Democratic surrender of social class

The easiest to analyze of the four reasons that explain America's slide from relative enlightenment to the schlerotic brink of fascism is the Democratic surrender of social class as a potent political weapon and, oh by the way, the uniting principle of the post-Depression Democratic Party.

For more than fifty years, the Democratic Party was universally acknowledged to be the party of the little guy. It was a grand coalition of union laborers, farmers, and wage slaves against the plutocracy. It included lots of uneducated people, patronage hacks, ruffians, yeomen, the salt of the earth, teachers, colored people (the polite label of the time), factory workers, and anyone else you can imagine who needed a little help or wanted a little protection when faced with the superior forces of wealth. Even poor Southern whites were comfortable with the general run of Democrats, even though they were more racist than their midwestern allies.

Sometime in the 1970s, Democrats began to renounce "class warfare" (how's that for a slanted framing?). Owing to the power of incumbency, this change didn't happen overnight. Instead, class-conscious politicians aged out and weren't replaced. What we got instead were colorless technocrats who claimed they were more competent governmental managers. Michael Dukakis was the prime exemplar.

Technocrats lit a fire under almost no one, just good government affluent educated liberals like me, and there aren't nearly enough of us to win elections. Besides, even when our fires are lit, they don't burn as brightly as the fires of people who have more at stake, and let's face it, we already have pretty good lives. If the government cuts outlays, we don't go hungry.

Most writers essentially agree with Zell Miller and with his less lunatic brethren: The Reagan Democrats didn't leave the Democratic Party; instead, the Democratic Party left them. They point to the multiple social upheavals of the 1960s (in rock and roll time, 1964 to 1976) and the Nixonian claims about a silent majority.

There's some truth to this, but it's mainly limited to the old Confederacy and mainly related to race. While racism remains a strong thread and a threat in American politics, its force is diminishing, at least regarding African-Americans.

The silent majority hypothesis also fails to explain the continuing dominance of Democratic policy ideas about the economy, the role of government, and civil rights to name a few. Even when the media crowned Newt Gingrich's bomb-throwing Republican Party the "party of ideas", Americans polled in favor of neutrally worded Democratic ideas of government. The only "Republican" idea that is dominantly popular is tax-cutting, but the voters remain much more responsible about tax cuts than the Grover Norquist drown-the-government-in-the-bathtub Republicans.

Other writers blame George McGovern and his liberal-dominated 1972 coalition for pushing the common man out of the party. I've met McGovern and knew his chief of staff, Owen Donley, and they held no hostility toward the common man. Donley once told me a story of a carefully crafted compromise position that McGovern threw over because of a conversation he had with a porter in the Senate subway.

No, Democrats gave up their unity voluntarily as a result of the marketplace, not of ideas, but of campaign contributions. They passed post-Watergate reforms in reaction to the financial abuses of Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), but they ran afoul of unintended consequences.

Democrats could no longer raise large chunks of money from wealthy ideological sources; they now had to spread their fundraising to wealthy business interests who were much more likely to play the access game.

The power of incumbency again masked this effect, particularly since Democrats were completely dominant in Congress after Nixon's impeachment-driven resignation. Many moneyed interests with business in Washington continued to give against their natural political inclinations because it was in their financial interest. This was a temporary situation, waiting only for the Republican Party to revive its national competitiveness. Karl Rove knew this, which was one lever he and Tom DeLay saw available to achieve their now-lost "permanent Republican majority".

Nonetheless, populist Democrats, especially those with national ambitions, found they could not raise the smaller but still non-middle-class contributions they needed to fund their ambition. I'm sure the Democratic consultants realized this dilemma, too.

So, it was campaign finance reform that led Democrats to discard social class as a weapon and unifying principle.

The Republicans had no such dilemma. They could still raise ideological contributions and business-oriented contributions, and the more power they gained, the more these contributions would swing to them. They had no need to discard social class as a weapon and they have continued to wage aristocratic war on working people ever since, mainly in the form of reduced social safety nets and radically reduced taxes on the wealthy.

As if that were not enough, the Republicans went one better. They embraced faux populism in the form of brush clearing, pork rinds, and planned displays of apparent stupidity (real cupidity). This was supposed to prove that they were really the party of the little guy; it has always been bullshit, and the Roves of the world know it, but they will continue to claim that you'd rather have a beer with them than with the Democrats as long as the media sells that cockeyed idea and as long as the voters buy it.

Why is bin Laden still alive?

The Bushist and neocon target was always Iraq. Their goal was always permanent bases in the Middle East but outside of Saudi Arabia. (Relocating our bases outside of bin Laden's oyster was actually a rational desire among PNAC wishful thinking.) Iraq has the perfect location, had it only been empty of those pesky and fractious Iraqis.

The purpose of invading Iraq was not to spread democracy - that was pure marketing - or to topple Saddam Hussein - beneficial ceteris paribus but also a marketing feature. The true purpose was the projection of American power into this region so essential to our economic security without any consideration of change in our policy with respect to Israel.

I still have trouble understanding why the Bushists didn't fear the voters enough to make sure they got bin Laden anyway. It would have made their GWOT cover story more credible.

I guess they thought they could manipulate opinion however they needed to. That worked for a while, too.

(On Philosoraptor.)

Trying too hard

The New York Times Business section tells us that the refiners are trying so darn hard to keep up with demand for gasoline that they're breaking their plants, which limits supply and drives up prices. Reporter Jad Mouawad manages not to quote one single skeptic about the oil industry's claims. The closest he gets is anonymous:

Some critics of the industry have theorized on Internet blogs that the squeeze on gasoline and other refined products points to a deliberate effort among oil companies to bolster profits by keeping supplies tight. But experts point out that the companies have little incentive right now to hold back on fuel supplies.

The common assumption of business writers everywhere is that the myth of the invisible hand keeps industries from manipulating prices. No one remembers the scandalous conspiratorial theft by deregulated electricity producers in California (obligatory disclaimer: alleged). That was yet another reason that Enron was a terrible rapacious company that demanded, but didn't get, rational regulation.

Like many articles in business sections across the U.S., this one is biased in favor of the industry instead of the truth.

The end of dowry

Sex discrimination in Asia, married with technological sex selection of fetuses, is going to have unintended consequences. In the Boston Globe:

While India has had several women in positions of power -- most notably Gandhi and her mother-in-law, Indira Gandhi, who was elected to the more powerful position of prime minister in 1966 -- women still face rampant discrimination.

Many Indian families regard daughters as a liability because of a tradition requiring a bride's family to pay the groom's family a large dowry of cash and gifts. As a consequence, their education is often neglected, and many don't get adequate medical treatment when ill. If they are widowed, they are considered a burden on their children or families and face even more discrimination.

International groups also estimate that about 10 million female fetuses have been aborted in India over the last two decades as families show a widespread preference for sons.

There's already a significant surplus of males in India - and in the rest of south and east Asia. What will the future bring? A few predictions:

• Emigration - an additional reason, but not by any means the only one
• Exogamy
• The end of dowry, though probably not its reversal - there's still to much economic discrimination
• A larger supply of potential suicide bombers
• War, the last refuge of surplus males

No one can change the demographics. Is there anything anyone can do to mitigate their ill effects?

'Troubling'

Al Qaeda has had free run of large parts of Pakistan, our ostensible ally, since 2003, and all Duhbya can say four years later is that it's "troubling". Seriously, this man could not find his own ass with both hands.

How did we get here?

In 1978, there was talk of electing a veto-proof Democratic Congress because the President was too conservative. That President was a Democrat, Jimmy Carter.

In 2007, we have at long last in Duhbya-world a Democratic Congress. The voters elected the swing Democrats because it was finally clear to enough people that Iraq was a debacle. Even though cool heads had amply predicted every last problem that has beset Iraq, the jingoistic march to war had shunted them aside - off TV and radio and even mostly out of newsprint - as so many unhonored Cassandras.

One issue was more important to me than Iraq, though not to the voters. That was the utter, total, absolute, and complete failure of unified Republican government to retain any semblance of separation of powers, so great its fealty was to the Bushist cult of personality. During their dominance of American politics from the 1930s to the 1970s, Democrats in the Congress repeatedly refused to be handmaidens to the President, whether Democratic or Republican. The Republican Congresses of 2001 to 2006 had no interest in leaving the country and the Constitution better off, as long as they could leave the conservative movement better off. And, oh yeah, as long as they could fatten up their friends at the public trough.

Oversight? Are you kidding me!

How did we get here?

I see four reasons:

• Republicans concluded that their program of government could never get them into the majority if presented honestly, even after forty years of halting movement to the center, so they built a political apparatus that was primarily concerned with marketing.
• Democrats unilaterally surrendered their most potent political weapon and the unifying attribute of their political coalition - social class.
• The media gave up the difficult work of separating truth out of the routine lies and bullshit of politics and made its purpose the reinforcement of conventional wisdom.
• The voters turned down their bullshit detectors. Or off. (Some examples.) So many people were telling them that self-government is too hard that they believed it.

