Qua est Justicia? The Janus Effect?

Nonny Mouse, @ Crooks and Liars

has posted an excellent short piece asserting we must insist on seeking true justice beyond a simple "truth commission." As he eloquently demonstrates, simply doing the right things henceforward while ignoring obvious past transgressions, does nothing for all the wrong reasons. Herewith, some excerpts, but the full post is excellent! Even quotes one of Crapaud's favorites, Hannah Arendt.

"...is it enough for the current president to insist that, regardless of whatever crimes his predecessor or those in his administration have committed, the United States now obeys the law, and that he prefers to ‘get it right moving forward’[?] It is simply not enough. ...Those in our government who have committed war crimes must be aggressively prosecuted; not simply because we are legally obligated to under our own laws, and under laws and treaties our country was instrumental in establishing for the entire world. Not because this country’s reputation has been devastated by such acts of barbarity and inhumanity on the part of our leaders we would instantly condemn as those more apposite to tin-pot dictators and tyrannical madmen. ...It is vital for our survival as a nation, as a people, as a society, and even for the future of our entire world that we do so. Because in the words of Hannah Arendt, ‘it is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past’. She wrote that in 1963, and was speaking about the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem, but what she wrote then, about a different time, a different nation, a different crime, hold true today. ‘It is essentially for this reason: that the unprecedented, once it has appeared, may become precedent for the future, that all trials touching upon “crimes against humanity” must be judged according to a standard that is today still an “ideal”’.

For if we do nothing, if we protect those accused of war crimes from investigation out of a misguided, even perverse ‘respect’ for the offices these individuals held, if we allow those who have abused the power of their office in order to commit war crimes to escape from being judged, claiming immunity for reasons of exigent circumstances, we establish a precedent. It isn’t enough to remember, it is necessary to also act, if we are to prevent history from repeating itself. The Dick Cheneys and Donald Rumsfelds and George Bushes will return, again and again, with different names, and different faces, but the same lust for violence and disregard for the rule of law that should be enforced to protect us all from crimes against humanity, and it will be those of us who established the precedent of bestowing immunity on the perpetrators of today’s war crimes from their acts who will be responsible for tomorrow’s crimes against humanity.

It is not enough to simply remember. Those who will not face the past will face a future neither you nor I will want to live in. That is the Janus effect Obama will have to deal with, and soon, if our country has any real future to speak of."

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Is it Time to Throw the Bums Out?

About the Bailout and other Tough Rows to Hoe

Published on Friday, February 6, 2009 by Naomi Klein in The Nation

Tide of Anger

Watching the crowds in Iceland banging pots and pans until their government fell reminded me of a chant popular in anti-capitalist circles in 2002: "You are Enron. We are Argentina."

Its message was simple enough. You--politicians and CEOs huddled at some trade summit--are like the reckless scamming execs at Enron (of course, we didn't know the half of it). We--the rabble outside--are like the people of Argentina, who, in the midst of an economic crisis eerily similar to our own, took to the street banging pots and pans. They shouted, "¡Que se vayan todos!" ("All of them must go!") and forced out a procession of four presidents in less than three weeks. What made Argentina's 2001-02 uprising unique was that it wasn't directed at a particular political party or even at corruption in the abstract. The target was the dominant economic model--this was the first national revolt against contemporary deregulated capitalism.

It's taken a while, but from Iceland to Latvia, South Korea to Greece, the rest of the world is finally having its ¡Que se vayan todos! moment.

The stoic Icelandic matriarchs beating their pots flat even as their kids ransack the fridge for projectiles (eggs, sure, but yogurt?) echo the tactics made famous in Buenos Aires. So does the collective rage at elites who trashed a once thriving country and thought they could get away with it. As Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old Icelandic office worker, put it: "I've just had enough of this whole thing. I don't trust the government, I don't trust the banks, I don't trust the political parties and I don't trust the IMF. We had a good country, and they ruined it."

Another echo: in Reykjavik, the protesters clearly won't be bought off by a mere change of face at the top (even if the new PM is a lesbian). They want aid for people, not just banks; criminal investigations into the debacle; and deep electoral reform.

