In an opinion piece in today's Washington Post Ruth Marcus poses the question:

"Should Bush administration officials be put on trial for crimes such as authorizing torture?"

The answer to that question is a simple and unequivocal "not yes, but, Hell yes, absolutely, yer darn tootin'."

Bear in mind that I live in a flyover state where many have limited tolerance for carefully parsed, nuanced or constipated prose, preferring instead to "throw it out on the lawn and see if any dogs come up and pee on it."

Ms Marcus says, less pithily and with a bit more ambiguity, that she is:

"just relieved to have this crowd heading out of office and its policies -- on torture, on indefinite detention, on warrantless wiretapping, on overweening executive power -- soon to be inoperative."

I share her delight in the departure of this gang of criminals but I fear that if they do not leave Washington in handcuffs and leg irons aboard a Federal prison bus that the chances of rendering the "policies" stated above "inoperative" are approximately ... zero.

Is Oklahoma going to be the sanctuary for the Bu$h Junta-in-exile? Is Oklahoma going to be a time machine living the years of 2000-2008 over and over in a video loop?

(OKLAHOMA CITY)  In regard to the general election it seems the more the Demo candidates pointed out the failings of the Bu$h Junta and its Oklahoma chapter of co-thugs, the more the Oklahoma voters of any party registration dug in their heels and went blood red.

How else to explain the election of GOPers such as Randy Terrill in spite of withholding information about his bankruptcy debts; Mike Christian in HD 93, who's former wife filed a police report documenting spousal abuse coupled with child endangerment; and Dana Murphy who admitted in a court deposition to forging a signature and then notarizing the forgery?

Terrill: http://tinyurl.com/566apv

It is, or should be by now, plainly evident to most observers that the current crop of Republicans will run the kind of Rovian sleazoid campaign that has worked so well for them in the past.

They will co opt the message of the Democrats at every opportunity and swift boat anyone who gets in their way. They will, as in the past, use the politics of personal destruction, of sneer and smear, a style that has become a necessity in modern Republican strategy as it so purely reflects the mentality and ethos of a sizable and increasing fraction of their base.

The party that has come to reflect the endemic racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and the rapidly widening schism between economic classes in this country has nowhere else to turn. They have become directors of a noisy, and potentially dangerous lynch mob. A criminal mob acting to serve the interests of an out of control business culture and an irrational priesthood that sees the face of God in its own self righteousness.

Republicans dare not run on their party's record of governance over the last eight years. The record is abysmal and they know it. As much as possible that record will be kept in the dark dank shadows with the sordid history of the modern Republican Party. It will be hidden in that shameful place where they will store Bush, Cheney, their denial of health care to America's children, denial of decent wages to America's workers, our terribly fractured economy, serious unemployment, two misguided and mismanaged wars and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.  
Everybody knows the war is over.  
Everybody knows the good guys lost.  
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.  
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.  
That's how it goes.  Everybody knows.
~~Leonard Cohen

Here are my top 10 reasons to "take it to the streets." I think you know what I mean.  Our best hope of salvaging what's left of our economy involves ordinary people like you and me engaging in peaceful public protest of the recent moves by the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury Department.  All of these moves were sanctioned by our Congressional leadership -- meeting behind closed doors -- to ensure a soft landing for liars and cheats while decent people lose their houses, life savings, and pension funds.

If Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted we nearly avoided a domino-like crash of the nation's secondary financial institutions (i.e., Bear Stearns) it admitted that it allowed the housing bubble backed by inflated ABS/MBS securities and the even more inflated securities derivative debacle to go on for way too long.  I think we're past the point of no return.  And I think so do many of you.  

I'm not writing here trying to impress anyone.  Many people have a better idea of how bad things are than I do. And I'm certainly no economist -- I'm just appealing for public support to voice opposition to the contempt for working-class people that we've endured for 8 years.

Why?

But, that particular memory is overshadowed by another, a more recent memory that has led to a shared painful reality, a reality that some say has divided and fatigued an entire nation, a reality most of us witness from the comfort of our homes and communities, a reality that is nightmarish, a shared but awful truth of where we the people find ourselves today.

