Hagel to retire

The word on the street is that Senator Hagel plans to retire, and does not intend to run for President.

Hagel is a statesman, and along with Lugar and Biden, went to the White House and demanded that Congress be kept in the loop about the Iraq invasion:

In an interview in GQ Magazine, Hagel reveals that the Bush administration tried to get Congress to approve military action anywhere in the Middle East — not just in Iraq — in the fall of 2002. At the time, Hagel says, the Bush administration presented Congress with a resolution that would have authorized the use of force anywhere in the region:

HAGEL: [F]inally, begrudgingly, [the White House] sent over a resolution for Congress to approve. Well, it was astounding. It said they could go anywhere in the region.

GQ: It wasn’t specific to Iraq?

HAGEL: Oh no. It said the whole region! They could go into Greece or anywhere. Is central Asia in the region? I suppose! Sure as hell it was clear they meant the whole Middle East. It was anything. It was literally anything. No boundaries. No restrictions.

GQ: They expected Congress to let them start a war anywhere in the Middle East?

HAGEL: Yes. Yes. Wide open. We had to rewrite it. Joe Biden, Dick Lugar, and I stripped the language that the White House had set up and put our language in it.

That he is retiring - along with Warner - makes me wonder if Lugar will stay, or if they have all had enough of this train wreck.

It also makes me wonder if they already know its not going to end.

This guy was on our side. Maybe he just got tired of fighting literally everyone. God knows we never gave him any support, and the Republicans crucified him.



He has also spoken out against the Patriot Act, against Bush, was the first guy to mention impeachment (of either party.)

"When government continues to erode individual rights, that's the most dangerous, dangerous threat to freedom there is," he said, calling it "far more dangerous than terrorism." His reaction was similarly sharp when he first heard of the report in this newspaper that the president had claimed authority to order domestic wiretapping without court approval. "If, in fact, this is true," he said, "then it needs to stop." When the White House acknowledged it was true, Hagel pressed for Congressional hearings and a national debate. "I think Congress has failed the country in many ways," he said at a forum in California last month. One way was to allow the administration "to completely overpower the debate based on, 'I'm the commander in chief, and I know what's best.' "

Well, whoever replaces him has some big shoes to fill. For example... the ability to tell the truth. And some idea of what it means to serve as a Senator in a 'representative government.' One that doesn't just represent corporations.

Daily GOP Follies

I read the news today - good grief

Today is a milestone day, in our democracy's headlong plunge from grace. It appears there are now only 666 days until our national nightmare is over. Make of that what you will.

Bill Maher (see video I posted yesterday) was right in his assessment of our struggle - our confusion as we even attempt to keep track of the rash of scandals coming out of the White House. If you expand to include the entire GOP, its unbelievable. Well almost unbelievable... although this time, they've really gone over the edge.

Remember not so long ago... Newt Gingrich (the same guy who was having an affair while pointing an accusing finger at Bill Clinton - that Newt Gingrich;) was riding high, on a white horse, talking about how he and his 'family values' were going to save America? I believe he called it the 'Contract with America.' More like a contract on America.

Truly... these are your family values in action, Newt? Really? If these are family values, we'd like a few less helpings, thank you. In fact, we'd like to leave the table now. And if you have the audacity to even consider running for president, we will happily ignore you when we aren't too busy laughing.

What are these crooks doing when they aren't lying under oath, cheating somebody, hiring unqualified cronies, robbing the treasury - or robbing little old ladies as they cross the street? I don't mean to indict all of Republicans of course - Senator Lugar, Senator Specter and Senator Hagel, you are excluded; but damn few others.

While conservatives are crying - and obsessing - over what they perceive to be that lost, 'Reagan greatness,' it is really a shame that they won't or cannot realize that this is exactly when their fall from decency (and fiscal reality) began in earnest.

Their 'face of Reaganomics,' John Stockton was just indicted for defrauding investors. Like Newt, it turns out he was just another political shyster picking our pockets, finding ever better ways to steal from the people - and our treasury - in the interest of his powerful, wealthy friends.

Same ol stuff, different year.

