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by Glynn Wilson
Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, a potential anti-war candidate in the 2008 presidential field, according to AP, urged fellow Democrats on Monday to show more backbone in challenging President Bush on his decision to invade Iraq.
"We must get out of our political foxholes and be willing to clearly and specifically point out what a strategic error the Iraq invasion has been," Feingold told an audience at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Watch the re-run on C-SPAN on TV, or watch the video online here.
Feingold, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees, said some Democrats in Congress gave in to "intimidation" by the Bush administration when they voted to authorize the war in 2002.
"If we do not show both a practical and emotional readiness to lead in the fight against terrorism, we will lose in '06 and we will lose in '08, just like we did in '02 and '04," he warned.
Feingold called for the censure of Bush over the administration's warrantless surveillance program back in March. So far, only two Democrats, Tom Harkin of Iowa and Barbara Boxer of California, have signed on as co-sponsors. Some on the hard left, and even some Republicans, have said censure is not the answer, impeachment is...
Feingold has also proposed that U.S. troops leave Iraq by the end of the year, rejecting criticism that such a move could lead to chaos there.
"I believe the situation would probably get better" if U.S. troops left, he said. "The lesson of insurgency is when the occupying power leaves, it tends to lessen, rather than increase, the level of violence."
He said people ask him at every stop he makes out in the country, including Montgomery, Alabama, why Democrats won't stand up publicly for what they believe - especially against President George W. Bush. This includes Bush's decision to invade Iraq, rather than pursuing al Qaeda.
Iraq was not on the administration's list of countries where al Qaeda was operating on 9/11, he pointed out.
"It was not even on THEIR list," he said.
Feingold, who cast the lone vote against the USA Patriot Act in the Senate, also said he has no confidence in the assurances issued Monday by Bush's new appointee to the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, that the NSA has not been spying on American citizens without warrants.
by Glynn Wilson
It's blackberry winter in Alabama with cloudy skies and cool temperatures and there's not much light for shooting bird pictures. Plus, the spring migration is about over anyway.
So it's a good time to read and/or catch up on weekend programming on C-SPAN, where you can learn allot about what's going on in the world beyond the suburbs.
It's always funny and somewhat instructive to watch the annual White House correspondents dinner at the National Press Club building in Washington, D.C., especially for a credentialed Congressional reporter who has attended events there myself.
Last year on a trip there I met a lot of interesting people, including some of Hunter S. Thompson's editors and friends - and the famous White House shill reporter and gay male prostitute, Jeff Gannon.
It was interesting to watch President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura flee the building as soon as the dinner program ended after the spoof conservative comedian Stephen Colbert reamed the president while pretending to support him as his hero. It was also seriously funny to watch Bush lookalike comedian Steve Bridges do Bush better than Bush.
Bush Faces Press With Comedian Lookalike
Earlier in the evening, however, there was an interesting program on C-SPAN's Book TV, which featured MediaChannel's Rory O'Connor interviewing Danny Schechter, who calls himself the "news dissector."
Schechter's new book When News Lies: Media Complicity and The Iraq War is billed as "an up to date indictment of the role media played in promoting and misreporting the war on Iraq."
According to the MediaChannel.Org Web site, "It is an analysis of how and why the media got it wrong that pinpoints the failures of journalism and the collusion of media companies with the Bush Administration."
"Most of the anti-war movement focused on the crimes of the Bush Administration ignoring the mainstream media, its far more effective accomplice," says Schechter, a former network producer with ABC and CNN. "The government orchestrated the war while the media marketed it. You couldn't have one without the other."
With the book you also get a feature-length DVD of the prize-winning film WMD (Weapons of Mass Deception), which chronicles the media war fought alongside the military campaign and the struggle to stand up for truth and a foreword by acclaimed media writer and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff, along with prefaces by independent Iraq reporter Dahr Jamail and information warfare specialist Colonel (Ret) Sam Gardiner, a war analyst for the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer.
The film WMD, distributed on DVD by Cinema Libre Distribution, won top documentary prizes at film festivals in Austin Texas, Denver Colorado and Durban, South Africa.
For more information and to see the trailer narrated by Academy Award winner Tim Robbins, visit wmdthefilm.com.
Or check out Schechter's media watchdog site, MediaChannel.Org.
It has long been my position that the media and the press need critics from the left as well as the right. As an investigative reporter who got into the news business at a time when then-President Ronald Reagan had the press on the ropes and the Moral Majority had the media on the march to the right, I have watched with great angst as this trend has continued under the fear-mongering Bush administration.