I'll get into each of these in time.

The phony editorial

True to its neocon form, the Washington Post blames Democrats for the Republican filibuster.

To quote Vincent LaGuardia Gambini, "Everyt'ing that guy just said was bullshit."

If Fred Hiatt had an ounce of conscience, he'd resign in disgrace and go to Washington cocktail parties as the former editorial page editor.

Cheney stands up

... now that Duhbya is lying down. What branch is Darth in today?

On Blue Mass. Group.

Better Democrats

One reason the Bushists have found so little effective resistance as they have culminated forty years of Republican movement into fascism has been the lack of strong liberal Democrats, willing to buck the tide of often ill-advised compromise.

Jamie Eldridge, currently running for Congress in the Massachusetts 5th District, is a better Democrat, the kind we need. He's of course not above compromise, but he knows there are good deals and bad deals, and bad deals should be refused.

I'd love to see him in Washington.

Karl Rove...

... covered in it? Now there's a happy thought!

On KnoxViews.

Neo-confederates, part 2

Really, it has to be an accident that the Alabama Republican Party is so fond of the jack flag. Sure.

No more GOP

No one should ever again vote for a Republican.

The Republican Party has proven over the last forty years to be a party of fascist criminals. It should be subject to a RICO indictment and stipped of all assets.

Whoa! Isn't that too extreme for Americans! (Nope, just too unstintingly accurate and unpleasant for television.)

Here's the evidence: Four of the last five Republican Presidents engaged in banana republic subversion of the Constitution. Gerald Ford, the sole exception, was appointed by dint of negotiation between a Democratic Congress and the first of the criminals, Dick Nixon. And even he participated in the no Republicans held accountable plan.

Let's review!

Nixon, who left Washington one step ahead of impeachment and conviction, cast himself above any law, used the power of the IRS and the FBI against his political opposition, tampered with evidence (oh, please, you believed that Rosemary Woods cock and bull story?), egged goons to assault citizens, and was deeply involved in a criminal conspiracy to select and destroy his reelection opponent.

St. Ronnie, who left with dementia setting in, had only implausible deniability (and our fundamental dismissive assumption that he was a mere figurehead) between him and Iran-Contra. Even Ollie North, whose only respect for brown Latinos stems from their affection for juntas made up of colonels, didn't believe Reagan's daft denials. Democracy? Law? Who needed 'em!

Duhbya's father, Bush I, said he was "out of the loop" on Iran-Contra, meaning of course that he was definitely not in Chicago at the time. Well, not downtown anyway. HW carried his water in the ongoing criminal conspiracy by pardoning Caspar Weinberger's substantive perjury. People like them (including Scooter) aren't criminals; you can't send them to jail just because they broke a few eentsy-weentsy Democratic laws.

Duhbya, the worst, the apotheosis of the criminal Republican, has a rap sheet unrivaled since at least Grant, maybe ever:

stole the 2000 election - set out to do it and succeeded using the resources his father had pre-positioned

neglected his duty to protect the country

chose to invade Iraq on the basis of lies in order to implement the PNAC plan for empire

effectively ended judicial oversight of surveillance of American citizens

made torture the policy of America

drove a truck through habeas corpus

used the "Justice" Department to install cronies who would trump up politically motivated charges against Democrats

robbed the Treasury for the benefit of the most wealthy Americans

sat by while domestic energy cartels almost openly manipulated prices for vast profits

brought partisan politics deep into law enforcement

reinfected the military with propaganda

subverted intelligence gathering

exposed secrets and a covert agent for short-run political gain

refused the just oversight and jurisdiction of the other branches

asserted the kingly power of the "unitary executive" to control the access Americans have to information

Could the Republicans in Congress be salvageable? Consider:

the trumped up show trials of Bill Clinton

the complete abdication of oversight and separation of powers

the constant willingness to side with the rich against the rest of us, all while pigging out on their slops

the end of any concern for environmental impact of any kind

steady defense of Bushist lies on every topic, large or small

By all means, America will have a conservative party. The sleepwalkers, sheep, and mouth-breathers need representation, too. I recommend that conscientious former Republicans, who are similar to former Iraqi Baathists in this, start with the Democratic Leadership Council. Joe Lieberman has been pretty lonely. You could make his day; give him something to do besides moping around Baghdad in a flak jacket.

Dog bites man

On KnoxViews:

Darth Cheney has been President in all but name for six and a half years. A colonoscopy is Duhbya's just desserts. Maybe they'll find his head up there. If so, it'll probably look like a tumor!

White House credibility

On Philosoraptor:

Nothing out of the executive branch can be trusted.

Pranks

On Philosoraptor:

These Hummer owners who have vanity plates that reinforce their vanity deserve a little monkeywrenching. Now, I wouldn't advocate spray paint or other vandalism, but a toothpick holding open a tire valve is easy to get away with and merely a temporary though hopefully enraging inconvenience.

Bend over as if to tie your shoe, and this shouldn't take more than a few seconds. Do it on the driver's side so the idiot doesn't blithely drive away on three tires. You don't want anyone getting hurt by this.

Sure, a brick through the windshield might be more satisfying viscerally, but think how long you can laugh about this milder prank without joining your victim in assholery.

Fear

On Philosoraptor:

They're looking for someone to tell them they're safe, even if it's a lie.

Journamalism

On Philosoraptor:

Mystic, the problem of course is that the news media view their job as reinforcement of the conventional wisdom - as in, "Don't challenge your audience, or they'll turn you off."

Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? How quaint.

Justice

On KnoxViews:

McCain swallowed his pride and kissed tons of Duhbya and wingnut ass. This is the thanks he gets, the just desserts of the way he put ambition before honor. Now he gets to live with his regrets.

Rudy the authoritarian gets it next. At some point, someone is going to make a commercial using all the stills and videos of Giuliani in a dress.

After that, it's either Fred or Mitt. Either one will say anything to get elected, so they're perfect Republicans.

Right on, but...

On KnoxViews:

The future of democracy demands that we impeach these authoritarians, and it's always good to have allies in that fight, even those from the propaganda machine that propelled them to power. However, what we really need is for Democrats and liberals to understand and accept that they are going to be attacked for doing what is right - and for them to do it anyway. That's the only way to restore America to Constitutional democracy.

By the way, the interview can be seen at Crooks and Liars.

Demagogue

What would Jagger do? Miss you...

Chickenhawk

On Crooks and Liars:

The truth about required ages of enlistment: 17 to 41. Chris Vucovich is eligible and a damn chickenhawk.

Don’t believe me? Try the Army.

Neo-confederates

On Crooks and Liars (now redacted):

The Montgomery Co. GOP, of which Vucovich is secretary, has an interesting seal. Brings to mind the Confederate battle flag, ya think?

Justice delayed

A friend writes:

I started the new Congressional term thinking, why bother with impeachment. Now I feel that since Congress isn't doing anything else, at least let's tarnish Bush's image a bit. Is it too late to impeach Reagan for Iran Contra? Conducting a war explicitly banned by Congress was the ultimate act of an imperial president.

I think there was once an impeachment after the fact, though I doubt the defendant was dead at the time, which would run pretty hard against our tradition. Since Ken Lay’s Enron convictions were on appeal when he died, they were vacated by the court after his death. I find that a little extreme, but there it is.

Impeachment is necessary. Unfortunately, it’s probably also impossible. I agreed with Nancy Pelosi that it should be off the table, though I didn’t think it should be entirely out of the kitchen. I hoped instead that investigations would bring a popular groundswell that would put it back on the agenda. Every time the Bushists stonewall – which is really all they have left – make them do it in a way that exposes their brazen criminality.

Then try Duhbya, Darth, Rummy, and Gonzo et al for war crimes (torture, mainly) after they leave office. (Yeah, like that’ll ever happen.)

More on "Justice Denied"

See Better late than never.

The reason I didn’t want Miers was her complete personal fealty to Duhbya. Mr. President, you want the prerogatives of an elected king, whatever you say I’ll agree. This – not Iraq, not for heaven’s sake abortion, not even the galloping plutocracy – is the number one issue of our day. All the others are symptoms of the fundamental dysfunction of our polity, which is slouching into fascism. Are we going to govern ourselves, or are we so tired of the petty details and hard facts that we’re going to hand over the power to corrupt men like Darth Cheney to do with us what they will – so long as we get to watch Survivor?

