can easily be bribed by America's vast military budget. The Vice President is getting his old enabler, Senator Joe Lieberman, to bang the drums for war vs Iran - with neo-cons everywhere lusting over the urge to use "tactical nuclear warheads" on underground Iranian targets, which weapons the FAS has determined will kill 250,000 people within years from radioactive fallout. And finally, the Democrats GROVEL before the HOLY OF HOLIES - the name that must not be spoken by Democrats under any circumstance, ever, Mr. Bush's own personal elections enforcer, Karl Rove.

As in, KARL ROVE, nemesis of Democratic campaigns for well over a decade. Make no mistake: Mr. Rove is no election genius. Despite Al Gore's wishy-washy campaign of 2000, the Bush-Cheney campaign did not win the majority of national voters, and did not even win the popular vote in Florida, had all legal voters had their votes counted accurately. Even with the tremendous Bush White House's control of the entire federal budget (courtesy Republican House and Senate majorities), and despite being a war-time re-election, the Bush-Cheney-Rove campaign still had to engage in illegal shenanigans to win Ohio (and probably Iowa and New Mexico as well), including the one Republican vote supervisor in a critical district declaring that the FBI had issued a "terrorist threat emergency" and promptly tossed all reporters and observers out of the election counting building. (The FBI stated conclusively that no such FBI alert had been issued.)

And in 2002 Republican efforts to smear Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and Max Cleland had Karl Rove's fingerprints all over them, Daschle's photograph being placed between Ossama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in Repub. TV ads that stated that Daschle was "weak on terror." Similar TV ads were aimed at Georgia Democratic Senator Max Cleland- despite the fact that Cleland had become a triple-amputee during his infantry service in combat during the Vietnam war! And even then, it still took suspicious vote totals to see Senator Cleland ushered out of the senate, all because of Karl Rove's ride-on-a-rail.

Speaker Pelosi, you now look like the new Tom Daschle. Despite Daschle being the SENATE MAJORITY LEADER (and a Vietnam veteran to boot!), he did virtually nothing to contest and confront Mr. Rove's depiction of him as "soft on terror."

Indeed, Senator Daschle ALLOWED Senator Joe Lieberman to SMOOTHER the Enron investigation which landed in his committee (Sen. Govt. Affairs Committee) in the summer of 2002 - Lieberman REFUSED to run an honest, aggressive, and thorough investigation into ENRON CORRUPTION, thereby #1. selling thousands of Enron Workers, Pensioners, families, and investors down the river; #2. ENABLING Enron to continue with its last-gasp frauds, the attempt to rig California's electicity market by coordinated plant shutdowns and other schemes; #3. and worst of all, by crushing the Enron investigation, Senator Leiberman ROBBED Democratic voters, candidates, and activists of their BEST ISSUE in the 2002 election, the chance to TIE George W. Bush DIRECTLY TO ENRON FRAUD, Ken Lay and Enron had been Bush's biggest backers through 2 Texas gubanatorial campaigns, the 2000 Republican primary and general election, and the 2000 Florida (no-) recount battle.

Madame Speaker, just as TOM DASCHLE and JOE LIBERMAN were the face of Democratic election failures in 2000 and 2002, so to are you now the face of Democratic INACTION in the face of Bush administration wrongdoing - and especially re Mr. Rove's election thuggery.

Which we now know extended directly into the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, where Mr. Rove PURGED one qualified, competent, successful AND REPUBLICAN US Attorney (in a critical swing state, Arkansas), and sought to replace him with one of his own former assistants, Mr. Tim Griffin - who had NEVER in his entire career conducted a prosecution!

Madam Speaker: your fate is now inextricably tied with those of Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman, Karl Rove, and Tim Griffin. Two years from now - after election 2008 is over - where will you been seen - as doing NOTHING to PROTECT DEMOCRATIC VOTERS from ILLEGAL REPUBLICAN PURGES, or will you be seen as a quite enabler (as Mr. Daschle was) or an active accomplice (as Mr. Lieberman is) to Republican intimidation and election bullying?


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

DOJ Senior Officials rebuked for disclosing Rove's connection to firing of U.S. Attorney
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers, Tue, Jun. 12, 2007
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17360352.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_nation

WASHINGTON - The White House's former political director was furious at Justice Department officials for disclosing to Congress that the administration had forced out the U.S. attorney in Little Rock, Ark., to make way for a protege of Karl Rove, President Bush's political adviser, according to documents released late Tuesday.


Then-White House political affairs director Sara Taylor spelled out her frustrations in a Feb. 16 e-mail to Kyle Sampson, then the chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.


