You were saying, Mr. President?

Moments before Bush launched into his "soaring rhetoric" on freedom and democracy, his thugs arrested Cindy Sheehan- invited by Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) to attend the SOTU - from the gallery. John of Americablog notes the irony. (That link is mysteriously not working; you might have to scroll down the page to see for yourself. Update: The link is working again. And here is Cindy Sheehan's side of the story.)

It's National Gorilla Suit Day

No, really. And I have one! But I can't find a picture of me in it, and I'm suffering a sinus infection that makes the mere thought of pulling a gorilla mask over my head bring tears to my eyes. I've never had a sinus infection like this before. I look almost exactly like this...

Neanderthal. Except that my upper lip is swollen and my lower is not. I have a couple good hours every six or so, when the ibuprofen is working and my face stops throbbing. So now is my chance to tell you that you don't have to watch the State of the Union address tonight. You can watch this instead. James Adomian is the impersonator, and he is perfect. He's got all the Bush twitches and wierd enunciations down so well, he's probably going to need some kind of therapy to become a normal human being again. And the text is every bit as enlightening as the load of hooey you're going to hear tonight. (The video loads a bit slowly, even on "high speed internet," so watch it through a second time if you need to- after it has loaded- to get the full, fluent effect.)

But if you'd rather curl up with some good reading, try this Newsweek story about hard-core conservatives deep within the administration (is there any other kind there?) who actually tried to stop the presidential power grab, and how they paid for it.

Just remember, "The W Stands for Women"

I have simply run out of expressions of outrage. Read this:

In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior US military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.

Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition's joint task force said in a briefing that "women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep."

"And rather than make everybody aware of that - because that's shocking, and as a leader if that's not shocking to you then you're not much of a leader - what they told the surgeon to do is don't brief those details anymore. And don't say specifically that they're women. You can provide that in a written report but don't brief it in the open anymore."

For example, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Sanchez's top deputy in Iraq, saw "dehydration" listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, he directed that the cause of death no longer be listed, Karpinski stated. The official explanation for this was to protect the women's privacy rights.

Sanchez's attitude was: "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory," Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told me that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did. She thinks it likely that when the information about the cause of these women's deaths was passed to the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld ordered that the details not be released. "That's how Rumsfeld works," she said.

Read the whole story at Truthout.

Bush's Science Fiction

From the Washington Post:

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to whether climate change is progressing so rapidly that, within decades, humans may be helpless to slow or reverse the trend.

This "tipping point" scenario has begun to consume many prominent researchers in the United States and abroad, because the answer could determine how drastically countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. While scientists remain uncertain when such a point might occur, many say it is urgent that policymakers cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half over the next 50 years or risk the triggering of changes that would be irreversible.

There are three specific events that these scientists describe as especially worrisome and potentially imminent, although the time frames are a matter of dispute: widespread coral bleaching that could damage the world's fisheries within three decades; dramatic sea level rise by the end of the century that would take tens of thousands of years to reverse; and, within 200 years, a shutdown of the ocean current that moderates temperatures in northern Europe.

The debate has been intensifying because Earth is warming much faster than some researchers had predicted. James E. Hansen, who directs NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies, last week confirmed that 2005 was the warmest year on record, surpassing 1998. Earth's average temperature has risen nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit over the past 30 years, he noted, and another increase of about 4 degrees over the next century would "imply changes that constitute practically a different planet."

"It's not something you can adapt to," Hansen said in an interview. "We can't let it go on another 10 years like this. We've got to do something."

The WaPo story mentions NASA's silencing of Hansen, but that issue is covered in more detail by the NY Times in another chilling example of Bush's War on Science.

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

By the way, have you read Chris Mooney's book, yet?

And have you "neutralized" your car? Check out Terra Pass and Drive Neutral.

