Troop haters parading under a false flag are going to have to pay for their hateful sins.

Free speech has never permitted the crying of ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. Nor will it include intentional infliction of emotional distress on the families of the fire’s victims, if this verdict holds up under appeal. Which it should. A private ceremony is a private ceremony, even if the procession passes through the public square. In this case, intent mattered most. Harm is harm, even if emotional.

We should be protecting the harm done to homosexuals, as well.

Defining and implementing domestic policy is Congress’ job. Presidents have long requested and been denied a line item veto power. If Bush finds that frustrating, in a few places, he may have a precedent that grants him the right to issue an administrative order.

But Democrats need to be on guard. If he issues an order where there is no precedent, they need to step in and refute his effort to grab more power. 42 presidents have learned to deal with the balance of powers. Let Bush throw all the hissy fits he wants, but yielding to another power grab would compound Bush’s error.

After reading Arthur Silber about Iran as the 600 lb gorilla of the campaign, I certainly agree. Shrill as he gets, it brings me back to the major reason I started blogging 5 years ago.

It’s about the barren morality and strategically hollow practice of wasting millions of lives for no reason. None. Before and after the invasion of Iraq, every claim in advance and all the excuses after have failed completely, under the smallest scrutiny.

And now it’s clear the militarists are tightening their control (and censorship) from here on out.

Iran? Sure, if you want to see its democratic reformers rounded up and shot, go ahead and attack. If you want a country to reform itself from within and become a grassroots democracy within a few years, don’t.

I think the repercussions will be immense. I’m not as much of a fatalist as Arthur about the totality of the outcome. But it will set back the democracy movement and fuck up the lives of millions. And the greatest fatality on this side of the ocean will be the death of our national soul.

Like Arthur, I urge the breaking of rules to deter that. And conforming to rules when that’s the best way. Anything at all that might work should be tried.

I challenge every blogger to post something against Bush’s plan to attack Iran at least once every other day.

Write letters and emails. block government entrances. Pour real blood everywhere it can call attention to the killing they’re planning. Contact Iranians, let them add their words and knowledge to your blogs. Block traffic. Talk to ministers and ask them to speak up. Go to jail and refuse to bail. Add protests to your taxes.

Like Arthur, I agree it’s more important than any issue, or any party. We abhor Stalinism, Hitlerism, PolPotism and MassMurderism, even if it has a Dick and George as its face. There’s no difference. It’s planned, first degree serial murder.

We must fight every way we can against it. Every way. We can.

Update: while the NY Times admits Edwards was the most effective fighter at last night’s debate, the article opens with a picture, an opening and a closing paragraph that reinforces the view of the Village elders in my post that follows.

It’s good to be reminded who gets airtime and why. The Village determines the narrative, who they’ll accept in their Rotary Club and Junior League neighborhood. A mainstream Dem from the 1970s - which is really what a Kucinich or Gravel is - is too progressive for the staid gentry of the DLC & GOP Village elders. Dodd, who would have been absolute middle in the 70s, is now marginalized as too liberal, too.

So where does that leave guys like Richardson and Biden, who at least have records comporting to Village-preferred models? Well, they’re out for a different reason. The Village has defined the diversity narrative for 2008: it’s the Great Estrogen Hope against the Pleasant Negro. The Establishment White Guy fits the neighborhood but not the narrative. And the Latino has to wait his turn.

In a year when the Village knows the impact of the Southern strategy is losing its marketing grasp, the GOP has to alter its bogeyman. Excuse my crude clarity but the Wetback will be the new Nigger for 2008. The Village is trying to impress us with their evolution from Little Rock and Selma with the message that every Black is welcome to their soirees, as long as they look and sound like Sidney Poitier.

As with all things political, the useful maxim holds: follow the money. The money pouring in to the Hillary and Barack show? Well, there’s your sign.

Does it matter that Dodd’s gonna fight for the Bill of Rights? Well, sure, but that still doesn’t make him a viable contender who’ll get the airtime he deserves. The Village already decided to let one token white guy in on the Democratic side. That’s Edwards, their necessary Southerner, just in case the South doesn’t warm to the pair they selected for the top billing on the matinee.

But Edwards makes them awfully nervous. He’s a bit too populist with his blue collar appeals. They really would have rather had Mark Warner as their Plan B longshot backup narrative.

So where does that leave us, the liberal base of the party? For 2008, we can whine and moan and bitch all we want, but there’s not a chance in hell that any but these top three will gain the traction necessary to pull off a primary upset in the first four states. Though Kucinich will dog it out underfunded like he usually does, all the rest will be out by March 1st.

