Cartoon of the Day

*Ann Telnaes 

And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

No, this post is not about the song by the same name by Style Council or the book by Ralph Abernathy.

We live in the West Mount Airy section of Philly, with lots of big old homes. Ours is big, but not McMansion-sized. Stone house, built circa 189o. Last Thursday evening, a large section of the retaining wall at the edge of our property collapsed. Our home is located at the top of the hill, a few feet to the left of the spot where the failure occurred. The drop is about 20 feet, so we are talking about a pretty high hill.

Pieces of the stone crashed through the windows into the basement apartment next door. Luckily, the gentleman and his son who lived there (and were home at the time) were not hurt. Unfortunately, they had to move out, since the area was declared unsafe.

The owners of the apartment building have been very responsive and cooperative. They arranged for someone to stabilize the ground on our property until the wall can be rebuilt. It's supposed to rain this weekend, so there was a concern that the ground could erode further and impact our house.

So, now we are left with dealing with the rumble and sorting through the mess of shoring up the ground and repairing the wall. Of course, that also means sorting out issues related to ownership of the retaining wall, and trying to get the various insurance companies to respond and pay. That last part, I believe, will be the most difficult.

People always complain about lawyers. All I can say is, anyone who does just hasn't dealt with an insurance company. Once you do, the lawyer moves down on the list of people we love to hate, replaced by the insurer.

50 Most Loathsome People

Buffalo alternative weekly, the BEAST, is pretty raunchy (but hysterical and well written), so it's worth checking out its 50 Most Loathsome People in America, which is the self-described, disturbingly popular annual list of the foulest among us, for a particularly objectionable year, 2005.

See if your favorite repugnant (republican) is there and where he/she is on the list!

Cartoon of the Day

*Pat Bagley, The Spokane Tribune 

Remarkable Duplicity

I would ordinarily say that this is unbelievable, except for the fact that, with the Bush Administration, it's par for the course.

A Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau article, In 2002, Justice Department said eavesdropping law working well, reports:

A July 2002 Justice Department statement to a Senate committee appears to contradict several key arguments that the Bush administration is making to defend its eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without court warrants.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing such operations, was working well, the department said in 2002. A "significant review" would be needed to determine whether FISA's legal requirements for obtaining warrants should be loosened because they hampered counterterrorism efforts, the department said then.

The article cites a piece from Glen Greenwald's blog, Unclaimed Territory, The Administration's new FISA defense is factually false, which details the 2002 DOJ Statement. Greenwald is very good and the whole piece is worth reading. As he notes:

By that time, the Administration had already been engaging in eavesdropping outside of the parameters of FISA, and yet the DoJ itself was expressing serious doubts about the constitutionality of that eavesdropping and even warned that engaging in it might harm national security because it would jeopardize prosecutions against terrorists. Put another way, the DoJ was concerned that it might be unconstitutional to eavesdrop with a lower standard than probable cause even as the Administration was doing exactly that.

In other words: We don't need to change the Law, we're already ignoring it.

UPDATE: The LA Times has also has an article on the subject, Words, Deeds on Spying Differed, which quotes an ACLU attorney's charge that the Bush Administration is guilty of "'remarkable duplicity' for having testified in public against the legal change while carrying it out in private."

Imagine that

Peter Daou, who blogs at Salon, has a post which is related to our LWL ("Ladies Who Lunch") conversation today, at the Daou Report. As Daou notes:

What's the common thread running through the past half-decade of Bush's presidency? What's the nexus between the Swift-boating of Kerry, the Swift-boating of Murtha, and the guilt-by-association between Democrats and terrorists? Why has a seemingly endless string of administration scandals faded into oblivion? Why do Democrats keep losing elections? It's this: the traditional media, the trusted media, the "neutral" media, have become the chief delivery mechanism of potent anti-Democratic and pro-Bush storylines. And the Democratic establishment appears to be either ignorant of this political quandary or unwilling to fight it.

How true.

The LWL were discussing the fact that the Republican Party manages to maintain control by requiring strict adherence to the "party line." A Stepford Party, if you will. The desire not just to win, but to adopt a "scorched earth" policy to emasculate and destroy dissenters (of either party) has assisted in this regard. Democrats haven't been able to adjust to this unrelenting assault on every statement, every position they try to take. The end result is that most Democratic Party leaders can't take a stand on any issue. They are afraid to be attacked by the vicious Republicans or to alienate someone who might possibly still vote for them. Instead they alienate even their "base" of supporters by being so wimpy.

The press has contributed to this by being so reluctant (afraid?) to criticize the Bush Administration or the Republican Party. It's amazing the difference a new Administration makes! With Clinton, the press was perfectly prepared to attack and point out any and all potential missteps, lies and crimes, real or imagined.

With Bush? Nada. Fair and balanced is the new mantra. If Bush or someone in the Administration says UP, the press reports that, without any question, and merely adds that the Democrats dispute UP by saying DOWN. No independent reporting that UP is incorrect, misleading or an outright lie (or, if it should ever by chance occur, that UP is correct). Instead, the press merely recites the words from both sides, leaving the reader without a clue as to the "truth."

