Smile ... Have a Good Weekend Everybody!

The Burning Bush: Biblical Prophecy, Not WMD, Reason for Iraq War

In a shocking revelation, we now learn that George W. Bush used Biblical prophecy to justify the war in Iraq. A book by former French President Jacques Chirac recounts what Bush said to him:

“Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

Chirac was astonished by Bush’s comment and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.” At the time Bush was assembling the so-called “coalition of the willing” to join the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Chirac stalled and asked a theologian, Dr. Thomas Romer, to analyze Bush’s bizarre comment. Dr. Romer noted that in the Old Testament Book of Ezequiel (Chs. 38 and 39), Gog and Magog are sinister entities that threaten Israel. God vows to strike them down ruthlessly, a sentiment re-emphasized in the Book of Revelation.

There is a solid foundation for indicting Bush for war crimes on the basis of nonexistent WMD. If, in fact, Bush initiated and prosecuted a war with Iraq based on religious prophecy, this is a criminal violation of the constitutional separation of church and state, which caused the deaths of more than 4,000 American troops and thousands upon thousands of Iraquis.

According to legal scholars, Bush can be impeached and convicted even after leaving office.

And he should be -- To the fullest extent of our SECULAR CONSTITUTION AND LAWS.

I didn't know if I should laugh or cry with this one..

All other industrialized democracies guarantee health care for everybody - young, old, rich or poor, native or immigrant. To judge the content of a nation's character, look no further than its health-care system. See this excellent article here:No Country for Sick Men.

El Sistema: A Great Music Program for the Poor Children of Venezuela

There was a time in this country when the Arts were an integral part of good public policy. Today, the first thing to be slashed from public school budgets is the music program, and symphonies in smaller markets throughout the country are struggling to survive without public funds.

In Venezuela, "El Sistema is a publicly financed voluntary sector music-education program originally called Social Action for Music. This state foundation oversees Venezuela's 125 youth orchestras and the instrumental training programs which make them possible. The walls of the crowded Caracas head office are plastered with photographs of generations of beaming children and their instruments, so many smiling children that there is hardly any blank wall left. El Sistema has 30 symphony orchestras. But its greatest achievement are the 250,000 children who attend its music schools around the country, 90 percent of them from poor socio-economic backgrounds."

For those who live under a rock and venture out occasionally to attend town halls or go to the shooting range, the democratically elected president of Venezuela is Hugo Chavez, a socialist. The right wing in this country has fits when his name comes up, for no reason I can discern. He's certainly not a threat to the U.S., his relationship with President Obama is cordial, and he made some uncivil comments about W. in a UN speech -- something about the smell of sulphur lingering after W.'s speech. Granted, I have a twisted sense of humor, but I thought this was hilarious.

Anyway, thumbs up to El Presidente. You've done good for the poor children of Venezuela.

Here's a brief video about El Sistema:



BRAVO!

Been a bit scarce..

DINOS Not goin’ to Disneyland

MEMO to DINOS: Forsake Us at Your Peril. Signed, Big “D” Democrats.

Progressive and liberal Democrats are PO’d. Not with the racist ugliness of the lunatic fringe, or right wing corporate tools spewing vitriol at town hall meetings, or even at Republican obstructionists like Snake-in-the-Grass-ley hissing demagoguery and satanic lies to his base.

(I must have missed this one: Grassley was heard whining pathetically last week that the President said mean things about him … Aww, Chuckie was crying because his BFF Max Baucus decided to go solo on their taxpayer-funded giveaway to the (W)ealth insurance industry; Maxie invoked his chairman’s prerogative, cut his losses, and decided not to play “ranking member” privilege games anymore.)

Progressives are seething at false members of the Democratic Party, a.k.a. Democrats in Name Only (DINOS), whose refusal to embrace the mainstream Democratic compromise of the public option -- despite polls showing solid public support for it -- runs counter to every principle of representative democracy.

