Herr-icane

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Hurricane Ike is blasting its way toward the Texas coast this morning, and we hope everybody gets their butts out of the way...get inland, take cover, think, and be safe.

There's another her-icane, name o'Sarah Palin, and she turned out to be a fizzle last night in her first interview with Charles Gibson on ABC.

Oh, the usual suspects are tryin' to put lipstick on the pig of an idea that she was picked on by the "arrogant schm*ck" as Imus called Gibson.

But c'mon, the woman was Clueless in Alaska...the coaching showed, she didn't "blink" and....

She didn't know what the fundamental foreign policy of this administration--the Bush Doctrine--even was. Much less that the Founding Fathers would reel in horror at America making pre-emptive strikes against other countries on the whim of a President.

Clearly Palin was coached. She knew how to pronounce Ahmedinejad and Shaakashvili. She was "on message" about blinking...or not. The message was meant to show her strength and her readiness on day one.

Trouble is, if you have to rely on coachers and trainers to prep you and pimp you, you ain't ready for the show.

And there's a helluva lot more to Russia than a nice view across the straits.

You gotta ask yourself, would you want this candidate teaching your child a junior high course in basic geography, or civics, or history? Much less a heartbeat away from the ol' man?

Is our kids learning? Is we?
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9/11

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Happy Birthday, son.
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A milepost to remember.
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And this signpost to more remembrance that haunts us still.
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In a comment appended to her posting at firedoglake, Christy said:

...what could have been and was wasted in terms of unity of purpose from so many disparate sources within this country and around the world.

What could have been. Never forget. Vote.
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War...what is it good for?

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Well, for McCain's daughter, war is a great talking point.

After all, her daddy was a Vietnam war hero and did you know he was a POW...oh, and did I mention that Sarah Palin's son is going to Iraq on September 11? Yep, yep, yep, no other family understands war like the McCain family. Period.

And then there's this video...words from the mouth of McCain. And a few others. You must watch. You must see.

And you must act: register now if your state requires it. And vote.

More of This?

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George Bush's "job resume" is making the rounds of the Internet, and in the interests of assuring this poor guy who likely is worrying deeply about where his next paycheck, his next meal, his next month's insurance premium for healthcare, his next gallon of gas for the gator, will come from, we share it here. Keep in mind that John McCain is promising four more years of the same:

Subject: This Guy Needs
a Job: Can You Help Him?


I will be available in January
2009, am willing to relocate.



RESUME

GEORGE W. BUSH
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C.

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:

I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the
influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine, and had my driver's
license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been 'lost' and
is not available.

Military:

I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL.  I refused to take a
drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas
Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:

I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was a cheerleader.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.  I began my career in the oil business in
Midland, Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil
in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land
using taxpayer money. With the help of my father and our friends in the oil
industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected governor of Texas.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:

I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making
Texas the most polluted state in the Union.  During my tenure, Houston
replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.

I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in
borrowed money.

I set the record for the most executions by any governor in American
history.

With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's
appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President of the United States,
after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I am the first President in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal
record.

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one
billion dollars per week.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history.

I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month
period.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S.
stock market. In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost
their jobs and that trend continues.

I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any
administration in U.S. history. My 'poorest millionaire,' Condoleezza Rice,
has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.

I am the all-time U.S and world record -holder for receiving the most
corporate campaign donations.

My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends,
Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S.
history, Enron.

My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure
my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.

I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation
or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica
Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest
corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in
U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry
was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history.

I changed the U.S. policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded
government contracts.

I appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any President
in U.S. history.

I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the
history of the United States Government.

I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. history.

I am the first President in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove
the U.S. from the Human Rights Commission.

I withdrew the U.S. from the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. 'prisoners of war' detainees
and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election
inspectors (during the 2002 US election).
I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President
since the advent of television.

I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period.
After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst
security failure in U.S. history.

I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center
attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in
the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.

