Joe Lieberman IS a Republican!

Ok, so we knew this when the RNC endorsed Lieberman for Connecticut as an independent, and we knew it when Lieberman repeatedly endorsed the war and began to sound eerily like George Bush. Now we have photographic proof!

From Crooks and Liars:

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

Somehow, I'm gathering that there were once again 100+ troops, some tanks, Humvees, and Apaches in the immediate vicinity. This sounds familiar!

John McCain was in Iraq recently too! He also visited a heavily guarded marketplace and wore the latest in Iraqi fashion trends: a bullet proof vest!

Is it just me, or is this the new vacation hotspot for Republicans?

Enough is Enough

We knew two years ago when Moqtada Al Sadr, commander of the Mahdi Army, rose to power that he was a dangerous man. We knew when we let him escape the Imam Ali Shrine that he was even more dangerous, having successfully stared down the American and Iraqi armies. Then we allowed him to escape briefly to Iran, where he vowed to return.

Now he has returned within the past months, and true to his form, he has started stirring trouble again. According to NPR.org:

Radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army may be responsible for the kidnappings of five Britons from an Iraqi government office, an Iraqi official said Wednesday.

Unsurprisingly, local religious leaders have once again had to come to the table to deal with and negotiate with Al Sadr as has happened in the past with various hostages in Iraq. These types of negotiations, although frequently successful in freeing captured hostages, have served to do little except support claims of legitimacy within the militias who frequently demand to be recognized.

With Al Sadr becoming a growing thorn in the side of Iraq's growing civil war, and having widely recognized political power and social appeal, hasn't the time come to find him, and people like him, and end their continued efforts to destabilize Iraq?

If we're to remain in Iraq for now, shouldn't we at least do something productive in the short term? If not, then we need to bring them home and stop sacrificing our men and women like sheep.

The Senate Passes the Supplemental Spending Blank Check

Well, the Democrats did it.

On the upshot, Hillary and Obama did vote against it... after the bill already had enough votes to pass. Now it would seem that this is a bad thing, but somehow, I doubt that either Obama or Hillary would even consider being dumb enough to support this at this point.

They are too far into the race and they know that the people will not support any Democrat who supported this bill. The Democrats, as said before, were mandated to end this war at all costs. If they ran Bush into a corner and simply ran the military out of funding (which by the way wouldn't actually do any harm to the troops, it would just give Congress room to end this war in short order), they would be viewed as better for it.

At this point, the only lesson we can take away is "Never trust a politician."

As Promised... And as the Democrats Lied...

From MSNBC.com:

OLBERMANN: And lastly, as promised, a Special Comment about the Democrats deal with President Bush to continue financing this unspeakable war in Iraq, and to do so on his terms. It is, in fact, a comment about betrayal. Few men or women elected in our history, whether executive or legislative, state or national, have been sent into an office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear; get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution, half a year gathering the strands of public support, translating into action the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this war of lies, the Democrats have managed only this: the Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president, if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish in our history, who happily blackmails his own people and uses his own military personnel as hostages, to his asinine demand that the Democrats give the troops their money.

The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans. The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government. The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the administration in which the only things truly compromised are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave and doomed friends and family in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions, stop the war, have traded your strength, your bargaining position and the uniform support of those who elected you for a handful of magic beans. You may trot out every political cliche from the soft soap inside the beltway dictionary of boiler plate sound bites about how this is the beginning of the end of Mr. Bush‘s carte blanche, about how this is the first step.

Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning is our collective hope that you and your colleagues will do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected or reelected to do. Because this first step is a step right off a cliff. And this president, how shameful it would be to watch an adult hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so until he turned blue. How horrifying it is to watch a president hold his breath and threaten to continue to do so until innocent and patriotic Americans in harm‘s way are bled white.

You lead this country, sir? You claim to defend it? And yet when faced with the prospect of someone calling you on your stubbornness, your stubbornness, which has cost a 3,431 Americans their lives, and thousands more their limbs, you, Mr. Bush., imply that if the Democrats don‘t give you the money, and give it to you entirely on your terms, the troops would be stranded or forced to serve longer or what, have to throw bullets at the enemy with their bare hands? It is moronic.