Similar demands can be heard these days in Latvia, whose economy has contracted more sharply than any country in the EU, and where the government is teetering on the brink. For weeks the capital has been rocked by protests, including a full-blown, cobblestone-hurling riot on January 13. As in Iceland, Latvians are appalled by their leaders' refusal to take any responsibility for the mess. Asked by Bloomberg TV what caused the crisis, Latvia's finance minister shrugged: "Nothing special."

But Latvia's troubles are indeed special: the very policies that allowed the "Baltic Tiger" to grow at a rate of 12 percent in 2006 are also causing it to contract violently by a projected 10 percent this year: money, freed of all barriers, flows out as quickly as it flows in, with plenty being diverted to political pockets. (It is no coincidence that many of today's basket cases are yesterday's "miracles": Ireland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia.)

Something else Argentina-esque is in the air. In 2001 Argentina's leaders responded to the crisis with a brutal International Monetary Fund-prescribed austerity package: $9 billion in spending cuts, much of it hitting health and education. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Unions staged a general strike, teachers moved their classes to the streets and the protests never stopped.

This same bottom-up refusal to bear the brunt of the crisis unites many of today's protests. In Latvia, much of the popular rage has focused on government austerity measures--mass layoffs, reduced social services and slashed public sector salaries--all to qualify for an IMF emergency loan (no, nothing has changed). In Greece, December's riots followed a police shooting of a 15-year-old. But what's kept them going, with farmers taking the lead from students, is widespread rage at the government's crisis response: banks got a $36 billion bailout while workers got their pensions cut and farmers received next to nothing. Despite the inconvenience caused by tractors blocking roads, 78 percent of Greeks say the farmers' demands are reasonable. Similarly, in France the recent general strike--triggered in part by President Sarkozy's plans to reduce the number of teachers dramatically--inspired the support of 70 percent of the population.

Perhaps the sturdiest thread connecting this global backlash is a rejection of the logic of "extraordinary politics"--the phrase coined by Polish politician Leszek Balcerowicz to describe how, in a crisis, politicians can ignore legislative rules and rush through unpopular "reforms." That trick is getting tired, as South Korea's government recently discovered. In December, the ruling party tried to use the crisis to ram through a highly controversial free trade agreement with the United States. Taking closed-door politics to new extremes, legislators locked themselves in the chamber so they could vote in private, barricading the door with desks, chairs and couches.

Opposition politicians were having none of it: with sledgehammers and an electric saw, they broke in and staged a twelve-day sit-in of Parliament. The vote was delayed, allowing for more debate--a victory for a new kind of "extraordinary politics."

Here in Canada, politics is markedly less YouTube-friendly--but it has still been surprisingly eventful. In October the Conservative Party won national elections on an unambitious platform. Six weeks later, our Tory prime minister found his inner ideologue, presenting a budget bill that stripped public sector workers of the right to strike, canceled public funding for political parties and contained no economic stimulus. Opposition parties responded by forming a historic coalition that was only prevented from taking power by an abrupt suspension of Parliament. The Tories have just come back with a revised budget: the pet right-wing policies have disappeared, and it is packed with economic stimulus.

The pattern is clear: governments that respond to a crisis created by free-market ideology with an acceleration of that same discredited agenda will not survive to tell the tale. As Italy's students have taken to shouting in the streets: "We won't pay for your crisis!"

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More Sanity and CHANGE

Obama to Stop DEA Medical Pot Raids

from TalkLeft
Feb 5, 2009

Presently, the Drug Enforcement Agency is still dominated by Bush era personnel who continue to enforce the "federal policy overrides state law" policies that produce pointless federal prosecutions against citizens lawfully providing medical marijuana where to do so is legal under the law of several of our states.

The White House said it expects those kinds of raids to end once Mr. Obama nominates someone to take charge of DEA, which is still run by Bush administration holdovers.

“The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind," White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said.

This marks a return to sanity and conforms with the great weight of medical evidence. President Obama will keep his campaign promise. The question remains whether new Attorney General Eric Holder file federal criminal cases against those busted in the raids which have been ongoing since Obama's inauguration?

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The People vs. Dick Cheney et als

Illustration by Roberto Parada







Will Obama bring the Bushies to account? Will Congress? Some local DA? A judge in Europe? Anyone...?