I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously
protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for
protests against any person in the history of mankind.

I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, preemptive
attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against
the will of the United Nations, the  majority of U.S. Citizens and the world
community.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty
benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.

In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking
Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%)
view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

I am supporting development of a nuclear 'Tactical Bunker Buster,' a WMD.

I have so far failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to
justice.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's
library, sealed and unavailable for public view.

All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt
companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended
regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for
public review. I specified that my sealed documents will not be available
for 50 years.

PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERY VOTER YOU KNOW!
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h/t EagleMom

Vote with your Feet

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MSNBC reporting this morning that WalMart has injected its corporate self into the presidential campaign. Warning its employees not to support the Democratic candidate because that'll bring unionization.

Response expected from unions later today.

I expect the strongest response to come from Hillary Clinton, former board member of WalMart. Will she live up to my expectations?

The full force of corporatist politics are in play this campaign season, it will be an "epic battle" just trying to succeed on November 4, much less restore We, the People instead of We, the Corporations to governing policy.

But there's one easy choice I can make right now, even before election day...so can you.

Vote with your feet.

Good-bye to WalMart and Sam's Club. Good buys available somewhere else. I'm kinda partial to the same place Michelle Obama shops. Target. How 'bout you?
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Something's Gotta Give

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Michael Kinsley issues an invitation this morning on Huffington Post, with a link to his new website conversation about Creative Capitalism. Taking the structural selfishness of capitalism and turning it to a greater good.

Bill Gates is about to do that full time. With the same zeal he put into becoming arguably the world's most important capitalist ever, he's about to step full time from businessman to philanthropist.

We worry about the cost of gas at the pump and what's happened to the 401K with yesterday's 350 point drop in the market. Oil is up over $140 a barrel. We're killing people in Iraq for Bush and his cronies' oil profits. Sorry sorry times indeed.

We wring our hands. What can we do. Our leaders blow us off as advocates while they "lead."

We can vote. In November. But for now, let's get to work. Or for starters, get to know the problems, so we can be part of the solution.

Yesterday, while making my carefully charted out route of errands [no backtracking!], mindful of my carbon footprint, I heard a report on Minnesota Public Radio about the state of nonprofits in rural counties and communities.

It's not good.

The high price of oil, the rising prices of everything that oil goes into—transporting food, anyone?—are not only reducing grants and personal contributions to charities and nonprofits, they're cutting down volunteer hours. Volunteers can't afford to drive the long distances in rural areas. They're going back to work, or working longer hours, just to pay their own price at the pump.

Looks like a rainy weekend coming up in Prairie Country, I'll be learning more about this Creative Capitalism business, because it seems to me there's a whole new mindset in this that could affect not only philanthropy, but also the way we all live on this planet together.

Because plainly, something's gotta give...
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Fatcats or Families?

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The general election season ratchets up this week as Barack Obama begins a two-week tour in North Carolina, focused on the economy. And MSNBC's reporting that John McCain is focused on the economy, too--his own, as he intensifies his fundraising.

With gas prices already pickin' up speed past $4 a gallon, all Bush can talk is the BigOil party line: more oil, dig for more oil, Continental Shelf, what-me-worry?

Higher oil prices are driving up the cost of everything from baby's disposable diapers to the food on the table to the plastic we store it in.

And John McCain's answer is [paraphrased] my lobbyists tell me that it's good for America to keep sucking the money out of the pockets of ordinary Americans so we can subsidize the multimillionaires and their yachts and Hamptons hideaways.

On Election Day, ordinary Americans get the say, each and every one of us, with how we cast our votes. So what do you think? Who shall it be?

Fatcats? Or families?

Still They Gather

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We are watching penguins this morning. Black and white noisy penguins. On the Planet Earth channel on HDTV.

They're gathering at sunrise, contemplating the pounding surf off the barren point a world away at Punta Tombo, Argentina.

