Feingold on blogging...

"We must let this town square, which has added a significant dimension to our political process, continue to flourish," says Sen. Russ Feingold in his first ever, extensive blog post.

Bird Lovers plead: Kill the Cats...

John S. Coleman. wildlife ecologist with the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and Stanley A. Temple, Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say, "Our research in Wisconsin suggests that free-ranging rural cats may be killing up to 219 million birds in the state. Many are native songbirds whose populations are already stressed by a host of factors including development, habitat destruction and pesticide pollution. Many of these birds are ground-nesting grassland birds, like meadowlarks and sparrows, or birds that often feed on the ground, like robins."

Each year the Wisconsin DNR meets with the public for the Annual Conservation Congress where a series of Executive Council Advisory Questions are put forth for review. Every county in the state holds a meeting on April 11, 2005 at 7 PM. Participants at the spring hearings will be asked the following...

Question 62 - Feral Cats
Studies have been done in Wisconsin concerning effects of free roaming feral domestic cats. These studies showed free roaming feral domestic cats killed millions of small mammals, song and game birds. Estimates range from a minimum of 47 million up to 139 million songbirds are killed each year. Free roaming feral domestic cats are not a native species in Wisconsin. The above mentioned cats do however kill native species therefore reducing native species.

At present free roaming feral domestic cats are not defined as a protected or unprotected species. Thus Wisconsin should move to define free roaming feral domestic cats, as any domestic type cat which is not under the owner's direct control, or whose owner has not placed a collar on such cat showing it to be their property. All such defined free roaming feral domestic cats shall be listed as an unprotected species. In so doing Wisconsin would be defining and listing free roaming feral domestic cats.

62. Do you favor the DNR take steps to define free roaming feral domestic cats by the previously mentioned definition and list free roaming domestic feral cats as an unprotected species?

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Cat Action Team has sprung forth with a Don’t Shoot The Cat Campaign. Thanks to these cat lovers I get a rare chance to feel what it must be like to be a truly conservative Republican... and recommend that kat killers shop for something more effective than a .22 'cause cats are hard to kill.


Cat-hunt plan has promoter in cross hairs
Friends of felines are outraged at notion of killing feral animals

DemsTV.com debut

Each Tuesday, beginning today, DemsTV.com, "will feature 20 minutes or so of talking-head chatter from a rotating cast of young Democratic operatives," says Brian Faler in the Washington Post. However, the traffic must be taking a toll on the server(s) because I have yet to see it pop on-line. Go there now it is a stitch! Fresh, fun and a treat!

Portrait of a Textile Worker

In 1990 Milwaukee artist Terese Agnew began making art quilts in addition to sculpture. Her quilts are intricately detailed and intensely embroidered using a process that she describes as “drawing with thread.”

Two years ago she began to create a portrait entirely out of clothing labels, based on a photograph by Charles Kernaghan that depicts a textile worker. When completed it will be approximately 8 feet high and 9 feet wide. The National Labor Committee and the Coalition to Abolish Sweatshops will be given posters and prints of the quilt to help with their work to improve sweatshop conditions.

Terese says, "I need thousands more labels to complete the image. That’s where you come in. If you send me labels cut from your clothes, I’ll include them in the quilt and your name in the list of contributors. You will be helping the effort to give a face and a name to the all-too-frequently anonymous textile worker."

Mail labels to:
Terese Agnew
P.O. Box 11093
Shorewood, WI 53211


Portrait of a Textile Worker

Spank the little millionaire...

For decades Chapter 7 bankruptcy relief has provided family and societal stability by offering individuals who can't pay their debts an opportunity to give up nonessential assets in exchange for a fresh start. But, credit card companies, who should be far more responsible about how they hawk those lending cards, have been pressing to undermine it.

"After nearly eight years of trying, proponents of legislation to make it harder to erase consumer debts believe it finally will pass Congress," says Washington Post Reporter Marcy Gordon.

The Credit Card Company Empowerment Bill (search "bankruptcy abuse" or S.256) approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 12-5 vote on Feb. 17, "...will come out more on the side of the creditors in terms of harassing these extraordinary individuals rather than recognizing that these are hard working people," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass. "I'm going to do everything I can to make sure that (it) is not passed in the United States Senate the way that it is."

