Synchronicity

Isn't it amazing, the Supreme Court gives the Shrub a good legal spanking and the next day there's a new tape out from none other than Osama "dead or alive" bin Laden. Apparently he's alive, or at least was during the last overly hyped pseudo-victory in the War on a Tactic. If I were a conspiracy theorist, and I'm not, this would be a strong indication that he's alive and well in a CIA facility somewhere outside of U. S. law, ready to be "captured" about the last week in October. If I were a conspiracy theorist, that is.

It appears that the Shrubpublicans' attempt to make immigration into an issue isn't playing well with the immigrants, particularly the Hispanics. They're correctly referring to the call for hearings into immigration reform as a stalling tactic designed to appeal to the Conservative base or better put, the baser drives of the Conservative base. The best thing about this is that the Repugnicans aren't winning any friends in the Latino community and their support among Latinos is fading, squandered by Bush and Co. just as they squandered the surplus Clinton gave him (remember surplusses). Just this week, two-thirds of Repugnicans voted to eliminate multilingual ballots in a move to keep those they're disaffecting from voting. And they did it in the name of a national language, hiding their true motives behind a pseudo-patriotic smokescreen. Those who can't lead blow smoke.

Here's a reframe of the Repugnican stand that torture, indefinite imprisonment and other shady tactics repudiated by the Supreme Court are the Shrub being tough on terror: Bullshit. The Supreme Court was quite clear: These tactics are illegal. The Geneva Convention, a treaty, has more legal authority than the Constitution you're trampling. You swore to uphold the Constitution. The ancient word for you, Bush and Republicans, is foresworn. In modern parlance, you're a damned liar, Mr. President, and you aren't doing your job. Apparently you want to cut up the Constitution and all our treaty obligations in your run for power. Thursday's ruling stopped that and no matter how you reframe, what you did was wrong.

A Great Day

The Geneva Conventions aren't just a quaint notion! They even apply to "detainees" and hopefully "enemy combatants" (whatever those two vague classifications of the species Homo Sapiens means). The Supreme Court today in a dramatic reversal from its gerrymander on demand ruling yesterday ruled that the United States was indeed a land ruled by a Constitution rather than the petit dictatorship the Shrub seems to mistake us for, but more on that later.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Republican Chairman of the House Intelligence (excuse the oxymoron) Committee, today tried to make political hay of the 500 antique chemical warheads found in Iraq whose payload is about as dangerous as Drano and less dangerous than some of the insecticides I use on my roses. He called these the WMDs the President went to war over. Finally, something they can point to and say, "see, it was justified!" The warheads predate the first Gulf War and as I remember it, the Shrub, Colon the Inadvertent Sphincter, Condi "Like White On" Rice and the other Shrubpublicans were talking about were supposed to be usable, not a bunch of relics. I don't think any but the True Believers will be swayed by this weak attempt at justifying the unjustifiable.

And they found my records! The laptop with mine and about 26.5 million other veterans' personal data was just turned in. Computer experts at the FBI say the data wasn't accessed and I'm supposed to believe them. It'll save the Government millions in credit monitoring for us veterans, and I'm supposed to believe them. Right. See above for a treatise on trusting anything anyone associated with the Shrubpublicans or the rest of the Repugnican Party.

I mean, we can't even trust them to protect one of the last bastions of equality, the Internet, from corporate predation. Today even a Republican defected to tie the House Committee debating Internet Neutrality, the principle that my package of data is just as valuable as anyone elses. The opponents of this last equality of the little man argue that it places a Presidential e-mail on the same level as kiddie porn (a point I agree with but read on). What it will do is make the information superhighway a toll road with he who pays the most getting the fastest transmission. My humble blog, not supporting the Company Line, will be low if not last on the list, a victim of lobbyists convincing the Republicans that what's good for industry is good for anyone. In this case, it means move uploading those baby pics to the bottom of the list. Even the kiddie pornographer can afford to pay more for speed than you.

I want Colorado jerrymandered. We have a Democratic majority in both state houses so I want Tancredo's district and his Regan Republican supporters scattered, thrown in with majority Democrats and diluted to the point where Tommy the Xenophobe can't hold his seat any more. Get it going, Colo Dems! The floodgates have been opened! In actuality I find it deplorable that drawing Congressional district lines is politicized and that the stacked Supreme Court couldn't find that a district that stretches from Austin to San Angelo isn't a political gerrymander and not the will of the people. This is the first result of Bush stacking the court with wingnuts. Democratic Senators, you should have fought harder.

And finally, the Court gets it right. Not only did they overthrow the kangaroo courts at Guantanamo, they also effectively said that the Congressional resolution to use force was not carte blanche for Bush to take over the Government and form his own private KGB. In summary, it said that the resolution didn't give the President powers to circumvent law. That pretty much makes his wiretapping scheme illegal - he bypassed the FISE law. Could this be a high crime and misdemeanor? But then, President Cheney.... yuck! Phoey!

The Latest Meme

It's been said. The Warmonger in Chief, with his trademark turkey head bob and smirk, the one he wears when he thinks he's said something witty, that democrats want to "wave the white flag of surrender in Iraq."

Reframing is easy: Nice words from an Administration who had better things to do during Vietnam, a war theirs is coming to resemble. How about the red, black and white flag of fascism, of domestic espionage, of wars without end, of propaganda and of torture. How about the red, white and blue flags we're not allowed to see, the results of your war. How about the green and white flag we tore down but are not rebuilding? The white flag is also a flag of truce, a symbol of discussions to end bloodshed or to prevent it. If that's the case, Mr. President, I'm proud to wave a white flag. It's a symbol of parlay, of discussion of terms, of seeking a way to avoid a slaughter. I'm proud to wave it. Wave your bloodstained red white and blue if you like. Without the values it represents, the flag is nothing but a piece of cloth, suited to binding wounds or cleaning engine parts.