We have defunded wars before, sir, and this is not even close to a true defunding. No harm has come to our troops. How transcendently, how historically pathetic. Any other president from any other moment in a panorama of our history would have, at the outset of this tawdry game of political chicken, declared that no matter what the other political side did, he would ensure personally, first last and always, that the troops would not suffer. A president, Mr. Bush, uses the carte blanche he already has not to manipulate and overlap arriving and departing brigades into a second surge, but to say in unequivocal terms that if it takes every last dime of the money already allocated, if it takes reneging on government contracts with Halliburton, he will make sure the troops are safe, even if the only safety to be found is in getting them the hell out of there.

Well any true president would have done that, sir. You, instead, used our troops as political pawns, then blamed the Democrats when you did so. Not that these Democrats, who had this country‘s support and sympathy up until 48 hours ago, have not earned all of the blame they can carry home. We seem to be very near the bleak choice between war and shame, Winston Churchill wrote to Lord Moyne in the days after the British signed the Munich Accords with Germany in 1938. “My feeling is that we shall choose shame and then have war thrown in a little later.” That‘s what this is for the Democrats, isn‘t it, their Neville Chamberlain moment before the second world war.

All that is missing is the landing at the airport with the blinkered leader waving a piece of paper, which he naively thought would guarantee peace in our time, but which his opponent would ignore with deceit. The Democrats have merely streamlined the process. Their piece of paper already says Mr. Bush can ignore it with impunity.

But where are the Democratic presidential hopefuls this evening? See they not that to which the Senate and House leadership has blinded itself? Judging these candidates based on how they voted on the original Iraq authorization or waiting for apologies for those votes, that is ancient history now. The Democratic nomination is likely to be decided tomorrow, but talk of practical politics, the buying into the president‘s dishonest construction, fund the troops or they will be in jeopardy, the promise of tougher action in September is falling not on deaf ears, but rather falling on Americans who already told you what to do and now perceive your ears as deaf, as closed to practical politics.

Those who seek the Democratic nomination need to, for their own political futures, and 1,000 times more solemnity and importance for the individual futures of our troops, denounce this betrayal, vote against it, and if need be, unseat Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi if they continue down this path of guilty, fatal acquiescence to the tragically misguided will of a mono-maniacal president.

For ultimately, at this hour, the entire government has failed us. Mr. Reid, Mr. Hoyer and the other Democrats have failed us. They negotiated away that which they did not own, but had only been entrusted by us to protect, our collective will as the citizens of this country, that this brazen war of lies be ended as rapidly and safely as possible.

Mr. Bush and his government have failed us. They have behaved venomously and without dignity, of course. That is all at which Mr. Bush is gifted. We are the ones providing any element of surprise or shock here. With the exception of Senator Dodd and Senator Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidates have, so far at least, failed us. They must now speak and make plain how they view what has been given to Mr. Bush and what is yet to be given away tomorrow and in the thousand tomorrows still to come, because for the next 14 months, the Democratic nominating process, indeed the whole of our political discourse, until further notice, has, with the stroke of a cursive pen, become about one thing and one thing alone, the electorate figured this out six months ago.

The president and Republicans have not, doubtless will not. The Democrats will figure it out during the Memorial Day recess when they go home and many of those who elected them will politely suggest that they stay there and permanently. Because on the subject of Iraq, the people have been ahead of the media, ahead of the government, ahead of the politicians for the last year or two years or maybe three.

Our politics is now about the answer to one briefly worded question:

Mr. Bush has failed. Mr. Warner has failed. Mr. Reid has failed. So, who among us will stop this war, this war of lies? To he or she fall the figurative keys to the nation. To all the others, presidents and majority leaders and candidates and rank-and-file Congressmen and senators of either party, there‘s only blame for the shameful and bipartisan betrayal. Good night and good luck.

