Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman writes today:

Terrorists are at war with our country. And we have a choice.

Either we use every tool available to fight and win the War on Terror … or we heed the calls of Democrats who would censure and impeach the President for fighting the terrorists.

Every tool available?

Every tool?

Really?

Yeah?

OK, then. Here’s a tool in the War on Terror: Why don’t we lock every single person on American soil in his or her own little 7×8 foot cage? Take off all their clothes, take away all their possessions, and lock them up. Then everybody would be secure, and nobody could engage in a terrorist attack.

Or here’s another tool in the War on Terror. Why don’t we send a thousand of our most delicious-looking, virginal 15 year old children to Al Qaeda every month to give the terrorists blow jobs, so the murderous thugs relax a bit, have fun, get some endorphins flowing and stop keeping all that unproductive rage bottled up for the next mother of all battles? Maybe we could send an additional five hundred to tongue their assholes.

What?

Did I step over the line?

Why, what line? I think these would be very effective tools in the War on Terror!

Oh, what? Are there just some tools that we don’t use? Are there just some things Americans don’t do? Oh. You mean we have standards? What are our standards? Wait, wait, I know… they’re, like enshrined somewhere or something, in the … oh, fuck yeah! The Constitution!

And why are the Democrats (really, three Democrats: Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer and Tom Harkin) suggesting we censure or impeach George W. Bush? Because he violated the …

Koran? No.

Terms of Service for Installation of Microsoft Office? No.

Cardinal rule of bathroom hygiene: wipe, then wash? No, no, no.

He violated the…

Well, damn. It’ll come to me any minute now.

Jim Webb, running for Senate in Virginia, writes me an urgent-sounding e-mail today with the title “12 Hours to Do Better”: “You have until midnight tonight to help us make a statement to Virginia.” Oh, dear me, is Jim Webb losing his voice? Try some lemon juice with honey, dear. There, did that help? Or have they passed a law censoring Democrats as of April 1, 2006? The horror! The horror! Someone tell the governor!

Coincidentally, John Kerry writes me an urgent e-mail of his own, entitled “12 Hours to Turn the Tide.” Goodness gracious! What tide might that be? Is it like the Lord of the Rings, where Gandalf says, “I come to you now at the turning of the tide”? Are there orcs involved? “Things are going to get ugly early.” Yes, orcs! “Please help us spread the word in these last critical 12 hours.” The last 12 hours? Are the orcs storming the barricades right now? Did they move election day to April Fool’s Day? Well, that would be kind of fitting…

Oh, wait. No orcs. They want money. Oh. And there’s no April 1 deadline to give money. Oh. There’s more than 12 hours to turn the tide. But if they get money tonight, then they can report the existence of that money earlier, rather than later, which would be three months from now, when I expect to receive an e-mail asking for money now with the screaming title, “6 Hours and 43 Minutes to Make the Difference Between Perpetual Orgasm and a Skewered Spleen!”

Pardon me while I try to work up some excitement…. No, hmm, no. Didn’t work. You?

Today Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of S. Res. 398, a bill to censure George W. Bush in condemnation of “his unlawful authorization of wiretaps of Americans within the United States without obtaining the court orders required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, his failure to inform the full congressional intelligence committees as required by law, and his efforts to mislead the American people about the authorities relied upon by his Administration to conduct wiretaps and about the legality of the program.”

In his remarks, Senator Feingold sought to show that through their actions, his fellow Senators have already indicated their acknowledgement that Bush’s actions were illegal:

Mr. Chairman, I have looked closely at the statements you have made about the NSA program since the story broke in December. We have a disagreement about some things, but I am pleased to say we are in agreement on several others. We agree that the NSA program is inconsistent with FISA. We agree that the Authorization for Use of Military Force did not grant the President authority to engage in warrantless wiretapping of Americans on U.S. soil. We agree that the President was and remains required under the National Security Act of 1947 to inform the full Intelligence Committees of the NSA program, which he refuses to do.