Reframing his rant against disclosure of his dubiously legal domestic spying programs is also easy. George, you and your administration crowed about following the money when you felt it was to your advantage. Now you want to make it the most classified thing since the Manhattan Project? While you were scoring political points with it, you should have thought that there might come a day when you didn't want anyone to know what you were doing. Your screams of treason now are only to mask your ineptitude, your penchant for telling only that part of the truth that benefits you, commonly referred to as lying.

Gerrymandering and other Republican Vices

At least there's a bright spot in today's Supremely Wingnut Court's decision to allow the majority party in any state to guarantee that Congressional seats never change. Colorado's constitution only allows redistricting once every ten years. I'm sure there are other states with such a provision in their constitutions. It's a damned shame there isn't one in the Federal Government's.

I don't believe for a minute the Founders wanted redistricting at a whim. I believe the language of the Constitution was designed to redistrict every ten years, period. Apparently the Robertian Wingnuts are a bunch smarter than all of us. Democracy, it appears, is dead and the Republicans have won by Supreme Court decree.

As If There's Nothing Else Going On....

What the Republicans want to waste Congress's time on in the coming week:

- Flag burning. We killed that one by one vote. I want to know who the Democrats who are against free speech are so we can work to get them outed in primaries. One good thing did come out of the debate today: The Covenant Cops can no longer tell me how to display the American flag on my property.

- Estate Tax Reduction. They still want to shift Warren Buffett's tax burden (he's in favor of the estate tax, by the way) to you and me or worse, to future generations. Paris Hilton gets a break, a minimum wage worker's taxes increase. Repugnicanism at its best. We may have killed that one as well, so Laughing Boy Frist's millions will have to be taxed when he dies. I call that justice.

- First Amendment Restrictions. Come on, did anyone really believe the terrorists didn't know we were tracking their finances? The only reason to attack journalists for publishing the story about our international financial transactions being data mined is that it's another embarassment to the Shrubpublicans, another case of abuse of Executive authority and another reason to throw the bums out.

- Gay Marriage. Can someone tell me how gay marriage is supposed to damage my heterosexual relationships? Can someone tell me how a secular country, as ours in name is, is involved on "sacred" relationships? And can someone tell me how a union requiring a license from a State authority and registration with said authorities is not a civil union? This is a "wedgie" issue, one juvenile Republicans like to pull up peoples' cracks to win votes and laughs on the Washington playground.

- Pledge of Allegiance. They want to block any attempt to sue against the words "under God," inserted under McCarthyism as a raspberry aginst the Godless Communists and fought over ever since.

- Ten Commandments. They want to make it illegal to pay a lawyer to challenge church-state lawsuits.

Human Cloning, Fetus feels pain, protection of gun owners, yada, yada. Here's what they refused:

- Increasing the minimum wage for the first time in what, fifteen years? They kept it at $10,600 per year while giving themselves more than that in pay raises.

- Forcing the Government to negotiate drug prices for the Prescription Drug Ripoff, as the Veterans' Administration is required to do. It was prohibited under the law creating the Drug Ripoff.

I think we have a priority problem. More importantly I think we have a bunch of Republicans scared to death they will be unemployed and may actually have to hold a job where performance counts.

Reframing the Line Item Veto

I find it hilarious that the illegal drug that Rush was caught carrying was Viagra. Boy is he screwed!

Bush is pressing Congress for a limited line item veto. They voted one in for Clinton then declared it unconstitutional - Congress controls the purse strings, not the executive. So why is Bush pressing for a further expansion of executive power?

They're framing it as fiscal responsibility, the power to cut earmarks out of appropriations bills without killing the entire bill. For those of you that have forgotten, the President does have the power to kill appropriations bills. It's called the veto, a power Bush has yet to use during his presidency. Bush claims he needs to be a bit more selective (even though his party has controlled both houses of Congress throughout his presidency) and that selectivity requires that he have the power to send individual items back to Congress for a revote.

Now ask yourself why might Bush want that rather than relying on party discipline to keep the pork out of the bills? The Shrubpublicans know that, barring a miracle, their absolute hold on the Legislative branch ends in January. Democrats will take the house and may take the Senate, leaving Bush to face the last two years of his presidency on the Congressional witness stand. If Repugnicans were to give him this last poison pill, he'd have a lever. He could take every Democratic line item out of spending bills, tying Congress up with revotes on mandatory appropriations bills and robbing them of the time for his well-deserved grillings under oath. Or he could be more selective, removing only those items that favor us, a pattern his appropriations has taken throughout his presidency.

The idea will never clear the Senate, thank God. Like the Gut the First Amendment Act they voted on today (flag desecration), this is political grandstanding. But do not dismiss it at that. Play it for what it is, another attempt by Bush to grab power at the Congress and the People's expense.

Forty Dead in Iraq....

...And the Senate is debating flag burning. I despise flag burning, the deliberate, provocative desicration of a symbol of a nation that, despite the Repugnicans' best efforts to follow Stalin's best principles of governance, I still love. In fact, I love it enough to have served eight years in the Air Force to defend flag burners' right to free speech. There have been four flag burning incidents so far in 2006, forty dead in one week in Iraq. I think there are some priorities out of place here.

The purpose of the amendment is to divide Americans, not to protect the flag that, given the minimially small number of flag burning cases, needs no defense. It deflects attention away from serious matters, something Republicans desire because at every level of government, they have failed to represent the people whenever a serious matter has come up. And finally, it desecrates the very symbol it purports to protect by limiting free speech, a fundamental right the Right, thumbing their noses at the founding fathers they so like to misrepresent and, like little boys dressing up in Daddy's clothes, imitate, would see reined in at all levels. Free speech, particularly as practiced by the few remaining journalists, is an affront to the Right as it exposes them, their plots, their attempts to take away your freedoms. Although you may never consider burning a flag, although it may offend you greatly as it does me, by passing this amendment, they would take yet another of your freedoms.