Keith Olbermann Layeth the Smackdown

You all know that I've had enough of the Democratic leadership and their complete lack of willingness to confront and take down Bush on his misbegotten war effort. I've had enough of this, and worse, their feigned action.

Do they have their reasons? Sure. They want to leave this war intact long enough into next year that all the Republican constituents fall away from their people and consider the Democratic opponents. The catch is that they're now stepping down to Bush's level and playing games with American servicemen and women's lives.

This whole macabre game is just disgusting.

Tonight Keith had a Special Comment on this subject. It will be my intention to post the full transcript of that as soon as it's available.

Extraordinary Rendition, Wiretapping, and Guantanamo: Bad Things?

Ok, hear me out...

Personally, I wouldn't want any of these things happening to me, or anyone I know personally. But what about Bush and his cronies? Clearly, they all think these are great things, and I agree. They're very useful for extracting vital information and confessions, and holding the accused indefinitely until you get everything you want from it.

Personally, I think that it would be GREAT to wait for Bush's term to expire, then let the next president keep these items available, and use them... on BUSH! That's right, pick Bush up off the street somewhere, and ship his ass off to, say, Afghanistan to be "forcefully questioned." Condi's phones tapped. Cheney swept off to Guantanamo and held for a few years without charges, lawyers, phone calls, any of the things he would undoubtedly be demanding angrily while his blood pressure rose. We could then take his entire staff and stuff them away in secret prisons throughout Europe that still exist, waiting until we decide drum up support for war crimes charges.

Eh, eh?

Pat Buchanan is Nuts

Ok, so, I've found myself occasionally agreeing with him, but watching Scarborough right now, it's easy to see how Democrats don't like him. His repeated point in an argument with Arianna Huffington was that "the Boy Scouts were booed out of the Democratic Convention because they didn't allow gays to join" and that the Democrats are "pushing the Gay Agenda."

I take some offense to this. You see, when I was a kid and brought up to play nice, share, and treat everyone equally, I never thought ill of anyone without a good reason... like if they didn't give me their damned pudding, even under duress. Seriously though, black, white, Mexican, I knew all three colors, and didn't think any less of any of them.

Ok, again, seriously (this time for real), I was raised (by a flagrantly racist mother, no less) to respect everyone equally, to be fair, and to understand that, in truth, all people were created equal. Even if some people weren't equal due to disabilities, this didn't lessen their value as a person with potential to me (perhaps because I grew up in the days of Stephen Hawking).

So anyway, on to the real meat of this... As a liberal, I take offense to the accusation that I am pushing the "Gay Agenda." I have always felt that I have pushed the Equality Agenda... And in the end, isn't that what these same people have ALWAYS been against? Well, Pat?

The Summation of the Case for Impeachment

Damn, this is just sooo good. From The Baltimore Chronicle:

Impeach Bush or Get Rid of the Impeachment Clause

What is it about impeachment that has the Democratic Party leadership so frightened?

Talking with members of Congress, one hears the same refrain: “I know Bush and Cheney have committed impeachable crimes, but impeachment is a bad idea.”

The rationales offered are many, but all are either specious or based upon flawed reasoning. Let’s consider them separately:

Excuse one, offered by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is that impeachment would be a diversion from Democrats’ main goals of ending the Iraq War, and passing important legislation. The reality, of course, is that many of the administration’s impeachable acts relate directly to the war, so hearings would only build support for ending it. Meanwhile, with the slim majorities in both houses, Democrats cannot pass any significant progressive legislation that could survive a veto (or a presidential signing statement) and the record shows it.

Excuse two is that impeachment is divisive. This seems the height of absurdity. When voters handed Congress to the Democrats, they knew they were setting the stage for divided government. That was the whole point. Moreover, divisiveness in Washington has largely emanated from the White House, not from Congress. Anyhow, given administration intransigence on all the issues that matter to Democrats, they have no alternative but to take a stand.

