The topic below was originally posted in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday this week had me thinking about other pioneers with grace, wisdom and decency. One figure worth remembering is Barbara Jordan. It happens January 17th was the 11th anniversary of her death at the age of 59. Jordan was a rare figure who combined gravitas with humility. She broke down barriers to walk the corridors of power but never forgot where she came from.

Educated in the public schools of Houston, Jordan graduated from Phillis Wheatley High School in 1952. Upon earning her B.A. in political science and history from Texas Southern University in 1956 she graduated from Boston University Law School in 1959. Think about that for moment - a black woman from Texas earned a law degree in 1959.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal on January 11th.

It's not possible to be a little bit pregnant. Yet the Bush Administration prosecuted the Iraq War as if they were awaiting the results of a pregnancy test. Under Donald Rumsfeld the Pentagon tried to win on the cheap. Without boots on the ground however order could not be established after Saddam fell.

In 2004, President Bush ridiculed John Kerry during his re-election campaign for suggesting more troops were required. In his twenty minute speech Wednesday night the President finally acknowledged an insufficient number of troops resulted in chaos. Iraq was a war of choice and Bush waged it with timidity while claiming the fate of western civilization was at stake.

OK - I'm now officially at the end of my rope. Tony Snow, during a White House press briefing, when asked about Congress pulling the plug on funding for the president's "surge" said the following:

"The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way."

Say WHAT???????????

The topic below was originally posted in my blog the
Intrepid Liberal Journal.

Democratic Party strategists must be salivating. An ABC News-Washington Post survey reports 8 out of 10 Americans favor changing the U.S. mission in Iraq from direct combat to training Iraqi troops and significant majorities prefer withdrawing nearly all troops by 2008. The ABC/WAPO Survey also indicates increased support for diplomatic initiatives with Iran and Syria.

Since the Bush Administration has opted to essentially reject the Iraq Study Group's bipartisan recommendations, Democrats have received an early Christmas present: they can embrace the report to appear responsible and allow Iraq to continue dragging down the Republican Party heading into 2008.

There is no question that George Bush has been the worst President in History.  He has, and his administration has attacked the Constitution, abrogated treaties, run an unnecessary war, made incredibly bad appointments, threatened church-state separation, and the list goes on.  But for the 110th Congress, impeachment would be
    a: from a practical standpoint, impossible
    b: politically a disaster
    c: probably legally unwarranted.

The RNC launched their new ad campaign with a lot of PR.  It is an ad (available on their web site which is just pure fearmongering.  The whole point of the ad is There are terrorists who want to kill your family! Boogity Boogity Booooo.....

They never mention their failure to capture these terrorists, or Dubya's flip-flopping on hunting down OBL (dead or alive...don't think about him...on the hunt...it's difficult...we know exactly where he is ...we have no idea where he is...etc.)  They certainly don't mention their role in creating the newest generation of terrorists.  Heck, they have stopped even pretending they are going to capture or kill these terrorists.  After all, why kill a meal ticket?

Why do I say that? Because browsing the rest of the RNC site (down at the bottom of the page on the right) is a poll... and in that poll we learn what REALLY scares Republicans.  The results of this official RNC poll are clear.  Republicans fear accountability more than terrorists.  Details on the flip....

The diary below was originally posted in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

On July 10th I posted a podcast interview with congressional candidate Chris Owens of Brooklyn, New York's 11th congressional district. As I am new to podcasting, the host site I used at the time wasn't very good. I've finally come up with a better one. Since the Democratic primary for the 11th district is Tuesday, September 12, I thought it made sense to repost the podcast.

This district is a human mosaic of 654,000: 60 percent blacks, 20 percent whites, 12 percent Hispanics, 4 percent Asians and 4 percent other ethnicities. The minorities, mostly Caribbean Americans and other immigrants, comprise 80 percent of the district.

The diary below was originally posted earlier today in my blog the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

It appears Democrats will prevail this November and become the majority party in the House of Representatives. Republicans are likely to retain their majority in the Senate - although severely narrowed. John Conyers the ranking Democrat of the House Judiciary Committee has signaled his willingness to impeach President Bush if given the chance. Vice President Cheney may elude this fate if impeachable offenses can't be linked to his office. Legally, the President is the "decider" regardless of the Vice President's influence. Below is a dramatization of what may transpire using the PBS News Hour as a vehicle. The date is September 11, 2007.

The interview below took place on Sunday, July 9th and was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal.

The 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn, New York is a human mosaic of 654,000: 60 percent blacks, 20 percent whites, 12 percent Hispanics, 4 percent Asians and 4 percent other ethnicities. The minorities, mostly Caribbean Americans and other immigrants, comprise 80 percent of the district.