It's Official - Democrats have the Edge

Was it any surprise to anyone that Gen. Casey, Bush's Yes-Man in Chief, announced troop reductions this week? Perhaps Casey has something to fear should there be long-overdue Congressional investigations into the Iraq war starting in January when Bush's yes-man Congress finds themselves in the opposition. Perhaps it's just the crappiest timing in the world, announcing the troop reduction the week after Senate Republicans found out just how out of touch with the real world they are by defeating Democratic proposals to do exactly what Casey is proposing?

The plan is for a token troop reduction in September, just two months before Congressional elections. Is there anything suspect about that timing? They plan on two brigades, or about 7,000 troops, to leave and not be replaced, as if the violence has gone down or there was any indication that anything is getting better (I believe I remember CNN citing 25 killed and ten kidnapped in Iraq today). Still the plan calls for over 100,000 troops there into 2008, not a soon enough drawdown to do anything but attempt to influence the midterm election. Even the Iraqis want us gone, as evidenced by their "reconcilliation plan" that grants amnesty to those who've killed Americans. Apparently now the Senate Republicans are the only people who still believe we shouldn't be thinking about how to get out of there.

Their votes on the Democrats' resolutions should and will come back to haunt them.

Troop Reductions in '07

The military is drafting plans for a drawdown in Iraq in 2007, according to a Reuters article. The plan is to cut the forces in half. Meanwhile, the Iraqis themselves are calling for a timetable for withdrawal of our forces and compensation for civilian casualties.

My question: Why wasn't this a good idea earlier this week when Democrats brought it up? And the timing? September '06 for the start. Now we know why it wasn't a good idea when John Murtha and John Kerry were talking about it - political initiative.

If this ain't playing politics with our soldiers' lives, I don't know how else you'd define it. Repugnicans, don't go to war without them.

Bush wants a line item veto....

....and your cat wants a salad. Bush wants power. If he really wanted to exercise fiscal restraint instead of pandering to his evaporating Conservative base, he could have vetoed some of those bloated spending bills his Republican cohorts in the Congress passed. He could have exercised fiscal responsibility by not shifting the tax burden from the rich to our grandchildren but no, he has yet to veto a bill, particularly a spending bill.

It's called symbiosis. It's called synergy. Both of these can be positive but in the case of Republican Washington, it's called fiscal insanity.

Another Bush Power Grab

Of all the Bush attempts to invoke Big Brother on the American people, the latest makes the most sense. Taken by itself and if there were subpoenas involved, the latest data mining mission of the Bush spooks actually could lead to results. The problem is the back story.

Warrantless wiretaps in blatant disregard for law. Signing statements for over 750 laws stating essentially, Congress, suck it. Guantanamo. Extraordinary rendition. The machinations involving Jose Padilla. All lead to an attempt to replace balance of power with dictatorial power, the power to ignore the law of the land or to rewrite it by fiat. Bush has never been a defender of the Constitution, a meaningless piece of paper to him. Indeed, he'd wipe his feet on the parchment if he could.

The Presidency is lamed in the Constitution for one reason: The step from President to King (or dictator) isn't that great. Our current lame President is trying to make that step backed up by a yes-man Congress without the balls to challenge would-be King George the Incompetent's grabs at power.

Retrograde Progress in the War on Terror

Progress is progress, right? Even if it's backwards. So while the Bushies tout their stunning victory in the war on terror - they caught seven folks in Miami talking about a terror attack and trying to contact al Qaida - there's a state of emergency in Baghdad.

Pace is talking about an election year troop reduction of seven to ten thousand troops. Need I use the word "token"? We're talking about a five percent reduction. And Santorem and Rumsfeld are having multiple orgasms over the revelation - now two years old at least - that some degraded chemical weapons shells left over from 1991 that are about as harmful as Drano have been found (!) in Iraq. Note to all my Wingnut contacts - you were right. They buried them.

Maybe they're watching an Ann Coulter screen saver while they're writing their copy.

What Republicans Voted For

We continue to lose the battle of framing but then, reducto ad absurdium is the Republicans' strength. Rove and Co love to reduce an argument to something absurdly simple but mostly wrong. "Cut and run" is a good example. They repeat that meme any time there's a microphone in front of them knowing it isn't the truth at all. So in the spirit of reframing, here's what Republicans voted for:

They voted to continue losing American lives for a war that has, as far as we can tell, no clear purpose and that was started on a lie. In fact, they voted for it twice.

They voted to shift Paris Hilton's tax burden either to you or to your children.

They decided without a vote to let immigration reform, their party's number one priority, die because they can't agree to make 11.5 million people felons.

They, through their Supreme Court, decided development trumps clean water.

They failed to vote against a pay raise for themselves, automatically raising their pay, while voting against raising the wages of someone making $10,600 per year at minimum wage.

Meanwhile, the EPA in a study demanded by Bush, debunked Bush's claim that higher gas prices are caused by the "boutique" fuels that keep our air clean. Again, it seems, the Shrub wants to gut environmental rules for no reason. According to the EPA, the boutique fuels neither contribute to high prices nor do they create distribution problems. They do keep our air a bit cleaner and that seems to the Shrub to be the ultimate problem. Yet the meme is in the public mind now, I've even caught myself using it to justify why gas is more expensive in Houston than in Denver. It'll be a tough one to kill. Here's how to frame it: In his ineptitude and his rush to judgement in defense of oil companies, Bush once again lied about boutique fuels contributing to high prices and distribution problems.

Amazingly, today Bush's Toady in Chief General Pace announced there will be troop reductions, cutting and running even as Bush's toadies in the Senate rejected rational calls, favored by the majority of Americans, to get out of Iraq.

