With Kucinich Leaving Race, We ALL Lose

The blog at the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is dropping out of his bid for the Democratic nomination, abandoning his run for U.S. commander-in-chief in this november's 2008 race. Kucinich stayed in throughout the 2004 race but this time, faced with challenges for his Congressional seat back home (says CPD), the one-of-a-kind presidential candidate says he does not want to risk losing his House of Representatives seat - where he is one of the most truly progressive hearts and minds to be found on Capitol Hill - and I certainly would hate to lose him there as well.

Whether you supported Kucinich or not - and I admit I'm leaning more towards John Edwards - I think we all lose when a man like Dennis is forced out of the race. Why? Because he stands for real issues and stnads up for real people. It is a pitiful, quite obscene statement about what America has become if a person (and in Dennis' case, the best kind of idealist) who wants the United States to actually BE all the positive things we like to say we are (leader of the free world, a democracy, a fair and just society where the "lowliest" of people can achieve their greatest dreams, a beacon of hope, a role model to the rest of the world, to name just a few).

If only those candidates who pander to the most extreme zealots who would rape and plunder the U.S. Constitution - not to mention human rights and global citizenry -with the insane and obscene claim it's "for God's sake" as we have with the right wing, or those who cater to the the wallets and whims of American corporations as we see with the most mainstream Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the more moderate Republicans - who also brown nose the Christian fascists and the richest of the Americans - such as John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, individual American citizens lose BIG TIME. We see it, too, with the almost rabid minimalization and ostracization of Democrat John Edwards who commits the "heresy" of trying to bravely represent the needs and dreams of even poorer working class Americans rather than the corporate money machine of the Democratic Leadership Committee (DLC).

We lose that which we claim to hold most dear when we allow a Dennis Kucinich or a John Edwards - or even a Ron Paul on the GOP side - to be forced out by those who use money and power and fear-mongering to transform our elections from being ABOUT the needs and dreams and votes of real American citizens and voters to what's in the best interests of a General Electric, a Viacom, a Rupert Murdoch, a Halliburton, a Beatrice Foods, et al.

Shame on the media... but shame on us, too.

For more coverage of Dennis Kucinich, go to the Openers blog.

Benazir Bhutto's Assassination

Since Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf plunged his country of Pakistan into one of its maddest states ever in his efforts to control the results of voting a few months ago that threatened to unseat him, it became not a question of IF his major opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, twice elected and twice unseated as a Muslim country's first major woman leader, would be assassinated, but when.

I find much about the reaction to her death to be completely disingenuous. The first was the Bush Administration's reaction, acting like they were saddened when I doubt they were; my biggest questions with her death, in fact, center around just how much involvement Musharraf - who was to face Ms. Bhutto in elections in less than two weeks - and the Bushies may have had with her assassination earlier today.

While we've heard that the Bushies really wanted her there in a power sharing arrangement with Musharraf, there is far more evidence that neither Musharraf nor Bush actually did want her there, since the progressiveness she represented is hardly what the Bush Administration wants in trying to control that part of the world.

But I am just as suspicious concerning the rush by the Bushies and their ilk - including "I see 9/11 everywhere" Rudy Giuliani - to identify al Qaeda as responsible for Bhutto's death. Sure, Bhutto did not pose herself a good candidate for al Qaeda; she also wasn't who Musharraf and Bush want either.

In truth, there are any number of groups and individuals who could have put the hit on this woman. Sadly, the more the Bushies point to al Qaeda and boast "they know" Osama bin Laden is behind it, the more questions I feel arise as to their own culpability here. After all, the Bushies - and this is clear right from their administration HERE at home - are no champions of democracy; they like the "absolute monarchy" kind of arrangement. While Bush is hardly the first "monarch" to decide who lives and dies, a hell of a lot of destabilization and attempted coups around the world since 2000 (including the short ouster of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) point right back to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It's Time To Neuter Mutt ("Mitt"( Romney AND His Religious Claptrap

Bhfrik already posted about GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's extremely tortured logic and compared it, as much in the media did on Thursday, with JFK' famed speech on Catholicism, religion, and the United States' highest office. Yet, when I went back and looked at a rather complete version of the Kennedy speech, I see HUGE differenes (and that's even before you address the issue that America in 1960 was a considerably different place than it is today; in 1960, few gave second thought to being force-fed religion in schools, for example).

Two things especially about Romney's statements not just irritated but scared the hell out of me.