Outrage is meaningless without action. Take a look at these ads:



This ad, directed at Senator Baucus, was produced by an uninsured dad. It’s an awesome example of Netroots citizen advocacy at its best:



Tomorrow markup starts on the Baucus bill. It’s such a craven giveaway to the (W)ealth insurance industry, said industry whistleblower Wendell Potter, that even their lobbyists wouldn’t be so brash as to claim its authorship.

Max ‘Hamlet’ Baucus was willingly enticed by Republican obstructionists “Snake” and Enzi into chasing after rainbows of ‘bipartisanship’. It’s just beyond the glen, they said. In the end, Baucus could have saved us all a lot of grief had he released this very same bad bill two months earlier before the August screamers filled the vacuum and corporate opponents geared up. Once he said that listening to President Obama was like listening to a symphony. It would be funnier if not for the fact that millions of Americans depend on his sound judgment on healthcare reform.

“Snake” Chuckie’s outburst presaged the whimpering death throes of the Finance Committee ‘Gang of Six.’ At the end of a long day this is a positive thing, even if the White House seemingly ignored our early entreaties that it would come to this. In the process, they lost control of the message, House and Senate Democrats teetered, and Republicans were emboldened by the basest instincts of their base.

So it’s best not to rely on assumptions that the White House has a grand design us mere mortals cannot divine.

On a positive note, the politics has shifted for the better, though some pundits have yet to catch on. Embracing the Baucus bill, David Brooks of the NYT smugly predicted the public option is “dead” with supporters going through stages of "withdrawal." What he fails to understand is that with the demise of the ‘Gang of Six’ its endangered moderate Republican member, Olympia Snowe, is no longer in a commanding position to determine the outlines of the final bill.

Sure, we’d like her vote, but we can take it or leave it. President Obama admitted (conceded?) over the weekend that he’d like Republican votes but he’s resigned himself to a Democrats-only bill. As such, we need 51, not 60 votes. The 60 votes are required to defeat a filibuster, and woe be it on any Democrat who votes to keep a Republican filibuster alive.

The key Senator on the Finance Committee is not Republican Olympia Snowe; it’s Democrat Jay Rockefeller. During his years in the Senate, the progressive Sen. Rockefeller deferred to Ted Kennedy on healthcare issues. But coming from West Virginia, a poor state with special health needs, Rockefeller is no back bencher. He has always cared deeply about healthcare policy, and most importantly, he’s a fierce advocate of the public option.

It’s significant to note that before President Obama said he may go forward with Democrats only, he had a long one-on-one meeting with Sen. Rockefeller. If Rockefeller isn’t satisfied with the bill that Finance produces he has stated he will vote against it unless it changes in amendment “by vast amounts.”

Where does that leave us? Quite simply with the original Ted Kennedy bill, voted out of Kennedy’s Health Committee, which contains the public option.

This is what it means to have a governing majority.

Timeout: Sports Briefs

This was a mostly good and eventful sports Sunday.

First, back-to-back wins by the Bears and Giants with interesting parallels, not least a quartet of young receivers: Johnnie Knox and Kellen Davis for the Bears and for the Giants, Mario Mannigham and Steve Smith. Knox and Manningham, with their blazing speed, breakaway moves, and sure hands look like budding stars.

Jay Cutler played to expectations. Impressive. The Bears seem to be an excellent fit. I like his pressers. Very laid back, like Eli. Winners, both. I can't say the same for Tony Romo, in my view the most overrated "marquee" quarterback in the game. This guy can find creative ways to lose, so I was quite confident the Giants would spoil Jerry Jones's bread and circuses Cowboys Coliseum extravaganza. With W. in attendance it was extra enjoyable. Have I mentioned yet how much I hate the Cowboys?

