LHP!

Fitz!

zed

I’ll tell them downstairs about the thread, then back to read.

Good morning looseheadprop!

thanks LHP, i always love your take on stuff. did you guys here about Chuck hagel taking aim at Bushco on Real Time? there is some story there about him not running for prez and resigning, any body have any ideas?

Oh, boy! LHP!

Mornin’ all. Hi EG.

you know after I finished writing this post last night, I was thinking about it, and I may have mis titled it.

This is not just about Patriot Act abuses. This kinda relates to the Spin Machine going after Move On for the Be Tray Us ad.

I think they fear that the ad would resonate with rank and file republicans, and had to take steps to change the subject from Petreaus’s lying to Congress to “support the troops”.

I think Jane was spot on in recognizing this in her prior post to Eleizabeth Edwards.

Instead of talking about the Lies a 4 star general told to Congress, our presidential candidates are talking about whether or not they like the Move On ad.

Witless wonders.

Hey, not so fast, Petwrecker!

Hi looseheadprop!

sheila @ 6

thanks LHP, i always love your take on stuff. did you guys here about Chuck hagel taking aim at Bushco on Real Time? there is some story there about him not running for prez and resigning, any body have any ideas?

You mean Bill Maher’s [SP?] show? Is there a transcript or video link?

Hagel on ReelTime.

‘mornin’, lhp!

Good morning everybody! Haven’t heard too much about the protest in DC in the media. Here are pics from my protest in SF:

http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..cisco.html

Some protests don’t need media coverage.

lhp – any opinion on Mukasey for AG?

quoting Bruce Fein from the link

5. Normal life involves risk and the government’s policy of risk pre-emption threatens our freedom.

Simple, strong, irrefutable.

Bush’s debasement of the word ‘freedom’ is turning it into something from the doublespeak lexicon, and that should be contested.

I like seeing folk like Hagel M.A.D.

Quite refreshing. MORE please.

Mebbe the ‘good’ repubbles will gobble up the rest.

The Comey speech is lovely. thank you.

LHP!!

Good Post, Thanks!

I think everyoe who gets one of those damn NSL should just start blabbing and let the Feds take thousands to court. See how that would go over in the public eye.

OldCoastie @ 12

Hagel on ReelTime.

‘mornin’, lhp!

Thanks for the link.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF THING I AM TALKING ABOUT!

It’s interesting to me that people are willing to give up brillinat lifelong careers at DOJ, Generals are willing to quite brillinat lifelong careers in the military, powerful senators who could be presidential contendors are willing to give up thier re-election prsopects

ALL to be free to tell the truth about this Administration!

These are Republicans, and the fact that they HAVE TO QUIT THIER JOBS in oder to tell the truth gives you some tiny hin t of how much pressure their own party has been applying to them.

So, when they do so, and at such tremendous cost to their own dreams, we have to be their to support them and help them get that truth out to the masses.

I don’t care if you are Dem, a Rep, A Green Party, hell, I don’t care if you are a martian, if you are willing to put patriotism and repsect for the rule of law and feality to the Constitution ahead of your party and your own abitions–count me as your ally.

From the LA Times:LINK

State-secret overreach

For too long, judges have allowed the government to hide mistakes behind national security.

By Barry Siegel
September 16, 2007

On Aug. 15, before an overflow crowd at the federal courthouse at 7th and Mission in San Francisco, three judges from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals listened to lawyers argue whether the once-obscure “state secrets privilege” gives the government an absolute right to withhold documents, bury evidence and block lawsuits.

The government claimed the privilege in connection with two cases challenging the Bush administration’s domestic surveillance programs, including its controversial warrantless wiretapping operation. Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, arguing for the government, maintained that the cases should be dismissed instantly, no questions asked, because a trial would endanger national security. Presenting any evidence in a courtroom, he said, would put the country at “exceptionally grave harm.”

When it comes to national security, Garre said, judges must give the executive branch the “utmost deference.”

After listening to such claims for a while, the senior judge on the appellate panel, Harry Pregerson, asked Garre whether the state secrets privilege meant that the courts must simply “rubber stamp” the decisions of the executive. “The bottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that’s the end of it,” Pregerson said. “The king can do no wrong.”

“This seems to put us in the ‘trust us’ category,” said Judge M. Margaret McKeown, referring to government assurances that the surveillance program didn’t violate the law. “We don’t do it. Trust us. And don’t ask us about it.”

This apparent skepticism on the part of Pregerson and his fellow judges was highly unusual and may signal a new willingness to question government assertions about national security. In recent years, as the Bush administration has relied more heavily on the state secrets privilege to have cases thrown out of court, judges have generally been willing to concede meekly to the government’s argument. Could it be that the government has finally overplayed its hand?

…

“I don’t care if you are Dem, a Rep, A Green Party, hell, I don’t care if you are a martian, if you are willing to put patriotism and repsect for the rule of law and feality to the Constitution ahead of your party and your own abitions–count me as your ally.”

Goodness, LHP. If you keep talking like that, the word honor might return to our vocabularies.

For some reason, I don’t seem to be able to get anything for the link “our fellow citizens from across the aisle.” I even checked the properties and tried to reach the main website from a search of American Freedom Agenda dot org on MSN, but it gives me a blank page. Has anyone else actually scored and visited the site?

scarlet p. @ 13

Good morning everybody! Haven’t heard too much about the protest in DC in the media. Here are pics from my protest in SF:

http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..cisco.html

Some protests don’t need media coverage.

There is a certain 1984 “down the memory hole” quality to the fact that even huge antiwar protests don’t seem to get covered.

Before the US invaded Iran there was a ginormus protest in NYC. Littleprop and I were in the city that day for another reason, and saw just a fraction of the march (the NYPD Broke it up into several “streams” and split the marhers ont odifferent routes–we saw the stream that marcched along Central Park South)

it was HUGE. It lasted for hours there were so many people.–

I looked for coverage. Mostly crickets.

BTW, “Impeach George Bush for Blowing the Job”–priceless.

sheila @ 6

thanks LHP, i always love your take on stuff. did you guys here about Chuck hagel taking aim at Bushco on Real Time? there is some story there about him not running for prez and resigning, any body have any ideas?

Do you have a link?

looseheadprop @ 23

scarlet p. @ 13

Good morning everybody! Haven’t heard too much about the protest in DC in the media. Here are pics from my protest in SF:

http://freewayblogger.blogspot…..cisco.html

Some protests don’t need media coverage.

There is a certain 1984 “down the memory hole” quality to the fact that even huge antiwar protests don’t seem to get covered.

Before the US invaded Iran there was a ginormus protest in NYC. Littleprop and I were in the city that day for another reason, and saw just a fraction of the march (the NYPD Broke it up into several “streams” and split the marhers ont odifferent routes–we saw the stream that marcched along Central Park South)

it was HUGE. It lasted for hours there were so many people.–

I looked for coverage. Mostly crickets.

BTW, “Impeach George Bush for Blowing the Job”–priceless.

Invaded Iraq, I hope you meant.

Ann in AZ @ 22

For some reason, I don’t seem to be able to get anything for the link “our fellow citizens from across the aisle.” I even checked the properties and tried to reach the main website from a search of American Freedom Agenda dot org on MSN, but it gives me a blank page. Has anyone else actually scored and visited the site?

The link works for me.

OldCoastie @ 14

lhp – any opinion on Mukasey for AG?

I did a post about him a couple/few weeks ago.
Sad to say I don’t know how wone quickly researches and links to prior posts on this site, so I can”t give you alink unless I spend a couple hours laboriously backtracking through all the prior posts.

I MUST learn how to use wordprss.

Thank you for urging us to read the Comey speech!

One of the things I am doing is sending Scarecrow’s post of September 13th on What Might Have Been, had we had genuine leaders as a word document to various folks like my parents whose network consists mostly of old fashioned Republicans and retired military. Nothing that I have seen recently puts the Bush failures in such a startlingly true light. I think it can get through when other more “partisan” pieces cannot.

Its a positive manuever for Republicans to cut and run from the horrible mistakes they have made. Congressional Republicans who wish to be reelected will have to become big ol’ flip floppers. Voters should not be misled. The R’s will always vote to gut Social Security, education and social programs. The R’s will always vote for privatization, weaker environmental regulations, and tax cuts for the wealthy.

The AARP is running ads calling for bipartisanship featuring a logo that blends the Donkey and Elephant. These ads provide bigtime cover for Republicans. The message they convey is that our big old giant mess is the fault of both Republicans and Democrats. R’s wish to be bipartisan right now. They didn’t until they got routed in the 06 elections. They anticipate getting clobbered in 08. Now they desire civility and bipartisanship. They’re cute.

According to the AARP (R – insurance whores), we should vote for the man or woman and not the party. That’s b/c the R party reeks and they know it.

looseheadprop @ 27

OldCoastie @ 14

lhp – any opinion on Mukasey for AG?

I did a post about him a couple/few weeks ago.
Sad to say I don’t know how wone quickly researches and links to prior posts on this site, so I can”t give you alink unless I spend a couple hours laboriously backtracking through all the prior posts.

I MUST learn how to use wordprss.

oh, here it is! now, to read…

LHP, you’ve already harvested a few comments that names names, Hagel gets mentioned readily, but we need a solid list of potential Republican realists that we can convey our concerns to.

There’s no doubt a basic movement by R’s towards the peace agenda, even Murkowski gave it some lip service, fwiw.

But who might we contact, other than Hagel, he’s alraeady seen the light, long ago.

Snowe? see this, http://snowe.senate.gov/public…..;Issue_id= she’s surely tacking to the center..

And Collins in pretty much in lockstep.

Who else in the Republicans might fit on a list of pragmatic survivors?

Here’s my own very short list, but I am no expert, that is obvous.

Hagel
Snowe
Collins

Any other suggestions?

LHP thread on Mukasey

Laura Doty @ 17

The Comey speech is lovely. thank you.

He has a gift/skill similar to PatFitz’s of hiding devastaing revaltions in plain sight, if you are willing to take the time read between the lines.

In that speech, you can just picture it, the ganging up on the only guy in the room trying to say “no”.

It also explains why the members of the Intelligence Committee were often breifed indiviually and why they always had that post traumatic stress syndrom face when they tried to talk about it.

the same bullying techniques that these thugs favored at Gitmo, influenced their behavior in high level meetings.