First, his frequent use of "require" as in freedom REQUIRES religion. Uh, say what? freedom. What he's saying blatantly is that he chooses to pretend he knows far more about how a democracy should run than our founding fathers. And, fwiw, it wasn't John Adams or his son who just about bankrupted the commonwealth of Massachusetts over the disastrous "BIG DIG" as Romney did as governor while, according to many reports, the "friends" who thanked him in cash for those contracts increased Mutt's (Call it a typo if you wish, but it fits) his personal fortune considerably.

Second, I don't WANT a president who will "rule" me and the rest of America based on his religious convictions. We're not electing a pope, damn it. I want the president to lead the country and let me practice my religion separate and apart from fundamentalist pandering in Washington.

Third, if Romney can't respect one of the core tenets on which this country was founded and its democracy begun - the separation of church and state - than he has NO business whatsoever running for local dog catcher, let alone the leader of the free (to worship exactly as Mutt tells you to) world.

Considering the scandals and miserable practices of these "good moral values" Republicans like Romney, I doubt very much that God wants them speaking for Him either.

Here We Go: Bushies Putting Fear In Voters Claiming Al Qaeda Targeting 2008 Prez Election

And it comes from the so-called Democrat Homeland Security Advisor (and such an incompetent brown noser that she's a perfect Bushie) Fran Townsend who, btw, resigned yesterday (years too late, if you ask me).

Personally, NOTHING Al Qaeda can do will amount to anything compared to what the Bushies have done to democracy since 2000.

"Out of The Mouths of Blabbering Boobs & Bushies"

With so much bad news - from the economy to the declaration that we're having our deadliest years E-V-E-R in both Iraq and Afghanistan to a host of other awfuls, the Bushies have made a few really TELLING declarations in the past week that are worthy of note.

First, there was Bush's insistence that anything Pakistan leader Pervez Musharraf wanted to do to for his country was A-OK with Bush. But that's not quite the NEWS. Bush, when asked if it was appropriate for Musharraf to claim the presidency when he came to power through a military coupe with Musharraf heading the military at the time, Bush comes out with:

Can a leader run both the military AND be president of his country at the same time? Of course not!

Uh.... Houston to the president: YOU ostensibly run the military as commander in cheat.. uh chief WHILE you are also supposedly president.

Then there's White House spokesvermin Dana Perino, Tony Snow(job)'s even sorrier replacement who, when asked if it was appropriate for any country's leadership to choose arbitrarily to end his/her nation's democracy and civil liberties in the name of protecting its citizens from terrorism, said NO!

But all the Bushies have done, since even before Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, is spy upon us as its citizens without ANY proof any of us is jeopardizing national security, to wiretap and remove constitutionally protected liberties, all in the name of "homeland security." In fact, in the same week Perino uttered this startling declaration (and removing our liberties have NOT made us any safer, I must add), the Bushies had several new initiatives underway to snoop upon us without due cause.

Stop the insanity, people!

Just Who Is The Terrorist?

Since last week's vote on Capitol Hill pronouncing Iran's military as a terrorist organization (trust me, I have no love lost for most of the last however many leaders of Iran but, as the Christian Science Monitor opined shortly after September 11th, 2001, "one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter") adding more and more drums toward the steady Bush-Cheney beat toward a full blown war with THAT country as well, I can just about imagine how well it would play if other countries labeled Bush and "our" Pentagon as terrorist organizations.

Certainly, I think that even within our own nation, there is widespread concensus that Bush-Cheney and all their evil elves have functioned as not just enemies of "the state" we hold dear (as in free speech, democracy, their war on the middle/working class, non-stop lies to engage in more dirty tricks and torture and war, to name a scant few. Yet can you imagine the outrage and the "right"eously angry shaking jowls of the likes of a Fred Thompson, a Trent Lott, and a Dick Cheney if another country labeled them as terrorists?

The longer we allow this evil empire to continue making misery and mayhem wherever it goes (some of which "grow" right here at home), the more we in effect empower our terrorists to wreak havoc on others. Nor am I sure that it is in anyway prudent to allow Bush and Cheney to sit there, orchestrating global oppression for the 450-460 days left to run of their term.

In other words, there is really not much we can - or even should - do about Iran and its military. Yet, here at home, we have a huge obligation to stop this continuing seven year nightmare and eliminate our own homegrown terrorists like Dubya, The Dick, the Blackwater honchos. Time we acted, too.

