Date

Straight Shootin' from the 19th Century

susan — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 22:51:08 -0500

Can't let a day go by without a post.

Good-by
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Good-by, proud world, I'm going home,
Thou'rt not my friend, and I'm not thine;
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam,
But now, proud world, I'm going home.

Good-by to Flattery's fawning face,
To Grandeur, with his wise grimace,
To upstart Wealth's averted eye,
To supple Office low and high,
To crowded halls, to court, and street,
To frozen hearts, and hasting feet,
To those who go, and those who come,
Good-by, proud world, I'm going home.
(More)

Barbie doll's live sister defends democracy

barbara — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:17:47 -0500

by barbara

Oh, oh, oh! Democracy is safe! No, really. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota’s CD6 Congressional bimbo, is in the Middle East, checking out the war and stuff. For out-of-staters, you might remember Bachmann as the babe who fawned and groped Junior after his State of the Union address.

Bachmann has preached politics in one of the nation’s most right-wing congregations. She reportedly used to lead prayer chains (real ones – made up of people) through the halls of our state capitol. She was photographed hiding in bushes to spy on gay rights activists. Don’t even ask her about the women’s loo – so many stories, so little time. She is, in short, a royal piece of work. And she is simply wild about George. They are a perfect match, intellectually, politically, morally. So now what?

Appeals Court: Scooter's Gotta Go. Oops, premature post.

susan — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 14:35:05 -0500

This from Commondreams.org and more at Huff Post and of course, Firedoglake.
And btw, McCain is in meltdown as well, fired 50 of his staff.

Do something RIGHT NOW!

barbara — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:12:15 -0500

by barbara

Joe Biden recommends that outraged Americans flood the White House with phone calls tomorrow in protest against the most recent and outrageous actions of the American president who laughs at American law. See end of this post for phone numbers for the White House and Congress.

I'm consumed with rage. I may spew flaming bile. George W. Bush has pardoned Scooter Libby. Go to Firedoglake for quick update. Pelosi's statement et al.

Then go to Pelosi's comment site by clicking here and register your rage. Be respectful, but be strong and firm.

It is time to impeach these bastards. NOW!

UPDATE:

Check: Digby here.
Check: Crooks and Liars here for Joe Wilson and Patrick Fitzgerald response via KO.
Check: McClatchy here, to see what one of the few principled journalism outlets has to say.

Then, to see what legislators and candidates have to say, Click here.

White House Phone Numbers
Comments: 202-456-1111
Switchboard: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

U.S. Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121
Listing of U.S. Senators with phone numbers
Listing of U.S. House members

Scooter Celebrates Independence Day

susan — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 01:33:16 -0500

This photo has nothing to do with this post, but I offer it as a soothing, if dubbed, image from a more perfect world.

by Susan
Tonight, July 2, we went to an early dinner with friends, then to see Michael Moore's Sicko. The friends said they'd been listening to the news on Scooter in the car on the way over, but I assumed they meant the earlier news, that he was off to prison.

Sicko was funny and informative and infuriating. And while it didn't make me yearn for a new life in Sarnia, Ontario, it sure made France look even more alluring than usual. Why do parents tell you that you'll wish you'd practiced the piano more when you grow up? Why don't they tell you that you'll really wish you'd practiced French -- or Italian or Portuguese so you can move to another country when you grow up?

"This is one way sick nation," I was thinking as we headed home in the sticky night. But I had no idea. Read on, please.

Back on the table again

barbara — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 07:51:23 -0500

I will update this post as relevant information becomes available. And at some point, after the murk o'mind clears a bit, will probably think of something to say about all of this ("this" being criminal activity and obstruction of justice as rendered by the president of the United States).

Click here for larger view of the photo, which I have entitled "Back on the table."

Meanwhile:

Click here for Joe Wilson interview on this morning's Today Show.

Click here to access Firedoglake, where there is ongoing informed commentary about all of this and more.

Click here to read today's NY Times editorial.

Click here to read Fox News article. Stop gagging. Just do it.

Click here for examples of editorials nationwide.

Click here to read Susan's post.

