Thanksgiving

There are always so many things going wrong in the world that it's just depressing to think about it all. So I'm taking a moment to think about the good things.

U.S. voters decided they're tired of being conned and abused by the Bush administration & Congressional allies and voted the Repubs out of power. This is one of the things I'm most thankful for.

Against all of his usual bad-taste sense, Rupert Murdoch turned down the OJ interview; and the book died the death it deserved.

Plan B is finally going to be made available over the counter (albeit only to people 18 years and older).

There are still small victories across the US and the world that may not make the news, but help us all keep holding on during times when it seems that monied self-interest or self-righteous moralistic bellowing are all we hear.

Cling to the good times, the good people, and the good news in your lives and have a Happy Thanksgiving.

Is it Just Cold in Here? Or Do I Feel a Draft?

New York Dem Congressman Rangel wants to reinstate the military draft. Not the first time we've heard this, and even with newly found power in the House, Rangel's draft won't go far - for the same reason that it should. Yes, that it's should. There, I've said it. I've been anti-draft since my childhood during the Vietnam War.

Rangel's rational for the draft, and mine, is that if the Bush twins and Congressional kids had to face fighting in a military conflict, a lot of those old folks might think twice before sending our troops overseas on a presidential whim. After all, if this neocon-pushed mission was so critical to their vision of the world, surely those pushing for it should be asked to put their kids up on the firing line. But it's always been easier to sacrifice the sons and daughters of others.

Something to be Thankful For - An End to Hunger?

As we enter into Thanksgiving week, who wouldn't be thankful for an end to hunger. Well in the U.S., apparently the Bush administration has done it! (Let this be a lesson to all of you who only think this administration knows how to do is mire us in inescapable conflicts.)

Bush's Agriculture Dept. has ended hunger. Americans will never be hungry again (yes, do your best Scarlett O'Hara imitation here).

They are, unfortunately, still experiencing "very low food security."

Thank you Bush administration. For Christmas can you eliminate cancer? So folks from now on only be suffering from, oh, I don't know, let's call it "incomparable cell replication."

I'm sure you can do it if you try!

Good Move, Virginia - Keeping Marriage Safe for . . . What Again?

Great story in today's WaPost about a large wedding scam in Virginia. Yes, Virginia, the state that just recently voted to really, really, REALLY, make sure that gay couples can't be considered married in any way, shape, or form, is where immigrants go for scam marriages because "it's easy to get married in Virginia, because marriage laws are relatively lax."

Yes indeed campers, the state that fought so hard to deny marriage rights to gay couples is also the state that has such loose laws for heterosexual couples that immigrants along the East Coast rush to for an illegal marriage that will let them stay in the country.

Well done people of Virginia. Eyes on the prize, as always.

Ok, Yeah, Sure, it Could be Global Warming, But . . .

I'd like to think the great warm weather we've had here in DC for the past couple of days - 70 degrees in early November! -- has less to do with global warming and more to do with the sun shinning down on this city after the long, deep darkness of our collective soul under the reign of King George.

But now we have a new wind sweeping through the city, a wind so wonderful that it has swept out the prince of darkness himself, donald rumsfeld. I don't even mind that he'll go off to earn millions in speakers fees to those rich and deluded enough to still want to hear his ravings. I'm just so glad to have him gone.

The sun is shining and I have new hope for the world.

Don't Let the Door Hit You in The Back Rummy

Donald Rumsfeld is leaving his job. The only depressing piece of news in this is that he wasn't tossed out on his ears or placed under arrest for crimes against just about everything.

But I'll take a victory when I find one, and Rumsfeld getting the heck out of Dodge is a great one!

Hooray!

Hooray for the American electorate, who cast a strong vote for accountability, fairness, rationality, science and fact yesterday. The past few years have given me cause to wonder whether these things mattered any more. Now, it is clear that they matter a lot.

I am certainly not gloating about this moment, because the problems the country faces are so formidable. But part of me will be smiling when President Bush meets the people whom he has described as appeasers, defeatists, terrorist lovers, cut-and-runners and haters of freedom and America. How in the world will he be able to work with these "enemies of the people" who now control the agenda in Washington? How will he be able to face the American people, who put these terrible people in office despite his fervent pleas that they be defeated? That will be enormously interesting.

To paraphrase that old Cold Warrior-turned-peacemaker, it's morning in America today.

A view from without

An interesting, even inspiring meditation on tomorrow's elections, from French author/student of America Bernard-Henri Levy:

"We will know, now, very soon. The two victories of the “moral values” maniacs in 2000 and 2004 were never a movement but a battle of the rearguard. The sustained direction of the past 40 years of American history — toward the victories of civil rights, the democratisation of the South, the loosening of moral strictures — demonstrates that the Bush phenomenon is above all a last stand, the ultimate and terrible outburst of a beast that knows it is wounded and is gambling it all. The reasons to hope largely overtake the grounds for worry."

Having mailed my ballot--there certainly are less convenient ways to do your civic duty-- I'll be waiting and hoping tomorrow.

VOTE TUESDAY - THIS IS TOO IMPORTANT TO LET SLIDE

I know, it's been a rough year/month/week. You're beat up by work/school/life and the last thing you want to do is roll out of bed early or delay going home just to vote.

But you know what? If you don't find that strength, you're helping doom the nation to MORE insanity in Iraq and other areas overseas, MORE corporate welfare, MORE ethics violations, MORE government intrusion into your personal life, LESS accoutability, LESS programs and money for the people who need them, and above all, LESS respect from those in power now - who think they can walk all over you and you won't do anything about it.

Show them how wrong they are! VOTE!

Amen, Brother Bill!

I was just watching that master politician, President Bill Clinton, on the stump for Harold Ford in Tennessee on Wednesday. He had a couple of great quotes that sum up nicely some of the key things at stake on Tuesday.

He spoke about Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the ideologues surrounding him and their dismissive attitude about "lesser mortals" such as himself, General Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell, who all warned about the dangers of breaking a country like Iraq and trying to impose American-style democracy on it at gunpoint. These individuals, in the Rumsfeldian world view, were fatally constrained by their membership in the "reality-based" universe, whereas if you are a powerful empire you can impose your will and free yourself from the shackles of petty considerations of fact and reality. President Clinton looked at the audience and said, "I grew up in an alcoholic home. I spent most of my childhood trying to get into the reality-based community. I LIKE it here!" A vote for Democrats means a return to reality, to fact, to sober evaluation of current events based on history and precedent rather than ideology or flights of fancy or favors to influential friends. These people have had their chance to demonstrate how well ideology and fanaticism function as a governing principle. It's nearly driven us over a cliff, all of us. It's time for some reality and accountability.

Second, President Clinton said that when he left office, he resolved never to allow a mean or angry thought to color his remarks or view on the state of the world and the nation. He cited his friendship with both Bush 41 and 43, going out of his way to say that he thought the current President was a good man and that disagreeing with someone doesn't make that someone a bad person(or a pervert, or a traitor, or a defeatist, or an appeaser or a you- fill- in -the- blank here). He called on the audience to embrace the better angels of their nature and not answer the kind of ugliness we've seen in this campaign with more ugliness. He summoned everyone to a better, more effective and solution-oriented, and maybe even kinder and gentler politics. But we are not going to get this unless we vote in Democrats. Just this morning, Senator Elizabeth Dole declared the Democrats want the United States to lose in Iraq, which is tantamount to calling them traitors. We're going to get more of the same unless a different group of people get the green light to walk the halls of Congress.

I'm preaching to the choir here, just as President Clinton was at the Ford rally, but if there are any persuadables out there that you know in any state, get on the phone or computer and start badgering them to make sure to vote. A better world hangs in the balance.

Mark that snark!

You can't say that everyone has lost his perspective and/or sense of humor in this election. President Bush was in Colorado today, campaigning for Congresswoman Musgrave in a race that wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this close. The President lauded Musgrave for her support of traditional values, her refusal to acquiesce as "activist judges" attempted to redefine the institution of marriage, and blah, blah. The usual boilerplate.

The real action was outside, where opponent Angie Paccione's campaign was circling the area with a billboard that demanded, "Stop Gay Marriage Now, Before Osama Gets Away!"

Pretty clever...you go, Angie girl!

Say Again George Allen?

In the deluge of campaign ads that are flying through the DC area airwaves these days, George Allen's got quite a whopper going.

Looking directly into the camera, and with all apparent sincerity, Allen says that his opponent and his Washington supporters are distorting Allen's record in their ads. And that that sort of behavior is "not the way we do things in Virginia."

Guess Allen hasn't been watching his own ads, or those of his Republican supporters, which have been distorting the dickens out of Webb.

Allen has learned well from his leader King George. It doesn't matter if it's true, just keep saying it as though it was true and people just might believe you.

Unless, of course, they've been burned year after year by King George and have had all that blind trust kicked out of them.

Just coincidence, surely

I notice that Iraq is bracing for the verdict in the first of Saddam Hussein's various trials for crimes committed against the Iraqi people. All army officers' leave has been cancelled and the entire country is in state of high alert, anticipating outbreaks of protest and violence upon the reading of the verdict, which will certainly be guilty and carry with it a death sentence.

I'm just wondering, if this is the first of several trials, why we must hear this verdict at this time? Is it really necessary to stir up more trouble in Iraqi cities at a time when ethnic tensions and violence have reached historic highs? Why not read all the verdicts at once, when the trials are all concluded?

Could it be that the American authorities have imposed the reading of this verdict to coincide with the last days of the midterm elections, perhaps to be able to claim some small, peripheral credit? Is it really possible that they don't care what havoc will be visited upon the Iraqi people with this verdict, as long as they can crow about it for one news cycle?

Naah, forget it, i'm just SOOO cynical...just a coincidence, i'm sure.

More good news

This just in: tomorrow's Guardian reports that British citizens now regard President George W. Bush as a greater threat to the security of the world than Dear Leader II, Kim Jong-Il.

This kind of damage won't easily be undone, but we can get a start by sending the clearest possible message to the President on Tuesday and making sure that there's a Congress that will actually hold him to account, if not slap a straightjacket on him.

At Least Right Wing Psychos Are Consistent

News out of Colorado that a male hustler is revealing his "pay for play" relationship with Ted Haggard (an evangelical leader of one of those "mega churches"). Haggard's been a strong leader in the move to ban same-sex marriage in Colorado.

Haggard told the press that he has never had a homosexual relationship. The hustler claims to have voice mails & letters from Haggard.

It could be a con and snow job by the hustler. But why is it so easy to believe?

Because self-hating gay right wingers just keep on showing up.
Because hypocracy is the default position of so many on the right wing (who will fight for the rights of embryos but cut funding for children's programs) a group who loves their rhetoric but can't stand by the resulting realities.
Because right wingers getting caught in their lies and hypocracy just keeps happening month after month, year after year.

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