Dick Cheney, Enemy of the State (And The World)

As I posted elsewhere...

I strongly (as in STRONGLY) encourage you to find your local listing for this week's PBS Frontline for a startling, scary profile of Vice DickPresident Dick Cheney's 30+ year war to take away civil liberties at the same astonishing pace as he wants to turn the American presidency and any notion of democracy into a game only Cheney and his pals can play.

I was riveted and sickened all at once; those who maintain BIG questions about the Bush Administration's possible complicity in September 11th will find new fodder with the revelations from Cheney's own hench cretins that as buildings still burned that day, The Dick was calling in his people to stage a coup against American democracy and the U.S. Constitution while giving the president more powers than our founding fathers EVER wanted to allow.

This material, fully documented, FAR EXCEEDS the imagination of George Orwell's 1984 and the machinations of Machiavelli. And yet, with all of that, what REALLY amazed me was that the dimbulb former Attorney General (although a dimbulb HAS to burn brighter than also former AG Alberto Gonzales) John Ashcroft ACTUALLY stood up for us when Cheney demanded the feds launch the most massive domestic spying and data mining operation against the American people in U.S. history.

White House Lies, Damned Lies, And Infidelities: "Whatever Shall We Tell The Children?"

If the past few weeks - give or take seven years - have taught us anything, it's to yearn for the days when a president merely lied about a question that was simply NOT the business of special counsel Ken Starr or the American press corps to ask: whether he engaged in any form of adulterous sexual activity with a consenting adult.

True, it's sad as hell that the Clinton-Lewinsky cigar/blue dress debacle would seem like the good old days. Yet, back then, we weren't at war with everyone and everything, more Americans were earning a living wage while far fewer were forced into bankruptcy and home foreclosures, and Washington's only seeming grave concern was "What shall we tell the children?" about a lie that was really none of our business when, today, the people getting screwed are American workers and other citizens (and it's sure as heck not consensual!), the lies told undercut not the sanctity of marriage but the entire U.S. constitution, bill of rights, and the ever-declining integrity of a democracy.

Indeed, we really SHOULD be asking the question now, "Whatever will we tell our kids?" because, if we don't figure out how to address what the Bush Administration is doing to us and America and the world, our kids stand almost no chance whatsoever of living in a country of which they can be duly (rather than artificially) proud.

A Birthday Toast to Studs Terkel

[Ed. note: While I cross-posted this at All Things Democrat, Studs at 95 has MORE on the ball than 95 (or 1,995) men a quarter his age! Happy birthday, Studs!]

Today is Studs Terkel’s 95th birthday. And if you ask, “Studs who?”, get yourself to Wikipedia or other resources, because this man is very well worth knowing about. You can also find a prolonged interview with Studs conducted today by Amy Goodman of “Democracy Now!”

As I wrote yesterday re: the passing of Jerry Falwell, that he was a man for whom the planet was much worse (IMHO) for his influence, I think the exact opposite is true (and an understatement to call it just “exact opposite”) of Studs, a man who has contributed so much, for so long, and so admirably on topics like labor, American culture and society, social justice, McCarthyism, free speech, and much more.

On milestones like this (and 95 is still a milestone!), it makes me think of the recent passing of Kurt Vonnegut as well as those older but ever-so-wise distinctly American minds, voices, and contributors such as Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Jimmy Carter, Helen Thomas, and (thankfully) countless others who are now much older. I worry that we don’t have the strong minds coming along that the generations that produced these fine minds nurtured.

But please, make me eat my words. Become a fine mind like Studs or Helen or George McGovern, et al. America and the entire world needs you!

Bush To Congress And American People: "Just In Case You Forgot I'm Dictator, Fuck You"

Sadly, this sentiment on Bush's part applies to almost every issue that has come up in Washington, D.C. since even before his dad's pals on the U.S. Supreme Court selected him president in December 2000. Just as sad (and downright mad, in the sense of complete separation from reality), far too many Americans have been willing to accept his dangerous and completely undemocratic (not to mention insane) self-portrait.

However, here, this refers to Bush's swaggering, cocky promise to veto yet another Congressional bill on Iraq funding in answer to Bush's veto of last week's bill that provided all the funding Bush wanted WHILE it also set a timeline to begin to withdraw troops starting in the fall of this year.

