Rich: Terror’s Comeback

If you were planning on having a happy carefree day, don't read Frank Rich's column today. Here's a taste of the column that could ruin your day:

Where Were You That Summer of 2001?

Michael Scheuer, the former head of the C.I.A. bin Laden unit, told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann last week that the Taliban and Al Qaeda, having regrouped in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “are going to detonate a nuclear device inside the United States” (the real United States, that is, not the fictional stand-in where this same scenario can be found on “24”). Al Qaeda is “on the march” rather than on the run, the Georgetown University and West Point terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman told Congress. Tony Blair is pulling troops out of Iraq not because Basra is calm enough to be entrusted to Iraqi forces — it’s “not ready for transition,” according to the Pentagon’s last report — but to shift some British resources to the losing battle against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.

This is why the entire debate about the Iraq “surge” is as much a sideshow as Britney’s scalp. More troops in Baghdad are irrelevant to what’s going down in Afghanistan and Pakistan. . . .

Yet Mr. Bush still denies reality. Ten days ago he told the American Enterprise Institute that “the Taliban have been driven from power” and proposed that America help stabilize the Pakistan border by setting up “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones” (remember that “Gulf Opportunity Zone” he promised after Katrina?) to “give residents the chance to export locally made products to the United States, duty-free.” In other words, let’s fight terrorism not by shifting America’s focus from Iraq to the central front, but by shopping for Taliban souvenirs!

Five years after 9/11, the terrorists would seem to have us just where they want us — asleep — even as the system is blinking red once again.

Read the full column

Bush Politics News Frank Rich Impeach Bush and Cheney

Congressman Steve Cohen at Firedoglake

Tennessee's progressive Congressman Steve Cohen was over at firedoglake for a live Blue America chat today. Damn, I wish I'd been there.

I know folks in Memphis think Congressman Cohen belongs to them, but just like progressives all over the nation once adopted Paul Wellstone as their Congressman, Steve Cohen belongs to progressives all across the state of Tennessee.

Go check out Tennessee's liberal Congressman Cohen at firedoglake.

If you're proud to finally have a progressive Congressman from the state of Tennessee, donate to Steve's re-election fund at Blue America.

And don't forget to watch for Cohen on an upcoming Colbert Report show (date still unknown).

What they're saying:

Down With Tyranny: "AH... NOW I UNDERSTAND WHY JACKSON BROWNE AND REP STEVE COHEN HAVE A MUTUAL ADMIRATION CLUB"

Crooks and Liars: "A RESPONSIVE representative? Be still my heart."

Reallyboring.net: "He’s the type of politician I hope I would be, were I ever to be a politician."

via

Liberal Steve Cohen News Politics 2008 Progressive Democrats Tennessee Memphis Tennessee Liberal Blue America

Teens Found Guilty of Potential Sex Crime

Speaking of sex crimes, or future crimes, two Florida teens exchanged digital photos which captured the two teens 'engaged in sexual activity.'

The sex was not a crime, it was legal in the state of Florida. But exchanging photos of the legal activity, that was a different matter.

The teens were prosecuted and convicted under child porn laws (but tried as adults!), cause one day . . . who knows? . . . maybe . . . "Amber and Jeremy could have eventually sold the photos to child pornographers or shown them to friends," said wacko Judge James R. Wolf.

The judge also speculated that one day someone might hack into the teens' computers, and the hacker might find the photos, and the hacker might be into child porn and if the hacker was into child porn, well, that might lead to the birth of a child porn distribution center.

Yeah, and someone with a camera might have seen them having sex, or maybe someone with a camera will see YOU having sex.

This is why we have laws, folks. To nip the crimes in the bud before we ever get around to committing them.

Be careful.

via Avedon at The Sideshow and Diane at The Dees Diversion

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NARAL Rises Up Against Campfield

Stacey X's death certificates for abortions bill has been the subject of a veritable onslaught of outraged emails.

Some of them are from NARAL:

"Women who live in Tennessee already face an uphill battle when it comes to their reproductive rights. . . It's not enough that women who seek to access reproductive health face significant hurdles; Rep. Campfield believes that their privacy shouldn't matter at all."

"[A]s Rep. Campfield surely knows, death certificates include personal and identifying information- including full name and mailing address - that would become public record."

"Women in Tennessee deserve their constitutionally protected right to privacy when they make their personal reproductive decisions. Please help us defeat this dangerous bill by telling your legislators to oppose HB 982."