No Bounce - Continued

Greetings from Houston, Texas, home district of the model of GOP ethics Tom Delay. I'm literally in his district as I write. I'm watching my back.

Separated from my normal news outlets by a slow internet connection, I'm basing my knowledge of today's events on the Houston Chronicle, a bright-red fish wrap if there ever was one. It's Bush's adopted hometown paper and even it is highly critical of both the Shrub and his Texas Shrublet, Perry. So I open to their White House Watch section, normally a shill for the neocon policy blunder du jour and what do I find?

The main thrust of the story is how Bush originally promised full disclosure on Plamegate and now that Rove is off the hook, he's refusing to disclose, saying it's in the past.

It's called disengenuousness and it's reason fourteen why there's no bounce for the President. He's been written off by all but the faithful few.

Additional articles in the opinion page, normally where the red print of the Chronicle shines through, were on global warming (in Houston? Isn't this an oil town?) and the regressive, bait-and-switch politics of Texas taxation (where the rich get $2k back in property taxes, the poor get nothing and someone has to make up the school funding). And I ask myself, is this Houston? Is this the Chronicle? Do I see shades of blue amid the sea of red? Or more likely, do I see that even the reddest of papers in the reddest of states can see that the Right's policies have failed and their lack of leadership has driven them to political bankrupcy.

And that's why there's no bounce.

Why There's No Bounce

Journalists are scratching their heads as to why Bush and the Shrubpublicans haven't received a poll bounce with all the "good" news in the past week. I offer a few possible explanations:

1. 2,500 casualties in a war no one has adequately explained
2. The need for the Pentagon to release a 74-page book of talking points prior to debate in Congress of a useless resolution on the Iraq war.
3. The stock markets lost 10% of their value in the past couple of weeks due to rising inflation - read the National debt
4. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me as many times as the Bushies have lied and spun, no bounce in the polls.
5. Gay marriage and flag burning are the number one issues facing the Shrubpublicans in Congress.
6. Electioneering instead of solving problems.
7. Katrina.
8. Iraq.
9. Karl Rove.
10. Bill Frist.
11. Tom Delay.
12. Americans aren't as dumb as you like to think.

etc.

Need anything else, Journalists? Feel free to check back at any time.

Why There's No Bounce

Journalists are scratching their heads as to why Bush and the Shrubpublicans haven't received a poll bounce with all the "good" news in the past week. I offer a few possible explanations:

1. 2,500 casualties in a war no one has adequately explained
2. The need for the Pentagon to release a 74-page book of talking points prior to debate in Congress of a useless resolution on the Iraq war.
3. The stock markets lost 10% of their value in the past couple of weeks due to rising inflation - read the National debt
4. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me as many times as the Bushies have lied and spun, no bounce in the polls.
5. Gay marriage and flag burning are the number one issues facing the Shrubpublicans in Congress.
6. Electioneering instead of solving problems.
7. Katrina.
8. Iraq.
9. Karl Rove.
10. Bill Frist.
11. Tom Delay.
12. Americans aren't as dumb as you like to think.

etc.

Need anything else, Journalists? Feel free to check back at any time.

Bush's Stooges - The Mainstream Media and Two Days in Iraq

They bought it at the asking price. The Press practically peed on themselves to report about Bush's surprise visit to Iraq when the reality of the situation is completely different. Baghdad is so dangerous the Shrub couldn't announce his visit for fear of attack and our allies are so reliable he couldn't even tell them he was coming. So under the cover of a "surprise visit", a cover the Press bought without challenge or substantial dispute, Bush had to sneak into Baghdad and surprise the Prime Minister. The picture of his two aides in flak jackets and helmets during the helicopter ride from the airport to the Green Zone was priceless, though.

Then today, displaying "balance" Fox News would be proud of, the MSM reports that violence was down in Baghdad due to redeployment of 75,000 troops, both U. S. and Iraqi, into the capital. Once again, duh. Shrub announced the redeployment yesterday and lest we forget, the insurgents are also capable of redeployment and of tactics. Were I bossing the insurgents, today would be a day of reconnoiter, of learning where the troops are, where the U. S. Marines, acknowledged badasses throughout the world, are patrolling and where Iraqi police in baseball caps are. I'd react to my enemy, perhaps even redeploying to blow up oil rigs in Basra rather than city squares in Baghdad. And it would be quiet today while I planned my next move. But the MSM in their puppyish excitement, peed on the carpet again in reporting the quiet in Baghdad as if it were something other than predictable.

Of course, the U. S. Government and Military aren't going to say that the quiet (relative, there were only four casualties in the city today) isn't the result of the brilliant redeployment. The Iraqis won't state their weakness and we can't very well interview the enemy. So instead of reporting, instead of asking military experts who might offer a more believable alternative to the 75,000 troops scared the shit out of the enemy theory of the Shrub and his Military Minions, they go along with the party line and look hard for the next sorority girl vanishing under sexually suspect conditions.

Defining Activist Judges

I finally figured out what an activist judge is. An activist judge is one who comes to a conclusion different than yours by invoking inconvenient parts of a constitution. It happened here in Colorado: Judges prohibited a ballot measure from appearing because it contained two actions. the Colorado constitution limits ballot initiatives to two subjects. Framers of the initiative sought to (1) limit taxpayer expenditure on behalf of illegal immigrants and (2) deny them state-funded services. A stretch? Maybe but without moralizing, it's two actions, limiting expenditures and denying services.

The provision is in our Constitution to prevent exactly this from happening. We get a binary choice on ballot initiatives, yes or no. By including two subjects, the framers of the initiative are forcing us to decide on both. I may want to limit expenditures but I may not want to deny schooling to immigrant children (a side effect of the bill). I may not care how much we spend on them but may object to feeding them (food assistance). Wisely, a ballot initiative is limited. This could easily have been two initiatives but that wouldn't have flown. The framers got greedy, attempting to sell denial of non-emergency services (a terrible decision) with a reduction in expenditures.

