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Well written indeed.

A bit of paraphrasing if you please:

How much do I love FDL? Let me count the ways.
I love it to the depth and breadth and height
My mind can reach, when looking for whatÂ’s right.
For its clearly seeing and for your easy grace.
I love it to the level of everydayÂ’s
Most desperate need, at sunup and late at night.
I love it freely, as you two strive for Right,
I love it purely when you turn a phrase.
I love it with the passion put to use
In my daily grief, and with my childhoodÂ’s faith.
I love it with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost media faith. I love it with the breath,
Smiles, tears, at my late stage of life!—and, if you choose,
I shall but love it better after W is left bereft.

“and here we must concur with Bill — we worked damn hard to plan that war)”

But what about the War on Hanukkah??

If the war on Christmas is the best the snakehandlers can cum up with– I think we’ve got em down for the count.

I got email from the ombudsman _and_ the host of NPR Sunday in regards to this letter I sent. I think it applies to Grinch O’Reilly:

The World is Flat

I have serious issues with our Presidency. Our media is supposed to be looking out for the welfare of our citizens in the United States of America, not the welfare of their inside sources and friends in the corrupted GOP.

The world is in fact round. However, in order to provide artificial “balance” in the political coverage, the media appears to be bringing “flat earth” proponents to the table for the purpose of producing some kind of disingenuous balance. The result of artificially “balancing” political coverage has led to the spreading, and acceptance, of GOP propaganda. It is prevalent throughout our TV and print media outlets.

George W. Bush has stated he’d prefer to be a dictator at least three times. It’s not a “joke” - Our President is spying on Americans. Our President has taken us into a war based on falsified and easily disproved intelligence; regardless of the outcome, going to war under false pretenses is a crime. Our White House is under criminal investigation for exposing a CIA agent for political vengeance _and_ for lying to Congress for the purpose of engaging in an illegal war of aggression.

The world is round. Our President acts more fascist, than democratic. This is not a joke, our very democracy, the balance of power allocated under the Constitution of the United States of America has been grossly violated. These are _ALL_ impeachable offenses.

Yet our media still balances their coverage with “oh well the earth is really flat”.

Perhaps our media should go back to political school and re-learn the basic characteristics of a criminal ideology called fascism, errr flatism - It seems to apply to our country.

* * *

“You don’t get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.” Describing what it’s like to be governor of Texas.
(Governing Magazine 7/98)

– From Paul Begala’s “Is Our Children Learning?”

“I told all four that there are going to be some times where we don’t agree with each other, but that’s OK. If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator,” Bush joked.

– CNN.com, December 18, 2000

“A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it, ” [Bush] said.

– Business Week, July 30, 2001

I sent this letter out across the board, everyone, including Fox got a copy. Today in my local paper I saw another reader letter that compared the current adminstration to Fascism. Of three anti-adminstration letters printed, there were none in support. Also, in the op/ed at the NYT today there is reference to the fact Bush has declaired a dictatorship on three occasions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12.....3fri1.html

I know people are reading my letters ;)

Has anyone mentioned that all Fed employees got a message from President Bush wishing them

“Happy Holidays”

(no mention of Christmas anywhere)

it went out by email as a pdf

Someone call O’Reilly and tell him that the devil has another agent at work

If I see one more “news” segment on “finding the perfect present” or “only 2 days left to shop” I’m going to scream. It’s not my Christmas any more.

It’s not my Christmas any more.

If I told the true story of Christmas, how Yule was stolen from the Pagans… People would threaten to burn me at the stake.

Then… After Christmas became mainstream… They corrupted and stole the holiday again… Now it’s a captialist marketing tool.

The original holiday was celebrated at home with family. Everygreens were cut and brought inside to freshen the air and to remind people that after the shortest day of the year the days would grow longer and the countryside would green up again. Sweets, but especially fatty foods were served with fermented drinks and homemade gifts were exchanged among family members and friends.

The orginal holiday predates Christ by many thousands of years. When the Roman emperor Constantine made Christianty the official religion of the empire, they moved the birthdate of Jesus to December in an effort to convert pagans into the new religion. Yule was suppressed by force.

O’Reilly is such a buffoon. He needs to go back to hosting fluff entertainment shows like Inside Edition, where his miniscule “talent” can be put to better use.

Puzzled–You’re such a big brave boy but you can’t write out the word “piss”?

Does O’Reilly know that most of us would wear his hatred of us as if it were a badge of honor?

Love your insulting choice of words. Wow! “Dud” and “p—”. Learn those words as a big time lawyer?, which you are always mentioning?

Targe — I think your FDL-dedicated paraphrased poem is sweet!

Me — That’s a very well-written letter. I saw an article tonight about Governor Bob Taft (who seems to be trying to out-brownshirt the federal brownshirts) and the likelihood that he will sign the “Ohio Patriot Act.” According to that obscenity, people can be arrested for refusing to show their ID, even if they are doing nothing wrong. That article marks a first (sorry I don’t remember where I saw it, except it was from a “Channel 5″ local station) — the first time I saw a comparison of American law enforcement to the Gestapo published in a “mainstream” source.

The fascist theme is spreading far and wide, indeed. This topic will not be going away.

read and weep from WaPo: FEMA Disaster http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....13_pf.html

I just dug up an ACLU badge with a really sharp pin on the back, and I’m out hunting elves. Who’s with me? Tonight a bunch of us with some mean sharp stickpins will be crashing a bar where the elves hang out after work shooting pool. The Kajagoogoo on the jukebox will do a screech-stop as everyone turns to gasp at our leering gang, the lights glinting off our pins and playing across our designer eyeware. Then we’ll wade in and start the bloody hand-to-hand, pin-to-elf-neck combat that always decides a real war. If we’re lucky, we’ll take one out alive so we can interrogate him about his boss’s travel route in advance of an ambush on 12/25.