Your liberal media

Please read this (which I first spotted on Atrios, but which is turning up everywhere, now). Peter Daou is so right:

What's the common thread running through the past half-decade of Bush's presidency? What's the nexus between the Swift-boating of Kerry, the Swift-boating of Murtha, and the guilt-by-association between Democrats and terrorists? Why has a seemingly endless string of administration scandals faded into oblivion? Why do Democrats keep losing elections? It's this: the traditional media, the trusted media, the "neutral" media, have become the chief delivery mechanism of potent anti-Democratic and pro-Bush storylines. And the Democratic establishment appears to be either ignorant of this political quandary or unwilling to fight it.
[---]
What’s so dumbfounding to progressive netroots activists, who clearly see the role of the traditional media in perpetuating these storylines - and are taking concrete action (here, here, and here) to remedy the problem - is that Democratic politicians, strategists, and surrogates have internalized these narratives and play into them, publicly wringing their hands over how to fix their "muddled" message, how to deal with Bush’s "strength" on national security, how to talk about "values."

It’s become a self-fulfilling cycle, with Democrats reinforcing anti-Dem myths because they can’t imagine any other explanation for the apparent lack of resonance of their message. Out of desperation, they resort to hackneyed, focus-grouped slogans in a vain attempt to break through the filter.

It’s simple: if your core values and beliefs and positions, no matter how reasonable, how mainstream, how correct, how ethical, are filtered to the public through the lens of a media that has inoculated the public against your message, and if the media is the public’s primary source of information, then NOTHING you say is going to break through and change that dynamic. Which explains, in large measure, the Dems’ sorry electoral failures.
[---]
To illustrate the power of the media to shape public opinion, simply imagine what would happen if the cable nets and the print media and the elite punditocracy treated the warrantless spying scandal with the same round-the-clock intensity as the Swift-boating of Kerry or the Natalee Holloway disappearance. Suppose Lewinsky-style headlines blared about impeachment and presidential law-breaking. Suppose the question of the day on every cable net was, “Should Bush be impeached for violating the Constitution?” The media can create a crisis -- and can squelch one. The media can deliver narratives, they can frame events, they can shape the way Americans see the political landscape. A disproportionate amount of power is wielded by a handful of opinion-shapers, and when these individuals tell America a story that favors the right and marginalizes the left, the remedies are few...

It's worth your time to read it all.

Is it a trope, yet?

The NY Times on spineless Democrats...

Sirota on spineless Democrats (and saboteur consultants)...

Fafblog, in its inimitable way, on spineless Democrats...

My fixation with spineless Democrats...

(Any chiropractors or orthopedic surgeons out there who could start mailing cute little spinal column key chains to our Democratic "representatives"?)

OK, it's a post-9/11 world and all,

but how come Cheney was urging the NSA to assist him in illegal domestic spying in January 2001?

Yeah, this'll happen...

But it really is a great letter.

Remember the days when something like this would be called a "cover up"?

Think back, now --- it would have been, oh, around 1996-2000. And there would have been a lot of irate, indignant, family-values Republicans calling numerous press conferences (just before having to admit their own extra-marital affairs) at which they would sputter their righteous indignation... But that was then, this is now. And why did Brownie get paid to stay on and testify if he didn't actually intend to stay on and testify?

(Photo snatched from here.) Here's a pattern you can download to get your deflector/protectors ready before the State of the Republican Union address next week.

You probably could have used them this morning. I didn't, because the mute button provides all the protection I need, leaving me free to safely observe Bush's tik-y head and jaw thrusts, smirks and scowls. One wonders, though, could this inconvenient fact have anything to do with the press conference this morning? Or perhaps this?

You know, everytime Bush says "I didn't break the law," well, it brings back such fond memories...

Joining me in my lament...

Did I sound below like I'm thisclose to giving up on the Democratic Party? Molly Ivins sounds like she's right behind me (thanks, BB), but of course she says it better. An excerpt:

Oh come on, people — get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war — from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily.

You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely.

Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this — that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town.

Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can.

And read what William Rivers Pitt thinks the Dems should do next Tuesday, but won't, of course, because their neural tubes have not yet differentiated into spines:

George W. Bush's delivery of the State of the Union address will take place on Tuesday, January 31, a little more than a week from now. It is my strong belief that every single Democrat present in the House chamber for the speech should, at a predetermined moment, stand up and walk out. No yelling. No heated words. Every Democrat should simply stand silently and leave.

Crazy, I know. Crazy, and possibly the best idea ever put before a body of Democrats since the New Deal.