These guys are just plain HS bullies. Talking tough when it was many of them against one.

Laura Doty @ 17

The Comey speech is lovely. thank you.

Agreed, & we non-legal types never would have found it w/out this post. Many thanks.

Comey was a chem/religion major @ William & Mary? Interesting combo. I notice reading & listening to the remarks of the fired USAs that they quote Comey a lot, particularly regarding the “reservoir of trust” that needs to be maintained by the DOJ he emphasized to them when he was DAG.

They also have quoted Gonzales’ statement to them that all USAs serve the president rather than saying they serve the American People. Different reaction to that quote, needless to say…

AZ Matt @ 18

LHP!!

Good Post, Thanks!

I think everyone who gets one of those damn NSL should just start blabbing and let the Feds take thousands to court. See how that would go over in the public eye.

There is a link to the Librarian’s organization there. And that’s just what they did.

I know that some panelists at various Bar Association programs on these events are no longer even bothering to submit their proposed comments for pre-clearance as required by their security clearance agreements. Their attitude is “i’m intelligent enough not to cross the line and reveal anythig that will get me conveicted, so I’m not going to give them the chance to tell me ‘no’ (which would then result in a conviction if the speaker went ahead), and if they don’t like it, let them try to come after me”.

I have heard more than one speaker say essentially those words.

looseheadprop @ 34

Laura Doty @ 17

The Comey speech is lovely. thank you.

He has a gift/skill similar to PatFitz’s of hiding devastaing revaltions in plain sight, if you are willing to take the time read between the lines.

In that speech, you can just picture it, the ganging up on the only guy in the room trying to say “no”.

It also explains why the members of the Intelligence Committee were often breifed indiviually and why they always had that post traumatic stress syndrom face when they tried to talk about it.

the same bullying techniques that these thugs favored at Gitmo, influenced their behavior in high level meetings.

These guys are just plain HS bullies. Talking tough when it was many of them against one.

Yes, and salting the wound with the idea that the one would be responsible for the deaths of innocents.

One of the things I work a lot with my patients on is the notion that one can learn to stop and THINK. That–unless faced with a burning house or a safe dropping out of the sky–one does not need instantly to react. Internalizing the quiet, well-lit room. I don’t think there are many of those–figuratively or literally–in DC. Anywhere.

Comey was a chem/religion major? Is that today’s version of alchemy? It might have worked had the starting point for the transformation to gold been working with shit instead of base metals. (Sorry. I just couldn’t resist that one.)

The Anti-War rally is on Cspan right now.
I see Rev. Yearwood behind the speaker

Ann in AZ here is the link
American Freedom Agenda

i have small hopes that arlen specter might see the light-doubtful he will run for re-election and originally a liberal(long ago and far away) small hopes-but if a zillion people contact him, who knows?

Ann in AZ @ 24

sheila @ 6

thanks LHP, i always love your take on stuff. did you guys here about Chuck hagel taking aim at Bushco on Real Time? there is some story there about him not running for prez and resigning, any body have any ideas?

Do you have a link?

see old coastie at 12

35
Marie Roget
Comey was a chem/religion major @ William & Mary? Interesting combo. I notice reading & listening to the remarks of the fired USAs that they quote Comey a lot.

Alchemy and Religion make much better bunk mates. Maybe it was Alchemy.

Show me the veto!

[actually I’d like to see a bakers dozen veto’s but one would be a nice start.]

Laura Doty @ 21

“I don’t care if you are Dem, a Rep, A Green Party, hell, I don’t care if you are a martian, if you are willing to put patriotism and repsect for the rule of law and feality to the Constitution ahead of your party and your own abitions–count me as your ally.”Goodness, LHP. If you keep talking like that, the word honor might return to our vocabularies.

Look, I am a lifelong dem, but dems don’t have a monoply on honor. In fact, considering the craven politically calculating performance of ou current democratic majorty, I’m not sure dems even have a nodding aquaintance with honor.

the funny thing is, if decent honorable Republicans step up to the plate (as some of them appear to be doing) and show real leadership on these issued, they WILL STEAL THESE ISSUES RIGHT OUT FROM UNER DEMOCRATS NOSES.

Dems have been spineless, and few brave Republicans could actually save their party because of the vacuum created by our so called “leaders” in Congress.

Howard Dean, until there is a nominee, you ARE the leader of our party.

Please, your party and your COUNTRY need you to step up and set an interim agenda. you have the brass reproductive organs to pull this off.

JUST DO IT

Ann in AZ @ 22

For some reason, I don’t seem to be able to get anything for the link “our fellow citizens from across the aisle.” I even checked the properties and tried to reach the main website from a search of American Freedom Agenda dot org on MSN, but it gives me a blank page. Has anyone else actually scored and visited the site?

I had trouble with their site as well. In order to get the page to laod yesterday, at one point I had to reboot my computer. The problem is at their end. I can only get ti to open one out of 4 times. Don’t have aclue what the probalem is.

Is John Dean still a republican? We could start a list of really good republicans beginning with Comey.

What I’m getting from your post, LHP, is the idea not only of reaching out to legislators across the aisle, but reaching out to those we know identify with the other party, and encouraging THEM to reach out to their reps. To seek out people who may not share every value we have, but who really care about this country.

There are so many folks like that. And I’ll bet a lot of them have never written a letter to a legislator or walked in a march or put a poster in their window, never having felt that their interests were threatened as they are now.

I think the failure of our leaders to do much at all that is right and deft and good continues to demonstrate that we must all be leaders, and all speak up. And we have to help each other learn how to do this….reaching out to our neighbors and families and coworkers and….and asking them to get involved.

That’s bipartianship….not politely giving up ground…but everybody showing up at the table. Messy, but democracy.

looseheadprop @ 27

OldCoastie @ 14

lhp – any opinion on Mukasey for AG?

I did a post about him a couple/few weeks ago.
Sad to say I don’t know how wone quickly researches and links to prior posts on this site, so I can”t give you alink unless I spend a couple hours laboriously backtracking through all the prior posts.

I MUST learn how to use wordprss.

Here it is: lhp on Mukasey

lhp’s law clerk.

LHP–I meant my honor comment archly. Sorry if it didn’t sound that way. I feel it’s a word–and concept–used too infrequently these days. As though it’s an embarrassing–even hokey– idea, rather than something to cherish.

Under no circumstances should anyone vote for any republican, ever, unless he agrees with the Republican agenda.

Of key importance is Social Security, Medicaid, VA Benefits, Education, and progressive taxation.

These are all items that the Republican agenda seeks to destroy. If you don’t want them, then IOKTVR.

Loo Hoo. @ 46

Is John Dean still a republican? We could start a list of really good republicans beginning with Comey.

No, he switched parties.

katymine @ 39

The Anti-War rally is on Cspan right now.
I see Rev. Yearwood behind the speaker

Ann in AZ here is the link
American Freedom Agenda

Thanks. Got it on now.

JEP @ 32

LHP, you’ve already harvested a few comments that names names, Hagel gets mentioned readily, but we need a solid list of potential Republican realists that we can convey our concerns to.

There’s no doubt a basic movement by R’s towards the peace agenda, even Murkowski gave it some lip service, fwiw.

But who might we contact, other than Hagel, he’s alraeady seen the light, long ago.

Snowe? see this, http://snowe.senate.gov/public…..;Issue_id= she’s surely tacking to the center..

And Collins in pretty much in lockstep.

Who else in the Republicans might fit on a list of pragmatic survivors?

Here’s my own very short list, but I am no expert, that is obvous.

Hagel
Snowe
Collins

Any other suggestions?

Not yet, but I am going to start looking at that.

You know whenever Christy urges us to call our Congres Critters, I usually don’t bother becase Hillary and Schumer are nto moveable objects and my house rep. is Peter King famous for not even taking consituent comments from Dems (I am a well known Dem in my district) so, I know it’s awaste of time.

But the work that some honest patriot Republicans have been doing lately has started me thinking that maybe I sould be evaluating both voting records, public statements and re-election pressures of various Reps to put together a list of “persuadables”.

This kinda relates to the whole “Priming the Pump” idea. How do we make it OK for Reps in Congress to do what we want.

1) When Reps of any stripe say something that helps us, WE NEED TO GET THE MESSAGE OUT
2) When Reps of any strip say or do things that help us, we need to support them and have their backs
3) When Reps in Congress look like ther may be some sofenting, we need to lobby them vigorously
4) we gotta make it easy for them to “come to jesus” at is were.

Loo Hoo. @ 46

Is John Dean still a republican? We could start a list of really good republicans beginning with Comey.

John Dean told me that he is a registered Independent at an ACLU Townhall last year

Oh gawd, do I feel better! Knowing this.

AP – The Bush administration is committed, for now, to using diplomatic and economic means to counter the potential nuclear threat from Iran, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

John Dean should get a full pardon from the next president.

this post is right on the money, and as a fact, if we looked to the principles that republican constituents claim they value, they are in fact democrats not republicans

it’s been marketing that has taken democrats and convinced them to vote republican, marketing and only marketing

WE are the party of fiscal responsibility, WE are the party of strong military, WE are the party of integrity, WE are the party of getting government out of our private lives, WE are the party of the constitution, WE are the party of the smallest government possible

WE ARE THE PARTY OF LOWER TAXES FOR THE PEOPLE

WE ARE THE PARTY THAT DRIVES A GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE

we concervatives and WE are the conservatives, NOT the republicans

now, we know the democrats will agree with us if we call them to do what needs to be done with this administration, it is THE REPUBLICAN politician we need to be calling, FAR MORE then the democratic politician

make your calls to democrats when you think a democrat isn’t doing the right thing or enough, but make your calls to REPUBLICANS when the democrats are allready doing what we need to be done

Honest decent Republicans with integrity are just as opposed to Bushco’s illegal destruction of our rights and civil liberties as we are. They are just as appalled at the destruction of the Rule of Law as we. They weep as hard as we do for the desecration of our Constitutional way of life.

As an honest, decent Republican with a big “Impeach” bumper sticker on my car I agree 100%. I’ve been writing my congress critters for every month or more, generally with something along the lines of this

Senator Kyl –

I’ve lived most of my life in Arizona, and I’ve been a registered Republican since I was old enough to vote. I’ve seen a lot of things over the years that have made me proud of that, and some that have made me ashamed, but lately what I’m seeing is getting me mad.

