The gang over at the Daily Kos have a fascinating idea:

[The RNC Convention] is having problems finding those 8,000 volunteers, perhaps not surprising in a primarily Democratic city. The plan, then, is simple. If you live in New York, sign up with the NYC Host Committee, attend training if need be, and just not show up to work at the Convention when they need you. Doing your bit by not doing your bit, so to speak.

We here at Bray New World would never endorse such an irresponsible act of… oh, who the hell are we kidding. New York City folks! Do it! Sign up! Sign up!

“I would not have voted for [President Bush's] tax cut, based on what I know. . . . There is no doubt that the people at the top who need a tax break the least will get the most benefit. . . . Too often presidents do things that don’t end up helping the people they should be helping, and their staffs won’t tell them their actions stink on ice.”

– Former senator Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), in a recent interview with Business North Carolina magazine.

I’m not sure who started this joke, but here’s a little e-mail forward that’s been making the rounds:

“The Republican National Committee (RNC) announced today that the
Republican Party is changing its emblem from an elephant to a condom. Ed Gilespie , RNC National Chairman, explained that the condom more clearly reflects the party’s stance today, because a condom accepts inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you’re actually getting screwed.”

Though I live in Boston, I’m willing to grant considerable credit to the Yankees fans now:

Cheney started watching the game from the private box of the Yankees’ principal owner, George Steinbrenner, switched to a seat beside the Yankees’ dugout for a few innings, then returned to Steinbrenner’s box…

During the singing of “God Bless America” in the seventh inning, an image of Cheney was shown on the scoreboard. It was greeted with booing, so the Yankees quickly removed the image.

I am left again to wonder why it is the fake news, like The Daily Show or The Onion, that are the only large media outlets saying things like this.

http://nypress.com/17/26/news&columns/MattTaibbi.cfm

I’m off on this tangent because I’m enraged by the numerous attempts at verbose, pseudoliterary, “nuanced” criticism of Moore this week by the learned priests of our business. (And no, I’m not overlooking this newspaper.) Michael Moore may be an ass, and impossible to like as a public figure, and a little loose with the facts, and greedy, and a shameless panderer. But he wouldn’t be necessary if even one percent of the rest of us had any balls at all.

If even one reporter had stood up during a pre-Iraq Bush press conference last year and shouted, “Bullshit!” it might have made a difference.

If even one network, instead of cheerily re-broadcasting Pentagon-generated aerial bomb footage, had risked its access to the government by saying to the Bush administration, “We’re not covering the war unless we can shoot anything we want, without restrictions,” that might have made a difference. It might have made this war look like what it is—pointless death and carnage that would have scared away every advertiser in the country—rather than a big fucking football game that you can sell Coke and Pepsi and Scott’s Fertilizer to.

And after too long, at last victory, at least in this:

Today the Supreme Court Ruled that the Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay do in fact have the right to challenge their detention in American Courts. At the same time, they also ruled that a US Citizen, declared an enemy combatant, cannot be held indefinitely without trial.

These are groundbreaking cases in the balance between civil liberties in a time of grave uncertainty, and a defeat for the Bush administration.

I must admit, given the court’s history, in for example Korematsu, in which the internment of the Japanesee-American citizens was found to be lawful, I was afraid the Court would once again fail to protect our civil liberties.
But it seems that today at least, the better angels of their judgment prevailed.

The Court went 6-3 on the Guantanamo Bay case, with Scalia writing the dissent joined by Rhenquist and Thomas (big surprise). The Hamdi case went 8-1, with Clarence Thomas as the sole dissenting opinion. Who knew he had it in him?

Nonetheless, these decisions are a real piece of welcome news, especially in a time when the news seems to hold nothing but dread. Today the court stopped this administration from “taking away, and driving a truck through the right of habeas corpus and the Fifth Ammendment”, as Frank Dunham so eloquently put it before the court.

