Empire is in the last throes. Dick Cheney taught us just because something is in the 'last throes' doesn't mean something dies right away. Empire won't morph into Democritown anytime soon. But there is no doubt the future is arriving quickly and the hoped-for happy-ever-after of humanity has nothing to do with trade, commerce, business, markets or money. It all comes down to you.
I don't have any special source within inner Republican Party circles. Nor do I have any particular new insight into the dynamics of how the GOP works out their policy. What I do have is the statement of the Republican minority opinion on the Senate Armed Services Committee's "supposedly bipartisan" report, Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody. In the minority's mix of apologia and attack, we see the outlines of the GOP game-plan for any investigations into Bush crimes under an Obama administration and a Democratic-majority Congress.
The minority statement is endorsed by only about half of the Republican Senators on the Armed Services committee: Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, James Inhofe, R-OK, Jeff Sessions, R-AL, John Cornyn, R-TX, John Thune, R-SD, and Mel Martinez, R-FL. As you read what follows, consider that all of the above voted for the unanimously released report. According to a Washington Post article at the time, the SASC report was originally "sent to the Pentagon with no dissenting views."
From the Washington Post comes news of Obama's idea of economic stimulus. "Obama officials are advocating that Congress direct about $300 billion of the stimulus package, or about 40 percent, toward tax breaks."
Meanwhile, the CS Monitor reports Obama is likely to retool Bush's faith-based initiative. "Tackling the church-state issue head on, the Obama transition team has engaged a large advisory committee - involving people with differing perspectives on the most contentious issues - to help it design a government-neighborhood partnership." That darn Constitution.
Another sign of no progress from Iraq. A Female suicide bomber kills 38 in Baghdad reports the LA Times. During a Shiite pilgrimage, a woman "detonated her explosives at a crowded checkpoint, killing as many as 38 people and wounding 72". And as always: "it was one of the capital's worst attacks in months". It always is one of the worst.
What would the waning days of the Bush administration be without last minute regulation changes to destroy the environment? The Washington Post reports the Policy will allow paving roads on U.S. Forest Service land. The change will "make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions."
We cannot and we must not use torture under any circumstances. We are better than that.
w00t!
We'll see what the blog vetting process comes up with, but with that stated position, and a knowledge of the intelligence community from his time as Chief of Staff....well we SURE could have done worse!
In a rare confluence of honesty...or perhaps just a freak accident, two members of the Bush Administration told the truth on the same day.
Perino's truth is more 'newsy,' so let's start there. Hold onto your hats for this revelation!!!
White House Press Secretary Dana Perino issued a terse response to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) suggestion that President Bush is the "worst president we've ever had."
"The Senate Majority Leader isn't really taken seriously," Perino said.
What what what??? Fighting Harry Reid not taken seriously by Republicans??? Somebody call Claude Rains.
And the man who takes him least seriously I'm sure, yes ...this man...
Also told the truth. His truth is less newsy because it is the same truth he has been telling for a while now, (though his keepers still plan to have his wiring checked as a precaution) the basic truth that we are trying to address with the Citizens Petition: Special Prosecutor for Bush War Crimes: If the President does it....and is not impeached....it is legal.
Asked by Schieffer if he believed that anything the president does in time of war is legal, Cheney said there is "historic precedent of taking action that you wouldn't take in peacetime."
Cheney referenced Abraham Lincoln as an example of another president who "suspended the writ of habeus corpus" during a war, prompting this exchange:
###
SCHIEFFER: But nobody thinks that was legal.
CHENEY: Well, no. It certainly was in the sense he wasn't impeached. And it was a wartime measure that he took that I think history says today, yeah, that was probably a good thing to do.
In other words, unless someone actually says "Hey! That's illegal!" The President can do whatever he wants. The good old Emperor Has No Clothes theory of law. If a President tortures in a forest....
Today, the news reports that Israel has moved beyond its land/air/sea bombardment of Gaza, which has killed hundreds, including many civilian men, women and children. Tanks, motorized forces and troops have virtually cut the territory in half. While four Israelis have died from Hamas rocket attacks since the invasion began, BBC reports:
According to Hamas officials and witnesses, the main fighting is now centred on four areas: east of the Jabaliya refugee camp; in the Zeitoun neighbourhood to the east of Gaza City; on the coastal road close to the site of the former Jewish settlement of Netzarim, south of Gaza City; and in an uninhabited area in the centre of Gaza.
Hamas said its fighters were in some cases engaged in "face-to-face battles" with Israeli soldiers.
Earlier, the Israeli military said the militants were not engaging its troops in close combat but using mortars and improvised bombs.
The Palestinian health ministry says more than 500 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have now been killed since the Israelis began their assault on Gaza eight days ago. A further 2,500 have been wounded.
Look, I've been as patient as the next guy when it comes to enduring the continual vile spew of this useless back-and-forth "debate" over who started what and who's at fault and all the other bullshit associated with an illegal and immoral invasion. The facts are clear, and anyone who doesn't know the history really needs to shut the fuck up and inform themselves before subjecting the rest of us to their thinly-veiled, slavish boosterism, no matter who they side with-the fascist oppressors and the maniacally dangerous rebels have both committed heinous sins. This is not a time to fall back on ignorance and favoritism, and clinging to well-worn shibboleths will only get your ass rocket-bombed in the end, dude. Fuck that. I won't waste my love on a nation, and I suggest you pay attention, lest you continue to foolishly do so.