Please explain why three of the committee's eight Democrats: Sens. Joseph Biden of Delaware, Dianne Feinstein of California and our own Herb Kohl of Wisconsin - voted to further empower the Republican majority, voting with them to approve this bill!

Kennedy was speaking after a discussion in Boston on veterans who are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan saying he is concerned about soldiers in the National Guard and Reserves whose businesses fail after they are called up to serve.

LA Times reporter Peter G. Gosselin says, "A stream of court cases involving credit card companies has produced public outrage in various parts of the country. In Cleveland, a municipal court judge tossed out a case that Discover Bank brought against one of its cardholders after examining the woman's credit card bill. According to court papers, Ruth M. Owens, a 53-year-old disabled woman, paid the company $3,492 over six years on a $1,963 debt only to find that late fees and finance charges had more than doubled the size of her remaining balance to $5,564."

When the firm took her to court to collect, she wrote the judge a note saying, "I would like to inform you that I have no money to make payments. I am on Social Security Disability. If my situation was different I would pay. I just don't have it. I'm sorry."

Judge Robert Triozzi ruled that Owens didn't have to pay, saying she had "clearly been the victim of [Discover's] unreasonable, unconscionable and unjust business practices."

Meanwhile... "Consumer bankruptcy filings during January fell to their lowest level in four years, reflecting a 13% decline in year-ago levels," say reporters at CardWeb.com. "Over the past year, bankruptcy is tracking nearly 4% below 2003 levels, ironically at a time when bankruptcy reforms may finally pass Congress."

Why not in Wisconsin...

"Vermont has a rich history of using town meetings as a venue to make its people's views known to the nation. In 1974, five towns voted to urge congressional leaders to seek the impeachment of President Nixon. Recent years have seen efforts to stamp out nuclear weapons, abortion restrictions, and the USA Patriot Act," says Sarah Schweitzer.

Ben Scotch, of Montpelier, VT was among a handful of Vermonters who mounted a statewide effort to obtain the signatures necessary to place a resolution on Vermont's annual town meeting ballots that calls upon President Bush to withdraw troops from Iraq and urges the state's elected leaders to reconsider the use of Vermont's National Guard in the war. They succeeded in 52 towns. Yesterday's vote saw 49 towns endorse that resolution.

Sara B. Miller, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor reports In Vermont, a Town-Meeting revolt over Iraq war.

The Vermont Network on Iraq War Resolutions Web site was originally designed to provide all of the documents and information needed to bring a resolution on the war in Iraq to Vermont towns or cities - but everything is still relevant to mobilizing similar campaigns in all 50 states.

United for Peace and Justice agrees that states should refuse to fund that portion of their National Guard that is deployed to fight the war in Iraq, when they should be at home protecting the Nation. They plan to campaign on a state-by-state local level organizing to oppose the deployment of the National Guard to Iraq.

Cities for Peace began a nationwide pre-Iraq War movement that enlisted scores of municipalities in over 30 states to pass resolutions to oppose a preemptive/unilateral War in Iraq. Now they are working to encouraging towns, cities, and county councils and related groups to pass a new resolution to Bring the Troops Home by demanding that the U.S. end the occupation of Iraq and internationalize the peace process. "As States and municipalities face the worst fiscal crisis in over half a century, citizens and local elected officials are deeply skeptical of an emerging "perpetual-war economy" and its devastating effects on state and local budgets, on America's role in the international community and on a sustainable future for our children."

They encourage and seek to empower, "Cities and towns (to) call for a reordering of national priorities such that diplomacy and international law will sustain peace and foster prosperity in the world, in our nation and in our struggling states and localities."

Municipalities that have passed resolutions and examples of those resolutions can be found at www.citiesforpeace.org.

Ward Churchill in context...

When taken out of context, Ward Churchil's comments regarding the victims-as-perpetrators on 9/11 seem to be flagrantly harsh. When those comments are placed back within the document from which they were extracted it's another story indeed. Read "Some People Push Back" On the Justice of Roosting Chickens by Ward Churchill if you want to be fully informed.

Churchill opens with, "When queried by reporters concerning his views on the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, Malcolm X famously – and quite charitably, all things considered – replied that it was merely a case of "chickens coming home to roost."

