John Gard - wants to limit stem cell research

For my 13-year old daughter Isabel, Type 1 diabetic since age 9... and for every other person who may be negatively impacted by the possible election of another right-wing hypocrite: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion.

Peg's speech...

Highlights from Peg Lautenschlager's speech in LaCrosse this weekend include her mentioning that Wisconsin's "Internet Crimes Against Children unit is the very best, making more arrests of Internet predators than any other state in the nation."

She earns highest marks for keeping her campaign promises to protect the environment...

"We have aggressively enforced laws to hold polluters accountable, obtaining hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and restoration monies. We have fought to stop discharge of all sorts into our lakes and rivers and streams. And we have fought horrible legislation which has undermined our state'’s environmental laws.

"But we have done more.

"We have fought the bush administration‚’s weakening of mercury admissions standards, its invalidation of clean air act compliance rules, its rollback of new source review regulations, and its failure to regulate ballast waters which bring invasive species to the Midwest. And with my progressive-minded colleagues like Elliot Spitzer, I have taken on the powerful and joined an historic law suit to combat global warming."

Peg is one of ten state Attorneys General that are suing the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for failing to regulate new power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, the major contributor to global warming.

"Standing up for the protection of Wisconsin'’s clean air and natural environment is a critical responsibility," she explained in April of this year when the suit was filed. "Once again the federal EPA is failing to carry out the Clean Air Act. No less than our children'’s health and the fate of the planet are at stake - so I am proud the states are taking action to ensure that EPA does its job."

The suit further objects to the EPA failing to set adequate standards for sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, power plant pollutants that contribute to soot, smog, acid rain and higher levels of respiratory disease.

Peg is running for reelection on the strength of a notable record of measurable legal accomplishments... detailed in her LaCrosse speech. I last saw her in person in Madison on January 4, 2005 at the first session of the People's Legislature. She briefly spoke to more than 1,000 people in a packed hall. Her head was bald and she wore no wig. She was fighting breast cancer with chemotherapy, another battle she eventually won...

I look forward to seeing her again on Wednesday, June 14 when she visits Door County. She will speak to the Door County Board of Realtors at a noon luncheon and attend a public reception in her honor from 6 - 8 PM at the Compass Coffeehouse in Fish Creek.

Tracking the convention

Looking for links to live blog posting from the 2006 Wisconsin Democratic Party convention reveals the following:

• WisPolitics 2006 Dem Convention Blog
• The Doyle-Lawton 2006 Blog
• Daniel Cody's Left on the Lake

The Battle for Water...

It's not just Bechtel in Bolivia. The efforts to privatize everything from the media, to historic landmarks, prisons, schools, public lands and even the voting system that controls our democracy has made significant gains in the "business" of providing municipal water within the United States.

In neighboring Illinois things are getting ugly. Several towns that once thought it was smart to cut their expenses by placing the responsibility for municipal water supplies in the hands of private companies have changed their minds. Angry citizens with huge monthly bills payable to RWE, a German firm aptly named American Water has communities up in arms...

"About 15 percent of America's water business is now in private ownership," says Chicago Tribune reporter E.A. Torriero in a May 28, 2006 article. "Those ranks have tripled in the last decade as cash-strapped cities seek ways to upgrade aging water systems by turning to private firms."

But now, a half-dozen Illinois communities - Pekin, Champaign, Urbana, Homer Glen, Orland Park and Bolingbrook - are bent on forcing Illinois American to the bargaining table, joining in a battle that Peoria has been fighting for 7 years.

American Water, once an "American" company was purchased by RWE in 2001 for $7.5 billion. They now have 1,800 operations in 29 states: Arizona, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia - plus three Canadian provinces, serving 18 million people and generating $2.2 billion in revenues.

In Illinois grassroots groups are forming reports Torriero, "...to exchange battle plans, hold rallies and plot strategies. Busloads of angry suburban residents descended on Springfield this spring, demanding legislative help."

"The backlash has split towns, torn apart councils and spawned court fights that landed in state supreme courts," says Torriero.

E.A. Torriero's article in the Tribune, "Pressure turned up in the war on water - Towns push to make service public again," provides a wake up call for Wisconsin communities struggling to balance their budgets.

"Water for People and Nature: The Story of Corporate Water Privatization" is a power point presentation developed by the Sierra Club's Corporate Accountability Committee as an educational tool for interested citizens and activists wishing to learn more about water privatization issues and for use by communities mobilizing to prevent corporate privatization of their water services and resources.

Wake Up Ohio warns of "...a creeping shift toward proprietary claims on our Commons. This creep has most recently manifested itself in attempts by the large telecom companies to lobby for the privatization of the Internet. The Ports uproar... Now Exxon-Mobil is using its record windfall profits to fund junk-science to smear what scientists across the globe know for certain, that the earth is warming and American fossil fuel consumption leads the sorry list of probable causes."

Home for Christmas...

"I just remind everybody," Feingold said in New Hampshire this weekend, "Democrats were in the majority in the United States Senate when we voted for the Iraq war and we passed the USA Patriot Act. It's not enough to be just in the majority. You have to stand for something."

The New Republic's Michael Crowley says, "Feingold may emerge as the only 2008 Democratic candidate who voted against the Iraq war: Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Joe Biden, and Evan Bayh all supported the 2002 war resolution, while governors Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Mark Warner of Virginia are hawkish-sounding centrists."

This weekend Feingold said what so many Americans are waiting to hear... "Why are so many Democrats too timid to say what everyone in America knows? It's time to redeploy the troops. It's time to bring the troops out of Iraq. I say bring them home by the end of the year."

Crowley explains why... "Feingold has not called for the United States to get out of Iraq "right now." But he is the only major congressional Democrat to set a specific withdrawal timetable. The impetus for his proposal was a trip he took to Iraq in February with a small Senate delegation that included, of all people, Hillary Clinton. Feingold had never visited Iraq before, and he was appalled by what he saw there. "We couldn't stay overnight in Iraq," he said recently. "We couldn't drive from the airport to the Green Zone. When we went to the Green Zone, the helicopters had to go just over the palm trees so they wouldn't get shot down. We never got to go out to see the rest of Baghdad, because they couldn't take us out safely. We wore flak jackets and helmets in the Green Zone. And people are worried about chaos if we leave?"

What's wrong with Russ?

"...too aggressive, too principled, too committed to the Constitution," and that scares the hell out of many Democrats says the Cap Times in an essay that mourns the lack of an opposition party. Republicans in Wisconsin are doing their part to make it easier for centrist Democrats to appear to be left leaning by moving their party ever further reich right.

Last week at their Appleton convention they passed Resolution 25 that urges the GOP "to withhold all promotional and financial support of those candidates that do not consistently subscribe to this overall conservative agenda, be they incumbent or new candidates." Anita Weier reports, "It also urges the party to 'actively and vigorously' seek out candidates for office who 'will go in this conservative direction, and respect the wishes of party members.'"

That direction includes 32 other right turns like...

• Resolution 2 supporting concealed carry,
• Resolution 4 in support of the death penalty for "heinous crimes,"
• Resolution 7 in support of the Patriot Act and NSA spying on phone and Internet use both overseas and in the United States,
• Resolution 8 supporting TABOR aka the Taxpayer Protection Amendment,
• Resolution 14 that seeks to pass a "paycheck protection act" that will further cripple unions,
• Resolution 15 that supports using the state constitution to take away freedom based on sexual preferences by defining marriage as between one man and one woman,
• Resolution 29 that defends the use of "In God We Trust" on the nation's money and
• Resolution 31 that calls for ending the state's Stewardship Fund.

Let's see, God, Guns, Gays... we're good to go!

Feingold just won't stop speaking out... here's his recent commentary on the Judiciary Committee’s Handling of the Constitutional Amendment on Marriage:

“Today’s markup of the constitutional amendment concerning marriage, in a small room off the Senate floor with only a handful of people other than Senators and their staffs present, was an affront to the Constitution. I objected to its consideration in such an inappropriate setting and refused to help make a quorum. I am deeply disappointed that the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee went forward with the markup over my objection. Unfortunately, the Majority Leader has set a politically motivated schedule for floor consideration of this measure that the Chairman felt compelled to follow, even though he says he opposes the amendment.

