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Email from James Carville:

President Bush has already made plain what he means by “cooperation.” He tells us what to do and we’re supposed to cooperate. So now, it’s time to tell the President what we think of his bullying political tactics and his dangerous second-term agenda.

Now, James Carville doesn’t know me from Adam. But I gave money to John Kerry’s campaign, and to the Democratic National Committee last year, so I get email from Carville and other prominent Democrats, frequently asking me to give more money.

George Bush and the Republicans are going for broke. They know that a second-term President has no more than 18 months to force his agenda through — and they won’t waste a minute.

If we let them, they’ll weaken economic security at home and weaken America’s most important alliances abroad. They’ll stack the courts, abuse the legislative process and change the rules whenever they see fit.

These people are playing for keeps, and we better do the same. This is no time to hold back. We’ve got to fight forward with every ounce of energy we have.

Supporting the Democratic Party isn’t the only way to fight back against the Bush agenda, but it’s not a bad start. Here’s where you can contribute online:

https://www.democrats.org/support

From the Senate confirmation hearing with Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice:

Barbara Boxer, Democrat from California:

Your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth.

Barbara Boxer is becoming one of my heroes.

Condoleezza Rice:

I have to say that I have never, ever, lost respect for the truth in the service of anything.

Can’t lose what you never had?

Our interaction with the rest of the world must be a conversation, not a monologue.

Lucky for Condi that her boss doesn’t read newspapers, or he would yank this nomination so fast your head would spin.

Last year, George W. Bush pushed hard for a Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) to outlaw gay marriage. Blogger Andrew Sullivan takes comfort from learning that this drive to alter the U.S. Constitution was only a cynical election-year ploy, not an honest expression of Bush’s beliefs.

The FMA has gone unmentioned by Bush since the election – and it appears more and more like a pre-election ploy rather than a principled stand. (Of course, that’s a relief but it’s also an indication of how bald-faced a political maneuver this was in the first place). But this piece of sanity from the President deserves praise and reciprocation from those of us who support equality in marriage.

Tom Tomorrow thinks Sullivan is mistaken:

Remember Charlie the tuna? The bespectacled tunafish who, for reasons which are never made entirely clear, wishes nothing more than to be caught by the Starkist trawler (represented by a cartoon fishing hook) and, presumably, chopped up and served as some child’s lunchmeat? That’s Andrew Sullivan. Like Charlie, he longs for acceptance into a system that is designed to destroy him, and like Charlie, he is destined for perpetual rejection.

Aaron Swartz quotes Martin Luther King:

…there are some things in our social system to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I suggest that you too ought to be maladjusted.

I never intend to adjust myself to the viciousness of mob-rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic inequalities of an economic system which take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to become adjusted to the madness of militarism and the self-defeating method of physical violence.

That speech was made in 1957, almost forty-eight years ago. Martin Luther King was murdered in 1968, almost thirty-seven years ago. Yet you’d almost think he’d seen the current Administration in action. Some things never change.

Gosh, with the war in Iraq going so well, isn’t it time for our next war?

CNN reports that the U.S. is making plans to attack Iran:

The Bush administration has been carrying out secret reconnaissance missions to learn about nuclear, chemical and missile sites in Iran in preparation for possible airstrikes there, journalist Seymour Hersh said Sunday.

The effort has been under way at least since last summer, Hersh said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

In an interview on the same program, White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett said the story was “riddled with inaccuracies.”

“I don’t believe that some of the conclusions he’s drawing are based on fact,” Bartlett said.

When I hear the Bush White House deny a story about war planning, I can’t help remembering how, during the run-up to the Iraq War, Bush repeatedly said, “There are no war plans on my desk.”

I don’t need to parse the exact meaning of Mr. Bartlett’s words, nor any of the apparent denials that will issue from the White House over the coming days and weeks. I know that this Administration lies constantly. I know that, while each word they say on this matter might be true, they are lying now.

From CNN:

Army Reserve Spc. Charles Graner Jr., sentenced to 10 years in a military prison for his role in abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, says he has no apologies for his actions in Iraq.

Listen, young fella, George W. Bush may be the Commander in Chief, but that doesn’t make him a good role model.

Richard Cohen in the Washington Post:

It took no less a sage than President Bush to put the firing of four high-level CBS News employees in perspective: “CBS said they would act. They did. And I hope their actions are such that this doesn’t happen again.” This from the man who fired not a single person in his entire administration for getting nearly everything wrong about Iraq and taking the nation to war for reasons that did not exist or were downright specious. Lucky for Bush he’s only the president of the United States and not the head of CBS.

This is what I call Bush’s Doctrine of Infallibility. The Bush Administration escapes the obligation of accountability because they don’t make mistakes.

Much of the controversial work that Alberto Gonzales did in the Bush White House was constructing legal arguments that this president’s actions are beyond the reach of any law. Critics have complained that the Bush Administration wants to roll back the New Deal. Actually, they want to roll back the Magna Carta!