I hope you’ll see why if you’ll take a moment to recall a bit of history with me.

First off, I’d like you to think back on what happened when President Nixon used his executive clemency powers to buy off Mr. McCord who’d been doing his dirty work for him, in the hopes that it would keep him from talking. That sort of thing stinks to high Heaven, and it turned out to be one of the things we impeached him for.

Which brings us to the second thing I’d like you to recall. At the time, your job was being held by a fellow named Goldwater. I expect you remember him. He saw the writing on the wall, and went down to have a chat with the President. Told him that enough was enough, and that it was time for the President to stop trying to save his own hide and do the right thing for his party and his country.

Quite a few years later we had another dishonest President in the white house. When they finally hauled him up for lying under oath you gave a great speech, one I suspect Senator Goldwater would have been proud of. You said “Equal justice …includes the requirement that those who make the laws (including the President) must live under them like anybody else” and “oaths are essential to the rule of law because the judicial process is about seeking the truth; and that requires that we be able to trust what is said. The oath formalizes the commitment to tell the truth, and the whole truth–a commitment so important that its violation is itself a crime.”

You quoted John Jay as saying “there is no crime more extensively pernicious to society than perjury, precisely because it discolors and poisons the streams of justice.” and Rehnquist as writing that “the counts relating to the obstruction of justice and to the unlawful use of executive power [by President Nixon] were of the kind that would surely have justified removal from office.”

It’s a great speech, and I’d recommend you go back and read it again if you haven’t lately.

Point three is the conviction of I. Lewis Libby by a jury of his peers, facing a Republican judge and a prosecutor appointed by President Bush himself of several counts of these same crimes, perjury and obstruction of justice, and the handing down of a sentence that was quite in line with the severity of the crimes–light, if you ask me. And from the evidence that came out in court you’d have to be blind not to see who’s butts he’s protecting.

Point four is President Bush trying the same tawdry trick (to borrow a phrase from Senator Hagle) with Mr. Libby that President Nixon pulled with Mr. McCord, and for the same exact reason. President Bush even admits that Mr. Libby is guilty (he’d be hard pressed to do otherwise). That right there should set any right thinking American to calling for impeachment, just like with President Nixon.

And then I hear on the news that you “spoke with approval” of the commutation. Is that true? If not, you should be shouting the fact from the rooftops.

And, if it is. What happened to the man who gave that fine speech when Clinton was caught lying? Where is the man we sent to sit in Senator Goldwater’s chair?

And in either case, what in the heck are you thinking?

Perhaps even more effective, I’ve been talking to my friends and neighbors, handing out “Impeach” stickers, and in general pushing for public awareness of the problem. Interesting note. This is a very red state, and all the stickers say is the one word, “Impeach.” Since I started handing them out last spring I’ve never had one single person ask “Who?” or “For what?” or “Why?”–but I’ve discovered that there were a lot more reasons for impeachment floating around out there than I’d ever suspected, and every single person out there seems to have heard of at least a couple of them.

–MarkusQ

JEP @ 32

LHP, you’ve already harvested a few comments that names names, Hagel gets mentioned readily, but we need a solid list of potential Republican realists that we can convey our concerns to.

There’s no doubt a basic movement by R’s towards the peace agenda, even Murkowski gave it some lip service, fwiw.

But who might we contact, other than Hagel, he’s alraeady seen the light, long ago.

Snowe? see this, http://snowe.senate.gov/public…..;Issue_id= she’s surely tacking to the center..

And Collins in pretty much in lockstep.

Who else in the Republicans might fit on a list of pragmatic survivors?

Here’s my own very short list, but I am no expert, that is obvous.

Hagel
Snowe
Collins

Any other suggestions?

Bill Maher mentioned John Danforth, Colin Powell, Christie Todd Whitman, and Lawrence Wilkerson.

Marie Roget @ 35

Laura Doty @ 17

The Comey speech is lovely. thank you.

Agreed, & we non-legal types never would have found it w/out this post. Many thanks.

Comey was a chem/religion major @ William & Mary? Interesting combo. I notice reading & listening to the remarks of the fired USAs that they quote Comey a lot, particularly regarding the “reservoir of trust” that needs to be maintained by the DOJ he emphasized to them when he was DAG.

They also have quoted Gonzales’ statement to them that all USAs serve the president rather than saying they serve the American People. Different reaction to that quote, needless to say…

Comey’s theology studies influence his private conversation to an noticable degree. Not just his own religion, all religions.

He seems to have an inherent respect for all forms of spritual thought. Often made me feel shallow and superficial.

this post is a bunch of nonsense happytalk – wishful thinking that there is some great “silent majority” of republicans that are secretly retching over the destruction THEIR party has caused the US the past 25 years.

The people who care about the United States and used to be republicans have already left the republican party. What is left is 30% of the population that is rabid republican extremists; they are pro-war – first last, and always, pro-torture, pro-indefinite detention, pro-criminally unitary president (i.e., totalitarianism), and pro-white male authoritarian domination of the nation.

There has been more than enough information out there the past 6 years for moderate republicans to step up and defend the United States against the extremists that have taken over their party. Few have murmured even a whisper of objection – NONE HAVE STOOD UP.

Sure you need to appeal to the middle to elect democrats. But don’t be talking nonsense that somehow there are republicans in that middle and worse yet that there are republican politicians willing to listen to them and push a middle position or compromise. republican politicians are not listening to the middle – they are only listening to the extremist base.
.

THANK YOU MarkusQ!!

lhp -

I luv ya dearly but…….

Please. Do. Not. Admonish people who are on dial-up, work-place restriction, etc. to “watch the videos and listen to the online conference calls”.

I am getting a wee tad tired of the increasing reliance of blogs on visual vs. print.

I fully realize that one picture (read video) is often worth a thousand words.

But……..every time the assumption is made that *everyone* has the same degree of access to information, it only serves to remind (and infuriate) me about all the cr*p put out during the Part D debacle wrt how seniors could just go on-line and get all the information they needed. FEH!

Unfortunately, my reaction (which some may take to be irrational) has diluted your very powerful message for this pup. And that is my failing.

I don’t ever remember getting “snippy” at the Lake before (and will likely get hammered for it and even now am debating whether to hit “Submit”) but, as you can tell, “a nerve was hit”. *g*

Part D really *did* send me over the edge wrt to information availability, or inaccessability.

Pax, W

Lets really stick it to the Republicans and do right by a good man. The next elected Democratic President (in 2008) should give John Dean a full and unconditional pardon and name him Attorney General. Now that, would be making good history.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 55

Oh gawd, do I feel better! Knowing this.

AP – The Bush administration is committed, for now, to using diplomatic and economic means to counter the potential nuclear threat from Iran, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

Dialing it back a little. That’s good. Bushco is currently preoccupied with keeping the R party together. Can they do it?

Chris Wallace said he had lunch with the president. Interesting. This from Think Progress:

UPDATE: Mukasey also issued the first ruling in the Jose Padilla case after 9/11. While he ruled that “President Bush did have the authority to hold Mr. Padilla as an enemy combatant without charging him for a crime,” he also “ruled that the government must allow Mr. Padilla to see his attorneys.”

UPDATE II: Mukasey is an adviser to Rudy Guiliani’s presidential campaign.

UPDATE III: AP reports that some conservatives are already “drafting a strategy to oppose him.”

OT, sorry: Medaka is saying hi in Talking Heads.

A Dem President will be a wonderful tonic for Congressional ‘Pugs. They’ll rediscover their patriotic fervor for the 1st, 4th and 6th Amendments…Of course, we have to make sure it’s a Dem Prez…

Loo Hoo. @ 46

Is John Dean still a republican? We could start a list of really good republicans beginning with Comey.

Comey is a hard right conservative ideologue. (Aside from his record, just think about it for a minute, if he wasn’t a hard right bush croney, he would NEVER have been given a position in the bush administration, let alone a high ranking position). That Comey wouldn’t quite go the full-out subversion of the Constitution YET doesn’t make him a “good” anything. He is to be feared as an underminer of the US as much or more than any of today’s republicans.

P.S. Does the fact that Ashcroft wouldn’t sign on to bush’s illegal plans make Ashcroft a “good republican” too? puuuulllleeeezzzzz
.

susan g @ 40

i have small hopes that arlen specter might see the light-doubtful he will run for re-election and originally a liberal(long ago and far away) small hopes-but if a zillion people contact him, who knows?

I know how you feel. I’ve had hopes about Arlen, too, but the trouble with Spector is, he seems to have an abundance of convictions, but he never seems to actually do more than talk a good game. In the end, instead of standing up and showing the courage of his conviction, he lays down. This is unfortunate, because most people would have more respect for someone who shows the courage of his convictions than for one who obviously knows better, but sells out.

James Comey, who had Patrick Fitzgerald appointed to the Plame leak, who accompanied Gonzales on his midnight hospital visit to extort unconscionable agreement from a mortally ill Ashcroft, and who blew the whistle on this abuse of power, ought to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

He’s the best candidate since Eliot Richardson, another principled Republican.

Why cannot the Senate unite behind this good and eminently qualified man?

Laura Doty @ 47

What I’m getting from your post, LHP, is the idea not only of reaching out to legislators across the aisle, but reaching out to those we know identify with the other party, and encouraging THEM to reach out to their reps. To seek out people who may not share every value we have, but who really care about this country.

There are so many folks like that. And I’ll bet a lot of them have never written a letter to a legislator or walked in a march or put a poster in their window, never having felt that their interests were threatened as they are now.

I think the failure of our leaders to do much at all that is right and deft and good continues to demonstrate that we must all be leaders, and all speak up. And we have to help each other learn how to do this….reaching out to our neighbors and families and coworkers and….and asking them to get involved.

That’s bipartianship….not politely giving up ground…but everybody showing up at the table. Messy, but democracy.

Yes that is my point. For example, my law patner is a life long Rep. He is actually a good buddy of my crazy Cong Rep.

I watched my law parter (whom I met at the USA’s Office) go through every one of the classic stages of grief over the revelations of what AGAG and Rove/Addington did to DOJ.

He is heartbroken. A call from him to a republican Congresscritter ( he is also a life long donor) will carry a lot more weight with them than a call from me. Should he wake up tomorrow morning and feel himself to be readicalized enough to act, he could have a huge impact with little ffort where I would have little impact with huge effort.