Constitutional amendments deserve the most careful and deliberate consideration of any matter that comes before the Senate. In addition to hearings and a subcommittee markup, such a measure should be considered by the Judiciary Committee in the light of day, open to the press and the public, with cameras present so that the whole country can see what is done. Open and deliberate debate on such an important matter cannot take place in a setting such as the one chosen by the Chairman of the Committee today.

The Constitution of the United States is an historic guarantee of individual freedom. It has served as a beacon of hope, an example to people around the world who yearn to be free and to live their lives without government interference in their most basic human decisions. I took an oath when I joined this body to support and defend the Constitution. I will continue to fight this mean-spirited, divisive, poorly drafted, and misguided amendment when it comes to the Senate floor.”

Russ would be proud of these two young people from Wisconsin, honored among 30 Point Scholars for 2006 with scholarships from The Point Foundation.

Brittany Bjurstrom: As a founder of her school's first-ever Gay-Straight Alliance in a suburb of Milwaukee, WI, Brittany worked to forge a safe environment for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities, while facing vandalism and harassment from multiple fronts of her community. She will enter Wellesley College, in Boston, Massachusetts, this fall.

Johnanna Ganz: Johnanna is from a small, quiet town in Northern Wisconsin. Johnanna came out during her senior year, and encountered intolerance at home and at school. Kicked out of her house at 18, Johnanna managed to find her way to college, where she has continued to thrive. She studies Art History and Women's Studies at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In Washington and also in Madison...
Polling recently conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associations shows the Federal Marriage Amendment, scheduled for a Senate vote the week of June 5, ranks dead last for voters on a list of priorities on which they want Congress focusing and that voters have strong concerns about changing the Constitution. Commissioned by the Human Rights Campaign, the polling also shows strong opposition to changing the Constitution among independent, senior and Catholic voters.

"Voters want Congress focused on fixing America's challenges, not creating more," says Human Rights Campaign Political Director Samantha Smoot. "The numbers show that Americans want Congress working on affordable health care, the ongoing war in Iraq and passing new ethics and lobbying laws, not changing the Constitution. Senators and Representatives should take these numbers as a sign that this political ploy will backfire at the polls."

Kagen Campaign 8th CD breakaway

Not many people know that Dr. Steve Kagen is also an accomplished bike racer. Cycling is a tough, demanding sport that mixes equal doses of teamwork with a demand for solo performance. Watching the three Democratic candidates in Wisconsin's 8th CD contest, especially Wall and Kagen working together for the common good, has been encouraging to everyone who intends to see John Gard return home in November... err Peshtigo, Sun Prairie... where does Gard really live anyway?

When Gard failed to show up for a well planned 8th CD debate in Sturgeon Bay a few weeks ago everyone, including Terri McCormick his Republican opponent in the primary, spent the evening deconstructing a range of his issues from the current White House administration's lies and failure in Iraq to Gard's efforts to block stem cell research and ethical campaign reform in Wisconsin. Gard probably made a smart decision, choosing to record a no-show in Sturgeon Bay rather than race that day, only to get dropped by the pack.

In every bike race strong contenders are tempted to break away, sprinting off the front of the peloton, then going it alone to maintain and extend their distance from the pursuing melee of the pack. When that racer is an Anquetil, a Merckx or a LeMond they have an unusual combination of strength and endurance built upon years of training. Dr. Kagen is proving to be that kind of contender and he has just broken away from the pack...

The Washington, DC, newspaper Roll Call reports that Dr. Steve Kagen now holds, "a commanding lead over his two Democratic opponents." The article refers to a poll conducted by Fairbanks, Maslin, Maulin and Associates that shows Kagen leading his opponents with 46% support of the likely voting Democrats surveyed. Former Brown County Executive Nancy Nusbaum trails with only 20% support and business consultant Jamie Wall garners a scant 3%.

Perhaps the most telling figure in the poll, though, is Nusbaum's high negative rating, particularly in her base of Brown County. Nearly half of likely Democratic Primary voters in Brown County have an unfavorable opinion of Nusbaum. Brown County will account for 35 percent of the primary vote.

In contrast, Kagen has 59% support in his home county of Outagamie and his strongest supporters are women, particularly those over 50. The poll also shows that Kagen has potential for continued growth. His experience as a local doctor and his well formulated plans to reform health care are squarely in line with voters across the district.

What I like to hear are the voices of so many of my Door County Republican friends who are now telling me they are "Independents" - a sure sign that they are freeing themselves up, getting ready to vote "smart" instead of loyal, looking for progressive leadership regardless of party affiliation.

Top 10 stories...

Concerned that some issues continue not to receive sustained media attention or slip off the radar screen, the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) has unveiled a new list of "Ten Stories the World Should Hear More About."

In a similar vein I'd like to ask readers to post your own nominations for Wisconsin's most important but least covered news stories of the year so far.

Divine Strake?

...an odd name for the return of big bomb blasting at the Nevada Test Site. The planned event, now set for June 23, will set off a 700-ton ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb (like what was used to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Bldg.) that opponents claim will kick up radioactive fallout left in the soil from previous nuclear bomb testing conducted from 1951 to 1992. A fifty-mile shock wave followed by a 10,000-foot mushroom cloud may also revive other sleeping giants, launching a new wave of Godzilla sci-fi and hours of TV replay. Maybe it will rain...

OK, so what's a strake? "A device for controlling air flow over an aircraft. A strake is also a part of a boat or ship used for generally the same purpose in water rather than air. It is a strip of planking in a wooden vessel or of plating in a metal one, running longitudinally along the vessel's side, its bottom or between them on the turn of the bilge," explains GlobalSecurity.org (a site that tried to spawn 4 simultaneous pop-up windows so I won't link to it).

The real Divine...

And I thought it was a DIVINE typo but it's worse. It's part of a plan of DIVINE inspiration. The pop-up spawners above report, "DIVINE STRAKE is one of several 'DIVINE' efforts under the Hard and Deeply Buried Target Defeat (HDBTD) program. DIVINE WARHAWK consists of deep underground operational tunnel facility defeat demonstrations using advanced weapons at the White Sands Missile Range. DIVINE HELCAT was a 2004 reconstitution exercise to determine reconstitution time for the C3I tunnel facility at Nevada Test Site (NTS). Also in 2004 planning began for DIVINE HATES, which is a WMD production and storage tunnel complex functional defeat effort."

A Heritage Foundation for the left

Peter Baker, Washington Post Staff Writer reports today...

"After national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley delivered a speech unveiling President Bush's new national security strategy, departing audience members were handed glossy, red-white-and-blue booklets titled "Integrated Power: A National Security Strategy for the 21st Century."

"The booklets, however, outlined not Bush's strategy but that of the Center for American Progress, a three-year-old left-of-center think tank and refuge for Clinton administration alumni. Rather than issue a paper and hope it would be noticed, the center dispatched aides to personally deliver its rebuttal."

Baker explains the Center devotes 40 percent of its budget to communications. "It has its own blog, television booker and a campus affiliate that sponsors publications, speeches and a national tour with the bands Foo Fighters and Weezer."

"This is a new kind of model," says Lee Edwards, a Heritage fellow. "This brings new meaning to the term 'advocacy think tank.' It's gone where no think tank has gone before."

Ed note: I have been getting their e-mail newsletters on a regular basis... full of gritty facts that turn around a specific theme that lends sharp focus to each release.

Funded by George Soros, and affiliated with the Open Society Institute.

Bombs away... but first a few questions.

Mixed messages abound regarding who has built, is building or threatens to build atomic bombs. In 1946, following the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US had a stockpile of 6 atomic bombs. By the late 1950s the number had risen to well over 5,000. In the next ten years the development of nuclear warheads proceeded to skyrocket to more than 30,000...

