The Re Collection

Proof that blogs can play a vital, uplifting role in our society:

Oklahoma blog Phototune, after hearing how Republican presidential candidate John McCain is missing so many votes in the Senate, comes up with an idea for our own embarrassing Republican legislator, Jim Inhofe.

PhotoTune: Should Jim Inhofe Run for President?

The wide-ranging calls for the Attorney General to resign have recently been joined by a rumble about getting him disbarred. But now, in perhaps the unkindest cut (short of losing Bush’s support, which doesn’t seem to be possible), Gonzo’s Harvard Law School graduating class (’82) has purchased a full page ad in the Washington Post taking him to task for, well for all the shit he has wreaked on the country in doing the bidding of George W. Bush. I think they were way too soft on the guy, myself, but still, it’s one more chink out of the fortifications in DC behind which our liberties have been decimated.

By fall, if nothing major has changed, I think the active duty military (brass) will stage a coup. It’s pretty much come to that, since the American people just won’t revolt — although maybe summer reruns will push them into the streets, finally, if refreshments are available.

We (the left blogosphere, that is — my official membership card is around here somewhere) have got a mole inside CPAC reporting the news that the so-called liberal media won’t: A very important figure in neocon America and in conservative hearts everywhere just cannot be found there.

Everyone is here… Michelle Malkin. Ann Coulter. Newt Gingrich. Duncan Hunter. Mitt Romney. Jeff Gannon. Sam Brownback. Melanie Morgan. John O’Neill… Oh so many heroes of the right…

And me.

And let me tell you - they’ve really turned out impressive support. At a time when the conservative agenda polls in the thirties, one gets the impression that they are all here.
I’m surrounded!

Something else these folks have done well is turn out the new generation of wingnuts. The average age of the attendee here has got to be below 30 - there are literally thousands of College Republicans moving about in Brownian style from exhibit to exhibit, conference to conference, speaker to speaker, ballroom to ballroom.

But amidst all this young, vibrant life, so eager to promote their patriotism, what is missing? What shadow looms by its very absence?

Surely you can guess, because it is the same figure missing from all the College Republican meetings, and Ann Coulter speeches bigoted ramblings, and Bush family bar-hoppings.

We have a winner!

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The United States of America is now, officially, no longer a democracy.

There are many things that are deeply distressing about the Military Commissions Act of 2006. One of the most distressing is its deeply cynical attitude about law. The President has created a new regime in which he is a law unto himself on issues of prisoner interrogations. He decides whether he has violated the laws, and he decides whether to prosecute the people he in turn urges to break the law. And all the while he insists that everything he does is perfectly legal, because, the way the law is designed, there is no one with authority to disagree.

It is a travesty of law under the forms of law. It is the accumulation of executive, judicial, and legislative powers in a single branch and under a single individual.

It is the very essence of tyranny.

The Blog | David Sirota: The Beltway’s Fear and Loathing of Democracy | The Huffington Post

You can tell how much Washington, D.C. is panicking by the rise of grassroots politics by looking at the now weekly declarations by politicians and pundits that they actually hate democracy. That’s hyperbole, you say? Just take a look at a few comments that have come from the upper echelons of the political/media establishment - comments that finally admit to us how those who purport to legislate and report in our name really in their gut despise American democracy.

[snip]

This is a landmark, folks. Usually, the establishment hides its hatred for democracy in vague rhetoric. But now, scared for their relevance and angry that their elitist sensibilities are being offended by ordinary voters, their loathing is all out in the open. Pundits and politicians in Washington are publicly telling American voters that we do not matter, and that they believe we should not matter.

But don’t get depressed - they are saying this because they realize that we actually DO matter, and they are scared. They are trying to once again make people believe we really have no power - when what’s becoming obvious is that ordinary people have power to change things when we get organized. What’s becoming obvious, in short, is that the politicians, pundits and insiders in Washington who pretend to control everything ultimately do not control anything when ordinary citizens decide enough is enough and fight back. The harder we fight, the more success we will have - and the more the establishment will gnash its teeth at democracy. But rest assured - the more declarations they make like the ones above, the more we are scaring the hell out of them.

from my new favoirite blog, d r i f t g l a s s

Where was mile-high, bandwidth-bestriding Thug Left that matched the Hate Radio of the Thug Right for the last twenty years?