I don’t think he it there yet emotionally, but you see my point.

We also have to show by example, so we have to “have the backs” of guys like Admiral Fallon when he tells the truth on Capital Hill. We need to have Hagel’s back if they try to Swift Boat him.

We need to get the message out when the resigned Generals give a speech or put out a paper.

Scarecrow at 48

“LHP’s law clerk” = ?

I don’t understand. I did not clerk for Mukasey, nor do I have a law clerk of my own (not being a judge)

Why do Republican voters want to feed, clothe, and house their parents (and burden their own children thus)? If they like the way the third world does it, there are many choices that already exist.

looseheadprop @ 73

Scarecrow at 48

“LHP’s law clerk” = ?

I don’t understand. I did not clerk for Mukasey, nor do I have a law clerk of my own (not being a judge)

I think he means now :)
We are all ready to assist you however we can.

Honest decent Republicans with integrity

That’s a joke, right? That beast simply does not exist, or if it does exist it is in such small numbers as to be insignificant.

Next pres will be seen as strong on defense- supportive of the military- clear headed and dependable- and not a rabble rouser.

People are going to want to feel that they can go back to ignoring politics and that things will be taken care of. They don’t want any radical change- just security..

Hey Hackworth, great minds? See my alchemy point @38. But nobody else seems to be laughing. :-( I think I will take myself outside and work on different transformations – my fish filters need cleaning. That mulm, as the professionals call it, makes my roses very happy.

So
does NSL stand for National Security Letters or National Stasi Letters?

MarkusQ @ 58

Honest decent Republicans with integrity are just as opposed to Bushco’s illegal destruction of our rights and civil liberties as we are. They are just as appalled at the destruction of the Rule of Law as we. They weep as hard as we do for the desecration of our Constitutional way of life.

As an honest, decent Republican with a big “Impeach” bumper sticker on my car I agree 100%. I’ve been writing my congress critters for every month or more, generally with something along the lines of this

Senator Kyl –

I’ve lived most of my life in Arizona, and I’ve been a registered Republican since I was old enough to vote. I’ve seen a lot of things over the years that have made me proud of that, and some that have made me ashamed, but lately what I’m seeing is getting me mad.

I hope you’ll see why if you’ll take a moment to recall a bit of history with me.

First off, I’d like you to think back on what happened when President Nixon used his executive clemency powers to buy off Mr. McCord who’d been doing his dirty work for him, in the hopes that it would keep him from talking. That sort of thing stinks to high Heaven, and it turned out to be one of the things we impeached him for.

Which brings us to the second thing I’d like you to recall. At the time, your job was being held by a fellow named Goldwater. I expect you remember him. He saw the writing on the wall, and went down to have a chat with the President. Told him that enough was enough, and that it was time for the President to stop trying to save his own hide and do the right thing for his party and his country.

Quite a few years later we had another dishonest President in the white house. When they finally hauled him up for lying under oath you gave a great speech, one I suspect Senator Goldwater would have been proud of. You said “Equal justice …includes the requirement that those who make the laws (including the President) must live under them like anybody else” and “oaths are essential to the rule of law because the judicial process is about seeking the truth; and that requires that we be able to trust what is said. The oath formalizes the commitment to tell the truth, and the whole truth–a commitment so important that its violation is itself a crime.”

You quoted John Jay as saying “there is no crime more extensively pernicious to society than perjury, precisely because it discolors and poisons the streams of justice.” and Rehnquist as writing that “the counts relating to the obstruction of justice and to the unlawful use of executive power [by President Nixon] were of the kind that would surely have justified removal from office.”

It’s a great speech, and I’d recommend you go back and read it again if you haven’t lately.

Point three is the conviction of I. Lewis Libby by a jury of his peers, facing a Republican judge and a prosecutor appointed by President Bush himself of several counts of these same crimes, perjury and obstruction of justice, and the handing down of a sentence that was quite in line with the severity of the crimes–light, if you ask me. And from the evidence that came out in court you’d have to be blind not to see who’s butts he’s protecting.

Point four is President Bush trying the same tawdry trick (to borrow a phrase from Senator Hagle) with Mr. Libby that President Nixon pulled with Mr. McCord, and for the same exact reason. President Bush even admits that Mr. Libby is guilty (he’d be hard pressed to do otherwise). That right there should set any right thinking American to calling for impeachment, just like with President Nixon.

And then I hear on the news that you “spoke with approval” of the commutation. Is that true? If not, you should be shouting the fact from the rooftops.

And, if it is. What happened to the man who gave that fine speech when Clinton was caught lying? Where is the man we sent to sit in Senator Goldwater’s chair?

And in either case, what in the heck are you thinking?

Perhaps even more effective, I’ve been talking to my friends and neighbors, handing out “Impeach” stickers, and in general pushing for public awareness of the problem. Interesting note. This is a very red state, and all the stickers say is the one word, “Impeach.” Since I started handing them out last spring I’ve never had one single person ask “Who?” or “For what?” or “Why?”–but I’ve discovered that there were a lot more reasons for impeachment floating around out there than I’d ever suspected, and every single person out there seems to have heard of at least a couple of them.

–MarkusQ

My God I love that letter. it has it all, historical perspective, facts, pathos, a nice little guilt trip–

I wish I had written that. I wish I had the skil to write that.

Thank you.

Some may dislike what I say next. Ah well. Reaching out to folks different from us means stepping away from a sense of contempt for people who don’t think as we do. I don’t agree with many things Comey believes in, I’m very sure. But we certainly do agree that the rule of law is more important than rule-by-individual. And I’m sure many conservative folks who hate what’s happening now don’t agree some of my most cherished beliefs.

That, however, is the beauty of this system. A system however, that has been overrun by opportunists and deceivers, abetted by the venal, the lazy, and the cowardly. Of both parties. We can’t reach people we hold in contempt. We can’t change things if we only preach to the choir. And we won’t get there if we only stay where we’re comfortable.

Hagel announces retirement, then unloads reality on Maher. Greenspan writes a book and unloads on Bush….these sons of bitches wait until after the fact to point out what the rest of us knew all along. They’re despicable.

Markus Q, good for you. Now you’re making me wonder what Libby is doing these days.

This is my opinion of Hagel…
(mp3 file)
Repug done good

I see this over and over again, Gordon Smith… All talk and no put…. crying about the war on the Senate floor and continually voting to “stay the course”. Specter and Hagel… all talk and NO votes to back up that talk.

Yeah, Alan, thanks for the .50% rate jack in May of 2000 you knew would put the skids on the economy by Election Day.

Come on Grampy Freddie, time for your nap. I mean this is the second campaign stop of the day, you must be exhausted.

-GSD

pluege @ 61

this post is a bunch of nonsense happytalk – wishful thinking that there is some great “silent majority” of republicans that are secretly retching over the destruction THEIR party has caused the US the past 25 years.

The people who care about the United States and used to be republicans have already left the republican party. What is left is 30% of the population that is rabid republican extremists; they are pro-war – first last, and always, pro-torture, pro-indefinite detention, pro-criminally unitary president (i.e., totalitarianism), and pro-white male authoritarian domination of the nation.

There has been more than enough information out there the past 6 years for moderate republicans to step up and defend the United States against the extremists that have taken over their party. Few have murmured even a whisper of objection – NONE HAVE STOOD UP.

Sure you need to appeal to the middle to elect democrats. But don’t be talking nonsense that somehow there are republicans in that middle and worse yet that there are republican politicians willing to listen to them and push a middle position or compromise. republican politicians are not listening to the middle – they are only listening to the extremist base.
.

So glad to see you’re so open to letting others have a point of view that differs from yours and expressing it. Real democratic of you.

waccamaw at 63 says in part-”lhp -

I luv ya dearly but…….

Please. Do. Not. Admonish people who are on dial-up, work-place restriction, etc. to “watch the videos and listen to the online conference calls”.”

it’s ok waccamaw, i read that part in the end, just when i was going to go do links, and i skipped doing them because of it…….cuz you don’t know whether you’re going to youtube, etc, or a link that is just a video, and it takes forever on dial up to get back to firedoglake….and for some reason firedoglake is taking longer to load…..and it’s really aggravating when it’s a link we can’t get with no warning till we’re there in neverneverland…….what a HUGE waste of time……..and then multiply it by how many links there are that we can’t see……….

i used to go to every link on every post, no more……..

and commenters who bury a link with no reference of whether it’s video or not is rude rude rude to us dial up people..it may look like a good print link, but then it’s a video, like a rawstory link, that is really a video, i have no way of knowing it’s not an article till i get there…….then, it takes a while to get back to the lake……i wanna smack somebody after one of those……….so, i don’t go to those anymore either, except for certain people…….

so, i hear ya, waccamaw………

Laura Doty @ 81

Some may dislike what I say next. Ah well. Reaching out to folks different from us means stepping away from a sense of contempt for people who don’t think as we do. I don’t agree with many things Comey believes in, I’m very sure. But we certainly do agree that the rule of law is more important than rule-by-individual. And I’m sure many conservative folks who hate what’s happening now don’t agree some of my most cherished beliefs.

That, however, is the beauty of this system. A system however, that has been overrun by opportunists and deceivers, abetted by the venal, the lazy, and the cowardly. Of both parties. We can’t reach people we hold in contempt. We can’t change things if we only preach to the choir. And we won’t get there if we only stay where we’re comfortable.

We need a large and unusual coalition that cuts across the standard political lines in order to turn things around in Washington.

Totally agree with you that people won’t work with us if they feel we are holding them in contempt, which is why I occasionally push back on the anti-religious sentiment that the left is capable of. We need everybody for this one.

..my law partner is a life long Rep. He is heartbroken. (over the USA/AG scandal).

Disappointed, Angry, Frustrated, Perplexed, perhaps. Not heartbroken. There are few things that would break the heart of a republican. Losing money, paying taxes, or perhaps the death of a loved one.

pluege @ 61

this post is a bunch of nonsense happytalk – wishful thinking that there is some great “silent majority” of republicans that are secretly retching over the destruction THEIR party has caused the US the past 25 years.

The people who care about the United States and used to be republicans have already left the republican party. What is left is 30% of the population that is rabid republican extremists; they are pro-war – first last, and always, pro-torture, pro-indefinite detention, pro-criminally unitary president (i.e., totalitarianism), and pro-white male authoritarian domination of the nation.