I’ve changed my cardigan so many times, I don’t know what I look liiiiike.

Jane this is so great:

“And while the crossover audience of the New Yorker readership and Factor viewers can probably be counted amongst the world’s shortest lists, we know those New Yorker editors are walking with just a bit more spring in their step tonight for being the newest inductee into that pantheon to which so many aspire.”

How can we help get FDL on O’Grinchly’s list?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....11552.html

You can sign up for the O’Reilly Black List here ;)

checking an email addy I rarely use, I found the latest Hightower email and it’s worth a read:

http://www.hightowerlowdown.or....._n12_1.cfm

Here are 2 long quotes since the main text is subscriber only on the site:

“Santa, don’t bring me any stuff. The one and only thing I want is this: A real Democratic party, alive and kicking!”

“Lost in Washington

With no strong national voice, Democratic officials in Congress now proclaim themselves to be the leaders and conscience of the party. God help us.

These people dwell in selfimposed exile inside the Beltway, operating under the sad delusion that they’re actually a part of the government. In most cases, their backbones have been drained of any populist commitment they might once have had and filled with both corporate cash and the corporate agenda (from the Iraq war to the anticonsumer bankruptcy bill, most of the Bushite horrors have been abetted either actively or passively by congressional Democrats). They seem incapable of standing tall for the vast constituency that desperately needs them, instead slinking behind the skirts of clueless consultants and fundraisers who keep advising them to put forth only the meekest, corporate-approved, don’t-rock-the-boat proposals. At a time when we should be setting off big caliber ideas, Democratic leaders are firing pea shooters.

A fellow named Doyle, who is a Lowdowner from Kansas, put it well in an email to me: “I’ve pretty well gone blind looking for leadership from my party these days. How come my yellow dog has strayed so far from home?”

The American public is looking for an honest answer to that, Doyle. It’s fun to watch Tom DeLay get pinched and Karl Rove get squeezed, and it puts a big grin on every Democrat’s face to see George W’s poll numbers sink like a Mafia corpse in the East River. But the party’s old guard and in-house operatives can forget trying to skate by on a campaign slogan of “We’re Not Them.”

“First of all, they are them. Congressional Democrats are mired in the same swamp of corporate money that has sucked up the Republican party, and Democrats have shown (with some notable and encouraging exceptions) that they cannot be trusted to vote for the people’s interest over corporate power. This is why voter esteem for Democrats has not risen as the GOP’s numbers have fallen.”

snip

“Are Americans really conservative?

The second thing I really, really want, Santa, is a Democratic party that’s not afraid of its own grassroots. The Washington cognoscenti the pundits and the politicos — have decreed that America is a center-right country. Thus, they intone sonorously and ceaselessly, it is sheer folly for Democrats to base their appeal on anyone more progressive than middle- of-the-road, party-switching, SUVdriving, suburbanites whose chief concern is traffic gridlocks.

Astonishingly, party elders have bought this load of bunkum , in large part because they mostly huddle with their consultants, big campaign donors, and others who peddle the bunkum. If they were instead to venture outside the Beltway, outside the safe pods of the national fund-raising circuit, and outside the echo chambers of their orchestrated “town meetings” — if they were to talk with and listen to regular workaday people — they would be astonished to find a different America than they think they’re in. Contrary to the contrived wisdom of the cognoscenti, the American majority is amazingly progressive … and pissed off.

How progressive? It doesn’t get covered by the corporate media (imagine that), but mainstream polls consistently find that big majorities of Americans are not meek centrists, but overt, tub-thumping, FDR progressives who are seeking far more populist gumption and governmental action than any Democratic congressional leader or presidential contender has dared to imagine. In recent polls by the Pew Research Group, the Opinion Research Corporation, the Wall Street Journal, and CBS News, the American majority has made clear how it feels. Look at how the majority feels about some of the issues that you’d think would be gospel to a real Democratic party:

- 65 percent say the government should guarantee health insurance for everyone — even if it means raising taxes.
- 86 percent favor raising the minimum wage (including 79 percent of selfdescribed “social conservatives”).
- 60 percent favor repealing either all of Bush’s tax cuts or at least those cuts that went to the rich.
- 66 percent would reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
- 77 percent believe the country should do “whatever it takes” to protect the environment.
- 87 percent think big oil corporations are gouging consumers, and 80 percent (including 76 percent of Republicans) would support a windfall profits tax on the oil giants if the revenues went for more research on alternative fuels.
- 69 percent agree that corporate offshoring of jobs is bad for the U.S. economy (78 percent of “disaffected” voters think this), and only 22% believe offshoring is good because “it keeps costs down.”
- 69 percent believe America is on the wrong track, with only 26 percent saying it’s headed in the right direction.
Americans might not call themselves progressive — but there they are. On the populist, pocketbook issues that are rooted in our nation’s core values of fairness and justice, there’s a progressive super-majority. It flourishes in red states as well as blue, cutting through the establishment’s false dichotomy of liberal/ conservative.

It’s also a pissed-off super-majority, for its views are treated with infuriating disdain by the whole political system — including corporatized Democrats who minimize and trivialize the grassroots populist fervor. By routinely dismissing the boldly progressive views of the people as unworthy of consideration, much less action, the political elites are coldly dismissing the people themselves and saying, “You don’t matter.”

Knock, knock

Hello … Democrats. That knocking sound you hear echoing across America’s political landscape is the BAM-BAM-BAM of opportunity pounding at your door, demanding an answer. So, Santa, this brings me to the third wonderful present I’d like to find under the tree: A Democratic party that will open its ears to the insistent knocking, recognize it for what it is, and (dare we hope?) lift its butt from the easy chair and open the damn door!”

full Hightower text also at www.alternet.org

Dover bitch — have you tried the wayback machine to recover your old blog pages?