It is unclear whether the media and the press in this country will take up the call and respond to this criticism, or whether all the new alternative media sources will supplant them. But it is clear that large numbers of people are disgruntled with the mainstream media and turning to alternative sources for news online.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, the World Wide Web continues to grow as a source of news for Americans. One-in-four, 24 percent, list the Web as a main source of news. Roughly the same number, 23 percent, say they go online for news every day, up from 15 percent in 2000; the percentage checking the Web for news at least once a week has grown from 33 percent to 44 percent over the same time period.
We say long live the press, the Internet, the First Amendment and the United States of America. But the media critics are right. The corporate media is complicit in this war and the damage this administration has done. The public should hold them accountable and raise hell about it.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced strong questioning today by Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and other members, in the attempt to determine whether President George W. Bush's program to spy on Americans via the National Security Agency is legal - or not.
Gonzales Faces Tough Questions on Spying
If you care about individual liberties, watch it live on C-SPAN and make up your own mind as to whether the program is legal or warranted.
It is pretty clear to me that the president has already admitted breaking the law. He just doesn't admit that what he did and is still doing is against the law. He is asserting, through the Justice Department, that he is above the law, while saying he is NOT above the law.
This is classic double-speak right out of George Orwell's book 1984. This is Big Brother, and it is a mystery why anyone calling themselves a conservative could support the administration on this issue. I thought conservatives and libertarians wanted the government out of our bedrooms, not listening in on our telephone conversations, land lines and cell phones, and reading our mail and e-mail.
The misleading defense of this specific NSA program is that only calls to and from abroad are included. But that ignores the larger issue of other agencies of the federal government, including the Pentagon, spying on peace groups, environmental groups, journalists and yes even bloggers.
If the Senate Judiciary Committee wants to get to the bottom of how this administration has broken the law rising to the level of impeachment of the president and the vice president, the inquiry should be exanded to include the other domestic spying programs. The probe should not just be limited to an inquiry of the NSA's sweeping program of searching for key words in phone calls and e-mails.
As has already been reported widely, most of the NSA's requests for a followup investigation by the FBI have been dropped because the target was clearly not associated with any real terrorists or al Qaeda.
But what I have been saying over and over again since before this Web site was started is that the Bush administration is intent on characterizing as a "terrorist" any activist who disagrees with Bush's policies.
Carefully read this post from Sept. 26, 2004, along with the links.
No One Likes a Critic; Democracy Demands Criticism
We suspect, although it is not yet coming out in the press, the media, or in the questioning of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that when administration officials say they are only looking at "al Qaeda" and "terrorists" and "their associates," what they mean is any opponent of the administration, especially peace advocates, animal rights activists and groups and individuals who oppose the administration's radical views that pose a grave risk to the national and global environment.
Watch it on C-SPAN 2: The U.S. Senate is about to vote to end debate on President George W. Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, Samuel Alito of New Jersey.
AP: Kennedy Leads Final Effort to Block Alito
Is anyone else up late watching the C-SPAN2 coverage of Rep. Conyer's Democratic hearing on domestic spying (1/20/2006)? Fascinating...
The Senate blocked oil drilling in an Alaska wildlife refuge Wednesday, rejecting a must-pass defense spending bill where supporters positioned the quarter-century-old environmental issue to garner broader support, according to the Associated Press.
Drilling backers fell four votes short of getting the required 60 votes to avoid a threatened filibuster of the defense measure over the oil drilling issue. Senate leaders were expected to withdraw the legislation so it could be reworked without the refuge language. The vote was 56-44.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was among those who for procedural reasons cast a "no" vote, so that he could bring the drilling issue up for another vote.
The vote was a stinging defeat for Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who for years has waged an intense fight to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. He had thought this time he would finally get his wish.
Stevens called the refuge's oil vital to national security and bemoaned repeated attempts over the years by opponents using the filibuster to kill drilling proposals.
Democrats, conversely, accused Stevens of holding hostage a military spending bill that includes money to support troops in Iraq and $29 billion for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"Our military is being held hostage by this issue, Arctic drilling," fumed Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader. The Nevada Democrat said the Senate could move quickly to pass the defense bill once the refuge issue was resolved.
"We all agree we want money for our troops. ... This is not about the troops," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a strong critic of letting oil development disturb the refuge in northeastern Alaska.
Full AP story
Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is holding up the United States Senate from passing a defense authorization bill to fund the troops in Iraq and a measure to provide further relief for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, simply to add a measure allowing big oil to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska.
This not only violates Senate rules, it is an abomination to thinking Americans everywhere and should be stopped.
Turn to C-SPAN 2 now to watch the debate live.
Read the AP story: Senate Vote on Alaska Oil Drilling Too Close to Call
Then call your Senators and object. Also call your local television news stations and find out why they are not covering this crucial time in the history of democracy. Even the cable TV news shows are ignoring this.
