The Blog

This is not a political blog.

Seriously, I have written in the past about how I don’t want to focus on politics here. But I am interested in politics, and it’s hard for me to ignore certain events, when theory intersects with reality. Like today, for example.

The New Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case based on the Federal law prohibiting mid-term and late-term abortions, called by opponents “partial birth abortions.” What’s interesting about this is that the Old Supreme Court struck down an identical Nebraska law five years ago, and has since declined to hear any cases on the subject. The reason they struck down the law in the first place is that it made no exception for protecting the health of the mother, thus the government could have used it to force pregnant women and girls to risk their lives. The vote was five to four, with Sandra Day O’Conner voting in the majority. In any case, you’d think that would be that, and the Supremes would start looking around for other constitutional issues to consider.

But now John Roberts is in charge and setting the Court’s agenda, and Samuel Alito has replaced Sandra Day O’Conner. Roberts has agreed to revisit the Court’s position on a law that has been unconstitutional for the past five years, and I don’t think there’s much doubt how he and Alito will vote next year when this comes before the Court. After all, Alito is on record as saying that the landmark Roe v. Wade is bad law, and that it can be reversed by chipping away at it a little bit at a time. What a perfect opportunity for him to strike the first blow.

When Al Gore ran for President, and when John Kerry ran for President, we could have done something. We could have voted instead of staying home. Only a few popular votes would have made a difference. But in 2000 we were apparently overwhelmed by the evildoing of President Clinton, and by 2004 we were terribly frightened, so in both cases we had to elect the honorable and brave George W. Bush.

So Bush appointed these new guys, and there’s nothing we can do about them. They don’t have to pay any attention to what we want. Letter-writing and threatening to vote against them is useless, since they are not elected. Even throwing out the bums who appointed them won’t make any difference, since they have been appointed for life. They get to stay, for about thirty more years. We have to let them hear the case, deliberate, and vote on it, while we do what we seem to do best: Sit on our hands.

If Alito’s stated agenda of reversing abortion rights in this country a little bit at a time is successful, I think I’ll go into the abortion business. I’m not a doctor, but then if I were, I wouldn’t be allowed to perform abortions in our fundamentalist conservative future. I have a nice supply of coat hangers, sterilized with rum and a Bic lighter, so I think I’m qualified.

God forbid your little girl ever needs this service. If you’re wealthy, of course, you’ll always have access to safe, legal abortions overseas. If you’re not, get ready to send me your daughters.

Next: What can we do?

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED. SEE BELOW.

Holy shit, Dick Cheney has actually shot a guy.

That’s right, the Vice President sprayed a fellow quail hunter yesterday with shotgun pellets at a range of thirty yards. The shot hit Harry Whittington in the face, neck and chest, and he’s in the ICU at a hospital in Texas.

For some reason, the Vice President’s office didn’t announce this when it happened on Saturday morning, and in fact didn’t bring it up publicly for a whole day – after the shooting was reported on the web site of the local paper. They say they wanted to wait until Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the ranch where this took place had a chance to make the announcement herself, but of course I think otherwise.

I think Cheney has finally gone over the Rambo wall and is sending a message to Scooter Libby, Joe Wilson, Mike Brown(ie) and any other chickenshit “whistleblowers” that may be out there: “I might be the Number Two man in D.C., but I’m the baddest Dick in America and if you fuck with me I’m goan take you down.”

Nobody really knows how many heart attacks the guy has actually had. He may not have that long to live, and he may want to take a few scaredy-cat, anti-American, fetus-killing tax-and-spend liberals with him. Of course, the guy he shot is a millionaire Texas Republican lawyer, but I’m just sayin’ “watch your back.”

Can you imagine what poor Karl Rove is going through right now? I sure wish I could have been there when he got this news.

• The administration’s poll numbers are down in almost every category, and most of them are below 50% approval.
• Hurricane Katrina won’t go away.
• Michael Brown has developed political rabies and turned into a vicious, snarling beagle.
• The lapdog New York Times ratted them out on the court-free domestic spying.
• Libby’s indicted.
• Social Security “reform” is dead.
• Delay’s indicted.
• Republicans are slipping and sliding up and down K Street on Jack Abramoff’s grease.
• The “war on terror” and the occupation of Iraq are going badly and getting damned unpopular.
• Even Rove himself remains under investigation by the bulldog prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

It must be hectic to spin all this stuff every day so that it looks like it was exactly what they had planned and that it really is a good thing for America and Freedom. Now this.