NARAL has a page devoted to the lunatic Stacey X where you can quickly contact your legislators and tell them to oppose HB 982.

While you're there, you can learn why NARAL gives Tennessee a grade of D+ on women's reproductive rights.

The Nashville Women's Political Caucus is also rising up against the lunatic's bill.

More bills of misogyny and classism from Stacey X:
Stacey X in the House: No lottery for the needy
Campfield Is Being Watched
Fathers' Rights Bills
Stacey X in the House: Wife beater protection act?

Recent TGW posts:
Rep. Stacey Campfield (R) is a Joke
How Many Cops Does it Take to Handcuff Rep.Campfield?
TN Lawmaker Wants State to Call a Fetus a Person

Politics Stacey Campfield Stacey X Abortion Tennessee Reproductive Rights Republicans Roe v. Wade Knoxville News Death Certificates Abortion

On John McCain: A Cat Without Whiskers

After Dowd's devastating hit piece on Obama and the Clintons earlier this week, she has, thankfully, moved on to John McCain. A better title for this one: John McCain, The Sucking-Up Candidate.

by Maureen Dowd

SEATTLE: So some guy stands up after John McCain’s luncheon speech here yesterday to a group of business types and asks him a question.

“I’ve seen in the press where in your run for the presidency, you’ve been sucking up to the religious right,” the man said, adding: “I was just wondering how soon do you predict a Republican candidate for president will start sucking up to the old Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party?”

Mr. McCain listened with his eyes downcast, then looked the man in the eye, smiled and replied: “I’m probably going to get in trouble, but what’s wrong with sucking up to everybody?” It was a flash of the old McCain, and the audience laughed.

Certainly, the senator has tried to worm his way into the affections of W. and the religious right: the Discovery Institute, a group that tries to derail Darwinism and promote the teaching of Intelligent Design, helped present the lunch, dismaying liberal bloggers who have tracked Mr. McCain’s devolution on evolution.

A reporter asked the senator if his pandering on Roe v. Wade had made him “the darling and candidate of the ultra right wing?”

Read more

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Video: Eurythmics - Sex Crime 1984

Eurythmics, Live, 1987

via Chris Clarke at Pandagon

Eurythmics Video Politics Sex Crime 1984

W.W.G.W.B.D.?

The Bush pResidency in a Flow Chart:



Thanks to Wellington Grey via Boing Boing

Bush Iraq Politics News Stay the Course War Worst President Ever

Deep Poverty Reaches 32 Year High

While the economy continues to go wonderfully well for those who benefit from the Bush Tax Cuts for Wealthy Buddies program, severe poverty in America is now at a 32 year high.

Forty-three percent of America's 37 million poor people are living in severe poverty.

Nearly two out of three of the severely poor are female.

"A McClatchy Newspapers analysis of 2005 census figures, the latest available, found that nearly 16 million Americans are living in deep or severe poverty. A family of four with two children and an annual income of less than $9,903 - half the federal poverty line - was considered severely poor in 2005. So were individuals who made less than $5,080 a year."

"The McClatchy analysis found that the number of severely poor Americans grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2005. That's 56 percent faster than the overall poverty population grew in the same period. McClatchy's review also found statistically significant increases in the percentage of the population in severe poverty in 65 of 215 large U.S. counties, and similar increases in 28 states. The review also suggested that the rise in severely poor residents isn't confined to large urban counties but extends to suburban and rural areas."

Bush Poverty Politics News Economy America Class USA

Iraq War Leads to Divorce Surge

The NY Times reports that many families have been utterly devastated by the demands of the long and repeated tours of duty in Iraq.

A marriage therapist at Fort Campbell observes that 15-20 year old marriages, with family members accustomed to the demands of the military, are now falling apart.

New York Times:

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and loved ones have endured long, sometimes repeated separations that test the fragility of their relationships in unforeseen ways. . .

Some therapists say they are bracing for this year’s divorces. Mary Coe, a marriage and family therapist working near Fort Campbell, an Army base on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee, said she was seeing “many, many divorces” right now. The 101st Airborne Division recently returned from its second deployment with an astonishing level of rage, she said. “Now we are seeing 15- to 20-year marriages not making it, and these are families that survived 20 years of deployments,” Dr. Coe said.

