The Nobel Peace Prize for Pete Seeger

I had the privilege, many years ago, of seeing Pete Seeger in concert. I even heard him sing the same "forbidden" verses of "This Land is Your Land" that he sang for Obama's Inauguration. And yes, the crowd back then - dirty fucking hippies all - wept as we sang along, because it was the Reagan Era, and Pete reminded us of the values we thought were gone.

Now that peace and social justice are coming back into style, Peter Rothberg at The Nation writes that it's time to honor one of the movement's last living legends.

This past Sunday, Pete Seeger became the oldest person to perform publicly as part of Barack Obama's inauguration festivities.

Singing the "greatest song about America ever written" (Bruce Springsteen's words) before 500,000 people and tens of millions more on television, the 89-year old legend crooned two little-known verses of his friend Woody Guthrie's 1940 patriotic standard, "This Land is Your Land" -- one about Depression-era poverty, the other about trespassing on private property -- restoring the song to its former glory over the sanitized version that ruled for so many years.

Watch the performance:



Seeger has been an inimitable ambassador for peace, social justice and the best kind of patriotism over the course of a remarkable lifetime. As a prominent musician his songs have engaged people, particularly the youth, to question the value of war, to ban nuclear weapons, to work for international solidarity and against racism wherever it is practiced, and to assume ecological responsibility.

A particular hero to the civil rights movement on whose behalf he worked so tirelessly, Seeger made his first trip south at the invitation of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1956, and returned in '65, again at King's personal invitation, to join the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Amid the tension and heat, Seeger went from campfire to campfire when the march stopped for the night, raising people's morale with rollicking sing-alongs of new freedom songs.

One of the seminal political events in his life, and the one which solidified his intent to make actively combating racism a lifelong pursuit, was the 1949 Peekskill race riots. In this short video, Seeger recounts his experiences:



Without doubt the most influential folk artist of the past century, Seeger deserves at least one more moment on the world stage -- at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Norway. The prize is only bestowed on the living. Although still spry, Seeger turns 90 on May 3. And, as writer and activist Peter Drier writes on the Huffington Post, a Nobel Peace Prize would be "a fitting and much-deserved final tribute for the world's preeminent troubadour for peace and justice" and would serve as important recognition for the many progressive causes to which Seeger has lent his name.

To advance the idea, a new campaign has begun in earnest to persuade the American Friends Service Committee -- which is entitled to put forward submissions -- to enter Seeger as its nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize 2009. Join the cause by signing the petition asking the AFSC to nominate Seeger by the February 1 deadline and check out nobelprize4pete.org for more info on how you can help.

Dishonoring 9/11 Victims at Guantanamo

President Obama's order to suspend the ludicrous "military commissions" at Guantanamo came just after a heart-wrenching scene that illuminates just what torture George W. Bush has inflicted - not on detainees, but on the families and loves ones of those who died on 9/11.

Following Monday's hearings, the Office of the Military Commissions held a press conference with several 9/11 family members, who had reportedly been selected by lottery to travel to the base to attend the hearings. Visibly angry, and holding up large photographs of their relatives who died on 9/11, they appealed to President Obama to keep Guantánamo open.

"Today we were in the presence of true evil," said Donald Arias, who lost his brother Adam in the attack on the World Trade Center. "Mr. Obama needs to reexamine his decision and keep these tribunals going."

Joe Holland, who lost his son in the World Trade Center, trembled with rage as he took the podium.

"My name is Joe Holland and I lost my son in 9/11," he said. "When I said I was coming down here, people asked me what they could do. I said, 'Write a letter to Obama saying that this place should stay open.'"

When journalists asked Holland about the possibility of trying the 9/11 suspects in federal court, he replied, "No, right here, at Guantánamo," then excused himself from the podium as he fought back tears.

One of the most horrific acts committed by George W. Bush is the cruel trick he played on the loved ones of 9-11 victims.

In their names, he justified a "war on terror" that has accomplished nothing but increase global terror and make this nation far more vulnerable to terrorist acts.

In their names, he bungled the search for bin Laden, allowing the actual 9/11 criminal to escape and remain free for more than seven years.

In their names, he launched an illegal war against one of bin Laden's greatest enemies, thus giving great aid and comfort to the person who killed their loved ones.

In their names, he authorized torture that made it impossible to try and convict bin Laden's captured confederates.

In their names, he did nothing to assuage their loss, but instead everything to ensure that no one actually responsible would ever pay for the crime of 9/11.

If you must write to Obama on behalf of the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, then write to demand he prosecute the people in the recent maladministration who have spent the last seven years desecrating their memories.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

If Only They Could Have Been There

Talking Points Memo has been posting readers' take on the inauguration of President Obama. This one hit me hardest.

From TPM Reader MJ ...

As an African-American, there is, of course, a sense of pride, but its certainly one tempered by a sense of loss.
I still remember the stories from 2004, when the Red Sox won the World Series, and Bostonians...one of the first things they did was go to Cemeteries and lay Red Sox hats and gear over the graves of loved ones. It was a way of saying "even though you are not here, you are a part of this" and "we want you to be a part of this.

That's an almost silly demystification of the incredibly complex feelings that most African-Americans are going through right now. Black people will not be laying Obama hats on gravesites. And note that I said going through, as if to suggest a sense of survival or endurance.

There is joy, no doubt. You're seeing it on the TV right now. Inevitably thoughts turn to those not here, about the African-Americans who actually walked the walk, the ones who marched, the ones who suffered under not just the lash of Jim Crow, but the lash of actual slavery, even if their faces and the names remain lost to us in time. Those are the people who inevitably deserve this moment the most, to see that their sacrifice, their pain, produced the America we were told about, but never quite could believe in.

The distance between that America, and the America we actually live in dissolved in a flash, and most African-Americans, myself included, are still not certain what that means. That's why one of the first things that so many people did was call relatives, call family, just call other black people. We went out to find meaning in each other, in each other's loss. We did this because there were so many people we couldn't call, couldn't talk to.

"So and so would have loved to have seen this..."

"Could you imagine if so and so had been alive to see this??"

But the joy is real. The sense of pride and pain that are so much a part of this day is why the joy is so palatable. We are celebrating for so many others. It's why if you watch CNN right now, you see people in the crowd already dancing in the streets (Martha Reeves and the Vandellas).

In the end, though, this is an American moment, no matter you came to it, even if you didn't vote for its existence. I wish there was something pithy or poetic I could say that could wrap this up in fine style, but the enormity of the task that lay before us saps both words and strength. I'll let the final word be the President Elect's.

Obama Must Prosecute Bush War Crimes

Keith Olbermann's Monday night Special Comment:



Here's the transcript.

In Case You Missed It

Media Czech has the transcript.

Second Time as Farce

It's so reassuring that Lexington never learns from history. Once a generation, it it destroys a historic downtown landmark so young people can appreciate the aesthetic and cultural value of a giant empty shithole.

Twenty-seven years before developers raped and murdered The Dame block for a Cock-and-Balls Tower that will never be built, Wallace "The Weasel" Wilkinson demolished the two-century-old Phoenix Hotel.

The site that would become the Phoenix Hotel originally housed Postlethwaite's Tavern, which was constructed in 1800. Several name changes occurred between 1800 and 1820, one of which was to Wilson's Tavern, which was visited by Col. Aaron Burr in 1806. The Phoenix Hotel opened on this site in the 1820s. [1] After it was established, the hotel quickly became a well-known landmark. As a prominent structure closely linked with travelers and tourism in the early history of the city, it helped to give Lexington the reputation that led it to be called "Athens of the West".

The Phoenix Hotel was demolished in 1981 by Wallace Wilkinson, who planned to use the site to construct the World Coal Center skyscraper. This was never constructed, and is considered the largest failed development in the cityscape of Lexington. In its place, the Park Plaza was opened in 1987, followed by the construction and opening of the modern-day Phoenix Park.

Correction: the World Coal Center used to be the largest failed development in the cityscape of Lexington.

"Daddy, why is there a trash dump the size of a whole city block on Vine Street?"

"That's a monument, son. A monument to greedy, lying developers and the politicians who worship them."

Media Czech interviewed Lexington Mayor Jim Newberry at the Bluegrass Ball in D.C. last night and got the scoop.

Asked about if he's happy with CentrePointe's progress, he says yes. Blamed the citizens for its delay and said that construction will resume in the next couple of weeks.