I got this via email, and had to share.

Impeach Bush Meetup Groups

You can enter your zip code to find a group near you. Even if they don’t get Bush impeached, this is a chance to meet like-minded people in your own community.

Via Hetty Litjens: here is The Daily Show covering the Senate confirmation hearings for Attorney General-designate Alberto Gonzales.

An insurgency cannot be crushed. It has to be defused.
 —Anas Shallal, Iraqi-Americans for Peaceful Alternatives, on the PBS News Hour

There is no solution on the ground.
 —A retired general on the PBS News Hour (quoted from memory)

There is some hope, however faint, that elections later this month will help defuse the bloody insurgency in Iraq.

If the elections are seen to be fair and honest, the people of Iraq might finally rally behind the elected government. If Iraqis have confidence in their elected government, sympathy for the insurgents could fade. Without a sympathetic populace, the violent insurgents wouldn’t last long. We must hope for such an outcome.

Senate approval of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General might derail that hope.

The people of Iraq are not ignorant. They have radios and television sets. They have satellite dishes. They have electricity, sometimes. They know what’s happening here.

Gonzales’ diligent efforts to seek loopholes in U.S. laws against torture, and to place the United States beyond the reach of international law, may earn him the gratitude of his client, George W. Bush. But they do nothing but harm to the international reputation of the United States. Fairly or unfairly, Gonzales is seen as one of the spiritual fathers of Abu Ghraib.

The elected government in Iraq will have to work with the U.S.-led Coalition. Promoting Alberto Gonzales at this time sends the wrong message. It will undermine popular support for any Iraqi government that attempts to work with the United States. It will give fresh fuel to the insurgency.

Maureen Dowd in the New York Times:

The Associated Press headline that came over the wire yesterday said it all: “Gonzales Will Follow Non-Torture Policies.”

You know how bad the situation is when the president’s choice for attorney general has to formally pledge not to support torture anymore.

…

How are you to believe Mr. Gonzales when he says he’s through with torture? His mission is clearly to do whatever he thinks Mr. Bush wants.

Is it just me, or is this guy a dead ringer for George W. Bush?

Attorney General nominee Alberto Gonzales has called the Geneva Conventions “obsolete” and “quaint”. What do you guess he thinks about that old-timey scrap of paper known as the Bill of Rights?

You’re going to have to guess. According to CNN, “the White House has refused to provide copies of his memos on the questioning of terror suspects” to the Senate committee responsible for holding hearings this week on the Gonzales nomination.

Personally, I’m guessing that this refusal itself provides all the information we really need about Gonzales’ views. The Republicans have 55 seats in the Senate. The most vital thing for the Bush administration now is to keep the American people in the dark.

(You can find your senators here. The Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on the Gonzales nomination starting Thursday. One of my senators, Mike DeWine, is a member of the committee. I’ll bet he’d love to hear from me.)

The Attorney General might be called the Chief Prosecutor of the United States. Some people think it’s appropriate for him to be focussed more on getting the bad guys and not so much on protecting the rights of the accused. After all, we have the courts and judges to look out for everyone’s rights.

George W. Bush will appoint many federal judges during the next four years. He will almost certainly name several new Justices of the Supreme Court. Surely they will protect what the Attorney General disrespects?

As Tom Negrino reminds us at Backup Brain, Bush’s model Justices are Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Tom points out this informative page about those two Justices, titled “Ten Things President Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know About Scalia and Thomas.”

Scalia opposes efforts to desegregate schools.

Thomas favors state-sponsored religion.

Scalia supports sex discrimination.

Thomas would allow the president to effectively waive due process rights.

Scalia and Thomas oppose Family and Medical Leave.

Scalia and Thomas support executing the mentally retarded.

Scalia and Thomas support brutality against prisoners.

Scalia and Thomas support criminalizing consensual sex.

Scalia and Thomas oppose federal environmental regulation of polluters.

Scalia and Thomas would allow states to discriminate against the disabled.

Details, and a printable PDF poster, at the site.

Bumper stickers, t-shirts, hats and such for the next four years.

www.dontblamemeivoted4kerry.com

www.beatbushgear.com

Anti-Bush products from CafePress.com. (Warning: some rough language.) CafePress is an internet merchant that makes and sells products for independent content providers. Some of those producers provide pro-Bush products.

I may need the American Traveler International Apology shirt. It says, in many languages, “I’m sorry my president’s an idiot. I didn’t vote for him.” So true.

The great Will Eisner, creator of “The Spirit” and long-time advocate of comic books as a real art form, has died.

I met him once. I said I’d wanted to meet him ever since I’d discovered The Spirit in a reprint book in the mid-1960s. He said, “Why didn’t you send me a letter?”

Good-bye, Will. I’m glad you were here.