Understand this, congressional Democrats, and understand it well: you are not dealing merely with a body of political opponents in the GOP. You are dealing with a group of people that want you exterminated politically.

The days of walking the halls of the Rayburn Building, sharing a bourbon with a colleague from the other side of the aisle, and hammering out a compromise are as dead as Julius Caesar. Collegiality is out. Mutual respect is out. They want you gone for good. Erased. Destroyed.

And you have been far too polite about this. The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Back in 1995, Republican Senator Phil Gramm said, "We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs." That was eleven years ago. If you listen close, you can hear the beasts baying in the distance, waiting to slip the leash. Your limp tactics in the face of the assault upon you, your vacillation, your strange hope that maybe the GOP will be nicer tomorrow, has left you all smelling like Alpo.

For the love of God, you are being compared to Osama bin Laden all over network television because some within your ranks have had the courage to question the war in Iraq. It hasn't been subtle. Bin Laden, according to the right-wing talking heads, is getting his talking points straight from Howard Dean. These are the out-front spokespeople for the folks running the GOP right now. If you think there is compromise to be had with these people, if you think there is quarter to be given to you, then I have a nice, big red bridge to sell you in San Francisco.

I know you believe the Abramoff scandal is going to be your bread and butter in the upcoming midterm elections. I hate to break it to you, but you have already been outflanked. The television nitwits have flooded the airwaves with the meme that this is a "two-party scandal," despite the fact that Abramoff would have sooner lit himself on fire than give money to a Democrat. As you have been collectively incapable of setting the record straight in public, with the exception of a two-minute crunch between Howard Dean and Wolf Blitzer on CNN that left Blitzer spluttering impotently, understand that "this scandal affects both parties" is now commonly accepted fact all across the land.

Oh, yeah, P.S., the investigation is being run out of the Department Justice. If this scandal does touch some sixty Republican officeholders, as Abramoff's donation history indicates, do you really think this White House is going to let the investigation get far enough to do real damage?

If so, I again need to mention that big red bridge I have for sale.

Please read the rest.

AWOL

I've really outdone myself this time! 10 days without a blog update! What do I have to say for myself? I had family visiting from Ohio last week, one of whom devoted his evenings to updating and repairing our aging home computer network (and he called it a vacation?), I've been inching toward a thesis draft, and I dropped my guard and let a WORM into my computer for the first time EVER. (I'm still ashamed of myself.) Here's the scoop on that worm. It came from an email address I know and trust, having apparently attached itself to that sender's address book. That sender isn't tech-savvy, and so I let myself be unsuspicious of the unexplained attachment. I've never been that careless before, and hopefully never will be again!

The break was all well and good for me, because I largely avoided my usual daily overdose of news and blogs, and stuck to what I heard on NPR while ferrying folks to and fro. I'm sure that made me a better person.

The radio news was infuriating enough, but then I tried to catch up yesterday and became thoroughly disgusted with Democrats, who seem to turn up their noses at every overflowing silver platter handed them -- Alito, body armor, rampant Republican corruption, presidential law-breaking -- in order to continue on their lemming march over the cliff. I'll never forgive the Greens for Ralph Nader; where else can I go?!

At least Buzzflash is asking the burning question of the week about yet another theatrically timed message from Osama bin Laden, who conveniently emerges from his cave just as the GOP and its president are caught in various forms of plundering and law-breaking. No wonder Bush didn't want to catch him; he's much more useful this way:

Isn't it a mighty big coincidence that Osama returns for a bizarre appearance just as Bush is on the ropes for illegal spying on Americans -- and as Karl Rove* announces that he is going to use fear again to maintain one-party dictatorial control over America in the fall elections?

(*Here's the link to the Karl Rove reference.)

And - thanks to reader/pal BB who was paying more attention than I was - here is a terrific editorial that all Bush-worshipping evangelicals should ponder:

January 20, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Wayward Christian Soldiers
By CHARLES MARSH
Charlottesville, Va.

IN the past several years, American evangelicals, and I am one of them, have amassed greater political power than at any time in our history. But at what cost to our witness and the integrity of our message?