From AP:

The White House threatened on Wednesday to veto a proposed House bill that would pay for the war only through July — a limit Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned would be disastrous.

The warnings came as Democratic leaders wrestled with how to support the troops but still challenge President Bush on the war. Bush has requested more than $90 billion to sustain the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September.

Democrats were unbowed.

"With this latest veto threat, the president has once again chosen confrontation over cooperation," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

In a flash of defiance, House Democratic leaders this week promoted legislation that would provide the military $42.8 billion to keep operations going through July, buy new equipment and train Iraqi and Afghan security forces. Congress would decide shortly before its August recess whether to release an additional $52.8 billion to fund the war through September.

"In essence, the bill asks me to run the Department of Defense like a skiff, and I'm trying to drive the biggest supertanker in the world," Gates told senators Wednesday. "And we just don't have the agility to be able to manage a two-month appropriation very well."

The veto threat came from White House spokesman Tony Snow, traveling aboard Air Force One with Bush to tour tornado damage in Kansas.

"There are restrictions on funding and there are also some of the spending items that were mentioned in the first veto message that are still in the bill," Snow said.

House members planned a vote Thursday, just two days after David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., chairman of the Appropriations Committee, briefed White House chief of staff Josh Bolten on the plan.

The stern White House response also reflected the high stakes involved for Bush, who is struggling to beat back congressional skepticism about his Iraq strategy. In recent days, Bush has tried to shore up support by personally reaching out to moderate Republican and Democratic rank-and-file.

A Note About Vermont's Impeachment Vote

There are two things I want to call your attention to in the Vermont impeachment vote on Tuesday.

First, notice that our resolutions called for impeachment of BOTH Bush and Cheney.

Second, while I hear voters in other areas who don't go vote in even presidential elections because they don't have the time, it's raining or cold or "why bother?"... name any other lame ass excuse, Vermont voters came out on a day where the daytime HIGH was around -10 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill in the negative 28-40 range. And town meeting day isn't a quite in-out voting affair; in many towns, it's an ALL DAY affair, where lunch is served and the kids attend. In most, you vote by show of hands, which makes you accountable to everyone in the room.

Town meeting day represents one of the last vestiges of true participatory democracy. Where residents go through the budgets, weigh options aloud in discussions with neighbors, hear committee members talk about different programs, how the local schools run, and so on.

It's an amazing process; towns throughout America should do it.

Helen Thomas: There's Petty and Stupid, And Then There's Bush Petty and Stupid

Since Bush rolled into office on the votes of the U.S. Supreme Court rather than the will of the majority of American voters in 2000 - and close to that again in Ohio in 2004 - this administration's biggest threat hasn't been Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, al Zarqawi, Saddam Hussein, or hell, not even Iran's Ahmedinejad. No, it's a little old lady (just 86 years young) from Hearst Newspapers (probably one of the few good things a Hearst publication ever offered): her name is Helen Thomas.

Having covered the White House for decades, Helen has always commanded a certain degree of respect and even had her own front row seat - the only one with her specific name upon it. But with the same petulance and pettiness that the Bush Administration has showed toward truth, truthtellers, whistleblowers, and too many times, its own soldiers on the ground, the White House is pushing Helen out of her assigned front row seat to the proverbial bleechers.

Of course, the White House press corps won't stand up for her and say this is wrong. For all these years of Bush, they've often sat there cowering like the worst schoolyard bullies-turned-wusses whenever Helen pipes up with a question THEY should have asked themselves and, of course, did not. And when she repeats the question when the liar at the podium like Fleischer, McClellan, and now Tony Snow(job) don't answer it or answer only in 400 rpm spin.

This is patently wrong!

And what is worse is that what this White House does to Helen Thomas it does to us ALL. As Cheney's words yesterday indicate, this White House isn't the least bit interested that the will of the people has spoken very loudly on Iraq - and I daresay on this administration as well.

We need to show the Bushies the door... not just the door out of the White House, or the door INTO a court on treason charges; we need to show them the door into federal prison.

I've had the pleasure of corresponding with Helen a few times. This woman has more integrity in a hangnail than ALL of the Bushies combined. It's time we stopped a dictatorship of thugs masquerading as a democracy.

Joe Conason: Why Americans Have Reason To Doubt The Future Of Our Democracy

From Salon:

It could happen here

In an excerpt from his new book, Salon's columnist explains why, for the first time since the resignation of Richard M. Nixon, Americans have reason to doubt the future of their democracy

And I happen to think Joe is right. There has never been a bigger threat to American democracy than the Bush-Cheney Administration.

