The Senate passed the President's detention and torture bill. 34 brave Senators (32 Dems, Jeffords (I) and Chaffee (R), voted against this fear-based betrayal of our Constitution. Olympia Snow didn't vote. All the other Republicans voted yes along with 12 shameful, cowardly Democrats, some voting to immunize themselves against Republican attacks in the next 6 weeks (Menendez, Nelson, Nelson, Stabenow). Others live in Republican leaning states (Johnson, Landrieu, Pryor, Rockerfeller, Salazar). Can't figure Lautenberg from NJ or Carper from Delaware. Lieberman was predictable.
Apparently these spineless wonders don't think we can be safe while observing international standards against torture (which we helped write) and Constitutional standards that are the basis of the liberty they claim they are protecting. Of course we CAN be safe and free. This is all about power and the shameless fear mongering needed to seize it.
If Dems do win a majority in the Senate, where will these dirty dozen stand then?
Friday, September 29, 2006
The Real Path to 9/11
Keith Olbermann puts the lie to Bush administration claims that they couldn't have done more to stop 9/11. They examine the evidence in this report. Catches quite a few of the administration officials in bold faced lies. Enjoy.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Terroristic Threats, Olbermann, NY Post
Never mind that we live in a time when right wing wackos make terroristic threats against commentators for, uh, making comments, this story is a sad commentary on the state of the press in this country. The NY Post, a Rupert Murdoch flagship paper, did a hatchet job on Keith Olbermann when Keith reported to police that he had received a mailed threat with white powder in it. The mocking story is a sad episode but as Keith explains, it just gets sadder and sadder.
Email to Harry Reid
Will Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate poised to let the CIA-torture (I mean interrogation) bill pass without a fight, I sent this email to mister Reid:
No topic for Iraq or Terrorism? Odd. (I had to select a topic. Homeland Security was the closest I could find.)
Dear Senate staffer (as I'm sure the Senator will never hear of this message much less see it):
As pointless as the gesture may be, it is my only recourse in our political system. I am writing to ask the Democratic Party's leader in the Senate to not only oppose the President's torture, unlimited detention and kangaroo court bill, but to filibuster it.
No Democrat should vote for this abomination to the Constitution. No American should support it. What the President has done in the past with his CIA interrogation program is wrong and un-American. This bill, which can only be called a compromise in the sense the Senate caved in, not only authorizes torture, but exonerates the president, his staff and the CIA of past incidents.
This is outrageous. Dems should stand united against it and filibuster. Far from hurting you at the polls, it will show principle and spine that grass-roots Democrats like me are longing to see you demonstrate. Rove and his minions will attack you as weak on terrorism whatever you do. At least stand for principle so that your base can know you can be trusted to stand against tyranny and other bad ideas. If you vote for this, what is your message to voters in November? We don't have the guts to stand against the President, but vote for us anyway, because we're not quite as bad as the Republicans?
This is wrong. Say so. Go on the offensive. If you do not want to fight for Democratic ideals, then resign. The grassroots need leadership. Provide it. Oppose this President and his extremist moves, or resign so we can find someone that will.
Tom Chamberlain
No topic for Iraq or Terrorism? Odd. (I had to select a topic. Homeland Security was the closest I could find.)
Dear Senate staffer (as I'm sure the Senator will never hear of this message much less see it):
As pointless as the gesture may be, it is my only recourse in our political system. I am writing to ask the Democratic Party's leader in the Senate to not only oppose the President's torture, unlimited detention and kangaroo court bill, but to filibuster it.
No Democrat should vote for this abomination to the Constitution. No American should support it. What the President has done in the past with his CIA interrogation program is wrong and un-American. This bill, which can only be called a compromise in the sense the Senate caved in, not only authorizes torture, but exonerates the president, his staff and the CIA of past incidents.
This is outrageous. Dems should stand united against it and filibuster. Far from hurting you at the polls, it will show principle and spine that grass-roots Democrats like me are longing to see you demonstrate. Rove and his minions will attack you as weak on terrorism whatever you do. At least stand for principle so that your base can know you can be trusted to stand against tyranny and other bad ideas. If you vote for this, what is your message to voters in November? We don't have the guts to stand against the President, but vote for us anyway, because we're not quite as bad as the Republicans?
This is wrong. Say so. Go on the offensive. If you do not want to fight for Democratic ideals, then resign. The grassroots need leadership. Provide it. Oppose this President and his extremist moves, or resign so we can find someone that will.
Tom Chamberlain
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Clinton Fights Back, Olbermann Kick Mas Butt
By now you've most likely heard about the Chris Wallace interview with Bill Clinton on Fox News Sunday. The cowardly Wallace said email from his viewers compelled him to ask why Clinton didn't do more to shut down Osama, again forwarding the proposition or at least implication that 9/11 was Clinton's fault. That's it, hide behind your viewers, Chris.