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists says, "As of January 2006, the U.S. stockpile contains almost 10,000 nuclear warheads. This includes 5,735 active or operational warheads: 5,235 strategic and 500 nonstrategic warheads."

How many does it take to be really, really and absolutely 100% safe?

Back in 1998 a study by the Brookings Institution reported that, since the start of the Manhattan Project in 1940, the US Government has spent $5.5 trillion (or five and a half million million dollars) on nuclear weapons up to the end of 1996 - 29% of all US military spending and nearly 11% of all US government spending on nuclear weapons through the 56 years.

While we worry about Iran building a bomb... the United States is spending more today for nuclear weapons testing and design than during the height of the Cold War. Here's a map of where the active nuclear weapons facilities are located in the US...
But who is profiting from this pointless expenditure?

Amer Industrial Technologies, Inc. (AIT) - AIT designs, engineers, and manufactures steel components for Nuclear Applications. 25 Years of Experience, Quality, and Project Management. Think Amer for Nuclear!
COGEMA, Inc. - Since its inception in 1982, COGEMA, Inc. has been offering total nuclear fuel cycle services to support the U.S. nuclear community. The COGEMA Group is proud to count the majority of the United States nuclear utilities amoung our valued customers and is present at a number of Department of Energy sites.
Duke Cogema Stone & Webster LLC - Duke Cogema Stone & Webster LLC is comprised of three partner companies -- DE&S, COGEMA, Inc. and Stone & Webster -- and a number of respected subcontractor firms. The consortium provides full-scope services required by DOE, including design, construction and licensing of a mixed oxide fuel fabrication facility; the fabrication of mixed oxide fuel; and the irradiation of that fuel in commercial nuclear reactors.
Framatome ANP, Inc. - As part of a worldwide team, Framatome ANP, Inc. designs and fabricates nuclear fuel, control components, and incore detectors. It also provides fuel-related engineering and analysis services associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, and field services for inspection and repair of fuel and related components. It is also actively involved in the back end of the fuel cycle in a number of areas, including spent fuel storage and disposal. An AREVA and Siemens company.
GlobalEnergyJobs - GlobalEnergyJobs is focused on the world's energy industry including: oil and gas exploration & production, refining & marketing; power & utility; pipeline transportation; engineering & construction; service & equipment; chemicals & petrochemicals; geothermal; alternative energy; fuel cells; solar; wind; nuclear; cogeneration; mining; professional services; energy banking and information technology.
Savanna River Site (SRS) - SRS was constructed during the early 1950s to produce the basic materials used in the fabrication of nuclear weapons, primarily tritium and plutonium-239. In 1989, SRS began lifting the veil of secrecy under which the site had traditionally operated. SRS focuses on three mission areas associated with products and services essential to achieving the Department of Energy’s (DOE) goals: Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Stewardship, Nuclear Materials Stewardship, and Environmental Stewardship
Thorium Power, Inc. (TPI) - Radkowsky Thorium Fuels (RTF) and the Plutonium Burning Fuels, which are the only known means of preventing commercial nuclear power plants from producing nuclear weapons usable plutonium, are the most effective method to permanently dispose of existing stockpiles of weapons usable plutonium and produce electricity. Thorium Power owns the patent rights to these fuels.
Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC - Westinghouse, part of the BNFL Group, provides nuclear services, nuclear fuel, and nuclear systems & projects.

And what about India and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? We signed an international agreement along with 187 other countries, which prevents us or any of the other signators from providing nuclear technology and fuel to countries that have not endorsed the NPT.

When President Bush arrived in New Delhi in March, India had the capacity to produce six to 10 nuclear weapons per year. Under the tentative nuclear agreement reached before the president departed, India would be granted permission to produce more than 30 nuclear weapons per year.

Why has legislation been introduced to weaken US nonproliferation law and allow the US to provide nuclear technology and fuel to India, even though India has not signed the NPT Please urge your Rep. to Vote against HR 4974, the US - India nuclear agreement because it is a bad deal for nonproliferation.

And then there's the question of North Korea.

When Did You Decide You Were Heterosexual?

CNSNews.com reports... A "Heterosexual Questionnaire" distributed to students at Port Washington High School in Wisconsin has prompted outrage. Among other things, students were asked, "If you have never slept with someone of your same gender, then how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?" According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the survey -- approved by two teachers -- was distributed by a student organization last month, one day before the national Day of Silence, an event advocating acceptance of homosexuals. The school principal and the head of the local school board said the survey was inappropriate and was given to students without permission. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported that some of the questions were intended to make heterosexuals understand what it's like to homosexual: Those questions included: "What do you think caused your heterosexuality?" and "When did you decide you were heterosexual?"

Please leave the acting to equity professionals...

The Wisconsin Assembly's Committee on Campaigns and Elections is made up of Representatives Freese, chairperson, Gundrum, vice chairperson and Representatives J. Wood, Vos, Travis, and Kessler.

Chairman Freese put on quite a show battling for a higher standard of ethics. Let's call him the good cop, fighting for much needed campaign reform and stronger powers of enforcement. He even went so far as to threaten bad cop, John Gard and his minions with resigning from his leadership position in the Assembly if his committee's campaign reform bill, SB 1, was not brought up for a vote.

Yesterday this keystone cop-out performance came to a close. Many of these wooden actors took their bows and left the stage, left the theater, knowing their checks will remain safely in the mail. No fear! With a tough election ahead most Republican Assembly legislators can count on having all of that Illinois cash and other special interest contributions continue to flow into their campaigns - with no questions asked.

Only these seven Republicans had the courage to stand along side ALL of the Democrats in the Assembly yesterday to vote "Aye" in hopes of a move toward ethical campaign reform: Albers, Davis, Hines, Lasee, McCormick, Ott and Pettis. The motion to bring SB1 to a floor vote failed 51-45. Where were those four missing Republican votes that would have given Wisconsin citizens a means to investigate all of the dirty money that is ruining our democracy?

Look to the Wisconsin Assembly's Committee on Campaigns and Elections - the ones who fought so hard to bring SB1 to the floor for a vote. The nay voting committee members included Freese, Gundrum, Wood and Vos - the four Republicans. The aye votes included members Travis and Kessler - the two Democrats.

In the final fight scene Freeze froze... a shabby actor with a bad script. Broadway investors with fists full of money may keep this show running for a few more months, but with a hot summer ahead, people will be raising an abundance of tomatoes in preparation for November.

Natives are restless...

"It's clear that the legislature has the votes to pass ethics reform, but the leadership is afraid to bring it to the floor," says Ed Garvey. Hear him introducing Wisconsin Democracy Campaign's Mike McCabe at the Capitol this morning, who then speaks to protesters, followed by Nino Amato and Rep. Mark Pocan - all demanding an Assembly vote on the campaign reform bills passed by the Senate. SB1 combines the State Ethics and Elections Boards as originally envisioned by the People's Legislature in their first assembly more than a year ago. Click to read highlights on the protest posted by Dave Callender in the Cap Times.

While Rep. Steve Freese (R) continues to wring his hands in frustration, I can't help but note that he was also responsible for altering the original bill as approved by the Senate. Endorsed 28 - 5 and then blessed by Gov. Doyle, Freese and his committee members then added in additional capacity to investigate local elected officials instead of keeping the powers of the new agency limited to monitoring only state legislators. IMHO the wave of indignation that followed became a means to effectively stall out the clock...

While Freese says the amendments for locals could be removed, he also says, wiping away those pesky crocodile tears, that he thinks the bill is dead for this session. Whew! That was close... Pocan threatens a filibuster!

Support Wisconsin Citizens' Right to Breathe Clean Air

Big Tobacco, the Wisconsin Tavern League, and their allies in the State Senate are making a last ditch effort to pass legislation that will take away your right to breathe clean air.

Assembly Bill 414/Senate Bill 202 would overturn 26 local smoke-free ordinances and prevent communities from protecting their citizens from secondhand smoke in the future. This legislation would expose Wisconsin's citizens to more secondhand smoke. This bill will be voted on Wednesday - please take action today. Fill out this on-line form to e-mail your State Senator. Urge him or her to oppose AB 414/SB 202.

