Former Reddites And Indies Leap Onto Democratic Party

As I noted at All Things Democrat, I think there are a host of reasons so many former Republicans and thirdies/Indies have joined new voters flooding into the blue party, among them:

* excitement with the Dem candidates
* Bush - GOP scandals backlash
* that up to 80% of Americans feel the Bushies killed the economy and feel the country in all respects is headed 110 MPH in the wrong direction
* a desire to belong to the only party where they can even dream someone will listen to them
* absolute terror (and not of rogue bombers)
* fear for their children in Bush’s economy and Bush’s wars, given how John McCain praises his efforts

Alas, it will be up to the Dem Party leadership, itself not a single camp, to keep them through November and beyond. Feet to the fire, people; feet to the fire.

The McCain, Republican Way: Less Jobs, More War

Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films brings us its latest hard-hitting film, this one driving it home about Iraq, McCain, the war machine and on, ad infinitum.

BTW, Brave New Films is also looking for assistance in helping fund their effort. I know money is tough, but for those with the wallet and the heart, check the links at the film.

Cheney Impeachment Resolution And War With Iran

I also posted this at All Things Democrat but...

From Ramsey Clark, an appeal to action in advance of plans against war with Iran and acknowledging that Rep. - and Democratic presidential candidate - Dennis Kucinich’s priority resolution to be presented on the floor tomorrow (Tuesday, November 5th) calling for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. Read the rest of this letter from Clark here.

President George Bush plans to attack Iran. From coast to coast, the people of this country are demanding impeachment, which may be the only way to stop him. We are acting now because a failure to impeach Bush with Vice President Cheney and other civil officers for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity may condemn the world to war without end. Has he not made it clear that he intends to attack Iran?

Again and again he has threatened Iran with attack if it does not abandon its nuclear program and act to please him. The threat, like the use of force against a nation, is a violation of Article 2.4 of the Charter of the United Nations just as the threat of assault, like assault itself, is a crime in all legal systems. President Bush has unilaterally imposed the most comprehensive economic sanctions within his power against Iran, excepting of course the purchase of Iranian oil. Sanctions are crueler than the colonial whipping post because they harm infants, children, the elderly and the infirm.

When President Bush decides to launch missiles at Iran, he will proclaim the ecessity for his action to prevent nuclear terrorism, and save freedom and democracy. “This government does not torture people,” President Bush assures us despite Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, rendition, the staunch defense of torture by his legal advisers throughout his Presidency and what We the People know, as he knows we know. We are being told that truth is what the Decider says it is. As with Iraq before, he now says Iran is a nuclear threat to the U.S. and brooks no dispute of his decision.

Failure to act will place the United States and much of the rest of the world in great danger of spreading war and violence resulting from a direct attack ordered by President Bush against Iran, retaliation by Iran and the fueling of existing tensions and conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region.

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.

Bush and Iran: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid But STOP Him

Insane and megalomaniacal simply do not begin to describe Bush anymore.

Our military is broken, our coffers are empty, and yet the Bushies say Iran is not just in their sights, but a definite strike zone.

Support our troops in the best way possible: demand treason charges be leveled against the Bush Administration not next week, not next month. NOW.

Bush Retains Deep Burrowing Bug Up His Butt

[On Saturday morning, as CNN ran the breaking news headline for hours saying they were awaiting news of Bush coming out of his colonoscopy, I was still woozy from a lack of caffeine. Thus, when they showed video - while that banner headline ran - of a bust of more than 30 pounds of marijuana found in the trunk of a car driven by a teenager, I slapped my head and thought, "Geez. Is THAT what he's had buried up there all this time? You'd think if it was pot, he wouldn't have been such a paranoid, perverse, and antagonistic little prick!" Turns out, these were two separate stories.]

On Friday night or so, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann joked that President Bush had to rush to sign the "new" anti-torture legislation bill (one meant to "clarify", as if it was anyone but the Bushies who needed such clarification, the rules against torture during interrogation laid out by the Geneva Convention) into effect before he "handed over" temporary control of the presidency to Vice President Dick Cheney while he underwent general anesthesia for a routine colonoscopy Saturday morning, just in case The Dick got any "funny" ideas.

There were also more than a few jokes running around (not exactly the ha-ha variety given what these chickenhawks are willing to do when someone else is in the line of fire) that we should pray like hell that Cheney didn't decide to use his few hours as commander-in-cheat to declare full scale war on Iran.

The sad news? Well, it's pretty damned clear that Bush's colonoscopy failed to dislodge the very deep, dangerous, and dum-bulbafying bug he's had buried up his sigmoid (one of the lovely stretches of intestine we call the colon) for at least the last seven years. Also, according to the president's doctors, they found no brain wedged up there, finally putting an end to the theory that this is where Bush has had his mind buried all this time.

Republican Leaders: Pray For Another Terrorist Attack On U.S. So We Can Win

I noticed some people - including at least a few Republicans I spoke with - were quite taken aback when the head of the Arkansas state GOP said the other day that (to paraphrase):

What we need in America is another September 11th, another horrific terrorist attack
on our home soil, because that is what the GOP needs to win all the seats it wants
in the 2008 presidential election.