It may be helpful…

neokneme,

Thanks, I have and no luck. It’s ok, though… no need to relive most of that horrible election :) It’s just a few pages that I’d like to get back, like the mission statement.

Thanks, though.

Not sure if John Casper is still here…

That Truman quote is great, but if you plan on throwing some presidential rhetoric at the Republicans, I find that they have a tough time arguing with this guy:

This is a time for choosing.

I made a speech by that title in 1964. I said, ‘We’ve been told increasingly that we must choose between left or right.’ But we’re still using those terms — left or right. And I’ll repeat what I said then in ‘64. ‘There is no left or right. There’s only an up or down.’ Up to the ultimate in individual freedom, man’s age old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with an orderly society — or down to the totalitarianism of the ant heap. And those today who, however good their intentions, tell us that we should trade freedom for security are on that downward path. — Ronald Reagan, March 20, 1981

/”Who knew O’Reilly could read.”/

well of course he can read. how else to explain bildo’s (rhymes with dickbrain) lobotomized version of justine?

bildo: You would basically be in the shower and then I would come in and I’d join you and you would have your back to me and I would take that little loofa thing and kinda soap up your back…rub it all over you, get you to relax, hot water…and um…you know, you’d feel the tension drain out of you and uh you still would be with your back to me then I would kinda put my arm - it’s one of those mitts, those loofa mitts you know, so I got my hands in it…and I would put it around front, kinda rub your tummy a little bit with it, and then with my other hand I would start to massage your boobs, get your nipples really hard…’cuz I like that and you have really spectacular boobs…

what odds on mrs. bill getting a loofa stocking stuffer from bildo?

Me3

Thanks for informing me about the history of Christmas. Well a lot of traditions have pagan roots, after all at one point many of our ancestors were pagan. Its also fascinating that three major religions today have middle eastern origins. At one point many of the adherents for all three were I would assume ethnically were what we call Arabs.

It seems we go far yet not so far.

OT, but I was born in Youngstown, Ohio. My father and uncles worked at Youngstown Sheet & Tube. I grew up watching the orange glow of Bessemer converter flames reflecting off low hanging clouds. Sooty & toxic smoke billowing from the mill’s smokestacks was a welcomed sign of prosperity. That’s what it was like in the old days.

Anyway, having said that, I’ve finally gotten off my ass and have started writing letters and signing online petitions.

Me3’s browbeating made me do it.

I wish I could say that I feel confident that it’ll do any good. I fear that we’re heading for BIG trouble. It’s gone too far. These people do NOT ever retreat or give up.

I wish I could say that I feel confident that it’ll do any good. I fear that we’re heading for BIG trouble. It’s gone too far. These people do NOT ever retreat or give up.

There is your battered wife’s syndrome, right there… And you want the people representing you to be different?

First of all… It does do good. I can prove it, I personally have seen the Media Campaign work. It is working, it is doing good. It’s doing a lot of good.

We are heading for BIG trouble unless we head it off. People are waking up, becoming more activist. Sitting here griping and complaining is just preaching to the choir… When you step out and address your feelings to the MSM, sign petitions, invite friends and relatives to participate… You are helping to reestablish a vocal democracy and you are throwing off the effects of the battered wife syndrome.

Lastly… You are absolutely correct that these people do not retreat or give up. The hard core base is sociopathic. However… These people can be pushed back. They are basically bullies, and if we _ALL_ gang up on them and push for all we are worth… They will get pushed back into the corner. Will they stay there? Depends on whether or not we quit pushing. As long as we keep the pressure on them, they can be contained.

You hear the rants that people like O’Reilly throw out… The name calling, the insults… But it completely lacks substance and logical talking points. It is totally fascist emotionalism, appealing to the basest instincts of the lowest intelligence. Practiced by sociopaths and bullies who love the idea of controlling people and making them afraid.

1) It’s a criminal ideology
2) The hard core base are sociopaths
3) It’s not sustainable over time, reality always brings Fascism to a crash and burn.

As patriots, it’s our job to push it back with everything we can muster. Quit with the defeatism, you are not defeated. Americans are not Fascists, once educated to what is going on they will reject the ideology by huge margins.

The country is already pushing back. Look at the numbers in the MSNBC poll:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904#survey

Look at the number of respondents in 48 hours. Look at the GOP base.

http://www.question.msnbc.com

Look at the question of the day. Once you answer, go to page 2 and look at the answers for the previous week. You can also post your letters and notes in the comment form at the bottom of the page.

No… The GOP will not just lay down and roll over. They will have to be beaten about the head with bricks and pipes, beaten into submission by a vocal and activist majority. The majority is on our side. But they, like you, are suffering from the effects of years of terror propaganda, mushroom cloud threats, “thousands will die” and O’Reilly bomb throwing.

Ignore the noise, come to your senses, do what’s right, have faith in the Constitution as a legal and enforceable document. They can only take our country, and our way of life… If we let them. We are in the majority. It’s simple… Don’t let them.

I don’t usually repost unless it is in the next thread for obvious continuity reasons. But, in the spirit of the holidays, this from a few weeks ago.

First my Bill O’Reilly Christmas story:

Sgt. Bill OÂ’Reilly, leading his squad of special ops Marine recon snipers in late December 1970, bagged a couple dozen ragheads -oops, cross that out - slopes, by jumping up out of the jungle foliage and shouting “Happy Holidays!!” The VC, being liberal automatons, dropped their weapons and exposed themselves to O’Reilly’s squad, expecting Peace Corps volunteers or visiting hippies with whom they could smoke some dope.

After he wasted ‘em all, Bill looked down at the black pajama-clad bodies and laughed. “Merry Christmas, Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh.”

Second, the background info:

OÂ’Reilly was promoted to the network as a CBS News correspondent and covered the wars in the Falkland Islands and El Salvador from his base in Buenos Aires, Argentina (1982).

On November 22, 2004, in an op-ed in the New York Daily News, O’Reilly said “Having survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands War, I know that life-and-death decisions are made in a flash.”

