Sociopath/psychopath — the difference is only that a sociopath is less organized than a psychopath.  To get to the Presidency, even by fraud, requires a degree of organization that promotes Bush to psychopath. 

He is a murderer, liar, crook, and he and his administration have destroyed the rule of law, the constitution, and common decency. 

To have anything to do with them is to become an accessory after the fact.

Despite what the wingnuts say, the houses of Congress are based on the the houses of Parliament.

An ancient liberty of the lower house is the right to slam the door in the monarch’s face. 

This is just what the House of Representatives should do when the texas tyrant appears for the State of the Union.

The they should defund the White House itself — except for the Presidential salary which is constitutionally protected.  No staff, no heat, no light. 

From UPI:

And of course, we can’t talk about the “methods” because it might “help the enemy.” Techniques such as:

FBI agents documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at the Guantanamo Bay military base, including one detainee whose head was wrapped in duct tape for chanting the Quran and another who pulled out his hair after hours in a sweltering room.

Lest you think this is just a partisan pissing match (and if torture isn’t enough to bug you), the Project on Government Oversight sums up the stakes:

Also to keep in mind, the Executive branch is denying Congress policy documents, not detailed information on what we actually know about Al Qaeda that could tip them off–again, if they were publicly disclosed.  If the Executive gets away with keeping these documents from Congress, then our constitutional system of separation of powers will have totally failed because Congress cannot oversee without basic information such as the policies of the Executive.  Leahy, Congress and the American public should fight for these documents.

Unintentional implications can be funny.

In his verbal dismissal of blogs, bloggers, and blog readers, AP reporter Ross Sneyd seems to have not been too concerned about collateral damage from his rhetoric. On Tuesday’s switchboard, Sneyd and VPR reporter John Dillon fielded a question from a caller who asked whether or not blogs might have an effect on the upcoming legislative session. Now let’s be honest here – the real answer is “who the hell knows” – we’re, after all, in uncharted territory here, and bloggers like myself, Philip Baruth, J.D. Ryan and others are just people with access to software, web space, and who possess a pathological need to type our opinions. Clearly blogs impacted the recent elections, but how much is an open question – just as open as the switchboard caller’s question.

Sneyd attempted to hedge his bet in his response, but quickly started his eyes rolling (here’s a link to an mp3 of the question and its responses):

Sneyd:
  “…I wonder if maybe some folks who are on the blogs think they have a little bit more power than in fact they do. You know a lot of these legislators – I shouldn’t say a lot – there are some legislators who don’t even know how to use a computer, let alone get influenced by the folks who are out there, uh, you know, the political activists. So, I think there may be some impact, but I think, really you have to spend time in the Statehouse to have much of an impact on what the agenda really is.”

Now, for the record, I don’t think Sneyd really believes what he incidentally implies in his response; that only those in the Statehouse can influence lawmakers (constituents can forget those letters, phone calls, emails and hometown personal contacts, I s’pose). Nor do I think he means to suggest that many lawmakers are just too stupid to be able to use email or visit a web page. (more on the flip)

Of course, maybe he does, what do I know?

I aint Markos, so I’m not going to bludgeon the fellow with this as he does when reporters casually dismiss political blogs, but it’s worth discussing why Sneyd would suggest that blogs and the internet are irrelevent when such an assertion is, frankly, demonstrably untrue. On this blog, we’ve had comments and/or diaries from legislators of all stripes; Republican, Progressive, and Democrat (all right, all right, put the knives away – I know that’s not all stripes…). I’ve also received input and story tips via email from sitting Representatives and Senators – and I know Baruth gets a lot more of those sorts of communications than I do.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to toot my own horn. Fact is I just know a lot of legislators, and whatever handful read this particular blog may only do so precisely because they know me, or Jack, or one of the other front pagers. Who the hell really knows. The point is that to suggest that blogs, email and electronic activism in general have no impact just seems goofy on its face, and to do so with such ill-considered, cavalier language is odd.

In fact, John Dillon quickly spoke up to counter Sneyd’s haphazard blog blow-off:

Dillon:
“But on the other hand, I think its a way – the blogosphere – it’s another way that the public will provide feedback to the legislature. And we’ve seen on hot button issues that the email inboxes of the lawmakers get flooded. That happens with Governor’s office – and once an issue starts bouncing around, reverberating online – in the blogosphere – you know, people emailing each other whatever, then it can amplify, and it can become just one more feedback loop, if you will, for the lawmakers. 