Excuse three is a claim that the public opposes impeachment. This is simply wrong. The few straightforward scientific polls done on impeachment, such as one published by Newsweek last October, show a majority of Americans to want it. Furthermore, if Bush has committed impeachable acts, it is inappropriate for House members, all of whom swore to uphold and defend the Constitution, not to act.

Excuse four is that old canard that impeaching Bush would mean making Cheney president—a deliberately scary prospect but one which any politician in Washington knows is garbage. Firstly, if Cheney were to become president because of a Bush impeachment or resignation, it would only be for a few months, and given his stunning lack of support among the public—currently about 9 percent and falling—he would be the lamest of lame ducks, unable to do anything. But more importantly, his own party would be certain to remove him before any removal of Bush, and for exactly that reason—they would not want to be going into the 2008 election with Cheney as party leader. This is exactly what happened to Spiro Agnew, whom a Republican attorney general managed to indict and remove before the collapse of Nixon’s presidency. The same thing can be expected to happen to Cheney, who would surely face either a sudden health crisis, or an indictment for corruption.

Finally, excuse five is that the president’s crimes and abuses of power need to be proven before any impeachment bill. This is completely backwards. An impeachment bill can be filed by any member of Congress who believes the president has violated the Constitution. At that point, it is up to the House Judiciary Committee to consider the bill’s merits and decide whether to ask the full House to authorize impeachment hearings. It is at an impeachment hearing where investigations should proceed. After all, only after the Judiciary Committee votes out an impeachment article can the full House consider whether to actually impeach. Calling for investigations before an impeachment hearing is like asking for an investigation before a grand jury investigation. It’s redundant, simply a dodge.

Besides, some of this president’s high crimes are self-evident. Take the case of Bush’s ordering the National Security Agency to spy on Americans’ communications without a warrant. A federal judge has already labeled this violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act a felony. There is no denying this felony occurred, or that Bush is responsible. The only question the House needs to vote on is whether the felony is a “high crime” warranting impeachment.

The same applies Bush’s refusal to enact over 1200 laws or parts of laws duly passed by Congress. Bush doesn’t deny that he has usurped the power of the Congress, as laid down in Article I of the Constitution. Rather, he asserts—with no basis in the wording of that document—that as commander in chief in the war on terror, he has the “unitary executive” authority to ignore acts of Congress. Again, there is no need for an “investigation” to establish whether this happened. What Congress must do is decide whether this usurpation of its Constitutional role is an impeachable abuse of power.

Likewise the president’s authorization of kidnap and torture. We know the president okayed torture. We know too, that he used his “unitary executive” claim to refuse to accept a law passed overwhelmingly by the last Congress outlawing torture. Finally, we know the president did not, as required by US and international law, act to halt torture and punish those up the chain of command who oversaw systematic, widespread torture.

There are many impeachable crimes by this president (and vice president), such as obstruction of justice in the Valeria Plame outing case, conspiracy (or treason) in the Niger “yellowcake” document forgery scandal, conspiracy to engage in election fraud, lying to Congress, criminal negligence in responding to the Katrina disaster, bribery and war profiteering, etc., which would require Judiciary Committee investigations.
In the meantime, though, Democrats need to step up to their responsibility.

If this president is not to be impeached, Congress may as well amend the Constitution to remove the impeachment clause. It will, in that case, have become as much an anachronism as prohibition.

- Dave Lindorff

The simple fact is that Bush has been angling for an impeachment since he took office, doing so little in his first months as President, and doing only bad things in his years after September 11th, which allowed him to gain the power and the political capital to do the evil he's done. Impeach him now or risk forever losing our country's soul and spirit. End his war, and let's rebuild our country as one.

A warning to Senate and Congressional Republicans, while I'm at it: If impeachment does come to the table, be careful about standing behind your man too closely. You will be facing a Democratic Senate, Congress, President, and perhaps in the next few years, even Judicial branch, and could wind up seeing your entire agendas being completely ignored, particularly if the majority grows to overwhelm any hope of a successful filibuster.