Where we disagree, apparently, is whether the President’s authority under Article II of the Constitution allows him to authorize warrantless surveillance without complying with FISA. You have said you think this is a close question. I do not believe he has such authority and I don’t think it’s a close question. We will continue to debate that I’m sure. But I think the fact that you have proposed legislation on this program undermines your argument that such presidential authority exists. Because if it does exist, then nothing that we can legislate, no matter how carefully crafted, is worth a hill of beans. For starters, your proposed bill may or may not cover what the NSA is now doing. You and I have no way of knowing because we have not been fully briefed on the program, and I am a member of the Intelligence Committee as well.

Senator Feingold continues, transitioning to a consideration of the assault on the traditional systems of checks and balances between branches of government:

If the President’s legal theory, which is shared by some of our witnesses today, is correct, then FISA is a dead letter, all of the supposed protections for civil liberties contained in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that we just passed are a cruel hoax, and any future legislation we might pass regarding surveillance or national security is a waste of time and a charade. Under this theory, we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government, we have a monarchy.

We can fight terrorism without breaking the law. The rule of law is central to who we are as a people, and the President must return to the law. He must acknowledge and be held accountable for his illegal actions and for misleading the American people, both before and after the program was revealed. If we in the Congress don’t stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in his law breaking. A resolution of censure is the appropriate response – even a modest approach.

Thank you, Senator Feingold, for honoring your oath of office: not to defend George W. Bush, not to stick with your party, not to win elections, but to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Thank you, Senators Barbara Boxer of California and Tom Harkin of Iowa, for being the only two United States Senators to stand with Russ Feingold and cosponsor the censure resolution. And thank you, Patrick Leahy, for at least showing up to today’s meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee to hear testimony and remarks.

Democratic Judiciary Committee members Joseph Biden, Edward Kennedy, Herbert Kohl, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer and Dick Durbin couldn’t even be bothered to show up for such a critical hearing. I urge you to and rain disparagement upon them. They have let us down yet again. If they are too tired, if they are too cautious, if they are too confused to fulfill their oaths and defend the constitution and Americans’ liberties, they have been too long in the Senate.

Don’t stop there; contact the two Senators from your own home state and ask them when they plan on cosponsoring S. Res. 398. Most of these Senators screamed about the rule of law when it came to a blowjob; don’t let them off the hook now.

As for the sponsoring Senator from Wisconsin? I say Russ Feingold for President! Grab a sticker, pledge a contribution to the future Feingold 2008 campaign, join the Feingold Meetup, and tell a friend to do the same.

Charles Franklin, Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, has assembled, analyzed and commented upon the following trends in partisan identification over time for a set of eleven polls:

Percent Identifying as Republican, by Poll and Date

Percent Identifying as Democrat, by Poll and Date

Percent Identifying as Independent, by Poll and Date

As the Republicans love to point out when desperately trying to rationalize away George W. Bush’s abysmal approval ratings, there are differences from poll to poll in the percent identifying with any party, and those differences reflect either chance, the design of a sampling frame or the design of a poll question. What’s more important to pay attention to are the trends within polls across time as they ask the same question over and over again.

As these graphs show (and as Franklin verifies via statistical tests — click here to read in full), over the past year there has been a consistent decline in the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Republicans. At the same time, there has been little to no change in the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Democrats. Rather, there has been a consistent increase in the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as Independents.

I’m one of those independents. I am certainly no Republican — I’d be just too embarrassed to call myself a Republican in public, what with the unconstitutional violation of American liberty, the busted budget, the costly failures abroad, and the lies emanating from the Bush White House. But neither am I a Democrat, and never have I been. Although I receive at least one piece of mail a day telling me how desperately important it is for me to support whatever Democrat is running for whatever race — in order to stop the Republicans in Congress and the Bushes in the White house — I cannot help but recall how many Democrats have had an opportunity to stop Republican chicanery over the past six years but have failed to do so. Again, and again, and again, the Democrats permit Republican priorities to be actualized because it did not seem personally expedient to their political careers.