By the way, two quotes (about Stockton) that ran side by side in the Washington Post, when put together, say everything we need to know about Reaganomics:

"It's a shame that a guy who made such a great contribution as a member of Congress and the Reagan administration has this happening to him," said M.B. Oglesby, a former deputy chief of staff to Reagan. "He was the driver in the whole budget process in the beginning of the administration that set the tone for the tax cuts and the budget cuts."

"I have vivid memories of his misusing and misstating data and using obviously phony economic forecasts," said veteran budget analyst Stanley E. Collender. "You wonder if those were habits that stuck with him when he became a Wall Street dealmaker."

Yes, it was those pesky 'bad habits' again. Those bad habits that set the tone for years of GOP rule in America.

By the way - remember the Iran Contra scandal? Seriously - does anyone still remember Iran/Contra? It apparently doesn't exist; it seems to have fallen right out of history, because no one ever paid a price. No one linked it to the top, to the beloved 'Gipper' himself.

It is up to us - the people - to make sure that no more presidential scandals fall through the cracks, or we'll be doomed to an endless stream of this 'garbage rule' we see today.

Face it neocons - the looting party is over. If you really want to rejoin the American populace (and be allowed to continue in American politics,) your party must look back even further, to a clean and decent time... say Eisenhower.

Ike was a great American and a great president. You could do a lot worse. In fact... you have done so very much worse, during your plunge into the depths of depravity and corruption. We tried to believe that Nixon was an aberration, but now you give us Bush and Cheney. Always trying to up the ante! I ask you in all honesty, why would we trust you again, EVER, with our highest office?

Maybe it would be a nice chance of pace for you, if you took a new tack... consider it, give it some thought.

I know the American Enterprise Institute will be up in arms at the very idea of a 'reasonable' and 'non partisan cooperation' between parties, not to mention giving up their imperial and dictatorial ambitions. Heaven forbid that any of us should ever get along, when they are so right and everyone else is so wrong. *Cough.* But really at this point - what have you got to lose that you haven't already lost?

If I were you, I'd tell AEI to take a hike, and toss the religious right wingnuts, Ann Coulter and Karl Rove from a fast moving train. Dig yourselves out this morass, and look inside for some vestige of that long buried sense of patriotism and decency.

Ike is your ticket. Ike is a fabulous place to start. The man was an honest statesman and a national hero. He was honorable. He was honest. He even warned the nation about the rise of the military industrial complex. So, have you got one of those - anywhere - within your ranks?

How about Chuck Hagel? I hear Ike was one of his political heroes. That seems like a hopeful sign, don't you think?

Again... what have you got to lose? Because really, can it get much worse... and when it does (with a few more news days like today) will there be anything left to salvage?

I read the news today, oh wow:

1. The White House was using outside email accounts to correspond about White House business, which violates the Presidential Records Act. Of course, they were using Republican National Committee email accounts... of course...
   

2. A Gonzales aide is already invoking the 5th amendment (amazing how quickly they have come back to the Constitution, like hapless prodigal children. Damn handy slip of paper, isn't it?) It appears she can't answer any questions at an upcoming Senate hearings concerning the fired prosecutors, because literally anything she says will incriminate her. Hmmm.

3. Although we're probably not terribly shocked to hear this, it now appears Alberto Gonzales lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he said he wasn't involved in the firing of the procescutors. Emails say otherwise.

   Stopping short of demanding Gonzales' resignation, Sen. Arlen Specter cited a Nov. 27 calendar entry placing the attorney general at a Justice Department meeting to discuss the dismissals. Those documents "appear to contradict" Gonzales' earlier statements that he never participated in such conversations, said Specter, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees the Justice Department.

   "We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful. And if we find out he has not been candid and truthful, that's a very compelling reason for him not to stay on," said Specter, R-Pa.

4. This one came from right field... but it appears federal prosecutors announced conspiracy and securities and bank fraud charges against Reagan-era budget director David A. Stockman. They are accusing him of misleading investors about the finances of a troubled Michigan auto parts company.

5. One of the eight former U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration stated yesterday that White House officials questioned his performance in 'highly partisan political terms' only three months before he was dismissed from his job.
   