Largely Excerpted from articles by Karen Greenberg and Jonathan Schwarz
From Mother Jones, January/February 2009 Issue


"…Will there be redress for the crimes of the Bush administration—and if so, what form should it take? The list of potential legal breaches is, of course, enormous; by one count, the administration has broken 269 laws, both domestic and international. It begins with illegal wiretapping and surveillance (which in the view of many experts violated the Fourth Amendment, the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, for starters), the politicization of the Justice Department and the firing of nine US attorneys, and numerous instances of obstruction of justice—from the destruction of cia interrogation tapes to the willful misleading of Congress and the public.

Perhaps the paramount charge that legal experts have zeroed in on is the state-approved torture that violated not just the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture but also the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the 1996 War Crimes Act, which prohibits humiliating and degrading treatment and other "outrages upon personal dignity."

"… Human rights organizations, notably the Center for Constitutional Rights, have teamed up with partners in Germany and France to pursue charges against Rumsfeld for violating the Convention Against Torture, though so far to little effect. The possibility of other cases has been raised, most recently in British barrister Philippe Sands' warning that Congress should investigate the torture question, for "if the United States doesn't address this, other countries will."

...More significantly, there have also been rumblings about prosecution here at home…

….As Walter Lippmann once wrote, congressional commissions can turn into a free-for-all as politicians, "starved of their legitimate food for thought, go on a wild and feverish manhunt, and do not stop at cannibalism." Accordingly, some favor the idea of an independent commission, run by someone of the stature of Plamegate prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald or former New York US Attorney Mary Jo White, in the hope that this format would be less politically charged. The goal would be to prove Lippmann wrong and establish the facts in a reliable, nonpartisan fashion—to create an authoritative narrative that the nation could share.

But what kind of commission makes all the difference. Truth and reconciliation commissions, which the United States has never had at the federal level, are for healing. Watergate-style commissions bear the prospect of condemnation, exposure, and punishment. Then there is the question of just what is to be found: Much of what happened in the run-up to the war, the torture scandal, or the National Security Agency wiretaps has already been documented in news articles, books, and congressional probes; what is missing, though, is the full story about who knew what and when. Perhaps a commission could get members of the Bush administration to reveal these details. Perhaps there are other skeletons to be unearthed. The best hope, Meintjes ruefully acknowledges, is for a "negotiated truth" along the lines of the 9/11 Commission. As attorney Scott Horton has pointed out in Harper's, "Investigative commissions can provide truth...but they cannot provide justice."

…who else could throw the book at the Bush/Cheney crew? A few possibilities:
A Rogue district attorney--- In his recent book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi lays out a creative argument that state or local prosecutors could indict Bush for murder if a soldier from their jurisdiction was killed in Iraq. It's a far-fetched premise, but with 2,700 DAs out there, Bugliosi—famous for putting Charles Manson away—says, "I just need one." (Last fall, the Vermont Progressive Party's candidate for attorney general said that if elected, she would appoint Bugliosi to implement his plan.) This unusual strategy is not unprecedented; witness New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison's investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination (as dramatized in JFK). Garrison successfully subpoenaed evidence like the Zapruder film, which had not been seen publicly before the trial. Potential upshot: major embarrassment for Bush. Likelihood: low.

Ticked-Off Lawyers---Most of what happened under Bush was "legal" in the sense that the Justice Department issued opinions—such as the so-called torture memos—that said as much. The new administration, if only to placate the military and intelligence agencies, will be loath to go after Bush officials who can claim legal cover, no matter how flawed the reasoning behind it. But the lawyers who actually drafted the legal justifications for torture—particularly Dick Cheney's chief of staff David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and Justice Department lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee—may be vulnerable. They could be indicted in federal court if they knowingly issued faulty legal opinions that led to criminal acts. However, that would be an extremely difficult case to make unless one of the defendants turned against the others. More plausible is that, like Bill Clinton and Scooter Libby, they could face disbarment, limiting their employment prospects.