Recently, I took a few days to reread the war sermons delivered by influential evangelical ministers during the lead up to the Iraq war. That period, from the fall of 2002 through the spring of 2003, is not one I will remember fondly. Many of the most respected voices in American evangelical circles blessed the president's war plans, even when doing so required them to recast Christian doctrine.

Charles Stanley, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Atlanta, whose weekly sermons are seen by millions of television viewers, led the charge with particular fervor. "We should offer to serve the war effort in any way possible," said Mr. Stanley, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. "God battles with people who oppose him, who fight against him and his followers." In an article carried by the convention's Baptist Press news service, a missionary wrote that "American foreign policy and military might have opened an opportunity for the Gospel in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

As if working from a slate of evangelical talking points, both Franklin Graham, the evangelist and son of Billy Graham, and Marvin Olasky, the editor of the conservative World magazine and a former advisor to President Bush on faith-based policy, echoed these sentiments, claiming that the American invasion of Iraq would create exciting new prospects for proselytizing Muslims. Tim LaHaye, the co-author of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series, spoke of Iraq as "a focal point of end-time events," whose special role in the earth's final days will become clear after invasion, conquest and reconstruction. For his part, Jerry Falwell boasted that "God is pro-war" in the title of an essay he wrote in 2004.

The war sermons rallied the evangelical congregations behind the invasion of Iraq. An astonishing 87 percent of all white evangelical Christians in the United States supported the president's decision in April 2003. Recent polls indicate that 68 percent of white evangelicals continue to support the war. But what surprised me, looking at these sermons nearly three years later, was how little attention they paid to actual Christian moral doctrine. Some tried to square the American invasion with Christian "just war" theory, but such efforts could never quite reckon with the criterion that force must only be used as a last resort. As a result, many ministers dismissed the theory as no longer relevant.

Some preachers tried to link Saddam Hussein with wicked King Nebuchadnezzar of Biblical fame, but these arguments depended on esoteric interpretations of the Old Testament book of II Kings and could not easily be reduced to the kinds of catchy phrases that are projected onto video screens in vast evangelical churches. The single common theme among the war sermons appeared to be this: our president is a real brother in Christ, and because he has discerned that God's will is for our nation to be at war against Iraq, we shall gloriously comply.

Such sentiments are a far cry from those expressed in the Lausanne Covenant of 1974. More than 2,300 evangelical leaders from 150 countries signed that statement, the most significant milestone in the movement's history. Convened by Billy Graham and led by John Stott, the revered Anglican evangelical priest and writer, the signatories affirmed the global character of the church of Jesus Christ and the belief that "the church is the community of God's people rather than an institution, and must not be identified with any particular culture, social or political system, or human ideology."

On this page, David Brooks correctly noted that if evangelicals elected a pope, it would most likely be Mr. Stott, who is the author of more than 40 books on evangelical theology and Christian devotion. Unlike the Pope John Paul II, who said that invading Iraq would violate Catholic moral teaching and threaten "the fate of humanity," or even Pope Benedict XVI, who has said there were "not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq," Mr. Stott did not speak publicly on the war. But in a recent interview, he shared with me his abiding concerns.

"Privately, in the days preceding the invasion, I had hoped that no action would be taken without United Nations authorization," he told me. "I believed then and now that the American and British governments erred in proceeding without United Nations approval." Reverend Stott referred me to "War and Rumors of War, " a chapter from his 1999 book, "New Issues Facing Christians Today," as the best account of his position. In that essay he wrote that the Christian community's primary mission must be "to hunger for righteousness, to pursue peace, to forbear revenge, to love enemies, in other words, to be marked by the cross."

What will it take for evangelicals in the United States to recognize our mistaken loyalty? We have increasingly isolated ourselves from the shared faith of the global Church, and there is no denying that our Faustian bargain for access and power has undermined the credibility of our moral and evangelistic witness in the world. The Hebrew prophets might call us to repentance, but repentance is a tough demand for a people utterly convinced of their righteousness.

Charles Marsh, a professor of religion at the University of Virginia, is the author of "The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today."

Please check out the SF Chronicle series on global warming: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.

Then add some wonder to your day by going here and clicking on the live web cam trained on the elephant seals at the aforementioned Ano Nuevo, and go here for a selection of web cams on various exhibits at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Bushbots by the Bay

Grab your cell phone cameras! There's another Bushbot in San Francisco!