I asked him if he knows who is financining the Webb's project, unlike anyone else in Lexington. He said he's confident that they have funding. Asked if he knows who it is or if the Webb's have shown him the financing. He says he has no idea, gave a flat no. Face getting a little nervous.

Asked if he's running for re-election in 2010- says he doesn't know, and he'll decide within the next 6 months.

I asked him about the email he sent criticizing the "media" and fellow citizens for opposing and questioning CentrePointe. Refused to elaborate on it at all. Asked him why he sent it out. Said that the media was spreading lies about it, and he wanted to counteract that with the truth (snort!)

ASked why this project will be different from all the other hotel projects around the country that are going belly up. Says that Marriot knows what they are doing, and it won't suffer half capacity like the other hotels because it serves the "higher end" folks.

Asked him if he regretted how he presented CentrePointe, surprising both citizens and council members. He said he regreted nothing, and he fully briefed the council on it before he presented it to the city. (oh REEEEEALLY?)

He said it won't be built by the 2010 Equestrian Games, and he NEVER said or implied that it would be ready by then. Hmmm.

Asked what he thought about how Lexington looked downtown with the big crater. This is big: He said that it will look good once CentrePointe OR SOMETHING ELSE is there. He then said it again: CentrePointe or SOMETHING ELSE. I noted that he said something else twiced and asked him if he thought it's possible that it will be something other than CentrePointe. He gave a flat angry NO and cut off the interview right there.

I'll make an easy prediction here. The carcass of the Dame will sit there abandoned and rotting for at least seven years - a year longer than the Phoenix languished.

And twenty years later, Dudley Webb, from his bed in the dementia unit of some stinking nursing home, will persuade yet another Lexington mayor that he can save the city with an expensive skyscraper.

All we have to do it let him demolish Ashland, Henry Clay's home.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Oaths Have Consequences

In the eight years since Dubya committed perjury when he swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America, we seem to have forgotten that the Presidential Oath of Office is not an introduction to a speech, but a legal, enforceable oath.

Through eight years of dictatorial rule by an imposter placed in office by a judicial coup, we've forgotten that the president has actual duties he must fulfill or be removed from office and prosecuted for malfeasance.

Hilzoy explains how the Oath of Office binds Barack Obama to constitutional duties ignored by Smirky/Darth and why those duties give him no choice but to prosecute George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and their whole mob organization for war crimes.

Some Facts For Obama To Consider

(1) According to Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, the President "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed".

(2) According to Article VI of the Constitution, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land".

(3) The United States is a party to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

(4) As Dahlia Lithwick reminds us, the Convention Against Torture not only prohibits torture, it imposes a set of affirmative obligations on its parties.

SNIP

It seems to me that these facts imply that if Barack Obama, or his administration, has reasonable grounds to believe that members of the Bush administration have committed torture, then they are legally obligated to investigate; and that if that investigation shows that acts of torture were committed, to submit those cases for prosecution, if the officials who committed or sanctioned those acts are found on US territory. If they are on the territory of some other party to the Convention, then it has that obligation. Under the Convention, as I read it, this is not discretionary. And under the Constitution, obeying the laws, which include treaties, is not discretionary either.

On Thursday, Eric Holder, Obama's nominee, for Attorney General, stated categorically in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, countless television cameras, the FSM and everybody:

"No one is above the law."

That doesn't just mean that neither the new president nor any member of his administration may break the law or undermine the Constitution. It means they have the affirmative duty to enforce the law, including international treaties.

Failing in that duty - breaking his Oath of Office - in the name of "moving forward" or "bipartisanship" or "changing the tone" or getting 80 votes for the economic stimulus is a crime in and of itself for which brand-new President Obama would deserve impeachment.

Not prosecuting Bush war crimes is not an option.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Because It's Still Not Over

And because we must swear eternal vigilance against every form of bush-worship rationalization over the facts of history:

There’s one final myth about this President that the Rude Pundit would like to put to rest: George W. Bush is not a man you would want to have a beer with. No, not because if you saw him in a bar, you'd react like you had gone on the sex offender registry in Dallas and discovering that a guy who fucked babies in his basement was now living in the downstairs apartment. It's that, despite any feints at finding him charming, he is not, in his soul, a kind or decent person.

SNIP

The Rude Pundit doesn't drink with irredeemable dickheads, with self-righteous balls of fuck who think their very existence demands your respect and attention, with privileged cockmongers who can't manage even a moment of self-awareness.

SNIP

Yet we can't just bury this presidency alive in the cold, cold ground and have a picnic on the earth above it, joyously toasting as it screams and claws and tries to get free before it inhales dirt, gags, vomits, and dies horribly, not knowing why it deserved such an awful fate. No, alas, no.

Because the reason I will unreasonably hate this man, these men, these women, as human beings, and not just for ideologies and actions, is because neither I nor most of you will live to see the day that all their hurt is healed.

Read the whole thing.

"The resilience of our democracy"

I have long been among those who warned that Smirky/Darth will not give up power willingly. Their many crimes, known and unknown, made it essential that they create some kind of national emergency to suspend the election or overturn its results.

They'll attack Iran, we said. They'll fake an attack from North Korea. They'll do anything, except accept a peaceful transfer of power, especially to a Democrat.

In this, as in so many things, Barack Obama has proven himself more of a believer - more faithfully American - than the rest of us.

Together, we know that this is a time of great challenge for the American people. Difficult days are upon us, and even more difficult days lie ahead. Our nation is at war. Our economy is in great turmoil. And there is so much work that must be done to restore peace and advance prosperity. But as we approach this time-honored American tradition, we are reminded that our challenges can be met if we summon the spirit that has sustained our democracy since George Washington took the first oath of office.

Addressing the nation that day, Washington explained his decision to serve, saying, “I was called by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.” This Tuesday, we can reaffirm our own veneration and love for our country and our democracy. We can once again provide an example to the world, and move forward with a renewed sense of purpose and progress at home.

Read the transcript.

"A small, small man"

Hilzoy reviews Smirky's 2000 Inaugural address and reflects on what it means today.

He's a small, small man, who ought to have spent his life in some honorary position without responsibilities at a firm run by one of his father's friends. Instead, he ruined our country, and several others besides. He wasted eight years in which we could have been shoring up our economy, laying the groundwork for energy independence, making America a fairer and better country, and truly working to help people around the world become more free. Instead, he debased words that ought to mean something: words like honor, decency, freedom, and compassion.

To this day, I do not think he has the slightest conception of the meaning of the words he took in vain.

Sometimes, when I write things like this, people think I am trying to excuse Bush -- as though I cannot condemn him unless I take him to be a scheming leering monster. I disagree. I think that when someone who is not mentally incompetent gets to be Bush's age, if he has no conception of the meaning of honor or decency, he has no one to blame but himself. And to say of a person that he does not understand those things -- that he could stand before the nation and speak the words Bush spoke in 2000 with so little sense of what they meant that it's not clear that we should count him as lying -- is one of the worst things I think it's possible to say about a person.

Read the whole thing.

KDP Can't Wait to Lose Jim Bunning's Seat in 2010

Kentucky Senator Jim "Non-Compos Mentis" Bunning's seat would be an easy pickup for the dems in 2010.

Would be, that is, if the Kentucky "Democratic" Party lived on the same planet as the Democratic Party that elected Barack Obama in a historic landslide and gained eight Senate seats.

But the Kentucky "Democratic" Party managed to lose not only the presidential race to a republican ticket that lost Indiana, not only a U.S. Senate seat to a very vulnerable Mitch McConnell, but also every single congressional, state house and state senate race without a democratic incumbent.

In fact, the KDP has not lost this huge in the entire history of the state party.

Here on Reality Planet, that would have resulted in the mass resignations/firings/public executions of every party official and central committee member and a radical overhaul of the party machinery.

What do you think happened on Planet Kentucky-Democrats-Are-Worthless? Exactly. The same idiots who turned a 2-1 registration advantage into Unprecedented Failure are feverishly planning a rerun for 2010.

At BlueGrassRoots, Rdemocrat notes Lt. Governor Dan Mongiardo's recent gesture toward announcing his run, and considers him the likely front-runner, along with Sixth District Congressman Ben Chandler

Besides his 0-and-1 record against Bunning, Dr. Dan has several handicaps: liberal democrats won't vote for him because we have never forgiven him - and never will forgive him - for sponsoring the 2004 gay hate constitutional amendement. Conservative democrats won't vote for him because they still think he's gay, despite or possibly because of Mongiardo's recent marriage to a girl 25 years younger than him. Forget beating Bunning; Dr. Dan won't survive the primary.