Elsewhere, he stated “I almost got killed twice. In Argentina, covering the Falklands War in 1981 for CBS News. Argentine soldiers were pointing guns at me…from 20 ft. away. In Buenos Aires. I just said, ‘Perio dista no despare.’ Journalist, don’t shoot. Showed no fear. They didn’t shoot. Covering the L.A. riots (for Inside Edition), on the corner of Normandy and Vermont, right in the middle of it. They were throwing bricks and stones at us. Concrete was raining down on us. The cops saved our butts that time.”

Here’s from his TV show at about that same time (11/04):

“O’REILLY: All right. Have you been in combat, colonel?

PUCKETT: Me?

O’REILLY: Yes.

PUCKETT: No, sir, I have not.

O’REILLY: OK. How about you colonel?

PJ CROWLEY, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: Yes.

O’REILLY: OK. So you know what we’re talking about, because I was in combat. And when you are there, your adrenaline’s flying through your ears. And you know, you’ve got the gun. And I just couldn’t understand — we had a guy in here from one of the human rights organizations saying you have to try this Marine. And I almost got — I was incensed. How did you feel about it?”

O’Reilly has often played up an unwitnessed encounter he claims to have had with Buenos Aires police as “combat.” He’s mentioned El Salvador as part of his “Combat” experience, but has never described a specific event that I’m aware of.

My favorite is his frequent reference to having been a “division leader” or “outstanding division player at my position” or even NCAA division leading kicker” in football at his college (Marist College in Poughkeepsie, NY). Marist only had an intramural football program when O’Reilly was there.

More from Wikipedia on dear Bill:

Bill O’Reilly has stated on a number of occasions that he’s “been in combat.” [39]. Once, in a column for the New York Daily News [40] and at least twice on his show [41][42]. On one occasion, a listener called in to ask if O’Reilly had ever served in the military and he said no. Yet a week later, a listener asked him the same question, and O’Reilly said he was in the U.S. Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance from 1970-71 during the Vietnam War; he boasted of having 27 confirmed frags, or kills, of Viet Cong soldiers. Critics have accused his statements about having “been in combat” as being deceitful, by falsely implying that he’s served in the military. He has also been caught on air talking about being with “my [his] unit,” undeniably implying that he has been a part of the military.

O’Reilly is a chickenhawk. He is afraid of physical confrontation and complains frequently about how much he has to spend on personal security because of the number of threats he has gotten.

Justin Raimando is an interesting fellow. His posts at antiwar.com probably contain more html links per phrase than any other consequential figure in the left blogosphere. His prose is archaic. Not like Winston Churchill archaic, more like Ferlenghetti archaic.

I just read what may be one of his best articles. He’s at a conference in Kuala Lampur.

Here’s the part which makes him part of the Victory in the War on Christmas celebration:

“I have to say that I amÂ… astonished by Malaysia. Here is an “Islamic” country where a gigantic Christmas tree sits in the lobby of the hotel I’m staying at, and the café waiters in the plaza a few blocks away are dressed like Santa’s elves.”

Eat that, O’Reilly!

The rest of Justin’s uneven article (he contradicts himself severely in paragraph eight, saying Robert Mugabe was uninvited, then alluding to his being on the speakers’ schedule (Mugabe was invited - I checked) is here:

http://antiwar.com/justin/

Dover, sorry, I posted on this thread and then went to bed, bad form. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and there is your Ronald Reagan quotation. I still like the Truman one better, but the DNC might not agree. I also appreciated your post about the War on Hanukkah. Unfortunately I think a lot of posters fell into posting “FitzXmas” without realizing how others might read it. Fortunately we were broadened by a few FitzHanukkah’s. Well, I am back to bed.

OT but important stories that keep our focus:

Tom Daschle in today’s WaPo says that Bush’s counsel tried to widen presidential powers in the authorization for force against Al Quada but that the language was struck. http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01101.html

And the NY Times has a profile of John Yoo, the lawyer who provided Bush with his worst arguments for torture, spying on Americans, the “quaintness” of the Geneva Convention, etc. Curious to hear who folks think are the sources for the Yoo profile?

lemond54 - Post a link to that profile and I will have a look. Yoo was one of those smart kids who pulled the wings off butterflys to watch them suffer I bet.

From an earlier Redd blog: “Hello, schadenfreude hotline? I need an emergency 24 pack, with an eggnog chaser.”

While I was laughing I decided to have some extra holiday cheer by scrutinizing Abramoff’s charity tax reports, which by law are available to the public.

They started off 2003 with a million in cash–not even in the bank–actual cash. For the whole year they earned $733 in interest. They took in another 2 mil and spent 3 mil.

Their address changed from Md to 1700 Pennsylvania Av in DC. Two board members, himself and possibly his wife. The 2004 report was not yet available, it looks like they take the maximum number of extensions. The website listed cannot be found online.

In 2002 they spent about 2.5+ million, in 2001 less than half million, and essentially nothing in 2000 and 1999.

TPM on Nov 4, Ellen Miller has a commenter, mrs panstreppon, who lists the details of all these documents. I particularly like the 2001 $1,000,000 donation by the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. Guess they’re really into helping kids become more athletic.

The funniest parts are where they affirm that no money was given to politicians or was used to influence legislation.

Ho Ho Ho!

Can I please have my morning coffee now? Thanks.

Back to Obama, briefly.

Check the back side of the comments on the Obama thread. I address Karen’s request for examples of Obama’s toadying to Republicans. Two highlights: voting to confirm Rice to Sec’y of State and Negroponte as death-squad administrator.

Obama may be a swell guy and is certainly a fine orator. But I’m sick of the syndrome of left-liberal deference to newly elected Dems who hit the ground triangulating. It’s, Shhh…(s)he is really a strong progressive but needs to lay low for now. Needs to establish credibility, get settled. Make nice to incumbents. Jockey for position. But just you wait! Once (s)he’s got his/her sea legs, there’ll be no stopping him/her. But for now, shhhhh….(s)he’s got to lay loooowww!