Learn more about SmokeFree Wisconsin - a single issue organization whose mission is to promote effective tobacco control policies that will protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke; prevent the initiation of smoking, especially among children; and ensure that there is a well-funded, comprehensive and effective statewide tobacco prevention program.

I just sent this letter to legislators using the form above...

Dear [Lawmaker]:

I am writing to strongly urge you to oppose AB 414/SB 202 or any attempt to limit the ability of local governments to protect us from the dangers of secondhand smoke. AB 414/SB 202 would put smoke back on the menu in many parts of the state.

When do you stop trying to take local control away from citizens and their elected officials? There is a pretty bad record accumulating in this regard. Voters will be informed in November and hold you accountable.

Voters in the City of Appleton just voted to keep their 100% smoke-free ordinance by an overwhelming 57%. Three weeks later, some in the legislature want to pass a state law that overturns this vote, along with 25 other local policies around the\nstate.

Your constituents are keenly aware of the health harms caused by secondhand smoke. The 4,000 chemicals in secondhand smoke, including ammonia, arsenic, and carbon monoxide are especially dangerous for our children, the elderly, and people exposed\nto secondhand smoke every day at work.

I urge you to reject this last minute attempt to undermine public health in Wisconsin by exposing more residents and workers to secondhand smoke. The legislature should enact a law that protects all workers and patrons from secondhand smoke - not less. State government certainly should not hamstring local leaders who are willing to enact meaningful protections.

Please vote no on AB 414 and SB 202.

Sincerely,
Steve Kastner,
Editor and Publisher...
Door County Compass
The Wisconsin Progressive

Hail to the Chief

Charlie Savage, Boston Globe Staff reports on April 30, 2006...
Bush challenges hundreds of laws
President cites powers of his office

WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research. More...

In case you missed it...
'The March for Peace, Justice, and Democracy'
Organizers say over 300,000 people demonstrated in New York City on Saturday, marching for 30 city blocks demanding an end to the Iraq war. Since the media blinked past it with, at best a mention of the "tens of thousands," you may wish to read a full report by Tom Engelhardt that paints a larger picture of the, "20 packed blocks of demonstrators - bands, puppets, signs by the thousands, vets by the hundreds (if not the thousands), huge contingents of military families, congeries of the young, labor, women, the clergy, university and high school students, raging grannies, radical cheerleaders, and who knows who else - an enormous mass of humanity as far as the eye can see and probably another 10 to 15 blocks beyond that."

Our own Donna is having making trouble in Florida...
Students at the University of Miami are hunger striking to demand that Miami President, and former Clinton cabinet member Donna Shalala honor the right of campus janitors to form a union. This hunger strike is ongoing and follows on the heels of a two-week hunger strike by janitors at the university. They need your support.
Send a letter to Shalala.

Fighting the Protestant Ethnic

It started with another random discovery... The Attack of the Viral Campaign Ads and proceeded to an e-mail message containing the lyrics to I'm The Decider (Koo-Koo-Ka-Choo)

I am me and Rummy's he, Iraq is free and we are all together
See the world run when Dick shoots his gun, see how I lie
I'm Lying...

and of course I clicked the link... only to be amazed and delighted at the effort put forth in creating this little masterpiece of multi-media. And, at the bottom of the page I see a another link... a white rabbit dissappears and I am quick to leap in pursuit, vanishing down the rabbit hole--->

Are you a designer, comic, filmmaker, or activist with a creative idea that could become the Internet’s next big viral success story? If so, we invite you to enter the Contagious Festival, an ongoing web competition and talent search. You simply create an account, upload your project to the official Contagious Festival server and watch the live rankings to see if your entry is contagious.

Each month, the entry with the most traffic wins the “People’s Choice Award” and a panel of esteemed judges awards a “Jury Prize” based on originality, creativity and best social commentary.

Be forewarned: this is called viral marketing because it is contagious, symptomatic and may cost you the better part of at least one work day as you pursue all of the many creative entries in this ongoing festival... You may never shake the infection - it's monthly!

But then... it's Sunday, so enjoy!

Multi-media

This animation illustrates the failure of...
The Nuclear Bunker Buster - Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator as an effective weapon and explains the threat to life and health for millions of civilians that lie within the scope of impact and the range of resulting fallout.

With apologies to the Beach Boys...
Adam Kontras has created "Lets Bomb Iran!" - including sing-along lyrics.

And then there's the latest from TooStipidToBePresident.com, Camp Redemption.

The following commentary on the mainstream media may help to explain why indies are driven to create their own info-tainment...

News that should grind your gears
By Barb Ickes - Quad City Times

The corrupt former governor of Illinois (how liberating to say so) isn’t finished lining his pockets with taxpayer dough.

George Ryan’s $16,419 monthly pension reportedly will continue until at least November. That’s the earliest a state board can get together to decide whether the convicted felon loses the state benefit.

Despite being found guilty of fraud, racketeering, obstruction and lying to the FBI, Ryan is likely to collect at least another $98,514 before he’s cut off. And there’s no guarantee he will be cut off.

Taxpayers should be outraged. But most people won’t be. They’re too caught up in the latest news about Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba a year ago.

I don’t get it.

Our money is being ripped out of our hands every time we unscrew the cap to the gas tank. We’re paying almost three bucks a gallon, but there’s no good reason for it. You know how we know there’s no reason? Because the big oil companies are posting record multibillion-dollar profits.

Meanwhile, more detailed information is becoming available to show just how much you and I are paying in welfare to Wal-Mart — the nation’s richest-ever retailer.

According to the Small Business Times in Milwaukee, more than 40 percent of enrollees in Wisconsin’s health-care program for the working poor are employees of Wal-Mart.

But who cares?

There’s been another arrest in the Natalee Holloway disappearance. Stop the presses. Update the Web sites.

I don’t get it.

At least six retired military generals are aggressively pursuing the resignation of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, based on what they describe as dangerous defense missteps and wildly out-of-hand arrogance.

And how did our president respond?

“I’m the decider,” Bush replied, confirming that a 9-year-old boy with a frog in his pocket and mud on both shoes really could outthink the leader of the free world.

But never mind that. Natalee Holloway is missing.

Anxious-looking scientists and researchers have been coming up for air in recent weeks as they study the world’s coral reefs, including those in Key West, Fla. They look anxious because their research is showing that at least 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have perished over the past two years and 50 percent are in danger of dying.

Unusually high sea temperatures (courtesy of global warming), which also led to record hurricanes, are being blamed. The die-off includes Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which managed to survive for 18 million years until we came along.

Scientists say the loss of coral reefs will have “a catastrophic impact on all marine life.”

But that news will have to wait.

What inquiring minds really want to know is: Did those two Aruban brothers really have anything to do with Natalee Holloway’s disappearance?

No wonder governors feel free to take what they want from us and the president unashamedly pretends like we’re not being robbed blind by big oil and Wal-Mart bloats while the coral reefs die.

Natalee Holloway, a blonde honors student, vanished on a vacation to the Caribbean a year ago.

I don’t get it.

Barb Ickes can be contacted at

(563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.

Smoking Gun Fatigue

"We have reached smoking gun fatigue." says Swanson, founder of After Downing Street. "We have new memos and testimony every week on the war lies." See former Col. Ann Wright and David Swanson speaking to a San Diego business group about ending the war and impeaching Bush/Cheney.

McKinney Blues...

Norvel notes:

Another new reason I hate cell phones... now they're being used as weapons!

How many incidents of whacking or throwing them have taken place in the last year?

At least it didn't happen much when they first came out (and were the size of milk cartons) and weighed 2-3 pounds... sheesh... Us Americans is a violent peoples!

The manufacturers would probably make them with stun guns built in for self-defense, but too many dumb people would stun themselves accidentally when they put them to their heads to make a call, like when they accidentally take pictures of their own ears with their new picture phones!