So the judges ruled 4-2 to deny the initiative. That immediately got the "activist judge" whine going among those who didn't like the outcome. It's a tactic of the Right, attempt to impose your morality on us and whine when we don't accept it. By denying non-emergency services to illegal immigrants who are here to stay whether you Wingnuts want them or not, you are creating emergencies, uneducated children of illegal immigrants, emergency room visits, starvation cases, that will ultimately cost more than providing the services. I also want to hear your excuses the first time we find an apartment full of starving children because you've denied them aid. Right to life? What life are you wishing on people?

The judges ruled wisely and correctly. The Repugnicans are going to take another stab at it, relying on Bush-clone Gov Bill Owens (Give me a line item veto but give me the pork) to call a special session to ram the proposal through but I believe the voters in Colorado will vote morally and wisely and turn down this initiative. They did last year when they turned the Repugnican majority out of the State House. They can do it again. And if supporting the Constitution is judicial activism, I'm damned thankful for activist judges.

Finally, A Debate to Welcome

Gentlemen of the House and Senate Democratic Caucuses, the Right has finally opened a door for you. Although flawed and designed as a political tool rather than a stimulant of honest debate on Iraq and the War on Terror, the Republican resolution on Iraq provides a perfect opportunity to address the incompetence and corruption of Republican rule, the spin, the lies, the deceit and division that keep them in power against the best interests of ninety-five percent of all Americans.

They're going into this buoyed by the assassination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, something that has dropped the President's approval rating by two points. I'm sure the paradox, we get a top terrorist and the ratings drop, is weighing heavily on the Republicans. They must be thinking that even when something goes right it goes wrong. What went wrong was all the ebulation in the hours following Zarqawi's death, the huge pictures of the dead in defiance of the Pentagon's own policy - yes, we are aware of the policy, against showing pictures of casualties - and the knowledge that Zarqawi's death won't change anything - al-Qaida has already appointed a new Iraq chief. Americans, given enough chances, will finally see through the lies and the spin and, in the case of Republican prosecution of the war in Iraq and the war on terror, we have.

The resolution is from the onset flawed by declaring that America will win the war on terror. Terror is an emotion, for starters, one that will never be defeated as long as a rapist holds a woman at gunpoint or a driver notices the stalled vehicle he can't avoid. If we are referring to terrorism, a tactic, that war can also never be won as long as there's some kid with a recipe for a pipe bomb and a grudge against a principal. But that violates my principle of visceral argument. If I were a Democratic lawmaker, I'd simply challenge them on every point. How are we winning a war on a tactic? Define progress. What is the victory state or exit strategy from this war? Is it an indefinite war designed to keep the President in wartime powers in perpetuity? How will fighting a tactic, terrorism, be any more effective than fighting a set of substances, drugs?

Republicans want to limit debate on the war on terrorism for one reason: Debating it will expose the fundamental flaws in their prosecution of the war. It is for this reason that we need Jack Murtha to go head-to-head with the Republicans on prosecution of the war in Iraq. They're exposing their underbelly and we should be quick to slice it open for them and revel in the opportunity this resolution presents. Turn the debate to Iraq and this attempt at division and diversion will be ours to win. Expose the errors: It is well known that Saddam didn't support terrorism and no Republican resolution, regardless of the majority, will change that fact. It is also known that Iraq was never the central front in the war on terrorism until we broke Iraq and made it a terrorist haven. They cite Afghanistan as a victory in the war on terrorism even as we're losing it and Somalia to Islamists. They name Libya as a shining example when it's well-known that they gave up terrorism for economic reasons. Simply expose the skewed facts, the spin, the lies and even if the resolution passes, it will be a victory.

Framing the Arguments

Some time ago, I read a survey that indicated that Americans are actually quite liberal. When divorced of "hot button" words and political phrasing, Americans by a vast majority supported education, universal health care, a strong retirement system, higher wages, fair taxation, equal rights and yes, the right of homosexuals to enter into a caring union with legal rights (if not marriage, then something damned close). Yet we continue to as a people vote for politicians whose records indicate they're diametrically opposed to those "liberal" values we as a people hold dear. Today while mowing the yard I began to wonder why that might be.

Then I remembered "Strange Wine", a selection of short stories by Harlan Ellison first published in 1978. In the introduction, he talks of working with Dan Blocker, Hoss on "Gunsmoke" for those of you not old enough to remember when TV was largely clean. A woman came up to them, recognized Blocker, and proceeded to harangue him about how they should get rid of Hop Sing, the Chinese cook, and replace her with some good woman. Blocker tried his hardest to tell the woman that "Gunsmoke" was only a fantasy but she would not be moved. Her television had become her reality. Ellison continues his diatribe about the evils of TV, of how the brain actually partially shuts down while watching television, how the body burns fewer calories watching TV than doing nothing. And then it hit me - that's the problem. A majority of Americans don't read, they don't surf the internet for their news, they don't think, they get their news from Fox or CBS or CNN or some other outlet (I don't mention PBS or NPR because they're "highbrow" outlets).

The Right has co-opted broadcast news. They've whined and howled enough about the "liberal media" that the media have moved to the right in the case of Fox News or in the case of less partisan outlets, they've gone for balance. Balance in journalism, while it sounds like a noble cause, circumvents the prime directive of the journalist, objectivity. Republicans, too, have been far better at sound byte framing of issues than have we. Our arguments are subtle, intellectual. Frist talks of the death tax. That's direct, visceral, and wrong.