She sent the message after Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told the Senate that unlike other federal prosecutors, U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wasn't fired for performance reasons, but to make way for former Republican political operative Tim Griffin. Griffin, serving as the interim U.S. attorney, then announced that he wouldn't seek confirmation to the Arkansas post, but would remain until the Senate confirmed someone else. Griffin has since resigned.


"Tim was put in a horrible position; hung out to dry w/ no heads up," Taylor lashed out in the e-mail, which was sent from a Republican Party account rather than from her White House e-mail address. "This is not good for his long-term career."


The Taylor e-mail was among 46 pages of documents that the Justice Department turned over to Congress Tuesday as part of the investigation into the firings of at least nine U.S. attorneys.


The Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees said the documents showed greater White House involvement in the firings than previously known.


Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the documents "provide further evidence that White House officials like former political director Sara Taylor were deeply involved in the mass firings of well-performing prosecutors."


The White House disputed those characterizations, saying the e-mails deal only with the aftermath of the firings, not what led up to them, and that there was nothing inappropriate about wanting to promote Griffin, whom the administration considered "exceptionally" qualified.


"I know this is becoming terribly frustrating for Democrats, but once again documents show no wrongdoing in the decision to replace U.S. attorneys," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto.




Fratto said some documents also undercut Democrats' assertions that the White House wanted to abuse a change in federal law to keep interim U.S. attorneys in place without Senate confirmation.


In an e-mail exchange from early January, then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers asked Sampson how the department wanted to handle replacement candidates. Sampson replied that "in no case" did he want to use the new law unilaterally to "jam senators" because "that will only result in the Congress taking that authority away from us."


The newly released e-mails also showed that:


-The White House counsel's office thought in January that the ousted prosecutors had "disloyally stirred up the senators" but argued against criticizing them publicly because they hadn't "fired any shots" at the administration.


-Taylor called Cummins "lazy" and said that was "why we got rid of him in the first place." Cummins, reached Tuesday, said, "I don't know how Sara Taylor would have any information about my work ethic."

Friday, June 8, 2007

Impeachment - the wave is building into a powerful force Dem party leaders can no longer ignore....

Great metaphor - Impeachment as a slowly but steadily building wave...


Dave Lindorff: Impeachment on a Roll
Fri, 06/08/2007
By Buzzflash.com contributor Dave Lindorff
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1067


Down the shore yesterday, as we say in Philly, I was body surfing in the Atlantic and it got me to thinking.

On the East Coast, where the prevailing winds are offshore, the surf tends to be pretty tame, and Thursday was no exception, with the biggest waves cresting at perhaps three feet. Nonetheless, these little combers were able to send my prone body racing 100 feet toward the beach at a good clip.

There's a lot of energy packed in even a small wave.

Just so with impeachment, where a wave is slowly building for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Since Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) filed his impeachment bill against Cheney on April 24, five other members of the House have signed on as co-sponsors, most recently Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. She joins Reps. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL and chief deputy whip of the House), William Lacy Clay (D-IL) and Albert Wynn (D-MD) as co-sponsors of H. Res. 333.

-------------------------
Flash Update! Just to make the point about how this wave is building, shortly after I filed this piece, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), another co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, signed on as a co-sponsor of H.Res. 333. Cheney has to be starting to sweat.
-------------------------

Kucinich's bill is narrowly focused on Cheney's criminal role in lying the nation into an illegal invasion of Iraq, and on his illegal threat to launch an unprovoked attack on Iran.

The wave that is building in the House for impeachment of this criminal administration may seem small, but it is definitely building. As each new representative signs on to H. Res. 333 as a co-sponsor, others gain courage and find it easier to buck the "leadership" of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, et al.

It seems likely that as the magnitude of that wave grows, some members will add to the list of Cheney's crimes with their own additional impeachment bills. After all, Cheney was clearly behind the illegal outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, involved in the politicization of the Justice Department, and now known to have been involved in the illegal, warrantless wiretapping, and Internet monitoring of American citizens by the National Security Agency.

At some point, there will surely be a second wave, which will begin with a member impeachment bill against President Bush.

We can find evidence that Pelosi is losing her footing in many forms.

There's the impeachment resolution passed late last month by the Detroit City Council. Now there have been nearly 100 such resolutions passed around the country, but this one stands out because it was introduced by Council President Monica Conyers, who happens to be the wife of Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which would be where any impeachment hearing would be conducted. Conyers was once a leading advocate of the impeachment of Bush and Cheney, but buckled when Pelosi threatened to deny him the coveted chair of the Judiciary Committee. Clearly, his wife thinks he shouldn't have caved, and Conyers is showing signs of wanting action on impeachment. He has lately taken to encouraging the actions of impeachment activists.