“Cheney did what!? Was it self defense? Please tell me it was self defense. Can we say it was self defense? I want every doctor in Texas at that guy’s bedside, and no photographers. Oh, shit, what’s his face look like? Never mind, I don’t want to know. OK look. Here’s our story. The guy circled around – he might have been drinking – and he came up behind Cheney – no, he snuck up behind. He didn’t follow hunter’s protocol, he didn’t announce himself, it was his own fault. Get him to make a statement to that effect. It was his own fault.

“And God damn it, I don’t want to see pictures in the Times of Cheney laughing and holding up a bloody quail by the feet.”

UPDATE, WEDNESDAY, FEB. 15, 2006: OK, it was funny for a minute, even though we all knew the joke was on poor Harry Whittington. But the party’s over, and I am ashamed of myself for making light of it. Whittington is in much worse condition than I knew. Some of the shot has worked it’s way inside, near his heart, and he’s had a heart attack and been returned to intensive care, where they intend to keep him for another week.

Cheney did not go public with this story for somewhere between 18 and 22 hours. The White House is acting like they didn’t have the full story for that long. Plus, they have been trying to make like Whittington himself is to blame for not “announcing his presence.” This is bullshit, of course.

Why the long delay? Is it because Cheney was drunk? Where is the police report? Or is this just another example of Cheney and the rest of his arrogant gang withholding information from the public, simply because they can?

Every hunter will tell you that the shooter is always the one responsible. When you fire, you have to know where everyone is. If you shoot someone, it’s your fault, end of story. At the very least, the Vice President should grow some balls, stand up, admit he made a stupid mistake and apologize to Whittington and his family publicly.

This is a case of criminal negligence. Fat chance there will be any prosecution, but at least Cheney should be man enough to take the blame. He will finally break his silence on television today at 6 PM Eastern time.

Surprise: He has chosen Fox News as the venue.

I wrote in my previous post that it may be possible to take back our country,

but that it would be necessary for everyone to help in the effort. Shephard suggested that I produce a list of whom to contact if you want to try and make a difference. So here’s the deal.

Everyone has to participate. You have to learn about the issues, and you have to vote. You can educate yourself on the internet (you’re already on the internet, right?) and also just by reading the paper and listening to news on the radio. Note that you will have to filter what you read and hear, but the only way to get good at that is to do it. It may take some time, but if we don’t get involved in what’s happening to the world we deserve what we get. For example, we have only ourselves to blame for the current administration in Washington. These guys won on the slimmest of electoral margins, while many of us stayed home. What if we had all voted?

In between elections you have to challenge politicians who do bad things. You can do this by taking part in demonstrations and by writing to your elected representatives and to newspapers. It’s important to make your voice heard on the issues that matter to you. How else can our elected officials know how we want them to act?

To summarize:

• Learn what’s happening to your world.
• Stand up and be counted in public ways. Don’t be afraid. Get some shit on your Permanent Record.
• Tell your representatives what you think (write to them).
• Tell everybody what you think (write letters to the editor).
• Vote. The Republican strategy has been to make you stay home on election day. They are not the majority, but they can win if we fail to oppose them at the polls.

Here are a few resources:

• Project Vote Smart. Type in your zip code at this site and get a list of all your elected representatives, including links to their web sites so you can get their addresses and write to them.
• The Huffington Post. Arianna Huffington used to be conservative, now she’s liberal. This is the direction everybody goes when they learn what’s happening in the real world. No matter – her site provides a forum for writers, artists, observers, politicians and pundits of all stripes, from centrist to leftist. You get to talk back to all of them.
• Donkey Rising. Also known as EDM, or The Emerging Democratic Majority. Here you’ll find (centrist) strategy and analysis of just how we will take back the nation. Again, you are able to contribute to the conversation.
• Open Secrets. Who is paying for your government? Follow the money at OpenSecrets.org.
• National Public Radio. Fair and in-depth reporting on news of the day. Read the news or listen online, or find your local affiliate station. There must be a reason the Republicans keep wanting to eliminate their funding.
• Move On. News, inspiration and involvement opportunities. Also, somewhere in there is a guide to writing effective, likely-to-be-published letters to the editor. (Someone let me know when you find it, OK?)
• TruthDig. This is where Robert Scheer went when the LA Times fired him for being too liberal. An interactive site featuring news, commentary and videos “…for people actively seeking to understand the world…”

Obviously this list is not exhaustive, nor is the Right represented at all (they do a fine job of that themselves). Not only that, but some of this stuff is hard reading. If we’d been paying attention for the past two decades this wouldn’t be necessary. But if you are concerned about the future, get started!

This is not a time to be timid. We can’t afford to lay low and keep out of sight. But we can improve things if we all take part. We haven’t come this far only to have Big Oil take over the government, strip us of our human and civil rights and send us off to Permanent War. If you’re afraid now, how will you feel when The Patriot Act is made permanent and the Supreme Court declares that anything is legal if the President says it is?