There has been more than enough information out there the past 6 years for moderate republicans to step up and defend the United States against the extremists that have taken over their party. Few have murmured even a whisper of objection – NONE HAVE STOOD UP.

Sure you need to appeal to the middle to elect democrats. But don’t be talking nonsense that somehow there are republicans in that middle and worse yet that there are republican politicians willing to listen to them and push a middle position or compromise. republican politicians are not listening to the middle – they are only listening to the extremist base.
.

even those rogues must learn to survive in a changing political world.

LHP is right, there’s not enough Dems to make the shift, and that leaves one option.

And that optin has certainly not been exhausted, if they won’t do it for the Constitution, they might do it to save their political butts.

Either way, we ned to stop blaming “DEMS” as a category of failure, if a few good R’s had changed over sometime in the past, the transition to a more reasonable government might have been accelerated.

But I have a hard time accepting that these R;’s will prefer to defend their ideologically challenged agenda, if it loses them their seats in Congress.

If anything, we can appeal to their practical survival instincts, if not their Constitutinal conscisnces.

Ann in AZ, thanks for the names, I was hoping for more elected officials, but this is a list of very influential people who can affect the debate from outside the Congress itself. I’ll find their contact info now and proceed with a personal letter. Maybe I should send them all a copy of “50 ways to leave a bad war” but they might misinterpret it.

Chuck Hagel
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
John Danforth
Colin Powell
Christie Todd Whitman
Lawrence Wilkerson

..are we seeing here the seeds of a coalition of Republican reason?

Have to admit it, if that list keeps growing, I won’t feel like getting sanity from the R’s is completely hopeless.

Interesting, those of us here on “the left” may be the only interest group qualified to actually identify this REPUBLICAN list with any credibility.

Waccamaw @ 63

lhp -

I luv ya dearly but…….

Please. Do. Not. Admonish people who are on dial-up, work-place restriction, etc. to “watch the videos and listen to the online conference calls”.

I am getting a wee tad tired of the increasing reliance of blogs on visual vs. print.

I fully realize that one picture (read video) is often worth a thousand words.

But……..every time the assumption is made that *everyone* has the same degree of access to information, it only serves to remind (and infuriate) me about all the cr*p put out during the Part D debacle wrt how seniors could just go on-line and get all the information they needed. FEH!

Unfortunately, my reaction (which some may take to be irrational) has diluted your very powerful message for this pup. And that is my failing.

I don’t ever remember getting “snippy” at the Lake before (and will likely get hammered for it and even now am debating whether to hit “Submit”) but, as you can tell, “a nerve was hit”. *g*

Part D really *did* send me over the edge wrt to information availability, or inaccessability.

Pax, W

You are not going to get hammerd by me and I hope you will not get hammered by anyone else.

I have been deliberately trying to increase my use of links as I get better at using the technology. Previously, I mostly relied on quotes.

part of the reason is that when we link to a site, they will usually come here to see why we linked to them. If your aim is reaching out beyond the usual web of “friendly” sites, those links are almost like an invitation to cross polination.

Also, there were no specific quotes that I wanted to highlight, it was the fact of the activiteis they were doing that I wanted to spread the message about.

I promise, I will try to keep in mind the needs of those with more limited access.

In point of fact I usually hate posts that just have links and don’t tell me why I should spend all that time clicking through to t them and usally skip ove posts like that myslef.

it’s just I don’t know of anyway of transmitting SOOO much info as I tried to do today, without using the method I did.

Great Post LHP, I read some of the links you provided, would it not be nice if some true republicans started the ball rolling. This really is a bipartisan issue, our country is being threatened not from without but from within, I just hope that some on the right, enough somes, realize this and join in stopping this utter madness.

I would only add that we are all, on this great stone, connected to each other, and everything we see.

Now here’s a ‘glass half-full’ deal for you. Lawyers unite. Help save our planet. Elect Gore.

PARIS – Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane.

Part of it is we have to think differently/creatively about how to organize. Reflect on this HuffPost link about Western Republicans pushing back on WH oil policy due to environmental issues. (dmac and wccmw, I take your comments to heart. Will do best better to identify my links from here on out. Sorry for previous failure not to realize the hassles.)

This govt has made messes so deep and so wide and so long that finally the sleeping bell of the curve is stirring and posed to ring. The middle of the road folks who didn’t notice are being hit themselves. We can put them down for being asleep too long, or we can help them organize.

Beware of Republican Lucys spotting footballs.

The best thing to do to Republicans is make them filibuster anti-war flavored bills. Make them eat their war and choke on it at the voting booth.

theWalrus @ 76

Honest decent Republicans with integrity

That’s a joke, right? That beast simply does not exist, or if it does exist it is in such small numbers as to be insignificant.

I think the numbers are greater than you imagine, but even if small

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 94

Now here’s a ‘glass half-full’ deal for you. Lawyers unite. Help save our planet. Elect Gore.

PARIS – Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane.

This has been extemely exciting news for Republicans. Imagine the potential for Big Oil. The USA is squaring off with Canada already declaring International Waters off the Canadian coast. YeeHaw!

I want justice for Mother Earth. No. I absolutely demand it.

That neocon darling Kimberly Kagan is addressing the anti-marchers on CSPAN 1

hackworth @ 90

..my law partner is a life long Rep. He is heartbroken. (over the USA/AG scandal).

Disappointed, Angry, Frustrated, Perplexed, perhaps. Not heartbroken. There are few things that would break the heart of a republican. Losing money, paying taxes, or perhaps the death of a loved one.

I am talking about a man I have known for over 25 years, you are talking about a man you have never met. heartbroken was the correct word.

Demonizing someone you know nothing about, doesn’t help anybody or anything.

hackworth @ 98

Oklahoma kiddo @ 94

Now here’s a ‘glass half-full’ deal for you. Lawyers unite. Help save our planet. Elect Gore.

PARIS – Arctic ice has shrunk to the lowest level on record, new satellite images show, raising the possibility that the Northwest Passage that eluded famous explorers will become an open shipping lane.

This has been extemely exciting news for Republicans. Imagine the potential for Big Oil. The USA is squaring off with Canada already declaring International Waters off the Canadian coast. YeeHaw!

The Russians, Canadians and US are going to go to war over this. The Canadian Navy has already mobilized to block US drilling rigs from trying to set up in Canadian claimed waters.

LHP, I have been listening and reading the opinions of some of the “real” Republicans since before the invasion. Some of them were in shock with the direction of this radical administration.

Kevin Phillips, Former Secretary Paul O’Neill,Pat Buchanan, William F Buckley, Bruce Fein, John Dean, Flynt Leverett. I even heard Robert McNamara questioning the logic and wisdom of the invasion before it happened

I keep wondering and have brought this up numerous times here at FDL that the Republicans could trump the Democrats by pushing for Impeachment of this radical group in the White House. We know that they would not be doing it for the right reasons (they would have all ready have done it) illegal war, lying, 4 million refugees, hundreds of thousands dead, illegal wiretapping, outing an undercover agent etc etc. But they could get rid of a radical administration that does not reflect what THEY are about and swing their straying base and pull in quite a few Democrats with that strategy.

I know this is out there but I swear it would work.

Republicans push for Impeachment. Pelosi would have to fold and would look like a fool for not being the one to have pushed for Impeachment as well as the rest of the Democrats. Well with the exception of our beloved Kucinich!

Bruce Fein has been doing more than double duty in the effort to restore our Constitution as the defining and inviolable cornerstone and structure of our system of government. Thank you for this post, lhp.

Here’s more from Bruce, from a couple of weeks ago, nailing the latest excuse from those who pretend we should skip over any impeachment inquiries and just starting voting today on articles of impeachment for which (naturally) there are not yet 218 votes in the House:

Carts Before Horses
Impeachment inquiry first, ask questions later.

By Bruce Fein
Posted Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, at 4:55 PM ET

Detractors of an impeachment inquiry by the House judiciary committee into whether President George W. Bush has committed impeachable offenses contend that no questions should be asked until conclusive incriminating evidence is either volunteered up by the suspects themselves or appears before them by spontaneous combustion. In other words, they say, no inquiry should commence until proof of the president’s guilt has been unearthed—proof which would, of course, make the inquiry superfluous!

[snip]

The House does not require, nor should it await, proof beyond a reasonable doubt of misconduct. To wait for such proof subverts the whole purpose of an impeachment inquiry.

According to the Founding Fathers, impeachable offenses are crimes against the Constitution, which may or may not include violations of the federal criminal code. As Alexander Hamilton elaborated in Federalist 65, impeachment cannot be “tied down” by “strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense” by the House, or “in the construction of it” by the Senate. James Iredell sermonized to North Carolina’s ratification convention that “giving false information to the Senate” was characteristic “of great injury to the community” that would warrant impeachment. False information distorts legislative judgments and makes a farce of congressional oversight to detect lawlessness or maladministration by the executive branch.

[snip]

If what Bush has said and done falls short of warranting an impeachment inquiry, then impeachment of the president has become a virtual dead letter.

http://www.slate.com/id/217310…..page_start

Does Nancy Pelosi (who I’m starting to equate with Nancy Reagan…) care in the least that she is allowing impeachment to be effectively erased from our Constitution?

David Derbes @ 70

James Comey, who had Patrick Fitzgerald appointed to the Plame leak, who accompanied Gonzales on his midnight hospital visit to extort unconscionable agreement from a mortally ill Ashcroft, and who blew the whistle on this abuse of power, ought to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

He’s the best candidate since Eliot Richardson, another principled Republican.

Why cannot the Senate unite behind this good and eminently qualified man?

Great idea James Comey for AG

We have nowhere to turn, except to the ‘legal beagles’. Do something!

Elliott @ 100

That neocon darling Kimberly Kagan is addressing the anti-marchers on CSPAN 1

Yeah, been watching the coverage of the anti-march speakers. Interesting to see how the other half lives…in a disinformation bubble.

September 16th, 2007 at 9:26 am
MarkusQ at #58:

Great letter, and I’m never going to worry that my letters go to the second page again! I think yours was longer than mine to Kyl, but I’m sure yours would carry more weight since you declare you’re a Republican.