So rather than commit myself to one “team” or the other and work to boost its prospects, I stand outside any group allegiance and ally myself to a set of ideas instead. When a candidate who also supports those ideas (in deed as well as word) needs help, I’m glad to lend a hand and/or write a check (see Sherrod Brown and Russ Feingold). But when someone tells me I need to support a Democrat because she or he is a Democrats, because she or he is not a Republican, as if this was some kind of sport or tribal warfare, well… my hand retracts, my checkbook goes away. I pledge allegiance to no patron, I tether myself to no organization. This is what I have in mind as I count myself among the rising ranks of the independents.

Earlier this year, we wrote extensively about the Reverend Herbert Lusk’s involvement in Justice Sunday III. Lusk’s church north of Philadelphia, the Greater Exodus Baptist Church, hosted the right wing religious and political event, which included people like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Rick Santorum, and other prominent Republicans.

At that gathering of the Religious Right, Herbert Lusk made the following violent threat:

“Be careful how you fool with the church. You mess around with the church, something stirs up inside of me! You be careful because the church has surviving power. My friends, you know this and know this well. Don’t fool with the church because the church has buried many a critic, and all the critics that we have not buried, we’re making funeral arrangements for them!”

It turns out that Reverend Lusk is a long-time associate of President George W. Bush. You would think that, after Lusk made his threat to “make funeral arrangements” for and bury the critics of his church, President Bush and the Republican Party would have made an effort to distance themselves from Lusk. After all, Reverend Lusk is clearly unhinged.

Ah, but that’s not how Bush’s mind works. The more trouble Bush gets in, the more he surrounds himself with other right wing radicals who will not challenge his warped view of the world.

So, instead of distancing himself from Lusk’s violent threats, George W. Bush embraced those threats, and rewarded Reverend Herbert Lusk for making them. Yes, after Lusk threatened to bury his critics, President Bush appointed Lusk to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

There are only 5 people from across all of America on that advisory council. So, why did George W. Bush pick Herbert Lusk to be on the council? Herbert Lusk has no medical expertise on dealing with HIV. In fact, Reverend Lusk has no background in HIV/AIDS policy at all.

Sadly, President Bush appears to have placed Herbert Lusk on the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS in order to derail the work of that committee. Lusk has an agenda against equal rights for Americans that includes political stands against contraception and against same-sex marriage.

Isn’t that wild? Bush put Lusk, a man who is against promoting safe sex and against promoting monogamous marriages for gays and lesbians, on a council to advise the White House on how to slow the spread of HIV, a sexually-transmitted disease.

You can’t hear it, but I’m groaning. Friends, the White House needs to hear our voices on this one. Herbert Lusk needs to be removed from the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.

Wind up the crank and kick out the blocks, Frank. It’s time to power up the ol’ time machine again. Remember, way back to the Spring of 2003, when George W. Bush and members of his administration were telling us loudly and repeatedly that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, that the “mushroom cloud” was a-comin’, and that’s why we couldn’t wait for those piddly little careful international processes like diplomacy, confirmation of evidence, and constraint by non-violent means to be fulfilled?

Remember how the French dared to say that Bush’s evidence on WMDs was in some places weak and in some places contradicted? Remember how the French said they wouldn’t go along, because an Iraq War would be deemed to be a mistake? Remember how in the Congress Republican Walter Jones and his posse passed their days renaming French Fries and French Toast? Remember the calls to boycott restaurants that wouldn’t call them “Freedom Fries?” Remember all those t-shirts and stickers put on Republican bellies and bumpers declaring that it was time to “Bomb Iraq, then France”? All for daring to say that Bush’s war rationale was merde?

Well, we don’t call them Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast any more, and at least where I live the “Bomb France” t-shirts and stickers have been quietly pulled down over the past year or so. My own personal observation has been that the American people are beginning to acknowledge that we were wrong and the French were right.

It was nice this morning, then, to run across representative Gallup Poll results for American Democrats and Republicans in their evaluation of France:

Put the war drums away, wait a few years, see how the merde actually did hit the fan, and even Republicans will begin to agree that yes, the French were right.

About a week ago, I reported that support for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, as measured in sales of political campaign gear such as bumper stickers and campaign buttons, had dropped dramatically, while support for Russ Feingold’s 2008 presidential campaign had risen sharply.