   John McKay of Washington state, who had decided two years earlier not to bring voter fraud charges that could have undermined a Democratic victory in a closely fought gubernatorial race, said White House counsel Harriet Miers and her deputy, William Kelley, "asked me why Republicans in the state of Washington would be angry with me."

6. Have you ever heard of the 'Hatch Act?' No? Apparently Lurita Alexis Doan hasn't heard of it either. Doan is the Chief of the General Services Administration and - shocker - a deputy in Karl Rove's political affairs office at the White House. Rove is everywhere! Apparently, Doan joined in a videoconference earlier this year with top GSA political appointees, and discussed ways in which "targeted public events, such as the opening of federal facilities around the country" could be used to help Republican candidates.
   The Hatch Act, as it turns out, is a federal law that restricts executive-branch employees from using their positions for political purposes... although when you think about it, this law could easily be used to clean out the entire working populace in the White House

   (save perhaps the chef and a few of the waiting staff.) Oh - Doan is also accused to trying to give a no-bid job to a friend and professional associate last summer, and the committee plans to investigate Waxman's charge that she "intervened" in a troubled technology contract with Sun Microsystems that could cost taxpayers millions of dollars. Shocking.

7. Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico is now under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee after a watchdog group accused him of trying to pressure David Iglesias, (one of the now fired prosecutors, then the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque, N.M.,) to rush a corruption probe against Democrats in an effort to sway the 2006 elections. Domenici has now hired Duke Cunningham's lawyer Lee Blalack to defend him. Er, good luck with that. I'm sure 'Cryin Duke' will save ya a spot at his table in the prison mess hall.

8. The President seems truly attached to Guantanamo and to torture in general. He defends it with a self-righteous vengence that is truly inexplicable. Or is he once again deferring to that Cheney on his shoulder? When his own Secretary of Defense Robert Gates - with the backing of Condi Rice - suggested that perhaps, just maybe, it is time to close down this abomination and bring these guys to America, Cheney and Gonzales quashed all further discussion. And so once again we have to ask... who is running this country? Sir George, or Sir Dick? My bet is on Sir Dick.

   Kangaroo courts, secret prisons and torture are for banana republics sir - not for this American democracy. Everyone seems to 'get that' except for you. But then - you still don't seem to grasp that you aren't a King, and that America is not your little GOP fiefdom. And so far, no one in our Congress has given you much reason to believe otherwise. But the people sir... the people are growing restless. Its no wonder that you hate us so, and spy on us at every turn. We are the real wildcard in your imperial plans, aren't we? A restless populace is not a good thing (as I recall, Southern slave owners lived in constant fear of their own slaves.) Eventually the people will grow so outraged - fed up - that they will actually succeed in pressuring their reluctant, foot-dragging, corporate-owned representatives into action. And Congress will again begin to worry about the votes. And maybe, just maybe, you will finally pay the price for your royal assumptions, and your blatent disregard for America's guiding principles of freedom, justice and the rule of law.

9. Aides to President Bush are being warned today, not to destroy any emails (like they haven't already... please.) Waxman, who is proving quite adept at ferreting out GOP sneakiness, has already made the same warning to the Republican National Committee. It appears there is a history in this White House of using RNC email accounts for correspondance that is 'off the public record.' Translation: illegal, immoral and corrupt in nature (and we can't let anyone find out about this.) Apparently this use of RNC email accounts was discovered during the Abramoff investigation.

   In one instance, Mr Abramoff, who is serving a 70-month sentence on corruption charges, sent an e-mail to Susan Ralston, executive assistant to Karl Rove, the president’s chief political strategist, on her RNC account about a gaming-related decision by the department of the interior.
   
   When the e-mail was forwarded to another official in the White House e-mail system, Mr Abramoff was warned by an associate who said the official “said it is better not to put this stuff in writing in their e-mail system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us”.
   
   Mr Abramoff responded: “Dammit. It was sent to Susan on her RNC pager and was not supposed to go into the WH system.”
   
   ”We are reviewing it and taking appropriate action,” the RNC said yesterday.

   
   

   Right-o.

10. Former Army Sgt. Sam Provance was the only uniformed military intelligence officer at the Iraqi prison to testify about Abu Ghraib abuses during the internal Army investigation - and it didn't take him long to realize that the Pentagon was scapegoating low-level personnel, sacrificing them to save the chain of command.
    