“A state of war is not a blank check for the president when it comes to the rights of the nation’s citizens.” wrote Justice O’Connor.

Thank you Madam Justice.

Let Freedom Ring.

Leaders lead by example, and our #2 guy in Washington has shown us how we can best address our political opponents:

Sources who related the incident to CNN said the vice president had told Leahy either “f— off” or “go f— yourself”…

“Do you have any regrets?,” Neil Cavuto asked.

“No. I said it,” the vice president responded.

Hey, if that kind of language is good enough for the Senate floor, it’s good enough for us. So we’re declaring today to be Tell Dick Cheney to Fuck Off Day! Today, be sure to take the time to tell the Veep that what’s good enough for Sen. Leahy is good enough for him.

Here are some great ways to celebrate the day:

• Tell Dick to fuck off on your blog or home page, and post a link back to www.folded.com/bray so that others can learn about this important holiday.
• Email Dick at vice.president@whitehouse.gov (or use White House Web Mail) and let him know in person.
• Give the White House switchboard a call at 202-456-1111.
• Hire a skywriter to fly over the National Mall.

(Should something go horribly wrong in November, we’ll be having four more Tell Dick Cheney to Fuck Off Days in the future! But let’s hope that doesn’t have to happen.)

When we Americans first began, our biggest danger was clearly in view: we knew from the bitter experience with King George III that the most serious threat to democracy is usually the accumulation of too much power in the hands of an executive, whether he be a king or a president. Our ingrained American distrust of concentrated power has very little to do with the character or persona of the individual who wields that power. It is the power itself that must be constrained, checked, dispersed and carefully balanced, in order to ensure the survival of freedom…

…But if George Washington could see the current state of his generation’s handiwork and assess the quality of our generation’s stewardship at the beginning of this 21st century, what do you suppose he would think about the proposition that our current president claims the unilateral right to arrest and imprison American citizens indefinitely without giving them the right to see a lawyer or inform their families of their whereabouts, and without the necessity of even charging them with any crime. All that is necessary, according to our new president is that he — the president — label any citizen an “unlawful enemy combatant,” and that will be sufficient to justify taking away that citizen’s liberty — even for the rest of his life, if the president so chooses. And there is no appeal.

- Al Gore, in a speech to the American Constitution Society, 24 June 2004

The Washington Monthly’s editor-in-chief posts an interesting commentary about political polarization… specifically, which party has been tolerant of its centrists and which party has been fueling strife with its increasing radicalism. More specifically, Glastris addresses why there hasn’t been more attention paid to this:

…Mainstream reporters in Washington see moderation and bipartisanship as inherently virtuous. (Indeed, reverence for these qualities is essentially the defining belief of the Washington establishment.) Read almost any account of bills becoming law, and you’ll notice the reporter’s obvious affection for centrists who work both sides of the aisle. Yet they are unable to honestly explain to readers what’s causing the decline of bipartisanship, thanks to another form of press bias: The desire not to seem biased. As practiced by the modern press, “objective” journalism requires avoiding the appearance of favoring one party over the other–even when the facts merit such a treatment. That’s why, when news stories discuss polarization, they bend over backward to avoid laying the “blame” on the political right.

Yeah, okay, whoops, heh heh! When we said that incidents of terrorism had dropped last year, thanks to our “War on Terror”, what we actually meant was that they rose. And that the number of people wounded by terror doubled. And that “significant attacks” were at their highest in, um, 20 years.

Alas, Colin – when will you stop shilling for these fools?

Several months ago, when Howard Dean was ascendant in the polls, I made a prediction that Kerry would eventually secure the Democratic nomination. Trouble was that no one believed me because no one was actually listening to me. But now that I have a vast audience of 5 readers (hi Dad!), I have decided to risk my political credibility on the prediction for Kerry’s vice-presidential pick. If I’m right, know that it’s because I have my finger on the pulse on the inner workings of the Democratic Party. If I’m wrong, I’ll delete this entry from the archives.