Did the Times advocate a filibuster of Alito? That’s the real question. As Jimmy Malone said while choking on his own blood in The Untouchables, “What are you prepared to do about it?” The media has a mania for bipartisanship (‘Broderism’), which mainly translates into Democratic restraint and lots of tongue-clucking about the Republicans’ lack of restraint. My mania is for Constitutional democracy, and that’s not a value I’ll compromise in the vain hope of comity with a bunch of would-be tyrants, even in the name of Liebermanesque bipartisanship. Especially not in the name of anyone who enables Republican abuses like Lieberman.

Too bad the Washington Democrats still hope for comity. They should at every turn be fighting political war instead of thinking about responsible governance. The only path to that is to throw the rascals out and install some lesser rascals.

That includes judges. We need to clean house by all legal means – and some extralegal means, too. You think any of the Supremes are on the Palfrey phone list? God, I hope so.

By the way, I think David Vitter is toast. Another Harvard man bites … the dust.

Why does everyone hate Michael Moore?

On KnoxViews:

I don't get it. Moore stands up for what he believes, and the Wolf Blitzers and Sanjay Guptas and Lou Dobbses of the world pillory him for it - even after time has proven him right.

Right-wingers totally get in their faces, but CNN invites them back to panel discussions, even though they manifestly have no facts and no expertise. This happens over and over again. They have even given Glenn Beck, a raving moron, his own show. Then, despite the fact that no one watches it, they let him guest host for Paula Zahn, replacing vapid with rabid.

Some liberal media.

Wolf promised Moore a correction if Gupta was proven wrong. This is as close as CNN will get. They restate a few issues, making it seem as though Gupta and Moore are in violent agreement, and Gupta and CNN never admit they got anything was wrong, though it's obvious by omission.

CNN does a non-correction correction, but they steer wide of any fact-by-fact comparison. Moore, on the other hand, sources his facts. Isn't that what journalists are supposed to do?

I haven't seen SiCKO, and I don't agree with everything Moore says about health care, but I do know this: You can't believe anything just because it is on TV. (Aside: I do agree with Moore that every second story on CNN looks like a product placement or a corporate tie-in.)

We're on our own, folks. The fourth estate has sold us out.

Out of context, but...

Comment on what?:

Taking a wicked nixon on the ideals and the work of the Founders...

Better late than never

Justice Denied ($) indeed:

In the 1960s, Chief Justice Earl Warren presided over a Supreme Court that interpreted the Constitution in ways that protected the powerless — racial and religious minorities, consumers, students and criminal defendants. At the end of its first full term, Chief Justice John Roberts’s court is emerging as the Warren court’s mirror image. Time and again the court has ruled, almost always 5-4, in favor of corporations and powerful interests while slamming the courthouse door on individuals and ideals that truly need the court’s shelter.

Yep. Not a single wrong thing. These people want to return to the 1920s or even the 1880s. They’re bad people, willfully ignorant of those they feel are lesser than they, even if the Bushists do have good manners and nice, toothy upperclass smiles. They will rule in favor of the unitary executive, and then pissing around with legal arguments won’t get us anywhere for 40 years. I always thought big brother would come here in America from fascism long before communism.

What Harry Reid should say to Joe Lieberman

"Back our candidate or you're fucking out of the caucus."

And then, come 2009, throw him out anyway.

On Roger Ailes.

How to impeach the Bushists

Our Constitutional democracy is in grave peril. Dick Cheney and his sock puppet, George Duhbya Bush, claim that they want to restore the powers of the Executive Branch. In this, as in practically everything they say, they are lying.

The continued safety of our bold American experiment in democracy requires that we reject the Bushist despotism explicitly and legally. Otherwise, the Cheney-Bush precedent will be that the words of the Constitution are just words and that they can be redefined at will to mean whatever the Executive Branch wants them to mean.

The final remedy the Constitution provides for a President who refuses just and legal oversight and separation of powers is impeachment.

How can patriotic Americans accomplish this act of loyalty to our founding ideals?

The powers that Cheney and Bush have usurped for what they call the unitary executive are powers that the Founders feared to repose in any branch of government, particularly in the Executive, since its power is concentrated in the hands of a few. The Founders rejected exactly the sort of despotic power Cheney claims, which is the power of a king to be beyond the oversight of the other branches, beyond any law, beyond all accountability to the people. It is also the power to make war on whim and to extend the battlefield's fetters on liberty to citizens at home in the United States.

What we have seen over the past six years has been an autocratic restoration in slow motion. With the connivance of Republican Congresses and the elite media and with the acquiescence of frightened Washington Democrats, this restoration has swept away 231 years of shared and separated powers. We now have authoritarian rule, not democratic governance.

Resistance to the Bushist misrule must come from the people. The Democrats are far better than the Republicans but, even so, they are too timid to push through impeachment on their own. They think they're winning and don't want to risk their lead or their fragile coalition, and they accept the false equivalence between Clinton's hysterical, disproportionate, unwarranted impeachment and Duhbya's warranted impeachment. The fundamental difference is that Bill Clinton betrayed his wife, while Duhbya has betrayed our entire system of government with his serious public crimes.

Even so, we require the help of the Washington Democrats. The people have awakened to the incompetence of the Bushists in Iraq and to their arrogance at home, but even I don't think they understand the full story of corruption at the heart of this administration - of how fast and loose they've played with our liberty, our money, and our lives.

The way to reach the people is a steady drumbeat of investigations. The Bushists will stall and stonewall every one. Just as they did in 2000, they will try to run out the clock.

The Democrats in Congress must make Duhbya defend his imperial Presidency and its shameless secrecy every week for the next eighteen months. Congress must constantly stand firm on its demands, must find the White House in contempt, must use every process and finding to refuse its tacit assent to Cheney and Bush. If that means no more confirmations to any office, so be it, and that will mean no more recesses at all, lest Duhbya make recess appointments.

Once the people see where their taxes and the blood of their sons and daughters have been going, there will be outrage. That's the ticket. The Constitutional crisis that has been simmering along since 2001 will come to full boil. It will hurt, no doubt, as all surgery does. Sadly, the time we could have had a painless remedy was December 2000, when Florida was in limbo. Or, maybe that wouldn't have been painless, either. The media could have covered Al Gore fairly in 1999 and 2000, and then Duhbya never would have won the Presidency 5-4.

To win conviction of Bush and Cheney and remove them from office requires many Republican votes. Joe Lieberman will never be one of those votes for conviction. It's a high burden, reachable only if enough angry constituents threaten to take their votes and their money to another candidate. Much as I would rejoice to see President Pelosi, conviction would probably require a deal that would make that temporary at best.

If this deal requires keeping the Bush Cabinet (shudder!), Alberto Gonzales must also be impeached. Any deal must also forbid pardons.

If this fantastic, difficult (impossible?) scenario does not come to pass, there is one more way to hold the Republican would-be tyrants accountable to the law. They have broken laws that carry punishments:
· FISA
· war crimes statutes against torture

We should have learned from Watergate that crimes unpunished are crimes encouraged. Dick Cheney and the Republicans certainly learned that lesson. Now they stonewall every subpoena with the same lame rationales that Richard Nixon could not make stick. They evade all disclosure, and evidence mysteriously disappears. The same news media that foamed at the mouth about the missing Rose law firm records (yes, the ones that confirmed Hilary's story) ho hums at the White House's thoroughgoing evasion of official recordkeeping laws. As the Republicans have done ever since Gerald Ford let Nixon off the hook, they pardon their convicted cronies - Caspar Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, and now Scooter Libby.

This is not a time to play it safe. This is a critical point in history. We face the same scale of gamble that the Founders faced - our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. Or we can watch "reality" TV and forget about running our own government.


Corrected version of what I originally posted on KnoxViews.

Respect for law

Unpublished letter to the Boston Globe:

George W. Bush gave Scooter Libby quite a present yesterday. Bush should have put Americans first instead. After all, it's our country's birthday this week.

Of all the people who might deserve mercy, it's just a coincidence that Bush would give a get out of jail free card to another Republican felon. The one guy too delicate for prison is also the guy who could expose the truth about Dick Cheney's plan to out Valerie Plame.

You have to admit that Republicans take care of their own. If you make them choose their cronies or the law that the rest of us have to obey, they'll choose special treatment for their own kind every time.

Impeachment is the only remedy we have for the arrogance of Republican power. Bush and Cheney have proven that they will stonewall the lawful oversight of Congress at every step. Every subpoena they refuse, every political secret they hide, every law they breach takes us one step closer to a banana republic.

Those of us who care about the ideals of the Founders are the true patriots. We must demand the removal of these scoundrels from power.

Abuse of process

On KnoxViews:

Darth Cheney's bullshit rationale for exempting himself from the law is just as transparent nonsense as the $67 million dry cleaner pants lawsuit. In the abusive pants lawsuit, the presiding judge awarded some costs to the defendants. I hope he will award their legal fees, too.
Cheney is simply trying to escape oversight. Clearly, Duhbya is not up to supervising his boss and never has been - what a poser!