We have to become better at framing our positions so that Joe Sixpack can be imprinted with them while slack-jawed in front of what my dad calls the one-eyed monster. Answering "you voted for the death tax," we should say "I voted against shifting the tax burden from Paris Hilton to you," or "I voted against putting your children and grandchildren an additional trillion dollars in debt to give the richest one percent of the nation a tax cut." Framing immigration: The Republican plan would create an underground economy of near slavery. Framing health care: Shall we let children suffer and die to give the rich a tax cut? Framing outsourcing: Shall we enrich shareholders at the expense of American jobs? On Iraq: What exactly are our troops dying for?

We have to do two things to win elections. First, we need to employ the oldest political tactic in the book, ridicule. The Republicans have painted themselves as incompetent, bumbling and corrupt. In short, we need to make jokes at the expense of these jokes. Second, we need to express our positions viscerally. Paris Hilton never worked a day in her life. Why should we make her richer? The third thing we need to do is, once we've won, govern according to strict principles. William Jefferson must go; otherwise, we're no better than Delay's party.

The Neatest Thing I Saw Today

I spent most of my day volunteering for a local historical preservation society. Since an interest of mine is roses, I do work tending roses in the two cemeteries. Today I was out counting and watering roses at the cemetery when I spotted a tombstone. It was a Japanese family name, anglicized and written in English characters. Japanese characters were on the side. The couple's names were written, the dates of their birth and death and underneath, the dates of their citizenship.

God, for the first time since Bush took office, I was proud to be an American.

Owens Cuts the Crap

Colorado Republican Governor Bill "No Morning After" Owens wants to give Bush a line-item veto in order to allow the President to cut the "crap" out of appropriations bills. The first thing I'd ask the Gov is has Colorado ever benefited from Congressional "crap" and did the Gov then do the ethical thing and turn the money down? A vast silence fills the hall. The second question would be Gov, do you really want this power in the hands of a Democratic President? The silence deepens....

I do, but the threat of the Shrub nuking everything that benefits normal people keeps me in reality and opposed to the line-item veto.

Congratulations...

...to the U. S. Special Forces and the U. S. Air Force on their killing of al-Zarqawi. Next time Israel targets some leader of some terrorist organization and takes them out with a single bullet, keep your traps shut, world, about political asassination. It doesn't matter if it's a nine millimeter or a five hundred pounder, asassination is asassination. If we can do it with impunity, so can Israel. Meanwhile, Shrub, I appreciate your subdued tone. Even a broken clock is right twice a day and, if you stay the course long enough, you're bound to have a success or two. Why did you have to try to spin it, though, contradicting your own Pentagon on it being a joint operation?

The world is a better place today. Tom Delay is no longer in the Congress and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is dead. The world is a worse place today. We don't know who the next al-Zarqawi is but one thing is certain, there's another one out there, ready to attack us whenever and whereever possible. And for some of that, we have Bush's failed foreign policy to thank.

William Jefferson - It's About $100K in Bribes, Not Race

To the Black Democratic Caucus, shut up. The effort to strip William Jefferson of his committee positions has nothing to do with race. He's captured on tape taking a $100k bribe, he used the Louisiana National Guard to go back into hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to retrieve the money and he deserves to be behind bars. If we Democrats are going to use the corruption play this fall, we'd better be damned ready to police our own, regardless of race.

Adieu, Delay

Congress is a better place today.

Bush Victorious, Still a Liar

Thanks to Jim Mikleshevsky (apologies for the spelling). As Bush crowed, Jim caught the lies. Our special forces were tracking al-Zarqawi, he claimed. Jim gave us the truth: Special Forces were tracking Abu Rahman and didn't know they had targeted al-Zarqawi until much later. Strapped for success, Bush claimed this to be a joint operation between U. S. and Iraqi forces. Jim told us this definitely wasn't true. This was a purely U. S. operation.

If, given good news like this, Bush lies, what more proof do you need to know his lying is pathological.

Somalia, Another Bush Nation Building Failure

Remember Mogadishu? It was Bush I who put us there, I still believe as a poison pill for Bill Clinton, who had just defeated him in the Presidential race. I remember the landing - I was an Air Force officer at Ninth Air Force Headquarters at the time.

It appears that failure at nation building is a Bush family trait. Today Islamist militias forced the last of the Somali warlords, the very guys who drug the body of one of our helicopter pilots through the streets and who are currently receiving U. S. support, out of the Capital. Bush 1 was successful ultimately at creating an Islamic republic.

Bush II has only managed to create two failed states.

In Victory, a Bitter Defeat

Republicans won the now infamous California representative seat last time by 22 points. This time they eeked it out by four, despite pumping five million dollars into keeping the seat and outspending the Democratic candidate by two to one. This is a mandate of Bushian proportions, miniscule, and it would be easy to read too much into it.

There is a lesson for the Democrats: Dissatisfaction and corruption alone aren't going to cut it. Bilbray managed to make immigration an issue, more of an issue in San Diego than in suburban Denver, to be sure. We Democrats need a clear platform. We need to be able to tell America not only that we can do it better but how. And we need to set an example: Nancy Pelosi should enter a bill of censure against Willam Jefferson and take back the moral high ground. And we need to drive home the following point: Republicans believe gay marriage is the most important issue facing America.

Ridicule is a powerful weapon and one we should employ.

Need a Good Reason Why the Senate is Wasting Its Time Debating Gay Marriage?

How about fourteen hundred good reasons? In May, 1398 bodies were brought to the Baghdad Central Morgue as a result of our invasion and failure to stabilize the country, not counting bombing victims and soldiers. Since the start of the war, over 30,000 Iraqi bodies have been brought to the morgue. Again, not counting soldiers and bombing victims.

And Frist and Bush think gay marriage is the number one issue facing us? Every Liberal and Moderate in this country should punish the Scrubpublicans viciously in November. They don't deserve to rule.