When It's The Senate That Makes You Sick!

[Update: I count 10 senators as not voting on the 56:34 vote that stalemated this action. To see who voted and how, check here.]

Yesterday's rare weekend Senate session was sickening, to say the least.

Mind you, the House of Reprehensibles who for the last several years have performed about as bad as any assemblage possibly could, managed to have three full days of Iraq debate, got some smart and long-needed things said by Dems AND Republicans alike, and managed to vote on the purely symbolic (and doesn't that rankle?) non-binding resolution against Bush's handling of Iraq.

But once again, Repugnants like Mitch McConnell - who proves that a turd wearing a $300 shirt and a $125 tie STILL looks like a bowel movement - would not so much as allow the Senate to debate the Iraq War four years after we entered the damned country (no wonder Iraqis are reticent to adopt democracy American-style).

And, in the same breath, these Repugnants said they could not vote or discuss even a symbolic no confidence measure on Bush UNLESS it was tied to a promise that there would be an UNLIMITED amount of money flowing from taxpayers' pockets to Bush and the Pentagon to ensure we can stay to completely dessimate Iraq - and start our destruction of Iran, I suppose - unchecked.

As displeased as I am with some Senate Democrats, I could rethink my anti-capitol punishment edict when it comes to the likes of Mitch McConnell and some of the others of the most smug Republicans. The sooner we're shed of the infection of the Bushlickers, the better.

Restore Habeas Corpus And Much of the Rest of the U.S. Constitution - PLEASE!

From Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, one of four Dem authors of the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007 (with a nod to GOTV blog for the link):

Please take a moment to watch the video and read the text of the Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007, sign on as a citizen co-sponsor, and forward the bill to your personal networks. While you and I are acutely aware of the damage President Bush has done to our country's national reputation, too many of our family, friends and neighbors have no idea how far this Administration has gone.

You may want to add Restore Habeas Corpus to your blog list!

Notes On Iraq, Democracy, and More

You folks have left some good comments, especially the last few days, which has my head spinning (ok, perhaps that doesn't take ALL that much effort but...).

On Odom's "Victory is Not an Option" op/ed, Karlo pegged it correctly, how the hell did we think we were going to walk in and hand them a democracy kit? It's like we told them, "OK, we're here. Bow at our feet and thank us endlessly. Now just use this democracy kit, add hot water and voile!"

First and foremost, creating an instant democracy under the very best of conditions would have been impossible for Iraq. And hell, we didn't even leave them with working electricity to heat the water to add to the Instant Democracy Soup Kit! As Karlo notes, Iraqis have no idea what either democracy or victory - which probably means something quite different to them than it does to us - looks like. How Bush & Company blame Iraqis for the mess is just beyond my grasp.

Mind you, here we are in the United States in 2007 STILL hammering out what it means to be a democracy here at home. The Red States seem to think democracy means blind obedience and shut-the-hell-upness-unless-you're-with-us mentality. And as CK accurately points out, while it's the Blue States offering resolutions against the Iraq War and amassing the highly casualties in the war (Vermont remains the state with the highest per capita death rate in Iraq - save for, of course, Iraqi civilians themselves), it's the red states making all the money off this damned war while the rest of us pay the taxes and watch our troops and Iraq's innocents die and get hurt.

As for these resolutions, well...

I'm glad the states are finally stepping up, but I STILL hold both sides of Congress completely responsible for letting Bush and Company take us into Iraq on what was already clear to many of us LONG before the invasion were trumped-up charges and the worst pack of lies I've ever heard. Hillary Clinton keeps telling us that if she's president in 2009, she'll get us out of Iraq.

Really? Hillary voted for the damned war. What is Hillary doing NOW to end it? And no, electioneering for 2009 does NOT count.

And how do we trust these ass-covering nitwits NOT to allow Bush to take us into Iraq? I'm sorry, but his assurances that the "press" is the only one planning an attack hold no water for me. He told us the same about Iraq... and now, four long years later...

Of course, Hillary is not the only person who did this (there's John Kerry and others; Obama was not yet in the Senate). But as potentially the most likely Dem nominee for president, I am gravely concerned about her positions which are far too Bush-like for my comfort.

Non-binding resolutions aren't worth jack shit.