Much of this change was certainly due to Senator Feingold’s sponsorship of a Senate resolution to censure President Bush, and Senator Clinton’s refusal to support the censure.

Since that time, however, the heat of discussion of the censure resolution has faded a bit. How has that affected support for Feingold for President, and rejection of Clinton for President supplies?

Feingold’s support remains essentially as high as it was a week ago. Last week, 39.1 percent of 2008 campaign gear was bought by Feingold supporters. This week, that number is at 39.7 percent. In both weeks, Feingold’s support was the strongest by far of any Democratic candidate.

Hillary Clinton’s support has rebounded somewhat, though it is still far below where it was one month ago. Last week, Hillary Clinton supporters only bought 8 percent of the presidential campaign gear. This week, that increased to 19 percent - still far behind Russ Feingold, and behind Barack Obama as well, who went from 19.9 percent of sales to 23.3 percent this week.

Hillary Clinton’s small rebound seems to have come from Bill Richardson’s supporters, who made a strong showing last week at 25.6 percent of 2008 campaign gear sold, but retracted this week to just 2.2 percent.

Russ Feingold seems to have achieved a solid place as the most preferred Democratic presidential candidate among citizens motivated enough to buy campaign gear, with Barack Obama coming in a consistent second, and Hillary Clinton struggling to catch up, but still in play.

Charles Krauthammer has come up with another real reason for the Iraq War:

it was necessary because, as I said, there is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the root causes of 9/11: “the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world…”

Yes, you read that right: curing social dysfunction and religious bigotry is now to be really real reason (really this time) that we went to war in Iraq. That’s the standard that we’re supposed to believe justified the Bush administration’s decision to go to war. By that standard, what should we expect next: strafing Detroit? blockading Idaho? Sending Pat Robertson to Gitmo?

This morning, I groggily peered over a cup of coffee to see the following headline at the top of the front page of the News and Observer:

Lobbyist Gets Six-Year Term

I jolted awake: holy, schmoly, someone finally figured out how the whole game works! Jack Abramoff got appointed to the Senate!

One year ago, bloggers, editorialists and reporters were devoting a great deal of attention to the Bush administration policy of “extraordinary rendition.” Extraordinary rendition is the practice by which people are nabbed by the U.S. government, often on U.S. soil, and shipped off to foreign countries where they can be interrogated using means that would be against the law on U.S. soil. Let’s be blunt: those means are methods of torture.

There’s a bill before Congress right now that would remedy this situation. H.R. 952 is written simply, exactly and solely to end the Bush administration’s practice of “extraordinary rendition,” in which people are sent abroad to be tortured. As of today, only 68 members of the House of Representatives support H.R. 952. That’s a shameful 15.6% of House members who are willing to go on record against torture. It’s not only a shame; it’s a scandal! Doesn’t America stand for something better than this? Why is it that 367 members of Congress can’t be bothered to stand up to torture? I really want to know.

I would like to be able to say that the support of 68 members of Congress reflects some momentum. But since October 20 of 2005, when Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) signed his name on as a cosponsor, only four other individuals, Mark Udall, Doris Matsui, Adam Schiff and Steven Rothman, have lent their support to the bill. The anti-torture bill is slipping off the radar screens of our nation’s legislators, replaced by bridges to nowhere in Alaska. The papers aren’t talking about this bill anymore either. Even on the blogosphere, discussion of extraordinary rendition has dwindled. We are letting America stand for torture, and we aren’t even getting upset about it. Think about what this says about us.

At a time when it is becoming more and more apparent that America under the Republicans is soft on torture, Americans of conscience cannot let this bill die here. Chances are, your member of Congress isn’t on board with this anti-terror (for that is what the central element of torture is, my friends) measure. Click here to check and be sure. If your member of Congress is soft on torture, don’t let it slide. Contact that slacker and tell them in no uncertain terms that you expect them to do what would have once been the obvious thing, that you expect them to oppose torture in deed as well as in word, that you expect them to sign on to H.R. 952.