There are also the many resolutions calling for impeachment of Bush and Cheney that have been passed, often overwhelmingly, by state Democratic Parties, including those in California, Massachusetts, and North Carolina.

Finally, there are the statements from Democratic politicians, who are looking increasingly ridiculous in their efforts to avoid talking impeachment. Take Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). Back in 2006, Nadler was a member of the group of 39 House members in the 109th Congress who signed on to Rep. Conyers' then bill calling for a select committee to investigate impeachable crimes by the administration (that bill died with the end of the 109th Congress). Recently, Nadler, who sat on the impeachment panel during the Clinton impeachment farce, and who chairs the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, declared in a recent radio interview that "there's a prima facie case" that the president and the attorney general "engaged in a criminal conspiracy." He went on to say that when the executive branch is "contemptuous of the power of Congress" and breaks or ignores the law, then "you have to use whatever weapons the Constitution gives Congress."

Now Nadler is no dummy. He knows that the main "tool" that the Constitution gives to Congress to combat such presidential lawlessness and abuse of power is impeachment.

Nadler's constituency in Manhattan isn't stupid either. They know the president has been committing impeachable crimes, and that the remedy is impeachment. The same is true of Rep. Conyers' constituents.

It seems only a matter of time before these leaders, and others like them, are going to have to take a stand and buck Pelosi and the sell-out Democratic leadership that is trying to adopt a do-nothing strategy ahead of the 2008 elections.

One thing you can say about waves -- even small ones -- and that is that they are pretty much unstoppable. Another thing you can say is that they wear down resistance -- especially when the resistance is insubstantial. A third thing is that they are never alone. They keep on coming, one after another after another.

I'm betting that we're going to see Pelosi and her anti-impeachment position swamped by the power of public pressure, and by the actions of those members of Congress who take the views of their constituents seriously.

-----------------------------------
DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for
Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, 2006), now available in paperback.

Senator Leahy, it is time to SUBPEONA Karl Rove - or resign...

The Dirty truth is that George W. Bush did NOT win either of his presidential elections, based on the intent of those legal voters who turned out to vote on election day in 2000 and 2004, (but whose votes in Florida in 2000, in Ohio in 2004, and almost certainly minority voters in other states like Iowa and New Mexico in either or both elections WERE NOT COUNTED);
....that Karl Rove is NOT a genius but simply a liar and bully who is willing to break the law to win elections;
....and that the Democrats have been unable, or more likely unwilling, to PROTECT AMERICAN CITIZENS from those gross abuses of the law, and chronic lawbreaking, by the Bush-Cheney administration.

Senator PATRICK LEAHY is now the FACE of that Democratic BETRAYAL of the obligation and responsibility to UPHOLD THE RULE OF LAW and the US Constitution.

This tendency on the part of the Democrats, of course, stretches back for over a century. For almost 100 years the FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT demanded that "THE RIGHT TO VOTE SHALL NOT BE ABRIDGED" for ex-slaves and other minority Americans.
But until President Lyndon Johnson rammed the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts through an OBSTRUCTIONIST CONGRESS (dominated by the veto power of segregation-state senators), the rights to vote _WERE_ ABRIDGED for millions of potential voters. That is, ALL of America was COMPLICIT in "abridging the right to vote" of minorities, in DEFIANCE of the Constitution, at least in the Deep South, because the American government is at core about the concentration of power in the hands of Congress and the executive branch, and diffusing power to minority voters benefitted few members of that Congress or government.

Today, the institutional Democratic Party - the "INSIDE THE BELTWAY DEMOCRATS" of the DLC, DSCCC, and DCCC ("Democratic Leadership Counsel," the "Democratic Senate Campaign Committee," and the "Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee," respectively) HAVE RETURNED TO THEIR SEGREGATION-ERA ROOTS, aligning with the Radical-Right who once filibustered any attempt to overturn segregation, and who now push an agenda of theocratic dogma (overt racists Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberston, and Bob Jones, to name three), wars of imperial conquest, and a wholescale assault on the US Constitution, under the blanket of "war on terror" fearmongering and wartime powers.

Senator Leahy is emblamatic of the "BELLY OF THE BEAST" tendency of the Democratic Party. He may have "progressive," liberal, or democratic tendencies - BUT HE IS NOT WILLING TO PUT HIS COMMITTEE ON THE LINE to PROTECT American voters from the PURGE, intimidation, smear, and DISENFRANCHISEMENT TACTICS of KARL ROVE.