Bill then launched into a spirited and passionate defense of his policies toward Al Quaeda and lashed out at the ridiculous ABC show Path to 9/11 and at his neo-con critics in general. The right wingnuts have dubbed it crazed. You be the judge and watch it here.
Keith Olbermann then came to Clinton's defense. See that here.
But what kills me is this: Neo-Cons are so sure Clinton should have been able to get Osama when George Bush, with the whole world behind him, and twenty thousand troops, basing rights in countries that never would have provided them before 9/11, failed. And is still failing. But Clinton, with a balky CIA and FBI, a hostile Congress, no basing rights anywhere in the region, should have taken Osama out. Should have been easy. Huh. But then again, the right wingnuts have never let logic and reason come between them and their arguments.
Bill then launched into a spirited and passionate defense of his policies toward Al Quaeda and lashed out at the ridiculous ABC show Path to 9/11 and at his neo-con critics in general. The right wingnuts have dubbed it crazed. You be the judge and watch it here.
Keith Olbermann then came to Clinton's defense. See that here.
But what kills me is this: Neo-Cons are so sure Clinton should have been able to get Osama when George Bush, with the whole world behind him, and twenty thousand troops, basing rights in countries that never would have provided them before 9/11, failed. And is still failing. But Clinton, with a balky CIA and FBI, a hostile Congress, no basing rights anywhere in the region, should have taken Osama out. Should have been easy. Huh. But then again, the right wingnuts have never let logic and reason come between them and their arguments.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
More Olbermann Butt Kicking
Mr. Keith Olbermann is laying it on the President, again. The administration (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) have said that dissent is helping the terrorists, and that certain "thoughts" are unacceptable. Not actions. Thoughts and expressions of those thoughts. Keith has a response.
Monday, September 11, 2006
5 Years Later... Conspiracy Theories Debunked
Here's a great link to an NPR prgramn that had the Popular Mechanics editor debunking all the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, in case the sheer improbability and contradictions inherent in them aren't enough.
Enjoy
Enjoy
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Dueling fiction
No doubt by now you've heard of the ABC miniseries called The Path to 9/11, I was watching a football game last Saturday on ABC when I saw an ad for it. It claimed to be based on the 9/11 commission report. I thought that would be interesting viewing. But it turns out that it was written by right wingnut Cyrus Noratesh and based not on the commission report, which was compiled by folks honestly trying to get at the truth, but on right-wing fictions arguing that we are too free to be safe.
I was going to make a plea for sanity, as the post title suggests, and argue that we need to end the era of dueling fictions from the right and left that leaves us scratching our heads and trying to decide which is true. This nonsense does not serve us well. It is polarizing and dangerous, because it makes us suspicious of each other and immediately discount arguments that run counter to our inclinations. What we need is to focus on facts, things that really happened, and then have rational discussions from there. Dueling Joe Goebbels will not do.
I was gonna condemn slanted presentations and fabrications on either side, whether it be from Michael Moore or the yahoo who wrote this ABC nonsense. Actually, I hope I just did that. But as more and more facts come out about this miniseries, it becomes clear that this monstrosity needs to be vehemently condemned. And it is being condemned, roundly, by the folks that are being slandered like the Clinton administration, but also by the 9/11 commission members and counsels, and conservatives like Bill Bennett, not to mention regular people who've responded in huge numbers to protest.
Why? Allegedly, it contains a scene in which a CIA operative in Afghanistan has Bin Laden in his sights and is begging Sandy Berger, Clinton's NSA, for permission to take him out. Berger doesn't give it. Bin Laden lives and a few years later, almost 3000 die on 9/11. Bad Clinton administration, right?
Only that scene is just a right-wing fever dream. It never happened. We didn't have any CIA operatives anywhere near Bin Laden's camps. No one disputes that. Plus, former CIA officials say that Clinton approved every operational request they ever made concerning Bin Laden. Remember the missile attack on his camps following the embassy bombings in Africa? How does one square that attack with a reluctance to act on Clinton's part? If Bin Laden hadn't, on a whim, gone to Kabul that night instead of back to the camps, he'd likely be dead.
Further, and more perniciously, this show argues that Constitutional concerns made us too timid to act, implying that Bush's disregard for Constitutional safeguards is what's needed. We need to be less free to save freedom. Huh?