Of course, not a single Republican has stood up to oppose torture by supporting this bill. I don’t expect Republican politicians to exercise a working ethical compass; we all know their “moral values” talk is empty. I’m not even surprised when “moderate” (read: bought-off) Democrats turn their eyes away from their responsibility as leaders. But I am downright galled to find out that members of Congress with an otherwise exemplary progressive record have failed to sign on as cosponsors to H.R. 952.

The following members of Congress have a quality liberal record. They should know better. Their names should be on this bill. They should be easily convinced. And so I’m asking you to call at least one of them today and ask them why they have not cosponsored H.R. 952. Ask them to do so, not just to keep people from being tortured, but to help begin to restore the moral reputation of the United States of America. Please, if you have a moment to spare, call:

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-FL) phone: 202-225-0123
Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) phone: 202-225-3601
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) phone: 202-225-4906
Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) phone: 202-225-2406
Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) phone: 202-225-6416
Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) phone: 202-225-4061
Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) phone: 202-225-8885
Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI) phone: 202-225-3611
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) phone: 202-225-3072
Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) phone: 202-225-6506
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) phone: 202-225-5516
Rep. Dennis Moore (D-KS) phone: 202-225-2865
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) phone: 202-225-4365
Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) phone: 202-225-6676
Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) phone: 202-225-6190

Ask these people not only to cosponsor H.R. 952, but also to raise a stink about the issue of extraordinary rendition. We cannot allow this thoroughly barbaric practice to continue.

See Rumsfeld’s stellar comments on the subject. Onward, Christian soldiers…

Am I the only one in the universe to conclude George W. Bush has finally gone insane? What else could explain his decision to promote Josh Bolten, the man in charge of Bush’s budget, to White House Chief of Staff as a confidence-building measure??? What does Bush have in mind — that Americans will cheer to see that the bureaucrat responsible for drawing up record-deficit budgets is now in charge of coordinating all of federal policy?

“Hooray?” I think “Oh, dear” is much more appropriate.

The following was written this morning by the creator of the local Democratic blog, Take Back New York’s 24th. It was written about the congressional candidates in New York’s 24th District, but could easily apply to most other congressional races around the country.

There is one issue that all of the candidates, Republican and Democrat, have left untouched. It’s time for the silence to break.

Of the many candidates now competing for New York’s 24th district seat in the House of Representatives, only one will win. Will at least one of our candidates have the moral courage to value what is right over what is easy?

The old saying has it that a picture is worth a thousand words. The intended meaning of that saying is that the power of images outshines the dull language with which we describe a world of images. When I cite the saying here, I have a different meaning.

A picture from Abu Ghraib is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?

It is not an easy thing to write one thousand words about any picture, but how easy is it to live within the picture? The pictured ones were swept off the streets of Iraq, often on the basis of little more than a rumor, or grudge, or a whim.

Sometimes, the crime was petty, like a theft. Often, there was no crime at all. For all, however, there was questioning, and before the questioning, there was the softening.

What do you know about Al Quaeda in Iraq? You say that you know nothing, but everybody knows something, these days. Everybody has a connection, somewhere.

Of course, you don’t think you have a connection. You know what your trouble is? No one’s made you soft, yet. The sergeants can find something on anybody. They have dogs to help them look, and six months’ time out to think about what they’ve done. Our captains, our majors, our generals get nothing but our thanks.

Get the picture? I think those high officers, those occupying wardens, deserve a thousand words each.

How many words do you have to give for liberty, for law, for truth? If you search Google for “Desperate Housewives”, you get 26 million sources, each with scores, hundreds, thousands of words for the television drama. On that scale, they don’t seem so desperate.

Desperate, two years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the government to release photographs of the torments of people held prisoner at Abu Ghraib, photographs that had not been made public. This week, the Bush White House, confronted by a district court order, finally surrendered the photographs. Many had already leaked out.

There are over seventy of these new Abu Ghraib pictures of humiliation and depravity. Search. Find one.

Each picture is worth a thousand words. Write them.

It’s an assignment for America, for after-school detention, or for after-detention school. Purge us of silence. Write the thousand words for each picture, and keep looking until you are done.

It is not enough for us merely to see.