Where is the Democratic Gingrich who runs a Democratic GOPAC that methodically and deliberately instructs his entire Party to scream “Traitor!” at the opposition at every press opportunity as routine, tactical matter?

Where are the army of Special Prosecutors sifting through every Kleenex George Bush ever used? Over a bad land deal? And a blowjob?

When is the impeachment hearing of George Bush scheduled to begin?

Where is the Democratic Southern Strategy that nurtures and harvests racists for votes?

Name me the Commies in the Democratic Party? Anywhere? Where are the Bolsheviks that hold elected office? How many Socialists in Congress? How many raging, Green Party Governors? How many hard-line Naderite federal judges?

Now, compare that list to the list of how many Wingnut Evangelicals holding public office in the GOP? How many of them pull the strings as powerbrokers?

This is NOT an incompetent administration — they are producing exactly the results they want.

d r i f t g l a s s: Plan Asinine
Because the Four Horsemen of the Republicans now have exactly what they want: an entire region completely destabilized and spiraling out of control, and at every single fucking instant when doing the smart thing was both possible and might have salvaged some part of this mess, the GOP went out of its way to kick the world off the balcony and onto the pointy rocks.

Over and over and over again.

And what is that but purposeful?

Get any of your GOP pals 3-4 beers drunk and poke ‘em a little in their jingo hole and they’ll tell you exactly what they believe is going on.

They want them all dead.

All of them.

All of the scary brown people between the Jordan River and Kasmir.

All of them, sitting on all of that sexy, Christian oil, screaming at us in some weird language that we can’t understand about how much they Hate Us For Our Freedom.

Any halfway competent reverse-engineering of the events of the last five years can only bring you to one conclusion: this Administration has been playing to lose in the region.

Why?

Because they are trying to reconstitute a doctrine of Corporate Christian Manifest Destiny and visit on the Middle East exactly the same kind of slaughter that has not been seen since Europe annihilated whole nations and peoples in the Americas, and for the same reasons: For God and Gold.

FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Stafford, Va.: Where does the crux of the blame for the FIASCO lie? There were a lot of efforts to incorporate lessons learned and new “ways of thinking” into military concepts, doctrine, education and training prior to OIF. Why did these efforts fail to take?

Tom Ricks: I’d say the book argues that you don’t get a mess as big as Iraq from the failings of one or two men, such as President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.

Rather, I think there was a systemic failure. Sure, the Bush Administration made mistakes, and failed especially to recognized the nature of the conflict in which it was engaged (which as Clausewitz says, is the key task of the supreme leader).

But I would would say the military establishment bears much of the blame, especially for the flawed occupation.

In addition, the media and the intelligence community made mistakes.

Finally, I think that Congress was asleep at the wheel. That’s crucial. Congressional hearings provide oversight and accountability and (when done well) pump information into the American system. In other wars, you had hawks and doves. In this war you had the silence of the lambs. (emphasis added)

Never thought I’d say this:
Thank you, Paula Jones!?

Our Wilson-bashing friends also don’t seem to have thought through what’s likely to happen in plaintiffs’ discovery. Libby and Rove are going to have to answer the same questions in deposition they answered in front of the grand jury. Only this time it will be on the public record. And of course their ability to prevaricate is limited by the threat of perjury charges if the two stories don’t match. In addition, Robert Novak is going to have to come clean, again in public, or face contempt charges.

But that’s not the best of it. Rove will be asked whether it’s true, as Murry Waas reported, that GWB personally ordered him to reveal classified information in order to discredit Joseph Wilson. And when he says “yes,” as he presumably will, plaintiffs will then have a strong basis for deposing Mr. Bush himself. [Yes, I’d rather “depose” him in the other sense of that term, but you take what you can get.]