"On the morning of September 11, 2001, a few more chickens – along with some half-million dead Iraqi children – came home to roost in a very big way at the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center. Well, actually, a few of them seem to have nestled in at the Pentagon as well."

FightingBob.com has also posted an article Ward Churchill and UW-Whitewater: free speech principles vs. politics, Oxen and bulls by Donald Downs, a professor of political science, law and journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and author of several books, including “Nazis in Skokie” and the recently released “Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus.”

CNN archival video clip - live from the Pentagon on 9/11

Here is a video clip from CNN coverage on the morning of 9/11. CNN reporter Jamie McIntyre says he inspected the Pentagon site and it is obvious no plane crashed there.

Transcript...
JAMIE MCINTYRE: "From my close-up inspection, there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon.

"The only site, is the actual side of the building that's crashed in. And as I said, the only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage, nothing like that anywhere around which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon and then caused the side to collapse.

"Even though if you look at the pictures of the Pentagon you see that the floors have all collapsed, that didn't happenm immediately. It wasn't until almost about 45 minutes later that the structure was weakened enough that all of the floors collapsed."

And while we're at it...
Pat Shannan reports in The American Free Press, "It has been nearly 10 years since Oklahoma City’s Murrah building was blown apart one quiet April morning. Contrary to news reports, the persons found guilty and sentenced for the Murrah bombing atrocity could not have been solely responsible."

In his repoert on the case of Sgt. Terry Yeakey, Shannan opens another can of worms that eventually connects the Oklahoma City bombing to the destruction of the Branch Davidian Sect at Waco, Texas - both of which occurred on April 19. The date of the bombing was no coincidence. Timothy McVeigh, who strongly believed the government wrongly raided the Davidian compound and covered up some of their actions, chose Waco's two-year anniversary to carry out a plan to detonate a truck bomb weighing 4,800 pounds directly outside the Alfred P. Murrah building shortly after the business day began.

But several individuals think there were actually as many as five bombs set off to destroy the remaining evidence on the Waco tragedy stored in The Murrah Buiuilding. GEOS records seem to confirm the above, providing explosion data collected by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) General Earthquake Observation System (GEOS) project in Menlo Park.

911 expose author to speak in Madison

"With the apparent election of George Bush as President, the likelihood that we will ever find the truth about 9/11 becomes even more remote," says Mark Dunlea in Will the Peace Movement Pursue the Truth About 9/11? "It is certainly not going to come from the federal government, where Bush, Congress, Republicans and Democrats, CIA, FBI and the foreign policy establishment all clearly share in some of the culpability for the deaths."

Author and theologian David Ray Griffin is not about to let any of them rest easy. He has just released his second book on the inconsistencies of the 9/11 event.

His first book, released in March 2004, The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, explores the failure to anticpate, much less respond in a timely manner to the 911 disaster... A Zogby International poll released in fall 2004 found that half of New York City residents - and more than 40% statewide - agree with Griffin that the Bush administration knew about the 9/11 terrorist threats beforehand but failed to take action to prevent it.

His latest release, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions sets out to prove in a meticulous fashion that the 567-page report, "simply cannot be trusted." He reveals details like the fact that fire has never before brought down a steel framed building. The melting point of steel is nowhere near the maximum heat of a hydro-carbon fire. The 47 massive steel columns that anchored the entire structure were ignored by the 911 Commission.

You can hear David Ray Griffin speak about his investigation of the investigators on April 18, 2005 at 8 PM in Madison at 2650 Humanities UWM.

"In this masterful sequel to The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin unveils a disparity between official 9/11 "spin" and independently researched 9/11 fact so glaring as to suggest the possibility of a constitutional crisis unlike anything our country has ever known. In this new study, as in its predecessor, he simply details the hard, cold evidence that seriously--and alarmingly--challenges the independence, impartiality, and thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission. For anyone serious about combatting terrorism, let alone upholding constitutional democracy, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, is a must read." --Burns H. Weston, Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, The University of Iowa

LATE DISCOVERY:
A Petition to the Senate to Investigate Oddities Involving 9/11 Terrorist Attacks has 26,890 signatures to date.