I was wondering if you got any response, because I did, and it wasn’t a bad response. I didn’t feel like it was your typical evasive form letter, either. I detest Kyl for his politics and his policies, but I must say his response was much better than I expected.

looseheadprop @ 80

My God I love that letter. it has it all, historical perspective, facts, pathos, a nice little guilt trip–

I wish I had written that. I wish I had the skill to write that.

Thank you.

You are quite welcome. And thanks, in return, for all you have done.

My goal is to send a letter like that to someone (elected official, MSM shill or hero, regulator, whatever) at least once a month. I think I’m averaging a little over that. I’m also fairly active on a couple of small Republican-centric mailing lists, where I act as the fact-check-guy, countering the identically worded nonsense that talking points that always seem to pop up on such lists like clockwork.

–MarkusQ

P.S. From what I’ve read, your writing skill is nothing to be modest about. I’ve seen you turn quite a few phrases with deadly effect.

Marie Roget @ 107

Elliott @ 100

That neocon darling Kimberly Kagan is addressing the anti-marchers on CSPAN 1

Yeah, been watching the coverage of the anti-march speakers. Interesting to see how the other half lives…in a disinformation bubble.

they’re terrified!

hackworth @ 96

Beware of Republican Lucys spotting footballs.

The best thing to do to Republicans is make them filibuster anti-war flavored bills. Make them eat their war and choke on it at the voting booth.

One of my personal foverite strategies. From your lips to Harry reid’s ears.

However, to get where we need to go to restore rule of law, we have to be like great football coaches. A play book full of winning strategies and the flexabilty and abilty to shift on the fly to change up and use theose differnet plays as opportunities present themselves.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 64

Lets really stick it to the Republicans and do right by a good man. The next elected Democratic President (in 2008) should give John Dean a full and unconditional pardon and name him Attorney General. Now that, would be making good history.

Okk, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I want Hillary for Attorney General!

“Does Nancy Pelosi (who I’m starting to equate with Nancy Reagon…) care in the least that she is allowing impeachment to be effectively erased from our Constitution?”

Now that is ‘tough love’. And I’m caught in the position of approving it.

Siun has a new thread upstairs.

Big Hole In The Desert?

theWalrus @ 82

Hagel announces retirement, then unloads reality on Maher. Greenspan writes a book and unloads on Bush….these sons of bitches wait until after the fact to point out what the rest of us knew all along. They’re despicable.

Agree.

pow wow @ 104

Bruce Fein has been doing more than double duty in the effort to restore our Constitution as the defining and inviolable cornerstone and structure of our system of government. Thank you for this post, lhp.

Here’s more from Bruce, from a couple of weeks ago, nailing the latest excuse from those who pretend we should skip over any impeachment inquiries and just starting voting today on articles of impeachment for which (naturally) there are not yet 218 votes in the House:

Carts Before Horses
Impeachment inquiry first, ask questions later.

By Bruce Fein
Posted Friday, Aug. 31, 2007, at 4:55 PM ET

Detractors of an impeachment inquiry by the House judiciary committee into whether President George W. Bush has committed impeachable offenses contend that no questions should be asked until conclusive incriminating evidence is either volunteered up by the suspects themselves or appears before them by spontaneous combustion. In other words, they say, no inquiry should commence until proof of the president’s guilt has been unearthed—proof which would, of course, make the inquiry superfluous!

[snip]

The House does not require, nor should it await, proof beyond a reasonable doubt of misconduct. To wait for such proof subverts the whole purpose of an impeachment inquiry.

According to the Founding Fathers, impeachable offenses are crimes against the Constitution, which may or may not include violations of the federal criminal code. As Alexander Hamilton elaborated in Federalist 65, impeachment cannot be “tied down” by “strict rules, either in the delineation of the offense” by the House, or “in the construction of it” by the Senate. James Iredell sermonized to North Carolina’s ratification convention that “giving false information to the Senate” was characteristic “of great injury to the community” that would warrant impeachment. False information distorts legislative judgments and makes a farce of congressional oversight to detect lawlessness or maladministration by the executive branch.

[snip]

If what Bush has said and done falls short of warranting an impeachment inquiry, then impeachment of the president has become a virtual dead letter.

http://www.slate.com/id/217310…..page_start

Does Nancy Pelosi (who I’m starting to equate with Nancy Reagan…) care in the least that she is allowing impeachment to be effectively erased from our Constitution?

Fein’s point is exactly the same as mine in all my Priming the Pump posts. You gotta inveestigate first and then figure out if you have a case.

I could not agree with him more (especailly since I said it first). But I’m glad to be on the same page with him

Elliott @ 99

That neocon darling Kimberly Kagan is addressing the anti-marchers on CSPAN 1

The MSM’s new strategy is to make it appear that there were as many pro-war marchers as anti-war marchers.

Today on Meet the Press they gave the march yesterday 30 seconds and 15 of those seconds were given to the 50 pro war marchers and 15 seconds to the tens of thousands of anti-war marchers. More of that fair and balanced reporting.

KIMBERLY KAGAN SHOULD SUIT UP IN A MILITARY UNIFORM AND PUT HER LILLY WHITE ASS ON THE FRONT LINE, INSTEAD OF STAYING IN THE GREEN ZONE. SHE IS ANOTHER CHICKENSHIT WARMONGER!

Where are the leftys today? Ferchrissakes. Do not allow Rethugs the benefit of muddying the waters with bipartisanship. They’re gonna tar the Dems with their war. Bipartisanship gives them a big leg-up – a pass at our expense. They’ve got to face the voters soon. Let ‘em choke on Dubya.

They had the gaul to foist this alabatross on us and cover his ass at every turn. They need to eat a big ol’ Dubya sandwich and drink a beer with him.

Kathleen @ 105

David Derbes @ 70

James Comey, who had Patrick Fitzgerald appointed to the Plame leak, who accompanied Gonzales on his midnight hospital visit to extort unconscionable agreement from a mortally ill Ashcroft, and who blew the whistle on this abuse of power, ought to be the next Attorney General of the United States.

He’s the best candidate since Eliot Richardson, another principled Republican.

Why cannot the Senate unite behind this good and eminently qualified man?

Great idea James Comey for AG

A new dem President, wanting to restore confidence in DOJ that partisanship will be erased, could do a lot worse than appointing Comey.

dmac -

What size shoes you wearin’, darlin’? ’cause I think you standin’ in mine. *g*
If not shoes, you sure are channeling my all too frequent emotions.

lhp -

I thank you for your attention and thoughtful response. And both you and dmac are spot on about common courtesy thru’ the use of ID to reduce time wastage.

I see in this the same problem that I see in all calls to bipartisanship. In the nearly 7 years of the Bush Administration, the Republicans have shown no real sign of it. For them, it is usually code for allowing Democrats to vote with them on what Republicans want.

We just saw one exercise of the bipartisan spirit in the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. This was supposed to mark the moment when Republicans would peel off and start supporting “bipartisan” moves to leave Iraq. We all know where that went.

If Republicans are so interested in standing up to abuses like NSLs, I say fine. But as they and their President were instrumental in creating them, they should show their good faith in opposing them by saying so publicly and reaching out to Democrats. Otherwise what we are likely to see is a reprise of the Iraq debate. Republicans will express doubts but when it is time to vote they will back Bush and sell out the Democrats, again.

Oklahoma kiddo @ 106

We have nowhere to turn, except to the ‘legal beagles’. Do something!

Sheez! We’re trying. have you notice Christy, Greenwald, Dean, Fein?

Do you know how many Bar Associations have held panels, seminars issued position papers? We are working very hard at this

Siun is upstairs. LHP this is a great thread. Thank you.

laura at 95

thanks……..

the link didn’t work, don’t know if it was just me……..said it was a wapoarticle, said server couldn’t be found, maybe it’s down, anyone else have a problem with it?

Hugh @ 121

I see in this the same problem that I see in all calls to bipartisanship. In the nearly 7 years of the Bush Administration, the Republicans have shown no real sign of it. For them, it is usually code for allowing Democrats to vote with them on what Republicans want.

We just saw one exercise of the bipartisan spirit in the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. This was supposed to mark the moment when Republicans would peel off and start supporting “bipartisan” moves to leave Iraq. We all know where that went.

If Republicans are so interested in standing up to abuses like NSLs, I say fine. But as they and their President were instrumental in creating them, they should show their good faith in opposing them by saying so publicly and reaching out to Democrats. Otherwise what we are likely to see is a reprise of the Iraq debate. Republicans will express doubts but when it is time to vote they will back Bush and sell out the Democrats, again.

Hugh, I am trying to distibguish between individual acts of non partisan repsct ofr the rle of law, by some fairly influencial republicans who’s opinions could carry great weight,
and organized republican spinning and party discipline.

We can harness the former to combat the latter. That’s really the crux of what I am tying to say

looseheadprop @ 101

Demonizing someoe you know nothing about, doesn’t help anybody or anything.

very, very true.

there’s something i’d like to add to this… it’s that it is very hard (psyc-wise) to change one’s world view so dramatically… and it doesn’t happen in an instant. providing moral support (while being completely honest – no sugar coating) is much more likely to be helpful in the long run. demonizing people justifiably makes people feel defensive… and makes it all that much harder to break through their biases. trying to be open to the possibility of our own biases helps too.

Thanks for the link to the American Freedom Agenda. I had read that Fein/Barr were working to set something up, but didn’t know what they came up with. You can see some very good minds with broad perspectives and recognition of consequences at work when you read that list.

BTW – before Goldsmith testifies, remember that HE did not pen, “We know that the rule of law sets this nation apart and is its foundation. ” A better summary of his view that politics should and do trump law when the President is involved can be found here, in an excerpt from his book: “Because the law is not always designed for or up to the task of the crisis, successful leadership sometimes requires bending or breaking the law. “

http://www.slate.com/id/2173488/nav/tap1/

OT – @ 20 – Amen on that one. The CSRT hearing challenges under the DTA/MCA are one place where we are beginning to see some cracks on the secrecy front. The status of these joined cases, IMO, lend credibility to why less egocentrically inflated heads than Bush’s might be pushing Mukasey. He would lend crediblity that the whole of the Executive Branch has pretty much otherwise deservedly lost – to make the arguments for preservation of secrecy as AG.