Remembering Desmond Doss

Thanks to Russell Wallace (and CNN!) for the following:

Decorated conscientious objector buried with honors
Served as medic in World War II

CHATTANOOGA, Tennessee (AP) - The only conscientious objector to receive a Medal of Honor in World War II has been buried at a national cemetery with a 21-gun salute.

Desmond T. Doss Sr., 87, died March 23 in Piedmont, Alabama, where he and his wife, Frances, had been living with family.

A horse-drawn hearse delivered the flag-covered casket to the grave site Monday in the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Military helicopters flew overhead in a tribute formation. (Watch a final salute to one of WW II's finest -- 1:35)

Doss had endured ridicule for his beliefs but "remained true to his convictions even when it was not the most popular thing to do," said Patti Parks, a retired Navy commander and director of the Medal of Honor Museum in Chattanooga.

Doss, who refused to carry a weapon during his wartime service in the Pacific as an Army medic, was the subject of a book, "The Unlikeliest Hero," (Out of Print--Limited Availability) and a 2004 documentary, "The Conscientious Objector."

Medal of Honor Society records show he was among 3,442 recipients of the nation's highest military honor.

While under fire on the island of Okinawa, Doss carried 75 wounded soldiers to the edge of a 400-foot cliff and lowered them to safety, according to his citation.

During a later attack, he was seriously wounded in the legs by a grenade. According to the citation, as he was being carried to safety, he saw a more critically injured man and crawled off his stretcher, directing the medics to help the other man.

"He wanted to serve. He just didn't want to kill anybody," said a veteran who attended the service, Fred Headrick, 85. "Most all of them (Medal of Honor recipients) received their medal for killing someone. He received his by saving lives."

...and to Dotty Diggs for Walt Handelsman's take on Domestic Spying!

Gerrymandering District 22

A visit to Juanita's, The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon Inc., might help to explain how this map and Texas politics in general have gotten so bent out of shape.

Pew findings

Cheers to the Defective Yeti... for pointing out the latest findings of the Pew Research group:

Yeti's comments are a chuckle, "We need to pull Casey Kasem out of retirement so he can count these down 'America's Top 40' style. 'And now a newcomer to the countdown, but a rising star. It's number 10: ass.'"

The full Pew report, "Bush Approval Falls to 33%, Congress Earns Rare Praise,
Dubai Ports Fallout," released March 15, 2006 is full of detailed analysis and deserves a look.

Go Russ! Go!

FEINGOLD ANNOUNCES WITNESSES FOR HEARING ON CENSURE

Reagan Official Bruce Fein, Nixon Counsel John Dean to Testify Before Senate Judiciary Committee Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold announced today that Bruce Fein, former official in the Reagan Administration, and John Dean, former Counsel to President Nixon, will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee at Friday’s hearing on Feingold’s resolution to censure the president. The hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Friday morning.

Bruce Fein, a constitutional lawyer, served in President Ronald Reagan’s Department of Justice as Deputy Attorney General. Fein testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on February 28th, 2006, regarding the President’s warrantless wiretapping program.

John Dean served as Counsel to President Nixon. Prior to his White House service, he served as Chief Minority Counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives. In 1973, Dean testified before the Senate Watergate Committee. According to the Senate Library, Dean last testified before Congress in 1974. Dean currently is a columnist and lecturer on law and government and has authored several books on those issues.

Iraq Vets speaking out...

Back when this war started over three years ago, I began looking across the ocean for news from the rest of the world. I was losing faith in the American media and started to wonder how news was being reported from outside the box... Not much has changed, except that now I usually get up each day at 3 or 4 AM to listen to the news from the BBC and get other stories from the Web. Here's a few of those recent discoveries that I'm sure will go missing from the US mainstream media:

This appeared in the Guardian in print and on-line.

'If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?'
They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith joined them.

This story is a sizeable video report from the BBC's Newsnight presented by Jeremy Paxman on Wednesday, 29 March, 2006.

When the dust settles: Anger from US soldiers back from Iraq
Latest polls show a clear majority of Americans are now against the campaign in Iraq. Some soldiers who have returned from Iraq are disillusioned by their experience.

Inigo Gilmore reports from the US, "We have a powerful film this evening. We follow a group of former US soldiers who have returned from Iraq deeply affected by the experience. As they march across America to protest against the war they reveal their own experiences of the conflict, make some disturbing allegations about military practices in Iraq and reflect on how it feels to come home."

This is an audio report on a US soldier who went AWOL after serving for 8 months in Iraq.

US deserters flee to Canada
Hundreds of US soldiers have deserted and gone across the border to Canada in order to avoid serving in Iraq.

You have two choices, either get back on that plane for Iraq or go to jail," Josh Key says he was informed by the military. "I won't spend one day in jail unless George W. Bush is with me."

Josh spent the next 14 months on the run with his wife and children here in the US, then they fled to Canada. Josh has now applied for asylum as he does not want to be imprisoned for refusing to fight.

Fair Wisconsin...

On November 7, 2006 Wisconsin citizens will vote on a proposed constitutional ammendment to ban civil unions and marriage for same-sex couples. Check out the blog talk that says this is truly a non-partisan issue at: noontheamendment.blogspot.com


Fair Wisconsin has a collection of "A Fair Wisconsin Votes No" downloadable pdfs to use in printing your own window signs and pins.

Whirlwind hero of cut 'n paste turns in his scissors

More Neochunks hitting the pavement as the castle continues to crumble, right before our eyes... If you haven't noticed, take a closer look at the Charlie Sheen firestom on CNN - 83% of voters in this ongoing poll agree with Charlie that the U.S. government covered up the real events of the 9/11 attacks... that's 32,817 YES votes so far.

And those Hispanic right-wing voters, they just filed out en masse. And that new right-wing blogger over on WaPo, he just resigned...

In the past 24 hours, we learned of allegations that Ben Domenech plagiarized material that appeared under his byline in various publications prior to washingtonpost.com contracting with him to write a blog that launched Tuesday.

An investigation into these allegations was ongoing, and in the interim, Domenech has resigned, effective immediately.

When we hired Domenech, we were not aware of any allegations that he had plagiarized any of his past writings. In any cases where allegations such as these are made, we will continue to investigate those charges thoroughly in order to maintain our journalistic integrity.

Plagiarism is perhaps the most serious offense that a writer can commit or be accused of. Washingtonpost.com will do everything in its power to verify that its news and opinion content is sourced completely and accurately at all times.

We appreciate the speed and thoroughness with which our readers and media outlets surfaced these allegations. Despite the turn this has taken, we believe this event, among other things, testifies to the positive and powerful role that the Internet can play in the the practice of journalism.

We also remain committed to representing a broad spectrum of ideas and ideologies in our Opinions area.

Jim Brady

Executive Editor, washingtonpost.com

Mmmmmm Tasty!

Worth reprinting...

While the Washington Post newsroom staff is being cut by 10 percent Washingtonpost.com is technically a separate operation from the print edition. "The dot com is widely viewed as the area of future growth, while the paper is struggling to keep making a profit in the face of declining circulation and growing competition for advertisers," says Post reporter Tom Edsall.

As evidenced by the popularity of "TV's bastard child," Reality TV, we are apparently thirsty for a clearer vision of reality, driven to news blogs and talk radio where anyone can ask a question and feel like they are getting closer to an unedited candid response.

One Kos blogger writes, "The girls in my office used to hop on the computer and read celebrity news. Now they spend their time on CNN talking to me about the latest atrocity." Washington Post dot com realizes this...

Don't want to miss out on the latest buzz in politics? Start each day at wonk central: The Post Politics Hour. Join in each weekday morning at 11 a.m (Eastern Time). as a member of The Washington Post's team of White House and Congressional reporters answers questions about the latest in buzz in Washington and The Post's coverage of political news. The Politics Hour is hosted by the following:

John F. Harris, National Political Editor
Dan Balz, Chief Political Reporter
Tom Edsall, National Political Reporter
Dana Milbank, National Political Reporter/Washington Sketch Columnist
Jim VandeHei, White House Reporter
Peter Baker, White House Reporter
Michael Fletcher, White House Reporter
Charles Babington, Congressional Reporter
Shailagh Murray, Congressional Reporter
Chris Cillizza, washingtonpost.com Political Columnist/blogger

The Post's dot com just set off a firestorm by hiring Ben Domenech, one of the founders of RedState.org, a leading right-wing political weblog, to write the Post's "Red America" blog. Another Cowardly Lion, Domenech's blog doesn't allow comments to be posted, and opens with an attack on leading left-wing political blogs such as DailyKos.com. But, thanks to Ben's latest whining I just learned How to spot a baby conservative - Ken Kleiner's Toronto Star warning, "Remember the whiny, insecure kid in nursery school, the one who always thought everyone was out to get him, and was always running to the teacher with complaints?"