The Democratic primary is likely to be the most crowded in decades. Page One Kentucky insists that the leading Democratic candidate is Attorney General Jack Conway, and they're probably right, but the list gets long after that: Auditor Crit Luallen, Lt. Col. Andrew Horne, House Speaker Greg Stumbo, Sixth District Congressman Ben Chandler, Third District Congressman John Yarmuth, Perennial Losing Candidate Bruce Lunsford, Loser to Lunsford Greg Fischer, disgraced former Lt. Governor Steve Henry, defeated former House Speaker Jody Richards, and possibly my auto mechanic.

Among those, Luallen would absolutely make the best Senator, but even the pleas of a million desperate Democrats will not persuade Luallen to run. She passed up easy election to the Governor's Office in 2007, proving she's not interested in higher office.

Chandler and Yarmuth are rising rapidly in the Democratic Congress and probably won't sacrifice that for a chance to be a Senate rookie.

Stumbo just beat Richards in a Speaker's race he had no chance to win, reminding us never to count Greg out of anything.

Lunsford, Fischer, Henry and Richards would run on pure ego, but losing huge has yet to deter any of them.

I have a soft spot for Horne, who would have beaten Mitch McConnell last year if he hadn't withdrawn from the primary under pro-Lunsford pressure from the DSCC and Governor Beshear.

I like Jack Conway, but the reports that he's the favorite of the same people who dumped Horne for Loser Lunsford worry me.

And if the RNC does succeed in pushing Bunning out of the race in favor of Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, all bets are off.

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.

Bush Legacy: Eight Years in Eight Minutes

Friday night, Keith Olbermann covered the Bush Legacy as only Keith can.

Why Didn't the Curse Get Bush?

A piece in Slate speculates on how George W. Bush escaped the Curse of Tecumseh.

The history, at least, is straightforward enough. Starting with William Henry Harrison, elected in 1840, eight American presidents elected at 20-year intervals have died (or almost died) in office. Harrison caught a cold and expired after just a month as president, the shortest tenure ever. Everyone knows what happened to Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860. James Garfield, elected in 1880, lasted four months before Charles J. Guiteau, upset about not receiving an ambassadorship, shot him. William McKinley, re-elected in 1900, was shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Warren G. Harding (1920) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940) died of natural causes. And the circumstances of John F. Kennedy's death, like those of Lincoln's, are well-known.

So what of this Tecumseh guy? In 1811, Harrison, commanding about 1,000 troops, defeated some American Indians in the Battle of Tippecanoe. Depending on who tells the tale, either Tecumseh, the defeated chief, or his brother, the prophet-cum-medicine man Tenskwatawa, issued a spiritual fatwa on the head of Harrison, predicting his death as president and then the deaths of presidents elected every two decades thereafter.

It concludes that Bush may have broken the curse which was, in any case, severely bent by Ronald Reagan's survival of an assassination attempt in 1981.

I disagree.

Personally, I never wanted to see Smirky/Darth assassinated, as such events tend to create martyrs out of the most undeserving victims. But if Bush had succumbed slowly, painfully and publicly of some horrific venereal disease I probably wouldn't have mourned much.

No, Smirky didn't break the curse. The curse didn't apply to him because he wasn't elected in 2000 - he was put in office through a judicial coup d'etat. The man who actually was elected president in 2000 never served in the office, and therefore the curse didn't apply to him, either.

If the curse is real, whoever's elected in 2020 is still at risk.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Quote of the Day

The Rude Pundit on Wednesday, at the end of a post on Cheney's "Torture? What Torture?" tour:

For so very long, torture had stayed out of the mainstream media. Once John McCain and Barack Obama declared they would both close Guantanamo, the issue was off the table for the duration of the campaign. Now that the Obama administration is coming in and members of the House and the Senate are threatening to investigate the Bush White House's actions, now that Obama had to put up or shut up on Gitmo, all of a sudden the media is treating the issue like it matters, like somewhere, hidden in a deep, dark place is this curled up, frightened little American soul and we're trying to figure out how to coax it out of the corner, wondering if we have earned the right to hold out our hands and say, "Come on out. It'll be okay."

Don't Believe the Lies: Court Did NOT Absolve Bush

The overarching lie used to falsely justify all of George Bush's domestic crimes, war crimes and treason is that of unlimited presidential authority.

Never mind Article One Congressional powers, never mind Separation of Powers, never mind Constitutional limits on the executive, for eight years it's been "because I'm the president and I said so!"

Thus he justified: breaking treaties, ignoring bin Laden and allowing 9/11, launching an illegal invasion, wiretapping and spying on innocent citizens, torture, rendition, detention and every other way he could imagine to shred the Constitution and shit diarrhea all over the remnants.

Now Smirky/Darth's slimy apologists are claiming a FISA Court decision has endorsed Bush's "if the president does it it's not illegal" theory.

Bullshit, as Steve Benen explains.

There's been some talk today that the FISA court has endorsed the notion that the president has the authority to engage in warrantless wiretaps. That's not what happened today, and the details matter.

SNIP

The decision has nothing to do with the president's inherent authority, and everything to do with Congress' ability to shape surveillance law, giving the White House far more authority than it was previously allowed.

Put another way, the case was about the legality of the Protect America Act. It cleared the court's examination. But as A.L. explained, this doesn't lend "credence" to the administration's legal arguments at all.

Quite the contrary. From the moment the NSA program was first disclosed in December of 2005, the issue has always been whether the president has the "inherent authority" to disregard a statute like FISA that purports to place restrictions on his ability to conduct surveillance of Americans. The Bush administration claimed it had such powers, despite overwhelming legal authority to the contrary. When Congress passed the Protect America Act, it statutorily authorized the President's subsequent surveillance activities, assuming he stays within the rather wide confines of that law. The court here has merely upheld Congress's prerogative to pass such a law.

There's nothing here that lends any credence whatsoever to claims of law-breaking authority made by the Bush administration over the last few years.

Several far-right blogs insisted today that Bush has been "vindicated" and was "right all along." That's simply not what happened.

Read the whole thing.

Cross-posted at Watching Those We Chose.

What the Pentagon Defines as Terrorism

It's a damn good thing the Pentagon is keeping track of what those detainees released from Guantanamo get up to after they get back home.

Some of them are ungrateful, recidivist and unrepentant enough to perpetrate vicious acts of terror like this one:

What the DoD actually counted as their "return to the fight" was-- I hope you're sitting down -- the fact that one of them published op-ed in the New York Times. Here is part of his act of war column:

"I learned my respect for American institutions the hard way. When I was growing up as a Uighur in China, there were no independent courts to review the imprisonment and oppression of people who, like me, peacefully opposed the Communists. But I learned my hardest lesson from the United States: I spent four long years behind the razor wire of its prison in Cuba.

I was locked up and mistreated for being in the wrong place at the wrong time during America's war in Afghanistan. Like hundreds of Guantanamo detainees, I was never a terrorist or a soldier. I was never even on a battlefield. Pakistani bounty hunters sold me and 17 other Uighurs to the United States military like animals for $5,000 a head. The Americans made a terrible mistake.

It was only the country's centuries-old commitment to allowing habeas corpus challenges that put that mistake right -- or began to. (...) Without my American lawyers and habeas corpus, my situation and that of the other Uighurs would still be a secret. I would be sitting in a metal cage today. Habeas corpus helped me to tell the world that Uighurs are not a threat to the United States or the West, but an ally. Habeas corpus cleared my name -- and most important, it let my family know that I was still alive.

Like my fellow Uighurs, I am a great admirer of the American legal and political systems. I have the utmost respect for the United States Congress. So I respectfully ask American lawmakers to protect habeas corpus and let justice prevail. Continuing to permit habeas rights to the detainees in Guantanamo will not set the guilty free. It will prove to the world that American democracy is safe and well."

Well, now we know why Smirky/Darth fought so hard to eliminate the 800-year-old principle of habeas corpus: It's a terrorism tactic.

If only King John had known.

Celebrate the Inauguration With a Day of Service

So you can't get to D.C. for the Inauguration of a Lifetime. You can, however, honor the star of that event by responding to his request that you join him on Monday for a Day of Service in your own community.



Click here to find a Martin Luther King Day volunteer service event in your community.

I used it to search for volunteer service events within 50 miles of my rural Kentucky home and got a list of 60 from a wide variety of organizations.