But Seriously, What Are We Gonna Do?

susan — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 11:07:24 -0500

I just re-read my late night post and it's so lame. "I'm so enraged I'm going to -- dial my fingers to the nub?" But what else is there? Something like 70% of Americans don't approve of this reckless and lawless regime, and yet there's not a leader among us, no one standing up saying, "Let's storm the bastille on, oh, say July 14." Maybe it's that nightmare thing I mentioned -- we're suffocating and paralyzed, and well, screwed. Read on.

Cherry picking the Declaration of Independence

barbara — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:54:59 -0500

by barbara

Yesterday, a handful of people read the Clothesline post that included the full text of the Declaration of Independence.

UPDATE: (Here's the link to the full version.)--thanks S, "A" and R.

A few possible conclusions:

Folks were too busy to blog surf on the Fourth.
Folks already know the full text of the Declaration and don’t have to read it again.
Folks don’t care.

I deleted the post last night. Don’t recall ever having done that before. Pissy? Probably. Also symptomatic of bone-deep weariness and frustration. I do not own this condition, by the way. I know it to exist in many and sense it in others. Full disclosure: Had I gone to a blog and seen the Declaration posted there, I’m not certain I’d have read the whole thing either. So many words, so little time, dontcha know?!

There is much in the Declaration that is instructive in present time. Some parts of it, were they cut and pasted elsewhere, could easily be taken for Y2007 commentary on the reign of this latter day King George. For example: (Click to read.)

In view of the First Obstructionist's disservice to our country

barbara — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 15:44:02 -0500

by barbara

Got $61? Here's a great idea for it.

Seems the Lovely Laura has asked Republican donors to pony up $61 (I assume she meant each, rather than collectively), and send it to the Republican Party in honor of the First Obstructionist's 61st birthday (July 6).

What? You say you find that a repulsive idea? Well, I'm here to offer you a viable alternative. (Click here for particulars.)

Live Earth: Love it or leave it

barbara — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 13:29:27 -0500

by barbara

When we were in Scotland, we spent a few days on the beautiful Isle of Skye. Met a man there who totally gobsmacked us with his environmental philosophy. (And by the way, he’s not a Scot.) He’s an affluent man who took early retirement from an upper management position with an international corporation. He’s married. Has no children. This is basically what he had to say.

“I don’t care about climate change. Frankly, I think it’s baloney and I absolutely refuse to change a single thing I do. I have earned what I have and I fully intend to use it as I see fit. Why would I install fluorescent bulbs so the guy down the street doesn’t have to? My van gets better mileage than most people’s hybrids. I don’t care a fig about ‘the next generation.’ I don’t care about your grandchildren. I don’t care about those people in India or Bangladesh. Not my problem. I. Don’t. Care. And my bottom line is that it’s all about me. Me. Me. Me. Yes, I really mean it. I’m not budging on this. And by the way, though I’m not American, I’m absolutely a Republican.”

I’m not making this up and I’m not exaggerating. Please read on.

Live Earth: Part II

barbara — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 19:44:33 -0500

by barbara

(I took this photo at Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah last fall when there were no wildfires threatening that state.)

Blogworld is endlessly fascinating. For example, here’s a comment left on the Clothesline by Mark, taken from the Live Earth thread below:

You call it global warming, I would call it the normal ebb and flow of the earth's climate, given that at one time much of North America had a tropical climate. Then the ice age (what happened to that, global warming million of years ago? The glaciers didn't just up and walk away. Something had to warm up. No industry to emit greenhouse gasses back then.)

Mark sucked me in big time. You, too? When I started to read what he wrote, I thought, “Well, here’s a guy on the other side of the debate, but we’re going to have some good conversation here.” Then Mark went snarky. Click here to continue reading.

Dying in Iraq: Pick a number

barbara — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 08:53:31 -0500

barbara writes:

Got an email from Al Franken yesterday. Well, okay, 500,000 other folks got it, too. Franken wrote to urge us to lean hard on Normie Colemeleon – the man who currently occupies Paul Wellstone’s Senate seat. Franken’s letter cited American death stats, which at any given time are inaccurate because doggone it, they just keep dying over there. Click to play the numbers game.

Rethinking Impeachment, and Cindy Too

susan — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 15:17:32 -0500

I've been putting together a follow-up to my Star Trib piece (in which I propose a national rally to call for impeachment hearings against Dick Cheney) that would provide links to impeachment sites, impeachment videos and various calls to action.

You're all probably ahead of me on this one, but there's Impeachcheney.org and Impeachpac.org and Commondreams.org and Afterdowningstreet.org and scads of others.