Some reporters at the Post say Domenech is there to balance out "the rabid" Dana Milbank... If you have strong views about Red America you can e-mail them to Jim Brady at executive.editor@washingtonpost.com.

Worth reprinting...
On Monday the Washington Post's Congressional reporter Shailagh Murray answered questions from readers during the Post Politics Hour. Selected questions from the chat and a link to the full transcript are included below:

Philadelphia, Pa,: The Philadelphia Inquirer provided a sensible discussion into the question of impeaching President Bush in yesterday's newspaper. It seems to me that outside the Beltway the issue of censoring and impeaching the President is being treated without national panic, but within the Beltway it is a radioactive subject that no one outside Conyers or Feingold will approach. My question: Is this something on which the public may be ahead of Congress?

Shailagh Murray: Thank you for this thoughtful question.

Remember a while back, when the public was starting to go negative on the war, but no one in Washington believed it, and it was considered radical to even suggest we'd ever leave the place?

I am reminded of that moment as I see all these folks squirm over the censure idea. Contrary to what you might expect of people who are willing to run for office, politicians are generally risk adverse, and don't like being first on anything controversial.

Charlottesville, Va.: Do you have any information on how much correspondence and telephone lobbying is going on from constituents to their Senators regarding the Feingold resolution? I support the resolution and called both of my senators (who are Republican, so just to let them know...), but am under the impression that there is a huge groundswell among Democrats for their party to stand in solidarity with Feingold on this issue. I'm aware of the polls, but believe that people who support Feingold are quite passionate. What is your impression?

Shailagh Murray: I will start by saying this: I wrote a story about Feingold last week that resulted in the angriest, most passionate e-mail blizzard I have ever experienced. Clearly, this is an issue where blurry polls mask deeply held convictions on both sides, but particularly on the Left, where folks truly believe Bush is a war criminal.

That's a minority view. However, as Feingold points out, and I think he may be on to something, there has been a complacency in Washington since Sept. 11 that has extended with the Iraq war. Congress barely scrutinizes anything these days. Lawmakers in both parties are wary of undermining Bush when there are troops on the ground.

Talking to folks on the Hill, it is clear that the Feingold effort has touched a nerve in both parties. With Republicans, it exposes their great political weakness -- that they don't challenge Bush on anything. And Democrats are being pressed by their own base to stand up against Bush on this issue, to show they have backbone, and on the principle that in this instance Bush may in fact have violated the law.

Mclean, Va.: Is Russ Feingold of Russellmania the only senator who actually takes a look at what is going on and then acts as their conscience dictates? Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Barack Obama--none of these guys will even said Boo, unless it is a politically calculated, cameras on, Boo! that might somehow serve to keep them in Congress. This is why people believe the Democrats are the party of no ideas. The Republicans may be the party of bad ideas, and it is time for someone to stand up. Like it or not, Feingold did. What do you say about the lack of concrete ideas coming from the Democratic leadership?

Shailagh Murray: To be fair to Democrats, neither party has an interesting and fresh slate of ideas. The difference is that Democrats have been scampering around trying to assemble one for months, all very publicly, in their usual navel-gazing, disorganized way. Feingold is taking a different angle -- that people aren't looking for brilliant ideas these days, but for backbone and leadership. He, and a lot of others in both parties, believe that's what voters will be looking for in November.

Barr Feingold

Every now and again I find myself surprised shocked to be nodding in agreement with Pat Buchanan. You've gotta love this gnarly guy who is unafraid to take on all comers from the left... or the right.

He fearlessly defends the American majority reaction to the Dubai ports debacle against fellow conservative critics with an attack: "What Barnes calls paleo-conservatism is the conservatism of the common man, rooted in tradition and wisdom born of experience. It is not the Big Government, open-borders, free-trade, interventionist, globaloney of the neo-cons and their Rebel in Chief."

"Conservatives don't trash their countrymen, even if they think they're wrong. It is slander to say opposition to the Dubai deal exposed some deep, dark strain in the American soul.

"The cakewalk crowd doesn't understand America because it doesn't live there. It lives in an ideological world of its own creation, which, as it denies aspects of reality, is forever colliding with reality.

"And more collisions are coming.

'Nuff said, but never did I think I'd be reaching a hand out to conservative former Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, who as Jesse Walker explains...

After entering the House of Representatives in 1995, Georgia Republican Bob Barr acquired a reputation as one of the most conservative members of Congress. It was Barr who in 1996 wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, which said states didn’t have to recognize gay marriages performed in other states; it was Barr who protested when he learned the military allowed soldiers to practice Wicca. A former federal prosecutor, a firm social conservative, and a strong supporter of the War on Drugs, Barr doesn’t fit most people’s image of a civil libertarian.

Barr started speaking out against domestic spying last year... “Here again, this is absolutely a bizarre conversation where you have a member of Congress saying that it’s okay for the president of the United States to ignore U.S. law, to ignore the Constitution, simply because we are in an undeclared war.”

Bob I know it's cold up nort hey... but there's this feisty Senator from Middleton that you seem to have a lot in common with. He calls himself a Progressive Patriot. And hey, this is the dairy state... We have more of the best organic whipped cream than any state in the Union.

Republican Splits
Bob Barr, Bane of the Right?

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post
Saturday, February 11, 2006

You could find just about everything at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this week: the bumper sticker that says "Happiness is Hillary's face on a milk carton," the "Straight Pride" T-shirt, a ride on an F-22 Raptor simulator at the Lockheed exhibit, and beans from the Contra Cafe coffee company (slogan: "Wake up with freedom fighters").

As of midday yesterday, a silent auction netted $300 for lunch with activist Grover Norquist, $275 for a meal with the Heritage Foundation president and $1,000 for a hunting trip with the American Conservative Union chairman. But lunch with former congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.), with an "estimated value" of $500, had a top bid of only $75 -- even with a signed copy of Barr's book, "The Meaning of Is," thrown in.

No surprise there. The former Clinton impeachment manager is the skunk at CPAC's party this year. He says President Bush is breaking the law by eavesdropping on U.S. citizens without warrants. And fellow conservatives, for the most part, don't want to hear it.

"You've heard of bear baiting? We're going to have, today, Barr baiting," R Emmet Tyrell, a conservative publisher, announced as he introduced a debate Thursday between Barr and Viet Dinh, one of the authors of the USA Patriot Act.

"Are we losing our lodestar, which is the Bill of Rights?" Barr beseeched the several hundred conservatives at the Omni Shoreham in Woodley Park . "Are we in danger of putting allegiance to party ahead of allegiance to principle?"

Barr answered in the affirmative. "Do we truly remain a society that believes that . . . every president must abide by the law of this country?" he posed. "I, as a conservative, say yes. I hope you as conservatives say yes."

But nobody said anything in the deathly quiet audience. Barr merited only polite applause when he finished, and one man, Richard Sorcinelli, booed him loudly. "I can't believe I'm in a conservative hall listening to him say [Bush] is off course trying to defend the United States ," Sorcinelli fumed.

Far more to this crowd's liking was Vice President Cheney, who stopped by CPAC late Thursday and suggested the surveillance program as a 2006 campaign issue. "With an important election coming up, people need to know just how we view the most critical questions of national security," he told the cheering crowd.

Dinh, now a Georgetown law professor, urged the CPAC faithful to carve out a Bush exception to their ideological principle of limited government. "The conservative movement has a healthy skepticism of governmental power, but at times, unfortunately, that healthy skepticism needs to yield," Dinh explained, invoking Osama bin Laden.