Find an event near you, and get this administration started off right.

Destroy the Village to Save It

TPM picks up the latest evidence that Mitch McConnell is making the fatal error of thinking President-Elect Obama is stupid.

Republicans roll out new plan to revive the economy by destroying Social Security ...

Mr. Obama has told Republicans he is open to suggestions, and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said his conference would urge Mr. Obama to consider a two-year suspension of payroll taxes to benefit individuals and corporations.

Mr. McConnell said Senate Republicans were intensely interested in the idea, which was presented at their own weekly lunch by Lawrence B. Lindsey, who was President Bush's top economic adviser from 2001 to 2002, and John H. Makin, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.

If Mitch McConnell and the rest of the repugs had to choose between destroying terrorism and destroying the New Deal, they'd pick the latter in a heartbeat.

The Right Way to "Move Forward"

edger makes the case for pushing Obama hard to name a special prosecutor for Bush/Cheney war crimes and treason.

Yesterday George Will, of all people, was comparing Obama refusing to prosecute Bush and Cheney to Ford pardoning Nixon.

If a far right crazed wingnut can get it right, why can't the rest of us?

This comparison is one that we can use to good effect, but only if we do it continuously and loudly.

He's got the evidence, the passion, Jane Hamsher and The Petition.

Read the whole thing, then, in the immortal words of Blue Girl: Sign the fucking petition already!

Simple Answers to Stupid Questions

It's going to be tough enough for the next few years fighting the already widespread lies about Smirky/Darth's true legacy to the nation and the world. The last thing we need is pseudo-progressives doing the wingnuts' work for them by publishing fake critiques that perpetuate the bushies' lies.

Granted, Jake Weisberg has been for years one of the most gullible and least insightful "journalists"on the subject of Smirky/Darth, the Iraq clusterfuck, the War On A Noun and destructive repug idiocy in general, but this really takes the cake.

As George W. Bush once noted, "You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone." What I think he was trying to say is that, over time, historians may evolve toward a more positive view of his presidency than the one held by most of his contemporaries.

No, what he actually was saying is "as I have done for my entire life, I'm going to escape accountability, not to mention punishment, for my many war crimes and acts of treason."

At the moment, this seems a vain hope. Bush's three most obvious legacies are his decision to invade Iraq, his framing of a global war on terror after Sept. 11, and the massive financial crisis. Each of these constitutes a separate epic in presidential misjudgment and mismanagement.

No, the Iraq clusterfuck, delcaring war on a noun to justify torture and shredding the Constitution, and destroying the economy are not, by any stretch "misjudgment and mismanagement." They are major crimes and acts of treason.

It remains a brainteaser to come up with ways, however minor, in which Bush changed government, politics, or the world for the better. Among presidential historians, it is hardly an eccentric view that 43 ranks as America's worst president ever. On the other hand, he has nowhere to go but up.

No, there's a long, long fall to the eternal damnation Smirky has richly earned. After he's arrested, tried, convicted and imprisoned, spent decades getting his anus dry-reamed with a barbed dildo by the family members of dead American soldiers and marines, and become a curse in the mouths of former supporters who blame him for the complete distruction of the republican party, THEN we can talk about whether he has anywhere to go but up.

In a different sense, however, Bush's comment has some validity to it.

No, nothing Smirky says has "validity" except in the sense of incriminating evidence.

We do not know how people will one day view this presidency because we, Bush's contemporaries, don't yet understand it ourselves.

No, those of us with functioning reasoning capacity and an ounce of personal and professional integrity understand it perfectly well. It's only sniveling apologists like Jake Weisberg who pretend they don't understand.

The Bush administration has had startling success in one area—namely keeping its inner workings secret. Intensely loyal, contemptuous of the press, and overwhelmingly hostile to any form of public disclosure, the Bushies did a remarkable job at keeping their doings hidden for eight years.

No, it's been pretty fucking obvious to most of us for at least three years exactly what is and has been going on in the overlowing toilet that used to be the White House, despite the efforts of the repug dupes and cowardly transcribers of the Village to pretend otherwise.

Probably the biggest question Bush leaves behind is about the most consequential choice of his presidency: his decision to invade Iraq.

No. This question was answered in Ron Suskind's 2004 book, in which Smirky/Darth started planning to invade Iraq about 35 seconds after the Inauguration.

When did the president make up his mind to go to war against Saddam Hussein?

January 20, 2001. And it was never a "war." It's an illegal invasion.

What were his real reasons?

Dictatorial power. He admitted as much when he said his father didn't get re-elected because he ended the Gulf War instead of keeping it going forever.

What roles did various figures around him—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice—play in the actual decision?

For pity's fucking sake, Weisberg, have you read nothing but Harry Potter for the past five years? Shit, even that repug tool Woodward managed eventually to document all of this.

Was the selling of the war on the basis of WMD evidence a matter of conscious deception or of self-deception on their part?

Again, read a fucking book. To name just one, Fiasco proves irrefutably that it was deliberate deception.

Bob Woodward, Ron Suskind, and I recently debated in Slate the issue of how much we really know about Bush's biggest decision. Woodward, the author of four inside accounts of the Bush administration, believes that we do know the most important facts. He argues that Bush decided to invade Iraq in January 2003, that the reason was 9/11, and that Bush himself was the real decision-maker. Suskind and I argued that we don't know really how, when, or why the decision was made—though we suspect it was much earlier. By the summer of 2002, administration officials and foreign diplomats were hearing that Bush's course was already set.

Wrong. January 2001, as Suskind himself documented. What kind of pharmaceuticals were distributed at this "debate?"

The disputed dates and details go to the most interesting larger issues about what went wrong during the Bush years.

No, they don't, and no, they aren't disputed, except by tools, apologists and accomplices.

Did Bush's own innocence and incompetence drive his missteps?

He's neither innocent nor incompetent, and they aren't missteps. He's a psychopath, and what he did are high crimes and acts of treason.

Or was it the people around him, most importantly his vice president, who manipulated him into his major bad choices? On so many issues—the framing of the war on terrorism, the use of torture, the expansion of executive power—it was Cheney's views that prevailed.

Darth's evil does not absolve Smirky's eager treason. To say Cheney "manipulated" him is like saying I "manipulated" my dog into eating his favorite snack.

Yet at some point, perhaps around the 2006 election, Bush seems to have lost confidence in his vice president and stopped taking his advice.

So what and who cares? These are Smirky's crimes and treason, from beginning to end. Darth has his own crimes and treason for which he must pay. Stop trying to muddy each with the other.

To reckon with the Bush years, we need to understand what went on between these two men behind closed doors.

Oh gag. I just ate.

Yet despite some superb spadework by journalist Barton Gellman and others, we know very little about Cheney's true role. We have seen few of the pertinent documents and heard little relevant testimony. Congressional investigations and litigation have shed only the faintest light on Cheney's role in Bush's biggest blunders.

Wrong, irrelevant and stop calling murder and treason "blunders."

The same is generally true of Bush's most important political relationship, with Karl Rove, and his most important personal one, with his father. Only with greater insight into these connections are we likely to be able to answer some of the other pressing historical questions. To what extent was Bush himself really the driver of his central decisions? How engaged or disengaged was he? Why, after governing as a successful moderate in Texas, did he adopt such an ideological and polarizing style as president? Why did he politicize the fight against terrorism? Why did he choose to permit the torture of American detainees? Why did he wait so long to revise a failing strategy in Iraq?

Bleeding baby jeebus. Smirky has done everything to acquire power, authority and popularity without work, responsibility or accountability. He is engaged to the extent required by acquire power, authority and popularity without work, responsibility or accountability. He was NOT a successful governor, but merely a repug with a famous name in a repug state, who knew just enough to avoid offense in a constitutionally weak office. He showed his true self as president because the office permitted him to do so. He politicized terrorism, encouraged torture and ensured we'd never get out of Iraq because all those things acquired power, authority and popularity without work, responsibility or accountability.

It seems unlikely that the memoirs in the works from Rove and Rumsfeld will challenge Bush's repeated assertions that he was not only in charge but in control. As for the president himself, we're unlikely to get much: Bush has a poor memory and is too unreflective to have kept the kind of diary that would elucidate matters. In time, however, other accounts are sure to emerge. Congressional investigations will shed new light. Declassified documents and e-mails may paint a clearer picture.

