This Is The End

Back to our regularly featured McCain image...
Begs a clever caption, right? Have at it.

Dick Cavett has some thoughts about the General Petraeus/Ambassador Crocker debacle of last week.

Waterboarding Makes A Comeback

Check this page out: waterboarding.org

via BoingBoing

and

Yesterday's Special Comment on Waterboarding and Torture
Keith Olbermann

I realize that a post like this elicits undesirable thoughts. Pretty photos are so much more pleasant. The concept of torture-as-an-interrogative-tool has been in my head. It makes me sick, to be associated with the people that consider this a viable option. If you now support or previously supported this insane administration, you've basically rubber-stamped the practice of torture. Which is illegal, immoral, and a sad reminder that we are really not evolved. Are you O.K. with that? Can you say Spanish Inquisition? Sure, I knew you could.

Every Picture Tells A Story, Don't It?

Code Pink protester Desiree Farooz confronts Condoleeza Rice with blood-stained hands, calling the Secretary of State a war criminal who should be tried at the Hague.

Now For Something Completely Different...

Sometimes I have to step away from the continued downward spiral of humanity, and focus on the things that keep me from losing it. Like kids. Large and small. Older daughter and I paid a visit to this little guy's house the other night. She used to babysit, when he was just a little teeny little super guy. (That's an old clip, from Sesame Street. Yes, Sesame Street.) Sometimes one just needs to seek out the silly, when it all just... hurts.

Rep. Pete Stark's Cojones

From the House debate on the override vote on Bush's veto of SCHIP, Rep. Pete Stark kicks Bush's ass:

"First of all, I'm just amazed they can't figure out, the Republicans are worried we can't pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where ya gonna get that money? You going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war or children. But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President's amusement. This bill would provide healthcare for 10 million children and unlike the President's own kids, these children can't see a doctor or receive necessary care. [...]

But President Bush's statements about children's health shouldn't be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up. In Iraq, in the United States and in Congress."

(Daily Kos)

Just Pretend

It's all O.K.



Image courtesy of David Dees

Portrait of a Bush Apologist

 Just in case you (still) think voting for a democrat
will make a difference...
(Sorry for the goofy font-it was a hurried cut and paste.)


Dianne Feinstein, symbol of the worthless Beltway Democrat.
By Glenn Greenwald, Salon, Sept 23, 2007