President Bush recently vetoed legislation that would stop the CIA from using water-boarding and other harsh methods of interrogation because such methods "have a proven track record of keeping America safe."  

Did you ever wonder what kind of speech Bush would like to  give to us little old peons? I think I was too kind to him but this is probably a polite version of what he says in private!

Enter G. W. Bush.)

Good Evening

Ms....er...uh...Madame Speaker -- Hi Sweetie, Hasn't it been a fabulous year? Vice Dick... Yo Dead Eye, thanks for keeping that squirmy little Dennis Kucinich and his impeachment resolution out of my face.

(Waves and points to where members of the Supreme Court are sitting)

A special thanks to the fabulous Supreme 5 for putting me in this office. It's been fun guys! Good evening to you.

That was the headline for an Associated Press article by Dave Gram that ran in the Seattle Times December 29.

A picture appears with the accompanying story showing Kurt Daims, a Brattleboro, Vermont activist, who is leading the drive to make Bush and Cheney subject to arrest in the town.

The story reads as follows:

"Montpelier, Vermont - President Bush may soon have a new reason to avoid left-leaning Vermont.  In one town activists want him subject to arrest for war crimes.

Michael Mukasey's refusal to answer whether he believed water-boarding to be torture should scuttle his nomination to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer. The Senate should refuse to bring his nomination to the floor. President Bush needs to be told that while he may allow garbage to amass in his administration, the Senate will not.

"You're A Whole Different Person When You're Scared"~~Warren Zevon, Hunter S. Thompson My friend Bernie says since Democrats won the Congress, George Bush reminds him of a cartoon where this destructive Texas jackrabbit was careening headlong down a path, his eyes riveted on a rabbit hole in the distance.  A tortoise, sunning himself at the side of the path, looked behind the rabbit where a baying pack of dogs, in hot pursuit, was gaining on him. The tortoise smiled.  The poor bunny was in a race for his life. As he shot by, the tortoise called out lazily, "Think you'll make it?"  The rabbit, looking neither to the right nor left, shot back desperately -- "I gotta make it..."

Author Note. The following essay was co-authored with Coleen Rowley, retired FBI agent and former Minneapolis division counsel.

Among the most important public health advances of the past century has been the development of potent vaccines against dangerous and life-threatening illnesses. Polio, tuberculosis, and measles quickly come to mind. Through a process of inoculation, a small dose of the pathogen is intentionally administered to the patient which induces immunity against the full-blown disease.

In a similar way, social scientists have demonstrated that attitude inoculation can be used to prevent the transmission of hazardous beliefs and behaviors from one person to another. For example, research reveals that adolescents can more effectively resist pressure from cigarette-smoking peers if they are given role-playing opportunities in which they rehearse their responses to students pressuring them to smoke.

But today we are in urgent need of an inoculation campaign against an entirely different threat to our nation's health--namely, the Bush administration's exploitation of its "global war on terror" to eviscerate the rule of law and our constitutional checks and balances; to prolong the disastrous occupation of Iraq; and to lay the groundwork for military strikes against Iran. Ever since the tragic events of 9/11 six years ago, the White House has promoted this agenda by working non-stop to spread a simple yet infectious idea: All actions taken by this president and his representatives are necessary to protect the United States from future catastrophic terrorist attacks.

Articles in major newspapers in Texas have announced that public schools in Texas must now test all children each year, starting at grade 3, on pushups, sit-ups, and a mile run, and measure flexibility and body fat.

There are problems with this new law.

Since the Democrats won a majority so razor-thin that an ailing Senator's hospitalization caused Dick Cheney to briefly believe he was part of the legislative branch, the threat of filibusters and the reality of failed cloture votes has kept the Democrats stymied. Perhaps it is time to consider a new tactic, truly becoming a do-nothing Congress.

Senators are concerned that tourism to the United States has dropped nearly 20% since 2001 and they want to open a special office to promote tourism. Of course this accidental activist couldn't resist putting together an example of what their first big PR blitz might look like!