Most of them have links to Robert Greenwald's new three minute video calling for Cheney's impeachment as well. Read on, because I'm not going where you think.

Wimps Like Us

susan — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 10:31:08 -0500

Sixty votes. What most of us don’t take into account in our frustration with all things Washington, is that despite our election victories in the fall, we’re still short the votes to bring an end to Bushco’s disastrous foray into Iraq. We need 60 votes to make the big things happen, not 51. So we rail against the Dems for being wimps and not doing what they said they’d do, but it remains the Repubs who are the problem. Turns out enough of 'em aren't wimps.

Take yesterday’s vote on Jim Webb’s and Chuck Hagel’s amendment to give soldiers more time back home between overseas deployments – something you’d think the “pro-family” Repubs would be all over. Think again. The proposal to allow debate of the plan went down 56-41, with 7 Repubs breaking rank with their party – including our own “finger-in-the wind” Norm Coleman. Six of the seven are facing re-election, Norm included, which gives you some idea that they’re hearing the sentiment of the American public. But 56 ain’t 60, and why aren’t more Republicans crossing over on a vote like this?
Well, turns out they’re the wimps. Or would be if they crossed their goony president on such things. Read on.

Terrorism alert!

barbara — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 14:08:04 -0500

barbara writes:

Let me put this out there in case there’s been too much subtlety at the Clothesline.

I do not trust George W. Bush. I do not trust BushCo. I do not trust legislators who have aligned themselves with BushCo. Generally speaking, I do not trust people who voted for Bush and I do not trust that shrinking number of people who continue to support him.

It is naïve to say that this administration serves its own agenda and that what happens to America is collateral damage. No. I believe that an essential part of BushCo’s agenda is quite specifically its calculated and concerted effort to damage our country in order to seize control. To that end, they have for all practical purposes waged war on the U.S. Constitution, Congress, the judiciary, the United States treasury, civil and human rights, Social Security, health care and immigration, and checks and balances, for starters.

I believe that BushCo can fairly be labeled a terrorist organization. Click for more. Unfortunately, I'm serious.

A far, far better thing

barbara — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 07:49:53 -0500

by barbara

C’est quatorze juillet – Fête Nationale de France. There. I have just depleted my meager store of French.

July Fourteenth. France’s National Holiday, commemorating the storming of the Bastille in 1789, which was retrospectively understood to have launched the French Revolution.

“Storm the Bastille!” Some of us say that from time to time. It’s linked to a growing belief that Americans need to show up. We need to gather together to demonstrate that we are unwilling to tolerate BushCo for even one more day. So, yeah, storm the Bastille. Click to read on, mes amis!

Peace Train's Coming -- slowly

susan — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 09:36:15 -0500

Sunday morning, time for a message of hope. Hmmmm. Maliki says US can go home any old time, they don't need us. I haven't read the whole story, but what's George say to that?

But this morning I decided to run a short email from my great niece KK. Great, as in my nephew's daughter, but also just great. She's in high school, and on some sort of exchange program to Vietnam. So, a "mere" 40+ years after the lies, bombs, and roughly 60,000 American deaths and an estimated 2 million Vietnamese deaths, young Americans are experiencing a very different sort of tour of duy in Vietnam.

Let's extract ourselves from Mess o' Potamia, and hope it doesn't take 40 years to heal the wounds. Read on for KK's short note.

Impeachment Hearings Now!

susan — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:42:13 -0500

Okay, I'm back on the impeachment track. Was temporarily derailed, sorry. Hat tip to Perhansa for directing me to Bill Moyers' interview with John Nichols of the Nation, and Bruce Fein, a former Justice Department official during the Reagan administration who drafted articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton.
Go there and read the transcript, or watch the interview on the You-Tube link provided. And any excuses I've made for Nancy Pelosi or other "leading" Dems, I now take 'em back. The Republican leaders remain scum of the earth and I've always said so, so nothing to take back there. Mea culpa, hie thee to the link. But click here for Moyer's closing statement.

Impeachment now: Step One

barbara — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 07:59:43 -0500

by barbara

202-225-0100

Call this number now. It's Nancy Pelosi's direct office number. They are taking calls about impeachment (and other matters), or at least they were 15 minutes ago when I called.