The rhythmic sound of the surf is backdrop to the squawks and bawling as guanacos drift in as well.

Occasionally the penguins engage in little bill wars, even drawing blood. Here and there, feathers litter the ground. But still they gather, in larger and larger numbers, preparing to face the dangers of the sea together.

Yep, there's a metaphor in that.

The Long War

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War Talk takes on many forms. "Shop, shop, shop..." Or, this morning on CNN, Admiral William C. Fallon telling Kyra Phillips his recent (forced? ya think?) retirement isn't the story, confidence in the chain of command is. Or last night, on The Daily Show, John Stewart grilling Scott McClellan about the intent to mislead as pretty much the prime directive of George Bush and his administration, and ultimately Bush's ability to deceive himself. Mary Cheney shootin' off 'er mouth to the rightwing AIPAC organization about confronting Iran....

Today, on the final primary day of the Democratic nominating process, the attention is understandably focused on whether Barack Obama will lock in the nomination tonight. Will the speech in Minneapolis be "the" speech that kicks off the general election campaign.

But we need to take a moment and consider again why these votes all matter so very much.

This morning, Marine sergeant John (D.J.) Guerrero is undergoing his second surgery on the amputation of his right foot at Fargo's VA hospital. It's been a long, often painful journey that this old soldier has made. First, from the barrio of Sacramento to service in the Marines. And then, when schrapnel shot up the left side of his body, embedded, and took part of his left hand, life brought him to Fargo, where he found a home.

And where he became a good neighbor to a whole community. Tirelessly volunteering for organizations like the NDSU Teammakers and the ND Special Olympics. Co-authoring a series of books with Father William C. Sherman on the various immigrant groups who settled our state. Looking forward to the next book in the works, from the diary of a long-ago immigrant across the plains.

Visiting John yesterday, we chuckled over old times--the peaceniks and the Marine sergeant--for our friendship goes back decades.

John calls himself a poster child for the consequences of Agent Orange, because it's been some 40 years that he has, with too many other servicemen and women like him, struggled for acountability for the damage that weapon of war inflicted upon him...40 years, while it silently ate away at his body.

John was recently at the reunion of A Company, First Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment in Albuquerque when he went to the local VA hospital because his foot was in pretty tough shape. We know about such matters, even if their origin was not war. Rather than staying in Albuquerque for the necessary surgery, he had them bind him up, and he drove the long drive back to Fargo. Back home.

So today, we see the great tapestry of life weave some interesting strands. Two men, old friends, commiserating on the long road of disability ahead. Two men, who when they were young, vagabonded from Fargo to San Diego on a long ago quest for adventure. Now, timeworn and life-tested. One a disabled American veteran. One, my own sunshine.

When a certain politician jokes about Iraq and says 100 years, why not... just remember, even if we're not there in combat, the consequences are indeed that long. It's been four decades, and the consequences of Viet Nam still live within us, all of us.

So send some good karma to prairie country for John Guerrero today. And for all the John Guerreros this current war is making.

Cross-posted today at NorthDecoder.

Teddy's Surgery

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While the rest of us are bustling about our busy lives today, Senator Ted Kennedy will be on a surgeon's table for some six hours responding to the surgeon's questions as he undergoes a process meant to remove the tumor from his brain.

The surgeons and oncologists at Duke University face a daunting task. And our hopes and good wishes and prayers go out to Senator Kennedy, his family, and his medical team.

There is nothing about cancer that is easy. It is a dragon that shadows your days and nights from the first diagnosis. It it the great equalizer, knowing no boundary between rich and poor, young and old, black and white. But the quality of care may not be so egalitarian.

Senator Kennedy will have the finest of care, Duke's reputation is outstanding. As Senator John Edwards has noted about his wife, Elizabeth, his family have the best of care for her, too, where she receives medical care.

The network anchors recently announced they will be hosting a telethon to raise funds for cancer causes.