You know it’s a bad sign when a news report — the the Washington Post, no less — starts like this:

As Congress opened hearings yesterday on the treatment of terrorism detainees, the Bush administration’s view was neatly summarized by Steven Bradbury, the Justice Department lawyer serving as lead witness. “The president,” Bradbury said, “is always right.”

Gitmo, and the whole torture industry we’ve built, isn’t changing on his watch, you can be damn sure of that.

“When facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.” - Huey Long

In 2003, the Free Inquiry magazine published an article by Lawrence Britt, called “Fascism, Anyone?” in which he detailed 14 characteristics of fascist states.

The article has been much copied, as you will see by doing a Google search. With good reason, with concern as we lose one liberty after another, and money controls every institution in the culture.

You’re not supposed to call Bush and company fascists, though. It’s mean. Or so the bought-off politicians and pundits say. So I just say, go through this list and see how many you can check off with the situation in the US today.

Let’s just say I’m inquiring…that’s still free, right

Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

[details with each characteristic available in full article]

I don’t usually post about Democratic Party machinations, but this is a giddy day in Netrootsland.

Booman’s take: Lieberman Jumps Ship

Joe Lieberman jumped ship today. He pledged to run for reelection to his Connecticut Senate seat even if he loses the August 8th [Democratic Party] primary. Lieberman is engaged in some kind of verbal jujitsu, wherein he denies that an independent, unaffiliated run for the Senate against a Democrat and a Republican would prevent him from running as a Democrat. He claims he will merely be a ‘petitioning Democrat’.

Not so. The party must and will support Ned Lamont. […]

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict that Lieberman has just guaranteed that he will lose the primary. […]

The question then becomes, who will win in November? Lamont, Lieberman, or Republican Alan Schlesinger?[…] Too close to call. I doubt anyone will top 40%.

One thing I am sure of. The Netroots just flexed their muscles and Lieberman blinked. This is our first, real, tangible victory. Joe Lieberman has been forced out of the party. He will lose the primary. If we have to grudgingly accept him back into the fold in November, so be it. I hope the good people of Connecticut will not make the wrong decision.

I think it’s fair to say that today I rejoice with all my Netroots community, those who still have hope in the Dems, and those who work in other ways for progressive goals. Buh-bye, Joe; don’t let the gurney hit you on the way out.

Media Matters - “Media Matters”; by Paul Waldman

This week, the conservatives declared war.

Not on The New York Times. Not even on the media in general. No, this week the entire conservative movement — from the White House to Republicans in Congress to Fox News to right-wing talk radio to conservative magazines — declared war on the very idea of an independent press.

They declared war on the idea that journalists have not just the right but the obligation to hold those in power accountable for their actions. They declared war on the idea that journalists, not the government and not a political party, get to decide what appears in the press. They declared war on the idea that the public has a right to know what the government is doing in our name.

This is a profound threat to our democracy, and we underestimate it at our peril.

[snip]

Given the constant drumbeat of criticism directed at the media from conservatives, it might be easy to dismiss this latest expulsion of bile as just more of the same. But it’s worth stepping back to take a look at exactly what has occurred over the past week. Members of Congress have suggested revoking the Capitol Hill credentials of journalists, so that only news organizations that do not displease the ruling party may be permitted to report from Congress. Other members have accused members of the media of “treason” and advocated their prosecution. A conservative television and radio personality suggested that the government establish an Office of Censorship to screen the news. Another said, “I would have no problem with [New York Times editor Bill Keller] being sent to the gas chamber.” The House of Representatives passed a resolution saying it “expects the cooperation of all news media organizations.”

In short, the right assembled a posse this week — vigilantes stalking television studios, radio airwaves, print, and the Internet, their apparent goal to revoke the First Amendment.

[snip]

And journalists could barely summon the energy to defend not just their colleagues, but their profession — let alone the citizens they are supposed to serve. At the same time that they were being subjected to this assault, they continued to view the political world through a lens created by the very people battering them mercilessly.