The Bushbot technology is really advancing, thanks to Ken Mehlman and his crack team of programmers. Sometimes a Bushbot sounds almost natural, and only a highly trained ear can distinguish the difference between the Bushbot and an actual human practicing independent thought. For instance, the text of this editorial contains many conversational phrases designed to make the programmed content flow more naturally. You need special equipment to filter out the RNC talking points, but I can do that for you here:

Sept. 11, Sept. 11, Sept. 11, Clinton did it too, FISA crippled the FBI and Able Danger, the leak is worse than the lawbreaking, the Valerie Plame leak is still unproven, Bushbashing Bushhaters endanger America, Sept. 11, Sept. 11, Sept. 11.

See? Embedded in that 1253 word column is the same standard code that you've been hearing for the last four or five years. I've just saved you a lot of time.

Bushbots are activated by a signal outside the normal human auditory range. It's issued from time to time by Karl Rove or his android, Mehlman. Since normal humans cannot hear it, we have to study artifacts: for example, the coordinated publication of multiple identical editorials in newspapers around the country, or the same-day appearances of exceedingly life-like Bushbots uttering identical talking points on weekend news programs such as Meet the Press, This Week, and Chris Matthews. It's difficult for scientists working with small budgets to study the phenomenon; they need more technical resources.

I wonder if the presence of just one Bushbot in SF is enough to keep Bill O'Reilly from smiting the city? Probably not. Bushbots are indestructible. They will motor forth from the smoldering ruins of SF to converge in Richard Pombo's district and await further instruction. Of course, Richard Pombo will be a little busy.

Odds and ends

I'm starting to accumulate links again. In no particular order:

See this revolting story about the US military harrassment of an Iraqi journalist. The military claims they were looking for an insurgent. Coincidentally, Fadhil was investigating misuse of Iraq reconstruction funds for a British news agency. (A real shocker: his videotapes have not been returned.) Do we call this a pattern, yet?

Delay gives up his quest, but don't think Blunt or Boehner will be any different.

Funny!

Right after Christmas, I read that Signatures - Jack Abramoff's wheeler/dealer restaurant - wants to change its name, and that they are taking suggestions. I thought I offered a pretty darn good one: I suggested "Bread and Water."

Forget the desperate RNC talking points. Forget even the polls. This is a Republican scandal (via Buzzflash). Follow the money.

Compassionate Conservatism comes to the IRS!

New York Times:

Tax refunds sought by hundreds of thousands of poor Americans have been frozen and their returns labeled fraudulent, blocking refunds for years to come, the Internal Revenue Service's taxpayer advocate told Congress today.

The taxpayers, whose average income was $13,000, were not told that they were suspected of fraud, the advocate said in her annual report to Congress. The advocate, Nina Olson, said her staff sampled suspected returns and found that, at most, one in five was questionable.

A computer program selected the returns as part of the questionable refund program run by the criminal investigation division of the Internal Revenue Service. In some cases, the criminal division ordered that taxpayers be given no hint that they were suspected of fraud, the report said.

Most of the poor people whose returns the computer flagged as fraudulent were seeking the earned income tax credit, a benefit for the working poor. The credit can return all of the income taxes and Social Security taxes withheld from the paychecks of poor people. Without the credit, many poor people coming off welfare and going to work would receive less money because of taxes taken out of their paychecks and the loss of health benefits, I.R.S. data and other government documents show.

The average refund sought was $3,500, which under the rules for obtaining the credit means that the vast majority of those suspected of fraud were single parents or married couples with children. The maximum benefit for singles is less than $400.

Ms. Olson said the I.R.S. devoted vastly more resources to pursing questionable refunds by the poor, which she said cannot involve more than $9 billion, than to a $100 billion problem with unreported incomes from small businesses that deal only in cash, many of which do not even file tax returns.

(emphasis mine) Meanwhile, the IRS is trying to make it harder to study its tactics - especially those that favor the wealthy.

The end of "checks and balances"

Eric Alterman on White House hassling and intimidation of the press.

