one night I dreamed about the waterfalls – in reality they were a mile away, visible from my yard – as they had been in real life for many weeks, the dream falls were just narrow threads of white falling three thousand feet down the vertical face of the mountain, their usual summertime state, barely there; and then I watched as fat, dark gray clouds settled on top of the mountain – I could see above and into the mountain – and the clouds filled the springs and mountain-top swamp and lava dikes, and the dream falls instantly became giant torrents of water, not wide like Niagara, still long and vertical, but very full, fuller even than their usual wet season state, very much there, and with all the elaboration of power and size a dream can render
Continue reading Waterfalls
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Well. Really. What the hell. Continue reading CBS sends the Straw Man to interview the Tin Man For those who don’t watch Fox News or read Daily Kos, the 800-pound gorilla of Democratic blogging communities, a brief recap is in order. Daily Kos consists of a few regular writers, who get front page exposure on the site, and thousands of diarists, who get to post their own thoughts and chat amongst . . . → Read More: Daily Kos to Bill O’Reilly: “Bring it on, Falafel Boy.” It’s classic MBA Presidency stuff (btw, Why aren’t all the MBAs in the nation rising up and calling for Bush’s impeachment? Hasn’t he singlehandedly devalued the stock of an MBA sheepskin forever?): “What’s good for GM is good for the nation.” When was the last time that flag got hoisted in public? But of course it’s still THE No. 1 operating principle in this sorry administration of injustice… Latest case in point: a Bush Special corollary-inversion on that principle (see header). It isn’t enough that Bush has already politicized the entire Justice Department (e.g., US Attorney scandal) or the EPA (all of those scientific reports on the environment censored, rewritten) or Energy (policy written dock, stick and barrel by the Cheney-Halli-Big Oil cohort, in secret) or … well, as you already know, the list goes on… Here’s the latest on the Surgeon General politicization scandal, which you’ve probably seen in today’s Washington Post. Front page, mind you. (A mini-version of the story also made the LA Times, with reference to the WP report, but on page A25. How do they do that?) Continue reading If it isn’t good for Bush, it isn’t good for the globe. 70 House Democrats have told the president that they will not support any appropriations bill that includes funding for military operations in Iraq other than “for the protection and safe redeployment of all our troops out of Iraq before you leave office.” The Congressional Progressive Caucus informed the White House of their decision in . . . → Read More: Progressive caucus says “No” to Iraq occupation funding As calls for the Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives to impeach George Bush and Dick Cheney are growing louder and more common, opponents of impeachment are getting louder and more impassioned on their own behalf. At the center of the largely intramural argument is House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pronouncement, echoed by other top Democrats — I won’t describe them as Democratic party “leaders” because the label is inappropriate in this instance — that “impeachment is off the table.” The arguments against impeachment primarily involve apparent impracticality: impeachment would be a distraction from vital legislative initiatives, say opponents, and besides, the Senate, with its obstreperous Republican minority and a scant and divided Democratic majority, will never come up with the 67 votes needed to convict. On the pro side, the arguments are that Bush and Cheney have committed serious crimes for which the only Constitutional remedy is impeachment, that those vital legislative initiatives aren’t going anywhere so long as Bush and Cheney remain in office, and every minute they do remain in office is another minute during which they will continue to undermine the Constitution and the country. Bush and Cheney may, for instance, attack Iran, with all that that entails; a caretaker president probably wouldn’t. Continue reading Impeachment, inherent contempt, the universe and everything Democrats got the headlines they wanted from Tuesday’s Republican filibuster of an amendment aimed at restricting US troop commitments to Iraq, but Republicans got near unanimous support for an amendment that recommends against the passage of any such legislation. Only six Democrats didn’t vote for the Cornyn amendment to the defense appropriations bill, a “sense of the Senate” resolution which says that “the Senate should not pass legislation that will undermine our military’s ability to prevent a failed state in Iraq”: Russ Feingold, Tom Harkin and Robert Byrd voted against it, while Joe Biden, Hawaii’s Dan Inouye and South Dakota’s ailing Tim Johnson didn’t vote. One could argue that Democrats who think our military has no ability to prevent a failed state in Iraq — indeed, has already failed to do so — can safely vote for Cornyn’s bit of fluffery on the basis that even though he, Cornyn, regards the amendment as discouraging legislation that would reduce or end the commitment of U.S. troops to Iraq, we, Democrats, know better and can legitimately tell Cornyn that “We do not think those words mean what you think they mean.” And that’s probably what the argument will be if disgust with the vote ever reaches the point where a response from the Democrats who voted for it is required (unlikely, since the vote was barely reported). Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson top the list of named candidates in the latest Associated Press poll on GOP presidential preferences, but they’ve both fallen behind “none of the above.” The AP story on the poll says that “23 percent [of Republicans] can’t or won’t say which candidate they would back, a jump from the 14 percent who took a pass in June.” Giuliani comes in at 21%, down from 27% in June and 35% in March, while Thompson garnered 19%. John McCain, whose campaign is nearly broke and hemorrhaging staffers, still pulls 15%, while champion fundraiser and all-around handsome guy Mitt Romney managed 11% despite the recent Fred Thompson-orchestrated attacks on his humanity. The bad news for Republicans is that hardly anyone likes any of their candidates. The good news is that there’s still time for someone who semi-opposes the ongoing occupation of Iraq to jump in, which would be bad news for dithering Democratic candidates. The good news for Democrats is that the GOP numbers suggest that a moderate third-party candidate might split Republicans and leave the Democratic vote relatively intact. Continue reading Giuliani, Thompson trail “None of the Above” in AP Poll Susie Madrak at Surburban Guerrilla neatly illustrates the educational clout blogs bring to the masses when she links to this post at Boing-Boing, which explains the genesis of the Bush-Cheney policy toward Iran. The vice-president, under the bedsheet, with a flashlight … The Guardian published a story on Sunday detailing concern about Afghanistan . . . → Read More: Bush foreign policy (sic) foreshadowed by 1950′s comic book |
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Veteran CBS News reporter Mark Knoller
In which the LA Times proves embarrassingly indulgent of lying
If you haven’t yet seen this last Saturday’s LAT lead editorial, it’s a real winner and sign of just how much the Emperor’s Clothes Era is still with us.
What a sad and embarrassing editorial, embarrassing for those of us who have been LA Times readers all our lives [There's a photo of me 'reading' it at age 3 on the front stoop next door, like father, like daughter] and who care about the integrity of our local but also national paper. And what a sad and embarrassing emblematic commentary the “D.C. cease-fire”* editorial is on the times we live in as far as the state of our Fourth Estate goes.
* web title; in print, it was titled “Truce or Consequences”
It’s old news that the MSM have become alarmingly complicit in their deferences to power à la Bush/Cheney. It’s newer news that the public at large has turned a corner and majorities see the validity for impeachment proceedings against an unprecedented unholy alliance, the President and the Vice President both in demonstrable violation of the Constitution and particularly the separation of powers and respect for checks and balances which are vital to that dear Constitution. And yet here is the LA Times seeing the White House’s latest obstructionism and defiance of their Constitutional limits and responsibilities as reason for compromise, for letting President Bush get away with his defiance of Congressional oversight and his unprecedented breadth and depth of secrecy and imperial dismissiveness.
Continue reading In which the LA Times proves embarrassingly indulgent of lying