Family Values with Cleavage and a Little Black Dress

The best argument against Ann Coulter is Ann Coulter. Watching her, disorganized and disoriented, unable to follow Matt Lauer's questions or to come up with anything other than a rant in response, pretty much settles things: The Radical Right is nothing but appearance around an empty shell.

She, the Wingnut's ideal babe, gave a laughable performance on Today and the thesis of her book, that liberals can't be Christians, belies the point that the Christian Taliban's religion has nothing to do with Christ's teachings of tolerance and non-violence. Rather, the book supports the angry-God, pro-establishment model of religion Christ, the consumate liberal, preached to overcome.

A Bit of Satire

The guys over at Americablog are busily hoisting Shrubpublican Senators by their own petards. It's worth reading.

Personally, I'd like to ask Allard the Homophobic Torturer how much of the rest of Leviticus he intends to implement, particularly the part about not eating pork and lobster. When he answers a business call on Saturday, I'll be right there with the first stone to punish him for defiling the Sabbath.

Nothing of Substance in Today's News

Of course, the Shrub stammered his way through a defense of the first attempt to enshrine discrimination in our Constitution since the Civil War, the Defense of Marriage Amendment. Colorado should be ashamed, our very own Wayne the Torture and Homophobe Allard sponsored the ill-named act - it will do nothing to reduce divorce or abuse among heterosexual couples, it will do nothing to protect children from the violence of a testosterone-crazed, abusive father or to keep families from becoming dysfunctional. Instead, it will prevent a very small percentage of the population from the hope of ever becoming a family.

Of course it won't pass. It was never intended to pass, rather to rally the Christian Taliban behind a failing leader and a failed Republican Congress. The ploy is so transparent they couldn't even show Dobson or Falwell or Robertson at the White House today, instead a Shrub special select audience of supporters who have little relationship to Americans at large. And it will work. The Christian Taliban are so bent on following that one verse in Leviticus that they forget that eating pork or lobster are also abominations and that working on the Sabbath (Saturday for the Biblically illiterate) should be punished by death. Jesus himself forbade divorce in all but the most restrictive of cases yet I don't see the Christian Taliban writing a prohibition on divorce into the amendment. In short, the amendment and the thought process of those behind it has nothing to do with the Bible or any Christian belief nor has it anything to do with sexual preference. It has everything to do with one number, 29%.

The Shrubpublicans might just get a few percentage points back from the Pious but they will lose the middle over this. Democrats should make every point of telling everyone every chance they get how the Shrubpublicans waste their time on futile pitches to the Dobson crowd while the business of the other seventy-five percent of us is left undone. But then, it's easier to have a position - against gay marriage - than a conviction called statesmanship.

While Rome Burns

Tomorrow the Senate will discuss a right-wing political ploy. We could be working on the deficit, we could be working on health care, we could be stripping the War President of his imperial powers but instead, the Senate will vote on enshrining radical Christian bias into the Constitution of the Untied States with a symbolic vote on an amendment banning gay marriage.

The vote will fail and the rabid will use the vote to whip the Soldiers of Christ into a frenzy, hopefully reenergizing them to vote in what seems a desperate situation for their Republican bretheren. I only hope the Democrats have the sense to vote against it as a block, then to represent it as exactly what it is, an attempt to place bigotry over tolerance for political gain. Aside from the small percentage who, as an issue of faith, refuse to see the vote for the blatantly political maneuver it is (Bush has confided he doesn't really care one way or another yet he will make his gay marriage bad speech tomorrow), I really don't believe Americans are stupid enough to fall for this desperate ploy.

In the meantime, the Senate under Frist's lackluster rule continues to fiddle.

Desperate Republicans - the Gay Marriage Saga

It's a lie. If Adam and Steve down the road marry, it will not harm your heterosexual relationship. I promise you, your marriage will be exactly as disfunctional (or if you're like about half of all heterosexual couples, functional) as it was before Amy and Eve tied the knot. You won't catch queerness from them - you can't catch it. They won't pervert your kids unless perhaps you're of the Right school of thought that tolerance is a perversion. In short, two gays marrying will have about as much effect on your life as two fireflies mating. You'll never notice it.

On the other hand, building intolerance into our Constitution is an ill that affects us all. By pandering to the Conservative base, that's exactly what Frist, Hastert and Bush want with their proposed "Protection of Marriage Amendment." They're protecting nothing - the Angry Republican couple I met today are not fooled by this misdirection. All they'll do is gather a few more campaign contributions from their base (rich, paranoid conservatives, mostly of the Christian Taliban) and waste the Senate's time, time it could be spending on more salient issues than the relationship of about three percent of our population.

Ethanol - The Stuff of Dreams

On the surface it sounds like the wonder fuel of the 21st century. It's clean-burning, it grows on plants on American soil, it puts no more carbon dioxide back into the air than it takes out, it creates jobs and it doesn't send dollars weakened by Republican fiscal irresponsibility to pay for ever-increasing oil. It's ethanol, the Holy Grail of Republican energy strategists. And today, AP ran a rather breathless article praising ethanol as a fuel source here.

And like the Holy Grail, it is an empty promise. To start with, it's buring food for fuel which, in an increasingly over-crowded world, will bring as much if not more destabilization than burning oil. Here's the moral dilema: Will we let people starve to power our SUVs? Then there's the energy balance. Between growing the corn (energy intensive, requiring chemical fertilizers mostly made by firing natural gas), shipping the corn, distilling it and shipping it to market, a gallon of ethanol requires an estimated energy equivalent of 1.25 gallons of ethanol (depending on the study you read) to produce. What that means is that energy to produce ethanol has to come from another source - you can't produce ethanol by burning ethanol, you have to add something else. In a cynical statement about the environmental aspects of ethanol production, many stills are turning to coal firing as a way to distill cheaply. Coal is just about the dirtiest fossil fuel to burn and the Bushies don't think a little mercury will harm the rural poor so it's a good thing.