And people- its interesting, that there’s sort of this political, I dont know what you want to call it, but sort of the cogncoscenti of political followers in Vermont who are reading 4 or 5 blogs on a daily basis, and what is said on those blogs does have impact at least on the conventional wisdom among those people  – so, in that sense there’s another way that it’ll feed back.”

Dillon’s answer seems like the clear-headed one; blogs are a function of the internet, which is a medium for communication. Things can get communicated through them. There are certainly some people who read the blogs, but how many is hard to say – making their impact hard to gauge, but certainly not as negligible as Sneyd suggests.

I believe this is what most people in and around the Statehouse would say in one way or another, and yet it is in stark contrast to Sneyd’s analysis – a condescension he felt strongly enough not to worry about how far he may have inadvertently spread that condescension in trying to justify it.

Is this just another example of that retro, traditional-media/blog distortion zone? Was Sneyd just having a bad day?

Why do I get the feeling we’re going to be having more and more of these sorts of discussions in the coming months…?

Coming in off the wires…

http://www.bizjourna…

The Speaker is the Speaker once again, and in her opening remarks before the assembly, she struck the right balance of crusading do-gooder and down-to-Earth, hands-on political pro. From her remarks:

I ask that as we consider these and other challenges and opportunities, we think beyond the next election or even the election after that. I ask that we consider how our actions or inactions today will determine the kind of state we leave to the generations that follow.

Let’s ask, What are we doing today to make sure we are leaving a prosperous and healthy state to our children and to their grandchildren?

As we build a budget are we paying the bills for the services we expect? Or are we passing debts on to our children?

As we choose our energy future what opportunities are we building for the economy to grow and prosper?

As we examine our transportation and heating habits are we doing enough to rein in the trends of global warming that threaten our four seasons and our health?

As we address the burden of property taxes in Vermont, are we looking for transient fixes that will play well for an election season, or are we taking a more fundamental look at what we ask of our public schools, how we deliver those services and whether we could do that more effectively, and whether we can lower Vermont’s reliance on property as a measure of wealth in school taxes?

As we look at options for investing in the next generation, how we are preparing our youth for the economy of the future, and are we creating an electronic, rail and road infrastructure that will be relevant in our global economy.

As we consider how best to provide safe communities, do our actions provide only perceived incremental safety today, or are we making investments that lower the rate of increase in crime and the rate of increase in the cost of our corrections system?

We must think of our decisions in the context of longer term consequences, not just getting by for this year and next, but building a more secure and prosperous future for the generations to come.

Obviously words aren’t actions, but they are still very important. There’s a cacophonous game of telephone that goes on at the Statehouse, giving rise to legislation that squeezes out painfully when enough pressure gets applied. This first address sets the tone for a lot of that cacophony, so it is not without some import, if nothing else as a preview of coming attractions. If she can sustain this tenor and quality of rhetoric, it’ll make it easier to deliver when the crunch is on.

Okay, I’m sure you think that this was some kind of test, and somehow my keyboard passed (or failed?) by letting me type the title of this diary. That would be a good hypothesis, but in this case it turns out not to be correct.

Actually, I’m writing to recommend another site. I’ve been a regular viewer of BloggingHeadsTV, a site that Robert Wright has been running for a couple of years now. It’s like the video version of blogging, and the way it works is that Bob Wright and someone else (commonly, but not always, Mickey Kaus) sit at their computers, with their webcams and headsets, and debate issues. They call them diavlogs, and they do two or three a week, sometimes Bob and Mickey, sometimes two other people.

It varies. John and I have talked about it, and I suspect he doesn’t watch BHTV because of how much he can’t stand Mickey. This is entirely understandable, because Mickey is one of these guys (they seem to be legion, like Chris Matthews and Tim Russert) who like to parlay a long-ago staff job for some Democrat into some kind of Democratic bona fides, even though they have slipped irredeemably, or nearly so, into conservatism. Bob does challenge Mickey on his claims to be a Democrat, and I think he routinely has the better of the argument, but I still think some of the diavlogs can be enlightening.

Tonight I just watched one between Bob Wright and Andrew Sullivan, whom you may know as the former editor of the New Republic. I thought it was very good, largely because (here’s the shocking part) Andrew Sullivan admits that he was wrong to support the Republican War in Iraq, and talks at great length about why. His comments are really way beyond the norm for former war supporters, and they seem to demonstrate that not only does he realize that he was wrong, but that he has understood that he has to rethink his whole way of looking at things.

