All across America, Democratic politicians who thought that they were being clever by supporting the infamous Military Commissions Act, which gives President Bush legal amnesty preventing prosecution for war crimes, are finding out that they made a big mistake. Grassroots Democrats and progressive independents are rejecting calls that they ought to support turncoat Democratic politicians like Senator Debbie Stabenow and Congressman Sherrod Brown, in a growing movement that may just make the difference on Election Day.
In Delaware, progressive Democrats are calling upon voters to reject incumbent Democratic Senator Tom Carper, who voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act, and write in the name of Karen E. Peterson instead. When Tom Carper voted for the Military Commissions Act, he voted for torture, for an end to habeas corpus, for the destruction of the Geneva Conventions, for kangaroo courts, and for giving George W. Bush the power of a dictator. Delaware Democrats seem to think that Tom Carper has finally gone too far, and reject Carper’s growing embrace of the Republican agenda.
In Upstate New York, Democrat Michael Arcuri is running for the House of Representatives is in a tight race against Republican Ray Meier. Mike Arcuri may have made a fatal mistake, however, when he announced that he supports the Military Commissions Act. It got even worse for Arcuri when he admitted that he chose to support the Military Commissions Act even though he never actually read the text of the law to find out what it does.
The result? Democrats who once supported Michael Arcuri’s campaign for Congress backed away from him, withholding donations, refusing to volunteer for him, and in some cases, deciding to withhold their votes as well. Democratic bloggers either announced their opposition to the Arcuri for Congress campaign, or just stopped writing about Michael Arcuri at all. The following two online videos show the kind of anger Michael Arcuri provoked when he announced his support for the Military Commissions Act.
To impeach Bush, to imprison Bush, you’ve got to have a Congress that is willing to stand up to Bush. The Democratic leadership of Congress is now promising that it won’t do that.
Nancy Pelosi says that impeachment is off the table. The Military Commissions Act? The Democrats have no plan to repeal it.
So what’s the point of electing a Democratic Congress if they’re just going to act like Republicans?
I went down to the Tompkins County Board of Elections yesterday and re-registered to vote as a political independent – no party affiliation. Up until yesterday, I had been a Democrat. No more.
Here’s why I am no longer a Democrat:
Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, says she won’t pursue impeachment of George W. Bush, even if the Democrats take back both the House and Senate. “Impeachment is off the table”, she says.
John Conyers, who last year said that he wanted to start an investigation of the crimes of George W. Bush and make recommendations regarding impeachment, now says that he takes it back. Congressman Conyers has promised not to bring any action before the House of Representatives that would lead to impeachment.
Large numbers of Democrats crossed party lines to support the Military Commissions Act, a law that rips away our liberty, and the Democratic Party said hardly a peep about it.
The Democratic Party has proven itself to be the party of spineless cowards.
Just when we needed a real opposition party to stand up to a criminal President, the Democrats decided that they wouldn’t bother. Instead, the Democrats are aiming to grab power for their elite leaders by running right wing candidates like Bob Casey and nasty Harold Ford Jr.
Democrats, when you failed to stand up to George W. Bush, you lost me. You won’t get me back.
Last night, I posted an article criticizing the Military Commissions Act. The article pointed out that the Military Commissions Act legalizes torture, revokes habeas corpus, ends enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, gives amnesty to war criminals, allows Bush to imprison people he calls “enemy” without criminal charge, and sets up kangaroo courts with medieval standards of justice.
This morning, that article is gone.
Here’s a graphic of the article’s listing, as it was registered by Technorati:
Support the Iraq War when it started? Were you wrong? You’re not alone.
When the United States went to war in the spring of 2003, Americans overwhelmingly supported the war. Now, three and a half years later, a strong majority of Americans believe the war was a mistake.
Many people, including politicians like John Kerry, have had the courage to come out and say, “I was wrong to have supported Iraq.”
That’s good, it’s a start. But sorry, it’s just not enough. I want to know why.
I want to know what was going through your head when Donald Rumsfeld said he knew EXACTLY where the weapons of mass destruction were, after the U.S. had sent Hans Blix on wild goose chase after wild goose chase looking for them.
What went on in your mind? What made you so quick to denounce Hans Blix as incompetent, when the U.S. couldn’t lead him to the weapons of mass destruction?
What went on in your mind when being greeted with flowers, as liberators, was the only post-war plan you heard about?
Yes, we have learned more over the years about how dishonest and inept the planning for this war has been. We have a “we know now” narrative that’s comforting to some.
But it doesn’t explain why international inspectors followed up the Americans’ leads for months and didn’t find any weapons of mass destruction, or why Americans overwhelmingly supported a war with no plan whatsoever for post-war occupation.