    For refusing to shut up and play along with an obvious cover-up, Provance was tossed out of the US military.

    The Pentagon went forward with its plan to pin the blame for the sadistic treatment of Iraqi detainees on a handful of poorly trained MPs, not on the higher-ups who brought the lessons of "alternative interrogation techniques" from the Guatanamo Bay prison to Abu Ghraib.

    To hear Sam Provance's own story, in his own words, is to realize just how bad things really are. And they are very, very, very bad.
    

Protesters, counter-protesters: all support the troops

We all care deeply

Yes, there was coverage on yesterdays March to the Pentagon.

Quite a bit of coverage - and photos. (More coverage, from CNN, and more photos.)

Apparently, we've reached critical mass, although I can already see that the coverage is slanted. But that was to be expected.

I suspect one reason this march received more coverage than the last march, was due to the influx of 'anti-protest' counter protesters. They seem to draw the mainstream media - no big surprise - and it appears there are more interviews with counter protesters than those who came for the march. I've noticed time and again, that the mainstream media doesn't reflect the feelings of the majority of Americans (which is probably why so many of us come out to the Internet to find our news.)

I also suspect that marches with 'counter protesters' are much more exciting to cover for the mainstream media. There is always that chance that there will be something they can sensationalize - violence, or perhaps 'a clash.'

You'll notice if you read the articles, that when talking to the counter protesters, they describe 'proud marines' and 'Vietnam vets' (although there are just as many - or more - taking part in the march itself. You'd never know this from the coverage. This is intentional.) When describing the marchers, the media may give a short, passing comment about the many, many participants from the military and their families... but they go ga-ga over 'anarchists' and other exotic-looking revolutionaries.

In truth... most people who march these days are professionals with jobs and families - or people from military families, many who are parents of soldiers that have died in the war. There are some young people, college age participants, but not nearly enough. Yet. (Just wait until there is a draft, and they'll come out of the woodwork.)

I also doubt the 'head counts' reported in the newspapers. This is a lesson I learned in January. The LA Times still claims that only 100,000 showed up in January for the march around the Capitol. I was there - there really were 500,000 people, maybe more. If you look at the photos taken by participants (and not just the handful of carefully picked photos posted by the media) you will see a massive crowd filling the National Mall, and overflowing onto side streets. Perhaps not the largest in history, but very, very big. Half a million, easily. Why does the media continually undercount the crowd size? To discourage future marches, and to keep the general populace from 'getting ideas.' This is also why there is so little coverage. Remember, our media has gone corporate...

Yesterday, there were military veterans, families and active duty warriors on both sides of the tape. Yet as always, everybody disagrees about who has the right to claim that loaded phrase 'support our troops.'

Counter protest protesters occupied the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, supposedly to keep 'disrespectful anti-war protesters away.' Ironically, many of the protesters - who bused and flew in from all over the country for the march to the Pentagon - are actually military families, Iraq war veterans, parents of solders who died in Iraq... and yes, Vietnam veterans. So imagine now, that you are a veteran, and you see an angry mob has occupied the Vietnam memorial, and is holding it against you. How would this make you feel?

Would any of these people - ever - dream of desecrating a war memorial? Does anyone - I don't care what your ideology - have the right to keep a Vietnam veteran, or any other veteran, out of the Vietnam Memorial?

This angers me.

I confess that I can understand why some people feel 'you must support the war to support the warriors'. This has been ingrained in our thinking for generations. But as someone who disagrees with that philosophy, I cannot understand the nastiness - the judgmental vitriol from those who oppose all protest.

The assumption that those who protest the war - including many who fought in the war - are 'unpatriotic,' confounds me. I wish I understood how anyone could hold such animosity towards those who disagree with the basis for the war, but care deeply for the well being of the troops.

Are they all simply brainwashed by the media (most likely Fox,) or some other propaganda arm? Are they somehow locked into mental images of wild-eyed, drugged out hippies throwing stones at returning Vietnam veterans (I don't remember any such images from the 60s, but I was very young.)

Where does this hatred come from?