In the wake of the series of profound failures
that define the 2007 Democratic Congress, there
is much debate over what accounts for this behavior.
There are almost 300 "Congressional Democrats" and
they are not a monolithic group. Some of them are
unrelenting defenders of their core liberal political
values and some are committed to providing meaningful
opposition to the radicalism and corruption of the Bush
administration. But as the sorry record of the
2007 Congress conclusively proves, they are easily
outnumbered in the House and Senate --
especially the Senate -- by Bush-enabling and
Bush-supporting Democrats.The standard excuse offered
by many apologists for Bush-enabling Democrats --
that they support the Bush agenda and capitulate to
the right-wing noise machine due to political fear
of being depicted as too liberal or "soft on terror" --
is clearly inapplicable to many,if not most, of the
enablers. California's Democratic Senator Dianne
Feinstein provides a perfect case study for
understanding why the Congress has done virtually
nothing to oppose the most extreme Bush
policies, while doing much actively to support it.
Feinstein represents a deep blue state and was just
easily re-elected to her third term last year.
She won't run for re-election,if she ever does,
until 2012, when she will be 80 years old. Her
state easily re-elected a Senator, Barbara Boxer,
with a much more liberal voting record than Feinstein's.
Political fear cannot possibly explain her loyal
support for the Bush agenda on the most
critical issues decided by the Senate.Additionally,
Feinstein is a 74-year-old divorced Jewish woman
currently on her third husband, and it is thus
extremely unlikely that she harbors any hopes of
running in the future on a national
ticket. She has as secure a political position
as any politician in the country. Whatever explains
what she does, it has nothing to do with "spinelessness"
or fear. What would she possibly fear? And yet, her votes
over the last several years, and especially this year
after she was safely re-elected, are infinitely closer
to the Bush White House and her right-wing Senate
colleagues than they are to the base of her party or
to the constituents she allegedly
represents. Just look at what she has done this year
on the most critical and revealing votes:
* Voted in FAVOR of funding the Iraq War without conditions;
* Voted in FAVOR of the Bush White House's FISA bill
to drastically expand warrantless eavesdropping powers;
* Voted in FAVOR of condemning MoveOn.org;
* Cast the deciding vote in August on the Senate
Judiciary Committee in FAVOR of the nomination of far
right Bush nominee Leslie Southwick
to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
In 2006, Feinstein not only voted in favor of extending
the Patriot Act without any of the critical safeguards
sought by Sen.Feingold, among others, but she was one
of the most outspoken
Democratic proponents arguing for its extension
("I have never been in favor of allowing any provisions
of the Patriot Act to expire.").
Also in 2006, she not only voted in favor of amending the
Constitution to outlaw flag burning, but was, as she
proudly described herself, "the main Democratic sponsor
of this amendment." In October of 2002, she (naturally)
voted to authorize President Bush to use military force
to invade Iraq. She now self-servingly claims that she
"regrets" the vote and was tricked by the Bush
administration into believing Saddam had WMDs,
yet Scott Ritter has disclosed: "This is far different
from the statement Feinstein made to me in the summer of
2002, when she acknowledged that the Bush administration
had not provided any convincing intelligence to back
up its claims about Iraqi WMD." And when it was
revealed in August of this year that Awad Allawi had
hired the most influential GOP lobbying firm to help
oust Prime Minister Maliki, there was Sen.Feinstein
leading the way in demanding Maliki's ouster.
Time and again, not only does she vote in favor of
the most right-wing aspects of the Bush agenda, she
uses her alleged expertise in areas of intelligence
to pressure or give comfort to other Democrats
wanting to do the same. Several of the 16 Democratic
Senators who voted in favor of Bush's FISA bill in August,
such as Jim Webb, cited assurances by Feinstein that she
had obtained Secret Information as a member of the
Intelligence Committee which proved how necessary this
bill was. Similarly, as a member of the Intelligence
Committee, she was one of the Democratic leaders urging
the confirmation of Gen. Michael Hayden as CIA Director
notwithstanding the central role he played as NSA
Director in Bush's illegal surveillance programs.
Her primary allegiance is to the Beltway power system
and her overwhelming affection is reserved for Beltway
power brokers who are her true colleagues and constituents.
That is particularly true of right-wing members of the
defense and intelligence communities. Here,for instance,
is the praise she oozed for the illegal-surveillance-
implementing Gen. Hayden when urging his confirmation as
CIA Director: "I think the most important thing is that
the individual be a competent, qualified, intelligent
professional, and Mike Hayden is all of those things."
She said that while she supports a civilian leader of
the CIA,"I don't know a civilian that's really as well-
connected and competent in the present stage of
intelligence in America, and I think that's relevant."
And to explain her vote in support of Bush's
FISA bill, she cited the Absolute Integrity of Mike
McConnell as her reason: I spoke with Admiral Mike
McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence,
at length this evening. He believes the United States
is vulnerable, and that we need to move quickly to
change the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
The intelligence community is deeply concerned that
chatter among suspected terrorist networks is up.
I am concerned as well. We are living in a period
of heightened vulnerability, and must give the
intelligence community the tools they need to protect
America. . . .
I voted for both bills because one needed 60 votes to
pass. It is vital that we act now. We cannot leave the
nation unprotected in this post-9/11 period.What is so
notable -- and most revealing -- about this is that
Feinstein is a Democratic Senator from one of the most
liberal states in the country. Conventional wisdom holds
that she is a "liberal" or at least a moderate.
She came onto the national scene in the 1980s as
the Mayor of San Francisco, one of the most liberal
large cities in the nation, and was twice re-elected by
San Francisco residents.In fairness, she casts some
(usually futile) votes in favor of the standard Democratic
agenda on issues such as the environment, gun
control and the Military Commissions Act. And she'll
listlessly participate in investigations that go nowhere,
even when the White House defies or outright ignores
subpoenas. But what she does with the greatest conviction
is supports right-wing Bush measures and,above all else,
is an ardent defender of the Beltway power
establishment.In this regard, she really symbolizes a
major imbalance in the Washington political system.
The right-wing Republicans in Congress
have an affinity with their base and share the same basic
values. One
saw that quite vividly in the recent immigration debate,
where most
Congressional Republicans -- particularly the
"conservative" ones --embraced rather than ran away from
their angry, impassioned base by blocking enactment of
the immigration bill which the GOP establishment favored
but which the right-wing base hated. Most conservative
Senators sided with their base over the GOP establishment,
as they usually do when there is a split (Harriet Miers,
Dubai Port Deal, even steadfast support for the Iraq War).
And they rarely repudiate the political value system of
their base because they respect it and share it.
By very stark contrast, most (though certainly not all)
Democrats in Congress -- particularly the most influential
and longest-serving ones in the Senate like Feinstein --
have contempt for their base and share virtually none of
their values. In March of last year, I had an e-mail
exchange with the spokesperson for a key Democratic
Senator on the Intelligence Committee regarding how
bloggers and their readers could work more closely
with Democratic Senators to highlight the need for the
NSA lawbreaking scandal to be investigated and taken
more seriously. Ultimately, they made clear that they
wanted nothing to do with actual citizens who were eager
to bring that situation about, as I was told:I think there
is an opportunity for us to figure out a better way to
work together. But, you have to understand, my ultimate
goal is to help [the] Senator [] achieve his objective
of real oversight on national security matters by the
Intelligence Committee.Even with the best of intentions,
I'm not convinced that bloggers can help us meet that
goal. In fact, I worry about it hurting our efforts given
the increasingly partisan environment.
As Digby said yesterday of Senate Democrats: "it surely
seems true that they loathe the Democratic base as much as the
Republicans do."Hence, Dianne Feinstein funds Bush's war
with no limits while condemning MoveOn. She votes to vest
vast new surveillance powers in the President. She defends
and vouches for and places blind faith in the whole litany o
f Bush intelligence officials who have spent the
last six years radicalizing this country and breaking
the law. Plainly, Feinstein does not do this out of political
fear or "spinelessness," but because it is who she now is and
what she believes. She and those like her are the reason
why there is such a gaping disconnect between the Beltway
political class and the political views of most Americans.
Most of these political officials who feed off of
Washington year after year become appendages of it and
vigorous defenders of
nothing other than the Beltway system. They are drained
of all belief, conviction and passion. And in Feinstein's
case, it is particularly easy to understand why this is so.
Her current husband,Richard Blum, is an extremely rich
defense contractor whose companies have endless
relationships with the work Feinstein does in the
Senate. It is entirely unsurprising that Feinstein's
affection is reserved for officials in the intelligence
and defense communities because those are her social peers,
the individuals with whom her husband interacts
professionally and socially and with whom she most
identifies.More than anything else, Feinstein worships
at the altar of the Beltway power system and its most
revered members. Conversely, she has contempt for the
liberal base which elects her and the constituents she
represents. She long ago ceased being driven by the
political values which serve as props for her campaigns,
if she was ever driven by them. And that is the story of
so many of the Beltway Democrats.It really is one of the
most extraordinary -- and downright embarrassing --
political facts that more Republicans than Democrats
approve of the 2007 Democratic Congress. And why wouldn't
they? The Democratic Congress has not restrained the Leader
at all, but has done much to support and empower him.
The Democratic Congress --especially the Senate -- is
controlled by the likes of Dianne Feinstein, and what
Bush supporter wouldn't be satisfied with the role she
is playing? There are absolutely members of Congress
who are ardent defenders of our basic Constitutional
liberties and who are genuine opponents of the Bush
administration. But the record of Congress
leaves no doubt that they are wildly outnumbered.
It isn't only -- or even principally -- the "Blue Dogs"
which make the "Democratic Congress" nothing but an enabling
instrument of the Bush White House and its right-wing
policies. Far worse are the establishment-defending,
soul-less, belief-less, self-perpetuating "liberal
Senators" like Feinstein who render the concept of
"opposition party" nothing more than a deceitful illusion.
Dianne Feinstein is the drained and Bush-enabling face of
the 2007 Democratic Congress.