Was this written five years ago? C'mon, Jake - there are dozens, if not hundreds, of books out there that have answered every one of these questions over and over and over again. Pretending this is all still a mystery makes you look like a tool or an idiot.

Once the country is rid of Bush, perhaps we can start developing a more nuanced understanding of how his presidency went astray. His was no ordinary failure, and he leaves not just an unholy mess but also some genuine mysteries.

Don't you listen to your own Fearless Leader? Smirky doesn't do nuance. There is no nuance. There is no mystery. It's as obvious as a five-buck whore.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Be a Patriot: Challenge Obama

Kai Wright at The Root explains why Obama can't be the new Lincoln until dissenters force his hand.

We all know by now that Barack Obama fancies himself a modern Abe Lincoln. Few people begrudge the national pride Lincoln's memory evokes, so Obama can be forgiven for his repetition of the comparison—the grand Springfield, Ill. campaign launch; the team of rivals; the Lincoln inaugural Bible.

But as we prepare to swear in our 44th president, at least one memory of the Lincoln era has been entirely unwelcome: the vocal, progressive dissent that drove the Great Emancipator to earn his name.

Lincoln's political stance was as neutral on slavery as it was steadfast on restoring the national union. "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave," he wrote in 1862, "I would do it." As other commentators have pointed out, that uncomfortable historical reality should remind us that the political pragmatism in which Obama is now draped has its limits; moderation is too easily confused with acceptance of deep injustices.

There is, however, an additional lesson to be learned from Lincoln's reluctance to end slavery: that meaningful dissent is essential for democratic change, no matter who is president.

From the Civil War's start, abolitionist rabble-rousers clamored for more lasting goals than mere preservation of the Union. Frederick Douglass incessantly cajoled Lincoln, whom he called "a brave man trying against great odds to do right." He demanded Lincoln to declare that emancipation was an explicit aim of war. He saw no conflict between the abolitionists' clear alliance with the president and their need to demand more of Lincoln.

Sadly, there's little appreciation for Douglass' brand of political tough love today.

Disappointed with Barack's inaugural invitation to freakazoid homophobe Rick Warren? Pissed that Obama's being nice to Congressional repugs? Furious the president-elect's "stimulus" plan has tax cuts instead of a minimum wage hike?

Then stop yelling at your significant other and kicking your dog; make your voice heard where it can join with other progressive voices to push Obama left.

At Change.gov you can send Obama your own ideas or vote for other people's ideas. Thousands of people vote every day to move issues and suggestions up on the priority list.

But whether Obama and political pundits want to hear from progressives is beside the point. History proves that those of us who want to see the purported mainstream broadened cannot afford to sit out the Obama revolution.

SNIP

It could be that Obama gets this, too. Perhaps he believes the clamor for progressive government must come from outside of the White House; maybe he's cloaking himself in centrist robes to create cover for bold reforms. After all, many of the stimulus-plan details he's floated so far are nothing short of precedent shattering. I certainly hope that's the case.

But Hillary Clinton had this much right during her primary bid: Hope's not enough to beat back decades of right-wing entrenchment. We're all going to need to think less about Lincoln and more about Douglass, who put it this way, when rejecting Lincoln's insistence that unity trumps justice, even as a practical matter: "We have pursued that middle path. It is compromise, and by it we have reached the Civil War with all its horrid consequences. The question is shall we start anew with the same old path?"

Speak now, or forever hold your peace.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Barry at Ben's

Man, I'm movin' to D.C. Is this cool or what?

What does the president-elect order on his first Saturday afternoon since moving into town? A chili dog and cheese fries.

Barack Obama dropped in Saturday afternoon for a bite to eat with Washington's mayor, Adrian Fenty, at Ben's Chili Bowl, the venerable diner in Washington's U Street district.

Obama said it was his first time visiting Ben's Chili Bowl and "it was terrific." The expectation is that Obama _ already at ease in big cities from his time in Chicago _ will venture into town more than President George W. Bush, who rarely made forays into unofficial Washington.

After Obama's motorcade wandered through the U street district, passing the African-American Civil War Memorial and a flea market selling shirts that bear his face, he and Fenty surprised the restaurant around lunchtime. Patrons shrieked with delight and surprise as they saw his face. A mother blushed as Obama held her baby in his arms. The president-elect and the mayor moved slowly through the restaurant's crowded rooms, shaking hands and getting pictures taken with patrons.
Still, they came there to eat. "Where the food at?" he finally asked the counter staff, drawing laughs from them and nearby patrons.

He and Fenty ordered a house specialty, a Chili Half-Smoke _ a quarter-pound half pork and beef smoked sausage on a steamed bun with mustard, onions and chili sauce _ along with a big helping of some cheese fries.

They found a small table. They had the popular food. They even chatted it up with nearby customers at their tables. But something was still missing: the shredded cheese. Obama yelled for some _ "not the Velveeta" kind, he said _ and it was quickly delivered.

Word must have gotten out he was in the area: After Obama and Fenty had their meal and left the building, dozens of people who had lined up before security barriers cheered him on as walked toward his motorcade.

What Henry Ford Knew

"An underpaid man is a customer reduced in purchasing power. He cannot buy. Business depression is caused by weakened purchasing power. Purchasing power is weakened by uncertainty or insufficiency of income. The cure of business depression is through purchasing power, and the source of puchasing power is wages." - Corporate Titan Henry Ford, 1926.

As Congress begins the dirty job of negotiating a stimulus plan to save the economy, the Hightower Lowdown reminds us of the barbed-dildo reaming Congress just gave American workers.

But the ongoing bailout battle is no longer about economics. It's about class in America.

Republican lawmakers, backed by a raucous chorus of right-wing pundits and corporate lobbyists, have turned Motor City's economic woes into an excuse for launching a mendacious and pernicious assault on America's hard-working, highly skilled, unionized working families--and on the middle-class ideals that they embody.

SNIP

... while Congress squawked about the blue-collar crowd's relatively paltry request, it had totally caved in to the banking elite, who did not request money but demanded it. Lawmakers meekly rushed out $700 billion for them, a taxpayer gimmie nearly 30 times larger than the one Detroit was seeking. What plan did the bankers present? What explanation did they give of how they'd spend our money?

None. They simply dispatched their designated consigliere, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (formerly the reigning prince of Goldman Sachs), to hand Congress a three-page ultimatum. It contained not a single specific or promise of results. It was, in effect, a hold-up note.

But that $700 billion was just for openers. It has not been widely reported, but the total Wall Street bailout--counting government loans, stock purchases, debt guarantees, and backdoor handouts by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve--is nearly $8 trillion. That's eight followed by 12 zeroes!

What have we gotten for this gargantuan giveaway? Zip.

SNIP

This is a flagrant usurpation of Congress's constitutional power and a kleptocratic transfer of public wealth by executive fiat. Yet it was met with barely a meow from lawmakers.

Roar of the kitties
Oh, but what tigers some of the congressional kittens became when Detroit showed up!

Right-wing senators from the South and West were suddenly baring claws and hissing furiously that to get aid these supplicants had to restructure their businesses in accordance with government dictates. These congressional onetime free-market holy rollers made a demand that was specific and blunt: Whack your unions.

SNIP

In fact, it's not wages that burden the auto companies--it's the skyrocketing cost of health care in America. Japanese, Korean, European, and other carmakers don't pay this cost because their countries have national health care for all, financed by taxpayers. Curiously, none of the senators who now profess to be outraged by American labor costs have stepped forward to support universal health care in our country, which would drastically improve the global competitiveness of all of our industries.

There's one more number that union-busting senators don't mention: 10%. That's the share of a made-in-Detroit car's price tag that goes to cover all labor costs, including health care, pensions, etc. That's it. Ten percent. In short, labor is nowhere near the financial burden it's portrayed as being. To the contrary, unionized workers bring award-winning productivity to the industry. They are assets, not liabilities. Meanwhile, 90% of what we consumers pay for cars goes to bankers, bondholders, investors, executives, suppliers, dealers, and a myriad of others who are part and parcel of every vehicle we drive. The senators could force UAW members to work for free, but that would not begin to solve the industry's financial problems.

SNIP

Speaking of pay, am I the only one who thinks it's ridiculous to hear senators chastise working families over earnings? Come on-Corker, DeMint, Kyl, and the others who're throwing hissy fits about UAW wage levels are drawing nearly three times as much from us taxpayers in base pay, plus getting platinum-level health care, golden pensions, and all sorts of senatorial perks. And, unlike autoworkers, senators don't have to have any real skill, do any heavy lifting, or produce any products.