Dinh brought the crowd to a raucous ovation when he judged: "The threat to Americans' liberty today comes from al Qaeda and its associates and the people who would destroy America and her people, not the brave men and women who work to defend this country!"

It was the sort of tactic that has intimidated Democrats and the last few libertarian Republicans who question the program's legality. But Barr is not easily suppressed. During a 2002 Senate primary, he accidentally fired a pistol at a campaign event; at a charity event a decade earlier, he licked whipped cream from the chests of two women.

Barr wasn't going to get a lesson on patriotism from this young product of the Bush Justice Department. "That, folks, was a red herring," he announced. "This debate is very simple: It is a debate about whether or not we will remain a nation subject to and governed by the rule of law or the whim of men."

He invoked Goldwater and Reagan and even said he would support Bush's program if it had congressional support. But Barr was a prophet without honor in his own land. "Why does the FISA law trump the Constitution?" one woman demanded of him. "Why should a non-elected, non-briefed judge be able to veto our national security?"

Conservatives were sore that Barr put his disagreements with Bush in the pages of Time magazine. Another questioner scolded Barr for agreeing to introduce an Al Gore speech that was also sponsored by MoveOn.org. "I have nothing whatsoever to do with them," Barr pleaded.

Still, the old prosecutor managed to elicit a crucial concession from Dinh: that the administration's case for its program comes down to saying "Trust me."

"None of us can make a conclusive assessment as to the wisdom of that program and its legality," Dinh acknowledged, "without knowing the full operational details. I do trust the president when he asserts that he has reviewed it carefully and therefore is convinced that there is full legal authority."

The crowd was against him, but Barr, leaving the event, claimed the clear conscience of a conservative. "I just told them what they need to know," he said.

Barr elaborated on his conundrum. "It's difficult," he acknowledged. "It's not about sex, which was very easy to explain."

Love him or hate him, you have to give Barr high marks for consistency. "Whether it's a sitting president when I was an impeachment manager, or a Republican president who has taken liberties with adherence to the law, to me the standard is the same," he said.

And, besides, who cares about a little criticism?

"No more than normal," Barr reported.

Political researcher Zachary A. Goldfarb contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

Saddam's Secret Bunkers

I waited for months for the troops to uncork Saddam's secret bunkers. I remember the drawings that showed how this evil despot had created a whole city underground, safe against any form of attack... Too bad it was all BULLSHIT! Just like all of the other WMD, bio-terrorist, mushroom cloud crap that was peddaled from the White House.

Forcing myself to listen to FOX, I just learned about... secret bunkers just completed in Iran. It seems they were built at record-breaking speed, in a few weeks. Amazing! This is worse than Rocky II, III, IV. Will someone please turn off the river of crap that flows out of the Whitehouse?

Iran completed building of secrete bunkers near Tehran
12 Mar. 2006 14:08

Taking into account possibility of a war with the West, authorities of Iran have built a secret underground military headquarter centre near Tehran (APA).

According to the information of the Sunday Telegraph paper, the secret bunker was built in Abbasabad region of the capital and underground roads were constructed to main government buildings from the bunker. Representatives of the National Council of Resistance of Iran said that information about the secret bunker was obtained through sources in the government. According to the information of the sources, construction of underground bunkers aims to disable satellite tracking system to watch operation of some secret enterprises. Official Tehran has not expressed its attitude to this issue yet. The Minister of Interior of Iran Mustafa Pirmahammadi said that if the UN Security Council decides to apply sanctions on Iran, then Tehran will reduce volume of oil transported to the world market.


Now, guess who'e first to report this besides the FOX network...
London's Telegraph Group Limited: North Korea to help Iran dig secret missile bunkers
Followed closely by the Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Jerusalem Post, Israel
The Standard, Hong Kong

Calling Judy Miller... late breaking story alert!

If 6 Was 9

Hi Sam,
Thanks for that disturbing morsel (below). Here's my instant reaction...

Lately I have been suffering from a kind of mental phase-shift, unconsciously turning things inside out as I hear them, reversing the intended meaning to reflect the truth contained within a morsel of twisted news. Here's an example...

Nina Totenberg reports that (Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day) " O'Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents, or the Congress, or governors..." then I had to stop and reverse tracks - after I read the rest of the sentence, realizing the phase shift. "...the power to make presidents, or the Congress, or governors, as she put it, really, really angry."

Now I get it!

Courts have the power to make legislators angry...

Nonetheless, this power of the WhoDo (as described above) can, in this rare instance, simultaneously include both Al Gore and George Bush - no matter which way my mind spins it.

You've got the power!
What power?
The power of the hoodo.
Hoodo?
You do!
I do what?
You've got the power!

This all started back when the Ministry of Truth (MT) started churning out gems of framing-art like a bill that reduces controls on air polluters, and then gets labelled "The Clear Skies Initiative," or the bill that allows forests to be clear-cut that's entitled "The Healthy Forests Act."

When we invaded the wrong country (and became terrorists) in the War on Terror and the WMD excuse was eventually re-written by the MT (empty) to claim we are there to spread Democracy (Patriot Act) and to rid one nation of an evil dictator (which one? this one? that one?) who tortures, imprisons and kills his own citizens (in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo?)...

While Zogby polls show that 72% of the troops want the US out of Iraq in a year or less, shockingly, 85% of those questioned believe they are fighting in Iraq "to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks." Remember Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s Office of Strategic Influence?

In the immortal words of Condi Jimi Hendrix, "Excuse me, while I kiss this guy."
Deborah Schoeneman reports that it happens to the best of us... "At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, “As I was telling my husb—” and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, “As I was telling President Bush.” Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating."

Yin/yangly yours,
Steve

On 3/12/06, samclem wrote:O'Connor Decries Republican Attacks on Courts
March 10, 2006 from Morning Edition NPR

STEVE INSKEEP, host: Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private, but Sandra Day O'Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenged the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans.

O'Connor's speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast, but NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.

NINA TOTENBERG reporting:

In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O'Connor said that attacks on the Judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our Constitutional freedom. O'Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents, or the Congress, or governors, as she put it, really, really angry.

But, she continued, if we don't make them mad some of the time, we probably aren't doing our jobs as judges. And our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won't be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation's founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent Judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government, those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O'Connor, as the founding fathers knew, statutes and constitutions don't protect judicial independence, people do.

And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn't name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year, when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortion, prayer and the Terry Schiavo case. This, said O'Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress' one-time-only statute about Schiavo as it was written, not, said O'Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written.

The response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O'Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts. It gets worse, she said, noting that death threats against judges are increasing. It doesn't help, she says, when a high-profile senator suggests there may be a connection between violence against judges and decisions that the senator disagrees with. She didn't name him, but it was Texas Senator John Cornyn who made that statement after a Georgia judge was murdered in the courtroom and the family of a federal judge in Illinois murdered in the judge's home.

O'Connor observed that there have been a lot of suggestions lately for so-called judicial reforms, recommendations for the massive impeachment of judges, stripping the courts of jurisdiction and cutting judicial budgets to punish offending judges. Any of these might be debatable, she says, as long as they are not retaliation for decisions that political leaders disagree with. I, said O'Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning.

Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former Communist countries, where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O'Connor said we must be ever vigilant against those who would strong-arm the Judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

Better late than never...

Let it be noted that on March 9, 2006 U.S. Senator Herb Kohl finally spoke out against the war on Iraq... as Secretary Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee, on which Kohl serves, seeking $65 billion in emergency funds for the Iraq War.

I look forward to Herb's response to the House discussion of what is currently known as the Common Sense Budget Act that would direct $60 billion in military savings toward humanitarian assistance and food aid ($13 billion), modernizing public schools ($10 billion), providing health insurance to uninsured children ($10 billion), energy conservation ($10 billion), training unemployed workers ($5 billion), homeland security ($5 billion), deficit reduction ($5 billion) and medical research ($2 billion).