We saw it with Bill Clinton, who hit the ground reneging on his pledge to let gays into the military and went on (with Hillary) to completely marginalize single-payor advocates, starve Iraqi children, dismantle welfare protections, bomb Iraq illegally, bomb a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory….

We saw it with Hillary, with her vote on Iraq, parroting of GWOT doublespeak, and her brave assault on flag-burning.

But just you wait! They’ll reveal their true progressive nature any minute now. Any minute now.

So I don’t want to hear about how it’s too early for Obama to don his firebrand costume. If he’s got one, he should put it the fuck on, now.

When Democrats recognize that going for the jugular creates rather than depletes political capital, they may finally have a dog in this fight.

(OK, so forget the “briefly” part.)

people I have to say the whole 9/11 and the flag thing began to make me almost hate the flag. I’d see the poor thing being waved by an over fed too rich to need the army for a ed. and I’d grit my teeth. Now when some shop clerk says Merry Christmas I begin to grit my teeth. If this keeps up I’m going to need some dental work.

Really good thread, except for the parts on O’Reilly!

Just saw the news snippet below. Well, looks like all the world’s a stage.

MILAN (Reuters) - A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from the city in 2003, a judicial source said on Friday.

Milan magistrates suspect that a team of 22 CIA agents grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he was reportedly tortured.

ralphbon,

Right on guy!!! It’s time ta figure out that the fascists ain’t goin’ out fer cockatails with us after a “civilized discussion of the issues”…good lord, we’re in a fight ta the death and some of us areworried about the rules of combat.

I say we make 2006 the official year of the War on Assholes.

OT but did anyone catch “Constance” Rice on C-span addressing the Muslim American Council. Simply brilliant speech, with numerous solutions, to many of the problems the community faces. A really brilliant woman. What happened to ConiLiar, she didn’t get those genes that is for sure?

That should say..CondiLiar…but you knew who I meant….LOL

Ooooo, look. Now we’re into feedback. Hi Karen Hughes, thundering industry hack.

State Dept. Suspends Arab Magazine
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer Thu Dec 22, 4:01 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The State Department said Thursday it has suspended publication of a government-funded magazine for young people in the Arab world, Africa and elsewhere to see if the outreach effort is cost-effective.

The slick Arabic-English magazine, hi, focused on American culture and life. About 55,000 copies of hi were distributed per month in 18 countries; most copies were given away.

The two-year-old effort was intended to present a friendly face of the United States in parts of the world where the U.S. image is poor.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Karen Hughes, the former Bush White House adviser who is now in charge of public diplomacy in the Middle East and elsewhere, wanted to evaluate whether the $4.5 million annual publication cost was well spent.

Like U.S.-funded radio and television broadcasts intended for the Muslim world, hi was criticized as propaganda. Features this month included one on Texas, the state of the month, and one on multigenerational American households.

“Part of what she wants to do is see if we are actually being effective in getting our message across to the intended audience,” McCormack said. “So part of this assessment is to take a look at different feedback … take into account these kinds of critiques of the magazine and see what the next steps are.”

Rami G. Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon’s The Daily Star, last year called hi and other U.S.-funded media outlets in the Arab world “entertaining, expensive, and irrelevant.”

“Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they keep insulting us like this?” he wrote.

There are no plans either to scrap the project entirely or to resume publication, McCormack said. hi first appeared in July 2003.

The magazine’s Web site, which had a wider audience than the printed version, will remain active, McCormack said.

On the Net:

“Hi” magazine site http://hiinternational.com

Morning, gang. Ingesting coffee, digesting the latest. Hope everyone’s having a good morning.

Good morning ReddHedd!

Dear Mr. O’reilly,

Like many others, I’ve written bad things about you and the Administration you support. I know there are too many of us who have done that to all be included on your enemies list, but I’ve got something special that surely qualifies me. I think you are irrelevant, very irrelevant.

Is that enough?

…

There are three blogs that are required reading:

firedoglake
talkingpointsmemo
juancole

From the last:

Washington is apparently encouraging the idea of a government of national unity (called for earlier this week by Jalal Talabani) as a way of reining in the Shiite fundamentalist parties, who may well be able to form a government in their own right with the help of a few small parties. Washington fears that they are too close to Iran, and also that for them to present the Sunni Arabs with a tyranny of the Shiite majority will deepen and prolong the guerrilla war.

That is the essence of the situation in Iraq. I believe in propinquity. The US doesn’t stand a chance of keeping most of Iraq out of the hands of Iran. The Iranian President’s anti-Israel and anti-US tirades only cement his standing among Shiites in Iraq.

George has got three years to A-bomb Iran. Of course, the Democratic Party would never let that happen.

Anyone hear about Dashel saving our collective butts????

“military powers in the USA”

Jane, I love how the image you select is so indicative of the subject of your post. All I had to see were the loofahs, and I immediately knew you were talking about pervy ol’ Bill. Didn’t even need to read the headline.

Isn’t it fun to know that no matter what “contributions” O’Reilly makes to his brand of journalism, everyone has that knowledge of him being the pervert that he is in the back of their mind. There’s nothing more satisfying to me than to see one of these self-righteous assholes exposed for all the world to see.

It must really suck to be a walking punchline.

Hi Redd.
At Agitprop, we are linking to every vile piece of anti-Christmas propaganda (including this one), as well as creating our own, to assure we come up first on O’Reilly’s Google searches. 2006 is our year!

Good Morning All,

I don’t see anything around the web that even hints at today being Fitzmas…did I miss something somewhere that might brighten our day..week ..month..year…

Morning, Redd!