Betty the Crow on Bush's record-breaking use of signing statements to circumvent Congress. Here's a Knight-Ridder story on the same topic:

President Bush agreed with great fanfare last month to accept a ban on torture, but he later quietly reserved the right to ignore it, even as he signed it into law.

Acting from the seclusion of his Texas ranch at the start of New Year's weekend, Bush said he would interpret the new law in keeping with his expansive view of presidential power. He did it by issuing a bill-signing statement -- a little-noticed device that has become a favorite tool of presidential power in the Bush White House.

In fact, Bush has used signing statements to reject, revise or put his spin on more than 500 legislative provisions. Experts say he has been far more aggressive than any previous president in using the statements to claim sweeping executive power -- and not just on national security issues.

"It's nothing short of breathtaking," said Phillip Cooper, a professor of public administration at Portland State University. "In every case, the White House has interpreted presidential authority as broadly as possible, interpreted legislative authority as narrowly as possible and pre-empted the judiciary."

And here is the WaPo story on signing statements:

The Bush administration "has very effectively expanded the scope and character of the signing statement not only to address specific provisions of legislation that the White House wishes to nullify, but also in an effort to significantly reposition and strengthen the powers of the presidency relative to the Congress," Cooper wrote in the September issue. "This tour d' force has been carried out in such a systematic and careful fashion that few in Congress, the media, or the scholarly community are aware that anything has happened at all."

Frank Rich:

Given that the reporters on the Times story, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, wrote that nearly a dozen current and former officials had served as their sources, there may be more leaks to come, and not just to The Times. Sooner or later we'll find out what the White House is really so defensive about.

Is anyone paying attention?

One of the many visionary bumperstickers that came out of the first "election" of George W. Bush said, "thanks for not paying attention." We all told ourselves it couldn't happen again. But, of course, it did. Back on that dark morning after the second-term "election," Teresa Nielsen Hayden sighed, "225 years is a pretty good run for a republic, historically speaking."

It's hard to imagine that we have any intentional Bush voters reading this site, but if we do, I just have to ask: are you all still feeling pretty good about that pick? Sure, you were aiming for a safe and secure theocracy, and you got megalomaniacal dictators disguised as theocrats for the purposes of getting out the Christian vote, but it's all good, right? Just so long as gays can't marry, we destroy the UN, and get rid of some of the peskier provisions of the Constitution.

To politically-comatose Americans: Can we interrupt the important nightly schedule of reality TV programming to point out that a constitutional crisis is developing? Here's some "reality" for you: Your chances of getting on "Survivor" or "The Apprentice" are now infinitely smaller than your chances of having your telephone conversations tapped, and your private mail opened. (Heck, even that political affiliation you're so proud of has been monitored... By the IRS.) Hey, it's kind of like living in an all-new reality spy show, isn't it?

Yes, yes, I know that politically-comatose Americans aren't reading blogs like this, and I'm just preaching to the choir. (But I'm a preacher's kid, afterall. And a preacher's niece, for that matter.) Michael Reagan thinks Americans support what the president is doing. (Warning: Don't click this next link if you don't wish to contribute "hits" to a frothing lunatic like Michael Reagan, but you might enjoy it for sheer entertainment value.) He cites a poll showing that 64% are in favor of intercepting calls between terrorist suspects and people living in the US.

How do we say this?... "Duh." Yes, I'm in favor of that, too. And there are perfectly adequate legal procedures for obtaining permission to do that, lickety-split! The president himself said so:

Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution.

I am not, however, in favor of illegally wiretapping US citizens. Do you suppose the results would have turned out differently if the pollsters had asked a relevant question?

OK, perhaps I need to take a walk or meditate or something. In any event, I can't do better than to steer you to these two important pieces from TomDispatch, so I urge you to read them: A Cult of Presidential Power and What Year Is This Anyway?

(P.S. Pat Robertson, determined to continuing broadcasting his spiraling dementia, informs us that God struck down Sharon, just as God struck down Rabin, for "dividing God's land.")

Big Oops!

