My Kind Of Democrat!

Doing the Bill Mazer show at 3:30 EST today. It is on WVOX for those of you in New York and the rest can catch the live stream at the website if you are so inclined.

Geronimooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

You know a speech kicks some serious ass when your approval rating falls to its lowest level ever in that poll immediatly after you are done.

My friend Howie Klein at DownWithTyranny! has up Michael Moore's response to Bush's call for escalation.

Hysterical... (or as funny as anything about this tragic subject can be).

Wow, those tax cuts to help Paris Hilton's soft porn career and Ken Lay's corpse were sure helpful to the rest of us and the economy! Thanks Mr. President!

You've only created like 14 million fewer jobs than Bill Clinton did over his first six years!

Woohoo Voodoo Economics!

So, um, have the tax cuts for the rich won the War on Terror yet?

(Hat tip Steve Benen)

Cenk Uygur lays down the law in this post--and somebody needs to for this petulant little, law-breaking, cheerleading, anti-constitutional frat-brat we have occupying the Oval Office, something our kids will study about while holding their heads in shame in 20 years.

It is very simple for me. I have in the past said that I was not an impeachment guy, because unlike the Republican Party who caused a crisis over consensual sex (while they were all busy rabidly mating with anyone who wasn't their wives like spider monkeys), I actually respect the principles on which this country was founded. I believed then as I do now that this option should be saved as a last resort.

But President Bush--while almost definitely being worthy of impeachment before--very simply must be impeached if he chooses to ignore congressional limits on troop deployments to Iraq. That is if we wish to protect our democracy.

He doesn't get to choose which laws are good and "bad!" The little fuckin twit.

It's still amazing to me that this retro-retard cowering little sissy, a man who shouldn't handle the register at a 7/11 much less have access to the nuclear button, has been allowed to put our country in this position in six short years.

Sorry blogger was down for a while (and is still having some speed issues). I know of a few folks who told me they couldn't comment...Come back! We need you!

In any case, here is a letter my friend Robert Greenwald (you may know him from his fantastic films, Outfoxed, Iraq For Sale, And Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices to name a few) got from Senator Tedddy Kennedy regarding legislation he is introducing to stop the Bush/McCain/Lieberman escalation (probably due to latent personal issues of lacking "escalation")

Robert told me I could make the letter public. And it is a good read - so have at it!

Update: blogger is also not letting me format this correctly. So sorry for messed up spacing in the letter below...

Dear Robert,

Thank you so much for your concern and involvement on the issue of
Iraq. I deeply believe that Iraq is the defining issue of our time.
I am proud to have voted against the authorization for war in 2002, but
the issue now is what we do going forward.

Tomorrow night, President Bush is going to outline for the nation
his "way forward" in Iraq. And from all reports, his way forward
involves escalating American involvement by sending up to 20,000 more
soldiers and Marines to fight in the middle of what has become a civil
war. Every American, no matter what their political stripe, knows
that the current strategy isn't working and that we need a better way
forward. I believe that President Bush's plan is the wrong way
forward. It's just stay the course under a different name, and I
strongly oppose it.

Today, I will introduce legislation that requires Congress to vote
before the President escalates troop levels in Iraq. My legislation
will provide that not one additional soldier can be sent and not one
additional dollar can be expended until Congress debates and approves
the President's proposed escalation of American forces in Iraq. If
the election in November was about anything, it was about
accountability and the need for a changed policy in Iraq. Most
Americans oppose this war, and an even more oppose sending more troops
to Iraq. The American people deserve to be heard before we
appropriate additional funds for additional troops in Iraq.

In October 2002, Congress authorized (1) a war against the regime of
Saddam Hussein because (2) he was believed to have weapons of mass
destruction and (3) an operational relationship with Al Qaeda, and (4)
because he was in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution. Today,
Saddam Hussein is dead and we know that there were no weapons of mass
destruction or operational relationships with Al Qaeda and there is a
new, elected government in Iraq that is not in defiance of a Security
Council Resolution. No one can dispute that the mission of our armed
forces today in Iraq no longer bears any resemblance to the mission
authorized by Congress.

Instead of continued mistakes and shoot-from-the-hip policies, it's
time to get this right. The President must make clear the mission of
our troops and lay out a path to bring them home, and Congress must
stop being a rubberstamp for failed policies and stand up and act.