While the Bush Administration has cut cancer research over the past seven years.

A statement from Senator Kennedy says he is looking forward to getting through his treatment process so he can get back to the Senate and to doing everything he can for the election of Barack Obama.

You can't separate who you vote for from the everyday realities of your life. Right now, some Clinton supporters threaten to vote for the Republican if she doesn't get the nomination. I ask you, how can you vote for the party that takes away medical research; fights and obstructs against stem-cell research; stonewalls scientific reports when it can't edit and distort them into fitting their selfish policies; tears down education advancements; pours trillions of dollars into a botched and corrupt war of choice in Iraq....

Anyone tells you it doesn't matter who gets elected is lying.

It is a matter of life and death.

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UPDATE: Senator Kennedy's surgery completed in 3-1/2 hours. The surgeon, called a thought leader in the field of surgery on malignant gliomas, said the procedure today was "successful and accomplished our goals."

First Responders

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The visuals show rubble and destruction. The voice-over interviews on-scene are still uncertain of details in these first hours after the crane collapse in New York City at 91^st Street and First Avenue.

But one thing is certain. The first responders are there. Emergency rescue, firefighters, police…the cogs in the mighty engine that is a civilization that works together for the common good of all.

We take them for granted most days. Maybe subconsciously aware if we live in large enough cities that the sirens are sounding in our heads like the undernote of a neverending symphony.

And yet, these are the folks who assure to our defense at home, just as their brethren go to foreign shores with the same noble purpose in their hearts.

Would that those who send them could say the same.

Homeland Security, overseen by a committee chairman, Joe Lieberman, who never oversees one of the most bloated political appointee-riddled BushCo welfare-filled monstrosities ever conceived. One. They have others.

But today is a day to pause and reflect on where we’d be without any of our first responders. If the small towns’ and big cities’ police and fire and rescue and responders had all been sucked into a phony war with its devastating consequences on lives, on limb, on our national honor…instead of the too-large percentages who’ve actually been taken via National Guard and Reserves. Too many to serve multiple tours and more than regular military. We cannot honor them enough for their sacrifice.

We’ve seen a Memorial Weekend pass. Juxtaposed with a president and would-be carrier forward of a third term wanna-be-president inveighing against Senator Webb’s 21^st Century G.I. Bill. And a “news” media that pushes Iraq further and further back into the shadows because to do otherwise means that they, too, must look in the mirror of accountability and acknowledge their culpability in furtherance of the corrupt Iraq War of Team BushCo.

We owe our first responders so much better.

So let us be first responders, too, bringing America up out of the rubble inflicted by the barbarian rule of the last nearly eight years. Let us restore the common good, the rule of law, the order of responsible regulation, the honor of a civilized government. Let us Get Out the Vote. And Vote…as if your nation depends on it, for it does.

The Company He Keeps

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Judge a man by the company he keeps.

By that marker, Hamilton Jordan lived a life of integrity, intelligence, wit, grace, and good company.

The chief of staff for Jimmy Carter, Jordan was the political strategist who built a Georgia peanut farmer's rise to the highest office in America. Jordan's life was cut too short yesterday when the cancer he endured for 22 years finally claimed him.

In the sturm und drang of political spinning and campaigning and shouting and punditizing, it's easy to get distracted from the basic truths about the people who lead us. Or mis-lead us.

The greatest honor and respect we can pay to the legacy of Hamilton Jordan is to choose wisely now and this fall. Based on information, not fearmongering. Who walks the walk, not just talks the talk.

Hamilton Jordan walked with a giant's step in politics and life, and we honor his legacy...in politics and in public service.

It Can't Happen Here....

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It can't happen here, in little ol' Fargo...until it does. How about your hometown?

After the debacle of Florida 2000 and the chicanery in Ohio in 2004, the issue of voting and voting rights has been a hot button for me. So I've read the reports of the Indiana picture I.D. and the Texas "voting fraud" and the proposed Missouri voting rights changes--all targeting likely Democratic constituencies--and been, well, too complacent about good ol' Fargo, North Dakota.