The United Nations--A range of observers, from former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to überhawk Richard Perle, has acknowledged that the invasion of Iraq violated the UN Charter. In theory, the Security Council could sanction the United States or even authorize the use of force to expel our troops. But that's a nonstarter, not least because the Security Council signed off on the occupation of Iraq. Likewise, the United States could be tried in the UN's International Court of Justice and forced to pay reparations to Iraq. That's also doubtful, since the Security Council enforces Court rulings; the US could use its veto power as it did in 1986, when the icj found we had violated international law by supporting the Nicaraguan Contras. If the UN wanted to go after American officials for torture, it could set up a special tribunal like those for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. But such courts are the creation of—you guessed it—the Security Council.
The International Criminal Court--- The Third Geneva Conventions, which the United States signed in 1949, as well as the UN Convention Against Torture, which Congress ratified in 1988, forbid torture. The International Criminal Court (not to be confused with the icj) was convened in the Netherlands in 2002 as a permanent venue to try crimes including violations of Geneva. But the United States hasn't ratified the icc treaty and has pressured 100 countries to agree never to extradite American citizens to the court, so Dick Cheney's unlikely to wind up in the dock at The Hague.

The Garzón Factor---Not that George W. Bush & Co. shouldn't be worried about international laws that they once sneered at. There are hints that they already are: A 2002 State Department memo cautioned officials about the "risk of future criminal prosecution," and the Pentagon's 2005 National Defense Strategy warned of enemies who might "employ a strategy of the weak using international fora and judicial processes."
The biggest threat comes from European magistrates like Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish "superjudge" who nearly brought Augusto Pinochet to justice. In 1998, Garzón issued an arrest warrant for the former Chilean dictator for the deaths of Spanish citizens who'd been tortured by his regime. Days later, the unsuspecting 82-year-old was picked up while visiting England. Pinochet died while incarcerated awaiting trial.

In many European countries, most notably Spain and Italy, judges can initiate prosecutions and—as in the case of Pinochet—may do so independently of the executive branch. Peter Weiss, vice president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, says such a court might be the most plausible venue for a case against Bush. "The prime minister of Spain was completely against going after Pinochet," he points out, "but a judge lower down was able to do it." The approach might prove especially effective in pursuing torture cases. As signatories to the Convention Against Torture, most European nations are obligated, theoretically, to investigate violations by other signatories, such as the United States. Sure enough, human rights advocates have filed complaints in Germany, France, and Sweden against former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing the torture of Iraqi and Saudi citizens in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The ccr claims a pending case convinced Rumsfeld to alter his travel plans to Germany.

"Believe me, people from the top of the administration will be consulting with lawyers for the rest of their lives," says Christopher Simpson, a professor at American University and an expert on international law. "They will have to coordinate very, very closely with the State Department's specialists whenever they leave America. This is something they cannot take lightly." Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, has warned that former Bush officials like Gonzales, Yoo, and Addington "should never travel outside the US, except perhaps to Saudi Arabia and Israel."

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///////////Even Faux News\\\\\\\\\\ \\\Gives Obama Some Decent Marks///

Even Fox News SOMETIMES shows
a Fair and Balanced Approach
Or Was Roger Ailes napping last week when this ran?

"Obama clearly has made the transition to governing.

"It's as if Superman stepped out of a phone booth and became Clark Kent," said Fred Greenstein, a Princeton University professor emeritus of politics. "He's beginning to put aside the rhetoric in favor of listing the policies and doing the checklist. He's not going out of his way to show a lot of flash. It's much more lets-get-down-to-work."

That said, there's a limit to what he can do right away, Greenstein said, and "the really big things can't be done on Day One, particularly if they are going to be done well."

In a mix of symbolism and substance, Obama used a host of executive tools to put his stamp on the White House without having to go through Congress, making statements from the bully pulpit and signing White House directives.

He pledged to take bold steps to reverse the recession while meeting with his economic team, and told top military officials summoned to the White House to do whatever planning necessary to "execute a responsible military drawdown from Iraq." He issued new ethics rules for his administration and pledged to preside over a transparent government.

He ordered the Guantanamo detention center shut within a year, required the closure of any remaining secret CIA "black site" prisons abroad and barred CIA interrogators from using harsh techniques already banned for military questioners. He also assigned veteran troubleshooters to the Middle East, and Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Throughout it all, Obama demonstrated noticeable stylistic differences with his predecessor.

The high-tech Obama chose to keep his cherished BlackBerry, becoming the first sitting president to use e-mail. He made an impromptu visit to the White House's cramped media quarters just "to say hello" and took a tour of the two floors. He also was spotted at one point ducking into the White House press office to consult with an aide. Bush avoided both areas at all costs.

In one Oval Office ceremony, Obama went through each executive order as he signed them, reading parts of each and methodically explaining them. He even halted a few times to ask for clarifying details from his White House counsel. That sort of deferral to someone else in a public setting and admission of a less-than-perfect command of the facts was never Bush's style."