We know from history that an escalation of troops into a civil war
won't work. Our leaders tried it in Vietnam, and each surge of force
lead to the next. It escalated the war, instead of ending it. Like
Vietnam, there is no military solution to Iraq, only political. It
seems that the President is almost the last person in America to
understand that.

An escalation of American forces would only compound the original
misguided decision to invade Iraq. A military escalation in Iraq will
not strengthen our national security; rather, it would further weaken
it by enabling the Iraqis to avoid taking responsibility for their own
future. And an escalation will not lead us to victory. American
troops can't force the Iraqis reconcile their internal differences.

Our service men and women in Iraq have served with distinction and
valor. They've done everything we've asked them to do, and they've
done it well. More than 3,000 of our best and our brightest have been
killed in Iraq and more than 22,000 more have being wounded, many of
them seriously. Our troops deserve a policy worthy of their sacrifice
and their bravery, and I will continue to fight until we have one.

I urge every American to ensure their voice is heard in this critical
decision. When the President speaks tomorrow night, he must be
reminded that accountability and responsibility are no longer extinct
in Washington ? they are alive and well.

Thank you, Robert, for always being involved in what Olive Wendell
Holmes called the passion and action of our time. You continue to
make an enormous difference.

All the best,

Ted Kennedy

Lots of great Iraq articles to point to:

First, see Wes Clark's fantastic rebuke of The Bush Surge (is that like the Bob Dole post-little-blue-pill-surge?), also known as ESCALATION and alternatively known as VIETNAM REDUX (inviting Henry Kissinger to advise you on how to avoid defeat in Iraq is like having Lindsay Lohan advise you on how to avoid the clap).

Clark points out that if we need a surge in anything it is DIPLOMACY. He also points out how Bush has royally screwed the situation with Iran and Syria there:

Dealing with meddling neighbors is an essential element of resolving the conflict in Iraq. But this requires more than border posts and threatening statements. The administration needs a new strategy for the region, before Iran gains nuclear capabilities. While the military option must remain on the table, America should take the lead with direct diplomacy to resolve the interrelated problems of Iran's push for regional hegemony and nuclear power, the struggle for control of Lebanon, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Isolating our adversaries hasn't worked.

This is another man who could win my support in the Democratic primaries.

Second, Matt Taibbi, who is not only a great writer but a ranter after my own heart, discusses in his new piece Hussein in The Membrane, the inherent myopia of our "corporate" culture in the burbs (in my humble opinion, where spontaneity, creativity and compassion go to be waterboarded, but I digress). It is this that allows us to be sold starting and continuing a disastrous war in a region most Americans know nothing about, based upon platitudes like "we need to make lemons out of lemonade" etc.

A small taste:

But the engine behind this entire escapade was really the great mass of ordinary Beltway apparatchiks and media creatures who cheerfully assented once the idea squirted out of Bush's mouth. You're talking about a bunch of half-bright golfers from the Virginian suburbs, people raised on Archie comics and fuzzy patriotic platitudes and old saws gleaned from William Holden war movies and their postwar corporate-executive dads. They went for the war because people they trusted told them it was a good idea, and some of them even ended up running parts of the operation, either in Iraq or in positions of responsibility here at home.

Great piece, and you'll laugh your ass off while reading it.

Atrios points us to Paul Krugman's great column today (subscription required) that notes how George W. Bush, in his inane plan to get more American troops killed for his ego/legacy, listens to the consistently wrong musings of two other sons with daddy-envy, William Kristol and Frederick Kagan.

Keep that in mind as watch the sons of a onetime GOP presidential nominee and power broker (Mitt Romney, son of George) and Admiral in WWII (John McCain) try and live up to their daddies' legacies in their runs for president (thankfully, we are spared of George Allen's endless football innuendos in his attempts to live up to his pappy).

Thanks folks for bearing with me while I dealt with some personal issues. Now I am back, so let's get to business.

You may remember that one of the reasons I enjoyed John Edwards' announcement speech so much was that he called not for this bs of "gradually increasing" those who have access to healthcare, but for universal care.

Well, on one last note regarding my friend Maria, for those of you who read the obit (Paddy linked to it in the comments), you may have noticed that she did not have healthcare. This is just ludicrous, and made this situation all the more tragic for those of us who cared so deeply about her. The employer-based system is out of date and frankly hurts the very businesses Republicans slobber over.

I consider universal care a litmus test for me to support any Democratic nominee in the primaries at this point. You pander on this one, getting my vote or (paltry) donations is a non-starter.