Mark Lombardi: Global Networks

Milwaukee Art Museum Exhibits Mark Lombardi's "Global Networks"
January 13-April 10

"Artist Connects the Power Brokers, the Money and the World"
"Delicate Spider Webs of Scandal" - NY Times

The Milwaukee Art Museum features the groundbreaking work of Brooklyn artist Mark Lombardi (1951-2000) January 13 - April 10, 2005. Mark Lombardi: Global Networks, the first retrospective of the artist's influential work, includes 24 of Lombardi's drawings-a new type of history painting. The retrospective, organized by Independent Curators International (ICI), presents Lombardi's visual narratives that map the way money flows in our trans-national economy. Because of its focus on often illegal and clandestine financial transactions, Lombardi's work attains almost prophetic significance in today's political and cultural climate. Examples of Lombardi's works include Oliver North, Lake Resources of Panama, and the Iran-Contra Operation, ca. 1984-86 and George W. Bush, Harken Energy, and Jackson Stephens, ca. 1979-90.

Artist Mark Lombardi's listing in the Bush Body Count:
He was an accomplished conceptual artist who, while chatting on the phone with a banker friend about the Bush savings and loan scandal, started doodling a diagram and was inspired to create a complex series of drawings and sketches that charted the details of the scandal. According to the New York Times, "He was soon charting the complex matrices of personal and professional relationships, conflict of interest, malfeasance and fraud uncovered by investigations into the major financial and political scandals of the day; to keep facts and sources straight, he created a handwritten database that now includes around 12,000 3-by-5-inch cards."

On the evening of March 22, 2000, Mark Lombardi was found hanging in his loft, an apparent suicide.

4,500 Roses...

Yesterday Sen. Barbara Boxer was showered with thousands of roses, thanking her for all of her recent actions from contesting the Ohio vote to her testimony regarding the inadequacies of Condoleeza, lies a, lies alot Rice.

Sen. Boxer says, "Thanks to your generosity, our wounded soldiers recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed Army Medical Center will also be able to enjoy your thoughtful gift -- we sent the roses there this afternoon."

Progressive Patriots

On Jan. 21, 2005 Sen. Russ Feingold filed a document with the Federal Election Commission establishing the Progressive Patriots PAC. The Progressive Patriot Fund, will finance his travel around the country as he gauges public interest in his possible candidacy for the Presidency. While there is a already a Draft Feingold movement with a Web site, a quick search for the term progressive patriots on Google reveals some other discoveries:

The Progressive Patriots Blog and the Greene Dragons, a group of patriotic revelers who invite you to join in the American Revel-ution, a fun and freewheeling independence movement from President-Select George II and his corporate monarchy.

"This day after the inauguration is another dark one for democracy, but I have three little words for progressive patriots: Impeach. Indict. Imprison." says Jerry Springer.

LaCrosse presses state to support renewable energy

Message 2/10/2005 from Guy Wolf:

On Tuesday Night, 25 student Progressives and myself traveled to La Crosse City Hall to pass a resolution supporting a WI State increase in renewable energies. The goal (supported by Xcel and by Dairyland Power) would increase the State of WI to 10% by 2010 - still behind MN's goal of 20%. The bill would also require a 20% requirement for all State buildings. The resolution passed 14-1! We become the 6th city in the State to do so! (Now on to the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors).

Our victories at the Preston Tire (burning) Plant, the La Crosse County Board of Supervisors vote to support the Preston Environmental Impact Statement, our vote Tuesday night, and the Douglas County Vote to stop the transmission line are all good reasons to attend this Sunday's, Feb 13 Noon - 3 PM potluck, music, and speakers at the Houston Community Center, 109 West Maple, Houston, MN (35 minutes east of La Crosse).

We will be carpooling from the Cartwright Circle at UWL at 11:20, so if anyone is interested in a ride, please let us know.

Guy Wolf

Free the Cuban Five...

Never heard of the Cuban Five? One of the five is imprisoned here in Oxford, Wisconsin and if it were not for the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five you might not have heard another thing about them. A documentary film from Cuba entitled "Mission Against Terror," will have its Midwest premiere in Milwaukee on February 8 and 9, featuring a special appearance by one of its directors, an Irish journalist who works in Cuba. Find out more at the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations with Cuba.

Honey, I feel a draft...

Letter to Congress on Increasing U.S. Ground Forces
January 28, 2005

Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi:

The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's (and tomorrow's) missions and challenges.

So we write to ask you and your colleagues in the legislative branch to take the steps necessary to increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps. ----------->Read the rest from the Project for the New American Centuury

William Rivers Pitt wrote the following, "A good portion of TruthOut readers are all too familiar with the Project for the New American Century. For those who have missed this important group and the story behind them, this essay will fill in the gaps.

"The strength and influence of this group, therefore, makes the letter they released on January 28 all the more disturbing."

Doris "Granny D" Haddock Hospitalized...

Doris "Granny D" Haddock, 95, is in a Lebanon, New Hampshire hospital. She has just undergone surgery to remove a tumor in her throat. The surgery is expected to debilitate her normal voice. Granny D says that despite the surgery she will find ways to continue to communicate her political message of reform and democracy. "Sometimes you speak loudest just by
standing there," remembering her several arrests in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda for standing up for the Bill of Rights and democratic reforms.

Send cards for the next few days to:

Doris Haddock,
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
1 Medical Center
Drive, Lebanon NH 03756

In the stretch... Howard Dean closing on Victory

"With Howard Dean as its next chair of the DNC, the party will have someone who not only understands change, but knows how to make it happen," says Donnie Fowler in withdrawing from the race.

That only leaves former Rep. Tim Roemer of Indiana, a centrist who has stated his personal opposition to a Woman's Right to Choose a safe and legal abortion.

"He gave the Democratic Party its swagger back," said Kathy Sullivan, chairwoman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, reminiscing about Dean's willingness to challenge President Bush. "He reminded them that they should not act like a beaten dog."

Nancy Pelosi, minority leader in the House, said, "I would think Gov. Dean would take his lead from us." She seemed to have forgotten that was what others had done in the past and that doing so led to total failure.

Let there be light...

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

Pulling the wool over your eyes...

Last night Bush stated, "we have... raised homeownership to the highest level in history," but, homeownership has gone up every year since they started measuring the statistic.

There are 300 million fewer jobs in America since Bush took office... despite the fact that last night he bragged, "in the last year alone, the United States has added 2.3 million new jobs."

"Cut the deficit in half by 2009..." except the budgets never contain any mention of funds for Iraq or Afghanistan.

And of course, 25% of the speech was devoted to trying to sell the concept of a Social Security Crisis. Visit ThinkProgress.org for a complete de-bunking of the entire speech in a blog that ran live while it was being deliverd last night. My favorite quote from the TP bloggers, "Conservatives have lost control of the Republican party. It’s being run by incompetent, corrupt children of privlege."

Yeeaarrgghh! Dean for DNC Chair

It looks like the Seabiscuit candidate is breaking into the lead as we round the final stretch to the Feb. 12 finish line. Yesterday, 53 new voting members of the DNC, including six entire state delegations, 12 state chairs, 12 vice-chairs - including Linda Honold, Chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Tim Sullivan 1st Vice Chair and Stan Gruszynski, Wisconsin DNC Committeeman all endorsed Governor Dean for Chair of the DNC.

Can Volvo Democrats expand their base to include the Big Three automakers?
"We believe that Howard Dean will be a dynamic, innovative and effective leader for the DNC," says United Auto Workers (UAW) President Ron Gettelfinger on behalf of the 18-member UAW board in announcing a unanimous vote to endorse Dean. "Gov. Dean has proven his ability to bring new people into the Democratic Party and energize grassroots political activists in all parts of America."

Speaking to a DNC forum in New York over the past weekend, Dean is getting blasted by conservatives for raging, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for, but I admire their discipline and their organization."

Many of us can hardly wait the ten remaining days until the DNC vote confirms the possibility that we might once again have a Party with a mission. End this war... and dump anyone in 2006 who thinks we have an Empire to build.

Last night when Bush said in his speech that Social Security would be bankrupt by 2042, Democrats finally stood up and shouted just like in the House of Commons - "No, no, no." When he said he would listen to anyone who has a good idea to offer, a half-dozen Democrats stood and shouted, "Yeah!"

Today as many as 40 Senate Democrats may vote against confirming Alberto Gonzales. Last week, the greatest opposition to a nominee for secretary of state in 180 years was recorded when 12 Democrats voted against Condoleezza Rice.

I too hate Republicans and everything they stand for, especially when they count the loss of human life as collateral damage.