Not only does Cheney preside over our country, he also presides over a coup d'etat against the Constitution, executed in slow motion by the banana Republicans.

Cheney believes that all he has to do to escape the consequences of his illegal actions is to get his papers into escrow in Duhbya's presidential library. (Would he dare build a vice presidential library in recognition of his regency?) Look for even more restrictive Executive Orders on the confidentiality of presidential and vice presidential papers in Jan. 2008.

What Cheney forgets (and Duhbya is too oblivious to know) is that he is a war criminal. He (and Alberto Gonzales via David Addington) may define torture as anything short of major organ failure, but U.S. law does not, and Cheney is criminally liable for at least these crimes (along with Rummy and Duhbya).

I hope to see these SOBs in orange, and I don't mean I want them to visit Neyland Stadium. (Yeah, either one is a long shot.)

Don't be an idiot

Oh, too late, you're a Cheney supporter.

The Vice President is part of the Executive Branch. You and the Cheneyites might try reading about the office in the Constitution instead of repeating obviously moronic spin that pretends they can change the meaning of words to fit their anti-democratic desires.

The Vice President's occasional role as president of the Senate doesn't make him a legislator. He only has a vote in case of ties, he doesn't sit on committees, he can't submit a bill on his own, and his very office is described in Article II, the vesting of the Executive power. He works in the [expletive deleted] White House, at least when he's not at an undisclosed location (Transylvania?).

Furthermore, Executive Orders come in many forms. A huge number of them direct the Executive Branch in implementation of statutes, as is true in this case.

The Vice President is subject to law, to Executive Orders, and to the Constitution. If we didn't live in [expletive deleted] Animal Farm, that would be obvious even to watchers of Fox "News". Cheney should be called to account for his assault on the legal basis of American liberty and government.

But Dick Cheney wants to run a shadow government from beyond the reach of any light, just like the cockroach he is. So he makes these patently ridiculous claims, and his sycophant supporters nod at the absurdity as if they've always known the VP is the fourth branch of government and defend him like the fearful lemmings they are.

Originally posted on KnoxViews.

Pseudonyms

I have to say, I have decreasing respect for those who only populate the comments sections of blogs and never put themselves out there by writing something in a form that more than three people read. Take a stand. Show some guts. Stop hiding behind anonymous screen names. Show us who you are. And stop pretending to be know-it-alls.

Waaah! If you can't beat our arguments, an ad hominem will have to do, well-spiced with aggrieved elitism at our poaching on your pundit's unearned preserve.

Screen names? C'mon, graduate from AOL.

We're pretending to be know-it-alls? Sheesh.

Now for substance in response to your lack of it: I suppose you have decreasing respect for Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Paine, etc. They didn't sign their given names either. Probably wanted to avoid the useless ad hominems of defensive frauds like you.

(Originally posted here.)

Thought experiment

Suppose there were a Republican who is a paragon of personal virtue who thinks well and moderately about foreign and domestic policy. Suppose that nonetheless this man (we are talking about Republicans, after all) could win the Republican nomination for President. Frankly, I think he'd have to stuff the ballot box at the RNC to get anything approaching reason past the fundies, the anti-tax fanatics, and the PNAC imperialists (not to mention the industrial and tribal pro-war interests).

So, with those ridiculous counterfactuals in a suspension of disbelief that J.K. Rowling would laugh at, what government would you get? You'd get the permanent policy apparatus of the Republican Party. This is what gave us Dick Cheney, Elliott Abrams, the vast and vapid neocon network, among others. You'd also retain the permanent political apparatus of the GOP, and you'd better believe that Karl Rove is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is no sale. There is no Republican for nationally significant office who deserves a vote. Not a single one.

Originally a comment on Philosoraptor.

Tax free

It's really bad public policy when theme parks are tax exempt just because they call themselves religious. It's the kind of nonsense that leads to L. Ron Hubbard.

Originally a comment on KnoxViews.

Against type on this

I have no problem with stripping prison libraries of Islamist, Christian Identity, or Kahanist literature. And there's certainly no reason we should pay for it out of our small enough budgets. Cons don't gain the right to whatever book they want simply by conviction of a felony.

I don't think anyone is going to be rehabbed by the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the The Turner Diaries, much less by radical Islam, Christianity, or even Judaism posing as religion when it's really revolutionary politics. They want that crap; let 'em wait until they're out.

Originally a comment on KnoxViews.

The NRA vision

Hey, c'mon, an armed society (Iraq) is a polite society. Yep, them Hatfields and McCoys always a-treated each t'other with the utmost respect.

Originally a comment on KnoxViews.

We have become what we forswore

Time magazine, not lately a paragon of hard-hitting journalism, published this yesterday.

The lead is:

Many of the controversial interrogation tactics used against terror suspects in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo were modeled on techniques the U.S. feared that the Communists themselves might use against captured American troops during the Cold War

This happened in 2002. Anyone who has disbelieved my assertions that torture has been the Bushists' policy can now step up to the crow buffet. Personally, though, I'm too sick to my stomach to eat.

(Originally a comment on Philosoraptor.)

Gonzo and Duhbya in a rowboat

Torture and the death penalty are in the same boat. And Alberto Gonzales is rowing Duhbya around in both of them. (What an ugly twist on The Life of Pi!)

Certainly, there are convicts who deserve death, for whom even death may be too good. There are also easily imagined scenarios where torture is obviously and overwhelmingly utilitarian and thus has a claim to morality and even obligation.

Alan Dershowitz has argued that we need torture warrants and a legal review process to approve them sparingly and justly. I look at our attempts to administer the death penalty justly and fairly (and I'm just not relying on the banality of evil seen in Gonzo and Duhbya), and I don't have great confidence in the usefulness of a legalism that permits torture.

In fact, the central problem of torture under the Bushists is that they made it the policy of their regime. They didn't just wink at it or tolerate a few excesses; they wrote memos justifying it legalistically (note: not legally) even while, for public consumption, they claimed that 'torture' meant only 'maiming or killing', which allowed them to make the Orwellian claim that they were not, oh no, torturing. And they promoted successful practitioners from Gitmo to Iraq.

In extremis, torture may be permissible, but it's not permissible to legalize it. Those who are closest to the need must take the risk if they think it is worth it, and we must have the right to second guess them and even punish them if we disagree. That's the harsh reality. (24, by the way, even agrees, or it did in Day 4 anyway; I found Day 6 unwatchable.)

A good analogy is how we handle cannibalism. We don't legalize it and define the circumstances when it is appropriate (Alive!, say). We recognize that it is illegal or at least immoral but accept a necessity defense. So it should be with torture.

Not every act-utilitarian moral act is subject to rendering into rule-utilitarian law.

The precedent punishment for torture in pursuit of war, particularly war of choice, is the death penalty. Reason forces me to acknowledge that both Gonzo and Duhbya are eligible for prosecution, along with Rummy and Darth Cheney, among many others.

It was for reasons such as this that the Republicans during the Clinton years refused to join the International Criminal Court at The Hague. When out of office, the Bushists also might want to consider not travelling to Belgium, for example, to avoid its almost American sense of its own jurisdiction. No ex post facto problem there!

If these alleged war criminals are ever duly convicted convicted, I'd be satisfied with them receiving the same punishment as Rudolf Hess. Hell, I'd be ecstatic.

(Originally a comment on Philosoraptor.)

True paranoia

Originally a comment on Crooks and Liars.

The U.S. Constitution is no longer in force. The rule of law is only for the little people like us.

Comey was impressive for his visible conscience, for his care for the law, and for his concern for John Ashcroft as a defender of America. We are in really deep shit if Ashcroft is our best defender. It just goes to show that there are no depths the Bushists won't stoop to.

The Bushists are undoubtedly data mining all our phone conversations, emails, and blog postings. I don't have direct evidence, only the persistent evasion about illegal wiretapping. Is there any law they won't violate with the flimsiest, most patronizing rationale?

The job the Congressional Democrats face is unpleasant. They must provoke enough outrage in ordinary American sheeple that the fascists in the Executive will take off the gloves. And that's really a suicide mission; they won't even have the Magna Carta left to protect their cushy positions in the old order.

The upside of this is that it might be the quickest way to get the troops home from Iraq. Small upside given that they would come home to suppress democracy. Or maybe it would be safer for the White House to hire Blackwater and leave the disgruntled soldiers in al Anbar.

We may think we're anonymous, but they have enough computing power and data to associate "lovable liberal" to my meatworld identity. They know who we are, and we'll be among the first arrests. Mitt Romney's double Gitmo won't be nearly large enough. See you in the gulag; we'll trap rats together for dinner.