No, “I was wrong” is not enough. I want to hear what you were thinking, how you thought the arguments being made for war at the time made sense. How did you so readily heap disdain on the 20,000,000 “hippie dippy” protesters all around the world, Hans Blix, the U.N., the French, and anbody else that was handy? How did it fail to occur to you that these people were being scapegoated precisely because the arguments in favor of war were so weak? And while you’re at it, tell me what you’re doing to prevent yourself from being wrong again. Explain to me why you think you ought to ever be trusted in a position of power again.
You were wrong. You know now. Good for you, but that’s not the whole story: You let false patriotism blind you to what should have been obvious. You stopped thinking. You allowed yourself to be manipulated into scapegoating people who had done nothing wrong.
It’s a sign of a dangerously coarsening culture in America that the news is receiving so little attention, but make no mistake – the rest of the world is paying attention. Today, the results of a second study from the Johns Hopkins University of Public Health into wartime casualties in Iraq was released.
The study found that about 650,000 Iraqis are likely to have died as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the USA. With the margin of error at work, the real number could be anywhere from about 420,000 to almost 800,000.
Most of these dead Iraqis are civilians. Didn’t do a damned thing against the United States. Consider that the next time someone tells you to stop criticizing the Iraq War because you need to “support the troops”. The “troops” – the American military – has suffered very little in comparison to the Iraqi people.
The war in Iraq has been an illegal war from the start. George W. Bush and the compliant Congress started the war without any provocation whatsoever. It’s illegal to destroy another nation’s sovereignty in the way that the United States has.
Congress needs to be held accountable in this year’s elections, but that’s only a start. For killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, George W. Bush needs to be impeached and put on trial, just as he’s done to Saddam Hussein. Both Hussein and Bush can fairly be called The Butcher of Baghdad.
Oh, no, don’t put Bush to death. That’s too easy on him.
If we are ever going to hold George W. Bush to account for his many crimes and abuses against the American people, the first thing that we have to do is to get rid of the Democrats in Congress who have served as Bush’s loyal assistants. Prime among these pro-Bush Democrats is Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford Jr.
Harold Ford Jr. is a special threat, because he’s not just a member of the US House of Representatives. No, Harold Ford Jr. is also running for a seat in the United States Senate, an even more powerful post.
The problem with Harold Ford Jr. is that, although he’s a Democrat, he represents the Republican agenda more often than not. Ford Jr. has a long history of supporting the worst sort of nutty right wing ideas. Up until this year, Harold Ford’s biggest mistake was voting in favor of starting the war in Iraq. Most recently, Harold Ford Jr. voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act. Perhaps you haven’t heard of the Military Commissions Act yet. Here’s what this new law does:
1. Revokes habeas corpus
2. Legalizes torture
3. Repeals enforcement of the Geneva Conventions
4. Gives the President the power to imprison anyone he wants, without need for explanation, once the President declares the imprisoned person to be an “enemy”
5. Sets up show trials that allow conviction to happen before an investigation into the alleged criminal activity has even begun
6. Allows the government to use secret evidence to convict defendants, which not even the defendants’ lawyers can see.
7. Ends the right to a speedy trial, allowing imprisonment without criminal charges for long periods of time – potentially for a lifetime
8. Legalizes the use of testimony that was obtained through torture or other means of coercion
9. Keeps the processes of trials, the results of the trials, and even the existence of the trials, secret from the American public.
10. Ends the enforcement of the 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination
11. Allows defendants and their lawyers to be prevented from cross examining witnesses, while placing no such restriction on the prosecution
12. Gives anyone suspected of war crimes, including President Bush himself, immunity from prosecution
These are not the values that the Democratic Party is supposed to stand for. For voting for this bill, Harold Ford Jr. not only deserves to lose his race for the United States Senate, he deserves to be kicked out of the Democratic Party… if the Democratic Party actually stands for anything any more.
Hm. If it’s willing to support right wing nuts like Harold Ford Jr. for United States Senate, does the Democratic Party stand for anything any more?
America is in trouble when the good guys go bad. The Democrats are supposed to be the good guys, standing up to George W. Bush and protecting our freedom from the nationalist Homeland Republican agenda.
More and more, however, it seems that many Democrats are going over to the dark side.
This month, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act. The Military Commissions Act suspends habeas corpus, legalizes torture, ends enforcement of the Geneva Conventions, replaces justice with kangaroo courts, and gives George W. Bush the power to throw people into prison for the rest of their lives without any criminal charge if he considers them to be an “enemy”.
Democrats should be against this new law. Clearly, the Military Commissions Act replaces American democracy with American tyranny.
But, some Democrats are joining the forces of tyranny. Over in Illinois, we find one such fascist Democrat in Melissa Bean.
Melissa Bean has abandoned the mainstream of the Democrat Party in order to join forces with George W. Bush. Melissa Bean has voted for the Military Commissions Act.
Shame on you, Melissa Bean.
I’ll make the point short and sweet: Melissa Bean does not deserve the votes of the Democrats in her congressional district.