Barbra O’Brien of Mahablog guest blogs at Unclaimed Territory and introduces her series on saving democracy through media activism. I can’t wait to read the rest of it.

She says what I’ve been saying (though much better, of course) for a long time: That fixing the media in this country is THE most important thing for progressives to do.

Cultured

The ascension of the radical Right occurred over many years, and their takeover of government — a slow-motion coup d’état — happened gradually enough that most of us didn’t comprehend what was happening. America has been challenged by radicalism before, and always it has come back to the center soon enough. (And by “center” I mean the real center, where liberalism and conservatism balance, not the false “center” of today that would have been considered extreme conservatism in saner times.) I do not believe the coup is a fait accompli; the Right is not yet so secure it its power that it has dropped all pretense of honoring democratic political process. They’re still going through the motions, in other words. But this time I do not believe America will come back to the center unless a whole lot of us grab hold and pull at it. Hard.

How do we do that? First, we have to get our bearings and remember what “normal” is, which is going to be hard for the young folks whose memories don’t back back further than the Reagan Administration. Just take it from an old lady — what we got now ain’t normal.

Second, I argue that media reform is essential to all other necessary political reform. Until people outside the radical Right and the elite media-political establishment are able to take part in the nation’s political discourse, not much can be accomplished.

For example, many progressives have concluded it is pointless to support Democrats, because as soon as a Democrat gets inside the Beltway his spinal column is ripped right out of him. Time and time again, we’ve seen Democratic politicians make grand speeches to their liberal constituents, but once we get them elected they do little more than offer ineffectual objections to the ruling right-wing power juggernaut. At best. At worst, they vote with the Right out of some screwy notions about political expediency. And we’re all sick of this.

But I say that progressivism’s salvation will not come from any political leader or party, Democrat or otherwise. Progressivism will only be saved when we can effect change in our political culture so that progressive ideas can get a fair public hearing. And this brings us to the necessity of media reform. [emphasis added]

Or, you know, more legalistically:

SCOTUSblog: Hamdan Summary — And HUGE News
[…] the Court held that Congress had, by statute, required that the commissions comply with the laws of war — and held further that these commissions do not (for various reasons).

I’ve been in such a funk, depressed by the news at every turn. This makes me feel a little better.

Update from the There May Be a God After All department:
Think Progress » Supreme Court Decision on Gitmo Undermines Bush’s Legal Case For Warrantless Wiretapping

The impact of today’s Supreme Court decision on military commissions goes well beyond Guantanamo. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force – issued by Congress in the days after 9/11 – is not a blank check for the administration.

Update 2: Glenn Greenwald explains the decicion in more accessible language, but his post is a downer, because he basically articulates my first reaction: What’s to make the Cheney administration actually follow this ruling when they don’t follow laws they don’t like, and don’t care who objects.

But his summary is upbeat:

Nonetheless, opponents of monarchical power should celebrate this decision. It has been some time since real limits were placed on the Bush administration in the area of national security. The rejection of the President’s claims to unlimited authority with regard to how Al Qaeda prisoners are treated is extraordinary and encouraging by any measure. The decision is an important step towards re-establishing the principle that there are three co-equal branches of government and that the threat of terrorism does not justify radical departures from the principles of government on which our country was founded. [Emphasis mine]

For me, it all comes back to the media (and the tide of public opinion it can influence), and whether they will stand up on this one, finally. Or whether Spector will find some balls. Don’t hold your breath on either.

Update 3: Happpy meter swings down with Digby. Back to my original news gloom.

Update 4: Glenn responds to Digby (and others) with sunshine and light, and I’m calling it for GG, who’s been studying and writing exclusively on Presidential powers for a while now. And he is one lawyer I trust.

Final Update: Christy at Firedoglake gleans the web for reactions, celebrations, warnings so I don’t have to.

An interesting storyline has developed, with Hillary hiring a prominent blogger. What does it mean? What triumphs or disasters does it bode? I expect the arc to last at least through the 2008 elections, but we could get a pretty good idea of the plot with the upcoming mid-terms.