So, George H. W. thinks Jeb Should Be President.
Enough I Say.
One Is All The World Can Take.
Israeli troops and Hamas fighters clash in Gaza City Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
guardian.co.uk, Monday 5 January 2009 07.20 GMT Israeli soldiers and Hamas militants fought gun battles in the streets of Gaza City for the first time this morning,with Israeli troops going house to house searching for Hamas fighters.
The fighting came as Israeli tanks and troops seized control of large parts of the Gaza Strip, dividing the territory and forcing tens of thousands of people to flee their homes as the death toll mounted under relentless artillery and gunfire.
Some of the heaviest fighting was reported to be east of Gaza City, in the Zeitoun district, where three Palestinian children were killed by an Israeli tank shell. Several others were wounded, according to Palestinian medical officials.
In Eastern Europe, Lives Languish in Mental Facilities MEMO FROM PRAVDA By MATTHEW BRUNWASSER
Published: January 4, 2009 PRAVDA, Bulgaria - The name of this isolated spot in the lush Danube plains means justice or, in Russian, truth.
But little of either seems to have penetrated the home for men with mental disabilities and illnesses here, a bleak establishment reached most easily by a bone-jarring, six-hour ride from Sofia, the capital.
In the Communist era, this is where authorities hid the mentally ill from public view. Today, the Pravda Social Care Home for Men with Mental Disorders, a small complex of scrappy, two-story buildings, is still a favored destination for city folk to send away relatives with a mental illness or disability - and not worry about hearing from them again, employees and residents here say.
USA
Senate Appointee in Illinois Vows to Fight On By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA and MONICA DAVEY
Published: January 4, 2009 CHICAGO - In a raucous sendoff at a church on this city's South Side, Roland W. Burris, the contested appointee for the Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, vowing on Sunday night to cordially but aggressively fight efforts to block him from joining the chamber when he arrives in Washington this week.
Senate leaders have said they intend to prevent the seating of Mr. Burris, given his appointment last week by this state's embattled governor, Rod R. Blagojevich. Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said on Sunday that the Senate had the legal right to bar Mr. Burris from the new session, which begins Tuesday.
As Senate leaders continued to weigh their options over what they say is an appointment tainted by Mr. Blagojevich, a two-term Democrat who was charged last month in part with trying to sell the Senate seat, Mr. Burris's allies here stood firmly behind him.
Focusing
on the point
where the pain
seemed to reside
I aimed my thoughts
to move that point
through my body
to a locus
an inch or two
off the tip
of my nose
where it would hurt
no longer
Wouldn't it be grand
if our collective
consciousness
could cause
a similar effect
on the blights
humans have inflicted
on this planet?
Once upon a time, in a land far away, I participated in a writer's workshop at a Women's Project Retreat. A large part of my reason for being there was the attempt to become an accepted member of the Arkansas women's community. Many of the attendees wished I were not there.
We were given the first phrase of the beginning of a story and asked to finish that beginning. You are invited to do the same.
The first story:
We called you in here because...
The second story:
The sound of rain of the roof...
The following are my efforts, the first one in prose, while the second one became a poem.
And there is a story that goes with them, a story which has never actually appeared in anything but a comment before. I'm appending it to the end to make it easier to find in the future.
{Editors note: Having found a proper alliteration, I will now be pub'ing this series at DD as well as dkos. Including ponies fro anyone who answers the questions. Rejoice!?!}
Docudharma is a small community of very smart (albeit funny looking) people. We may not have all the answers, but we certainly are witty and crafty enough to reply in an amusing fashion! So if you have a question, whether snarky, simple, political or philosophical, be it meta, meaty, maddening or impossible to answer,....what the hell? Post it here and see what happens! You have nothing to lose but your underwear! Heck, there is a chance it might even get answered, possibly even correctly!
As Jerome a Paris has noted, among others, Paulson and others of his ilk have started blaming the Chinese and Germans for our economic woes:
The US Treasury Secretary said that in the years leading up to the crisis, super-abundant savings from fast-growing emerging nations such as China and oil exporters - at a time of low inflation and booming trade and capital flows - put downward pressure on yields and risk spreads everywhere.
This, he said, laid the seeds of a global credit bubble that extended far beyond the US sub-prime mortgage market and has now burst with devastating consequences worldwide.
What a sorry load of ... well, let me go for a better analogy than that ... and then dig more deeply into the whys and wherefores of its load of ...
BAGHDAD - A woman hiding among Iranian pilgrims with a bomb strapped under her black robe killed more than three dozen people on Sunday outside a Baghdad mosque during ceremonies commemorating the death of one of Shiite Islam's most revered saints.
The suicide attack, the most recent in a series that has killed more than 60 people in less that a week, was the latest to mar the transfer of many security responsibilities from the U.S. military to Iraqi forces.
Iraqi security forces have deployed thousands of troops in Baghdad and in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, just south of the capital, to safeguard against attacks during the ceremonies. Attacks by al-Qaida in Iraq, Sunni insurgents and even a Shiite cult have killed hundreds of people in recent years.
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Once upon a time, in a land far away, I participated in a writer's workshop at a 
As 