It was a good 212-year run for the old Constitution and a good 210-year run for the old Bill of Rights. Flawed though they are, what comes next will be worse.

Who you calling a mob, punk?

(Responding to this.)

You need to check your definitions. Citizen journalism could conceivably lead to mob rule or could be exploited by fascism, but the real danger of fascism is in the corporate-compromised so-called mainstream media. This is the media that beat the drums for war in Iraq (including the Washington Post and the New York Times, mind you). This is the media that still, after the Democrats have won Congress, overrepresents Republican and conservative points of view, especially on television. This is the media that until very recently rolled over and asked the Bush White House to scratch its belly in exchange for childishly credulous access to the latest Rovian spin - and was willing to type up that spin as if it were true even when the reporter *knew* it was a lie. This is the media that stridently dumps on the earth tones and the haircuts of prominent Democrats, while fawning over Duhbya playing dress-up as a fighter pilot, a rancher, or even a man in control.

So, while I still read widely in the daily press, no one who wants to be informed can omit the citizen journalism of the Internet, particularly the blogs. The virtue of the Internet, at least, is that there is more than one mob. The mainstream media practices much more "journamalism" than real journalism anyway. When the mob comes, if it does, the mainstream media won't protect us from fascism.

Small adjustments

Emergency funding bills to keep the military open while deciding other issues is a good approach.

However, no war in Iran without a separate vote of Congress should be in every bill. This is the critical Constitutional separation of powers and cannot be allowed to lapse. The Bushists have argued that the original Iraq resolution gives them everything in their wildest dreams; words in black and white have to be down on paper denying that authority.

Ordering withdrawal and the toothless departure goal are more negotiable, so Congress could play monthly games with those.

Originally a comment on DailyKos.

How do you know Rove is lying?

Yes, of course, as in the old joke, his lips are moving.

When his memory is hazy, that means he's worrying about perjury.

Originally a comment on DailyKos.

Too soon

Of course, it's not too soon legally to impeach the criminals of this executive branch, but it's too soon politically. Nancy Pelosi was spot on to take impeachment off the table. Only a groundswell of opinion from ordinary voters, not from Dennis Kucinich, however right he may be, can put impeachment back on the table.

This is especially important if the process might lead to a Pelosi Presidency. To be legitimate, it must be popular.

Originally a comment on DailyKos.

Down the rabbit hole

(Adapted from Philosoraptor.)

I've had Duhbya fatigue since the first time I ever heard his blend of patronizing arrogance and resolute cluelessness. I kept listening for a while, but now I can't anymore. The likelihood he will say those words I could listen for - "I resign" - are so slim it's not worth the time and upset. So I won't even watch the State of the Union until he's gone.

...

The Dems, especially in the House, need to wield their subpoena power like a scythe, show daily the thoroughgoing corruption that the Bushists have worked both in dollars and in democracy, and let the people demand impeachment. Or not.

I suspect that the people won't. I think we're too lazy to care about the principles of self-government any more; just give us widescreen HDTV.

But if we do, there'll be hell to pay. Hello, President Pelosi!

The real hell would be the possibility that a large number of right-wingers might well stage armed rebellion. We've had a Constitutional crisis simmering along with the lapdog media too focused on Liebermanesque faux bipartisanship to report it. This would be too visible and violent to ignore.

For once, I hope I'm just paranoid. But the "responsible" right never accepted Clinton's election and immediately set to work to undo it. Would they accept the (necessarily Republican-aided) impeachment and conviction of Darth and Duhbya? I doubt it.

...

Oh, TVD, how sweet of you. Except you've before pointedly declined assent to the "defend to the death" hyperbole. Still, I wasn't expecting you to take part in the violence either way.

I promise you that I would rather not be Cassandra.

But, since you've shunned me, a couple of rhetorical questions:

• Who has the guns in the U.S.?
• Who has engaged in recent political violence against people in the U.S.?
• Which side has prominent advocates who urge political violence?
• Has there ever been widespread political violence in the U.S.?
• Can it happen here?

You don't think Duhbya is like Putin. I think you may be wrong.

All in all, though, it's an unlikely scenario that we'll get to impeachment, even though by any reasonable legal standard we should.

Patron saints of CW

Man, I'm sick of the media viewing its job as constantly reinforcing the conventional wisdom and then disclaiming all responsibility.

(Originally posted here.)

Blogging for dollars

Delay's blog is just a way to cash in, the grandchild of the book deals that used to be so common, so remunerative, and so pulped.

Originally a comment on Crooks and Liars.

Rumor and the MSM

Obviously, the MSM shouldn't publish unconfirmed rumor - sorry Drudge. But to fail to take advantage of Google is arrogant, stupid, and short-sighted.

Of course, reporters need to learn how to distinguish fact from fantasy in cyberspace. But they pride themselves (not always justifiably) with the ability to do that in real life, and this is just one more domain they need skills in.

I'll try to check with my MSM contacts to see whether they avail themselves of the internet. The tiny paper I wrote for in a semi-pro capacity up until 2000 didn't have any web resources. It was so technically backward the editor preferred that I file by fax!

(Originally here.)

"Stand there and bleed"

stand there and bleed is a great counterbranding of the Bushists' insane war strategy.

(Originally here.)

Bklsnarg

Bklsnarg has been the policy of the Bush Administration. The fact that bklsnarg includes all the elements formerly pertaining to the word 'torture' does not mean that U.S. policy allows torture, since that definition has now been changed.

We'd let you read the new definition, but it's top secret eyes only, so we would have to imprison or shoot you if we did let you read it. You wouldn't want that, now would you? No? Thank you for your democratic consent to the policy, which conforms to all the laws of the land, except for those we don't have to obey, which really is all of them in time of war. And the war could last forever, and its battlefield is everywhere.

But of course we're fighting for your freedom.

Originally posted here on Philosoraptor, and there's more to boot.

Trying to get someone's (pet) goat

Fun times slinging jibes on Attytood about Duhbya's deer-in-the-headlights Sept. 11 look...

To stop swiftboating

Go the the Vietnam Memorial, roll up your sleeves, and say, "I have friends, friends that I served with whose names are on this wall. George Felix Allen didn't serve. He has never heard a shot fired in anger. I have. If he would like to compare his patriotism to mine, let him come down here and settle it with me, one on one, man to man. Pause. He doesn't have the guts."

Call the asshole out. Kick his ass. Win Norfolk and Bristol, not just Northern Virginia.

Originally a comment on DailyKos.

Insurgents v. party regulars

Over and over again in the history of the Democratic Party, insurgent candidates and their people (Patrick, Bonifaz, Dean, Reich, Bradley) butt heads with party regulars and their people (Reilly, Galvin, Kerry, O'Brien, Gore). I've been on both sides (Patrick, Galvin, Dean, O'Brien, Gore), so maybe I have some useful observations, and hopefully they'll be unifying.

Regulars are often too insular. Many of them think they own the party and actively resist the arrival of new people. C'mon, these are reinforcements. We need the fresh blood of patriots - but unspilled.

Insurgents are often too self-entitled. Many assume that anything that goes against them is nefarious and illicit. C'mon, the regulars have been fighting the good fight for years; you can't expect to show up and run things just because you're young and beautiful and impatient. Good ideas are just talk unless you work to put them on the agenda and try to pass them.

Regulars carp that they've never seen the insurgents until they just showed up at a caucus. Insurgents sometimes encourage this by winning once and then never coming back to do the steady work of reform from within.

Insurgents often think that some ideal of fairness that they grasp intuitively can override the rules. They may be unhappy if you exclude them from voting at a caucus because they missed the deadline for registering as Democrats, as if the regulars are supposed to be able to see in their hearts that they really were Dems in time.

Process reforms can help these relationships work better. Transparency is a big one. I've been to at least six Mass. Democratic Conventions so I'm prepared for strange delays while the power brokers put the fix in. New people are very put off by this. I don't like it either, but the rules permit it. My desire to change those rules doesn't mean I'm blustering about changing their outcomes this time around.

Politics is both competitive and cooperative, a combination of hard ball and burying the hatchet. The rules are the rules, but we need to help each other when the primary is done.

Often in the past, we haven't helped each other. Scott Harshbarger would've been governor if both wings of the party regulars had cooperated. (Can't blame insurgents for that one.)

Modern campaigns need such deep organizations that those organizations have to be permanent. They can't be put together overnight. As Democrats, we are waaaay behind the Republicans on this.

My challenge for regulars and insurgents alike:

Build your organizations. Don't settle for precinct captains; we need eyes and ears and eventually voices on the street (or apartment building floor) level. But prepare something lasting; don't worry about ideological purity or a long history of working with the party. Unify. Come September, be ready to hand over as much of your grassroots as possible to the nominee and the local party committees. That's one part of the formula for winning.