After all, our 80- and 90-year-old nuns don't have to worry about being denied the right to vote in North Dakota for want of a driver's license with picture i.d.

But it turns out, maybe they...and other elderly and disabled and economically disadvantaged persons do need to worry...about getting to the polls.

Here's the backstory: some months back, the powers-that-be decided to remove polling places from our neighborhood schools [homeland security, anyone?] and simultaneously consolidate all the polling places into larger multi-precinct voting centers.

In rural North Dakota, that can mean now-daunting distances for people to travel to vote. In Fargo, that may mean the polling places have moved just a few blocks, as is the case in my neighborhood.

But a Sunday letter to the editor, "Fargo's precinct changes unwelcome" in our local newspaper, The Forum, brought me up short. Bruce D. Brovold reminds that for some, a few blocks change [from the community room of the high rise for elderly and disabled to the Civic Center] can be as daunting as rural miles. [unfortunately, the letter is not available on the website at the time I write this]

"...once again the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the handicapped have to be put out in order to save a little money... To move the voting site to the Civic Center is not a long way for most people, however for the elderly, disabled and handicapped, it could just as well be 100 miles.

I would hope the election officials reconsider this move next year, after they discover the lost percentage of voters who will not vote in this year's election in this precinct, compared to past years."

I hope even more that whether we're seeing here the law of unintended consequences in action or the chicanery of partisan politicking to squelch voting groups, that those of us committed to progressive change recognize we cannot afford to be complacent. Not anywhere.

And that we can't just wait 'til Election Day in November to go and try to vote. We must ramp up now.

In Fargo, for example, heavily funded campaigns are pushing a big business agenda to elect, on June 10, a city commission candidate and to advocate for a sales tax to support "economic development." Once again the working class is being asked to subsidize the uberclass. Whatever the merits of the case for or against doing that, the real question is:

If a group of voters is disenfranchised,
is the "common good" for all of us being served?

If that matters to you, don't wait for election day and stroll into your voting center, join the process now. Work in the primaries, work in the city elections, work for the campaigns that represent your values. Talk up the candidates who deserve our support.

And every election day, don't just vote for yourself, help the other guy vote, too.

[Cross-posted today at North Decoder]

What Do You Do Now?

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Senator Jim Webb had to answer that question time after time in his service to this country and all of us over the years, but the most poignant moment, the one he himself says stays with him to this day, was during his Marine Corps duty in Viet Nam.

From his new book, A Time to Fight, excerpted Sunday in Parade magazine and at Parade.com:

A gray-haired man in white pajamas, probably a grandfather, was dead, having wrapped himself around a small boy to protect him from the blast. It was clear that his final thoughts were of the boy. His shocked, opaque eyes and his still-curled body were the very definition of love and human sacrifice. The boy was still alive, although barely....

The doc put the boy on a wooden box next to our command post. Over the next half hour, as I spoke on the radio, the boy lay near me quietly, never making a sound, all the while watching me. Nor could I stop watching him. And as we stared at each other, he slowly died.

Webb sees the state of the nation today, but also issues a challenge to each and every one of us.

Our country is in the middle of a profound crisis. This crisis has many causes, but much of it has been brought about by poor leadership decisions at every level of government. In addition, our electoral process is dominated by financial interests that are threatened by the very notion of reform.

Be as shrewd and ruthless in your demands on our leaders as the wizards running campaigns are in their strategies to get your vote.

This past week we saw a ramping-up of the Politics of Smear by George Bush and John McCain in their tag-team attacks on Barack Obama. Attacks that backfired as Democrats justly rallied around the candidate, including his only remaining competitor for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton.

But this was an attack that goes beyond partisan politics. The history of the presidency itself has been smeared by Bush's craven desperation to inject himself into the campaign against Obama with his words to the Knesset. The best disinfectant and clean-up for such dirty politics is a good housecleaning... and that's going to take your vote.