Ask her -- no, tell her! -- to get impeachment on the table now.

Read Susan's post below and click her link to the Moyers interview to underscore why this must happen.

Click here for UPDATE.

Blow the man down

barbara — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 09:51:19 -0500

barbara writes:

See the bright shiny whistle.
It is not a toy.
It is a useful object.
It is also symbolic.
See a BushCo minion pick up the whistle.
See them hold it in their hands.
See them study it.
See their eyebrows come together.
See them close their eyes and sigh.
Blow, whistle, blow.

Continued . . .

Grand Obstructionist Party

susan — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 12:17:42 -0500

No surprise that Firedoglake has the best coverage of the showdown in the senate, and they're quoting Bob Geiger among others for their info.
The Dems did not have the votes to force an up or down vote on planning for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, but Harry Reid moved on to part 2. Thanks Harry, now we're kicking it. More.

Dog days of summer

barbara — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 08:16:52 -0500

by barbara

Wash day. Pop wet clothes into basket, grab clothespins. Peer out window. Seeing nothing, race across yard to clothesline, wishing I'd asked for a Taser for Mother's Day. Slap up laundry. Peek under sheets. Coast is clear. Run back to house. Safe!

Typical laundry day for the past year. Also, outdoor grilling, gardening, lawn watering and fruit harvesting. Why? Two words. Pit bulls. Yard next to ours. Big dogs. Four-legged terrorists. News coverage describing how pit bulls have savaged some human beings. Women and children, mostly. It is small comfort, then, that we are separated from a pair of pit bulls by an invisible "fence" that sometimes contains them.

Sometimes, but not always. Click for more.

Making lemonade the Bush Republican way

barbara — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:07:15 -0500

by barbara

Pay close attention. Here’s how Bush Republicans play the spin game.

According to a piece on HuffPost, taken from The Hill, Congressman Christopher Shays (R-Conn) pitched a fit and tried to brow-beat a cop. It didn’t work out the way he intended.

Apparently some constituents of Shays had come for an audience with him. The cop refused to let them enter through a door with restricted access. It was raining. Allegedly Shays got exercised because his people were out in the rain. So he charged down to take on the offending cop, screamed obscenities at him, fingered the cop’s ID badge and stormed off in a snit when the cop wouldn't budge. Click for more.

It's the Soil, Stupid

susan — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 11:12:23 -0500

I’m not really here in the summer. I mean, I’m in northern Michigan, which isn’t exactly a reality-based place. I don’t get much news, although this year hi-speed internet finally made its way to our house, and so I’m a little more connected. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, as it feeds my addiction to the elegant Ms. PowerBook G4 who likes to sit in my lap all day long and keeps me up on the weasely ways of the Great Deceiver. BTW, did you hear that when they went in to remove the polyps they found his head? Never mind.

So yesterday I was reading about the $650 billion military budget bill that Harry Reid pulled from the senate floor after the filibuster folded, and all the mega-buck boy toys it includes. As the July 21 NYTimes editorial puts it, “The bill still channels unneeded billions to gold-plated marvels like the Air Force’s F/A-22 stealth fighter and the Navy’s new DDG-1000 destroyer and Virginia class attack submarines, while scandalously shortchanging the needs of Army and Marine ground forces serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. . . Defending Americans from today’s terrorists and other threats will require fewer air-to-air combat jets, big stealthy ships and submarines. It will require better-protected ground troops and larger investments in diplomacy, peacemaking and eliminating dangerous nuclear materials. (emphasis mine.)
I'll get to the soil, read on.

The road to Tim Walz: Part I

barbara — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 09:54:01 -0500

by barbara

My friend Margaret and I made a pilgrimage to Mankato MN a few days ago. Yup, Mankato. Think Vikings’ summer training camp. Skol, Vikings! But that has nothing to do with this story.

Mankato is where freshman U.S. congressman Tim Walz has a Minnesota office. He was hosting walk-in visitors for a few hours. So Margaret and I decided to visit. See, we don’t have a representative in our district. No. We have John Kline, the football-carrying Bush Republican.

Anyway, we were most of the way to Mankato when traffic suddenly came to a standstill. We were back too far for a good look, but we could see emergency vehicles of every description turning across our lanes. Oh, lordy, I thought. Something awful has happened in St. Peter. Click to read more.