Alert reader Rick was properly nonplussed by the link in my previous post -- mea culpa for trying to do too many things at the same time. Instead of linking to the article I wanted to direct you do, it gave you a nice Mapquest map of downtown San Mateo, California! To make matters worse, I don't remember what the article was. Thank you, Rick, for bringing it all to my attention. To make up for my boo-boo, here's a link to a nicely titled essay by Joe Conason. Let us prey, indeed!

(Update: Conason link fixed! - MizM)

King George W....

I thought this piece was worth sharing. No time to comment now except to observe that Jesus had a few things to say about the excesses of empire. I'll leave it to readers to data-mine the Gospels.

An eerie coincidence...

...is what I have discovered in reading of late about the resistance to apartheid and the achievement of freedom in South Africa during the last quarter-century. Most recently I've finished a haunting book called A Human Being Died That Night by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, a clinical psychologist who served on the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The book relates a series of interviews Gobodo-Madikizela held with Eugene de Kock, the former head of state-sanctioned death squads under the Afrikaaner regime. It's remarkable on many counts, but what came through most strongly for me was the striking resemblance between the rationalizations for apartheid violence and those we hear today from the president and his supporters regarding our own embrace of violence. Here's an example from the book:

This [kind of rationalization] is a trick most perpetrators use, especially those sponsored by a powerful government, to try to make their actions understandable by saying, "What my people have done, yours have done too." What is tragic is that they really do believe that what they have done is no worse than the other group's actions. Typically, the perpetrator starts off with rationalization, to convince himself of the legitimacy of his acts, then he begins to communicate his rationalization to others. At this point it is no longer a rationalization but a "truth" that releases the perpetrator from any sense of guilt he may still feel about his evil deeds. If the enemy is doing the same thing he himself is engaged in, then he can't be that bad.

And another:

Some people, when faced with their evil deeds, understand the moral implications of their actions, but to maintain some "dignity," to protect their sense of identity as respectable human beings, they cling to the belief that what they did was morally correct.

Think killing of innocent civilians (women and small children) under the guise of military operations; think Abu Ghraib; think NSA wiretapping, and God only knows what else. But read this book not just for its portrayal of evil but also for its themes of forgiveness and reconciliation. I have also read two or three books by Archbishop Tutu, and a delightful memoir by the courageous editor Donald Woods, who returned to South Africa in the Mandela era after 12 years in exile -- and in all of them one can find hints on how to reconstruct and heal a society gone terribly, terribly wrong, as ours now has.

"Sunt lacrimae rerum...."

Having the ongoing experience of compiling a list of Iraqi war dead, both civilian and military, for a public witness project in my home town, I was profoundly moved by this essay from a professor in Colorado.

"I'm Jesus of Nazareth, and I approved this message."

Reflecting further on the aforementioned Loconte piece....

I find that I'm not in huge disagreement with some of his points. For example, I think it's fair to suggest that the scriptures do not provide "a coherent political philosophy." It might not be too off the mark to opine that they do not provide even a coherent theology! The Bible is in fact not a single consistent document, but is a collection of texts that were filtered through the experiences of diverse communities under a variety of circumstances. Even those of us who perceive an Ur-Theme of Liberation in the Christian Bible (Exodus, the prophets, Jesus) have to admit that the collection is full of contradictions and that we do pick and choose from among the texts. We liberals love Micah 6:8 and we loathe Leviticus 18 (just to cite some of my own favorites). But in the interests of intellectual honesty and humility, we are obliged to take account of everything in the Good Book, and that is my best argument for why biblical study ought to be at the top of every congregation's adult education curriculum. As Christians and liberals (or progressives, or whatever we are calling ourselves these days -- maybe just disciples), we need desperately to improve our understanding of these texts that we claim are foundational for our faith.

My own experience, at the end of a period of about 20 years out of the church and active in politics, was that politics alone was an inadequate foundation for making meaning. When I came back into the church in my 40s and began to work seriously at my personal faith development, I came to understand the importance (for me -- I'm only speaking for myself) of the transcendent mystery of the divine. We do indeed "see through a glass darkly," as St. Paul put it. Or, as a former (Methodist) pastor put it, "We have the Wesleyan quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience -- but God is mostly mystery." So it behooves all of us to be pretty prudent if not humble about our claims for divine approval of what we are about.

