Thursday, March 09, 2006

5 would impeach -- more coming?

Good evening. Democracy Now! still in London and in London tomorrow as well. Hope you're catching it. The show's always great but when they're on location in London, New Mexico, etc., they are able to cover events from those areas in real detail. I think there's been some really great stuff on this week and hope you haven't been missing it. Now here's some news from Democracy Now!

Five Vermont Towns Back Impeachment of Bush
In Vermont, five towns have approved measures calling for the impeachment of President Bush. The votes come at a time when the talk of impeachment is increasing. On Monday the Wall Street Journal ran a lengthy article pointing out how polls show there is greater support among the public for the impeachment of President Bush than there ever was for President Clinton. In 1998, polls showed 27 percent of the country backed the impeachment of Clinton if he lied about having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Meanwhile a recent Zogby poll showed 51 percent of the country said Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he didn't tell truth about the reasons for the Iraq war.

Rebecca noted this election night and it was just one town when the early reporting was done on it. C.I. noted it when it was four. When it was all counted, it was five towns. Think about that.
Like the story notes, among us, the people, there is an interest in impeachment. It's just our elected officials and our media giants that don't want to talk about this issue. "Greater support . . . for the impeachment of" Bully Boy "than there ever was for President Clinton." On the ground, things are changing and have changed. I think this is a big news: 5 towns would impeach the Bully Boy. I hear a lot of talk about how things would change if the Democrats controlled at least one house and I'm not sure I buy that.

Elaine wrote this last night:

I'm really not pleased with Congress. I don't think the blame can just placed on the Republicans. Take the Patriot Act. There is no reason in the world that only Robert Byrd could stand by Russ Feingold. You had senators who weren't even up for re-election and they couldn't find the strength to take a stand?
Are they that weak or are they getting advice from some re-election committee? I have no idea but the Democratic Party has been a huge disappointment -- on the Patriot Act, on the spying, on the Supreme Court nominations, go down the list.

You really do have to wonder. For every John Conyers, Maxine Waters, Russ Feingold, you get a lot of people standing around with dopey expressions on their face and doing nothing.

These are really awful times for our country. We've got an illegal war in Iraq, we got the war in Afghanistan still going on, we got Bully Boy spying on the American people and you just start adding that up and all the scandals and wondering why the Democrats aren't doing anything with it?

Are they scared of how they'll look? Republicans don't worry too much about that. They'll lie, sure. But in terms of going after their opponent, they don't hedge their bets. Sam Parry had a thing about the Democrat's response or lack of it that C.I. noted this week.

I was talking to Ma about this (and Dad too but Ma's got her own site so let me plug Trina's Kitchen) and she said right now it seems like the Democrats have the best chance of winning in November but that she felt that way in 2004 when John Kerry was the candidate because she thought, "They won't be able to tar and feather him." But he let them tar and feather him. Or his campaign did. I'm not trying to slam him, he's one of my senators and he does a pretty good job in the Senate. But he was the military guy who spoke out against an immoral war so how could they slime him?

How? Because he didn't speak out against this war. The campaign tried to just focus on Vietnam and not what happened after. And because he didn't argue about what happened after, that let the right paint it as something bad and with him saying nothing, the impression may have stuck with others. He should have come out strong against the Iraq war and he should have talked about why he spoke out against the Vietnam war.

All Bully Boy had to offer was the war and Kerry trying to be like the Bully Boy just made him a pale imitation. If Democrats think they can win big in November by acting like the Republicans, they better not be surprised if they put up a close fight but end up losing. Democrats need to be Democrats. They need to fight and stand up. The people will support that.

Shiites Direct Ministry to Stop Counting Deaths Caused by Militias
Meanwhile the Washington Post is reporting the leading Shiite party in Iraq's governing coalition has directed the Health Ministry to stop tabulating execution-style shootings in order to minimize the number of casualties caused by Shiite militias and death squads. According to the paper, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, ordered government hospitals and morgues to continue cataloging deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.

Who else is trying to be like the Bully Boy? The governing Shiites. Don't record deaths and they didn't happen. Hide the bodies from public sight and no one knows. That's not democracy but it is Bully Boy so he's exported his own denial and lies to Iraq.