Cheat to Win

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What does it say about a man, a team, that feels it must cheat in order to win?

HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel reported Friday evening on the Bill Belichek-New England Patriots cheating scandal, stealing signals by videotaping in advance, a practice that extended over seasons, not just a single game.

Senator Schumer’s askin’ questions. Punishment’s been doled out, but in light of the full extent of the prolonged cheating over seasons, the fines, the loss of a draft pick hardly seems sufficient.

The culture of cheating pervades these days.

But as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told 60 Minutes when it comes to another case of cheating to win, hey, it’s ancient history, get over it.

Pretty much sums up the sorry state we find ourselves in these days. Where punks with attitude in pinstripes can cheat with impunity and get away with it. Or can they? John Conyers has some thoughts on that in regard to the crafty Karl Rove. [Funny, every time he comes to mind I think of Charles Durning dancin’ through Best Little Whorehouse in Texas… despite that bit o’ dancin’ with David Gregory…]

The controversy over steroids in baseball has waned, never really did get into the role of the Current Occupant, himself a baseball owner back when the steroid usage was rampant. Guess nobody wanted to open that little door.

Interesting that cheating has been the mantle he’s worn all his lifetime. Cheating to get out of Viet Nam. Cheating to get those gentlemanly C’s—how else to explain the abysmal ignorance of the CO?

Even this week, we see the Current Occupant in a foreign country in a cheater’s play of the politics of smear, just before he headed off to ap-pease-please the Saudis like a beggar at the doorstep, with not even that much cred…Ap-pease-please may we have more oil oh you funders of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11.

Not soon enough the book will close on this administration. And we’ll be left to wonder, does cheating go totally unpunished? Does it get a wink and a nod from those it advantaged? Will the tide of history record the truth, or even try? John McCain seems to be trying to rewrite history already as he grasps at falsehoods in a tag team with Bush to try to smear Obama and Democrats.

Will the same old pattern of lies and cheating persist? Or, having placed us on the precipice of permanent third rate status, is the master of the gentlemanly C now simply going to pass the torch to more of the same?

Or will we regain what we once had? Honor. First nation leadership in the world. You can have a voice in changing that...if you choose. If you work for change. If you vote.

Welcome to America

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Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.

Emma Lazarus

An old man, tired, weary, a Baptist minister, flees danger in Haiti and comes to America, seeking political asylum. Instead of freedom, America greets him with a detention center, and, when he falls ill, deficient medical care, and finally, hospitalization, where he dies alone.

His family here in America are not permitted to visit him.

A young woman from Somalia, fleeing a country where her family were killed, comes to America, seeking political asylum. Instead of freedom, she is detained and put on heavy duty antipsychotic medicine until a human rights group can arrange for her care and release.

Watching Scott Pelley's 60 Minutes report last night, the old man's niece recounting his last days, the frustration, and ultimately the sorrow, I wondered again, what have we allowed America to become?

60 Minutes collaborated with the Washington Post's singular genius reporter, Dana Priest, to report on the detention centers the Bush Administration has set up around the country to house warehouse immigrants seeking political asylum. They are not pretty places.

A middle-aged woman sits awaiting a life-and-death determination of whether she'll be deported. Since last August. Meanwhile, the lump in her leg continues to grow. From the Post:

Harvill is one of 33,000 immigration detainees in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, on any given day. They are locked up in a patchwork of out-of-the-way federal detention compounds, private prisons and local jails. This unnoticed prison system was built for a quick revolving door of detainees -- into custody, out of the country. But often, people linger in detention for months or years.

These detainees, like other prisoners, are by law and regulation entitled to medical services if they are sick. But Harvill's journey through immigration detention provides a glimpse into a medical system that often fails those who need it most. It is an upside-down world where patients have no say, doctors and nurses on site have little power to administer timely treatment, and a managed-care system in Washington operates from a rulebook that emphasizes what is not covered rather than what is.

