'Til the End of Days

George Bush envisions an armed forces presence in Iraq similar to Korea. 

So blogs Josh Marshall in Talking Points Memo.  Like Korea?  We're still there!  Marshall notes that this is not about establishing democracy.  It's about controlling oil, notes one of his readers.

If this is true, It's about money.  It's about strengthening his, his families, and his oil network's financial position long after Bush leaves the White House. 

NASA just released a report warning that global warming will reach a tipping point in 10 years.  It's too late, the report claims, to do anything about it now.  So Oilman Bush might as well milk the oil economy for all it's worth and make a few bucks before life as our kids know it exists no more.  What a legacy to leave....

No Drinking Liberally Monday Night

Due to the Memorial Day Holiday, no Drinking Liberally meeting will be held Monday night, May 28th.

Join us at our next regularly scheduled meeting on June 11th.

The entire government has failed us on Iraq - Countdown with Keith Olbermann - MSNBC.com

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more
clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the
strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will
of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the
Democrats have managed only this:

• The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst
  president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily
  blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as
  hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops
  their money”;
• The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
• The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the
  only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks
  for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about
  benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
• The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the
  Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the
  trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our
  brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

Keith Olbermann has once again hit the nail on the head. We've actually been betrayed by our Congressional delegation. They say that they have to compromise and let the Bush and company destroy themselves, thereby assuring that 2008 will be a Democratic Election Year.

At what cost? How many more of the men and women in our military -- and their wives and husbands, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, will be sacrificed for a political end?

We can't wait any more. We need to bring our soldiers home from Iraq. It must stop. Now.

John Edwards: Right (or should I say Left) on the Issues. It's time to pay the piper

John Edwards for President-A Strong Military for a New Century

Moving Beyond the "War on Terror"

“The core of this presidency has been a political doctrine that George Bush calls the ‘Global War on Terror.’ He has used this doctrine like a sledgehammer to justify the worst abuses and biggest mistakes of his administration, from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, to the war in Iraq. The worst thing about the Global War on Terror approach is that it has backfired—our military has been strained to the breaking point and the threat from terrorism has grown.”

“We need a post-Bush, post-9/11, post-Iraq American military that is mission-focused on protecting Americans from 21st century threats, not misused for discredited ideological pursuits. We need to recognize that we have far more powerful weapons available to us than just bombs, and we need to bring them to bear. We need to reengage the world with the full weight of our moral leadership.”

“What we need is not more slogans but a comprehensive strategy to deal with the complex challenge of both delivering justice and being just. Not hard power. Not soft power. Smart power.”

It's time. I've been waiting for a candidate to break out. John Edwards is more right than anyone else on the issues. He actually is willing to put it out there and tell us where he stands, where the other candidates are not. Congressional Democrats are selling out and giving Bush a blank check on the war. Edwards is calling them out. And he is challenging you, me, and our neighbors to up the level on the Iraq war. This memorial day.

Lives are at stake.

It's time. I'm sending $$ to the Edwards Campaign this week.

George Monbiot: "If We Don’t Deal with Climate Change We Condemn Hundreds of Millions of People to Death"

Amy Goodman over at Democracy Now has a transcript of a great interview with George Monbiot, author of Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning

Global warming is being pushed as a major issue for next month's gathering of world leaders at the G8 summit in Germany. The Washington Post reported this week the Bush administration is trying to weaken the proposed climate change declaration. U.S. negotiators want to delete a pledge to limit the global temperature rise and cut emissions of greenhouse gas to half 1990 levels. The administration also wants to strike language that designates the U.N. as the appropriate forum for negotiating action on climate change.

Our next guest has done a detailed study into what it would practically take to heed the warnings on climate change and reduce our emissions of greenhouse gas. George Monbiot is a widely read columnist for the Guardian of London and a leading British campaigner for the environment. His latest book is called “Heat: How to Stop the Planet from Burning.”

In the interview, and, I assume, his book, he talks about the need for the World's technologically advanced nations to "lead the way" for real actions that will result in a 60% reduction in green house gasses by 2030. 2030, he says, is the tipping point in which there is no reverse if fail. The countries who need to lead the way need to reduce their own GHG emissions by 90%, something that can be done.

Monbiot describes the lack of political will, especially in the United State at the Federal Level, as the one thing that is keeping the world from achieving this goal.

One action that he says is critical that particularly disturbs me, however, that he says needs to happen is a significant reduction in air travel. Let's face it, we live globally. We are all connected. In order for us to understand each other, we have to be with one another. It is only when we understand one another will society begin to move away from violence towards one another.

This reminds me that one of the paramount rules of the world is that whatever action we take will cause a reaction (positive, neutral, or negative) to occur as well, and it is something that we need to take great care to avoid creating even greater problems.

Fiction begets reality.....(NY Times: Subscription Required)

Gonzales Pressed Ailing Ashcroft on Spy Plan, Aide Says - New York Times

WASHINGTON, May 15 — On the night of March 10, 2004, a high-ranking Justice Department official rushed to a Washington hospital to prevent two White House aides from taking advantage of the critically ill Attorney General, John Ashcroft, the official testified today. One of those aides was Alberto R. Gonzales, who was then White House counsel and eventually succeeded Mr. Ashcroft as Attorney General. “I was very upset,” said James B. Comey, who was deputy Attorney General at the time, in his testimony today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “I was angry. I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me.” The hospital visit by Mr. Gonzales and Andrew H. Card Jr., who was then White House chief of staff, has been disclosed before, but never in such dramatic, personal detail. Mr. Comey’s account offered a rare and titillating glimpse of a Washington power struggle, complete with a late-night showdown in the White House after a dramatic encounter in a darkened hospital room — in short, elements of a potboiler paperback novel.

Egos, power struggles...these boys need to grow up...forget it, that will never happen!

Drinking Liberally Tomorrow Night, May 14th

Join us Monday Night, the 14th of May, at 7pm for another DL get-together, Oly style!  Come with your best bushie-related joke or story.  Be prepared to laugh, vent, console, and just have a good time!

$456 Billion Buys what?

What does $456 billion buy? - Boston.com

Including the $124.2 billion bill, the total cost of the Iraq war may reach $456 billion in September, according to the National Priorities Project, an organization that tracks public spending.

This link presents a slideshow on what $456 billion would buy for other things than killing and maiming. Can you think of others? I bet you can....

Bushies Behaving Badly: Slate Magazine

An illustrated guide to Republican scandals. - By Holly Allen, Christopher Beam, and Torie Bosch - Slate Magazine

Having a hard time keeping track of all 10,000 GOP scandals? Between fired U.S. attorneys, deleted RNC e-mails, sexually harassed pages, outed CIA agents, and tortured Iraqi prisoners—not to mention the warrantless wiretapping, plum defense contracts, and golf junkets to Scotland—you could be forgiven for losing track of which congressman or Bush administration flunky did which shady thing. Renzi—now, was that the guy with the skeezy land deal? Or the woman Paul Wolfowitz promoted?