If you want something different, there’s 4 years to reinstate the Fairness Clause, at least on TV. There’s 4 years for campaign finance reform and a better shot for cleaner elections. Which of the top three do you think will advance those things?

If any, it’ll be Edwards. The other two gain nothing from changing a system that’s currently stacked in their favor.

I announced last winter that I’d wait till this fall to make an endorsement. I’ve made minimal observations along the way, mostly finding positives that Kucinich and Gravel and Edwards and Richardson and Dodd have come up with along the way. I’m in complete sympathy with peers now backing Dodd because the fight for the Bill of Rights is crucial. I’m not trying to influence anyone to abandon him now while that fight’s yet to be won.

I held back, waiting for Obama to really show me something. I’ve said all along that the final 10 weeks of the year is when any contender has to pour it on. For the past two weeks, several have stepped forth to show their hand. Dodd has one. Edwards has advanced a corporate restraint and retirement initiative and a tone that’s inspiring to me. Hillary never advances anything but counterproposals when her opponents have left her behind on some initiative. And Obama? All he’s showed me are impressive quarterly reports. He showed me the money, but he’s surrendered his kwan.

So I’m 100% behind Edwards now. And I hope my analysis doesn’t sound too lukewarm. The reality is I’ve seen him make very few missteps. The crap about his money and haircuts can easily be overcome. FDR and JFK and RFK all had big money, and they did okay by me. American workers - miners and steelworkers and small farmers and service workers - will find a lot of value in his policy prescriptions and a guy who understands their struggles. With his professional achievements, standing up for the small guy over the monied corporate goliaths, they’ll find a fighter. And with kids to raise, the loss of one son, and a wife who requires the best of our medical knowledge to sustain, Americans will also find a fighter for families and their needs for affordable healthcare and education.

The sole place where I have a big concern is about the topic of Iran. With all the sabre rattling of Bush and Cheney, he’s continued a practice of caution on the biggest foreign policy issue going. It may be understandable because the Clinton/Obama show is doing the same and nukes do remain a fear button that works whenever Bush pushes it. So we have to ask ourselves, would any of these three actually order an air strike without using the IAEA or diplomatic channels thoroughly?

None would push it as quickly as Bush. But Hillary’s position actually enables Bush doing so. I’d trust Obama and Edwards to reserve the use of force only if the situation fully warranted it. So coupled with their other issues and initiatives and campaign strategies, Edwards still emerges well above the other two.

He’s not perfect but I’ve long said I’m not seeking a messiah nor even a choirboy. Edwards provides more progressive leadership for the middle class and poor of any major primary contender I’ve seen in a quarter century. I think he can surpass Obama and make it a two person race because his flashes of leadership throughout this campaign have far exceeded Obama’s.

I hope you’ll join in soon and give him the additional funds needed to strengthen his case. The Village elders aren’t going to grant him the TV time necessary till he gets more ads up and lands in one of the top two places in the earliest primaries. So it’s up to us to help him surpass the first hurdle.

That’s the only real option I see for the top of the ticket in 2008. If he doesn’t prevail, my energy will shift to Congressional races. Hillary is obviously above the very low bar of being better than Bush, Rudy, Mitt, Fred, John or Mike. If she’s the nominee, she’ll prevail over any of them without any campaign support from a peasant like me. Edwards, on the other hand, offers a two way street. Not only can I help him, but I;m confident that a President Edwards would institute programs that would benefit my family and friends and neighbors.

John and Elizabeth in 2008: they’ll restore America to Americans again, keeping us secure - and healthy - while restoring the ethics and opportunities we’ve sorely missed for the past seven years.

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Support Edwards here.

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Read the rest of this entry »

After reading this poll, several conclusions can be made, but the first thing I’d like to know is the one question Zogby failed to ask: Which candidate do you trust to avoid starting another war unless evidence is prevented that the target country poses an imminent threat to our nation?

From the answers gleaned though, only three explanations exist for this pro-war fervor among 52%:

a) they are wet-their-pants scared of any nation that has a leader who threatens to defend itself from an attack by our aggressor president. And/or,

b) they believe our aggressor president has more invisible evidence about non-existing nuclear weapons, even though the UN inspectors have checked things out and concluded that Iran couldn’t build a nuke for at least 5 years, and has also concluded there’s no proof Iran wants to. And if they believe our president still, they are irreparably and shockingly stupid enough to fall for anything any liar tells them. Or,

c) the majority in our nation are criminals, a danger to every other nation.

I can’t determine which of these options is correct, but I also can’t think of any other explanation for 52% to think there’s a need to prevent Iran from doing something that we have no evidence they’re doing. Whichever option’s correct, it’s terribly disheartening.