Immigrants...detainees...the line is blurring as the bureaucracy and the social compact of this country breaks down under the combined weight of the Bush Administration/Republican way of governance, its policies and incompetence.

"You know that there are people watching this interview who are saying to themselves, 'Castaneda was an illegal immigrant. He had a drug conviction. The people of the United States owed him nothing,'" Pelley remarks.

"I'm sure there's people out there that think that," Doyle acknowledges. "But that's not what the law is. And that's not what a civilized society does. And you know, if it's true that you judge the degree of civilization in a society by entering its prisons, the United States has a long way to go on this particular issue."

It would be too quick, too easy to say "after 9/11, everything changed." Because really, 9/11 long since has ceased to be an event and instead become an enabling excuse. The Bush/Republican way of governance was etched in stone long before those Twin Towers crumbled that morning. That was just the shock and awe that gave Bush and his neocon Big Oil war machine cronies an opportunity to rape, pillage and plunder this country in a manner so brazen it is stunning.

Well, yes, but what does it matter, Prairie, if a few sick people who aren't even real Americans don't get medical care?

What does it matter, indeed. In a similar context, I wondered that earlier last week at the report that the Indiana voter fraud blocked a group of real desperadoes from voting—nuns in their 80s and 90s.

And another poem filled my mind:
They came for...

You know it. If you don't, google Niemoller, it's past time you did.

But after watching 60 Minutes last night, and musing on this whole business of Sundays, and Mother's Days, and then reading Dana Priest's first in a series "Careless Detention," another mother came to mind.

A young girl, pregnant, unmarried, forced to travel from one land to another to be counted. And the child she bore. Oh, there are loads of self-righteous fauxes who call themselves "Christian" and "compassionate conservative" and.... And they rule this land right now, they're entrenched in the bureaucracy of the government and the tony addresses on K Street, and the gleaming white bastion of SCOTUS.

And their prisons and their detention centers define them. And the rest of us. Never forget that. They define us, too. As Barack Obama has noted, "the fierce urgency of now"...it compels us all to be better than we have been.

Because, whatsoever ye do unto the least of my brethren, ye do unto me.

May 10

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Besides a certain wedding today, there is one other major event of note for May 10, and I am finally stepping out of the shadows to announce my complicity.

Yes, 39 years ago, May 10, the banner-headlined around-the-world Zip to Zap, started by a small but determined bunch of upstarts at one North Dakota college newspaper drew crowds from around the country. And network teevee cameras and global headlines. And the National Guard activated by the governor.

Ah, those were the days. But today too many of our Guard are over in Iraq. And a brief moment of spring exuberance is but a memory, albeit a fond one, to share during these times of remembering too many sad occasions, like Kent State. And making too many new ones.

Oh, but yours truly did sell enough tee-shirts for that day to pay expenses for a summer of interning in Washington DC addressing the Senator’s Christmas cards…to the whole state in an election-upcoming year.

A powerful reminder to moi of why it matters that we keep the new generations involved and inspired for a lifetime of activism…and voting.

Small Town Thinking

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Much being made in today's media about Bill Clinton's "small town" tour to drum up votes for Hillary.

I'll save for another day deconstructing the mindset in small towns...is it "bitter," or "set in its ways" or that other b-word, "bigoted...."? [Answer: none of the above...depending on who's doing the framing...or twisting it for their own advantage.]

Instead--from the perspective of small city living in Fargo, and weekending in such exotic locales as Park Rapids and Walker, Minnesota, and considering that our wee cabin in the woods was one of the first in the country to have satellite teevee...

And from the perspective of listening over time to people like Russet, and Tweety, and Snuffy, and Cokie, and Wolfie, and ... well, you get the idea. I've come to the conclusion that the "small town" most in need of exposure to the great big world outside the bubble and the cocktail wienie circuit and the incestuous revolving doors that are K Street and Congress and Big Media and Congress and Military Contractors and Congress and political consultants and.... is the rarified and isolated little burg of DeeCee.