Morning All,

Dover Bitch,
Your Reagan quote was one of the best I’ve seen - and applicable to sooo many of Bush’s ‘constitutional pecadillos’

That graphic!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

ralphbon,

Amen on Obama’s triangulation. I live in Illinois, and it steams me especially because I want my reps to defend me NOW, not in some dim future when they’re finally prepped to run for prez. Obama suffers from comparison to our senior senator, Dick Durbin, who is nearly the flame thrower I wish all Democrats were, but who gets stabbed in the back by his colleagues if he circles too near the truth of the fascist administration we suffer under. I wish the Dems would let Durbin and Dean run ahead with the fascist line of argument to describe what Bush is doing. Durbin is politically secure, and holds a leadership position in the Senate, so it clearly is not overly risky with voters to tell the truth. The American people are already out there in impeachment land but the cautious centrists won’t let the party join us.

Last night on Steve Colbert, he was talking about Capital Punishment. He said without it, there would be no Christmas!

For those in the Tampa area:

Mark you calendars for Wednesday, December 28th!

This will be the final Drinking Liberally for the year 2005, and we need to do it in style. We’ll be meeting in the upstairs section of the Tampa Bay Brewing Company, 1812 N 15th St, in Ybor City at 8pm. Just walk in through to the back, go up the stairs and look for the the Drinking Liberally logo on the table. Remember, pints are only $2.00 on Wednesdays!

Bring your friends and family members, and get on out there.

Hope to see you all there!

Morning all,

re the WaPo article (site above) on Daschle, here’s the key part:

“Daschle’s article reveals an important new episode in the resolution’s legislative history.

“As drafted, and as finally passed, the resolution authorized the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons” who “planned, authorized, committed or aided” the Sept. 11 attacks.

“‘Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words ‘in the United States and’ after ‘appropriate force’ in the agreed-upon text,” Daschle wrote. “This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas — where we all understood he wanted authority to act — but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.”

Daschle wrote that Congress also rejected draft language from the White House that would have authorized the use of force to “deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States,” not only against those responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.”

Clusterfuck striking back on the spygate charges- he’s got minnions out lyin for him–check out the op/ed at WP on impeachment!

Impeachment Nonsense

By Charles Krauthammer

Friday, December 23, 2005; Page A21

2005 was already the year of the demagogue, having been dominated for months by the endlessly echoed falsehood that the president “lied us into war.” But the year ends with yet another round of demagoguery.

Administration critics, political and media, charge that by ordering surveillance on communications of suspected al Qaeda agents in the United States, the president clearly violated the law. Some even suggest that Bush has thereby so trampled the Constitution that impeachment should now be considered. (Barbara Boxer, Jonathan Alter, John Dean and various luminaries of the left have already begun floating the idea.) The braying herds have already concluded, Tenet-like, that the president’s actions were slam-dunk illegal. It takes a superior mix of partisanship, animus and ignorance to say that.

Boosting Democracy, Inadvertently
» Jim Hoagland | Except for Iraq’s elections and its constitutional referendum, this has been a lost year for Bush. The president flailed, stumbled or simply disappeared when the going got tough at home.
Editorial: Iraq’s Election Result
Mitchell: A Flat-Out Winner for Tax Reform
Froomkin: Return of the ‘I-Word’
OPINIONS SECTION: Froomkin, Toles, More

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Does the president have the constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches against suspected foreign agents in the United States? George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr (one critic calls him the man who “literally wrote the book on government seizure of electronic evidence”) finds “pretty decent arguments” on both sides, but his own conclusion is that Bush’s actions were “probably constitutional.”

In 1972 the Supreme Court required the president to obtain warrants to eavesdrop on domestic groups but specifically declined to apply this requirement to snooping on foreign agents. Four appeals courts have since upheld presidential authority for such warrantless searches. Not surprisingly, the executive branch has agreed.

True, Congress tried to restrict this presidential authority with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. It requires that warrants for wiretapping of enemy agents in the United States be obtained from a secret court. But as John Schmidt, associate attorney general in the Clinton administration, wrote: “Every president since FISA’s passage has asserted that he retained inherent power to go beyond the act’s terms.” Indeed, President Bill Clinton’s own deputy attorney general testified to Congress that “the president has inherent authority to conduct warrantless physical searches for foreign intelligence purposes,” then noted a few minutes later that “courts have made no distinction between electronic surveillances and physical searches.”

Presidents always jealously guard executive authority. And Congress always wants to challenge the scope of that authority. This tug of war is a bipartisan and constant feature of the American system of separation of powers. President Bush’s circumvention of FISA is a classic separation-of-powers dispute in the area in which these powers are most in dispute — war powers.

Consider the War Powers Resolution passed over Richard Nixon’s veto in 1973. It restricts, with very specific timetables, the president’s authority to use force. Every president since Nixon, Democrat and Republican, has regarded himself not bound by this law, declaring it an unconstitutional invasion of his authority as commander in chief.

Nor will it do to argue that the Clinton administration ultimately accepted the strictures of the FISA law after a revision was passed. So what? For the past three decades, presidents have adhered to the War Powers Resolution for reasons of prudence, to avoid a constitutional fight with Congress. But they all maintained the inherent illegitimacy of the law and the right to ignore it. Similarly, Clinton’s acquiescence to FISA in no way binds future executives to renounce Clinton’s claim of “inherent authority” to conduct warrantless searches for purposes of foreign intelligence.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales chose a different justification for these wiretaps: They were covered by the congressional resolution passed shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, authorizing the use of “all necessary and appropriate force” against al Qaeda. Gonzales’s interpretation is based on a plurality Supreme Court opinion written by Sandra Day O’Connor that deemed legal the “executive detention” of U.S. citizen and enemy combatant Yaser Esam Hamdi. “Detention” is an obvious element of any authorization to use force. Gonzales argues that so is gathering intelligence about the enemy’s plans by intercepting his communications.