This district is historically significant because it was created pursuant to the Voting Rights Act. In 1968, the 11th elected the first black woman to Congress - Shirley Chisholm. Since then the predominantly black population has been represented in Washington by one of their own. The incumbent, Major R. Owens is retiring after serving in Congress since 1984. An African-American, Representative Owens is highly regarded among progressives for his commitment to strengthening public education.

Bullies refuse to play by any rule other than the stacked deck, a seemingly no loss situation without accountability.  This is the world that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush know intimately.

When a deck is stacked the bully beneficiaries can get away with murder.  Once again, this is a terrain with which the sordid duo of Cheney and Bush are highly familiar.  

After all, once you have developed a penchant for rigging elections without being held accountable, the arrogant glow that follows is justifiable and anticipated, as is the escalation of conduct extending to the ultimate trashing of the U.S. Constitution.

In order for Cheney and Bush to succeed to this degree it was necessary for real opposition to vanish in the political system.  Candidates willing to challenge them were ridiculed by the mainstream corporate media as unelectable and too far to the left to capture the votes of independents and swing Democrats.

Joseph Wilson in his ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos on April 9 had this to say to George Bush regarding the White House leak of his wife's name, placing her in danger, "The White House should come clean on this matter."  He continued, "My own view is that the White House owes the American people and particularly our service people who have been sent into war an apology for having misrepresented the facts."

But in reading the Seattle Times on March 29 we can understand why Bush found Joseph Wilson's research something to suppress!  Four months before the State of the Union Address the White House and the U.S. Senate were informed there was nothing to the fear propaganda that Iraq was seeking yellow cake uranium in Niger.  

Intelligence was being twisted in George Bush's rush into the Iraq War.  In the March 29, 2006 Seattle Times it was revealed, "A confidential memo recording a January 31, 2003 oval office meeting between President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair makes it clear that the two men were going to war in any event."

British author Philippe Sands mentions this memo in his newly released book, Lawless World.  The Seattle Times article states further, "According to the memo written by Blair's chief foreign policy adviser David Manning, Bush was determined to invade Iraq without explicit U.N. sanctions even if inspectors failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

Crossposted from MY LEFT WING

VIDEO LINK

In approximately 5 hours I'll be appearing on Fox News's The Big Story with John Gibson to "debate" Bob Beckel (Democratic "strategist" and the Walter Mondale's campaign manager in 1984, the man who famously appropriated the Wendy's slogan, "Where's the Beef") on the topic of impeachment.

I am for it, Beckel is against it.

In the interest of clarifying the arguments for impeachment, I'd like to encourage a discussion here about the NSA warrantless wiretappings and the NIE leaks, focusing on three themes:

How many times have you heard it?  The Democratic Party has no coherent message.  Democrats lack focus, discipline, leadership.  On the other hand, Republicans are presented as the party that keeps its act together.  Republicans know how to toe the line.  They have a solid message of... of...  something.

Of course, there's little or no truth to this perception.  Democrats stand for what they've always stood for: fair wages, access to health care, equal rights, and a decent concern for the environment.

Republicans stand for their traditional values: incompetence, corruption, and the idea that there's something intrinsically patriotic about screwing the average person.

But there's little doubt that, not matter how unfair, the Democrats have been tagged by the media as the party without a message.  To get past that label is going to take something big, something decisive.  Here's an idea: vote for Democrats, and we will kick Bush out of the White House.

This is directed at anybody who thinks that their vote will not be important in the next election for whatever reason. It doesn't matter whether you are a Green disgusted at what you see as a lack of spine by the Democrats or a former Hackett supporter disgusted at what you see as an insular establishment who determines the candidates for Senate in smoke-filled backrooms. You are missing the key point as to why it is so important that you go to the polls and vote for a Democrat. You forget that a vote for a Democrat for Senate or the House is a vote for John Conyers as chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

The Thursday, February 2 story by Richard Norton-Taylor in London's Guardian reveals information from a memo of a White House meeting on January 31, 2003 between George W. Bush and Tony Blair in which Bush revealed that the U.S. intended to invade Iraq whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons program.

Phillipe Sands, a professor of international law at University College in London, revealed the memo in a new edition of his book, Lawless World.  Professor Sands last year exposed doubts shared by British Foreign Office lawyers about the legality of the invasion in disclosures which eventually forced Prime Minister Blair to publish the full legal advice given to him by Attorney General Lord Goldsmith.  

The new smoking gun reveals a flagrant violation of international law.  Waging war under such circumstances constitutes a breach of the Nuremberg and Geneva codes and the UN Charter, which legitimize such action only in clear and present danger situations involving self-defense.

Bush's deceit and lawlessness were further exemplified when he told Blair that the U.S. was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam Hussein that it considered "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors."  According to the Guardian article, Bush's rationale was that "If Saddam fired on them (the planes), he would be in breach (of UN resolutions)".