You can certainly judge for yourself if you think that’s true, but I think it’s worth viewing the diavlog for that and other reasons.

One of the main reasons is that they talk about why, knowing what we know now about the runup to the war–excuse me, the Republican War in Iraq–it is more important than ever to talk about impeachment.

Most of us were against the war all along, and we were pretty convinced that Hussein didn’t have the weapons that Bush claimed he had. Bob Wright points out in this diavlog, though, that Bush knew something we didn’t know.

You remember that the UN was inspecting weapons sites, basically unhindered, and they kept coming up empty. It’s pretty clear that they could have kept doing it until the camels came home and they still wouldn’t have found any weapons. What Bush knew, and we didn’t, was that the sites the UN inspectors were inspecting were not chosen at random, but were the top sites that the Americans were sending them to as the sites that we had identified as weapons sites. That’s right, while our elected (okay, selected) representatives were telling us they knew were these weapons were, they were also sending the UN to those very places, and the UN was reporting back that the weapons weren’t there.

Here’s the quote from Terry Gross’s interview of Hans Blix:

Mr. BLIX: No, not really. I mean, I feel more like an analyst, and I don’t feel a grudge. I mean, I regret what happened. I think it’s–it was tragic. I think that if the Security Council would have allowed inspectors to continue inspections for a few months, we would have been able to report that all the sites we’d gone to had no weapons of mass destruction, and since many of these sites were given to us by intelligence organizations, including the CIA, they would have realized that the tips they had, the sources they had, were unsatisfactory.

In other words, if there were any question before, it is now absolutely clear that Bush and his minions were knowingly lying to us and to the Congress about the basis for the war. Although there is no explicit definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in the Constitution, can we all agree that it doesn’t include lying about blow jobs, and it does include lying to get us into a war that kills thousands of our own troops, and tens of thousands of innocent civilians?

Did anyone else notice the list of staff members soon-to-be sworn-in Congressman Peter Welch (appointed to the powerful Ways and Means Committee) has hired to handle his Washington and Vermont offices?

One name of note is Jon Copans, the immediate past Executive Director of the Vermont Democratic Party, who is now one of the  Congressman’s “outreach specialists.”

More names to know if you want to get through to the Congressman after the jump.

Other names to conjure with: Bob Rogan (chief of staff), Andrew Savage (press secretary), Rachel Seelig (staff assistant & case worker), Molly McFaun (outreach specialist). McFaun’s dad is state Rep. Topper McFaun of Barre Town. Looks like all these folks are moving from the Green Mountains  to the Marble Mausoleums to become Washington office staff, augmented by some DC veterans, including a steal of Claire Benjamin from Sen. Leahy’s office, and Constance Dougherty, formerly of Sen. Bob Kerrey’s staff.

Two other names to know: Molly Gray (keeper of the appointment book), and Calvin Garner (press assistant).

Vermont office folks include Tricia Coates (director), a Vermonter by birth, residing in New York state when hired; Susan Elliot (outreach specialist); Mary Sprayregan of Charlotte (business liaison).

To someone who participated in the Franklin County Women 4 Welch organizing, it’s initially encouraging that there are plenty of women on his staff.

But the name that caught my notice was former Democratic E.D. Jon Copans. The job is likely up his alley: lots of detail work and follow through. Although I’m surprised he’s signed on for another such job, given the level of burnout he seemed to be experiencing through the election. Maybe the move to Washington is enough to restart his engine.

BTW, the Times Argus reports that Welch’s famous four-footed furry friend Pepper is staying with a friend in Vermont where he can run the fields.

NanuqFC

Oopsie-daisy! Reality sneaks in (followed by a chuckle and a hasty retreat) as Newsweek Senior editor Michael Hirsh is interviewed on the Air America Radio program, The Young Turks.

Co-host Cenk Ugyur posed the following question to Hirsh, asking about Bush’s plans to escalate the war in Iraq with the addition of some 30,000+ troops:

What happens at the endgame here? We’re talking to Michael Hirsh of Newsweek. Bush says, “Alright, I’m gonna put more troops in.” He does. He doesn’t have a plan for what they’re supposed to accomplish, which is what [sic] it appears. There is no political equilibrium that we have reached. There is no unity government that is a a real partner for peace with us. This thing gets worse and worse, and I guarantee you it will, and Bush never changes course.

[…]

Do we get to a point where people have to pull him aside and say, “You can’t do this anymore?” And who would that be, and how would that work? I mean, how do we get a President that won’t listen to reason under control?

Hirsh’s response?