Both games ended on last-play field goals. Gould is good as gold. In the Cowboys game their coach, Wade Phillips, called a timeout to "freeze" the kicker after the ball had sailed off his foot. It literally skimmed the left post. (Thanks for the practice kick, Wade.) The next kick was right down the middle. Imagine if the first kick was a miss ... Phillips would've been in Tony Romo territory then. I think they deserve each other.

The Cubs have finally had enough of Milton Bradley, suspended for the season. It's unlikely he'll ever play for this team again. In tight economic times, $30 million is a hell of a costly mistake for the Cubs to swallow. Check that; it's costly under any circumstances, but in times like these the extravagant waste is all the more galling. At least other overpaid jackass athletes (A-Rod) make a minimal effort to behave professionally.

Should the GM's head roll for this, even though it was his decision?

How to Explode the Brain of a Racist Cracker

Racism in America

Ever since President Carter gave expression to what many of us already knew, there's been a firestorm of overanalysis (in my view) on the TV machine.

Setting aside the hideous historical narrative of racism in the U.S., this latest eruption is not that complicated to understand. President Obama lost the white vote by 12 percentage points, a demographic landslide. Of the 60,000 or so 9/12 protesters in D.C. (the lunatic Beck claims they numbered 1.7 million -- Fox network is an utterly shameful grab bag of liars and racists), many carried hideously racist signs.

A majority of white Southerners do not believe our President was born in the U.S.

That's an ignorant racist attitude.

A significant number of whites openly admitted they could not vote for a black candidate.

That's racism.

Despite the right wing propaganda that the 9/12 protesters represent "America" -- an increasingly multicultural nation -- the crowd was white, whiter, and whitest.

And their signs were dark, ugly, ignorant, and racist.

Bottom line: There's a certain fringe element of white America that will never accept a black president. Are they in the single digits or low double digits ... who knows?

In a word, the only solution to this abominable attitude is EDUCATION.

But racism in America won't be erased overnight, if ever. I give it at least two generations for this dark stain to be cleansed from the American soul.

President Carter on Wilson, Anti-Obama Protesters

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Thank you, Mr. President, for validating what we've been saying all along.

Shout-out to Maureen Dowd: Welcome to the club ...

House Passes Resolution Disapproving of Joe Wilson, 240-179

The resolution contains no sanction of Wilson but it is important and necessary for the historical record. What Mr. Wilson did was to not only disrespect the first African American president of the United States, but in the process he disrespected the Office of the President and the people's House. Most of all, it was an insult to the decorum of the House, in particular its African American members, who properly felt it was important to send this message, draw this line in the sand in rebuking Joe Wilson. This isn't the antebellum South.

I wonder who were the five profiles in courage among the Democrats voting present ... can anyone say Blue Dogs? Seven Republicans, to their great credit, voted with the Democrats.

By the way, say it ain't so, Joe ... Now the question's come up that your claim to being an immigration lawyer may in fact be a lie. Is anyone, other than the teabagger know-nothings (who were applauding Wilson in the House chamber), surprised?

We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people. And that would not include illegal aliens, these are people -- I'm for immigration, legal immigration, I've been an immigration attorney. But people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services.

Foot (In the Mouth) Fault

No one condones Serena Williams’s profanity-laced outburst against the lines judge at the U.S. Open women’s tennis final. The petite lines judge seemed to shrink into her chair the closer a menacing Serena leaned into her, clutching a ball with index finger pointed.

Serena “lost it” on the court when the lines judge called a foot fault on her second serve, two points from losing the match, which cost her an unconstested point. The official foot fault rule states that a serve is a fault if a player, at any time in his or her service motion, touches or goes outside the imaginary extension of the center mark with either foot. Here’s the problem: The rule is an ass.

Not that it shouldn’t exist, but tennis judges should have a great deal of discretion in applying such a rule at a critical juncture of a championship tennis match. The purpose of the rule is to prevent players from gaining an unfair advantage in their service game by planting their support foot over the service line. At this level, it’s called very, very infrequently.