A good summary of the problems of ethanol production is found here.

The major plus to ethanol production is much the same as the gay marriage amendment - it's good politics for the Right. Corn is produced in "their" states so by subsidizing ethanol, they're subsidizing "their" voters. Which, as opposed to the good of the nation, seems to be the Right's only priority, retaining power at all costs.
A good summary of the problems of ethanol production is found here.

Haditha Snow Job

In an interesting attempt at damage control, Tony Snow, Bush's new Mouthpiece in Chief, said Iraq's prime minister didn't really say what he said concerning reports of U. S. soldiers committing war crimes against his people. He was then unable to explain what the prime minister said or how he was misquoted.

So here's what the Prime Minister said after calling the U. S. actions in Haditha a horrible crime: "This is a phenomenon that has become common among many of the multinational forces. No respect for citizens, smashing civilian cars and killing on a suspicion or a hunch. It's unacceptable."

Seems pretty clear to me, Tony. Maybe we'll have to change your title soon, from "Mouthpiece" to "Apologist".

Follow the Money

Want to know where Republican priorities are? Simple, follow the money. Start with corrupt lobbyists, crooked coin dealers disguised as Bush Pioneers, budgetary priorities. Once you see where the money is going, it's easy to see where the Radical Right places its interest. The money trail from your pocket to special interests would be a subject for quite a few books. This evening, I'll concentrate on a couple of more obvious, more recent Bush redistributions of wealth from poor to rich.

Starting with Homeland Security money. Reading Americablog today was quite entertaining on the subject. New York and Washington, cities with no notable landmarks or other targets of interest for terrorists, got their Homeland Security funding cut by 40 percent. Meanwhile, Louisville, Kentucky, Terre Haute, Indiana and a host of other Red State cities with notable landmarks (I guess Churchill Downs qualifies but what the hell is in Terre Haute, Hullman Field?) got the 40% the two cities actually hit by terrorists lost. Much like Frist's attempted $100 buyout of the ANWAR, this stinks of buying votes. It also goes a long way to prove that the "War on Terror" is a Republican publicity stunt, never effectively prosecuted and a pawn of political needs.

Also instructive is Bush's attempt to cut funds to the Industrial Technologies Program. This small US Energy Department program saves seven dollars for every dollar put into it in energy. In 2004, their lightweight auto body design saved about $9 billion in energy. This is exactly the type of program we need and exactly the kind that Bush and his Neocon buddies can't stomach - it's effective government. And Bush is cutting its funding by a third. Its budget already won't pay for a day's combat operations in Iraq but it's ripe for the cutting. The list of energy and money saving programs to be cut or eliminated is long, a partial list is presented in the source story here. It's much like his $32 million cut in the National Renewable Energy Lab here in Golden, $5 million of which were restored to restore cut jobs the day of Bush's visit to the lab, a reduction of a valuable program to meet the needs of his constituents (big oil) and his political views (neoconservativism - no government is good government).

Short-sightedness and ideology have also resulted in cuts in funding for and onerous restrictions to stem cell research. As a result, when the technologies for treating diabetes, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and others are developed, we'll be paying an European or Japanese company to use them. My fervent hope is that the short-sighted ideologues who hamper U. S. researchers in their quest for cures are faced with the moral dilema of taking stem cell treatments developed from human embryos or the complete loss of self to Alzheimers. I don't think many of these moralizers will choose the latter, do you?

Continuing with other examples, the tax cuts notably, could take up volumes and I'm certain that some day it will. In so many areas, the Republicans as represented by Dubya reveal their true agendas by where they spend the money. It isn't on us. I long for the day when we have a real press and informed Americans voting their own self-interest. In other words, I long for Democratic rule of this country.

Congrats to the Dixie Chicks

Congratulations, girls, on being the #1 country album this week. And keep speaking the truth! Maybe that's why you're #1.

The War on Terror - Follow the Money

Today the Bush White House moved to cut Homeland Security funding for New York and Washington, redistributing the money to smaller cities. Living in Denver, I hardly feel the need for a huge influx of Homeland Security dollars. Instead, I'd rather they be spent securing ports and defending the high-value targets like New York and Washington. But both of these cities tend to be Democratic strongholds and Bush needs to buy a few more votes for his buddies in the hinterlands (read red states). So the money gets redistributed....

No wonder even the true believers are seeing through this guy.

Haditha - An American Crime

When I think of the massacre at Hadaitha, I tend to think of American popular entertainment. Starting with 24 and going through the few movies I could stomach in the past few years, the image that comes to mind is violent, justified vengeance. In most of the popular entertainment I've seen, vengeance and vigilante justice are praised. And that, dear readers, is what the Marines at Haditha grew up on.

But this is reality, the United States is fighting a nominal war on terrorism and the Marines at Haditha apparently massacred eleven people. In an earlier age, we had Lt. Kalley and My Lai, another American massacre. We have Rodney Kings, lesser known victims of excessive police force captured by helicopter cameras, there are still beatings in the name of just vengeance. The point of all this is that we, America, are capable of evil. We'd like to drink the Conservative kool-aid and believe that we're the just nation, that we're God's country but the hard truth is that we're not God's chosen, we're just one nation under God, just as capable of evil as Nazi Germany or Saddam's Iraq. These massacres bring home that fact in spades.

We will get a whitewash report on this latest American embarassment. I would hope that more people realize that we, systemically, are capable of doing evil as a nation and that more espouse the notion that the only way of limiting these evils is enforcement, oversight and openness. The Washington Post is already reporting false statements filed in the Haditha case, something I'd expect. Doubtless those Marines thought they were inflicting justice on those they massacred. It would seem that justice will be meeted upon them as well. Will any commander walk the plank? I doubt it. This is Bush's administration where blame is shifted to the lowest possible level, the definition of the abdication of the responsibility that comes with leadership.