Impeachment. [Then he laughs, sheepishly.]

I mean, there aren’t many means, you know? This is the great flaw in the American system. We often say of ourselves how lucky we’ve been to have leaders who have stood up in times of crisis, but, you know, we haven’t considered what happens when we get very, very unlucky, and I think you have a leader who is a complete mismatch for the moment in history that we face here. And we kind of have to grit our teeth, hold our nose, and wait out the next couple of years. There’s nothing else to do.

Now, maybe it’s unfair to make Michael Hirsh into an impeachment advocate. He’s clearly uncomfortable with the subject. But boil down the exchange, and you can see just what kind of trouble we’re in here.

If Hirsh’s chuckle is meant as a dismissal of the idea of impeachment, what are we left with?

Q: How do we get a President that won’t listen to reason under control?

A: We kind of have to grit our teeth, hold our nose, and wait out the next couple of years. There’s nothing else to do.

The day when it becomes incontrovertible that Bush “won’t listen to reason” is coming sooner than Hirsh or anyone else in the media thinks. Those additional troops, it seems, are going to Iraq. And they’re going with no mission in mind, contrary to the warnings of Jim Baker, Lee Hamilton, several Republican Senators, and now even Gerald Ford, not to mention a staggering 89% of public opinion.

Vermont, followed by people all over the country, has another chance to show the mainstream media that they needn’t chuckle to deflect their discomfort any longer. But the folks in the media are going to have to be a bit braver than this if we’re to get through this intact.

Here’s hoping you’ll lend them your courage.

It occured to me that we are constantly struggling against the WRONG ideas, those ideas which have already been dismissed by most people as “unvirtuous” or “unworthy of consideration.”

The current push to “surge” the troop levels is such an idea.  WE THE PEOPLE have already spoken on this idea in the last election. It was a clear and pointed message: GET OUT OF IRAQ.  Now the exact reserve action is being contemplated:  GET INTO IRAQ MORE!

This is how it has been under Republicans, particularly President Bush and his ilk.

We are doing the WRONG THING first and then having to turn around and do the RIGHT THING.  The resistance to doing the right thing is immense and unrelenting, even after WE THE PEOPLE have spoken clearly and definitely.

Societies can evolve when the good ideas are heard and appreciated at the highest levels of social organization …. government, business, religion, etc.

When good ideas are dismissed or obscured by bad ideas being pounded into us by leaders and media and money …. then we have a hard time at proceeding at the task of evolutionary progress.

Progress is a good thing. It should not be encumbered by disruptive or delaying tactics.  It should be sought by everyone all of the time.  The idea that some people want things to “stay the same” should be the idea which is challenged.  Things are always changing, that’s the one constant in the universe we can certainly proclaim as truth.  The question becomes one of HOW they are changing … for the better or for the worse .. and this becomes the focus of progressive leadership: change things for the BETTER.

THe more time and energy we spend overcoming resistance to change for human progress the less human progress we are able to achieve in any given amount of time. 

Republicans have been so abusive to America recently.

Never vote Republican.

Steve Moyer
http://stevemoyer.us

( – promoted by odum)

Although it still hasn’t crept fully into the public consciousness yet, there has been more talk of the idea of defunding the war as one of the only viable options in putting the brakes on it, even though Nancy Pelosi has seemingly dismissed the idea.

Peter Welch and Patrick Leahy have both come out now with the message that any surge escalation of troops can be countered with the defunding option:

Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, is having discussions with other senators about legislation that would restrict the president’s use of the military. He said the “only way” a withdrawal would occur is through the budget process.

“I don’t know anyone who believes we’ll see an end to (the Iraq war) the way we’re doing it now,” he said in an interview. “It’s time to get out of there.”

“What will the president do? That’s the $64 million question,” said Congressman-elect Peter Welch, D-Vt.

“I would oppose adding troops,” Welch said in an interview. “And I would support steps to deny funding for adding more troops.”

If Leahy and Welch are serious, I think this is a step in the right direction. Let’s just say they pull it off, and it goes over well with the public. It suddenly doesn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea as a way to stop the war.

If it happens, it’s crucial that it is done in a way to insulate it from the expected ‘Dems don’t support the troops’ attack that will come from the right-wing noise machine. As I understand it, this could be done by continuing to fund personnel – and nothing else, no money for new operations, anything. The troops would be sitting around camp all day, but it’s a much better option than getting blown up. And it’s also very easy to counter by simply asking the Repubs how sending more troops to die is supporting them.