I am skeptical of Gonzales’s argument — it implies an almost limitless expansion of the idea of “use of force” — while the distinguished liberal law professor Cass Sunstein finds it “entirely plausible” (so long as the wiretapping is limited to those reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda). Sunstein maintains that “surveillance, including wiretapping, is reasonably believed to be an incident of the use of force” that “standardly occurs during war.”

Contrary to the administration, I also believe that as a matter of political prudence and comity with Congress, Bush should have tried to get the law changed rather than circumvent it. This was an error of political judgment. But that does not make it a crime. And only the most brazen and reckless partisan could pretend it is anything approaching a high crime and misdemeanor

Friends and colleagues:

My employer encourages us to send out “holiday” cards to clients and professional acquaintances, but I have always declined; it seemed opportunistic, and this year it has become controversial (not that controversy alone would have persuaded me). So please don’t take it personally, but you won’t get a card from me.

I do, however, want to wish all of you a happy Winter Solstice, as well as peace, courage and wisdom. IÂ’ll explain why after a personal digression.

This has been a difficult year for those of us afflicted with the curse of moral outrage. In good years (none recently), the news featured more stories of people being kind to each other and fewer stories of cruelty and indifference, but this has not been one of those years. Not even close. In fact, in my 60 years, all but three or four of which were more or less sentient, I canÂ’t remember a year in which there were more things to be morally outraged about/against, or more reasons to be discouraged. And IÂ’m not talking about what is happening in my rather insignificant line of work, though there have been disappointments there, too.

Am I the only one who suffers from this malady? Maybe IÂ’m just overly critical, or worse, self-righteous. I worry about that. But how can one view the news we read every day and not feel deeply concerned? One searches for a clear moral compass, some way to understand and evaluate what is happening and judge whether we are making progress as a species, but it seems that on every common standard for judging human progress, the news is not encouraging.

Perhaps I’m just overly fastidious. But I’ve never been a religious person; my upbringing left me with the notion that the Ten Commandments were clearly better than none, as long as you understood the jealous deity thing as a metaphor for a commitment to truth, fairness and justice along with a warning not to worship their opposites. (If we got that metaphor wrong, we were perhaps only a step or two away from being Nazis or Jihadists.) I also believe the admonitions from the “sermon on the mount” were a positive step toward a common humanity based on kindness, caring, acceptance and charity. I like those ideas, and I admire those who have the courage to live them. My kids taught me there are also helpful notions of inner peace and harmony with ourselves, each other and the cosmos. That’s about it on the religious/moral side.

Politically, I think there are some useful ideas in the Declaration of Independence, that the ConstitutionÂ’s notions of checks and balances on government power are really important, and that the rules in the Bill of Rights are essential. IÂ’m sure there have been lots of other good suggestions about how we should govern ourselves handed down over the ages, but IÂ’d be happy if we could conduct ourselves as humans and as a country around those core principles while striving for the moral values above. The remaining issues about which humans argue might then become amenable to fair resolution, and the remaining disagreements wouldnÂ’t lead to more killing and suffering.

Yet we seem morally challenged on grasping any of these principles, and there are threats every day to even the most basic of these values. Indeed I suspect we couldnÂ’t get a majority of our elected officials to vote for these founding principles today. It is hard to believe, but there is actually a debate about whether and how much itÂ’s okay to torture people, or to hold them secretly in prisons where there are no rules or accountability; or they argue about whether itÂ’s okay for government to lie, mislead or plant misinformation or withhold/cover up the truth, or to let our government spy on us without having any check on who or why. It seems our current government is often on the side that says these things are okay. Wow. What would the founding fathers and mothers think about these people who seem to violate every principle the country fought a revolution to establish?

What does it mean to be “an American?” What does it mean to “support the troops,” when the news shows our guys breaking down doors, entering peoples’ homes in the middle of night and hauling away the young men, while the women, the old and children look on with horror? Our own revolution was fought partly because Americans hated the British troops for doing just that.

This year there are also other reasons to be wary of Holiday cards or even buying a Christmas tree. I always liked Christmas trees; I did the lights; that was my job. But not any more. I’m having a problem with those who have captured “Christmas” and rendered it to Fox News where whatever was left of Jesus’ teachings has been systematically and cynically tortured. As a result, we’re getting forced confessions from intimidated retailers and newscasters, all designed to get us to wage some unholy “war” against … what? Who is the enemy? Pogo was right.

Then there’s the nonsense that we can’t share some common celebration of holy days – the root for “holidays.” The reason, we’re told, is that “we’re mostly Christian, the Jews don’t care, there aren’t that many Muslims, and the remaining 1 percent are simply ‘insane.’” I guess this means I’m one of the 1 percent “insane.”

So until I find something better, IÂ’m going with winter solstice. It seems to be a permanent, undeniable thing, grounded in reality and full of useful symbolism about hope and renewal. It happens this year, will be here next year and the year after, no matter what nonsense we hear. Everything up to the solstice is about things dying, and our half of the world growing darker. But every day after solstice, the minutes and hours of light increase until eventually, it becomes warm enough to give life another chance.

So that’s my wish for all of you: that this coming year we all get another chance at life, another chance to change the news about our little planet for the better. A former friend of mine said she’d stopped reading the news because it was so awful and instead just “sent peace.” She’s right about that.

So, I send hopes for peace, courage, wisdom and life to you all.
John Chandley

Once again you’ve hit one out of the ballpark, Jane. By some wierd happenstance, the local paper in my under 100k population college town in Texas actually prints my leftist letters to the editor. Maybe it’s because we such odd creatures around here? Maybe it’s because no one actually reads it? I’d like to think that it’s because I actually have some novel ideas. Who knows? What’s the point here? To tell you that I try and incorporate some of your attitude in what I write. Thanks for turning on the light at the end of the tunnel.

ccmask - perhaps he should have said that without it there would be no Easter.