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BAILOUT ACCOUNTABILITY NOW!

Arn Pearson at Common Cause

Sends out this Appeal on January 23, 2009.

"If you got a bonus from work, you would have to report it to the government. But when our nation's banks get a bailout from the federal government, bank CEOs are allowed to spend it as they see fit.

Does that seem fair to you?

Next week, the House Financial Services Committee is planning to hold a hearing to question CEOs from the nation's nine biggest banks about how bailout funds are being used.

Take action now to demand accountability from bank CEOs who receive bailout funds!

These funds were intended to stop the foreclosure crisis, yet so far there is no evidence the banks that helped get us into this mess are doing anything to help struggling Americans weather the storm.

As nine of the biggest beneficiaries of the bailout, these CEOs have an obligation to use taxpayer dollars in an open and transparent manner.

If you've been turned down for a loan by a bailed-out bank or haven't been able to get the financial help you need, this is your chance to get some answers.

But you must act now, there's only a few days left until the hearing!

With your input, Congress will pressure the top bank CEOs to disclose how funds have helped Americans struggling in a tough economy.

Thanks for all you do,

Arn Pearson "

Common Cause is a national nonpartisan organization with chapters in 38 states. Our mailing address is 1133 19th Street NW, 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20036. Our phone number is (202) 833-1200.

Bush War Crimes? It ain't over 'til it's Over.

Crapaud borrows unashamedly
from Raw Story:

The specter many want to forget

"The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the US Tuesday to pursue former president George W. Bush and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and bad treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said, in remarks to be broadcast on Germany's ZDF television Tuesday evening.

He noted Washington had ratified the UN convention on torture which required "all means, particularly penal law" to be used to bring proceedings against those violating it.

"We have all these documents that are now publicly available that prove that these methods of interrogation were intentionally ordered by Rumsfeld," against detainees at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Nowak said.

"But obviously the highest authorities in the United States were aware of this," added Nowak, who authored a UN investigation report on the Guantanamo prison.

Bush stepped down from power Tuesday, with Barack Obama becoming the 44th president of the United States.

Asked about chances to bring legal action against Bush and Rumsfeld, Nowak said: "In principle yes. I think the evidence is on the table."

At issue, however, is whether "American law will recognise these forms of torture."

A bipartisan Senate report released last month found Rumsfeld and other top administration officials responsible for abuse of Guantanamo detainees in US custody.

It said Rumsfeld authorized harsh interrogation techniques on December 2, 2002 at the Guantanamo prison, although he ruled them out a month later.

The coercive measures were based on a document signed by Bush in February, 2002.

French, German and US rights groups have previously said they wanted to bring legal action against Rumsfeld.

This video is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Jan. 21, 2009."

WHY SINGLE PAYER HEALTH BEST

Stark Health Care Reform

A recent exhaustive comparison of various health reform proposals projected that the number of uninsured in the United States will rise to 48.9 million people in 2010 out of a total estimated population of 306.9 million; 15.9 percent of the total population will be uninsured. Among the plans analyzed, the study estimates that up to 48.9 million uninsured could be covered—under a bill proposed by Representative Pete Stark (D–Calif.).

Representative Pete Stark's (D–Calif.) "AmeriCare Health Care Act of 2007" (H.R. 1841) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D–Mass.) and Representative John Dingell's (D–Mich.) "Medicare for All Act" (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034)

Creates a new public health insurance program administered by the federal government to provide everyone with multiple choices for health coverage. Under the Stark bill (H.R. 1841), employers would either offer their employees coverage or pay into a fund to cover their employees through the new public program. Under the Kennedy and Dingell bills (S. 1218 and H.R. 2034), employers and their employees would help finance the expansion through new payroll taxes.

Estimates of Coverage and Costs in 2010 (Rep. Stark's bill)
Number of uninsured covered	48.9 million
Remaining uninsured	0
Total health spending	($58.1 billion) savings
Federal	$188.5 billion
State and local	($83.6 billion) savings
Employers	$61.5 billion
Household	($224.5 billion) savings

The comparison of all the major plans before Congress

shows the STARK approach covers the most people

for the least money.

If this is socialism, GET OVER IT!!