The marchers appeared, for the most part, to hold no such hostility in return... although when confronted with a sign that says 'go to hell traitors,' or 'peace sucks,' I know I would experience mixed emotions... and perhaps the desire to set the record straight. I've learned that this is impossible. These ideas are fixed in stone, and the hatred runs deep. I'm sure Fox continually fans the flames of the hatred, every day. This is, of course, what Fox does best.

Senator Chuck Hagel (R, Nebraska) and a Vietnam veteran, once believed that opposing the Vietnam war was wrong. His brother Tom (also a veteran, and who actually fought along side his brother Chuck) came home from the war convinced that he had been used, and was an outspoken critic. Chuck and his brother actually came to blows over their differences of opinion, shortly after they returned. Now, years later, Chuck Hagel has come full circle. Hagel is now considered to be the fiercest, most out-spoken Republican critic of the Iraq war in the Senate.

Hagel said he came to his own moment of truth, after listening to tape recordings of former President Lyndon Johnson admitting that he felt the war was pointless. Apparently Johnson made this statement in 1964 - before the Hagel brothers were deployed to Vietnam. Johnson went on to say that he feared he would be impeached if he tried to withdraw.

“The dishonesty of it was astounding — criminal, really,” Mr. Hagel said. “I came to the conclusion that they used those people, used our young people."

I was on a march in Washington D.C. two months ago, and I stayed well away from the anti-protesters. I have no beef with them. I feel they are welcome to their opinion, because we are all Americans and that is what 'freedom' is all about: the freedom to disagree. I have no interest in fighting with fellow Americans. My beef is with my government.

But come on... stupid comments like 'If you don't love America, leave it?' Imagine yelling something that stupid, right in the face of an Iraq combat veteran. These men and women fought for the right to protest. They watched friends die, many are injured for life. How dare anyone judge them?

If counter protesters also fought in this war and other wars, and disagree... fine. I respect that. But they need to learn a little respect as well. America's greatness rests in our right to disagree. All are patriots. All 'support the troops.' There are no 'traitors' here - the traitors are embedded in our government.

That said... I'm sure there were more than a few idiotic comments from among the ranks of the marchers as well. Some people can't see a sign calling them 'traitors' and walk quietly by without responding in kind. I see no point in engaging. Freedom of speech cuts both ways.

And as for the rest of us, those who are not in the military but who oppose this war on principle: why would anyone get on a bus and ride for 16+ hours to protest this war, our government's abuse of our troops, and this administration's attacks on our Bill of Rights -- if we didn't love America? If we didn't love America... wouldn't we all just stay the hell home on our couches, in comfort, pop a beer and watch American Idol?

The opposite of love and support, is indifference. Can't we all get along?

Members of a coalition of Christians opposed to the war actually demonstrated at the White House the night before the march- and many were arrested. It would appear that people from all ideologies, all walks of life, are uniting in the belief that this war - and the accompanying torture and abuse of Geneva conventions - is wrong.

These 'anti-protest' protesters seem to have missed the entire point of the march, and the reason for its starting location at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Memorial is a symbol of the last controversial war - one that divided Americans just as profoundly as this war. Increasingly (even among the troops,) a majority of Americans are now opposed to the continued occupation of Iraq. There are many similarities between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam war.

So the Vietnam Memorial was an obvious place to begin - a place of great reverence to everyone. Hallowed ground. That one side felt entitled to 'occupy it' against the other, is beyond reason. But I suppose 'reason' has no place in this discussion.

Most of us believed that our country learned a powerful lesson in the wake of Vietnam. Apparently, there are still many in our government who learned absolutely nothing.

The draft-dodging, deferment stacking politicians who started this war never learned about Vietnam, because they never fought. They were protected by money and influence during the Vietnam era, and never had to face months of fear, mud, insects and surprise ambushes in the jungles of Vietnam. They had to reason to learn the true cost of war. They are somehow above getting their own hands dirty - or those of their children - on the actual field of battle, but they are very comfortable committing other people's children to the fight that they began.

It is on their heads that I hang this tragedy, this ongoing bloodshed.

I suppose this debate will continue forever. The story of the Hagel brothers - both Vietnam veterans - bloodying each other on their front lawn over this very issue, just underlines how very raw the subject matter has become in our national psyche.