A groundswell is beginning. See the wave. Be the wave.

I’ve been working on a big. long-winded political post for the past few days,

photo stolen from truthdig.com

but after a while I realized it was all about me, which is not what I intended. I’ll finish it and put it here soon, but not today. Here’s what I want to say:

You can make a difference in our government. For half of American voters (and who knows how many non-voters?) it feels like the country has been stolen away, and there’s nothing we can do. I won’t take the time now to go through the litany of abuses we have been subjected to by the Rove/Cheney/Bush Administration. If you’re reading this you probably have your own list anyway.

But the government doesn’t respond to us, and many, myself included, have halfway given up. I just want to say that not one of us is going to change things, but all of us together can make a difference.

When the people took to the streets in the 1960’s and 70’s, we didn’t change things. We didn’t depose two presidents and bring an end to the insane and pointless war in Vietnam.

What we did was set the stage for those things to happen. We created a climate in which Senators Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern could say “Damn! There’s a constituency there! Maybe I’ll run for president on an anti-war platform!” We let Congress know that if they investigated the corruption and the crimes of President Nixon, there were millions who would back them. We gave them cover to be brave. It may have been only for a few months, but it was long enough to throw a criminal out of the White House.

Well, there’s another criminal there now, and there is very little political will to do anything about it. The Right has been effective at shutting us up, but they have never had much of a majority among the people of this country. Likely they are not in the majority at all.

There is no reason for us to remain silent any longer while our rights are taken away, our country becomes the most hated in the world and Big Oil runs the government. The Republican electoral “victories,” if you want to call them that, were on razor-thin margins. Decent people everywhere are tired of the smell coming from Washington. The administration’s poll numbers are the worst they have ever been. In an election held today they would be swept from office in a landslide.

There are State of the Union demonstrations tonight in cities around the world. Go to one if you can, and make some noise. The Democrats in Congress need your strength. They need to know that you want them to act. Their performance against the Alito nomination sucked, because they were afraid to be bold. Write to them and let them know you support vigorous action to take back the country, that they will not be punished for taking bold steps. Let them know that there is a constituency for honesty, integrity and action!

As I have said before, we will not be able to throw Bush out of the White House. That doesn’t matter. We have the opportunity to clip his wings and expose him as the useless and venal sack of doodoo that he has always been, rendering him powerless for the remainder of his term. If the Democrats make gains in the November elections this year we can start to reverse the right-wing trend that we have allowed to take place, while we watched silently, in ever-increasing shock. If we loudly let the Democrats know that we are there for them, that we are the majority, that we will not sit still for any more of the same, we can get this country turned right-side up again.

By yourself, you can’t do it. But without you, we can’t do it.

The revolution starts today.

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,

against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

__The 4th Amendment to The Constitution of the United States (emphasis mine)

This is the entire text of the 4th Amendment. The guys who wrote it were trying to avoid the kinds of personal invasions they had been experiencing, perpetrated by a system in which a monarch, claiming authority from God, could send police or troops to snoop wherever they wanted, confiscate whatever they saw and use whatever they found against whomever if it suited their purpose. It is admired everywhere in the world, although not always by totalitarian regimes.

Now President Bush seems to have violated this precept. He has publicly admitted that he has used an agency of the federal government (the National Security Agency) to wiretap citizens of the United States. He has said that his administration did not have warrants for their actions, nor did they seek warrants, nor do they intend to, despite the fact that there is a law requiring such warrants and providing a fast and secret way to obtain them through a special court. He has said that he intends to continue this program of surveillance.

Read the amendment again, and keep in mind that it is settled law in this country that “searches” include wiretaps.

Then tell me: How is this not an impeachable offense? Just so you don’t have to read the FISA statutes, let me tell you that violation is a felony carrying a five year prison term.

There is no way in hell that this president will be convicted and thrown out by the current Congress, or even the one that will be seated after the midterm elections this year. Impeachment merely means an investigation and a trial. It would get President Bush’s attention, and probably cause him to pay more attention to the “march of freedom” right here in this country. It would allow Congress to reassert its authority and oversight responsibility, which it has recently abdicated. A chastened George W. Bush could finish out his term, walking the line of good behavior, instead of swaggering over it. Only good things would flow from an impeachment at this time, while failure to stop this power grab would be a setback for individual freedom in our country.

It’s the House of Representatives that initiates impeachment proceedings, so if you’d like to see a restoration of our federal system of checks and balances, write to your congressperson. Later, you’ll want to let your senators know how you feel.