Speaking on Thursday in the committee hearing Kohl made the following critical comments to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

"You will tell me, as you have been telling the American people, that the situation in Iraq is not that dire. But Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, and speaking for a majority of the American people, that is hard to swallow," says Sen. Herb Kohl. "From the beginning, the Administration's Iraq strategy has been an amalgamation of misdirection and missteps. The intelligence about weapons of mass destruction that justified our invasion was wrong. You went into the war with no plan beyond the initial few weeks of military action. The estimates of the number of troops needed to accomplish the mission were too low. And now we are in Iraq with public support waning, American casualties mounting, and no apparent timetable or plan for turning Iraq back to the Iraqis and bringing our troops home."

Congratulations Herb! Please tell Hillary, Dianne, Henry and Joe that it's finally safe to add their voices to...

The Conservative Epiphany
By PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times
March 10, 2006

Bruce Bartlett, the author of "Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy," is an angry man. At a recent book forum at the Cato Institute, he declared that the Bush administration is "unconscionable," "irresponsible," "vindictive" and "inept."

It's no wonder, then, that one commentator wrote of Mr. Bartlett that "if he were a cartoon character, he would probably look like Donald Duck during one of his famous tirades, with steam pouring out of his ears."

Oh, wait. That's not what somebody wrote about Mr. Bartlett. It's what Mr. Bartlett wrote about me in September 2003, when I was saying pretty much what he's saying now.

Human nature being what it is, I don't expect Mr. Bartlett to acknowledge his about-face. Nor do I expect any expressions of remorse from Andrew Sullivan, the conservative Time.com blogger who also spoke at the Cato forum. Mr. Sullivan used to specialize in denouncing the patriotism and character of anyone who dared to criticize President Bush, whom he lionized. Now he himself has become a critic, not just of Mr. Bush's policies, but of his personal qualities, too.

Never mind; better late than never. We should welcome the recent epiphanies by conservative commentators who have finally realized that the Bush administration isn't trustworthy. But we should guard against a conventional wisdom that seems to be taking hold in some quarters, which says there's something praiseworthy about having initially been taken in by Mr. Bush's deceptions, even though the administration's mendacity was obvious from the beginning.

According to this view, if you're a former Bush supporter who now says, as Mr. Bartlett did at the Cato event, that "the administration lies about budget numbers," you're a brave truth-teller. But if you've been saying that since the early days of the Bush administration, you were unpleasantly shrill.

Similarly, if you're a former worshipful admirer of George W. Bush who now says, as Mr. Sullivan did at Cato, that "the people in this administration have no principles," you're taking a courageous stand. If you said the same thing back when Mr. Bush had an 80 percent approval rating, you were blinded by Bush-hatred.

And if you're a former hawk who now concedes that the administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq, you're to be applauded for your open-mindedness. But if you warned three years ago that the administration was hyping the case for war, you were a conspiracy theorist.

The truth is that everything the new wave of Bush critics has to say was obvious long ago to any commentator who was willing to look at the facts.

Mr. Bartlett's book is mainly a critique of the Bush administration's fiscal policy. Well, the administration's pattern of fiscal dishonesty and irresponsibility was clear right from the start to anyone who understands budget arithmetic. The chicanery that took place during the selling of the 2001 tax cut — obviously fraudulent budget projections, transparently deceptive advertising about who would benefit and the use of blatant accounting gimmicks to conceal the plan's true cost — was as bad as anything that followed.

The false selling of the Iraq war was almost as easy to spot. All the supposed evidence for an Iraqi nuclear program was discredited before the war — and it was the threat of nukes, not lesser W.M.D., that stampeded Congress into authorizing Mr. Bush to go to war. The administration's nonsensical but insistent rhetorical linkage of Iraq and 9/11 was also a dead giveaway that we were being railroaded into an unnecessary war.

The point is that pundits who failed to notice the administration's mendacity a long time ago either weren't doing their homework, or deliberately turned a blind eye to the evidence.

But as I said, better late than never. Born-again Bush-bashers like Mr. Bartlett and Mr. Sullivan, however churlish, are intellectually and morally superior to the Bushist dead-enders who still insist that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, and will soon be claiming that we lost the war in Iraq because the liberal media stabbed the troops in the back. And reporters understandably consider it newsworthy that some conservative voices are now echoing longstanding liberal critiques of the Bush administration.

It's still fair, however, to ask people like Mr. Bartlett the obvious question: What took you so long?

WI + Death Penalty = Iran + Gay Men

I found the following story while searching WI + death penalty. It serves as another example of the conflicted conservative agenda - pro-life and pro-death penalty; attack Iran while you support their attack on gays...

Rothman Insists Secretary of State Explain Anti-Gay UN Vote
Congressional Desk
February 8, 2006

Expresses Anger, Disappointment at U.S. Alignment with Iran against Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered (LGBT) Human Rights Groups.

(Washington, DC) - Today, Congressman Steve Rothman (D-NJ) led a group of U.S. Representatives in denouncing the United States' recent vote of support for a hateful, Iran-sponsored, anti-gay resolution at the United Nations (UN). In an open letter to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Rothman and 44 other lawmakers insist that she clarify the U.S. position and publicly repudiate the vote.

"It is clear to us that the United States' human rights diplomacy must encompass the protection of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. We therefore request a detailed explanation of the Administration's rationale behind the decision to drastically depart from its own past support of advocacy work on behalf of the LGBT communities within the United Nations," Rothman and his colleagues wrote to Secretary Rice. "It is imperative that the United States reaffirms its international human rights commitments regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation."

The Iran-backed decree that gained U.S. support this year sought to punish several organizations that support human rights for LGBT people by blocking their application for "consultative status with the UN," a special status that allows them to participate in UN decisions. This year's vote was a dramatic reversal from 2002, when the U.S. instead voted to allow applications from some of the very same human rights organizations to move forward.

"It is deplorable that the United States would suddenly align itself with countries such as Iran, which the State Department acknowledges will severely punish same-sex conduct and has even imposed the death penalty on gay men simply because of their sexual orientation," said Rothman.

In voting for Iran's resolution, the U.S. also aligned itself with Cameroon, China, Cuba, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Senegal, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe has publicly blamed homosexuals for 'Africa's ills.' All of these countries have deplorable human rights records.

"As a person of faith, I feel moved to stand up for the human rights of all people around the world, including people of all sexual orientations and gender identities. I hope that Secretary Rice shares that value and will respond to our letter immediately to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to human rights," said Rothman.

U.S. Representatives Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Eliot Engel (D-NY), and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) joined Rothman in leading this effort and sending the Congressional group letter to Secretary Rice.

On March 7, 2006 the Wisconsin State Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 5, which calls for an advisory referendum on the question of enacting the death penalty in this state as the legislature may prescribe by law for cases involving, "a person who is convicted of multiple of first-degree intentional homicides if the homicides are vicious and the convictions are supported by DNA evidence." Next, it must come before the Assembly.

Please explain...
When is a homicide (a killing of one human being by another) not vicious?

AYES − 19 - PRO-DEATH penalty

BRESKE
BROWN
COWLES
DARLING
ELLIS
FITZGERALD
GROTHMAN
HARSDORF
KANAVAS
KEDZIE
LASEE
LAZICH
LEIBHAM
OLSEN
REYNOLDS
ROESSLER
SCHULTZ
STEPP
ZIEN

NAYS − 13 - PRO-LIFE imprisonment

CARPENTER
COGGS
DECKER
ERPENBACH
HANSEN
JAUCH
LASSA
MILLER
PLALE
RISSER
ROBSON
TAYLOR
WIRCH

NOT VOTING − 1

KAPANKE

If Senate Joint Resolution 5 is considered at all in the Assembly, it will be at the yet-to-be-set April session, during which TABOR and a few select other items will also be up for debate. There is time, therefore, to contact your representative to the Assembly to ask that this NOT be considered, and if considered, that it be defeated. Check the History of Senate Joint Resolution 5 from time to time, to see if anything has developed!

Learn more about the "Pro-life movement" at... The Wisconsin Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP).