these posts form a pattern ...

a straight line ...
to you.

there is great hope:
http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/9/27/117/73550

there is great peril:
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/09/will-congressional-calender-preserve.html

we are called to action:
http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/09/26/republicans-are-losers-so-make-sure-they-lose/#more-4685

Our heroes are those who answer the call of duty to our nation with the risk and sacrifice of their lives. We Must honor them by joining their cause. Every one of them has sworn the Oath to defend the Constitution of the United States of America against its enemies.

This our turn.
Defeat Republicans.
Follow Pachacutec's charge.
Pay our debt to our heroes.

Surprise!

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/2001_memo_to_Rice_contradicts_statements_0926.html

question:
How does she Not Know that this was Bound to come out?
Maybe that's just too obvious to us.
Being all "reality based" and all.
You know how just sometimes those things just jump out at you out of nowhere?

Besides, isn't it now an established precept of this regime to contradict the facts, both as matters of policy and personality, as often as possible?
Most adults have abandoned the "dog ate my homework" routine since junior high.

Or ...
... maybe she just forgot ...
... along with whatever else is locked up in that closet.

please look at the documents shown in the article at Raw Story.
Really.

Incompetent Cover-up

Think Progress

today September 26, 2006

Rice Falsely Claims Clinton Administration Did Not Leave A ‘Strategy To Fight Al Qaeda’

In her interview with the New York Post, Condoleezza Rice claims that the Clinton Administration did not develop a strategy to fight al Qaeda:

The secretary of state also sharply disputed Clinton’s claim that he “left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy” for the incoming Bush team during the presidential transition in 2001.

“We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda,” Rice responded during the hourlong session.

Here’s what the 9/11 Commission Report has to say about it:

As the Clinton administration drew to a close, Clarke and his staff developed a policy paper of their own [which] incorporated the CIA’s new ideas from the Blue Sky memo, and posed several near-term policy options. Clarke and his staff proposed a goal to “roll back” al Qaeda over a period of three to five years …[including] covert aid to the Northern Alliance, covert aid to Uzbekistan, and renewed Predator flights in March 2001. A sentence called for military action to destroy al Qaeda command-and control targets and infrastructure and Taliban military and command assets. The paper also expressed concern about the presence of al Qaeda operatives in the United States.” [p. 197]

Clarke, who also worked for the Bush administration, wrote Condoleezza Rice a memo as soon as the Bush administration took office, stating, “[W]e urgently need…a Principals level review of the al Qida network.” His request was denied.

Posted by Think Progress at 11:56 am

Permalink

Fighting the fight against feeling demoralized, dispirited

Gulags and torture are what we fight wars against.
PLEASE.

Please thank Digby for this excellent post at Hullabaloo.

Perhaps nobody cares that that this very thing is being done every day to hunger strikers in Guantanamo. But do people honestly think it can't happen to them? Once we unleash this beast it won't only be terrorists or Muslims who will be in danger. In one way or another, we all will be.

And children are not safe either.
Ever heard of Camp Iguana?
7, 8 and 11 year olds designated Enemy Combatants.

Unconscionably shameful.
Welcome to Insane America.
One of Hell's colonies now.

Those who have brought us here must be repudiated.
We may not indulge in anything less than vigilance.
And action.

no matter how sick to the stomach we feel.

I read this quote at FDL comments

we tip our psychoRabble sombero to rat bastahd at Firedoglake's comments section

Boston Globe columnist James Carroll put it this way:

"“Justice is measured in every society by how the worst malefactors are treated -— the worst not only in culpability, but in capacity for general harm. The best way to combat terrorism is to wrap accused terrorists in the cloth of the law they would rip asunder. More important, to legalize the abuse of a class of prisoners is to prepare for the abuse of all."”

This is why I read: I can find words that express these truths so much better than I ever could. Mr. Carroll makes them incandescent.

We fail to heed this wisdom only at our peril, at our nation's peril.

...

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Shrill, hysterical lefty partisan blogger

What Glenn Greenwald said:

This lefty blogger fails to take seriously the existential threat posed by Islamofascist-Nazi Terrorists, because he resists the notion that the Constitution changes as a result of that threat. Instead, he claims that the Constitution can only be changed by the amendment process set forth within that document, not by whimsical reactions to contemporary events. Apparently, he hasn't heard the brilliant insight that the Constitution is not a "suicide pact"-- which means we can disregard it any time doing so makes us safe -- or that, as the President said, Judge Taylor's decision ruling the NSA program unconstitutional happened because she "simply do[es] not understand the nature of the world in which we live":

He says it better than I.
Again.
Thanks, Mr. Greenwald.

Accountability

I read Firedoglake every day.
This post by Jane Hamsher is the latest reason why.
This and the never-ending flow of wise, wise-ass, smart-aleck, vivid, intelligent, profane, witty and delicious comments which attend every post.
FDL commenters are cool, in many flavors.
but all seriousness aside ...
... a snide
... a snide
remark
... a snark ...

They cultivate a bent of humor that burns with a deep blue flame.
It burns very hot.
It is the vent for the anger I feel.
Ever since December 12, 2000.
Ever since SCOTUS handed down their judicial coup d'etat in Bush v. Gore.

FDL is an effective part of my rage management system.
The Firedogs provide relief from enraging things like this:
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/16/AR2006091600193_pf.html

For my beyond outrageous levels of enragement I seek refuge among the Firedogs where we warm ourselves by the bright, hot clear Blue light ... on the shores of the Lake, in the comments section.

Jane quotes Rajiv Chandrasekaran's Washington Post article:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein'’s government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -— restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'’Beirne'’s office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'’Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn'’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'’Beirne'’s staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

Yes, because that really will determine whether you can build a bridge or restore clean water to blighted cities. No wonder things are going so swimmingly.

Many of those chosen by O'’Beirne'’s office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq'’s government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -— but had applied for a White House job -— was sent to reopen Baghdad'’s stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq'’s $13 billion budget, even though they didn'’t have a background in accounting.

Okay, sit down and think about this for a minute. Breathe. We a’re stuck in a disastrous Bush/Lieberman war we can'’t extricate ourselves from, and the reconstruction that just might have led Iraq into self-sufficiency was turned over to a bunch of 24 year-olds whose only qualifications were their anti-abortion sentiments.

Are you outraged yet? Because I know I am.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration'’s gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation that sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

Keep breathing. That'’s good. Don'’t hyperventilate.

Endowed with $18 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds and a comparatively quiescent environment in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. invasion, the CPA was the U.S. government'’s first and best hope to resuscitate Iraq -— to establish order, promote rebuilding and assemble a viable government, all of which, experts believe, would have constricted the insurgency and mitigated the chances of civil war. Many of the basic tasks Americans struggle to accomplish today in Iraq -— training the army, vetting the police, increasing electricity generation - — could have been performed far more effectively in 2003 by the CPA.

But many CPA staff members were more interested in other things: in instituting a flat tax, in selling off government assets, in ending food rations and otherwise fashioning a new nation that looked a lot like the United States. Many of them spent their days cloistered in the Green Zone, a walled-off enclave in central Baghdad with towering palms, posh villas, well-stocked bars and resort-size swimming pools.

It'’s a vision of a world run by Jonah Goldbergs, the idyll of the mediocre and the entitled, fueled by wingnut welfare and the complete detachment from reality that created this untenable disaster. Yes, this is what an NRO universe would look like. They got everything they wanted and all the money they could burn to enact their grand schemes, and the result is -— well, they speak for themselves really, don't they.

Please read the entire article, because I'’ll be linking to it again and again if the time comes and Congressional investigations actually become a possibility. But if it hasn'’t been clear before, it should be now -— this is your government on drugs.

Thank you, Ms Hamsher.
I feel better.
I will feel much better once this is posted to my (this) blog.
So, anyway.
Now we (you) must go and read Mr. Chandrasekaran's words.
Jane said so.

Oh, and read Firedoglake.
Too.
Please.
Otherwise I will have to post all of their posts here.
It is easier this way.
The heroes at FDL also tell us things we can DO.
Very theraputic.

Read, then Do.

but you already knew all this?
cool.

ABC/Disney: corrupt propaganda for your home

Mr. Sheldon Rampton at FiredogLake does the documented repudiation of "Path to 9/11" 's claims of Clinton culpability. psychoRabble thanks, Mr. Rampton.


So Disney couldn't be bothered to distribute "Fahrenheit 911" because it was too political, yet they now give away (no sponsors and no underwriters) 6 hours of prime time, commercial-free broadcast time on their major broadcast network to promote this pernicious right wing propaganda:

Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 14:29:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Center for American Progress Action Fund
Reply-To: tellabc@americanprogressaction.org
To: yellowdog jim
Subject: Thank you for telling ABC to tell the truth about 9/11

Dear yellowdog jim , Thank you for telling ABC to tell the truth about 9/11. Our goal is to have ABC fix the major inaccuracies in their program or else refuse to put it on the air. The events leading up to September 11, 2001 are too important and too tragic to play politics with the facts. Here are 2 more ways you can help: Please tell your friends and family to join you by taking action at http://www.ThinkProgress.org/TellABC The email message you just send to ABC is important. You can also help by calling ABC Headquarters and registering your opinion: 212-456-7777. Thank you, The Think Progress and Center for American Progress Action Fund teams

you know what to do.
spread the word.
carry on ...