My friends, the next vice-president of the United States will be Tom Vilsack. I don’t say this just because Robert Reich (who successfully predicted Bill Clinton and Al Gore as the next president and vice-president two years before their inauguration) mentioned it last night; I’ve had my eye on the governor of Iowa for a while now. What makes Vilsack stand out in the crowded field with such likely picks as John Edwards and Dick Gephardt? First of all, Kerry needs an executive, i.e. a governor, not another Washington insider like him. Not that anything is inherently wrong with Washington insiders, but the ticket needs balance. There’s a reason why Kennedy was the only Senator of the past 80 years to be elected President.

Secondly, we need the plains states and Vilsack could turn Iowa from a swing to a blue. He might even affect the surrounding states too. At best he’d bring more electoral votes than Gephardt and at worst he’d still probably be more influential than Edwards is in the south.

Finally, vice-presidential candidates have a habit of coming out of nowhere. Sure the insiders might have a clue, but unless if you’re from the state where the candidate comes from, most people’s reactions to a veep announcement are “Who?” So when you meet your personal bookie in the next couple of days, put your money on Vilsack. At 10 to 1 odds, you’ll thank me when he’s chosen.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus had some pretty direct advice for Ralph Nader.

Last night I went to a book signing for Reason by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (no, not Clinton’s immense tome). After missing the first 10 minutes (due to being the in the wrong place), I managed to sneak in for the rest of his excellent lecture. Certainly the most charismatic (and shortest) cabinet member I ever met, he filled the audience with incredible optimism.
(more…)

“Who’s on first?” “Ahmad Hikmat Shakir Azzawi.”

This little comedy routine might have been funny if it hadn’t resulted in, well, the death of thousands of people and America’s international standing.

They’ve got theirs, now we’ve got ours.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5227192/site/newsweek/

Billing themselves as Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, 27 retired senior government officials released a statement Wednesday morning claiming George W. Bush’s foreign policy has damaged the United States’s reputation abroad, making the country less safe and isolated from its natural allies. The U.S. invaded Iraq with dubious evidence of weapons of mass destruction and without a clear exit strategy, they claim, endangering the lives of U.S. soldiers and destabilizing the entire region. Their unusual stand includes an appeal to voters to remove the incumbent from the White House this fall.

Some of these are people who worked under W’s father, and lots of them go farther back than that. This is a major piece of criticism. Wow.

http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2213150,00.html

Colorado is gearing up to put a referendum on the ballot which would award its 9 electoral college votes not as a single block, but proportionally, according to how the popular vote goes. This seems like it should have been an obviously good idea years ago (like, say, maybe 228 years ago) but hey, positive change is positive change.

Experts on all sides agree that the Electoral College is one of the least understood institutions in American politics. State Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, a high school government teacher, said ninth-graders, like many adults, have trouble accepting an electoral process that picked Bush in 2000 despite the fact that Gore won more votes.

“People can’t understand why we have this kind of system that seems so outdated and hasn’t been reformed in 200 years,” said Tupa, who tried unsuccessfully in the 2001 legislature to change Colorado’s electoral system.

Apparently – and I’m astonished, myself – there was no link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. But that would mean that our whole justification for invading Iraq was just a big house of cards! And we’d be lacking any real casus belli! Why, it makes my head hurt.

Maybe that’s why a host of former diplomats and generals, many of them Republicans, are calling Bush’s foreign policy a “catastrophic disaster”, “blinded by ideology and a callous indifference to the realities of the world around it,” and calling for a major change.

They’re not the only ones unhappy with the Bush Doctrine; after all, John Kerry is breaking records with his fundraising. Make sure you’re part of that record!

Shocked, shocked I am to learn that Pentagon officials have confirmed that the White House had a hand in awarding a huge contract to Cheney’s former company, Halliburton. Shocked.