The Dem Diatribe Project

Democracy For America has put out a short Flash animation describing the Downing Street Memo and what it means for America. Take a look: http://democracyforamerica.com/memo_movie.php

"Maybe his mother loved him, but I've never met anybody who does." That's what Dick Cheney had to say about my brother, Howard Dean, on Monday. This wasn't a quote from an insecure schoolyard bully at recess -- this was our vice president speaking on prime time television. It's outrageous! But then again, this is a guy who has no regrets about misleading America into a war with Iraq and the deaths of over 1,700 brave men and women in uniform. He has no remorse over mismanaging our nation's economy and running up the biggest deficit in history. He wants to destroy Social Security. And he has given away billions to his corporate cronies at Halliburton. Howard has said a lot of things about Republicans, but he was wrong about Dick Cheney. Dick Cheney has worked a day in his life -- and the nation is worse off because of it. Vice President Cheney says he has never met anyone who likes Howard - well, it's time for us to re-introduce ourselves to him. It...

To: Democrats in U.S. Congress Recently some Democrats in Congress have chastised Governor Howard Dean, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, saying that he does not speak for the party. We the undersigned have a simple message we would like to convey to you: Howard Dean Speaks For Me. And, we respectfully request that you refrain from public criticism of your fellow Democrats and that you begin to speak for us as well Sincerely, The Undersigned Sign the petition.

I'll take "The Obvious" for $1000, Alex. Providing yet more evidence that Bush cannot think more than about one move ahead in any situation, the Washington Post is reporting on British analysis that the Bush administration had not given any serious thought regarding what to do with Iraq after the invasion. Forget chess. This man probably sucks at checkers. And he is "leading our country", YOW! A briefing paper prepared for British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers eight months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq concluded that the U.S. military was not preparing adequately for what the British memo predicted would be a "protracted and costly" postwar occupation of that country. The eight-page memo, written in advance of a July 23, 2002, Downing Street meeting on Iraq, provides new insights into how senior British officials saw a Bush administration decision to go to war as inevitable, and realized more clearly than their American counterp...

The evidence in Bush's manufacture of evidence for war seems to keep growing. How long can the U.S. mainstream media ignore this? Isn't it about time for a special counsel to investigate Bush's lies to Congress, the American people and the world? MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal. The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier. Read more ...

Republican U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris, who was praised and vilified for her role as Florida's secretary of state in the 2000 presidential recount, said today she will run for the U.S. Senate next year against Democrat Bill Nelson. Running against an incumbent may be a more difficult challenge, but Harris is considered a top fundraiser and is a popular figure among Republicans." "A popular figure among Republicans". I'll bet she is. Her reward for giving Bush the WH was tons of campaign funding. She raised more than $2 million for her House seat campaign. The incumbent did not raise that much in his ten years in office. ggggrrrrrrrrrr

Senate panel votes to expand Patriot Act This week the Senate was to take up the repeal of the Patrion Act, or at least consider scaling it back. Instead, the controversial post-9/11 law would be expanded to give the FBI new powers to demand documents from companies without a judge's approval, according to a vote late Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence committee. The latest proposal grants the FBI more power to seek information from banks, hospitals, libraries, and other organizations through "administrative subpoenas" without prior judicial oversight. In addition, the FBI may designate that the subpoenas are secret and punish disclosure of their existence with up to one year in prison. The ACLU denounced the Senate Intelligence committee's vote. "In a move antithetical to our Constitution, the new 'administrative subpoena' authority would let the FBI write and approve its own search orders for intelligence investigations, without prior judicial approval,...

The Bush administration somehow feels justified in chastising Newsweek for their report on desecration of the Koran and smug, arrogant and hubristic in dismissing Amnesty International, but this is all just desperate rhetoric. This administration has the worst record of human rights abuses in the history of the United States. A closer read of the Amnesty report details specific cases of abuse and a policy that flies in the face of what the U.S. stands for. The editorial in Sunday's New York Times expresses this more succinctly than I could attempt to do myself. Rather than snarking about the situation, as I often do, the article offers some constructive advice to the Bush administration: Now that the Bush administration has made clear how offended it is at Amnesty International's word choice in characterizing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp "the gulag of our times," we hope it will soon get around to dealing with the substantive problems that the Amnesty rep...

From Fafblog!: Q: Help! I'm being tortured to death in an American military prison! What should I do? A: First of all, you should get your facts straight. You're not being tortured to death in an American military prison; you're being interrogated to death in an American detainment facility. America does not tolerate torture. Q: Is there any sort of legal representative or due process I could get before being beaten to death? A: No. Lawyers, open legal procedures, and basic civil liberties are all tools the enemy can use to escape justice - the justice of being beaten to death in a prison camp. Q: It's just that my name is Musab Mohammed Khan, the pastry chef, and I believe you have me confused with Musab Muhammed Khan, the al Qaeda associate also known as "The Fist of Jihad." A: First, there are many terrorist pastry chefs, just as there are many terrorist pastries. Second, competent intelligence and accurate prison records are both tools the enemy...

We now know, thanks to a leaked British memo concerning the head of British intelligence, that the Bush administration -- contrary to its explicit denials -- had already made up its mind to attack Iraq and "fixed" those bogus allegations to support its decision. In short, Bush and his top officials lied about Iraq. Going to war is the most serious decision a president can make. It should never be approached in a cavalier fashion. American lives, the prestige and influence of the country, international relations, the health of its defenses, and the future of the next generation are at stake. Yet every single piece of evidence we now have confirms that George W. Bush, who was obsessed with unseating Saddam Hussein even before 9/11, recklessly used the opportunity presented by the terror attacks to march the country to war, fixing the intelligence to justify his decision, and lying to the American people about the reasons for the war. In other times, this might have been an impe...

I have frequently suggested that the Bush administration has been playing so fast and so loose with the laws of our nation that they should be impeached. And while this is pretty much a pipe dream with both houses of Congress controlled by the republicans, it is good to hear more voices take up the cause. The facts are readily available. The lies and bogus pretenses for going to war are now common knowledge. Why are the American people not more outraged at how they were so blatantly lied to? There are just a few voices now. More will certainly take up the cause. "When Clinton lied, no one died." When Bush lies, thousands die. I vote to impeach.