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A Welcome and Refreshing Example

Crapaud steals shamelessly from SilentPatriot today, 'cause I got dee inaugural hangover!

President Obama freezes WH staff salaries

By SilentPatriot Wednesday Jan 21, 2009 12:00pm

In a symbolic and unprecedented move, President Obama today announced that he would be freezing the pay of White House employees who make over $100k a year.

CBS13:

President Barack Obama announced on his first day in office Wednesday that he is freezing the pay of the about a hundred White House employees who make over $100,000 a year.

The freeze would hold salaries at their current levels. It is part of a presidential memorandum being issued Wednesday when Obama attends a swearing-in for staff at the White House.

In a statement, Obama said "families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington."

Aides making above $100,00 include the high-profile jobs of White House chief of staff, national security adviser and press secretary. Other aides who work in relative anonymity also fit into that cap, if Obama follows a structure similar to the one George W. Bush set up.

This is pretty cool. I probably wouldn't find it as cool if I were Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs or General Jones, but it's sending an important message either way. After eight years of Bush-rule, this quote is a welcome change.

"Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this administration," Obama said in a statement to reporters.

Music to my ears.

And Music to All Ears of all Crapauds Everywhere
Finally, Leadership by Example once again!

////// ERA OF RESPONSIBILITY \\\\\\ The Agenda

Click HERE to go to White House.gov to view THE AGENDA
It'll blow you away.

See particularly LGBT Rights under Civil Rights

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The New Era of Responsibilty: TAKE THE PLEDGE

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge

Bush' s Departure

He is gone, it is a good riddance. Il est parti en voilà heureusement défaits.

Bienvenue, M. Le President! Soyez Le Change!

Welcome, Mr. President ! BE the Change !

///////////////////////////////////////

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Why Was THE Invocation not broadcast??

Why Did HBO Censor Bishop Robinson’s Invocation?

Did you enjoy seeing the Rev. Gene Robinson at the inaugural invocation at the Washington Mall today? Oh, what’s that? You don’t recall seeing Rev. Gene Robinson?

Well, that’s because HBO, who Obama sold the exclusive televised rights to the broadcast events, chose to censor the openly gay Bishop from the televised feed.

An unfortunate accident? Maybe. But after the fracas following Obama inviting the wildly homophobic Rev. Rick Warren to perform the inaugural invocation on Tuesday, one might think the president-elect and his team would be a bit more mindful about how this looks.

One thing’s for certain. Don’t expect HBO to censor out Rick Warren from the festivities this Tuesday. HBO has stated that it was the decision of the Obama naugural Committee to have the invocation well before the televised broadcast. Whatever excuse the Obama people will choose, exactly ZERO Americans saw Bishop Robinson on TV welcoming America to a day celebrating a president who is supposedly, to quote Colin Powell, a transformational figure. And a billion people will see Rick Warren do his "thing" on Tuesday. Some transformation.

SEE the You Tube vid by Christianity Today by clicking HERE.

Herewith for posterity, is the printed form of the good man's words:
↓
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

" ...pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe.

Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

Cheney: The Black Hole of Decency

Day # 1 in the Countdown to

the Exodus of Bush on 1.20.09

Visit THE BEAST buffalobeast.com.nyud.net /134/50mostloathsome2008-full.html

for the 50 Top most

Loathsome People in America

Here’s THE BEAST’s take on its Indictment of Cheney, DICK

↓ ↓

#7. Dick Cheney

Charges: Still alive. The amount of medical resources devoted to keeping this black hole of decency operational could have cured cancer by now, but if they had, Cheney would make sure to keep it a secret. Since Watergate, Cheney’s been fighting to rehab Nixon’s image, and he has succeeded in a way, by showing us all just how much worse a presidency can be.

Exhibit A: “It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.”

Sentence: Eaten alive by baboons.

The WHOLE family of CRAPAUDS says

GOOD RIDDANCE!

Bush's Legacy At Home: Divisiveness and Despair

Day #3 in Countdown to the Bush Termination Credit large swaths to www.thinkprogress.org

While campaigning for president, George W. Bush often repeated that he would seek to change the negative and partisan tone in Washington, D.C. "I'm a uniter, not a divider," Bush would say. "I refuse to play the politics of putting people into groups and pitting one group against another." A recent CNN poll found that a whopping 82 percent of Americans believe that Bush did not unite the country. In fact, Bush himself just recently admitted that he had not lived up to his "uniter, not a divider" rhetoric, saying last month that he "didn't do a very good job of it" (though he later blamed others for "needless name-calling").

