I didn’t vote for Al Gore in 2000 and Joe Lieberman, Al’s stupendously stupid VP pick, is why. He was a whiny sanctimonious prick then, and he’s gotten worse every year since. His political assholery is becoming the stuff of legend. Only now, after being rejected by the Connecticut Democratic Party in 2006, he has an “I” next to his name. But he caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate, and, because in the last Congress they needed him in the caucus to maintain majority, he was given a plum chair of an important committee, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

That means subpoena power.

But he did zilch with that power between 2006 and 2008, despite the Katrina debacle, porous ports, multiple instances of corruption and irregularities in the executive branch, all which should have been investigated by his committee. His counterpart in the House, Henry Waxman, was busy as a beaver, and exposed plenty. But without an ally on the Senate side, nothing much but “sternly worded letters” could come of it all.

So now, after a long campaign season in which Independent Joe Lieberman who caucuses with the Democrats was joined at the hip with Republican presidential nominee John McCain, saying McCain loved his country and Obama did not, now there is a grassroots fueled effort to strip Turncoat Joe of his chair at Homeland Security.

And, what do you know! Suddenly, leading that committee is of utmost urgency to Joe Lieberman. Wonder why that is?

Yet, amazingly, many high-level Democrats are willing to let bygones be bygones and let Lieberman keep the chair, where, it is suspected, he will suddenly find a reason to call his committee to work investigating the new Obama administration. Just as Democratic Senators who should have known better, like Barbara Boxer, went to Conn. to campaign for Joe despite the state party’s distaste for him, now they are letting their “friendship” get in the way of political reality and necessity.

The netroots is calling for accountability for How-Low-Can-He-Go Joe, and have set up several tools to persuade the Senate Democratic Steering Committee to give the chair to someone more deserving and trustworthy.

The Dems no longer need Joe for majority status, and based on his recent voting record, he is not even a “progressive vote” on “everything but the war” any more. He is a vile, bitter, corrupt man. I’d kick him out of the caucus completely, but that’s not what’s being asked. He can leave and caucus with the Republicans if he wants — what’s in it for him? He won’t have any leadership role on any committee and no avenue to re-election.

Call the members of the Steering Committee and tell them: Joe Lieberman must GO!

Esquire Magazine got the civic bug two years ago and started endorsing political candidates. And they didn’t do it half-ass, either, they endorsed in every single congressional district, up or down. Ditto this year, and in Oklahoma, they didn’t pull any punches:

Inhofe believes that 9/11 was divine retribution. He believes that our Middle East policy should be based on the text of the Bible. He denies the science behind global warming. Doesn’t like students. Doesn’t care for poor people. Hates government. Like Jesse Helms, without the charm. We made a mistake on our “10 Worst” list: Inhofe stands alone as the worst member of Congress.
Esquire endorses: Rice

In the federal House races, by district:

1. Georgiana Oliver (D), challenger
2. Dan Boren (D), incumbent
3. Frank Lucas (R), incumbent
4. Tom Cole (R), incumbent
5. Mary Fallin (R), incumbent

For president, they endorse Obama.

Happy Constitution Day! Yeah, I don’t feel much like celebrating either.

But I read something today that made me proud to be an Oklahoman (albeit a relatively new one), and gave me a little hope.

The amazing Glenn Greenwald, whose blog you should read if you aren’t already, posted Tuesday on the lack of Congressional oversight in general, and, in particular, of Tuesday’s House hearing on the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax case from 2001. He published while the hearing was still in session, because, really, we all know how it will go, or not go, as the case may be.

Of course, being a sentient human and American patriot, he decried the failure of Congress to hold the executive branch accountable for its flagrant law-breaking, of refusals to testify, of blatently dishonest or stonewalling testifying, etc., continuing his valiant series of brilliant reporting and opinon. I have no idea how he maintains his resolve and pace with the current state of our government, but thank goodness he does.

Anyway, in an update, he excerpted from a later hearing in the Senate. I was surprised to see who it was he was prominently featuring.

UPDATE: Long-time former GOP Congressman Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma testified before a Senate hearing today on the rule of law and said this:

There are a great many salient questions facing the American people and those of you who are charged with the responsibility of enacting the nation’s laws: access to affordable health care; repair of an aging infrastructure; reducing energy dependence; ensuring the national security. But not one of those issues – and not all of them combined – is as important now or for the future as securing our position as a nation governed by the rule of law. . . .Let me be both candid and clear: the current greatest threat to our system of separated powers and the protections it affords stems not just from executive overreaching but equally from the Congress. America’s founders envisioned a system in which each of the branches of government would guard its prerogatives and meet its obligations, each acting to serve the nation through the empowerment the Constitution grants and to protect our liberties through the constraints the Constitution imposes.

For most of the past eight years, and for many years before that, the Congress has failed to lived up to its assigned role as the principal representative of the people. . . .

Here is the challenge, stated as candidly as I can state it. Each year the presidency grows farther beyond the bounds the Constitution permits; each year the Congress fades farther into irrelevance. As it does, the voice of the people is silenced. This cannot be permitted to stand. The Congress is not without power. It can refuse to confirm people the President suggests for important offices; it can refuse to provide money for the carrying out of Executive Branch activities; it can use its subpoena power and its power to hold hearings and above all, it can use its power to write the laws of the country. . . .

Do not let it be said that what the Founders created, you have destroyed. Do not let it be said that on your watch, the Constitution of the United States became not the law of the land but a suggestion. You are not a parliament; you are a Congress — separate, independent, and equal. And because of that you are the principal means by which the people maintain control of their government. Defend that right, and that obligation, or you lose all purpose in holding these high offices. That is how you preserve and defend the rule of law in the United States.

So, I wasn’t around when Edwards represented Oklahoma in Congress, and from what I read, his record isn’t sqeaky clean, and he was an advisor to Reagan’s campaign in 1980, not a role I really hold in high regard.

But he’s dead on here, and I applaud him for telling those fuckers what they need to hear — what they shouldn’t have to be told.

Not that it will do a bit of good.

Like I said, Happy Constitution Day. You may want to get a copy of that quaint document and bury in it your backyard or something. So you can show it to your grandkids when you hope Big Brother won’t notice, and tell them how we used to have a country of laws.

Reuters photo

My friend Desiree gets right in the face of Condoleezza Rice, who is, indeed, a “war criminal.”

(Tried to embed the video, but had technical problems.
Updated, with photo from Reuters.)

Update 2: Reuters story

Update 3: This AP photo is better, due to the angle (and Rice’s expression).

This is critical. So please take action RIGHT NOW!!!

Sign MoveOn’s petition and call Congress today.

More info.

Digby noted on Friday (during my news blackout while attending the annual Greens meeting) that not one Democratic member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee showed up for the hearing to review the confirmation of Karen Hughes to handle public relations for the State Department.

As usual, the Democrats have their heads up their asses at exactly the wrong moment, and miss a golden opportunity to actually communicate something substantial to the American public.

The absence of the Democrats is even more glaring considering just today the New York Times reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald called Karen Hughes before the grand jury to testify as to her involvement in the leak-case. Of course, this begs the obvious question: Karen Hughes, did you have a role in leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent?

And, also as usual, the online/grassroots are doing all the heavy lifting. I am continually amazed at how much frustration, neglect and abuse progressive Democrats can take.

Think Progress has a list of questions the Democrats might have asked if they could have gotten it up to attend the meeting. I assume they were too busy with their preparations to lionize John Roberts and didn’t have the time.

Digby, despite his (?) great insight and wicked-good rants, is one of those ever-faithful-against-all-reason Democrats. I just don’t know what it will take for those folks to see the light.

As for Paul S. Sarbanes (MD), Christopher J. Dodd (CT), John F. Kerry (MA), Russell D. Feingold (WI), Barbara Boxer (CA), Bill Nelson (FL), and Barack Obama (IL), I hope they enjoyed their Friday afternoon.

By the way, did I mention that on Friday, I was in Tulsa at the Green Party annual meeting?

I watched a hearing (conducted only by Democrats) on C-SPAN addressing the ways in which Halliburton and its subsidiaries are bilking the American taxpayer, while abusing service members. Really almost too vile to believe: one former foodworker said freshness-date expired, and even scrapnal-tainted food was fed to the soldiers.

Halliburton’s Iraq deals described as contract abuse - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top U.S. Army procurement official said on Monday Halliburton’s deals in Iraq were the worst example of contract abuse she had seen as Pentagon auditors flagged over $1 billion of potential overcharges by the Texas-based firm.

In the Senate, the Escalation of Rhetoric

In the Senate, the Escalation of Rhetoric

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 17, 2005; C01

As a general rule, the catastrophic fallout from an atomic detonation is not something you want to be associated with. That’s why Senate Republicans are trying to avoid the term “nuclear option.”

The procedure — which the GOP is threatening to exercise to thwart Democratic filibusters of President Bush’s judicial nominees — could be implemented as early as this week. But it won’t be called the “nuclear option,” at least not in the official GOP lexicon. It’s akin to McDonald’s touting the Quarter Pounder With Cheese as “the heart attack option.” Bad marketing, in other words.

Republicans have tried to rechristen “nuclear option” as the “constitutional option,” a less radioactive alternative. “Nuclear option” gives Democrats too many opportunities to portray the Republican position as bellicose, doomsday-bringing and generally unpleasant. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) would soon “pull the trigger” on the nuclear option, while other Democrats have predicted that Frist would “go nuclear,” “start a nuclear war” or “detonate a bomb” on the Senate floor. “We will not negotiate under a nuclear cloud,” Reid declared last month. He said nothing about a “constitutional” cloud.

In the face of Republican complaints, media outlets now qualify references to the nuclear option with caveats such as “so-called” or “what Democrats refer to as . . .” “Constitutional option,” meanwhile, has become a staple in GOP talking points, chat show appearances and news releases. This was not so a few months ago, when Republicans were using “nuclear option” freely. Or, for that matter, two years ago, when the term was coined by Republican Sen. Trent Lott.

“Nuclear option” remains the most commonly used term, and it is not completely anathema to anti-filibuster Republicans. Some revel in its scorched-earth connotations. On “Crossfire,” filibuster opponent the Rev. Jerry Falwell told Ralph Neas of the liberal group People for the American Way that Frist would indeed use “the nuclear option . . . and when that happens you guys are dead in the water, and you ought to be.”

Manuel Miranda, a former aide to Frist who is now chairman of the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters, says that “the draconian implications” of “nuclear option” expressed the urgency that filibuster opponents felt. “If these weren’t such ominous and terrible terms, I don’t think it would have exploded in the press,” says Miranda.

Few Americans understand how filibusters work, let alone how Republicans are threatening to circumvent them, or what Democrats might do in response. A filibuster is, essentially, a stalling tactic by which a minority of senators can engage in endless debate until 60 senators vote to end discussion. If GOP leaders move to end filibusters for judicial nominees, Democrats have vowed to effectively halt Senate business.

“The filibuster is a Senate rule that’s been changed many times over the years,” says Bob Stevenson, Frist’s communications director. It wouldn’t be a “nuclear option,” he says, except for the threatened retaliation of Senate Democrats. GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch has said it’s the Democrats who will “blow up the Senate” if Republicans exercise their constitutional right to simply “debate and vote.”

Nuclear vs. Constitutional is just the latest in a series of rhetorical wrestling matches pitting Republicans (purveyors of “personal accounts” for Social Security, foes of “the death tax” and “pro-life” opponents of abortion) against Democrats (foes of Social Security “privatization,” purveyors of the “inheritance tax” and champions of “a woman’s right to choose”).

“In general, Republicans have perfected the art of associative naming,” says Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown University linguistics professor who has studied word choices in public discourse. Associative naming refers to linking products or ideas to pleasant or virtuous-sounding words, or unpleasant ones if you are against them. The term “partial-birth abortion,” for example, constitutes a masterstroke in this regard, she says. As soon as opponents of this late-term abortion procedure injected the word “birth” into the debate, they won, Tannen says.

But the nuclear option has proven trickier for Republicans, almost from the time Lott first uttered the phrase during the successful Democratic filibuster against Miguel Estrada, whom Bush had nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. “Nuclear option” instantly became the de facto term of art. Miranda, who resigned as a Frist aide last year amid allegations that he accessed Democratic e-mail memos on judicial nominees, says, “Until the last few weeks, the Democrats owned the field in terms of language.” The media only had “the Democratic language” to use, he says.

“The implication of ‘nuclear option’ is way too hot and extreme,” says GOP pollster Frank Luntz, an expert on political phraseology. Words define the debate in politics, he says. “Someone comes up with a cute phrase, like ‘nuclear option,’ and all of a sudden the debate is named.

“This is an example of how cute phrases can kill.” He means this figuratively.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

As a political geek, I went to the site of the National Weather Service after hearing how Sen. Rick “Man on Dog” Santorum is sponsoring a bill to eliminate the NWS so that commercial enterprises can make you pay for their weather news instead (oh, and guess who donated a big hunk o’ dough to Santorum’s campaign?)

But my father is a total weather geek and apparently some of that has rubbed off on me. That — and the graphic design advice I always like to disperse whether it’s asked for or not — made the forecast icon survey a total rush for me.