Yes, these union workers make a good living--but what exactly is wrong with that? Indeed, they're a tremendous American success story. UAW members define our country's middle-class ideal. They can afford to buy homes (and cars), send kids to college, take vacations--and pay taxes, including those that cover salaries and benefits for U.S. senators.

Sustaining, expanding, and extending such a vibrant, productive middle class ought to be the top goal of economic policy makers. Yet, too many Washington officials keep pushing in the opposite direction, constantly pursuing a cheap-labor America that enriches the few at the expense of our nation's true economic strength. They are doing the bidding of a corporate elite whose only industrial idea of the past 30 years has been to kick labor in the shorts.

SNIP

(What Henry Ford said 82 years ago) remains true today. Middle-class wages are the lifeblood of the American automobile industry... and of the American economy.

(I've been a Lowdown subscriber for the entire 10 years it has existed, and a Jim Hightower fan for years before that, so I hope Jim will forgive me for excerpting such a huge chunk of his January 2009 subscriber-only issue. As for the rest of you, a yearly subscription to the Lowdown is only $15, and a bargain at twice the price. Subscribe today.)

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Stimulus: Too Much is Nowhere Near Enough

We've had a good time lately reciting the nearly endless list of conservative republican failures. Is there anything these chumps can't fuck up? Is there anything they've ever been right about?

No, of course not. But in the current discussion of the economic stimulus we see the results of the repug's singluar post-Reagan success:

They've convinced the nation and the world that government spending is bad.

Even when government spending is patently necessary, obviously the only way to avoid utter disaster, the discussion is not "on what" and "how soon" but "how little can we get away with."

How about a five-year moratoriam on the word "deficit?" Because all those times that repugs were mendaciously proclaiming "deficits don't matter," they were accidentally telling the truth.

As James Galbraith explains in his new book, the economy-destroying policies of the last thirty years have actually proven that cutting taxes and spending almost always causes inflation and/or recession, and raising taxes and spending almost always causes economic growth without inflation.

And the worst thing any government can do is spend public resources propping up capital markets (Wall Street) at the expense of workers in the real economy.

Sound familiar?

By letting concern about deficits shrink his stimulus plan while the U.S. economy is literally disintegrating for lack of public spending, President-elect Obama is ensuring the stimulus - and thus his presidency - will fail.

Paul Krugman, Concience of the Economy:

"I don't believe it's too late to change course, but it will be if we don't take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years."

So declared President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday, explaining why the nation needs an extremely aggressive government response to the economic downturn. He's right. This is the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it could all too easily turn into a prolonged slump.

But Mr. Obama's prescription doesn't live up to his diagnosis. The economic plan he's offering isn't as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what's needed.

SNIP

The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job.
Why isn't Mr. Obama trying to do more?

SNIP

Whatever the explanation, the Obama plan just doesn't look adequate to the economy's need. To be sure, a third of a loaf is better than none. But right now we seem to be facing two major economic gaps: the gap between the economy's potential and its likely performance, and the gap between Mr. Obama's stern economic rhetoric and his somewhat disappointing economic plan.

Krugman explains that the economy is currently falling about $2 trillion short of what it should be producing. Obama's $775 billion plan, with its $300 billion in counter-productive tax cuts, offers about 20 percent of what's needed.

John Judis at The New Republic pleads for a World-War-II-sized stimulus.

I am not suggesting that the United States start a world war in order to solve the world's economic problem. But I am suggesting a strategy that could be called the fiscal equivalent of war.

It would consist not merely of updating or repairing the nation's infrastructure, but in undertaking massive new investments that would expand the scope of American industry, and address other urgent problems in the process: global warming, over-reliance on petroleum, and the need to revive America's domestic manufacturing capabilities--not just to provide jobs, but also to provide tradeable goods that can reduce the country's current account deficit.

... Are we not at some point going to have to go beyond repairing roads and bridges in our conception of public spending and public works, and contemplate the kind of ambitious industrial expenditures that the country made on war production in 1941?

I still believe that Obama is playing a long and deep game, several steps ahead of Senate repugs. But I'm with Jane Hamsher who explains why Obama inspires confidence but the stimulus plan doesn't.

Go to change.gov and tell Obama that $2 trillion on real, job-creating stimulus is the bare minimum required.

And if he still insists on throwing a bone to irrelevant and undeserving repugs, he can say "You were right: deficits really don't matter."

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

No Enthusiasm for the Truth

What we really need, of course, is Smirky, Darth, Rummy, Wolfie, Feith, Yoo, The Mustache, Gonzo, Tenet, and all their minions frog-marched into federal court and prosecuted for War Crimes and Treason.

What we might have to settle for is a fact-finding body like the 9-11 Commission.

Now it appears we won't even get that.

It happens more often than you might think on Capitol Hill: a new bill is announced by a congressional office, with little fanfare and fewer co-sponsors than it deserves but a purpose so abundantly sensible that the plan cries out for more attention.

Such is the case with H.R. 104, a bill introduced on Tuesday by House judiciary committee chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and nine other lawmakers. The measure would set up a National Commission on Presidential War Powers and Civil Liberties, with subpoena power and a reported budget of around $3 million, to investigate issues ranging from detainee treatment to waterboarding to extraordinary rendition. The panel's members would hail from outside the government and be appointed by the president and congressional leaders of both parties.

Sounds like a great idea. In fact, it sounds a lot like Senate armed services committee chairman Carl Levin's (D-MI) proposed interrogation-policy commission that has been kicking around since 2005. So why does such a good bill only have 10 co-sponsors?

The answer is complicated -- and neither House Speaker Nancy Pelosi nor Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have returned my calls to talk about it. But I'd wager that it has a lot to do with the Democratic majority's desire to turn the page on the Bush years and begin pressing on with an Obama agenda designed to showcase its ability to govern. Nothing wrong with that.

But as the stimulus plan and financial regulation and health care reform and a host of worthy issues takes up the oxygen in Washington over the coming months, who will make sure that accountability for past misdeeds gets as much attention as current achievements? Who will shed more sunshine on the debacles of the Bush years?

There's support in the House for it (although not yet, it appears, from leadership). There's a constituency in the Senate for it, and inside the Obama camp. Does anybody think that this sleeper bill will get so much as a hearing in any of the three separate committees it's been referred to?

A commission, particularly one that goes beyond mere fact-finding to actual public confessions along the lines of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, is the absolute bare minimum required by an ostensible democracy to deal with criminal behavior by its highest officials.

Although the South African commission succeeded in preventing civil war after the end of apartheid, it failed to achieve genuine justice.

Most believed that justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation rather than an alternative to it, and that the TRC had been weighted in favour of the perpetrators of abuse.

"Justice was a prerequisite for reconciliation." Precisely. The consequences of failing to achieve justice, of allowing perpetrators to escape punishment, are always more severe than any political repurcussions of making criminals pay for their crimes.

And the proof is in the history books.

Because Nixon got away with illegal wiretapping and domestic spying, Reagan and 41 got away with Iran/Contra.

Because Reagan and 41 got away with Iran/Contra, Smirky-Darth is getting away with Treason and War Crimes.

Because Smirky-Darth get away with Treason and War Crimes, what will the next repug who snatches the presidency get away with?

We're half an inch away from being a lawless banana republic.

The key is not how law-abiding the Obama administration is; the key is whether the Obama administration upholds the Rule of Law for everyone, even former presidents.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

The Full Monty on Your Tax Dollars

Kentucky state government has dropped its checkbook trousers and you can see it all with the click of a mouse.

On Jan. 1, 2009, Kentucky started the New Year with a Web site that provides citizens access to all state expenditures and other vital information about state-funded programs. The new Web site’s address is www.opendoor.ky.gov.

“In today’s difficult economic times, it is even more important for government to be transparent and accountable, and for citizens to feel confident that their tax dollars are being used efficiently and responsibly,” said Gov. Steve Beshear. “I’m proud of our administration’s efforts, along with the bipartisan support of all of the state’s executive branch constitutional officers, to put our checkbooks online for public view in such a comprehensive and user-friendly manner.”