Ron (Why Are We Back In Iraq?) has an article he wrote with John Byrne called "Washington nonprofit where Abramoff was director wrote articles favoring Abramoff clients"

The Washington nonprofit whose president appeared before a Senate committee as a victim of fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff's congressional bribery net wrote repeated articles that aligned with the positions of the lobbyist's clients, suggesting possible coordination between the lobbyist and the group in violation of federal law.
In a series of editorials between 1999 and 2001, National Center for Public Policy Research president Amy Ridenour went to bat for the Commonwealth of the Marianas Islands, a small U.S. territory in the Pacific. Her releases bemoaned efforts to expand federal immigration laws to the island, defended the islands' meager wages and attacked Clinton Administration attempts to tighten labor laws.
Ridenour also lent her support to the Western Pacific Economic Council, a trade group composed of Marianas garment manufacturers. Her group's name appeared in a Saipan newspaper backing the Council in 1999.

This reminds me a little of when the administration was paying Armstrong Williams and others to pimp their programs. This has that and sweat shop issues and someone acting innocent before the Senate so you should check it out if you haven't already.

I don't think Dad's ever asked me to note anything before but he did today. He pointed out that C.I.'s noting it and I said, "I've put it up" but Dad said he didn't think so. I know we all noted it at The Third Estate Sunday Review and I guess that's why I think I had noted it.
I'm swiping from C.I. by the way because C.I. has links in the announcement:

"MediaChannel, UFPJ and Partners Call For National Media Action"
The national day of local media protest announced last week on MediaChannel.org has received such a positive response that the organizers of United For Peace And Justice, the country's largest anti-war coalition, decided to change the date from March 21st to March 15th. The media protest will now kickoff this years week-long "spring offensive" against the war, just before the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.Organizers were so excited about the prospect of bringing media activists and anti-war activists together, to challenge media outlets to tell the truth about the war and report on the anti-war movement, that they decided it should begin the week and not end it.
"The media helped make the war possible," charges UFPJ National Coordinator Leslie Cagan. "It's time to call for more coverage and better coverage."
The protests will also pay tribute to journalists and media workers killed in the line of fire, kidnapped, or jailed without charges. Most recently, on February 23rd an Al-Arabiya media team was gunned down in Iraq. We have to honor those who have lost their lives to get the story out.
MediaChannel.org is taking the lead in reaching out to media and peace groups to encourage a series of media actions on March 15th."
All of us are media consumers," says MediaChannel editor Danny Schechter, "The News Dissector." "We can all take part by monitoring media coverage, writing letters and emails to media decision makers, and protesting against a pro-war media tilt in much of the coverage. If you have ever complained about the coverage, now's the time to do something by speaking up."

So what are you doing to take part in protesting the third anniversary of the illegal war? You gotta do something. You don't want to be one of the idiots playing "War Got Your Tongue?" do you? Three years, you should have an opinion by now and not be afraid to express it.

The only way the war will stop and the troops will come home is if we all start speaking out. Not just once, or twice, or three times. We gotta speak out and do it over and over.

My favorite prof stopped me on campus today and goes, "Tell C.I. incredible." What was he talking about? This morning's "NYT: 'G.O.P. Plan Would Allow Spying Without Warrants' (Shane and Kirkpatrick)." C.I.'s having nothing but problems with publishing The Common Ills. Hopefully, that's about to change (switched from monthly archives to weekly this morning) but it's been a pain in the butt. I tried to pass on my prof's compliment and C.I. was all, "Oh, there's nothing I've done that's worth praise this week. I'm sure he meant something someone highlighted." No, he meant your entry. And he was going on about how no one in the article C.I. was highlighting raised the issue of checks and balances and how the Senate was pulling the courts out of the equation. It's a great entry and you should check it out. Another thing you should check out is Articles of Impeachment Against George W. Bush. I finished it last night and Nina's reading it right now. You have to read that book. I was in such a rush to get to that book last night that I forgot to put a title on my post. :D



















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