If your pinky toe is resting a quarter inch over the line when you serve it will not give you any advantage whatsoever in your service game. Clearly, the original intent of the rule was to keep players from stepping a foot over the line, in which case their advantage would be real. In short, it’s one of those technical preemptive rules that contributes to the overall order of the game and should be more important in tennis academies and the junior levels, where young players are schooled to adhere to the game's basic rules.

I have rarely seen it called at a gamechanging juncture of a professional match.

So for a mentally myopic lines judge (believe me, they've chosen not to make such calls in such situations) to call a foot fault of inches in the decisive game, of the decisive set, of the decisive match is to me an obvious violation of the spirit of the game, superseded by the letter of the rules. The chair referee has the discretion to overrule a line judge’s call and order a point replayed. Unfortunately in this instance rather than appealing to the chair referee, Serena Williams -- one of the greatest tennis players ever -- vented her anger at the lines judge, with the game suffering as a result.

There is an unwritten rule in sports which states that referees, umpires, judges, and assorted officials should never, ever, get between the game and the players. It sounds counterintuitive, yet it’s what John Madden said with obvious frustration about great plays being called back on borderline -- literally, in Serena’s case -- calls: “You’ve got to let the players play!” Indeed, the best referees I’ve ever seen, in any sport, are those that make themselves invisible.

Had Serena said “If I could, I would take this f*g ball, and shove it down your f*g throat” to Rep. Joe Wilson instead of to the visible invisible lines judge, then everything would be all right.

The foot fault rule in tennis needs to be seriously revisited.

A GREAT read

Funny...and terrifying

The rise of Idiot America, though, is essentially a war on expertise. It's not so much antimodernism or the distrust of the intellectual elites that Richard Hofstader teased out of the national DNA, although both of these things are part of it. The rise of Idiot America today reflects — for profit, mainly, but also and more cynically, for political advantage and in the pursuit of power — the breakdown of the consensus that the pursuit of knowledge is a good. It also represents the ascendancy of the notion that the people we should trust the least are the people who know the best what they're talking about. In the new media age, everybody is a historian, or a scientist, or a preacher, or a sage. And if everyone is an expert, then nobody is, and the worst thing you can be in a society where everybody is an expert is, well, an actual expert.

This is how Idiot America engages itself. It decides, en masse, with a million keystrokes and clicks of the remote control, that because there are two sides to every question, they both must be right, or at least not wrong. And the words of an obscure biologist carry no more weight on the subject of biology than do the thunderations of some turkeyneck preacher out of Christ's Own Parking Structure in DeLand, Florida. Less weight, in fact, because our scientist is an "expert" and therefore, an "elitist." Nobody buys his books. Nobody puts him on cable. He's brilliant, surely, but no different from the rest of us, poor fool.

History

I can't help but feel a little down today, and every time I end up writing the date down on some piece of paper, it drags the days down just a bit more. I wonder if those older than I feel the same way when they write 12/7 or 11/22.

The entire Bush Administration can still go screw themselves.

GOOPeys De-Evolution: Joe Wilson's Sandbox Tantrum

WAAAAAAAAAHHHH ... YOU LIE !!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH !!!!!

Pettigru was right

We've had Confederate flag flaps and wandering romantic governors, and now a congressman insults the president during a speech in the halls of Congress. It appears that former congressman James L. Petigru was correct when he said in 1860 that "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for a lunatic asylum!"

President Obama Is LYING to Us

Courtesy of Marc Perkel:

President Obama says, “If you like your health care plan you can keep it.” This statement is not true. When health care reform passes you will no longer be able to buy the kind of health insurance you have now. For example, if the plan you have now excludes coverage for preexisting conditions, that will go away. If they have a cap on what they will pay out if you are really sick, that will go away. If they want to drop you when you are sick or raise your rates so you can’t afford it, that will go away as well. You will no longer be denied life saving procedures by insurance company death panels like you have now.

