I was tempted to post something about this when I first read about it, but I didn't. Now, however, I just watched a diavlog about it and it makes me want to get back to the issue.
The issue is the burqini. Never heard of it? It's a bathing suit that covers a woman's entire body, except for the face, hands, and feet, designed for Muslim women to wear to the beach.
So in this diavlog Jackie Shire is talking about the ambivalence she feels in reading about these things, and the conflict she feels between the idea that feminism means wearing and doing what you want, and her concern that women should not be made to feel that their bodies are something to be ashamed of, or that they need to cover up.
I say she shouldn't feel any ambivalence. The issue here isn't whether women are going to be allowed to wear what they want. The burqini, like the burqa, is about one thing: oppression of women. It is entirely of a piece with Islamic laws that say women can't drive cars, or be outside of their father's home without a male relative. As Americans we should all be feminists: we all agree, or should agree, in the equality of the sexes, and the issue here is not the outward expression of religion in public, but in whether we will support Muslim men's structure designed and operated to oppress women.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. We aren't likely to see too many women wearing these things, but we will see more and more women wearing burqas, hijabs, and other concealing, restricting, cultish clothing.
And we should think very hard about what it means.

It's no secret that Democrats across the state are eager to find a solution to the Douglas problem. He seems unbeatable, the voters don't seem to grasp the pernicious, extremist views he has put into action, and our best politicians either don't seem to connect with enough voters to displace him, or don't want to give up their comfortable seats to take him on.

So the word is out: find the candidate who can defeat Douglas.

But is Shummy for real here? 

Just read the lede and tell me what you think:

(Host) Democrats are thinking hard about a gubernatorial candidate to take on Governor Jim Douglas next year. 

Illuzzi says he hasn't ruled out the idea.

You probably remember that Moveon.org got its start as a movement to vote a censure for Bill Clinton, forget about impeachment, and move on to the real business of the country.

Now Russ Feingold is proposing a censure resolution. 

We know beyond any possibility of contradiction that impeachment can't pass, and probably won't even get a serious hearing. What about censure as an alternative?

What about contacting Welch, Sanders, and Leahy and demanding censure? 

You would really think that they wouldn't even try, wouldn't you?

Except that what we've learned during the Bush administration, in case we didn't already know, is that the Big Lie theory works.

Here you go:  

We never argued that he played a role 9/11; political opponents manufactured the claim to question the president's integrity.

Yes, that's Tony Snow writing in USA Today.

Lying sons of bitches! 

Th eWashington Post has a new story about a massive new power grab by the Bush administration.

Specifically, they have now officially determined that they are above the law:

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege.

You will remember that the House Judiciary Committee is moving toward charging Bush officials with contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at committee hearings, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is moving in the same directiong, albeit with regard to other officials.

The question occurred to me, though, as it may have occurred to you, to wonder how Congress pursues contempt charges, since prosecutions are generally brought by the executive branch.

It turns out there is a federal law that applies to this situation.

Whenever a witness summoned as mentioned in section 192 of this title fails to appear to testify or fails to produce any books, papers, records, or documents, as required, or whenever any witness so summoned refuses to answer any question pertinent to the subject under inquiry before either House, or any joint committee established by a joint or concurrent resolution of the two Houses of Congress, or any committee or subcommittee of either House of Congress, and the fact of such failure or failures is reported to either House while Congress is in session or when Congress is not in session, a statement of fact constituting such failure is reported to and filed with the President of the Senate or the Speaker of the House, it shall be the duty of the said President of the Senate or Speaker of the House, as the case may be, to certify, and he shall so certify, the statement of facts aforesaid under the seal of the Senate or House, as the case may be, to the appropriate United States attorney, whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action.

2 U.S.C.A. § 194

It's very clear: the duty to bring contempt of Congress charges is mandatory upon the Department of Justice–they have no discretion to fail or refuse to do so.

This isn't how the Bushies see it, though. “A U.S. attorney would not be permitted to bring contempt charges or convene a grand jury in an executive privilege case,” said a senior official, who said his remarks reflect a consensus within the administration. “And a U.S. attorney wouldn't be permitted to argue against the reasoned legal opinion that the Justice Department provided. No one should expect that to happen.”

In other words, the President is above the law.

This really seems like the most egregious corruption of government power since the Saturday Night Massacre.

You need to read this. Washington Monthly asked Theodore Sorenson to write the speech he wants the Democratic nominee to give next year at the Democratic National Convention. As you probably know, Sorenson was a pseechwriter for JFK and worked closely with him through his presidential campaign and term of office. Since one of the big areas in which we have been faulted has been failures of communication, Washington Monthly asked Sorenson to “write the speech of his dreams”.

I think this is great. Seeing the speech as written reminds us that when they hear what liberals really stand for, Americans are liberals, and the idea of America is a liberal value. This speech attacks the incompetency and corruption of the Bush Administration without acrimony, and lays out the values and goals of a new Democratic Administration in a way that is understandable and compelling.

The American people are tired of politics as usual, and I intend to offer them, in this campaign, something unusual in recent American politics: the truth. Neither bureaucracies nor nations function well when their actions are hidden from public view and accountability. From now on, whatever mistakes I make, whatever dangers we face, the people shall know the truth—and the truth shall make them free. After eight years of secrecy and mendacity, here are some truths the people deserve to hear:

We remain essentially a nation under siege. The threat of another terrorist attack upon our homeland has not been reduced by all the new layers of porous bureaucracy that proved their ineptitude in New Orleans; nor by all the needless, mindless curbs on our personal liberties and privacy; nor by expensive new weaponry that is utterly useless in stopping a fanatic willing to blow himself up for his cause. Indeed, our vulnerability to another attack has only been worsened in the years since the attacks of September 11th—worsened by our government convincing more than 1 billion Muslims that we are prejudiced against their faith, dismissive of international law, and indifferent to the deaths of their innocent children; worsened by our failure to understand their culture or to provide a safe haven for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees displaced by a war we started; worsened by our failure to continue our indispensable role in the Middle East peace process.