POLITICIZING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: But over the last eight years, "pitting one group against another" is exactly the kind of politics Bush played. He and his allies exploited national issues, placed social hot-button issues in the forefront of all political discussions, viciously scapegoating gay people, immigrants and other groups. The Bushies ruthlessly attacked progressives for political gain, and politicized the federal government to serve the interests of the Republican party. Rove and the other Bushies schemed to establish a Third Reich style of Permanent Conservative Majority, deploying singularly unqualified graduates of Pat Robertson’s Regent University to scrub various agencies, most notably the Department of Justice, in Stalin-like purges of Democrats, Progressives, gay people, and often any career officers who were even “suspected” of harboring views that might be considered as standing in the way of the New Republican Majority.

The White House took a "permanent campaign approach" to governing, admitted
Bush's former press secretary Scott McClellan recently. In 2003, Bush's political guru Karl Rove or his top aide, Ken Mehlman, "visited nearly every agency to outline White House campaign priorities, review polling data and, on occasion, call attention to tight House, Senate and gubernatorial races that could be affected by regulatory action." Rove also led an unprecedented campaign to politicize the federal government to serve the interests of the Republican Party.

POLITICS TRUMPED SCIENCE, REASON: The White House also routinely favored politics over science: regarding climate change by muzzling NASA's chief global warming scientist James Hansen's climate change findings, censoring scientific evidence on global warming in an EPA report, and editing all government scientists' testimony to fit its political aims. Stem cell research? Politicize it, Ban it! Sane and scientific approaches to preventing deadly sexually transmitted diseases? Abstinence only education, no funding to any science based notions of prophylaxis. The Office of Faith Based Initiatives, the General Services Administration, the Interior Department, the Defense Department, Health and Human Services and the Office of National Drug Control Policy were also not spared of politics during the Bush years.

DIVIDING ON SOCIAL ISSUES: Shortly after taking office, Rove convinced Bush to issue an executive order that effectively ended federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. Despite evidence showing the enormous scientific benefits to such research, Rove's move sought to appease the GOP base, rather than promote sound policy. In the run-up to the 2004 election, Rove orchestrated a campaign to significantly boost turnout of the GOP base by placing measures to ban gay marriage on the ballot in numerous battleground states. Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans -- the GOP's largest gay group -- said at the time that Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage was part of a calculation by Rove that "4 million evangelicals stayed home in 2000. As a result, the 2004 campaign has focused on energizing the far right while ignoring mainstream Republicans."

EDUCATION REFORM: The completely duplicitous and misleadingly named “No Child Left Behind” predicated all federal public funding of education on meeting testing standards but without any adequate funding to the states to implement its many mandates. The design was clearly to PRIVATIZE education by mandating private “Charter” schools funded by portable “vouchers.” Our professional educators are worn out and resigning in ever larger numbers, completely stymied by the unfunded mandates that require them to throw traditional teaching methods out the window in favor of only “teaching to the test.”

DISMANTLING OUR CONSTITUTION: Bush used the tragedy of 9-11 to revamp the organization of security, law enforcement and intelligence communities, creating the Department of Homeland Security. The Transportation Security Administration was also born out of the wake of Sept. 11. The Patriot Act over road fundamental protections of the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments of our Bill of Rights.

The War on Terror was used an excuse to curtail civil liberties. All dissent was swept aside as “unpatriotic” and the trampling of our basic core liberties became the game du jour. The result was domestic surveillance programs under the Patriot Act, the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program, and FISA and warrantless wiretapping; military tribunals set up at Guantanamo; and “enhanced interrogation techniques” such as waterboarding. In other legal matters, "Plamegate," the controversy over the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA officer, was tangentially related to pre-war intelligence and fueled speculation that the Bush administration doctored intelligence claims.

As Bush prepares to leave office, people the world over now look at the U.S. in a "negative way" as a country that "went ahead and sanctioned torture." (See this blog on January 15, 2009). Paralleling President Obama’s repair of our international image, the abuses of the Bush domestic agenda must be swiftly and surely repudiated. A welcome return to sanity begins 1.20.09—ALLAH BE PRAISED!