The posturing portion of the population of DeeCee probably adds up to the size of yer everyday small town out in the boonies. The kind of small town where the satellite trucks are clustering these days breathlessly touting "once in a lifetime" visits. But at least we, in the boonies, actually check out what's going on in the rest of the world instead just pontificating for the mirror or the teevee camera... oh, wait, that's pretty much the same thing, these days, now isn't it.

And when the satellite trucks pack up and follow the parade of candidates and the very important pundits and "journalists" who follow in their wake, we'll consider how it's just like the good ol' days when the circus came to town, and there was a lot of hoopla and folderol and then the wagons headed on down the road and all that was left was a few pleasant memories and a whole lotta dung to clean up.

We're looking to clean up this election year...now if we can just get those big city folk to stop thinking that we're rubes for backdrops and tellin' tales to, "once in a lifetime," before they all pack up and head back to their cozy salons in DeeCee.

Moore 4 Obama

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He brings a whole lotta reasons why to the table—Michael Moore sends an open letter to Pennsylvania asking 'em to vote for Obama.

Hey, I'm good with that. Need more reasons than Moore offers? How about Condoleezza Rice going over to the Baghdad Green Zone to taunt al Sadr? And to catapault Bush-Chee-knee's propaganda a step closer to bomb-bomb-bombing Iran with the same ol' conflate and lie tactics that bogged us down in Iraq. Not so exercised about that? Think what does it matter if it's the same ol' same ol?

Then consider last night's 60 Minutes report by Lara Logan about Green Berets under attack in Afghanistan.

The Republican civilian leaders treat our troops like cannon fodder and can't make the effort to take care of our bravest except with strategerially timed award ceremonies. Where's the Tough But Fair questioning of McCain about the veterans' benefits bill he steadfastly stands against?

And one of the candidates tactics are right out of the Rovian Republican playbook of race-baiting fearmongering. The candidate who voted for the Iraq war, who in recent days showed herself ready to meddle in the middle of further war. She who claims the feminists of a certain age base as her due has lost more than just moi.

One quibble I have with Moore's letter, which he closes with: On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.

Seems to me we all have a chance for redemption—and restoration and renewal and just plain being able to hold our heads high with honor again—as we vote this year.

H/T's to reader Melody and Sammie's Mommy for the heads-ups to Paglia and Moore links.

IRS Hood Ornament

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North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan calls it a "hood ornament" for incompetence... the IRS program of outsourcing the collection of unpaid taxes, which lost some 37 millions of dollars while ostensibly collecting back taxes. Add in the questionable companies and their Republican ties, including a Texas company which was dismissed from collecting under circumstances not made public, and you have yet another example of the Bush Administration and Republican governance Stuck on Stupid.

Or maybe it's too clever by half, and just another day at the office for the Grover Norquist drain the bathtub way of running the country.

So for seven plus years we have watched our country spiral down into a morass of debt to China, an occupation of Iraq instead of crime fighting in Afghanistan, fearmongering propaganda and spinography posing as "news" from Faux and the traditional media, political prosecutions of folks like the Democratic Governor of Alabama, bridges tumbling down, economy in RECESSION, corruption and greed and cronyism that hasn't seen its like in American history, cynicism and manipulation of voters on hate and division issues, devastation of a beloved American city still ruined.....

Oh, and did I mention a Current Occupant who admitted his Principals authorized and micromanaged torture?

So, as you contemplate paying your taxes today, thinkin' you've gotten your money's worth lately?

One consolation, you've got another opportunity to "pay your taxes" come November. And next April, there'll be a whole new administration and Congress.

Let's cheer 'em on, but also, let's pay attention and hold their feet to the fire so we don't keep diggin' deeper in the mess we're in.