In any event, the Levin co-sponsored DTA was set up (and reaffirmed in the MCA) to pretend that courts could review the holdings of military Combatant Status Review Tribunals (see item #1 on the Am.Freedom Agenda link). However, it required that all kinds of things be excluded from the courts’ review and the DC Cir called bull on that a couple of months back.

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov…..-1197a.pdf

In order to review a Tribunal’s determination that, based upon a preponderance of the evidence, a detainee is an enemy combatant, the court must have access to all the information available to the Tribunal.
…
In addition, we must implement such measures to govern these proceedings as are necessary to enable us to engage in meaningful review of the record as defined above. Therefore, we
will enter a protective order adopting a presumption, as proposed by the petitioners, that counsel for a detainee has a “need to
know” the classified information relating to his client’s case, except that the Government may withhold from counsel, but not from the court, certain highly sensitive information.
…
Finally, the protective order will provide that a lawyer offering his or herservices may, as the petitioners propose, have up to two visits with a detainee in order to obtain the detainee’s authorization to seek review of the CSRT’s determination of his status.

A bit mindboggling, to think that a lawyer needs a court order to know what evidence was offered against his client in a secret tribunal proceeding where there was no one to protect the client’s interests – and that Gov would argue that in addition to not seeing the evidence, a lawyer should have to proceed without ever meeting their client even once, but there you go – the law as espoused by the Dept fka Justce.

What is interesting is that, with all this coming to a head, in the midst of suits at all levels seeming to finally gain some legal traction to require that minimal revelations be made to defense lawyers and courts about what has really been going on – - –

- – - the central lawyer in these cases quietly exits, stage left.

One of the cases is set for production to begin – about NOW -
http://www.scotusblog.com/mova…..t_det.html
– and Gov is trying to get an en banc review and various other things to prevent them from having to comply. In the midst of this feverish action, Peter Keisler announced his resignation, effective Sept. 21.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/pap…..t-case.php
I believe he has not yet announced any firm that he will be working for, but he has mentioned that he will be spending more time with his family.

An option that he fought very hard to keep many of the human trafficking/kidnapped protected persons at GITMO from having.

Maybe he can plan a family trip to Morocco.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t…..717582.ece

Apparently it’s a destination of choice by the DOD and DOJ.

dmac. It is a WaPo article, that is linkable at HuffPo. Here is the link to WaPo again.

waccamaw at 120-”dmac -

What size shoes you wearin’, darlin’? ’cause I think you standin’ in mine. *g*
If not shoes, you sure are channeling my all too frequent emotions.

lhp -”

size 11, i’m tall…….

channeling emotions…..i have a theory, we all feel the same emotions throughout our life, just in a different order……..so we are all the same, just at different times……..*g*

hackworth at 118, methinks thou dost protest too much…

Oklahoma kiddo @ 99

I want justice for Mother Earth. No. I absolutely demand it.

You are not alone.

Read Revelations 11-18. Partucularly the last few words…

I’m leaving now, this piece of chopped liver can take hint.

It is appropriate, I came here in the first place, tongue firmly in cheek, snarking at you Kiddo about Oklahoma’s upper class.

And people actually thought at the time I was troll.

Hopefully, now they know better.

But I can take a hint.

I’ll see if I can get this list of potentially contrite Republicans put together on another blog somewhere. It is a good idea, regardless of where it came from.

Thanks to everyone who offered options, the list is long enough to start with, and I will contact each of them in whatever way might be available.

If any of you might want to consider the same approach, here’s what I’ve got so far.

Chuck Hagel
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
John Danforth
Colin Powell
Christie Todd Whitman
Lawrence Wilkerson
Kevin Phillips
Paul O’neil,Pat Buchanan
William F Buckley
Bruce Fein
John Dean
Flynt Leverett
Robert McNamara

LHP, I wasn’t trying to hijack the thread, I thought the list idea was quite germane to the issue.

Farewell, doggies, it’s been real.

JEP @ 91

pluege @ 61

this post is a bunch of nonsense happytalk – wishful thinking that there is some great “silent majority” of republicans that are secretly retching over the destruction THEIR party has caused the US the past 25 years.

The people who care about the United States and used to be republicans have already left the republican party. What is left is 30% of the population that is rabid republican extremists; they are pro-war – first last, and always, pro-torture, pro-indefinite detention, pro-criminally unitary president (i.e., totalitarianism), and pro-white male authoritarian domination of the nation.

There has been more than enough information out there the past 6 years for moderate republicans to step up and defend the United States against the extremists that have taken over their party. Few have murmured even a whisper of objection – NONE HAVE STOOD UP.

Sure you need to appeal to the middle to elect democrats. But don’t be talking nonsense that somehow there are republicans in that middle and worse yet that there are republican politicians willing to listen to them and push a middle position or compromise. republican politicians are not listening to the middle – they are only listening to the extremist base.
.

even those rogues must learn to survive in a changing political world.

LHP is right, there’s not enough Dems to make the shift, and that leaves one option.

And that optin has certainly not been exhausted, if they won’t do it for the Constitution, they might do it to save their political butts.

Either way, we ned to stop blaming “DEMS” as a category of failure, if a few good R’s had changed over sometime in the past, the transition to a more reasonable government might have been accelerated.

But I have a hard time accepting that these R;’s will prefer to defend their ideologically challenged agenda, if it loses them their seats in Congress.

If anything, we can appeal to their practical survival instincts, if not their Constitutinal conscisnces.

Ann in AZ, thanks for the names, I was hoping for more elected officials, but this is a list of very influential people who can affect the debate from outside the Congress itself. I’ll find their contact info now and proceed with a personal letter. Maybe I should send them all a copy of “50 ways to leave a bad war” but they might misinterpret it.

Chuck Hagel
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
John Danforth
Colin Powell
Christie Todd Whitman
Lawrence Wilkerson

..are we seeing here the seeds of a coalition of Republican reason?

Have to admit it, if that list keeps growing, I won’t feel like getting sanity from the R’s is completely hopeless.

Interesting, those of us here on “the left” may be the only interest group qualified to actually identify this REPUBLICAN list with any credibility.

You forgot Bob Barr and Bruce Fein. Many here have mentioned Comey. Maybe Paul O’Neil and Richard Clarke and Tyler Drumheller. But keep in mind, many have already been purged from public office since they weren’t walking in lockstep. I’m virtually certain there are some in the DOJ, but names? I think there are some others in virtually every Department, but they are underlings, and have a hard time being heard, and their names are not well known.

Hugh @ 121 –

agree w/ you about Rs in congress… (and i think the same about many of the Ds, sadly).

but there are Rs outside of congress (for example bruce fein) and there’s no reason we shouldn’t try to get more of them on board, imo.

here’s a good example!

lincoln chafee has quit the republican party!

It’s remarkable how candid Chafee is now about his disaffection with the national GOP.

Chafee said he disaffiliated with the party he had helped lead, and his father had led before him, because the national Republican Party has gone too far away from his stance on too many critical issues, from war to economics to the environment…

“There’s been a gradual depravation of … the issues the party should be strong on,” and the direction of the national party, he said.

Chafee also complained about the Republicans’ failure to treat seriously any of the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. But at the core of his critique is the belief that the national GOP doesn’t come close to reflecting traditional New England Republican values.

Yesterday, he criticized Republican leaders for abandoning fiscal conservatism, once a mainstay of Republican politics, by passing tax cuts without spending cuts to balance the resulting loss of revenue.

He said the “starve the beast” strategy that Republicans have used in an attempt to shrink government has undermined social programs that bolster a strong American middle class. He mentioned Pell grants, which help needy students attend college, and Head Start programs, which support the education of low-income children. Instead of supporting those “good social programs,” he said, the party’s approach was “squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.”

just a reminder… chafee voted AGAINST the iraq war, something many dems didn’t do.

laura at 128–thanks, that one worked…….interesting……a few years back, my former husband and i were above glenwood springs exploring around…….i couldn’t believe all of the timber being removed…….but didn’t see too much drilling then…….

wrote down info from the article, gonna go get my atlas……..

around here, ohio, you see a lot of timber trucks, too…….

looseheadprop @ 122

Oklahoma kiddo @ 106

We have nowhere to turn, except to the ‘legal beagles’. Do something!

Sheez! We’re trying. have you notice Christy, Greenwald, Dean, Fein?

Do you know how many Bar Associations have held panels, seminars issued position papers? We are working very hard at this

Yes I do. It is not lost on me. And I will push anyone (or group) I can, to achieve justice. ;0)

Great post, LHP, and absolutely right.

Jim Comey really said a lot with a little and said it well in that speech, didn’t he, lhp? In the heart of the National Security Agency, no less, where those lawyers would’ve heard his message loud and clear; in May, 2005, before Comey left DOJ, but after the 2004 showdown he’d had with Dick Cheney and David Addington about the NSA spying which the public at large and most people in the Executive Branch still knew nothing about – moral character indeed. [It’d be very interesting to learn Comey’s current thoughts about his involvement in the Padilla affair. That earlier experience with the “ultra-sensitive national security/state secret” excuse for abuse of due process and the rule of law may well have prepped him and girded him for the later showdown over the TSP spying. I hope so, anyway.]

I’d say this is the sort of person who’s thoroughly earned the job of Attorney General of the United States – and who has the battle scars to prove it:

For all those reasons, it takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say “no” when it matters most. It takes moral character. It takes an ability to see the future. It takes an appreciation of the damage that will flow from an unjustified “yes.” It takes an understanding that, in the long-run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.

Thank you for your commitment to the rule of law, to “yes” when it can be, to “no” when it must be.

Thank you for your commitment to Intelligence Under the Law.

- DAG Jim Comey in a speech at the NSA on Law Day, 2005

Moral character is the missing ingredient in so very many of our current Members of Congress, and in particular among the leadership of the Democratic political party right now.

In the long-run, honoring and upholding the Constitution is the only sustainable course for our Republic. Is the Democratic Party, Howard Dean included, prepared to sacrifice all our long-run interests for the expediency of the short-run’s next election?

To quote a perceptive comment by NMvoiceofreason that I spotted over at talkleft.com:

Bush’s strategy is to give the Iraq war to the next president. The Democratic strategy is to be that president. The people’s strategy is to quit bleeding and dying.

We need one senator who cares more about the people than he does his own party.

Anyone know an honest senator?