Excuse me? Really? We need another 9-11-01?

Unbelievably, this Arkansas ass is hardly the first rightwinger to state something like this. There are an endless number of examples, almost all of which come from the far red right.

For example, Newt Gingrich (who remains an undeclared contender for the GOP race for President) said last summer that America needed to do whatever it could to help Israel turn the war they were waging on Lebanon (one often called a proxy war fought by Israel for America to put the fear of God into other Arab/Muslim heavy countries like Iran and Syria.

Specifically, Gingrich said (and I am not engaging in hyperbole) that it was in the very BEST interests of the GOP to help Israel morph the Lebanon situation into World War III SINCE Americans would flock to embrace Bush's war-as-the-answer-to-everything doctine as they did after 9-11. He said this publicly and repeatedly. Virtually none of the press called him on that, or demanded to know why taxpayer money and U.S. soldiers' lives were completely and utterly expendable so long as Republicans not only retained power, but they also got MORE power.

Only George W. Bush Could Work So Hard To ReStart The Cold War

With all the press the last few days about how Bush - who once infamously informed us that he had looked into former KGB superspy and now Russian president Vladimir Putin's heart and discerned it was "good" - is feuding with Putey-put (Bush's nickname for him), my biggest question is why it took the American press so damned long to notice.

For several years now, Putin has been warning the U.S. that he would not be the same lapdog for Bush as was Not-So-Great Britain's Tony Blair had been, which may explain why Blair is out but Putin's enjoying better-than-ever popularity in his own part of the world. Putin was against U.S. involvement in Iraq and has stated fervently that Russia would not just sit back and watch Bush go after Iran. On top of that, Russia was forced to write off HUGE amounts of money owed Russia from Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

But let's be clear about one thing. Despite all the talk since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the cold war did not magically end that day. It couldn't, not with the massive amounts of profit the military industrial complex has made and will still make. If anything, the cold war has morphed into a much larger entity, one whose face isn't always Eastern European. We also perhaps have never seen a president like Bush so horrifically eager to wage war for ego alone (but his friends, of course, profit wildly from his ego).

Let me also point you to Words of Power, a blog I just happened upon, and their specific piece about the Cold War's thaw.

On This Memorial Day Weekend...

Let us appreciate America's 25 million living veterans (one in every dozen citizens), demand we stop unnecessary aggression against other countries, and begin to worry about our own massive problems. At the same time, think about all the many wars this Republican chickenhawk vice president (Dick Cheney) and chickenshit commander in chief, Mr. Bush, have started since they used corrupt court processes to take the White House in December 2000:

Besides those declared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the proxy war Israel waged for Bush to break the spine of Lebanon in proxy:

• War on the military and our veterans (asking so much while cutting services to them every damned day)
• War on basic human rights
• War on individual privacy
• War not on poverty but against the poor
• War on families (you have to be the "right" kind of family not to feel "intruded" upon
• War on science
• War on reason
• War on truth and accountability as well as the whistleblowers who try to make the Bushies honest
• War on public education and against the best conditions for our kids
• War on young minds, trying to lure them away from high school or college with lies
• War on drugs (which got rolled into the War on Terror which, as they say, is a bumper sticker motto but hardly a game plan) which includes the ability for Americans to afford them, to get them for their most urgent needs (ex: contraception, pain relief, and yes, even decongestants in cold formulas), and to make decisions about their own bodies
• War on anyone who isn't of the Fascist Fundamentalist Christian "faith" (Muslims, especially)
• War on America's honor, its reputation, its compassion
• War on the sick (remember Terri Schiavo, kept alive when there was little brain left in her while the Bushies had no trouble discontinuing treatment to the ultra poor minority babies)
• War on journalism
• War on the United Nations, NATO, and other worldly agencies

Care to name some other wars?

TwoFer: Covert Iran War AND Frank Zappa

Happened to catch this post from Ezra Klein on "leaked" covert operations and potential for Bush waging war on Iran ("That sound you hear? Those are the drums of war.") , but also found this quote I adore posted in Comments. [Zappa was as astute about the American government as any musician I've ever heard.]

Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex.

Iran, Here We Come?

With Vice President Dick Cheney's nasty rhetoric about Iran delivered while in that part of the world late last week, is it any surprise that the national average per gallon price for gas is now $3? Much of the country is already paying far more than that, with no obvious obstacles to hitting $4/gal prices this summer.

I'm also worried about this report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (or IAEA, the nuke watchdogs of the United Nations), claiming that Iran may have overcome problems which might otherwise slow down their technological work regarding nuclear weaponry. Very recently, the IAEA was saying quite the opposite: that the U.S. was manufacturing propaganda about Iran and its nuclear efforts to perhaps justify an attack there.

While I've read several articles on this matter since last night, it is not immediately apparent to me whether it's "right" to say Iran is well on its way to nuclear weaponry or whether, with the change in U.N. secretaries, the IAEA may be getting pressure from the Bush Administration to make their reports sound scarier re: Iran. Stranger things have happened, and much of them since January, 2001.