And I use the word “interesting” advisedly, in the way it was used in the old Chinese curse: May your children live in interesting times.

Cenk Uygur has a take on it at HuffPost, and he knows Hillary’s new consultant personally, so has an emotional spin on the problem he, the consultant faces.

Steve Guillard has worked for a political campaign in the past, and, well, has a rather strong opinion about the experience: “I’d rather set myself on fire and run through a gas station first.”

At this point in the political state of this republic, the blogger involved getting burned is the least of our worries

From the Daily Gotham:

It’s official : Hillary Clinton is running for president
To make this a real democratic movement, we will need to walk away from the wannabe king-makers and really invest our time and energies into advocacy organizations and citizen networks. We need to get people and advocates together in the same online communities, email lists, forums and chat rooms as well as the meetups, rallies and door-to-door friendraisings.

We need to bring everyday citizens who don’t have time to work as activists or write as pundits but want to do more, contribute more personally (not just financially), to the causes they care the most. We need to make it easy for regular folks to be engaged in the political process.

With the death of the liberal blogosphere hopefully we will see a true progressive movement arise online and off.

To be continued….

Atrios:
Stand up now.

Update: Glenn Greenwald explains why.

Brent Budowsky predicts the outcome of the elections this year. He thinks America will win.

The Washington insiders don’t get it, but its really simple, this election is not about ten point plans, or public relations, or competing sets of consultants dishing baloney and calling it leadership. This election, which I believe will be an epic moment that will be written about by historians for generations to come, is about restoring our faith in each other, restoring that spirit that we all share a common purpose and a common patriotism. When we get that spirit right, we will get our institutions right, with a renewed respect for our Bill of Rights, reviving our checks and balances, remembering that truth is reached when an informed citizenry engages all three branches of government as the Founders intended.

[…]

The bell has begun to toll for the dark and partisan vision of one party government in America; I predict the experts and pundits will be stunned and shocked when the voice of the American people, which is not heard or heeded at the dinner parties and gala dinners and insider lunches in official Washington, is fired like a cannon announcing the revival of the American idea.

In many campaigns across this country this year, you hear of candidates running as fast as they can from the disaster in Iraq and the president who got us into it. But not in Bush Country.

Van Taylor, a Iraq War vet who wants to unseat Democrat Chet Edwards, must not have got the memo, or doesn’t think the folks around here are feeling the way Americans elsewhere are. He’s running hard on his vet status, and says he will be a War Senator, so sorely needed to help Bush, the War President. This rather curious stategy is probably his only recourse, though, since he has no other discernable qualifications for office and isn’t even from around here — apparently something pretty important to the locals (I’m new myself and that’s what I hear — I think it has something to do with college football).

Today’s Waco Trib included the following guest editorial by Waco resident Hal Ritter on Taylor’s battle plan for getting elected in George W. Bush’s congressional district. Ritter doesn’t seem to think Taylor’s paying attention either.

Interestingly, though the Trib found the piece worthy of publishing on their editorial page, they did not think it quite worthwhile enough to make available on their web site. Since their guest column is basically a long letter to the editor that got promoted, and all the lte’s are printed — even the absolutely idiotic ones that blame CBS for the death of their Iraq crew — this makes no sense whatsoever. But then this is Waco; they do things there own damn way down here, in case you haven’t heard. At any rate, I paste in full, with no link, and no apology to the Trib.

So now warriors are needed?

Why is Van Taylor’s military past more important than others? (more…)

Texas is raising the speed limit to 80 mph on some roads because that’s what 85% of drivers are going anyway.

Many Texans are all over this immigration debate, outraged that folks from countries south of us are coming into the US without papers, or “illegally.”

So, I suggest that instead of creating yet more fuel inefficiency (among other disadvantages of faster driving), that these “illegal drivers” be returned home, forced to stay there, have their vehicle taken away, and be stiffly fined.

TomDispatch presents a fascinating, troubling and infuriating overview of the Intelligence Community (IC) in the US.