Originally posted on Blue Mass Group with this poll attached:

How many times in the 5 listed contests were you an insurgent?

o Never (hack!)

o Once

o Twice

o Three times

o Four times

o Five times (Green!)

Convention transparency

After the 2002 convention fiasco, we Dems spent four years working through the McGovern-Dukakis process to reform approval and endorsement of primary candidates. On the plus side, voting on the floor was smooth and efficient. But what was the net result?

All candidates gained the ballot. Counting fewer than 5000 votes still took so long that the convention lasted into the evening. Each of the gubernatorial candidates is a credible candidate; I will support the winner after September. So, what's wrong with the outcome?

The problem is that the process is dishonest - or looks dishonest. Votes delivered by power brokers to give razor-thin margins of approval matter more than the rest of our votes.

A fair and above-board process would have the following features:

No counting of votes until all votes are recorded. No changing of votes once voting closes. All challenges during the convention must be made in view of the convention by identifiable delegates. After voting has closed, the only admissible challenge is teller accuracy. Counting must take place in public view of the convention. The tallying should be complete in fifteen minutes. And then we could get on with convincing the electorate.

Originally posted on Blue Mass Group.

Propaganda conduits

Why is it so easy for advertisers to turn ordinary nouns into slogans? The network that carries the event is probably contractually obligated to stuff marketing slogans into the title. I hope they get a discount because this dilutes their own ability to sell "messages". But why a print reporter, for instance, would ever use the whole venal phrase I don't get.

(Originally here.)

Rather be at recess

why a recess appointment for Bolton, but the threat of the nuclear option for judges?

War-gaming: Dems say, "Fine, we're happy to give Bolton a vote. Just come across with the documents first." Reasonable, plays well on TV. Uh-oh, what's in those documents? My guess: wickedly smoking gun, no, actually smoking arsenal. Worse for Duhbya than anything would be to get a vote and lose, but winning narrowly with an obvious power-mad perjuring jerk who used the internal security apparatus for political purposes would have been bad enough.

(Originally a comment on Next Hurrah.)

Fear and conservatism

Brennan Hawkins, the 11-year-old scout lost in Utah, nearly died because his parents inculcated in him the fear of strangers.

As reported on CNN, his mother said:

We've ... told him don't talk to strangers ... when an ATV or horse came by, he got off the trail ... when they left, he got back on the trail.

Conservatives have no monopoly on fearmongering, but they seem to me to be much more likely to feel personally unsafe. My mother's Republican husband constantly sends out warnings about this or that danger, particularly if women are ostensibly threatened. These warnings almost always turn out to be urban legends, but I've given up trying to get him to check first. He just can't help himself.

This fear factor is why local Fox News affiliates, who all lead with what bleeds, are almost as bad for America as the national cable propaganda outlet.

Fear is the mindkiller!

Originally posted on DailyKos.

Defining Platinum down

More oppo on Republican fund-raising, in this case the National Republican Senatorial Committee...

If it works, the GOPers use it, no matter how cheesy.

Be it known to all who bear witness, that the Chair, by virtue of authority invested in the Executive Director of the Republican Presidential Task Force, confers this warrant of Platinum membership ...

There's more pseudo-official drivel filled with whereases and grand seals and facsimile signatures. In it, I am libeled as a steadfast supporter of President George W. Bush! They wish. Come the great fascist triumph of the homeland, though, I don't think a form letter will help me escape the gulag or dodge the reality of my liberalism.

Faux exclusivity works for Providian, why not for other predatory organizations!

But wait, this is not about me. Chair Liddy Dole is offering me Platinum status for the pittance of $120! She and Executive Director Mark Stephens would even let me pay in $10 installments. The Republicans are still eating our lunch by mining the small-dollar contributions and turning them into something more.

You know, though, my great aunt used to send her small contributions to liberal organizations even if she could only spare $10 a year. We need to be sure to tap our real constituencies, not just the corporate interests that want to buy our support.

So, where is the corresponding Democratic direct mail piece? I get email from my party all the time, and here's what I hope: The good people of the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, and every other organization starting with 'D' have identified me as an Internet donor and are saving their paper and stamps for less techie targets. Why do I doubt this pollyannish thought?

The fundraising letter itself is filled with the kind of right-wing bullshit that has me drinking my second dose of Bombay Sapphire straight from the freezer. Here's a fun example of their complete divorce from reality:

Step-by-step [Duhbya] is cleaning up the economic mess that Bill Clinton left behind and the good economic news continues to mount. Key growth rates are setting records, home ownership is at an all time high, the stock market is up and we are making progress on creating new jobs. Experts credit his tax cuts and low interest rates for this improving picture.

In this tissue of lies is one truth: Low interest rates are instrumental in the rise in home ownership. Thanks, Alan Greenspan. Of course, cautions from Paul Krugman apply, as usual.

The letter also calls Duhbya a respected Commander-in-Chief! Respected? In his own feeble mind!

Still, the GOPers know that even if their bullshit walks, money talks. And they're reloading where it matters - the bank.

(Note: Business reply mail. Yes, another Republican dollar sucked dry!)

Originally posted on DailyKos.

The quiet wingnut raises money

Through no fault of my own, I have found myself on a number of GOP mailing lists lately. Since they generally have business reply envelopes, I send 'em back, minus identifying information. I'll keep costing them money as long as they cooperate.

What the fascist right says when it's raising money is instructive. Here are some excerpts from Dennis Hastert's spiel in favor of KOMPAC, which is already raising money for the 2006 election cycle (emphasis mine here and below):

[W]e must ensure that the liberals cannot seize power in Congress since it is clear they would radically change America's direction.

They are going to attack us as liberals, no matter what. They will call a Democrat who opposes even civil unions but favors hospital visitation rights for domestic partners a heinous liberal. We must redeem the word. A start: "I believe in justice for all. If that makes me a liberal, so be it." Voters take our failure to join this fight as symbolic of our wishy-washiness.

The Goobers Of Projection also charge us with their own ugliness. They have seized power and intend to radically change America, but they want to make us sound like radicals.

Hastert's fundraising also exposes his assumptions and tactics. For example:

Question #11 - The Social Security Administration estimates that by 2018 Social Security will begin paying out more than it takes in from payroll taxes. In theory, at that time the Trust Fund will begin drawing on the surpluses that accumulated from previous years. However, for decades Congress has taken the Social Security surpluses and used them to make the deficit look smaller. Some leading Democrats are content to ignore the serious problems facing Social Security to scare senior citizens into supporting their Party and the do nothing approach. Do you think the Republicans should try to explain to the American people the dangers facing Social Security and expose the intellectual dishonesty of those who say everything is just fine?

It's pretty obvious that the Republicans want to break their promise to the American people. What they really mean is that the full faith and credit of America is null and void, that they stole the Trust Fund fair and square and gave it to their rich buddies.

The surpluses are the Trust Fund. The Republicans are going to take both `trust' and `fund' out of Trust Fund, just as they want to take `social' and `security' out of Social Security.

They use the same approach in public, accusing us of:

• scare tactics
  
• a do-nothing approach
  
• intellectual dishonesty

Two of these - fear and dishonesty - are, in fact, their tactics. More from the letter:

[W]e can build an America ... where our commitment to family is demonstrated by having the faith and values that guided our grandparents ... instead of the pervasive sex, drugs and violence that pollute our television, movies and music.

The crusade to keep social conservatives in the middle class distracted is censorship, but the unprincipled GOP doesn't care.

More:

[W]e can build an America where the federal government gets out of our state and local affairs and out of our pockets

Classic Republican appeals to the cryptoracists and homophobes, plus the ever-present tax-cutting, for the rich, of course. More:

They opposed the President on the war, even when our troops were in harm's way. They would have given the United Nations a deciding role in deciding whether, when, where, and how to defend America.

This is just a crazy lie. But it goes on:

They are critical of how we have waged our war on terrorism.

Poor babies. Can't take a little awful criticism. And, of course, they want all the credit for every drop of American blood.

They opposed [Duhbya's] efforts for the Department of Homeland Security.

Another bald-faced lie. They have a lot of experience telling this one. Here's a possible rejoinder: "The Republicans thought it was more important to lavish port security funds on Wyoming than to ensure the government has to treat its employees fairly." Then:

[T]hese liberal Democrats have even announced their opposition to some of the President's programs even before he has announced the program and outlined the details.

Who writes this crap? It's Duhbya's fault he hasn't "outlined the details". Of course, Hastert knows that the White House never discloses details until Karl Rove has found out the limit of what he can get away and he thinks it's too late to stop him. (This is why we must make only political proposals and not careful policy-wonk proposals that contain compromises.)

So... What do we say in response?