Symbols

What year is this? Who ARE we? How low can humanity sink? I am thoroughly disgusted by my own race. Again. Children aren't born racists. They learn it and pass it on and on and on. If you hate other races, stop procreating, goddamn it. Right. Like that'll happen. The gene pool seems overstocked with small-minded bigots. Just look around.

I really have come to doubt that humans will ever live in harmony on the planet. They're too busy hating what they don't understand.

Teach your children!

The Horror

What sad days these are. The world has gone completely mad. Especially America. I keep thinking of that ancient National Lampoon bit, about lemmings.
So many of us want change. The same people that were vehemently opposed to this war in the first place. What will it take, to make it stop? Civil disobedience? Or maybe a general strike? If people stopped being small cogs inside the big wheel, the assholes-in-charge would take notice. Realistically, I can't see most Americans being brave enough to take a stand, and make a real statement. One that affects the economics of this country. What if it adversely impacted their car payment, or mortgage, or family vacation? That's really all that matters, to some. Not the future of the planet, not the people dying needlessly every day, not the lies we're fed. If people would only consider stepping outside of their safety zones, and be willing take a real chance, we could make a difference. Maybe it's just too easy for the vast majority, being complacent. All I know right now is that I am more sad, angry, disgusted, and fed-up than I have ever been in my life. (Including post-divorce, and the death of my mother 25 years ago.)

Pissed on Politics hits the nail squarely on the head.

"don't wanna be an american idiot"

these are paul harvey's recent opinions about the necessity of wartime aggression... ouch.


proving to my peace-loving self (yet again) that i am a stranger in a strange land.