Interestingly, this "argument" is coming just as Bush is trying to scare the crap out of us again so that we won't kick his corrupt and radical allies out of the house and senate. He needs warrantless surveillance to keep us safe. Nonsense. No one has ever made a compelling argument that oversight of spying programs would compromise them. They say FISA court oversight is too slow and cumbersome even though it allows the spies to seek warrants 72 hours AFTER they spy, so they are not hampered in the heat of the moment. How is that burdensome?
No one says we shouldn't watch the bad guys, or act against them pre-emptively. All we ask is that there be oversight and that the President not claim dictatorial perrogatives to wage war. We can be safe and free. Paranoia is never an engine for sane and rational thought. We must never become a nation that thinks secret prisons, coerced confessions and secret evidence is okay. Those are precisely the things we rebelled against. Defeating the extremists that threaten us is not enough. We must do it the American way, always with respect to inalienable rights. The constitution says no "person" shall be denied due process, not no "citizen" or "American". If we forget that, we are not America anymore. What's right isn't always what's easy, but it is what separates us from other nations and makes us a good example of governance.
Anyway, back to the original theme. Can we please end this era of dueling propaganda and demonization and start acting like we're all in this together?
I was going to make a plea for sanity, as the post title suggests, and argue that we need to end the era of dueling fictions from the right and left that leaves us scratching our heads and trying to decide which is true. This nonsense does not serve us well. It is polarizing and dangerous, because it makes us suspicious of each other and immediately discount arguments that run counter to our inclinations. What we need is to focus on facts, things that really happened, and then have rational discussions from there. Dueling Joe Goebbels will not do.
I was gonna condemn slanted presentations and fabrications on either side, whether it be from Michael Moore or the yahoo who wrote this ABC nonsense. Actually, I hope I just did that. But as more and more facts come out about this miniseries, it becomes clear that this monstrosity needs to be vehemently condemned. And it is being condemned, roundly, by the folks that are being slandered like the Clinton administration, but also by the 9/11 commission members and counsels, and conservatives like Bill Bennett, not to mention regular people who've responded in huge numbers to protest.
Why? Allegedly, it contains a scene in which a CIA operative in Afghanistan has Bin Laden in his sights and is begging Sandy Berger, Clinton's NSA, for permission to take him out. Berger doesn't give it. Bin Laden lives and a few years later, almost 3000 die on 9/11. Bad Clinton administration, right?
Only that scene is just a right-wing fever dream. It never happened. We didn't have any CIA operatives anywhere near Bin Laden's camps. No one disputes that. Plus, former CIA officials say that Clinton approved every operational request they ever made concerning Bin Laden. Remember the missile attack on his camps following the embassy bombings in Africa? How does one square that attack with a reluctance to act on Clinton's part? If Bin Laden hadn't, on a whim, gone to Kabul that night instead of back to the camps, he'd likely be dead.
Further, and more perniciously, this show argues that Constitutional concerns made us too timid to act, implying that Bush's disregard for Constitutional safeguards is what's needed. We need to be less free to save freedom. Huh?
Interestingly, this "argument" is coming just as Bush is trying to scare the crap out of us again so that we won't kick his corrupt and radical allies out of the house and senate. He needs warrantless surveillance to keep us safe. Nonsense. No one has ever made a compelling argument that oversight of spying programs would compromise them. They say FISA court oversight is too slow and cumbersome even though it allows the spies to seek warrants 72 hours AFTER they spy, so they are not hampered in the heat of the moment. How is that burdensome?
No one says we shouldn't watch the bad guys, or act against them pre-emptively. All we ask is that there be oversight and that the President not claim dictatorial perrogatives to wage war. We can be safe and free. Paranoia is never an engine for sane and rational thought. We must never become a nation that thinks secret prisons, coerced confessions and secret evidence is okay. Those are precisely the things we rebelled against. Defeating the extremists that threaten us is not enough. We must do it the American way, always with respect to inalienable rights. The constitution says no "person" shall be denied due process, not no "citizen" or "American". If we forget that, we are not America anymore. What's right isn't always what's easy, but it is what separates us from other nations and makes us a good example of governance.
Anyway, back to the original theme. Can we please end this era of dueling propaganda and demonization and start acting like we're all in this together?
Friday, September 01, 2006
Clash of Civilizations
Interesting debate on Al Jazeera about why the Muslims are having problems. Go here
Keith Olbermann smacks Rumsfeld down
The admin is laying on the Iraq rhetoric thick. Don Rumsfeld said those who criticize the war are morally or intellectually confused. I would have laid into that nonsense here has Keith Olbermann not done so so articulately on Countdown on MSNBC. Here's the link to the transcript on his blog, but I highly recommend you watch the video, whose link is on the right side of the blog page. Since Keith has taken off the gloves, he's been perhaps the most intelligent and lucid critic of and commentator on this administration. Check him out.
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