Lei Steivers, whose husband is a senior noncommissioned officer at Fort Campbell, has been a military wife for 25 years. But it took her husband’s second yearlong deployment to Iraq to cripple their marriage. They are now in counseling. A family leader on the base, Ms. Steivers, 46, also has two sons in the military. She said a number of men she knows came home last year for rest and relaxation and demanded a divorce.

Bush Marriage Politics News Tennessee Ft. Campbell Kentucky Iraq Divorce Surge

Tell Democrats to Freeze Out Fox News

Join the campaign to stop Fox News from hosting a presidential debate with all the Democratic Party candidates. At BlogPac you can quickly send an email to the leading Democrats who can pull the plug on the Fox News debate.

Any channel other than the Republican attack machine will be fine. [via MyDD]

Fox News Attacks Obama:

Foxattacks.com

via The General

Presidential Debate Fox News Democrats Politics News Nevada 2008 Action Fox News Attacks Obama Video

NY Times to Congress: Stop Bush

I'm still waiting for the New York Times editorial that urges Congress to impeach Bush and Cheney. In the meantime, Congress and the Supreme Court should heed the Times' advice on a few other matters.

American Liberty at the Precipice

"In another low moment for American justice, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday that detainees held at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, do not have the right to be heard in court. The ruling relied on a shameful law that President Bush stampeded through Congress last fall that gives dangerously short shrift to the Constitution. . . "

"Congress and the Supreme Court should act quickly and forcefully to undo the grievous damage . . . "

Read more..

Habeas Corpus Guantánamo Bay Bush Politics News Cheney Impeach Bush and Cheney

Fitzgerald: 'Cloud Over the White House'

"There is a cloud over the vice president . . . And that cloud remains because this defendant obstructed justice. . . There is a cloud over the White House. Don't you think the FBI and the grand jury and the American people are entitled to straight answers?" – Patrick Fitzgerald

via Raw Story

Patrick Fitzgerald Bush Politics News Cheney Plamegate

About that Bush Protest in Chattanooga

I borrowed this photo from Hamdems where you can see lots more photos of the Bush protest in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

And over at 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera, Alice has a great and quick video clip of the protest, as well as a photo.

Did you see the article in The Southern Baptist Times? The boastful headline screams that there were more Bush supporters than Bush protesters. (I must have missed the Gannett paper story about Dems outnumbering Republicans in this state.)

But buried way down deep in the SBT story we discover that among the supporters were students from Chattanooga State Technical Community College who showed up in order to get credit for a government class.

This comes as no surprise. I've talked to enough students at the local colleges to know that they get nauseating right-wing red-state political-propaganda lectures from conservative instructors on a regular basis.

As we know, Bush will get his show of supporters any way he can. With Tennessee giving Bush an approval score of 29 percent on Iraq and a score of 34 percent overall, it's still possible to bribe some people into showing up to cheer the fool on.

Big freakin' deal.

Oh, and Governor Bredesen (DINO) showed up for the Bush health care farce. Bush paid Bredesen what the Bubble Boy obviously thought to be a compliment. The Decider said, "[I'd] rather you be making these [health care] decisions than some of our brothers and sisters in Washington."

By 'some of our brothers and sisters,' Bubble Boy obviously meant what they like to call moderate Republicans. Cause ripping access to health care away from some 200,000 poor, elderly, and sick people -- like Bredesen did -- is what Bush's Radical Republicanism is all about.

Bush Politics News Tennessee Chattanooga Healthcare Bush Protest Bredesen TennCare Republicans

Dowd's Obama/Clinton Hit Piece Provokes Firestorm

Maureen Dowd's Mission: Bringing Down all the Democrats

MoDo's latest blistering hit piece on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has caused a ruckus. The attack column was featured on the Drudge Report, and it portrays a remarkably different, or inferior, Obama at a campaign event than do actual news stories such as this one.

Among her many slights, the "Queen of Mean" calls Barack Obama: Obambi.

Dowd's column features former Bill Clinton supporter David Geffen taking pot shots at the Clintons. According to Geffen, "Everybody in politics lies," but the Clintons do it with "ease."

Eric Boehlert over at Media Matters dissects the attack column and observes that Dowd's nasty gossip columns about Democratic candidates have in the past "been embraced by the mainstream press and tripped up Democrats such as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry."