With only five days to go before Christmas, a debate is still raging in the U.S. Senate over the budget and defense spending, with the issues of domestic spying authorized by the Bush administration and oil drilling in Alaska as important side issues. Watch democracy at work.
C-SPAN 2
Turn to C-SPAN 2 NOW. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., debates Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, on the renewal of the USA Patriot Act.
C-SPAN 2 LIVE
A historic hearing on American liberties is taking place RIGHT NOW in the U.S. Senate. If you have C-SPAN at home or access to high speed Internet, turn to C-SPAN 2 and watch.
It is interesting that Republicans who should be the most conservative when it comes to protecting American civil liberties seem to be the most vocal in repealing those liberties in the name of security. But why does the FBI, the NSA and Military Intelligence have to spy on little old ladies, librarians, bloggers and journalists when they can't even find Osama bin Laden?
Watch the U.S. Senate on C-SPAN 2
The Associated Press is reporting today that several Patriot Act provisions that the Bush administration says are crucial in the fight to stop terrorism on U.S. soil may only be around for another couple of weeks.
A coalition of Senate Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans is threatening to filibuster a congressional agreement to renew 16 key portions of the USA Patriot Act before they expire Dec. 31.
A showdown vote was scheduled Friday, with the White House and its congressional allies rejecting suggestions for a short-term extension of the current law as is. White House allies said they would prefer to let the 16 temporary provisions expire completely rather than give critics more time to add additional restrictions on the FBI's ability to comb through Americans' computer files and bank and library records.
Making most of the Act's provisions permanent is a priority for both the Bush administration and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill before Congress adjourns for the year.
The House on Wednesday passed a House-Senate compromise bill to renew the Act that supporters say added significant safeguards to the law. These supporters predict doom and gloom if the Patriot Act's critics win and the provisions expire.
The failure to renew the provisions would be "interpreted by our enemies as somehow inviting or even enabling further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said.
But the critics, who include senators like Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Republican Larry Craig of Idaho, say they don't want the Patriot Act to expire - they just want enough time to improve the bill to the point where it doesn't infringe on American liberties.
AP: USA Patriot Act Faces Opposition in Senate
A major plumbing crisis and other important errands prevented us Friday from more detailed coverage of the major debates going on in Congress over taxes and the budget, but a quick review of the action shows at least that the Democrats are working hard to fight a Republican controlled Senate hell-bent on slanting government programs to big corporations and the rich and to slight poor and working Americans.
It is still a mystery why people of modest means in the South and other parts of the country would ever vote for these policies, but as the liberal Republican Abraham Lincoln indicated, you can fool enough of the people some of the time.
Congress Rushes to Tie Up Loose Ends Before Break
Meanwhile, we do not spend a lot of time and space covering sports here at The Locust Fork, but this game has us worried, since Editor and Publisher Glynn Wilson has two degrees from Alabama.
SEC's Best Offense and Defense to Face Off in Auburn, Ala.
Crimson White story
It will come down to whether the Alabama defense can hold off the Auburn offense, and maybe to whether the Tide offense can overcome its problems and generate a few touchdowns for a change.
But the main editorial point we want to make here, no matter who wins the game, is that someone should come up with a new and better name for this rivalry. The game is no longer The Iron Bowl, because it is not played in Birmingham, the iron city.
You can blame this on former Auburn coach Pat Dye for pressing to move the game to Auburn, or Birmingham's former Mayor Richard Arrington for not spending the money on Legion Field to keep the game in Birmingham, or simply the economic realities that both universities want to play the game at home. No matter.
It ain't "The Iron Bowl" no more.
In spite of the history of the rivalry, we just wish some smart sports reporter, if there is such a thing, would come up with a phrase that characterizes the rivalry and has nothing to do with iron.
Any thoughts?
Forget watching the drivel on cable news today, or even reading the news wires online.
For a lesson in democracy, turn to C-SPAN 2. The Democrats in the Senate are trying to eliminate tax breaks for oil companies and millionaires, which both groups say they don't need anyway. I'm not saying this because I am a liberal or a Democrat. It is objectively obvious that what they are saying makes horse sense.
If the Republican majority does not allow these amendments to pass before the holiday recess, they should never expect another vote from any poor or working person in this country ever again.
The national debt and deficits are totally out of control and all the tax incentives for energy are going to the old energy alliance, while Congress cuts everything working families need from college loans to Medicaid, food stamps and even aid promised to 9/11 victims and the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The activist left in this country needs new leadership if there is not some massive marching in the streets - and soon if these measures fail.
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