SNIP

Some of the features found on the site include:

• Your Money: A section with dozens of helpful charts, graphs and descriptions that summarize state revenues, expenditures and budget priorities.
• Cabinet/Agency Search: A search engine that provides agency-by-agency data on state expenditures.
• Budget Basics: A tutorial that allows the average citizen to log on and find out basic information on state expenditures, revenues and how budgets are developed.
• Budgeting for Kids: A fully interactive children’s section that offers games, cartoons and interactive lessons on budgets and government finance.
• Vendor Income and Expense Watch (V.I.E.W.): A pioneering effort by Treasurer Todd Hollenbach that allows citizens to search all of the state’s vendor and contractor data.
• Links, links and more links: Providing taxpayers easy access to state audits, investments, tax incentives, election finances and more.

It's nowhere near perfect, particularly in its lack of a google-like search function. And some expenditure totals can appear misleading to those unfamiliar with a particular agency's budget needs.

But Open Door offers more information far more easily than ever before.

Click on and dig in. On the Contact Page there's a place to send suggestions for new features.

Number 78

Kentucky's first Iraq clusterfuck casualty of 2009 is a Marine from a tiny mountain town deep in far southeastern Kentucky coal country.

Lance Cpl. Chadwick A. Gilliam, 29, of Mayking, Kentucky, died January 3 of an apparent heart attack at a U.S. military base in Kuwait. He was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 6th Marines, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

He grew up in eastern Kentucky and attended Whitesburg High School.

He was an infantryman and joined the unit June 25, 2007, and was promoted to lance corporal last year.

Gilliam attended the old Whitesburg High School in the mid 1990s. One of his former teachers, Scottie Billiter, said Gilliam inspired other students.

Billiter, now an assistant principal at Letcher County Central High School, said Gilliam had a wide array of interests, from the football team to the Spanish club. Billiter was Gilliam's home room teacher in 1995.

"There is not one of those kids that I had in my home room that I could tell one bad thing about because I have nothing but great fond memories of him. He was definitely a big part of that. He was a big part of who we were," Billiter said.

The Damage

Salon has a great article quantifying the damage done by the Smirky/Darth maladministration.

After a couple of presidential terms, mismanagement in every area of policy -- foreign, domestic, even extraterrestrial -- starts to add up. When George W. Bush entered the White House in January 2001, he inherited peace and prosperity. The military, the Constitution and New Orleans were intact and the country had a budget surplus of $128 billion. Now he's about to dash out the door, leaving a large, unpaid bill for his successors to pay.

To get a sense of what kind of balance is due, Salon spoke to experts in seven different fields. Wherever possible, we have tried to express the damage done in concrete terms -- sometimes in lives lost, but most often just in money spent and dollars owed. What follows is an incomplete inventory of eight years of mis- and malfeasance, but then a fuller accounting would run, um, somewhat longer than three pages.

The numbers - on Iraq, the economy, Katrina, the environment, the military - start in the billions and rapidly reach the trillions.

Those are numbers literally beyond human comprehension. The article's devastating specifics, however, serve as both a weapon against revisionist history that paints Dubya as a success, and a tool in the current debate over the economic stimulus bill.

Read it and use it.

Correcting the Revisionism: No, Virginia, Dubya's Not a Hero

Being nice to the retarded kid who's moving out of town is one thing: flaying history and reality alive in an attempt to make the retarded kid sound like Einstein is something else entirely.

The indispensable Rude Pundit catches it and exposes every criminal lie.

You remember how, right after the 9/11 attacks, we were all scared shitless and the White House was telling us to stick our heads between our legs and kiss our asses good-bye because brownish people were going to fuck our shit up with their exploding shoes and nuclear suitcases o' doom? ... You remember all that? That sense of panic and imminent demise? Yeah, well, fuck you, 'cause you're wrong. It was actually a serene time.

At least according to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs, who, during Tuesday's military parade in "appreciation" of President George W. Bush, said in his lubricious hummer of a speech, "After this nation was attacked by a rising evil, the same evil which later murdered many others in places like London, Madrid, Islamabad and Mumbai, you quickly led us from the grip of fear to a serenity of purpose and unity of action - serenity well beyond our dreams on September 12th, when all thought further attack was not only likely, but gravely imminent. And through your vision, a new national security was rendered to reach our enemies where they hid and trained and celebrated deadly crimes."

Now that's some motherfucking historical revisionism: the man who pogo-sticked around the country on September 11, 2001 like a hyperactive toddler on the run from the boogeyman actually was achieving some kind of Zen state of retarded enlightenment that allowed him to clear his head and pronounce, "I'm gonna attack a country that had nothing to do with those planes." Seriously, this is like a rapist-murderer being honored for his belief in safe sex.

This crap has just started. Every move President Obama makes will be met with a fairy tale of how the heroic and divine Dubya handled a much greater difficulty so brilliantly, every setback met with fantasies of how every bad thing could have been avoided if only the perfect 43 were still in charge.

Dismissing it as the ravings of the criminally insane will only allow the poisonous meme to survive and thrive, until it is enshrined in our grandchildren's textbooks.

Don't wait until it's too late. Fight the historical revisionism wherever you find it. Memorize and repeat this mantra:

George W. Bush is a war criminal who shredded the Constitution, ruined the military, smashed the economy, accelerated environmental collapse and damn-near destroyed the country.

Read the Rude One's whole rant. X-rated.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Kentucky Forestry Survey

What do you think we should do with Kentucky's forests? The state Division of Forestry wants to know.

The Kentucky Division of Forestry (KDF) is encouraging citizens to complete an online survey to determine the trends and threats to Kentucky’s forest resources. The survey will complement a statewide forest resource assessment and action plan currently being developed by KDF to help guide the future of Kentucky’s forests.

“The survey will help us prioritize the issues facing rural and urban forests”, said Leah MacSwords, Division of Forestry director. “Natural resource agencies, governments, groups and citizens who share a concern for Kentucky’s forests will benefit from the assessment; therefore, participation from all of these groups is crucial in determining major forestry issues in Kentucky.”

The online survey will allow the public to provide different viewpoints regarding various forestry related issues and the importance of these issues. Some of the concerns already identified by KDF include the need for proper forest management, reduction of wildfires, and the prevention of destructive insects, diseases and invasive plant species.

Other forestry related issues for Kentuckians to consider include:
· the role of forests in sequestering carbon and reducing greenhouse gases;
· the potential for forests to improve our economy by diversifying Kentucky’s forest products industry;
· the possibility of using forests as an alternative and renewable source of energy;
· the need to prevent forest fragmentation and improve land-use planning;
· the importance of forests in providing social benefits such as outdoor recreation and aesthetics;
· and the necessity of forests in providing clean water, clean air, healthy soils and wildlife habitat.

To "participate in the survey and to provide your input regarding the economic and environmental importance of Kentucky’s forests," click here to take the survey.

They Don't Just Disappear

Let's hope this is just the first of many stories about the tortured innocents released far too late from Gitmo.

After Mr. Iqbal was picked up in Jakarta and interrogated for two days, American officials generally concluded that he was a braggart, a “wannabe,” and should be released, one of the senior American officials in Jakarta said. “He was a talker,” the senior American official said. “He wanted to believe he was more important than he was.”

There was no evidence that he had ever met Osama bin Laden, or had been to Afghanistan, the two senior American officials said. But in the atmosphere of fear and confusion in the months after Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Iqbal was secretly moved to Egypt for further interrogation, said one of the senior American officials.

SNIP

In Lahore, Mr. Iqbal wants to return to teaching the Koran. “It’s easy for the United States to say no charges were found,” he said. “But who is responsible for the seven years of my life?”

Read the whole thing.

Crossing the Line

The veterans at They Gave Us A Republic call our attention to Israel's use of white phosphorous in Gaza.

For the iron-stomached, Elmo has the horrific details of what white phosphorous does.

Still not sold on the fact that this is an atrocious act? Well, put your little brain in the grunt's boots who has to walk up on a mother with her three or four children cuddled in a torturous tangle. The Grunt- he has a wife and three kiddos (13,8 and 3) of his own. Do you know what the first thought that comes into his head is as he looks at their bodies, charred to the bone in spots, with faces frozen in demonic horror?

He pictures that being HIS family. Congratulations Mr. Grunt and thank you for serving! You win a mind-fuck for life!!!

There is not a good excuse for decimating a neighborhood with Willie Pete. And spare me the using it as concealment crap. Liars.

Hearts and minds, baby. Hearts and minds.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

I Pay Taxes So You Can Afford to Farm

Have you seen the latest smart-ass bumper sticker?

"I Farm, You Eat"

Leave aside the outrageous arrogance of the claim, the condescension toward everyone who does not farm, the fallacy that what most Kentucky farmers grow ends up in Kroger's produce department.