How do you become a pagan? Is there a pagan church somewhere in the neighborhood? Gonna go out an find a tree to worship!

Rummy announcing “drawdown” in troop strength in 06..

This is an attempt to co-opt the withdrawal issue- might work- now the issue is down to “how FAST do we draw down- not IF we draw down- pretty clever- and he’s only talking about a reduction of a few thousand troops.

Since the military is missing their recruitment goals- he probably doesn’t have the troops to maintain current levels anyway.

Jane,

Our dear Billy seems to lean towards the petty - next chance you have write about him in terms of a ‘Martinet’ not a demagogue and you should get his attention

he really hates it when you denigrate his power

Scarecrow-

Your letter was great. You should send that to all of your clients ;)

I got a kick out of your post Jane because I can’t stand O’Reilly. Sadly though, he is enormously popular because he taps into the rage of the mediocre who think they would be top dog if some cheater (or more worthy person) wasn’t stealing it from their rightful grasp. Unfortunately there are quite a few people who feel this way and Bill gives them the courage to vent their spleen.

Is Dan Froomkin’s wife Fitz’s sister? :-)

Froomkin today:

This is my last column of 2005, and my last column for a while. My wife, Paige Fitzgerald, and I are expecting our first child any day now, and I plan on taking several weeks off to spend time with the two of them. The column will return — probably sometime in late January.

It is curious why he used his wife’s whole name.

Butting in quickly. Is anyone listening to NPR? Some guy….I didn’t catch his name…just said hat he knows “people” are lawyering up in DC because of the FISA lawbreaking. He didn’t say who, he was being purposely opaque I think, but he insinuated it was people in the admin. This was in answer to a question re. if it was impeachable.

Should be “that” not “hat”

Fitzgerald *could* be her second name.
Regardless, I cannot see how the name, Fitzgerald has special meaning to his readership.

Good morning FDL!

Scarecrow - what an amazing letter! Thank you.

ewcole - there are many pagan circles though “churches” are not our style - may I recommend Reclaiming as one of the best pagan traditions - www.reclaiming.org and btw, a number of reclaiming folks including Starhawk are working intensely in New Orleans using green methods - www.starhawk.org

on the drawdown - the final total of “drawdown” will be 5-7,000 troops - not exactly a retreat, eh?

news from the BBC:

Killing of Iraq Kurds ‘genocide’

The West feared another Iraqi chemical attack after Halabja
A court in The Hague has ruled that the killing of thousands of Kurds in Iraq in the 1980s was an act of genocide.
The ruling came in the case of Dutch trader Frans van Anraat, who was given a 15-year sentence for selling chemicals to Saddam Hussein’s regime.

He was found guilty of complicity in war crimes over a 1988 chemical attack that killed more than 5,000 people, but acquitted of genocide charges.

It is the first trial to deal with war crimes against Kurds in Iraq and Iran.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4555000.stm

So will Rumsfeld, Bechtel and the other players in BushCo and Bush41 who helped arm the Iraqis at the time also come up on genocide charges?

At the moment- goopers are pretty nervous about the spygate story- their strategy is obvious- get some right wing constitional scholars out there saying that Clusterfuck’s defense is OK–scream about the need to defend the country against terrorism-(NUKES in NYC-etc) and claim that “It’s all politics)

So far they may be holding their own- and the general public is unlikely to be moved much by the thing- unless there are indictments- or impeachment procedures- etc.

This thing is just starting though- and they have no idea where it might go- add to that the fact that many of em (goopers) know in their hearts that what Clusterfuck did- is VERY dangerous- we can probably find quotes from many of them about Clinton taking much less dangerous steps.

The course of 06 will depend on this, Fitzy, progress in the war in Iraq, gas prices, and whether or not the housing bubble bursts.

Course there may be some things in play by election day that we don’t even know about now- invasion of Iran anybody?

I can’t yet see a clear trail- but it’s going to be an interesting ride.

No doubt many are “lawyering up”.

Wouldn’t be surprised to see some resignations by those most at risk- and predict that the spies who released the story to the NYT have some more details that will come out at an appropriate time..

They (spies) need to force public congressional hearings where they are asked to testify–then they can let it all hang out.

“Have your-sel-l-l-l-ves a mer-rrrry little
multiculturallysensitiveallinclusivesecularhumanistfirstamendmentCompliantinoffense holidayseason,
Make the GermanicPaganwintersolstice Yuletide bri-i-i-i-ight…”

Hmmm…gonna have to work on this.

—

off topic

just up on AP:
Alito Argued to Overturn Roe in 1985 Memo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ali.....MlJVRPUCUl

Roe v Wade probably should not be the primary argument against Alito. It will be much easier for moderates to relate to privacy, strip searches, machine guns, ethical problems, workers rights..etc. There is plenty to hammer him on without making abortion the centerpiece.
A big tie-in to Bush’s lack of judgement in his appointees, the rightwing lean the court already has, and King George trying to establish a theocracy. The GOP as a whole can be whacked for their agenda and Alito seen as an extension of that. The NSA spying has a lot of people thinking about the motives of the White House.
I really hope the Dem Senators on the Judiciary Committee don’t let ALITO fillibuster their questions and make him answer. Civility is dead in the Senate. The GOP killed it and the Dems need to play to win!! Hopefully someone will explain to Biden that he can’t go to loonytown on this one.

A lot depends on how spygate goes over- if people begin to turn against Clusterfuck on the imperial powers issue- then the best line of attack against Alito will be the issue of increased executive power.

Bobby G,

Yeah, it needs work, but a little eggnog helps.

At the birth of the republic- many wanted a king- many still do- although they wouldn’t put it that way–spygate will give the american people the opportunity to openly discuss the dangers of an unbridled executive branch–I’m afraid that there is a near majority that favors it at the moment.

‘They understand the risk of terrorism- and don’t at all understand the risk of fascism.