Kos has an excellent summary (and gets attacked in the comments for being sexist):

"She was no different when she started the narrative of Gore being boring, or Kerry being elitist, or Hillary raking in illegal gifts. Have any of us forgotten her oft-quoted story in 2004 accusing Kerry of saying, at a NASCAR rally, ""Who among us doesn't like NASCAR?" It was a complete fabrication. Tapes of the event proved Kerry never said such a thing. Not that Dowd cared."

"So it's no surprise that it's Obama's turn."

There's more...

And people are talking about Dowd's earlier hit piece on Obama.

Oh, yeah, Hillary's also very unhappy, or pissed about the column. And Hillary's going after Obama. And Obama's going after Hillary.

Way to go, Maureen! Support the insanely incompetent Republicans by attacking Democrats, and make that war last forever by bringing down all the Dems! Sheesh!

via Cursor and memeorandum

Maureen Dowd Politics News Barack Obama Hillary Clinton 2008 Democrats David Geffen Bill Clinton

Impeach Bush and Cheney

Send your Congressperson a letter calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. It's easy. It's quick. It will annoy some of them and give ammo to others. It will make you feel better.

Do it at Democrats.com.

Bush Politics News Cheney Impeach Bush and Cheney

Mom Gets Two Years for Tossing Cup of Ice

Jessica Hall, mother of three -- wife of a man currently serving his third tour in Iraq -- gets two years in prison for throwing a cup of ice into a car?

Somebody needs to make a list of some of these cases with insanely harsh punishments that do NOT fit the small insignificant crimes.

Do they all involve black people?

Virginia law defines a cup of ice as a missile. (!)

Ms. Hall threw a cup of ice into a car. No one was hurt by her act of road rage.

Two years?

Somebody remind me. What obscenely authoritarian police state am I living in? Or why don't we just wait a few years and ask Ms. Hall's children, ages 4, 6 and 8?

It may be too much to hope for in Bush country, but the Virginia judge still has a chance to undo this criminally insane punishment.

Jessica Hall Race Politics News Virginia McMissile Road Rage

Stupid Bush Quote of the Day

"I will screw him in the ass!" -- pResident George W. Bush

The leader of the Dark Side was expressing his thoughts on what he would do to Osama bin Laden if Osama bin Laden was ever actually, um, caught.

The quotation from the Big Bad Decider of the USA, or the vulgar pResident, was reluctantly recounted by Ariel Sharon to biographer Uri Dan in Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait.

via Taegan Goddard

Bush Politics News Osama bin Laden Miserable Failure Vulgar Presidents

Tennessee: Democrats Outnumber Republicans

The newly released MTSU Poll has more bad news for Republicans. Just like the Gallup Poll we wrote about earlier this month, this poll finds that Republicans are vanishing. Democrats in this, once solidly mostly red, state now outnumber Republicans.

"Tennessee – once solidly Republican – may be shifting toward the “blue” end of the spectrum. Also, in the fall of 2004 – when President Bush won handily – some 35% of Tennesseans identified themselves as Republicans, 29% as Democrats, and 23% as independents. This spring the results are 31% Republican, 33% Democrat, and 22% independent."

Republicans have lost 4 percentage points. Democrats have gained 4 percentage points. And we still have lots of time to see yet more Republicans vanish before the Democratic sweep of 2008.

Republicans have made such a mess of everything, they'll be lucky if the coming new progressive era doesn't sweep them all away. Seriously, the regressives may have to come up with a whole new platform, a whole new name.

Oh, I know, they can call themselves the Boring Old White Men Party.

Since Republicans have nothing to offer for the 2008 presidential race other than a slate of incredibly boring old white men, it comes as no surprise to discover that Democratic candidates are more popular than Republican candidates.

"Clinton and Gore receive favorable approval by 42% of Tennesseans, followed by Rudy Giuliani at 39% and John McCain at 34%."

Tennessee likes pro choice, pro gay rights, Giuliani? Heh. It may soon be time for a new state slogan. Here's one: Tennessee, sounds liberal to me!

The Decider's overall approval rating in Tennessee is at 34 percent, that's down from 42 percent one year ago. And on Iraq? Tennessee gives the worst pResident ever a 29 percent approval rating.

Tennessee has a tradition of voting for the winning presidential candidate. Obviously, the state is moving left in preparation for the Democratic landslide of 2008.

Hat tip to C.E. Petro

Democrats Red State Blue State Politics News Bush MTSU Poll Worst President Ever Tennessee 2008 Progressive Era Al Gore

Obama’s Big Screen Test

Obama’s Test
by Maureen Dowd

Hillary is not David Geffen’s dreamgirl.