The power of the press to do good or evil is great. As Daou posits:

To illustrate the power of the media to shape public opinion, simply imagine what would happen if the cable nets and the print media and the elite punditocracy treated the warrantless spying scandal with the same round-the-clock intensity as the Swift-boating of Kerry or the Natalee Holloway disappearance. Suppose Lewinsky-style headlines blared about impeachment and presidential law-breaking. Suppose the question of the day on every cable net was, "Should Bush be impeached for violating the Constitution?" The media can create a crisis -- and can squelch one. The media can deliver narratives, they can frame events, they can shape the way Americans see the political landscape. A disproportionate amount of power is wielded by a handful of opinion-shapers, and when these individuals tell America a story that favors the right and marginalizes the left, the remedies are few.

Yes, imagine. Imagine what that world would be like.

Cartoon of the Day

*Steve Benson 

Cartoon of the Day

*David Fitzsimmons 

Meet the .....

(Via KarenDeCoster.com)

Ditto

Molly Ivins, who may be the only person from Texas that I like these days, wrote a great article, which title says it all:
I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President.

Recalling Gene McCarthy, Ivins observes that there are times when the "country is desperate for leadership" and I agree that this is one of those times. Re: Hillary Clinton, she notes:

Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges.

I agree. Clinton, Biden, and too many others in the so-called Democratic party are beginning to exhibit the political version of battered spouse syndrome. They just can't take a stand on anything, for fear of alienating some faction of the party or the Independents or the moderate Republicans. They are beginning to believe the Republican spin that they know what's best for the country. Not true. As Ivins writes:

What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.

The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?

Besides Bush and his reign of terror?

Cartoon of the Day

*Bob Englehart, Hartford Courant 

Limbo

The Daily Show's This Week In God is too funny.

Limbo. 1st up on the God machine.

Apparently, the Vatican has decided that Limbo is a goner. There will be no more Limbo. For the non-Catholics of the world, Limbo is the place unbaptized babies go when they die. It's not hell, so no suffering, but it's not heaven either. That is, since the babies weren't baptized, they can't go through the pearly gates and sit at the right hand of God. No, they get to spend eternity in Nowhere Land. It's worse than purgatory, since minor sinners can eventually get to heaven after some "penance." But for infants who never did anything wrong, other than to have the misfortune of dying before they got baptized, it's Limbo, with no way out.

Limbo also touches on a topic that brings back memories of childhood and the Catholic Church. At least according to my memory bank, Limbo is probably the beginning of my fall from Church theology.

I had a younger sister who died when she was an infant. This was an off limit topic of discussion in my family, obviously because of the grief involved in losing a child. However, for me growing up, there were lots of questions and gaps in my understanding of what happened to her, etc.

As a product of Catholic school, I learned all about Limbo and my big concern was that my sister may have died before she was baptized and was stuck in Limbo. I was afraid to ask my parents if she was baptized before she died, because it would just bring back bad memories. But that thought just drove me crazy. I thought it was so unfair, since she never did anything to deserve that, so why should she have that fate? And if so, and God did that, then I didn't want any part of God.

As it turns out, as I got older and learned what happened, she died when she was about a year old, so she had in fact been baptized. But at that point, my view of the Church's teaching was fairly well formulated.

The change in the concept of Limbo also raises another an interesting thought. What will the Church say happens to all of those babies who have been in Limbo? Do they get the call from God to proceed directly to heaven, without passing GO? Or is Limbo just closed to new members? Just wondering.

Cartoon of the Day

*Mike Lukovich, Atlanta Journal Constitution 

Saturday Morning Musings

A must-read post from Firedoglake, Contempt of Congress, cites an op-ed from the NYT If You Give a Congressman a Cookie, by Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, both of which are excellent essays on the ills of today's Washington political culture (under the Republican regime). As Ornstein/Mann state, they have never seen "the culture so sick or the legislative process so dysfunctional."

Firedoglake notes that the op-ed article: details a number of issues that the authors, both long-time policy and legislative analysts at AEI (Ornstein) and The Brookings Institution (Mann), see in this Congress and in the political culture of today's Washington, through the lens of how much more corrupt and grasping this particular incarnation of Congress has been under the Republican leadership -- how much further the GOP has taken the notion of "we can do whatever the hell we want, because we are the law."

The impact of this perversion of the process has an even greater impact on the lives of "ordinary" people. Referring to the recent Medicare drug program fiasco, Firedoglake says:

I've been hitting this Medicare problem hard because it is one that I see play itself out every day here in West Virginia, where I've seen elderly folks at the drugstore struggle to piece together change from their coin purse to finish paying for drugs that they can ill afford, where heating prices have skyrocketed this winter at a time when the Administration has cut subsidies for people on the margins, and where my family has tried to help out folks at our local Mission and other shelter options because there are elderly people who have to face a choice every day between their prescriptions and eating, and that is just, plain wrong in a nation of such wealth and prosperity for so many at the highest end of income.