Mr. Leahy, YOU ARE BEING MEASURED AGAINST KARL ROVE.

This is your OPPORTUNITY to go down in history, not just as a (potential) VICTIM of the deadly anthrax letters (sent to your office just 2 weeks after the traumatic and even deadlier 9-11 attacks), but as a courageous senate chairman who FOUGHT FOR and UPHELD the RULE OF LAW, against the one individual who is at the core of EVERY episode of election chicanery during the entire tenure of the Bush administration.

Your leadership thus far mimics that of Senator and Senate Committee Chairman Joe Leiberman, who WET BLANKETED the ENRON INVESTIGATION which landed in his Government Affairs Committee in the summer of 2002. Mr. Lieberman was in such a rush to support the pending INVASION OF IRAQ by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, that he short-circuited the Enron investigation in his committee - THEREBY ROBBING Democratic voters, candidates, and activists of their BEST ISSUE in 2002, the opportunity to LINK President George W. Bush to ENRON FRAUD. And that link was huge. Enron Chairman Ken Lay was Bush's single biggest and most important donor through two Texas gubernatorial races, the 1999-2000 Republican presidential primary race, the 2000 presidential campaign, and the November-December 2000 Florida recount legal battle. In the summer of 2001, just as Enron was crashing down from the disclosure of massive fraud in its financial statements, President Bush snatched Senior Enron executive Thomas White out from under the collapsing company, to make him Secretary of the Army - to do to Army accounts what Enron executives had done for Enron accounts. (Namely, siphon off legitimate profits into privately owned subsidiaries that transferred wealth to a handful of executives, or in the case of the Army, "PRIVATIZE" functions that would guarantee huge profits for politically connected suppliers and contractors.)

Joe Lieberman's FAILURE to aggressively and honestly INVESTIGATE ENRON in the summer of 2001 _ROBBED_ Democratic candidates of their best issue in November of 2002... and that election, American voters handed CONTROL OF THE SENATE _BACK_ to the Republicans.

Mr. Leahy, YOU are in that SAME position today as Joe Lieberman was in 2002: IF you do not do SOMETHING to hold the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration to account, in a real, tangible, and non-rhetorical mannner, YOU will TURN OFF Democratic voters by the droves in 2008, and give Republicans the opportunity to take back control of one or both houses of Congress.


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


It’s Subpoena Time
June 8, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/opinion/08fri1.html

For months, senators have listened to a parade of well-coached Justice Department witnesses claiming to know nothing about how nine prosecutors were chosen for firing. This week, it was the turn of Bradley Schlozman, a former federal attorney in Missouri, to be uninformative and not credible. It is time for Senator Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to deliver subpoenas that have been approved for Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and their top aides, and to make them testify in public and under oath.

Mr. Schlozman was appointed United States attorney in Missouri while the state was in the midst of a hard-fought Senate race. In his brief stint, he pushed a lawsuit, which was thrown out by a federal judge, that could have led to thousands of Democratic-leaning voters being wrongly purged from the rolls. Just days before the election, he indicted voter registration workers from the liberal group Acorn on fraud charges. Republicans quickly made the indictments an issue in the Senate race.

Mr. Schlozman said it did not occur to him that the indictments could affect the campaign. That is hard to believe since the Justice Department’s guidelines tell prosecutors not to bring vote fraud investigations right before an election, so as not to affect the outcome. He also claimed, laughably, that he did not know that Acorn was a liberal-leaning group.

Mr. Schlozman fits neatly into the larger picture. Prosecutors who refused to use their offices to help Republicans win elections, like John McKay in Washington State, and David Iglesias in New Mexico, were fired. Prosecutors who used their offices to help Republicans did well.

Congress has now heard from everyone in the Justice Department who appears to have played a significant role in the firings of the prosecutors. They have all insisted that the actual decisions about whom to fire came from somewhere else. It is increasingly clear that the somewhere else was the White House. If Congress is going to get to the bottom of the scandal, it has to get the testimony of Mr. Rove, his aides Scott Jennings and Sara Taylor, Ms. Miers and her deputy, William Kelley.

The White House has offered to make them available only if they do not take an oath and there is no transcript. Those conditions are a formula for condoning perjury, and they are unacceptable. As for documents, the White House has released piles of useless e-mail messages. But it has reported that key e-mails to and from Mr. Rove were inexplicably destroyed. At the same time, it has argued that e-mails of Mr. Rove’s that were kept on a Republican Party computer system, which may contain critical information, should not be released.

This noncooperation has gone on long enough. Mr. Leahy should deliver the subpoenas for the five White House officials and make clear that if the administration resists, Congress will use all available means to get the information it needs.