We have adopted some of the most indefensible tactics of our enemies, including torture and indefinite detention.

We have degraded our military.

We have treated our most serious adversaries, such as Iran and North Korea, in the most juvenile manner—by giving them the silent treatment. In so doing, we have weakened, not strengthened, our bargaining position and our leadership.

At home, as health care costs have grown and coverage disappeared, we have done nothing but coddle the insurance, pharmaceutical, and health care industries that feed the problem.

As global warming worsens, we have done nothing but deny the obvious and give regulatory favors to polluters.

As growing economic inequality tarnishes our democracy, we have done nothing but carve out more tax breaks for the rich.

During these last several years, our nation has been bitterly divided and deceived by illicit actions in high places, by violations of federal, constitutional, and international law. I do not favor further widening the nation’s wounds, now or next year, through continuous investigations, indictments, and impeachments. I am confident that history will hold these malefactors accountable for their deeds, and the country will move on.

Instead, I shall seek a renewal of unity among all Americans, an unprecedented unity we will need for years to come in order to face unprecedented danger.

We will be safer from terrorist attack only when we have earned the respect of all other nations instead of their fear, respect for our values and not merely our weapons.

We don't often quote conservatives like Andrew Sullivan around here, but he has a very interesting discussion in his blog last week, and I think it's interesting precisely because he's a conservative.

If you're like me, you don't have any trouble with the fact that Libby and Cheney arranged to do whatever they had to do to destroy Valerie Wilson and her husband, and you really don't have any trouble believing that the stories they used to mislead the United States into invading Iraq were just lies.

Sullivan doesn't want to believe it, especially the part about lying, so he spends more time that we might trying to psychoanalyze Cheney and Libby's motives. What he comes up with is really pretty clear:

I can still just about believe that Bush thought the WMD case was sound. I can't believe, given all that we now know, that Cheney did. He's too smart. The data he read, we now know, was far more equivocal than the data the public was provided with. He's not new at this. He probably never wanted to make the WMD argument anyway, put it in to appease the UN crowd, and certainly wasn't going to query its validity. We may never know, of course, because Cheney will have destroyed the evidence, but if I had to guess, I'd say it's obvious Cheney knew all along that the WMD line was a cover, not a real threat, but realized by the summer of 2003 that any hint of this leaking (even from a two-bit blowhard like Wilson) needed swift and brutal rebuttal. They were embarrassed enough by the WMD bust, but if it was revealed that they had ignored all the caveats beforehand, it could get really dicey. One has to assume that Libby and Cheney are indistinguishable in their knowledge and involvement. Miller was also trying to cover her tracks that, in retrospect, had begun to look shady. Hence the weird Cheney-coordinated hit on Wilson and Plame. Hence Libby's clumsy perjury. Has Libby ever done something as clumsy in his entire life? Sometimes, even the smoothest cannot escape their own lies.

This sounds like a reasonable explanation of what happened, but get what he says next:  

That's not just worth 30 months in jail. It's worth impeachment.

Isn't that what we've been saying? 

 

By RAY MCALLISTER

TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST

Graduates from Richmond's Binford Middle School get a diplomalike certificate, signed by the teacher and principal.

It is ringed by six graphic marks, including icons of a notebook, an apple, the school mascot and such.

Then there is a picture of a man. And who is this icon of American education?

Not John Dewey or Horace Mann, both of whom were called fathers of American education.

Despite threats of rain, wind, cold, and even a Category 5 hurricane, the second annual Hamburger Summit went off at Burlington's North Beach yesterday. The usual suspects: bloggers and local pols, spent the afternoon on Vermont's West Coast enjoying the cool breezes off the beach, talking about politics, and occasionally dipping their kids in the lake.

Enjoy the pics:

The Burlington Free Press carries a story today about the defeat of the veto override and the angry reaction of Democrats to the Franklin County Dems, and particularly Ron Allard, for supporting Douglas'veto of the energy affordability and campaign finance bills.

This time, there could be ramifications back home. Franklin County Democrats said Wednesday's vote was the last straw and they'll push to find a candidate to run against Allard next year.

“There's great concern with Ron's positions,” said Lloyd Touchette of Enosburg Falls, chairman of the Franklin County Democratic Committee. “There's going to be a concerted effort to find someone to run against him.”

 The story quotes GMD front-pager Euan Bear:

“The idea that he couldn't throw one the other way certainly seems to be the straw that broke the camel's back,” said Euan Bear of Bakersfield, vice chairwoman of the county committee.

It also had a particularly bizarre quote from Allard, who apparently thinks that Douglas' phony affordability agenda is a real argument against conservation:  

On the energy bill, he said the efficiency program included in the measure won't help the people who need it the most and he opposes the $25 million tax on the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant that would pay for it. “My biggest argument with a lot of bills that come out is we can't afford to live in this state anymore,” he said.

Apparently it hasn't occurred to Allard that providing funds for insulation and other energy conservation measures does help people save money.

You have to wonder how much his buddy Douglas can help him in the Democratic primary in 2008, don't you?