You know what the saddest part about the Republicans is? That unlike you, we Democrats will be able to acheive all this without needing to use a single one of your dirty tricks: We won't need to redraw districts to allow for more Democratic victories; We don't need to threaten a 'nuclear option' to destroy the only balance in a house divided; We don't need to erode the walls of the separation of powers, packing the Judiciary with biased and unqualified candidates.

But in the end, it will be those dirty tricks that you clung to as your last refuge from the power of an angry American public that will have given us this power, proving beyond a doubt, perhaps for generations, that Republicans simply cannot be trusted.

"It seems that fate is not without a sense of irony." - Morpheus, The Matrix

Has Walter Reed Been Shut Down?

No? Then why has the majority of the media just become thoroughly silent on the issue?

Is it because the fight over the Iraq Spending bills have taken center stage? Well, partly, but is that the actual reason? No.

I think that at least in part, it's because something more interesting has come along.

Something more important, you mean, Iggy?

No. I mean more interesting. I'll elaborate. In the news recently we've been bombarded with the latest scandal to hit Washington, but as far as that town goes, it's small potatoes. Of course, I'm referring to the DC Madam scandal. This seems to be the biggest thing to hit Washington since Bill Clinton's dick, or at least insofar as the mainstream media goes. Bill, don't think I'm knocking on you, I was one of the ones who said "Ok, and what's the big deal here?"

What happened is that once again, America's notorious attention span has drifted. Nothing juicy enough was coming out of this. We should be ashamed of ourselves that the removal of Sanjaya from American Idol and the fact that a few politicians got blowjobs (no doubt on taxpayer money, my dear Republicans, so please by all means, explain your outrage about Bill Clinton, and your silence in this case).

Let's see if I can recount a few of the major headlines since this whole story blew up in the administration's face: DC Madam, Sanjaya, Republican and Democratic debates (which both seemed to avoid the topic), the Queen's visit... The list goes on. All big stories, mind you, especially Sanjaya... (Read between the lines there. Full disclosure: I watched the first season, and after that I just did NOT care)

I should clarify; I'm not even saying that Walter Reed needs to be page one news every day. If there's nothing new to report, you don't have to say something about it every day, for Pete's sake! What I am saying is that it shouldn't be allowed to just fade from America's consciousness like it has, like the same yellow ribbon magnets have on thousands of cars around the country, and yes, and like the travesty of the petty fighting over the corpse of Ground Zero (the World Trade Center site, for those of you with American memory*). Six months after 3,000 Americans were brutally murdered (including and especially 343 heroic firefighters (yes, I actually still know that number off the top of my head)), Britney "Stupid White Trash" Spears was back on the front page for whatever stupid escapade she was doing this time.

John Stewart of the Daily Show morbidly joked "America is ready to care about stupid shit again." (I couldn't find the specific quote so don't crucify me for it)

Don't let these people be forgotten, neither the soldiers nor the people responsible for the criminal neglect of our soldiers. Either is a dereliction of duty on behalf of the American public.

The People Have Spoken

"I've listened to a lot of voices; people in my administration heard a lot of voices." George W. Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi today passed the Iraq Spending Bill to Mr. Bush. The "President" vowed to veto the bill since the moment the elected Democratic majority promised that they would push this bill through. Infighting is already promising to turn the tides against the Democrats, as key Democrats have been announcing their intention to construct another Blank Check Bill for Mr. Bush. Obviously they feel it would be unpatriotic to uphold the system of checks and balances...

What Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi seem to have failed to grasp (perhaps because they were incumbents during this past election) is that the Democrats were granted their positions by the American people to end this war. Now they balk at doing precisely that, and worse, intend to do exactly what the Republican lead Senate and Congress did since this war began. When so many Democratic leaders campaigned on the promise of ending this war and bringing honesty back to Washington, how can we trust any of them?

What should happen is that the Democrats should sit back on their laurels, debate why the Yankees suck (and yes, I am a Yankees fan who just happens to be fed up), and wait for Bush to ask nicely for the funding under whatever terms the elected officials dictate.