So when Obama says that you can keep your health plan, don’t believe him. He’s lying to you. He’s going to force you to get a better plan for less money whether you like it or not.

Spot the Parody: Winger Mom Much Too Articulate Nutcase

Here’s the real STOOPID:

When the White Patrician Guy Talked Politics to School Kids ...

No one complained (well ... the Dems held hearings afterwards); he WAS the President, after all.



When our first African American President talks to school kids about staying in school, making good grades, and being responsible ... it's INDOCTRINATION?

This is simply a continuation of the town hall freak shows by a vocal UBER-MINORITY whose aim is to marginalize our President as the other, to be feared and despised. They call him a socialist, a fascist, a communist, Hitler-like, they dream of a "great white hope." They call the President's citizenship into question, and spread outrageous lies about death panels and a "government takeover" of healthcare (as if servitude to the health insurers is a good thing). All this name-calling propaganda is ludicrous for its excess, but the fringe elements are too ignorant to know the inherent contradictions and the Republicans are content to play the dangerous game, fan the flames of extremism.

This is the 21st century manifestation of RACISM. It's ugly, it's transparent, and -- because this is the United States, where hate crimes are still committed on a regular basis -- totally predictable.

Beyond this, it's just another "silly" distraction. Shadow box and feint, that's been the Republican Party's sole contribution to the healthcare debate. They may be slightly ahead on points, but we've got one hell of a left hook. Time to corner the bastards and go for the knockout. Drop them cold.

Recent political history repeats itself. Republicans are riding the extremist fringe. The media is complicit for buying into the false Republican narrative, pushed by Public Enemy No. 1, Senator Chuck Grassley, that the vocal extremists represent a majority of the people. Aside from a handful of individuals, it's just too much work for the media to actually break down the affiliations of town hall screamers, rather than simply cover the screaming.

There are only two polls that matter: 77% of Americans support a public option. It's popular throughout the country. At the same time, 60% of Americans do not believe the President has adequately explained his healthcare reform proposals. These are not mutually exclusive. When pundits such as Chris Matthews deliberately mischaracterize the debate by claiming the public option a is a "far left" demand rather than having broad mainstream appeal among the people, or the right wing propagandist Bill Kristol spreads the myth that the public option is opposed by a majority of Americans when in fact the opposite is true, or when Tom Brokaw (RETIRE ALREADY!) says the public option will increase costs when in fact the CBO estimates it will SAVE well over $100 billion from the final bill, then the public has every right to be confused.

And where is the "responsible" media in all of this? Shall we count the ways the media has shirked its responsibility to accurately reflect the health care debate? Yes, the media should be taking it on the chin for allowing itself to be rolled by Republicans and right wing extremists, and for being too lazy to dig up the facts. If only the media were accountable. And so we're down to the blogs and grass roots organizers. The President's indispensable keys to victory. (Hit the "Rocky" theme.)

Progressives are fighting back. Hard. As of Friday, More than 200 former Obama staffers, 13,000 Obama volunteers, 23,000 Obama donors, and thousands of Obama voters signed a petition: A bill without a public option would not be "change we can believe in." It's not that complicated. Healthcare reform NOW is critical, not only to the public's well-being but to the nation's. We can't maintain a competitive advantage with countries in which healthcare is off the table, e.g. Japan and the European Union. We can't take insurance company reforms that hand the same companies a non-competitive monopoly and SUBSIDIES to insure millions more. That's not "change we can believe in," nor will it achieve the critical task of lowering costs and ensuring competition.

Word has it that President Obama will drop the public option, or at least not fight hard for it. He delivered a Labor Day barn burner at the AFL-CIO annual Labor Day picnic. "There are certain things that are worth fighting for," he said, rallying the crowd with his old campaign story, "fired up and ready to go." He's in fine campaign trim.