When always wrong meets always right,they can’t rely on reason or evidence. They’d lose that debate. So they cancel the debate, claim the right guys are wrong.

The last time they dismissed the IAEA’s findings like that, they started a war 52 days later.

Meanwhile, in an ongoing conflict more than 5 years old, we get this, via 60 Minutes:

“The United States is here to help the Afghan people. The Afghan people understand that mistakes are made. But five years on, six years on, definitely, very clearly, they cannot comprehend as to why there is still a need for air power,” Karzai explains.

Asked if he is asking the American government to roll back the air strikes, Karzai says, “Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words.”

Karzai told 60 Minutes he delivered those words, privately, to President George W. Bush. But he decided to take the message public in this interview. “And I want to repeat that, alternatives to the use of air force. And I will speak for it again through your media,” he says.

“You’re demanding that?” Pelley asks.

“Absolutely,” Karzai says.

So the democratically elected leader of Afghanistan demands an end to bombing. Will Bush respect the democracy we created?

Fred Clark has all the details.

He stands with minority leaders and claims Congress is failing its principal task of passing spending bills. Claims they’re endangering troops by the delay, but then threatens to veto the bills if they attach provisions.

He’s asserting that this is about supporting the troops ‘in harm’s way.’ He’s fired an unanticipated shot across the bow of the Democratic leadership. Stay tuned and let’s see what the response is. Were I the House Speaker or Senate Majority leader, I’d go before the cameras and say “I have a simple response to a president who defines our job as rubberstamping his decisions and demands we do so immediately while implying we don’t support our men and women serving in combat zones.”

Then I’d give him a stiff armed single finger salute.

We are directed to believe this is an unfortunate accident.

Our government has refused to allow any American to be prosecuted at the World Court. In 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority exempted our citizens from Iraq’s laws. When the tortures at Abu Ghraib reached the public, we heard White House officials call the Geneva Conventions ‘quaint.’ They still withhold the videos of the most shocking events from our view.

They say they do not practice torture while passing legislation that grants retroactive immunity to all the decisionmakers -but not the front line troops following orders - from being prosecuted for the torture they claim not to be doing. They’ve provided no evidence that torture has provided any positive results. Expert interrogators say more info is always available without torture and information from torture proves unreliable.

They ignored intelligence assessments from CIA agents and diplomats, cited already discredited evidence as fact and manufactured a casus belli for an illegal war. When one of their men finally was convicted for lying to a grand jury, the president gave him a stay ou of jail card. At least $10 billion has never been accounted for. Hundreds of billions in contracts have been awarded on no-bid contracts to companies they hold stock in or companies that funded their political campaigns.

Detainees have been moved around the world to secret prisons and have used extraordinary rendition that has resulted in US citizens and others to have their rights suspended and to be tortured. People have been held for 3 or 4 years then released because they never posed a threat to our country. Some detainees have disappeared. Several hundred remain incarcerated in Guantanamo without being brought to any trial at all. Some have given up hope and committed suicide.

We’ve learned they went to major telecoms BEFORE 9-11 to implement an illegal wiretapping scheme. For the telecoms complicit in that crime, our government insists we must grant them retroactive immunity for their criminal acts. As people depart the White House now, many hire lawyers in anticipation of or ongoing investigations.

In the wake of a growing number of scandals that would lead to record Congressional losses for their party last November, they’ve replaced US attorneys across the land who were competent and even-handed with attorneys willing to engage in selective prosecutions of a very few Democratic officials, investigations of others that hit the papers pre-election that subsequently were dropped for lack of evidence. Prosecution of open cases against far more Republicans has ground to a virtual halt.

And now, in the wake of allegations about brutalities and murders by civilian mercenaries, they enter an interrogation room and - without authority - offer immunity to everyone they question, likely killing most or all chances of prosecuting anyone. And they want us to believe that letting them off the hook was a simple mistake.

I say ’sure, why not?’

“Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.” (Thomas Jefferson)

There is no law for them. Unless we insist upon the application of the laws.

I insist.

And as we now face the prospect of seeing these men returned to our country where they’ll roam free, I encourage folks to arm themselves. With so many multiple murderers at large, they threaten our security, should be considered armed and dangerous and shot on sight.

The government is making up the rules and if they rule for anarchy, then in the absence of the law’s protection, we must find the only protection left. Otherwise, they’ll start murdering us as well.

Continuing to vie for the Nobel Prize in chutzpah, the White House today announced the award of eight new Presidential Medals of Freedom. Among the winners is Harper Lee, author of that classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. I suspect that Miz (as we used to say down here) Lee is too genteel to tell George III what he can do with “his” medal. But Harper, sister, even if you’re willing to ignore the war criminal’s horrors out of respect for the office he has disgraced, are you really willing to stand on the same stage with fellow recipient Henry Hyde? Please say it ain’t so, ma’am.

The Babe indicated today that he never put a curse on anyone in baseball except for Joe McCarthy. He was Heaven’s loudest fan when the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004, after hearing two decades of complaints about a non-existent jinx.

Known for his kindness to orphans, a fondness for good cigars, excessive drink and warm hookers, he’s spent recent years playing cloud golf with his favorite companions, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Tony C. Always the prankster, he regularly airmails empty fire extinguishers to Ty Cobb down below. One arrived with a note penned by Ogden Nash: “It could be worse, you miserable f*ck; you deserved what they gave Billy Buck.”

Asked what’s wrong with baseball today, he said “Nothing”, then after a pause, added “but there’s an awful number of Yankees and Red Sox fans who are Hall of Fame dicks.”

Pestered to respond to yesterday’s announcement that Alex Rodriguez was opting out of his Yankees contract to pursue wealth beyond what most world leaders ever will achieve, he downed a shot of Glenlivet, smiled and said “He had a better year.”

I’m waiting for the video before deciding who to vote for. The Christmas ones from Barney convinced me that John Kerry’s wife really didn’t look anything like an African so I never believed he saved Private Ryan.

If he had, he would have chosen Gephard to run with like my nice Uncle Tonoose told him to.

Update: I wonder if Karen Ryan’s related to the Private one…

Brad Friedman has a message for Sixty Minutes. Sibel Edmonds is ready to dish, so he asks CBS to

sit down and talk with her for an unedited interview, she has now told The BRAD BLOG during an exclusive interview, she will now tell you everything she knows.

Everything she hasn’t been allowed to tell since 2002, about the criminal penetration of the FBI where she worked, and at the Departments of State and Defense; everything she heard concerning the corruption and illegal activities of several well-known members of Congress; everything she’s aware of concerning information omitted and/or covered up in relation to 9/11. All of the information gleaned from her time listening to and translating wire-taps made prior to 9/11 at the FBI.

She feels that Congress and the courts have impeded her effort to get important facts out.

“Here’s my promise to the American Public: If anyone of the major networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX — promise to air the entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything that I know,” about everything mentioned above, she told us.

“I can tell the American public exactly what it is, and what it is that they are covering up,” she continued. “I’m not compromising ongoing investigations,” Edmonds explained, because “they’ve all been shut down since.”

She doubts any will take her up on the offer, charging that they lack the guts and are too easily manipulated.

You bet, it’s torture.

It’s an old tactic, trying to make a Congressional consideration sound extreme by claiming they’re ‘appeasing’ the ‘antiwar left.’ They pretend they haven’t noticed that liberals AND conservatives AND moderates make up the 70% of Americans who want an end to the war in Iraq.

They go on to use a quote from Senator McCain to support their sick pro-torture desires while leaving out his public assertion last week that waterboarding ‘is torture’. A POW who experienced torture firsthand, the Senator knows better than anyone in Congress what torture is.

And there are no exceptions to international law against the use of torture. Nor is there anything in the Constitution or the War Powers Act that allows the President to violate international law, nor to use a means of torture on the unproven claim that it sometimes yields useful intelligence.

Any potential Justice Department head is wise to avoid specific opinions on specific issues. But sometimes the overall consensus on a matter many believe to be a war crime should be sufficient to express an opinion. If a Senator had asked ‘Do you think it’s acceptable to gas Jewish people and kill them by the millions?’ saying ‘No’ would be broadly respected. And that’s exactly how clear it is that waterboarding is torture,

It’s become clear that the WSJ has become the principal print medium Rupert Murdoch intends to use to promote the Bush agenda. Unless he’s willing to subject himself to waterboarding, his opinion has all the credibility of a Holocaust denier.

I expect the Senate to hold Mukasey to account on that point. Appeasing a propagandist like Murdoch- who now offers proof of his own sadistic penchants - would be a far worse concession than conceding anything to 70% of the country, which is a common practice vital to the point in having a democracy.

I’m looking forward to the day when the truthful response to stories like this wil;l be ‘Who? Oh, yeah. I thought she died from choking after unhinging her jaws to swallow this.

NY Times:

During my lifetime, there has been a sea change in the way that politically active Americans view their relationship with government. In 1920, during my youth, I recall the Palmer raids in which more than 10,000 people were rounded up, most because they were members of particular labor unions or belonged to groups that advocated change in American domestic or foreign policy. Unrestrained surveillance was used to further the investigations leading to these detentions, and the Bureau of Investigation — the forerunner to the F.B.I. — eventually created a database on the activities of individuals. This activity continued through the Red Scare of the period.

In the 1950s, during the sad period known as the McCarthy era, one’s political beliefs again served as a rationale for government monitoring. Individual corporations and entire industries were coerced by government leaders into informing on individuals and barring their ability to earn a living.

I was among those blacklisted for my political beliefs. My crime? I had signed petitions. Lots of them. I had signed on in opposition to Jim Crow laws and poll taxes and in favor of rent control and pacifism. Because the petitions were thought to be Communist-inspired, I lost my ability to work in television and radio after refusing to say that I had been “duped” into signing my name to these causes.

By the 1960s, the inequities in civil rights and the debate over the Vietnam war spurred social justice movements. The government’s response? More surveillance. In the name of national security, the F.B.I. conducted warrantless wiretaps of political activists, journalists, former White House staff members and even a member of Congress.

He’s one of the plaintiffs seeking justice against the telecoms who broke the law. He’s asking Congress to give him and millions of others the chance to do that.

He may be 95 but anyone who’s met him knows they’ll have a battle on their hands if they deny him justice. Even if he has to live to 110 and throw all of Congress in the hoosegow to get there.

I remember all the twisted intelligence. Our CIA was saying ‘there’s no there there’ and the designers who had been plotting the war since before Bush took office replied ‘well then we’ll create enough so you can sign off on it.’ Anyone who stepped out of line in the military or CIA was forced to retire. White House staff and diplomats were publicly rebuked or saw their families harmed. The designers got their war and Fabricator-In-Chief Ahmad Chalabi provided the WMD informers who got everything spectacularly, consistently and perfectly wrong.

Afterward, Chalabi shrugged and indicated he’d take the heat, as long as he got his wish: the end of Saddam’s regime.

Some heat he’s taken. He was already likely the richest man in Iraq. Since Saddam’s fall, his family and friends have scored numerous contracts from the treasury of You and Me. Millions of Iraqis have fled the country. Hundreds of thousands are dead, including nearly 4,000 American troops. And what injury has come to Ahmad the Liar?

Chris Floyd covers the sordid details the best: behind all of it, getting their puppet strongman into power was always the plan of the designers and up front or behind the curtain, that strongman will be Ahmad the Liar, Facilitator of Human Slaughter, Profiteer off the blood off Far Too Many. And the designers close in on their control of one of the world’s largest oil reserves and turn their eyes to the next.

This may be Krugman’s best op-ed ever. It’s not shrill, it’s easy enough for an eighth grader to grasp it. He limits any invective to a minimum. And he states his faith that Americans have moved past those early fearful days post-9/11 and can sort out the truth from the fearmongering.

I wish I’d written it.

I’m too sick to post today, so I’ll just leave you with a pleasant note:

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Robin Prosser of Missoula, Montana:

After her earlier attempt failed, Prosser wound up in even more trouble after investigating police found marijuana in her home. She used the marijuana to help cope with pain.

That marijuana charge was eventually dropped in an agreement with the city of Missoula, and Prosser had reason to rejoice in 2004 when Montanans passed a law allowing medical use of the drug.
She was a high-profile campaigner for the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, and like others, she was dismayed when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that drug agents could still arrest sick people using marijuana, even in states that legalized its use.

The ruling came to haunt Prosser in late March, when DEA agents seized less than a half ounce of marijuana sent to her by her registered caregiver in Flathead County.

At the time, the DEA special agent in charge of the Rocky Mountain Field Division said federal agents were “protecting people from their own state laws” by seizing such shipments.

Yes, it’s those liberal hippies again, running states like Montana, Arizona and Mississippi. And you can tell Prosser’s been faking it:

In her guest opinion, Prosser wrote that: “I’m 50 years old, low-income and sick. I spend most days in my apartment in bed, with no air conditioning, unable to go outside because I can’t tolerate the sun.”

Beset by financial problems, troubled by depression, unable to find a reliable source of pain relief, she took her own life three months after the piece was published.

“Give me liberty or give me death,” she wrote in July. “Maybe the next campaign ought to be for assisted-suicide laws in our state. If they will not allow me to live in peace, and a little less pain, would they help me to die, humanely?”

Before being disabled by her disease, Prosser was a concert pianist and a systems analyst. After the disease hit her, she became a tireless advocate for legalized use of marijuana in medical situations.

Robin Prosser, dead by suicide now, because the federal government protected her from her state laws.

Our condolences to all who loved her and gave a damn.