Originally posted at DailyKos, where this poll was attached:

Hearing about wingnut fundraising rhetoric makes me:

o Fire-breathing mad

o Jealous of their money machine

o Feel like my head is filled with C4

o Bored beyond belief

o Confused about why this matters

Selling the President

RNC chair Ken Mehlman is selling debit cards:

What makes the Platinum Card so prestigious is that only a very limited number were commissioned and only a select few chosen to receive it: you and other distinguished Americans who helped reelect President Bush ...

Only 300,000,000 made! The same basic con as Who's Who. Asok the intern also recently received the "Intern of the Year Award".

Then there's all this crap about being sure the card arrived undamaged. After that, the GOP's three issues are:

• tax reform - Believe it or not, they're campaigning against special interest loopholes! And they claim that they want a "bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the tax code."
  
• social security - "Doing nothing ... will cost us ... an estimated $10 trillion...." Actually, that's the cost of Duhbya's private accounts, but it's so Republican to use the bad points of their plan to argue against a plan that doesn't have the same feature.
  
• national security - Of course, they're making the world more peaceful through war again.

Here's the money quote, which the GOPers helpfully indent and bold:

As President Bush leads our nation in this time of great challenge, his political opponents are determined to divide America with petty partisanship. Our nation deserves better. That's why your loyalty to President Bush is so important.

The Repubs almost always accuse us of doing exactly what they are doing. It happens way too often to be accidental. They do it to hurt us and, just as important, to immunize themselves. They know that "you did it first/worse" is something the media won't attempt to arbitrate. (Oh, I forgot, the media won't arbitrate the most basic fact any more.)

Then:

Democrats bitter over John Kerry's defeat are now mobilizing a vengeful campaign to sabotage President Bush's agenda. If we don't stand tall against the Democrats, partisan politics will overwhelm President Bush's ...

Compared to Tom DeLay?

I hope they'll write again!

Originally posted on DailyKos.

Who is Gary Jarmin?

Yesterday, I got a weird fund-raising letter from Mr. Jarmin. He knows me so well that he has sent me one of a small number of "Personalized Reply Forms", but he's so respectful he addresses me formally anyway. He knows me so well that he gets my gender wrong. He was praying [I]'d open this letter, but he must've used Microsoft prayer merge...

The letter is weird because it's so vague. Unspecified Washington Insiders are stealing our Social Security Trust Fund. It's weird because it spends more than a whole page flogging its "Personalized Reply Forms". It's weird because its use of capital letters and quotation marks is semi-literate.

So, who is Gary Jarmin?

He's a long-time Moonie! The letter is basically a con. He's seeking money from the credulous and uninformed to do just the opposite from what they are likely to want.

Jarmin's deceptive spin points:

The Seniors Center has become a powerful voice in Washington. But lately, we've been fighting just to tread water.

And the Washington Insiders never stop figuring out new ways to spend our Social Security Trust Fund.

Please don't let the Washington Insiders get away with stealing the money you and I worked all our lives to earn.

If you and I don't stop them, the Washington Insiders will waste every penny of our Social Security Money on their pork-barrel programs.

My friend, if you and I stop fighting them, the Washington Insiders will bankrupt our Social Security Trust Fund.

And that's a terrifying thought.

We know that it's Jarmin's cronies in the Bush White House who are actively stealing the trust fund, but wingnut cultists never let a fact get in the way of a scare story.

On the last page, he's back to his "Personalized Reply Forms" fetish four more times for a total of 21! But then, there's the good news:

[W]ith the number of people who've left us here to fend for ourselves, donations to the Seniors Center have all but dried up.

Please don't water the astroturf!

Originally posted on DailyKos.

Even techies are noticing IOKIYAR

Ed Foster writes:

In medieval days, a peasant could be executed for stealing a crust of bread, while the lord of the manor could abuse every peasant in sight without fear of legal retribution. Does it strike you that we seem to be reverting more and more to a similar society, one in which the punishments no longer fit the crimes?

The wingnuts love zero tolerance. It matches their angry and vengeful God.

But, to serve the limitless greed of Republican crony capitalists, it gets worse.

Even if we were to believe the exaggerated estimates the various copyright industries put forth for how much they lose to piracy each year, is it as much as the Enrons, Worldcoms, Adelphias, etc. cost us the economy? Notice also that while Congress is mandating increasingly severe punishments for the copyright equivalent of petty theft, it can't be bothered to do anything serious about crimes like identity theft that are costing millions of citizens billions of dollars. With powerful lobbying from the RIAA and MPAA, federal law enforcement agencies have no problem getting funding for enforcement of copyright crimes, but individuals who've had their bank accounts cleared out by a clever phishing scam have nowhere to turn.

There are many other examples: the bankruptcy bill, the way drug enforcement imprisons the little fish while it catches and releases those with something to trade, attempts to end overtime, the end of the billionaire playboy tax, tax reductions that prefer investment to labor, the effort to end Social Security, media emphasis on sensational crime over much greedier financial misbehavior, the continued destruction of unions, and on and on.

So, fellow peasants, had enough of droit du seigneur?

Originally posted on DailyKos.

Class warfare

Class warfare is a weapon we never should have surrendered. We won't win again until we're willing to use it.

(Originally here.)

MAD, mad world

When the Bushist Republicans go nuclear, what would be the negative consequences for Democrats if they simply refuse to accept the order of the chair? Why should they sit down and shut up? Why not continue to filibuster while the Republicans make their charade "legal"? It would be easy to bring in a portable PA. "The minority no longer recognizes the authority of the chair."

The objective here would be to provoke the Republicans to their natural thuggery, captured on video (and don't rely on C-SPAN; bring your own cameras). The Republicans long ago began their revolution against Constitutional government. It's time we joined the battle in its defense. For best effect, it means that we will have to bleed. I'm willing, but I don't have access to the Senate floor.

(Originally a comment on NextHurrah.)

Pundit payola

My gut tells me that the public sector media payola scandal is only the tip of the iceberg. The Bushists paid Armstrong Williams, Maggie Gallagher, and Michael McManus to shill for their programs. They continue to use outreach money to sell their programs to unwary recipients.

Where did they get the model for pundit payola? The kleptocrats in charge of the government think they own it and can do what they want with it, but their mantra of many generations is that government should be run like a business. How about Richard Mellon Scaife's Arkansas Project? He gave the American Expectorator piles of money to dig up or make up dirt about Bill Clinton. Is there any reason whatsoever to think the subsidy of wingnuts stopped there?

Are there a thousand right-wing pundits and reporters who matter? Subsidizing all of them to the tune of $1000 a month would cost only $12,000,000 a year - chump change for the ultraconservative foundation mafia.

Originally posted on DailyKos.

Don't trigger the trap

"War on terror? We're talking about Iraq. And in Iraq, the Administration's incompetence, top to bottom, has failed to win the peace we all want. Instead, it has left our brave men and women bleeding there every day."

And, "The American people now know that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake, even if Pres. Bush and Sec. Rumsfeld can't admit it."

Originally a comment on DailyKos.

Arguments about Howard Dean

Comments in response to this post on DailyKos.

By the way, which one's Pink?
The truth about the blogosphere is that no one ever gets the last word! We just move on to another topic.

In any case, your twenty something posts in an hour and a half suggests that you don't have enough constructive to do, so you came here to pick a fight. Wouldn't that be more fun at your local biker bar?

My bona fides:

• worked for and contributed to Dean
  
• then worked for and contributed (more) to Kerry
  
• have been inspired by both, intellectually by Kerry and both intellectually and emotionally by Dean
  
• have been inspired by Al Gore since he decided not to run

All three have problems:

• Al Gore is not a natural politician. His old man was, but "young" Al is too cerebral - great for governing but hard to elect.
  
• John Kerry doesn't have the common touch. He has a hard time getting to the heart of the matter inside of the twenty minutes it originally took him to "explain" his position on Iraq. The fact that after a lifetime in politics he didn't understand that he had to fit into two short sentences clinched my support of Dean.
  
• Howard Dean scares people. I don't understand this and chalk it up to the herding of the media whores. The more I hear him, the more I like him. But this worries me.

Still, I am damn sure we need something new and different than what we've been doing, and it has to come from outside Washington.

Semantics
One can't shirk the responsibility of recognizing truth by adding I believe. It is reasonable to say that an opinion based on a falsehood is wrong.

No joke
We have to do just this kind of guerilla marketing to get our message out past the filter of the lapdog media (an insult to lapdogs everywhere!)

Downloadable audio and video. Local access cable. Text messaging trees. Animations that ridicule the Bushists. Anything to put our buzz into the air.

Tactics for the Democratic National Committee

Deliver a strong, simple sound-bite message. Our message doesn't have to be stupid, just succinct. Democrats are strong and fair. Don't say we're smart; be smart.

Go negative on the Republicans, early and with discipline. We don't have to lie or smear. Ridicule is best. Calmly call Bill O'Reilly a bully-boy to his face - tell him he reminds you of that high school kid who played with the eighth graders so he could win every game. Eventually, his head will explode. (Make sure your mouth is not open!)

About going negative: Voters will tell you that they don't like negative campaigning. Maybe. What they really don't like is negative campaigning against their guy!

Democratic political consultants will explain that we need turnout and that negative campaigning is thus bad for us. Bullshit! This was wrong even before the Rove-bots overtook our traditional GOTV advantage.

Going negative works. Voters say they hate it, but y'know, Wisk around the collar beats ring around the collar worked. It irritated viewers, but it was memorable. Going negative is memorable, and that's the purpose of advertising.

Never explain. Never apologize. Apology is blood in the water.

Always fight back. If we won't fight for ourselves, who will we fight for? Make sure that media whores and would-be media whores can't go along to get along. There has to be a price for them if they screw us. (But, sheesh, leave their kids out of it!) We don't have access to grant them, so start with shame. Bob Somerby could use a little help.

Stop accepting the RNC/media framing carried in the bullshit way they name things. Always call 2004's nastiest 527 the Swift Boat Liars. Over and over and over and over again until there's a competing name in the head of every voter who has a television.

Revive class warfare, our most potent weapon.

When Republicans scream bloody murder about it, don't respond that we're just starting to make up for twenty-five years of unremitting Republican class warfare, even though that's true. Deny we're engaging in class warfare by saying, Whoa, there! We're only looking for a fair shake for the middle class. You are the people who won't give it.

They'll keep screaming.

Say, It's a free country. You're entitled to put off-shore corporations first. As far as I can tell, though, they have no loyalty to this country. You've let them avoid even their drastically reduced taxes by opening a P.O. box in the Caymans. They open holding companies to trade with the enemy. You do nothing - I guess the Vice President won't let you. They use the tax incentives you gave them to make even more money by sending jobs overseas. I don't understand how protecting Americans from having their pockets picked by Enron and Halliburton is class warfare. Please explain to me why you think these immoral fatcats are more important than U.S. citizens.

Depending on how bright they are, you may need more of this, but there's an infinite supply. Hope that they are slow learners.

The media will try to call us on class warfare, too. This is good for us. Ask them, Do you make more than $100,000 a year? And have some fact ready, like, The average national cable TV pundit makes $500,000 (not a real fact, but check and cite Parade Magazine), and I know that you're well above average. Smile sweetly and twist the knife. Maybe Cokie and Steve will retire to the lecture circuit and their perfect marriage. If on Hannity and Colmes, proclaim that Fox could use one, just one real liberal.

On a couple of favorite issues: Environment and health care are not going to win for us. I say this as a member of the Sierra Club since 1975 and a believer in the justice and the efficiency of single payer.

We've tried them, and they didn't work. Everyone cares about the environment, but it's a lukewarm caring. If you don't believe me, count SUVs on the way home tonight. Some of them will even have environmental stickers. Environment is a nice-to-have, not a deal-maker.

Everyone wants cheaper and better health care, but most people who vote have something pretty decent. Our complaint that another 16 million (or however many) people are without access to health care is legitimate, but it requires altruism to be decisive with enough voters, and altruism is hardly ever a decisive motivator. Besides, the voters have been thoroughly propagandized to be suspicious of our health care ideas, even good, economical, incremental ones such as Kerry proposed.

Above all, personalize the culture war. Think about what they did to John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill & Hill, Max Cleland, Tom Daschle, Howard Dean, even John McCain, who is one of their own. Yet, somehow, despite the moral failings of Bob Livingston, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Jimmy Swaggart, Bill Bennett, Duhbya, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and others, most of them are still around calling us immoral!

The Republicans have feet of clay. Start breaking pottery. Remember, this is not an argument. It's a street fight.

Originally posted on DailyKos.

Duhbya vs. intelligence

Originally comments on this post on DailyKos.

Eventually
... many ordinary Soviet citizens figured out that they lived in a system that fed them bullshit daily. Of course, it took decades and millions dead, but they started telling jokes about their leaders.

Our task is to lessen the time and the human cost of unseating the current junta. Ridicule is one of our most potent tools.

Even so, there will always be people who prefer a "strong" leader. Some Georgians still long for Stalin! When Duhbya is out of power, there will still be Americans who long for his "moral clarity" (which in the real world is neither).

These are not people who believe in the kind of open democracy we believe in. They want the elected kingship that Washington refused to accept, not a messy, compromising perpetual negotiation that demands adult levels of patience. (They can believe all the counterfactuals of the PIPA survey because they want to believe that their President has special, parental knowledge that he can't share.)

For Duhbya, personal loyalty is the only requisite - as if he were royalty. Now there's fertile ground for lampooning! Let's get started.

Uh
Who appointed the majority of the judiciary? And who owns the press?

Confirmation of worst fears?

Originally a comment on this post on DailyKos.

Confirmation hearings will tell us whether the Democrats are going to go gently. Gonzales is best qualified for jail or least to serve fascism. Here's my list:

• Abu Ghraib war crimes
  
• Guantanamo - conscious violation of Geneva Conventions
  
• cavalier approach to the death penalty in Texas
  
• Plame affair questions

Sounding popular

Originally a comment on this post on DailyKos.

Polls repeatedly show that our policies are more popular than the Republicans'. We just haven't developed the right branding. (By the way, Carville's still aiming too high. What we Dems need is simple branding, not something as windy as a narrative.)

Belting above the belt

Originally a comment on this post on DailyKos.

We've got so much material that we don't have to hit below the belt to win. But we do have to hit. I would have gone negative on Duhbya from the very beginning.

2000 Four dead in Ohio

Originally comments on this post on DailyKos.

Nixon
... contested Hawaii. He did not contest Illinois because he knew Daley's Chicago shenanigans would only be matched by downstate Republican shenanigans.

Non-partisan issue?
Verifiable voting should be a non-partisan issue, and I'm glad you agree. But why isn't it? Why won't the Republican leadership get serious about it? One small clarification: In 2000, networks called Florida for Gore at about 7:50 p.m. EST, about 10 minutes before the polls closed at 7:00 p.m. CST in the the panhandle. That small amount of EST-centric gun-jumping, while wrong, could only have had a negligible effect on turnout.

One curse down, one to go

Originally comments on this post on DailyKos.

So Yankee fans are...
... vampires?

Can't see themselves in the mirror?

But seriously, there were Yankee fans in front of me in Fenway at ALCS game 5, and they were all right. Of course, they didn't have the opportunity to gloat, which helped.

There were also obnoxious Sox fans. One drunk guy wanted the Sox to throw at every Yankee. He must have expected to lose anyway. Then there were the screeching sorority girls who only wanted to kill A-Rod. I guess he was too sexy for their shirts.

Still, there's no topping Yankee fans for being the world's worst winners.

I grew up...
... a Cardinals fan, but I don't recall hating the Cubs. Why hate the source of so many wins?

The Mets, though, sure.

Syzygy
Believe this or not: I was in Marlborough, MA, last night before the game for a rally for my state senator. Ted & Vicki Kennedy were the headliners, but the surprise guest was Luis Tiant. After the Senior Senator fired up the faithful, lots of us crowded around El Tiante. One woman proudly showed me her Kerry-Edwards-Red Sox sign, autographed.

That's great, I said, but you should go back and ask him to put a date on it.

Now there's a souvenir!

Then, the Sox won during the totality of a lunar eclipse. If you believe in omens, they are all lining up. Me, I believe in GOTV, and we will win or lose based on what we do between now and Tuesday.

Red Sox an omen?

Originally comments on this post on DailyKos.

Psychology
Francona's move to Martinez makes no baseball sense except to motivate him - to say, "You're still a stud, and we need you to be a hero."

With Schilling doubtful, we've got to get good things from Pedro, and he's been known once or twice to lose control of his emotions.

Birthrights, etc.
It's that whole birthright thing that makes the rest of the country hate the Yankees ... and Duhbya, too.

But you've gotten over it, so I guess I could, too. The Yankees, that is.

McCarver and Buck

... used to be good, but lately they've been making me sick. They had only one theme prepared last night - Schilling's ankle tendon - and they hammered at it, as if they've been taking message lessons from the Bush White House. But they hardly noticed Schilling's pain until it was completely obvious. It's amazing that he got out of the third!

I suspect that the real problem with sports telecasts these days is direction. Have you noticed how much more play the back story gets, as if no one really cares about the game!

Originally a comment on DailyKos.

Promotions for Republican frauds

• Otto Reich
  
• Elliot Abrams
  
• Ollie North
  
• John Poindexter
  
• Karl Rove
  
• any GOP White House press secretary
  
• George Duhbya Bush!!

Originally a comment on this post on DailyKos.