Five simple truths

barbara — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:35:35 -0500

Perhansa writes:

I’ve been trying to simplify. Like most Americans, I want some easy answers to the daily complexities of life in these dangerous times. And so I decided to identify some simple truths I can hang my hat on. I’m trying five of them on for size…

Simple Truth #1: War is good business.

The DJIA managed to top 14,000 late last week. We’re not getting out of Iraq. It’s an interim step to bigger and better invasions. Iran is next—or maybe northern Pakistan. Continue reading.

read more

There is life in Congress

barbara — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:32:45 -0500

by barbara

Patrick Leahy plans to subpoena Karl “Turdblossom” Rove concerning the firing of several U.S. Attorneys.

Meanwhile, Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have sent this letter (link via Firedoglake) requesting the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the possibility of perjury by AG Alberto “I Don’t Recall” Gonzales. The letter is signed by Charles Shumer, Diane Feinstein, Russ Feingold and Sheldon Whitehouse.

The White House says Congress is out of control. And firedoglake says what that really means is that Congress is out of the White House’s control. Can it be? Could we finally be moving toward our own, 2007 Saturday night massacre? Read the rest.

Bullets for BushCo

barbara — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 18:37:55 -0500

by barbara

You know that god who is reportedly George W. Bush’s personal advisor? May that god take time away from Phony Moses to smite those who have been lying about Pat Tillman’s death. Because what is emerging this week is the distinct possibility that Pat Tillman was murdered by his comrades. And as that comes into focus, what comes along with it is an even clearer picture of the cold-blooded immorality of BushCo. Hyperbole? You decide. Read more about it.

Turn up the heat on Congress

barbara — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:22:28 -0500

barbara writes

I just checked the current temperature in Baghdad. It has fallen to 117 degrees.

The U.S. Congress and Iraqi parliament are preparing to take the month of August off. Tired. Hot. Need a vacation.

Meanwhile, American troops are slogging through extreme heat wearing body armor, Kevlar helmets, weapons and gear. All of them are sweating. Some of them are or will be bleeding and dying, a long way from air-conditioned home.

Yellow ribbons everywhere, proclaiming “support our troops.”

What’s wrong with this picture??? Click here for more and for an UPDATE.

Dear Al Gore:

barbara — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 11:50:30 -0500

Perhansa writes:

I’ve spent a lot of time reading up on global climate change but didn’t see your film, An Inconvenient Truth (which I received for Christmas) until tonight.

Damn it, Al.

If you’d shown just a smidgen of that humanness, humor, passion, and reason in the 2000 campaign, we’d never have had to live through the Bush I and II (aka The Invasion of Body Politic Snatchers). Read more.

Pay day, pay day!

barbara — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 09:58:54 -0500

barbara writes

America is paying George W. Bush $400,000 a year to front for BushCo, invoke executive privilege and clear brush in Texas.

America is paying Congress members $165,200 a year. It is not yet clear what they are doing. But for a payroll of nearly $72 million, we ought to be clear.

And now Congress is due for a $4,400 pay raise. Think $170,000 per representative. Think another $2 million for the Congressional payroll. (This does not include a raise for the First Obstructionist, who will have to limp along on his crony-enabled family fortune.)

McClatchy News tells us that "Congress approved the law making its pay raises automatic in 1989, giving legislators an easy way to avoid tough votes that could hurt them during re-election campaigns. Since then, congressional salaries have nearly doubled." Read more.

Breaking. . . Seizures, from Sea to Shining Sea

susan — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 19:11:17 -0500

Chief Justice Roberts has been taken to a hospital after falling on the dock of his summer home in Maine. It's been confirmed that the fall was a result of a seizure. Roberts also had an unexplained seizure in 1993. We wish him well, of course, but this could be . . . interesting.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department is having seizures of another sort in Alaska, ordering FBI and IRS agents to raid the home of Republican Sen. Ted Stevens. Stevens, the 7-term boil on the butt of the Senate -- and the competition for that honor has been stiff -- is under investigation for his relationship with a (suprise!) wealthy contractor. Maybe the bridge to nowhere has a pot of gold at the end afterall.

The C-Line likes to think of itself as more reflective of the news than cutting edge, sort of the slow food of blogs. But sometimes fast food is just too hard to pass up. So have at it.

Post note. Read on.