[… T]he real story of American intelligence is simply growth and bureaucratic infighting. The Bush administration, supposedly made up of “conservatives” who loath (and once endlessly railed against) “big government,” have ensured that, like the Pentagon, the IC, already an entangled monstrosity when they arrived, would experience its greatest growth spurt in memory, becoming an ever more bloated example of hopeless big government.

[snip]

Even if all its competing parts really did add up to a “community” — rather than a group of warring, bureaucratic mini-states on a collective proliferation mission — what kind of “intelligence” could possibly come out of such a conglomerate entity?

[snip]

An update from Firedoglake, fast becoming my favorite blog.

Ever since Pach launched his broadside against the War on Terror and the cover it has provided for a whole host of executive sins, the comments section on that post has looked like Chickamauga: The Morning After.

Wingnuttia came unglued. …

Jane quotes Kung Fu Monkey on ths subject:

The problem is, these yahoos have managed an ugly trick. They have turned criticism of the policies of Bastards in Suits into criticism of The People in Uniform Getting Shot At. […] . If the history of modern warfare has taught us anything, it’s that the Bastards in Suits spend an awful lot of time working the kinks out of plans involving The People in Uniform dying unpleasantly. They often screw that up. When they do screw up, it is incumbent upon Bastards in Suits to suffer criticism and fix the situation, as by comparison The People in Uniform are suffering shattered skulls, missing limbs and death. Which is, on my scale, exponentially more traumatic than criticism.

And Digby summarizes for us:

[I]t is long past time for people to start the public counter argument, which has the benefit of appealing to common sense. Many Americans are emerging from the relentless hail of propaganda that overtook the nation after the traumatic events of 9/11. Iraq confused people for a while, but that confusion is leaving in its wake a rather startling clarity: the “war” as the government defines it is bullshit. It will take a while for this common sense to become conventional wisdom, but it certainly won’t happen if nobody is willing to say it out loud.

This WOT insanity must end. We are losing everything to it, everything civil and decent about our culture and society. It is almost too late. Wake the fuck up, people! Open your eyes and step into the light.

Not a new premise, but Jamison Foser calls bullshit on the media, in the wake of the tabloid-style expose this week in the NYT (which led me to unsubscribe to their email alerts and demand my account be scrubbed from their database).

What was new to me was the info on Bush’s questionable stock sale that never got attention when he was running in 2000. Gee, how convenient was that!

Throughout this article is the use of the word “progressive” as an antonym for conservative, a much broader definition than I use, but looking at the Wikipedia entry, perhaps it is I who is wrong. Hillary Clinton is a liberal only because the political landscape leans so far to the right. I consider her, at best, a centrist Democrat. If she is a “progressive” then what is Russ Feingold? What is Cindy Sheehan? What is Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky?

But if the media are going to put candidates’ personal lives on the table, it’s time they do so for all candidates. If common decency and the shame that should accompany behaving like voyeuristic 10th-graders aren’t enough to convince the David Broders and Chris Matthewses and Tim Russerts of the world that the Clintons marriage is none of their damn business — or ours — then basic fairness dictates that they treat Republican candidates the same way. Because the only thing worse than a bunch of reporters peering into bedroom windows of candidates is a bunch of reporters peering into the bedroom windows of only one party’s candidates.

The Senate is, as I write this, voting, and likely will confirm, the appointment of a law clerk to the second highest court in the land. Brent Kavanaugh is a Bush idolator who was also an assistant to Ken Starr.

Well if a faux rancher, failed businessman, ex-cokehead, emotional cripple can be president, why can’t this joker be a judge? How much damage can the wrong person in an important job really do?

Okay, he was just confirmed. 37 against, which was better than yesterday, but still nowhere near all the Dems, who again pathetically rolled over for Bush’s dictatorship.

Glenn Greenwald on the latest effort to dismantle our democracy, the threat — stated by AG Gonzalex this weekend — of Imprisoning journalists for doing their job.

Things just got a lot darker in America, figuratively and literally.