P.S. JEP – please don’t remove your valuable, heartland perspective from this site (I see no sign of the hint you reference).

JEP, we hope you will stay with us. No one is asking otherwise.

I just can’t believe you about the existence of Republicans with senses of shame or decency; I’m sorry.

perris @ 57

this post is right on the money, and as a fact, if we looked to the principles that republican constituents claim they value, they are in fact democrats not republicans

it’s been marketing that has taken democrats and convinced them to vote republican, marketing and only marketing

WE are the party of fiscal responsibility, WE are the party of strong military, WE are the party of integrity, WE are the party of getting government out of our private lives, WE are the party of the constitution, WE are the party of the smallest government possible

WE ARE THE PARTY OF LOWER TAXES FOR THE PEOPLE

WE ARE THE PARTY THAT DRIVES A GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE

we concervatives and WE are the conservatives, NOT the republicans

now, we know the democrats will agree with us if we call them to do what needs to be done with this administration, it is THE REPUBLICAN politician we need to be calling, FAR MORE then the democratic politician

make your calls to democrats when you think a democrat isn’t doing the right thing or enough, but make your calls to REPUBLICANS when the democrats are allready doing what we need to be done

Spot on. When people ask me about my political views, I tell them that I am a “Goldwater Democrat.” Usually makes their heads explode.

“Honest decent Republicans with integrity …”

I disagree. By this time, anyone — ANYONE — who calls himself a Republican in 2007 is either greedy (hideously so)…

There is no doubt. F them all.

~~~ModNote: Edited for content.~~~

looseheadprop,
Nice post. I think the corporate media is largely responsible for creating this “us against them” atmosphere. Without the media propagating this mentality, our government would not be in the gridlock it is in, and people would not be as divided as they are.

I want my belief, in the “idea”, of America back. The belief in democracy, freedom and our leaders getting past their petty differences to do what’s best for our country and the world. I think the corporate media is largely responsible for taking it way. The only way to get it back is through them.

Hugh @ 121

I see in this the same problem that I see in all calls to bipartisanship. In the nearly 7 years of the Bush Administration, the Republicans have shown no real sign of it. For them, it is usually code for allowing Democrats to vote with them on what Republicans want.

We just saw one exercise of the bipartisan spirit in the Petraeus-Crocker hearings. This was supposed to mark the moment when Republicans would peel off and start supporting “bipartisan” moves to leave Iraq. We all know where that went.

If Republicans are so interested in standing up to abuses like NSLs, I say fine. But as they and their President were instrumental in creating them, they should show their good faith in opposing them by saying so publicly and reaching out to Democrats. Otherwise what we are likely to see is a reprise of the Iraq debate. Republicans will express doubts but when it is time to vote they will back Bush and sell out the Democrats, again.

Yes, and half the “Democrats” will sell out the Democrats too. Except the truth of the matter is that they would not be selling out the Democrats. They would be selling out the majority of the people but the Democrats do not stand for the majority of the people. They stand for the semi-sane wing of the corporate criminal faction as opposed to the Republicans who are the insane wing of the corporate criminal faction.

Thinking that a Democratic president will solve the problem is naive. Thinking that a larger Democratic majority in Congress will solve the problem is naive. It must be the right kind of Democrat. And if the party is run by the wrong kind of Democrat, nothing will improve. The party leadership is not spineless or clueless, they are very clever in continuing to promote their real interests while fooling “liberals” or “progressives”.

selise @ 126

looseheadprop @ 101

Demonizing someoe you know nothing about, doesn’t help anybody or anything.

Especially when the two parties differences are mostly

there’s something i’d like to add to this… it’s that it is very hard (psyc-wise) to change one’s world view so dramatically… and it doesn’t happen in an instant. providing moral support (while being completely honest – no sugar coating) is much more likely to be helpful in the long run. demonizing people justifiably makes people feel defensive… and makes it all that much harder to break through their biases. trying to be open to the possibility of our own biases helps too.

selise @ 126

looseheadprop @ 101

Demonizing someoe you know nothing about, doesn’t help anybody or anything.

very, very true.

there’s something i’d like to add to this… it’s that it is very hard (psyc-wise) to change one’s world view so dramatically… and it doesn’t happen in an instant. providing moral support (while being completely honest – no sugar coating) is much more likely to be helpful in the long run. demonizing people justifiably makes people feel defensive… and makes it all that much harder to break through their biases. trying to be open to the possibility of our own biases helps too.

I have seen someone who calls himself a conservative Republican rant at “liberals” because we don’t have national health care. Ignorant? Yes. But for many, the parties have no particular political positions. They are just identity movements where they feel comfortable. So when “their” party opposes what they support, it’s not important to them. They still must defeat the enemy. This is true of Democrats as much as Republicans.

This is not a Democrat-Republican issue. This is not a Liberal-Conservative issue. This is a Libertarian-Authoritarian issue, and since about 75% of Americans are more Libertarian than Authoritarian (those 25%-ers who still support the President), the Congress should follow our will and stop this abuse of power.

JEP @ 130

hackworth at 118, methinks thou dost protest too much…

Oklahoma kiddo @ 99

I want justice for Mother Earth. No. I absolutely demand it.

You are not alone.

Read Revelations 11-18. Partucularly the last few words…

I’m leaving now, this piece of chopped liver can take hint.

It is appropriate, I came here in the first place, tongue firmly in cheek, snarking at you Kiddo about Oklahoma’s upper class.

And people actually thought at the time I was troll.

Hopefully, now they know better.

But I can take a hint.

I’ll see if I can get this list of potentially contrite Republicans put together on another blog somewhere. It is a good idea, regardless of where it came from.

Thanks to everyone who offered options, the list is long enough to start with, and I will contact each of them in whatever way might be available.

If any of you might want to consider the same approach, here’s what I’ve got so far.

Chuck Hagel
Olympia Snowe
Susan Collins
John Danforth
Colin Powell
Christie Todd Whitman
Lawrence Wilkerson
Kevin Phillips
Paul O’neil,Pat Buchanan
William F Buckley
Bruce Fein
John Dean
Flynt Leverett
Robert McNamara

LHP, I wasn’t trying to hijack the thread, I thought the list idea was quite germane to the issue.

Farewell, doggies, it’s been real.

Jep in case you check back, I don’t believe anyone thaought you were trying to hijack the thread. To the contrary, I thought you had a goood idea and some peopl ewere adding to the list.

I don’t think anyone was sending you any negative hints.

I know I’m late for the party here, but add my thanks to LHP, too.

I’d make one addition, however. The ‘good’ Republicans aren’t going to do this by themselves. I predict that they WILL NOT do it without a push from the Democrats. The famous Republican confab with Nixon did not happen, and would not have happened, without the immanent threat of impeachment. We need to find a way to get John Conyers to begin an impeachment investigation in the HJC. If that happens, I believe that a lot of things will start to shake loose.

Bob in HI

bobschacht @ 147

I know I’m late for the party here, but add my thanks to LHP, too.

I’d make one addition, however. The ‘good’ Republicans aren’t going to do this by themselves. I predict that they WILL NOT do it without a push from the Democrats. The famous Republican confab with Nixon did not happen, and would not have happened, without the immanent threat of impeachment. We need to find a way to get John Conyers to begin an impeachment investigation in the HJC. If that happens, I believe that a lot of things will start to shake loose.

Bob in HI

Amen brother!~ I could not agree more

pluege @ 61

… wishful thinking that there is some great “silent majority” of republicans that are secretly retching over the destruction THEIR party has caused the US the past 25 years.

I think it’s clear this year that Ron Paul is to the Left of the other Republicans. Isn’t he the only one calling for an end to the war in Iraq?

If he doesn’t win the nomination I’d expect a lot of his followers would have to do some soul searching and wonder if the Republican party has narrowed itself, so that Libertarian-ish guys are now drifting in the middle of no-man’s land. They might want to consider voting Democratic if only for one election.

Democrats should take such an endorsement as a challenge: to move away from big government Liberal projects as much as they can and to get the budget under control and to perhaps reform some other government programs to return Privacy to American citizens. There are many intrusive programs, so it shouldn’t be too hard for Dems to find (with help from Libertarians) programs which need to be cut or reformed.

This might be a once in a lifetime vote for many Libertarians, but if Republicans continue to support the war, then it might be their duty to oppose Republican warring any legal way they can.

The people who care about the United States and used to be republicans have already left the republican party. What is left is 30% of the population that is rabid republican extremists; they are pro-war – first last, and always, pro-torture, pro-indefinite detention, pro-criminally unitary president (i.e., totalitarianism), and pro-white male authoritarian domination of the nation.
…
Sure you need to appeal to the middle to elect democrats. But don’t be talking nonsense that somehow there are republicans in that middle and worse yet that there are republican politicians willing to listen to them and push a middle position or compromise. republican politicians are not listening to the middle – they are only listening to the extremist base.

And, the Libertarian element should reconsider associating with that extremism.

Cliff Varnell @ 68

A Dem President will be a wonderful tonic for Congressional ‘Pugs. They’ll rediscover their patriotic fervor for the 1st, 4th and 6th Amendments…Of course, we have to make sure it’s a Dem Prez…

Here’s a wild speculation to make you wonder about that:

There were a lot of reasons given for 9/11 and attacking Iraq. There were rationalizations which suited each interest group and weren’t tied together. Here’s another one…what if the Bush mafia promised a dictatorship and one-party rule, Republican majority forever?

But, now that the Bush administration has everything it wanted and the back-stabbing has been underway it might be more and more obvious to people who have stuck tight with Bush that he isn’t actually going to pull off the R-rule forever or dictatorship forever, so they’re left hanging out there looking like Odie about to be kicked off a table-top.

What do Repubs do when they’ve supported a coup, but it’s not accompli?

Do they all claim they were blackmailed?

There isn’t even enough time for Bushies to stab ‘em all. There aren’t enough long knives.

If you strike a king you had better kill the king. What happens if you try to overthrow the U.S. government and your leader just walks away, leaving you high and dry?

Republicans had better think carefully about this. If they stick with Bush down the line, where does it lead?

“Neo, you’ve been down that road. You know where it leads.”

The sane way out of this is to return to normal two-party rule with Repubs taking a sound thumpin’ for several elections — the public will not be kind, but they will eventually see new faces they will want to elect with an R after their name.

Avert disaster, walk away from teh Bush.