The battle is truly engaged

DSM is finally making waves in MSM.
This is significant considering that main stream media is really the most responsible party for getting us into this mess. From the New York Times' Judith Miller to the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, the run up to the war was glorified with abject abandon as they rushed to accept the administration's reason to rush to war. Such shame has never befallen the proud history of American media.

That being said, today was somewhat of a landmark. Consider this great diary on kos that describes the day's events. Downing Street Press Reaction

Two important events II

John Conyers held a hearing today that publicly revealed the lies of the President in his run up for the war, and the right wing distortion machine went ballistic on Senator Durbin's remarks from yesterday that compared this administration's use of torture to the use of torture by governments we all abhor. So we as a nation are portrayed to the rest of the world as pro torture while the right revel in their history of lynching. We the people are not that nation. Sadly, we as a nation are those people.

Here they are

Here are the 20 Senators who 1) refused to co-sponsor the anti-lynching resolution passed yesterday, and 2) refused a roll-call vote so they'd have to put their name on the resolution.

Lamar Alexander (R-TN)
Robert Bennett (R-UT)
Christopher Bond (R-MO)
Jim Bunning (R-KY)
Conrad Burns (R-MT)
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA)
Thad Cochran (R-MS)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
John Cornyn (R-TX)
Michael Crapo (R-ID)
Michael Enzi (R-WY)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA)
Judd Gregg (R-NH)
Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Trent Lott (R-MS)
Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)
Richard Shelby (R-AL)
John Sununu (R-NH)
Craig Thomas (R-WY)
George Voinovich (R-OH)

19 Republicans and 1 Democrat, a real wall of shame.

Thanks to kos

Two important events

No two events in recent memory strike me as this, well, striking. Representative John Conyers is holding Congressional hearings this coming Thursday on the Downing Street Memo and just tonight it has been discovered that the Senate finally got around to making lynching a federal crime.

Then the REAL SICKNESS IS REVEALED. Some 20 Republican Senators wouldn't agree to sponsor the bill.

We don't know who they are yet but stay tuned. DailyKos has it covered.

Special BuzzFlash

The GOP Right Wing Junta in Congress Regularly Denies Minority Party Rights. Last Year They Violated Rules to Defeat a Bernie Sanders' Amendment to the Patriot Act and Illegally Extended the Voting Time to Twist Arms. Bill Thomas Wouldn't Allow Dems in a Bill Session. The Franco Party is Already in Power, As GOP Judiciary Chairman Shuts Down a Meeting Because It Was Revealing the Truth About the Busheviks. Joe Stalin is Smiling in Admiration. 6/11

The Key to Impeachment

Norman Solomon
June 01, 2005

Norman Solomon's new book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, comes off the press in June. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com
If you think President Bush should be impeached, it's time to get serious.

We're facing huge obstacles—and they have nothing to do with legal standards for impeachment. This is all about media and politics.

Five months into 2005, the movement to impeach Bush is very small. And three enormous factors weigh against it: 1) Republicans control Congress. 2) Most congressional Democrats are routinely gutless. 3) Big media outlets shun the idea that the president might really be a war criminal.

For now, we can't end the GOP's majority. But we could proceed to light a fire under congressional Democrats. And during the next several weeks, it's possible to have major impacts on news media by launching a massive educational and "agitational" campaign—spotlighting the newly leaked Downing Street Memo and explaining why its significance must be pursued as a grave constitutional issue.

The leak of the memo weeks ago, providing minutes from a high-level meeting that Prime Minister Tony Blair held with aides in July 2002, may be the strongest evidence yet that Bush is guilty of an impeachable offense. As Rep. John Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in late May:

"First, the memo appears to directly contradict the administration's assertions to Congress and the American people that it would exhaust all options before going to war. According to the minutes, in July 2002, the administration had already decided to go to war against Iraq."
"Second, a debate has raged in the United States over the last year and one half about whether the obviously flawed intelligence that falsely stated that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was a mere 'failure' or the result of intentional manipulation to reach foreordained conclusions supporting the case for war. The memo appears to close the case on that issue stating that in the United States the intelligence and facts were being 'fixed' around the decision to go to war."


Tom Paine
After Downing Street