War, Mankind, and John F. Kennedy

Doug at All Things Democrat has added a feature that offers some great quotes (I love quotes; have 'em plastered everywhere) by Democratic presidents. Here's one I have never read before which I think is so apt for today:

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

--- John F. Kennedy

Washington Post: Scathing, Scalding "Report on Haditha Condemns Marines"

Yesterday's report in the Washington Post made it abundantly clear just how very past BAD U.S. Marine actions in Iraq's city of Haditha, originally covered up as much as possible, were.

From that piece:

The Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the 2005 slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, and commanders fostered a climate that devalued the life of innocent Iraqis to the point that their deaths were considered an insignificant part of the war, according to an Army general's investigation.

Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell's 104-page report on Haditha is scathing in its criticism of the Marines' actions, from the enlisted men who were involved in the shootings on Nov. 19, 2005, to the two-star general who commanded the 2nd Marine Division in Iraq at the time. Bargewell's previously undisclosed report, obtained by The Washington Post, found that officers may have willfully ignored reports of the civilian deaths to protect themselves and their units from blame. Though Bargewell found no specific coverup, he concluded that there also was no interest at any level in investigating allegations of a massacre.

"All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," Bargewell wrote. He condemned that approach because it could desensitize Marines to the welfare of noncombatants. "Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes."

Ghastly. And so very unnecessary.

Lee Iacocca Asks: "Where Have All The Leaders Gone?"

You must - you really must - read this from the former auto CEO's latest book, quoted from Taegan Goddard's "Political Wire."

Lead, follow, or get the (fuck) out of the way, anyone?

Are We Having A Fantastic Friday The 13th?

I mean, there is very little to get in the way of our enjoyment of this religion-free holiday, unless you count pesky little points like:

• Bush and the Pentagon are soooo desperate for warm bodies to stand in harm's way in Iraq that they're wondering how much hardware would be needed to resurrect dead soldiers and return them to active duty
• Similarly, they're so desperate for soldiers in Iraq that they're forcing U.S. soldiers with traumatic brain injury, lost limbs, acute psychiatric symptoms, and other illnesses that require constant followup medical care back out on enemy lines
• Most of the rest of the world, and some of the smarter voices here, believe the U.S. is in for a financial meltdown that will make the dustbowl days of the '29-mid-30s Great Depression seem like a Paris Hilton birthday party
• Thanks to Bush, America probably should have filed for bankruptcy at least five years ago
• No one at the Department of (In)Justice - or the White House, for that matter - knows how to tell the truth
• When, after weeks of delay because the Iraqi Parliament would not show up for work in Baghdad's Green Zone in part because it was so dangerous, a big blast at the Parliament building claims the lives of both parliamentarians, guards, and support staff
• George Bush and John McCain and Dick Cheney insist on portraying Iraq as "Club Med" when it's more like Hub Dead
• If we arrested, tried, and found the entire Bush Administration guilty of crimes of treason against the United States tomorrow, it's still going to take decades to simply begin to resurrect our nation from the damage we've done, and perhaps a century or more before the U.S.'s once strong standing will return

I could go on... but if I did, I'd probably have to shoot myself. ::sigh::

Damn. It's nights like this I wish I liked alcohol. But this is an inopportune time to express what a cheap drunk I am.

Dear Democrats: The Voters Are Getting Antsy

See my piece here on why Democrats need to step it up a notch on Iraq or risk losing some serious recent gains.

The Surreality World of John McCain

Brought to us by Think Progress:

"That is utter rubbish. It’s electoral propaganda.”

CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey on McCain’s remarks about his trip to Baghdad: “It’s disgraceful for a man seeking highest office, I think, to talk utter rubbish. And that is utter rubbish. It’s electoral propaganda. It is simply not true. No one in his right mind who has been to Baghdad believes that story.”

UPDATE: According to McCain adviser Max Boot, the U.S. embassy’s security coordinator “refused to sign off on McCain’s visit because he thought it was too risky.”

New Bill Cuts Off Almost All War Spending

From the excellent folks at Make Them Accountable (by way of USA Today):

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will co-sponsor legislation that would cut off almost all Iraq war spending within a year, the bill’s other sponsor announced today, potentially ratcheting up Democratic pressure on President Bush to withdraw American troops from Iraq. Reid of Nevada and Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said this morning in a news release that they will introduce the legislation. It comes on the heels of Senate passage last week of an emergency war spending bill that would require President Bush to begin withdrawing American troops from Iraq within 120 days of the bill’s enactment. Bush has threatened to veto that bill and a similar House measure.

Good for you, Dems! This is exactly how you fight bullies. The more they resist the will of the people, the more you up the ante. Bob Geiger has more.

Will We Be At War With Iran This Time Next Week?

Read it and creep.

While McCain Claims Iraq Is Getting Better Every Day, 4 More GIs Die There

Looks like John McCain suffers from the same dysfunction with reality syndrome that afflicts our president, Georgy Bush.