“Whoever is the nominee is going to win, so the stakes are very high,” says Mr. Geffen, the Hollywood mogul and sultan of “Dreamgirls,” as he sits by a crackling fire beneath a Jasper Johns flag and a matched pair of de Koonings in the house that Jack Warner built (which old-time Hollywood stars joked was the house that God would have built). “Not since the Vietnam War has there been this level of disappointment in the behavior of America throughout the world, and I don’t think that another incredibly polarizing figure, no matter how smart she is and no matter how ambitious she is — and God knows, is there anybody more ambitious than Hillary Clinton? — can bring the country together.

“Obama is inspirational, and he’s not from the Bush royal family or the Clinton royal family. Americans are dying every day in Iraq. And I’m tired of hearing James Carville on television.”

Barack Obama has made an entrance in Hollywood unmatched since Scarlett O’Hara swept into the Twelve Oaks barbecue. Instead of the Tarleton twins, the Illinois senator is flirting with the Dreamworks trio: Mr. Geffen, Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, who gave him a party last night that raised $1.3 million and Hillary’s hackles.

She didn’t stand outside the gates to the Geffen mansion, where glitterati wolfed down Wolfgang Puck savories, singing the Jennifer Hudson protest anthem “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” But she’s not exactly Little Miss Sunshine, either. Hillary loyalists have hissed at defecting donors to remember the good old days of jumping on the Lincoln Bedroom bed.

“Hillary is livid that Obama’s getting the first big fund-raiser here,” one friend of hers said.

Who can pay attention to the Oscar battle between “The Queen” and “Dreamgirls” when you’ve got a political battle between a Queen and a Dreamboy?

Read the full column

Update: Hillary Campaign Blasts Obama Over Maureen Dowd Column -- "If Senator Obama is indeed sincere about his repeated claims to change the tone of our politics, he should immediately denounce these remarks, remove Mr. Geffen from his campaign and return his money. . . While Democrats should engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, there is no place in our party or our politics for the kind of personal insults made by Senator Obama's principal fundraiser."

Maureen Dowd Politics News Barack Obama Hillary Clinton 2008 Democrats Hollywood

Court-Martial at Ft. Campbell for Rape & Murder of Iraqi Child

Fort Campbell Soldier Charged with Rape and Murder of 14-year-old Iraqi Girl and her Family

The Women's Media Center has people here in Tennessee to cover this week's court-martial at Fort Campbell. Sergeant Paul Cortez of Barstow is "expected to plead guilty today to rape and murder charges."

Abeer Qassim Hamza Al-Janabi was gang-raped and murdered. The child's mother, father and younger sister were shot to death.

"Cortez was charged along with four other current and former Fort Campbell soldiers in one of the worst atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. military personnel in Iraq. One soldier has already pleaded guilty to rape and murder in the case and was sentenced to 90 years in military prison. Two others await courts-martial in the case. A former soldier, Steven Green of Midland, Texas, is accused of leading the attack. Green was discharged from the military before the allegations surfaced in June."

Today's New York Times editorializes about the horrifically low standards adopted by U.S. Military recruiters under the Bush regime. In the last three years, the military has granted more than 125,000 moral waivers.

One of those moral waivers was given to Steven Green of Midland, Texas.

Green was subsequently diagnosed by the Army Combat Stress Team as a "homicidal threat." The soldier was given a drug for "acute mania associated with bipolar disorder" one day, and on the very next day he was sent back to the war.

The "homicidal threat" is now charged with leading the gang of soldiers who gang-raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl and her family.

For more on this horror story, see the Women's Media Center.

For more on moral waivers, see the Gun Toting Liberal and Steve Clemons who both note that "the Pentagon is discharging more than 700 people a year" who are guilty of no crime -- other than being gay. [via]

"'We're looking for high school graduates with no more than one felony on their record,' one recruiter said."

Photo: "A citizenship identification card issued by the Iraqi government in 1993 shows Abeer Qasim Hamza al-Janabi with a date of birth of August 19, 1991, as translated from the identity card in this handout photo from her relatives in Baghdad July 9, 2006."

Abeer Qassim Hamza Al-Janabi Politics News Rape Ft. Campbell Tennessee Court-Martial Clarksville Kentucky Moral Waivers Iraq War Crimes