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