However apocryphal this story may be, FDR reportedly told liberal supporters, echoing the same theme to Eleanor, his liberal causes lynchpin: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." By that he meant, create the conditions for a desired outcome, create a groundswell of support, and I'll come in and close the deal. The President hardly mentioned the public option today, but it's still on the table.

Progressives must keep up the pressure, not only on the White House and on Democrats who rely on us for electoral support nationwide, but also on Republicans whose primary voters may say NO to reform. They will need to explain a NO vote on healthcare reform based on a pack of lies to a general state electorate that will be demanding answers. I'm thinking specifically of Grassley's Iowa. No matter how this debate turns, I will personally work for his defeat in Iowa, given his despicable lies and bad faith posing as a healthcare negotiator while making statements all along to undermine the process as a shill for the insurance industry.

The President knows we've got his back. The American people overwhelmingly support a public option. Despite the cliché floated by some to not make the "perfect the enemy of the good," the fact is voting for a bad bill and calling it health insurance reform is not an option. The White House is reportedly looking at a so-called compromise by Republican Olympia Snowe of Maine to add a trigger of a public option to kick in if the insurance companies do not behave to curb costs, like the model corporate citizens they are. That's like kicking the can down the road and right into the gutter. In other words, it's a nonstarter.

This past Friday, I received an email from my Senator, Dick Durbin, who is the Senate Majority Whip, second to Harry Reid and responsible for counting votes in the Senate. It was a reply to concerns I had expressed in a message to him about the Democratic Party's commitment to healthcare reform (emphasis mine):

Dear Carlos:

Thank you for contacting me about proposals to give Americans the choice of a public health insurance option that will compete with private insurance plans.

I believe Congress should work to bring meaningful health care reform to American families. Health care reform should reduce costs for families, businesses and government; protect people's choice of doctors, hospitals and insurance plans; and assure affordable, high-quality health care for every American.

We are crafting a reform bill with these goals in mind. Those who like the health insurance they have will be able to keep it. However, a public option will provide a valuable alternative to today's private health plans for those who do not like their current plan or cannot afford coverage.

Too many Americans cannot afford the health plans offered by today's for-profit insurance companies. A public option will provide competition that will hold private plans accountable and help moderate the price of health insurance. No one will be forced to join a public option - it will be a voluntary choice available in addition to existing plans.

I will continue to work for a reform plan that provides stable and secure coverage, stable and affordable costs, and better quality care.

Thank you again for contacting me. Please feel free to keep in touch.

Sincerely,
Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator

If you are among the 77% of Americans who believe in meaningful healthcare reform with a public option, please get in touch with your senators and congresspersons, and let them know. It won't take long and it makes a difference. I have the Senate Majority Whip on record and I intend to hold him to it, or should I say, remind Senator Durbin of his strong commitment to a public option. Those senators and congresspersons who have not committed to a public option should hear from the silent majority that support it.

The real question is whether there are 60 senators with enough backbone, with a little prodding from we, the people, to vote for meaningful healthcare reform. If not, there are alternatives. We'll have to go it alone and pass a Democrats-only bill on reconciliation. Let's make the Republicans vote against healthcare for the people, and then watch them try to demagogue it in 2010.

We'll be watching with interest the President's address to the nation. I only hope we'll be pleasantly surprised. Is it too much to ask the President to call the Republican obstructionists and liars on the carpet? Perhaps. But Rham Emanuel and David Axelrod should know that progressives don't take their marching orders from the White House.

WSJ Floats Cheney 2012, Campaign Ad Ready

The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto floated the possibility of a Dick Cheney presidential run in 2012:

As inconceivable as it may seem today, the 2012 election may end up turning on national security. Republicans would be wise to nominate someone with both toughness and experience. Under such circumstances, it’s hard to think of a better candidate—assuming, of course, that he could be persuaded to run—than Richard B. Cheney.

In an effort to move Cheney's candidacy, MSNBC's Countdown aired his first campaign ad: