For your Thanksgiving holiday enjoyment

More from Andrea Sachs in the Washington Post.

Hat-tip to Dankhank and FoM.

Say hello

to Adagio Deone Soleil.

So that it be made known

Barbara Lee will be my representative in the new congress. I may not always agree with her, and I will not withhold my own counsel. She may make mistakes, and so will I. If you have an argument against her, you may always bring it to my attention, and I will do my best to respond, being responsible for my delegation. If she disappoints me, I would withdraw my support, but I do not expect to be disappointed.

Barbara is the only member of congress to vote against the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) which was the first Enabling Act which this administration obtained from both houses of congress in the wake of September 11, 2001. She also voted against the “USA PATRIOT” act, which was neither an American nor patriotic bill, being a blueprint for a new police state, and of course the odious Torture Bill.

What is the fruit of racism?

Trent Lott is your new “minority whip.” The irony of that statement rests in the truth behind the label. Trent Lott is a racist who wants a return to segregation. I say this without reservation or doubt.

Now some people think there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a lot of people who will say things behind closed doors they’d never say publicly.

Again, it’s not extraordinary that people have private ways of speaking, but we should try to understand what one another means if we can, in the interest of having better dialogue instead of violence. But you have to judge the tree by its fruit, the words cannot contain the wisdom.

Jerome Doolittle has some reminders of what Trent Lott represents.

Update: Jerome’s link apparently moved: Lest we forget.

Asking questions is good

How could it be offensive to question the whitewashed stories of what happened on September 11, 2001? What did the administration know and when did it know it? Who benefitted? Do you trust the administration to tell the truth? What happened to tower seven which was hit by no plane?

Maybe you don’t concern yourself with those kinds of questions, and what would we do if the answers weren’t what we thought anyhow?

Kind of like electoral fraud, better out of mind until the next election?

There are no stupid questions, because asking questions is the foundation of all intelligence.

Keith Oppenheim has more.

Related posts:

• The standard of proof
• 9/11 truth and cannabis

Haven’t we already seen this film?

Oh, this one is a sequel.

Hat-tip to watertiger, at her new digs.

Update: And she has more at Firedoglake now.

Conscription is enslavement

Alon Levy has some thoughts on Charlie Rangel’s proposal to reinstate the draft. I’ll cut to the chase,

Rangel thinks he can draft an anti-war movement. He won’t; all he’ll do is draft a war machine for the United States and depress turnout in a strongly anti-war constituency.

Even if fear-based appeals worked, they would only attract the fearful to vote, and those will sell your liberty for a song. On second thought, it works well for Republicans.

Related post:

• Peace now.

Update:

Scott Horton has more.

Self-creation cosmology

So this intriguingly named theory is proposed as a replacement for General Relativity. It provides for the observed expansion of the universe without recourse to “unverified process[es] of Inflation, unknown dark energy, or exotic non-baryonic dark matter.” It makes falsifiable predictions so it can be confirmed as far as current science permits.

Meta-blog update: This is post #600. There have been 667 comments to date.

Alternative lifestyles

Hat-tip to watertiger.

Press release from Christopher Dodd

As posted on his web site. Hat-tip to krems.

November 16, 2006

Washington- Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), an outspoken opponent of the Military Commission Act of 2006, today introduced legislation which would amend existing law in order to have an effective process for bringing terrorists to justice. This is currently not the case under the Military Commission Act, which will be the subject of endless legal challenges. As important, the bill would also seek to ensure that U.S. servicemen and women are afforded the maximum protection of a strong international legal framework guaranteed by respect for such provisions as the Geneva Conventions and other international standards, and to restore America’s moral authority as the leader in the world in advancing the rule of law.

“I take a backseat to no one when it comes to protecting this country from terrorists,” Sen. Dodd said. “But there is a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. It’s clear the people who perpetrated these horrendous crimes against our country and our people have no moral compass and deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But in taking away their legal rights, the rights first codified in our country’s Constitution, we’re taking away our own moral compass, as well.”

The Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act:

• Restores Habeas Corpus protections to detainees
• Narrows the definition of unlawful enemy combatant to individuals who directly participate in hostilities against the United States who are not lawful combatants
• Bars information gained through coercion from being introduced as evidence in trials
• Empowers military judges to exclude hearsay evidence they deem to be unreliable
• Authorizes the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces to review decisions by the Military commissions
• Limits the authority of the President to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions and makes that authority subject to congressional and judicial oversight
• Provides for expedited judicial review of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to determine the constitutionally of its provisions

“We in Congress have our own obligation, to work in a bipartisan way to repair the damage that has been done, to protect our international reputation, to preserve our domestic traditions, and to provide a successful mechanism to improve and enhance the tools required by the global war on terror,” Dodd said.

IOKIYAR?

Do you protest the treatment of political prisoners in communist regimes like Vietnam?

How does your treatment of political prisoners in America compare?

This is a sad day for you.

Please read Glenn Greenwald.

Who crowns him with flowers?

Peace now.

You cannot win militarily. Even Henry Kissinger says so (via Juan Cole). He’s not someone who would shy away from horrific measures. Sorry, that game is over and you lost.

Your secretary of state now, Condoleezza Rice, is telling Iraqis to be more like Vietnam. Telling them, in effect, to increase their resistance and drive the occupying army off. That occupying army, for the most part, is American. Your sons and daughters and brothers and sisters. This is a meat grinder.

Charlie Rangel over on the Democratic side is talking about reinstating a draft. So if you think your kids are safe, nope.

Your president George Bush (whichever one you mean, now that the elder has resumed much of his supervision of the younger), knows he cannot win, and wants to preserve as much of his own skin as he can now.