Consider instead how deformed and dysfunctional American agriculture has become in the century since the sentiment on that bumper sticker was literally true.

I come from a long line of small farmers, most of whom toiled long before the advent of federal subsidies and perverse incentives forcing farmers to fall hopelessly in debt and poison their own land to compete.

Corporate agri-business and their congressional and DoA lackeys have done a superb job of fucking over family farmers six ways from Sunday.

Those family farmers need legal, regulatory, scientific and marketing help to survive.*

But the best way to get that help is to make a compelling case for rational, economically and environmentally sound farming.

Snide, contemptuous insults don't help.

*And no, ag-giant apologist Tom Vilsack, DoA Secretary-nominee, ain't gonna do it.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Repug Solution to Budget Crisis: Soak the Middle Class

It's not often that corporate-owned repugs come right out and admit that what they really want is income redistribution.

That is, redistribute the last pennies of the poor and middle class from them to the already too rich.

But some Kentucky repug lawmakers are out, loud and proud about their determination to re-create the feudal economy of the 13th century.

Amid the financial worries and talk of state shortfalls, some House Republicans are suggesting that now is the time to eliminate the state’s corporate and individual income taxes.

Not only that, but they’re also calling for dropping the sales tax from 6 cents to a nickel on every dollar of goods purchased.

So how will taking away all that revenue stabilize the shaky status of the state’s coffers?

The legislation drafted by Reps. Bill Farmer of Lexington and David Floyd of Bardstown would replace the income tax by spreading the sales tax to a host of services that are currently exempt, including plumbing, roofing and other contracting work, and some consulting work.

Brilliant! Absolutely fucking brilliant.

Because, of course, income and corporate taxes, minimal as they are, fall more heavily on the wealthy than the middle-class. And the sales tax, of course, takes a far greater percentage of income from the poor and middle-class than it does from the rich.

Vastly expanding the items subject to the sales tax while eliminating income and corporate taxes will create a giant vacuum cleaner, sucking money away from the middle-class and depositing it in the bank accounts of the rich.

Before you know it, everyone earning less than six figures will be economic sharecroppers, feudal serfs barely surviving on the crumbs that fall from the corporate lord's table.

While we're all weak from hunger, illness and despair, we won't even notice when the congressional servants of the plutocrats take away our rights to vote.

Congratulations, Rep. Farmer, on your plan. It's perfect!

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Why the Biggest Obstacle to Fixing the Economy is Religion

When the oh-so-"moderate" evangelicals whom President-elect Obama is working so hard to please turn on him and attack his efforts to repair and modernize the social safety net, don't be surprised.

Order this copy of Free Inquiry and read the print-only article by Gregory Paul: The Big Religion Questions Finally Solved.

In that article, Paul demonstrates why the relgious must oppose social advancements like progressive taxation, universal health care, strong unions and free public education or else face their own extinction.

Because in every industrialized nation on the planet, low levels of economic disparity, high middle-class economic security and a strong social safety net correlate strongly with widespread secularism.

In other words, the more dysfunctional a society is, the more religious it tends to be.

Analyzing numerous large surveys of world populations, Paul finds:

Among the first world's 19 prosperous democracies, all but the United States have adopted pragmatic, progressive and secular socioeconomic policies that maximize the financial security of the middle class (that is to say, the majority of citizens.)

In most first-world countries, it is hard to lose middle-class status - no western European or Australian goes bankrupt due to overwhelming medical bills. These high levels of financial security, lower levels of income disparity, and more modest rates of societal dysfunction reduce personal stress levels to the degree that middle-class majorities in western Europe, Canada and Australia feel secure and comfortable.

This security and comfort being achieved, the number of citizens who feel the need to seek the aid and protection of supernatural deities has sunken to historic lows and citizens abandon their former churches in droves.

In addition, comprehensive governmental social assistance programs displace much of the faith-based charitable complex that churches have historically used to extend their influence over the lay population.

Moreover, secular societies tend to favor other pragmatic social policies such as extensive sex-education and domestic violence intervention that further surpess societal dysfunctions.

The popular secularization these pragmatic policies induce is accidental, but nonetheless the effect is so powerful that is has occurred in every progressive first-world democracy. it has occurred despite the absence of a large-scale organized atheistic movement and has yet to be reversed in any country by a major religious revival.

Wonder why "religious leaders" so admantly oppose economic support programs that would help their own congregations? Because they know, at least subconciously, that the greatest threat to religion is a strong, successful, secure society.

To thrive, or even survive, religion needs a frightened, insecure population and a weak, incompetent government that drives people to seek succor in religion.

So when Rick "I have unlimited compassion for the poor and sick" Warren exhorts his congregation to fight Obama's economic stimulus plan and universal health care, read Paul's article and you'll understand why.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

Crony Capitol -ism

At the risk of sounding like a terminally naive goo-goo, I have to say that this crap is completely inexcusable.

Gov. Steve Beshear’s chief of staff, Adam Edelen, is a partner in private business deals with top Frankfort lobbyist Bob Babbage, who represents a long list of clients wanting something from state government.

Edelen and Babbage are partners with Ralph Coldiron — a Beshear appointee at the Kentucky Office of Homeland Security — in Chartwell Land Co., which recently developed and sold a $660,000 home in Bourbon County.

Edelen and Babbage also co-own a new condo unit in downtown Lexington, in the Main & Rose building, which they bought a year ago for $257,100.

On Wednesday, Edelen, 34, said his private deals don’t influence his work for the governor, and vice versa, so there is no conflict of interest.

Read the whole thing, if you've got the stomach for it.

Page One has the practicality rationalization:

If we’re being up front, here, everyone who works for the governor has some sort of business or relationship that could be considered questionable or a conflict. But that’s how people get their jobs. That’s how politics work. It’s all about who you know, what you do, where you’ve been. So that in and of itself shouldn’t be used to vilify Adam. This situation should, however, serve as a reminder to everyone working in high-level government that they need to be even more transparent than the law requires to avoid headaches and embarrassment.

Nope, not buying. It's long past time we stopped thinking the only people qualified to serve at the highest levels of state government are wealthy business people and lawyers fatally compromised by money relationships with companies seeking contracts or favors from said state government.

Kentucky is chock-a-block with brilliant, talented, skilled people who don't owe their success to scumbags like Dudley Webb. People whose credibility rests on experience working for non-profit organizations, or as teachers or firefighters, or in the military.

They are nowhere to be found in the upper levels of this administration, probably because they couldn't afford the campaign contribution price.

There's nothing wrong with an administration filling its politically appointed positions with campaign contributors and others who have proven their loyalty to the governor - that's the whole point of having non-merit positions.

But a smart governor will ensure that such loyal contributors will also be competent and free of conflicts of interest that hobble the administration and harm its initiatives.

Surely the last few months have proven that "business" has no monopoly on competence - exactly the opposite, in fact.

And Beshear's blind reliance on the money-grubbers of "business" to fill his cabinet is as good an explanation as any for the fatal weakness of his administration.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.

The 2008 Rooties

They're even better this year.

I'm too modest to mention a certain runner-up, except to say that you can call me Keymaster.

50 Wasted Years

Imagine how the last half-century would have been different if Allen Dulles had not freaked out on New Year's Day 1959.

If instead of isolating Cuba, Dwight Eisenhower had heard echoes of our own revolution in Fidel Castro's overthrow of the despicable dictator Batista.

If he had said, hey, instead of handing a gift to Krushchev, why don't we try to co-opt this Fidel fella for ourselves?

If in April 1961 JFK had told the Bay-of-Pigs CIA to go fuck itself and made lemonade by cancelling the embargo and making Cuba a trading partner.

If instead of ensuring Cuba became the last, humiliating reminder of our idiotic "Commies? Eeek!" policy we had made Cuba the first example of our "we support popular movements" policy.

Yeah, yeah, Cold War, Mafia, Goldwater, blah, blah, blah.

The truth is that for 50 years, the United States' policy toward Cuba has been that of a 14-year-old boy afraid to strip in the locker room.

Barack Obama won Florida, which should be all the evidence anyone needs that the fanatic anti-Castro old-timers in Miami have lost their political clout.

President-elect Obama can drop trou and cancel the embargo sure that it will goose the economy without political harm.

Sure, too, that finally acting rationally toward Cuba will be a quick, easy, cost-free way to show the world that real Change has come to America.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.