I don't say this to make myself out to be some saint, because I'm not -- there is a lot more than I ought to be doing, frankly. But because it is illustrative of what I've heard from hundreds of readers, friends and family who work with the elderly, the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill, the disabled, the abused and neglected.

And where is our governing body in all of this?

We have a Congress and an Executive Branch, run by a Republican majority gone amok, drunk on power and dispensing legislative largesse on their contributors at every turn.

Right. And that's just wrong. Now, I am hardly on the lower end of the financial spectrum, but I do believe that we cannot ignore the needs of others who may be less fortunate. Have we really become so selfish that we frankly don't give a damn about anyone else but our own needs/wants? The gap between rich and poor is widening every day and I fear that the policies being implemented by the Republican party today may have disastrous consequences for many people in the not too distant future.

Changes to Medicare/Medicaid, health insurance, pensions & social security that have been proposed or passed are all ways to chip away at and eventually cause the demise of, those so-called "entitlement" programs. "Kill the beast" is the rallying cry of the right and they are well on their way to success.

The rise of the "Robber Barons" through the consolidation of big (no, make that huge) businesses does not bode well for the worker (or consumer). Wages have gone from stagnant to decreasing. Working conditions are becoming reminiscent of those same bygone Robber Baron days (a la the mine disasters in the past month), with little or no concern for safety issues in the workplace.

We have regressed in many ways. I heard a piece on NPR yesterday discussing the controversy over the new show "The Book of Daniel" (which I haven't seen). A comment made by Jack Kenny, the creator of the show, gave me pause. He remarked that programs such as, "All in the Family" and the “Maude” abortion episode were controversial in their day, but that they probably would never be able to be done in today’s environment. It’s true. We’ve become a moralistic, repressive society.

The list can go on and on. I am normally an optimistic person, but I am not so much about the direction of the country. In many ways, we’ve become the Victorian Era of the 21st Century.

Cartoon of the Day

*Signe Wilkerson, Philadelphia Daily News

Taint Level

This is a twofer. Two videos from the Daily Show on Republican Reform efforts and the new House Leader position, which was recently vacated by Tom Delay.

Jon Stewart provides clips of the 3 leading candidates for the spot, Moe Larry & Curly, and summarizes their platform: "As House Majority Leader, we would vow to get rid of people like us."

The Sean Hannity clip where Rep. Shadegg states that he's the best candidate for the position of House Leader because his "level of taint" isn't as bad as the others is hysterical.

Crooks and Liars has the videos: Part 1 and Part 2.

They may be ruining the country, but at least we can go laughing.

Clean and Mean

The Philadelphia Daily News carried an editorial by Deborah Leavy (who was council to Senator Paul Simon during the Bork hearings), aptly titled Robert Bork without the beard. She notes:

Alito's bland face, thinning hair and glasses made him look like the nerd in the next cubicle in the office. He was soft-spoken, modest and calm in responding to senators. . . In Samuel Alito, they found a judicial nominee who thought a lot like Robert Bork, but without the beard, the brusqueness, the pride and the candor. We got a blank stare, a modest demeanor - and total obfuscation.

Don't be fooled. Bork and Alito may have different personalities, but they share the same legal philosophy. Both are premier architects of modern conservative jurisprudence. They are lauded by the far right, heroes of the ultraconservative Federalist Society. As Court of Appeals judges, both favored a stronger executive branch, corporations over average citizens and limited access to the courts for victims of discrimination. Neither thinks Congress should have the power to pass laws protecting the health, welfare and safety of Americans. Both believe Roe was wrongly decided and would probably vote to overturn it.

* * * *

That Democrats have been so stymied in trying to stop the Alito nomination is the bitter fruit of the last two presidential elections, and elections for senators as well. Most voters don't focus on the Supreme Court as an important issue. That's too bad, because most voters don't want to overturn Roe vs. Wade, don't want government surveillance to be unlimited, and don't want to have the Supreme Court strike down laws such as the Clean Air and Clean Water acts, civil-rights laws and laws protecting worker safety. Any and all of that could happen under the Bork/Alito approach to the law.

If, as expected, Judge Alito is confirmed, he will join a Supreme Court poised to radically transform the legal landscape in ways that would shock the Framers of the Constitution and should alarm most Americans.

Because in Sam Alito, we got Bork without the beard.

In other words, the old maxim holds true. You can't tell a book by it's cover. The covers may have gotten fancier, but the glossy look outside doesn't necessarily equate with the words inside. You have to remember: with a book, ultimately, it's the words that count.

With a Supreme Court Justice, it's the legal words or opinions that count, which are based upon a judicial philosophy. As I said before, he's not called Scalito for nothing. The name was bestowed on him long before he was nominated to the Supreme Court, in recognition of his ultra-conservative views.

Cartoon of the Day

*Mike Keefe, Denver Post 

Cartoon of the Day

*Steven Benson 

A Dream of Freedom

It's truly amazing that it was over 40 years ago, on August 28, 1963, that MLK gave his "I have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

A video of the entire speech can be found at THE BRAD BLOG. I haven't seen or read the entire speech in many years, it is still extremely moving.

A transcript can be found at: 3quarksdaily.

Will there ever be a day:

when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

??