And this is why I believe you would never hear Jesus make the statement that is the headline of this piece about any political program. God is not a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Green, or anything else. God is God, and we had better beware of subordinating our theology to our politics. Politics can be an expression of faith, but never its basis.

I think I will have more to say later on this, especially what it means for the church in our day.

More about that ridiculous Loconte editorial...

To refresh your memory, see here. I posted about it here (at the end of the post).

Here is a response from a Michael Lerner emailing to members of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. I'm only quoting the P.S., because he can be a bit long-winded and this segment is the most on-point for our purposes:

P.S. A few of the many distortions in Joesph Loconte’s piece in the NY Times:

1. Jim Wallis was not an organizer of the Berkeley conference to which he refers, but was one of the speakers at it (and had parts of it that he supported and parts he did not). His Call for Renewal* organization, like the Network of Spiritual Progressives, is one part of the emerging new Religious/Spiritual Left.

2. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid do not identify with the Religious/ Spiritual Left, though they may have their own personal religious beliefs. When the Democratic Party adopts religious language or attempts to reframe its same old programs in religious garb, it is not acting as the Religious Left but as the opportunistic middle seeking any tools it can appropriate for its own self-interest. We in the Religious Left are not a branch of the Democrats or any other political party.

3. It is ludicrous to deny that the Bible has a political agenda. What exactly do you call a document that demands that people stop work one day out of seven, and one year out of seven, leave part of their crops for the poor, forgive all debts once every seven years, and redistribute land back to the original roughly equal distribution once every fifty years.

That Scriptures can sometimes be illegitimately appropriated to justify some aspects of a political program does not prove that there are no specific political implications of the holy writings. La Conte is correct that the Bible does not justify every specific spending program by the Democrats, but it doesn’t follow from that that the Bible does not mandate some spending programs on the poor.

4. The fact that we had one of our fifty workshops specifically addressed to "spiritual but not religious" people is singled out by Loconte in the article below as a way of signaling that we are not really religious at all. This is simply false. We are a movement of people some of whom fit into traditional religious communities, some of whom are struggling to change those communities to make them more spiritually alive, and some of whom are not part of those communities but nevertheless recognize that the empiricist/ materialist account of the universe is inadequate and misses a fundamental dimension of reality. That is further explored in The Left Hand of God. Loconte would prefer to ridicule by innuendo than engage with the openness and breadth of the new Religious/Spiritual Left.

5. Many on the religious Left oppose the war in Iraq and many of the other policies of the U.S. government. But we do not spend our energies comparing the US to Nazi Germany, and we are proudly patriotic in affirming the many good aspects of American society even as we draw from religious sources to critique aspects that are immoral and deserve to be changed.

*Jim Wallis' organization is actually Call to Renewal.

I wonder how many lawyers will be hired this week?

Just heard it on NPR and confirmed it on CNN: Abramoff entered a guilty plea.

Maybe 2006 is my year to get Tivo...

churchsign Originally uploaded by mizm_sf.

...because it's going to be a very good year to watch C-SPAN!

Sister Joan and her friends wonder, where's Monica when you need her? Of course, Sister Joan has too much class to link to the photo (above) that sped around the internet in emails recently, but I don't!

ReddHedd at Firedoglake:

We have a President, not a King -- no one should be allowed to act above the law. Period. Especially not a man who was elected to serve the people. Such a man should be held to a higher standard, because public service ought to be a noble calling -- the Constitution must be upheld in our own nation, or we have already lost whatever battles we claim to be fighting in the name of freedom and liberty elsewhere.

For every step we take away from the notions of liberty on which this nation was founded, Osama Bin Laden laughs a little louder. By turning away from liberty, we are becoming that which we fight against, something that we managed to avoid even at the height of the Cold War. That is cowardly and wrong, and America is a better nation than that.

Read the whole post.

Our hard workin' president is taking a shorter vacation than usual, so he can come back to DC and continue fabricating his legacy.

Oh, this is rich. Joseph Loconte (of the conservative Heritage Foundation - founded, as Talk2Action points out, to advance the agenda of the religious right) warns against the excesses of the religious left. Just read it while I try to collect my thoughts; or maybe abc will collect hers first.

Happy New Year, folks!