Torture is the tool of those who have power but no moral authority.  Today America is run by people who think torture makes sense.

I have a problem . I just cannot help myself from arguing with those who support or condone its use.   And lately I have been arguing a lot about this ugly reality.  Eventually I disconnect from these people.  
Torture is a defining issue to me. I do not want to have anything to do with people who torture.  I don’t want them to come to my home, I don’t want to talk to them in social settings, I don’t want to work with them, I don’t want them in police stations or in the Pentagon and I don’t want them in the White House or Congress.  

So, as of today, where do the presidential contenders stand on torture?  Which one gives me the most hope that the creeping cancer of torture will be contained and eradicated, which one will shut down Guantanamo faster, which one will most probably bring to justice those who have committed this crime, which one will set America on the path to reclaim some degree of the moral authority to play any leadership role in global politics?

It was one of those eye-rolling moments when I read in the SF Chronicle that Ms. Sheehan followed through with her threat to "challenge" Speaker Pelosi for the Democratic nomination. Apparently "Chicken John" Rinaldi declined to run for the seat, which cleared the way for Ms. Sheehan.
Here's the  story.
If you want to kindly ask her to reconsider her efforts (or offer your support and a $2,300 donation)please contact her here

Here's what I wrote to her...

Oh christ...

Like we didn't have ENOUGH problems with the schisms within this Party right now.

She's now on the hunt for the 10,189 siganatures to be qualified for the Ballot, I assume as an INDEPENDENT.

I'm going to present this, WITHOUT OPINION. (At least up here!)

I live in CA-8, Nancy Pelosi’s district.  In fact, I live right in the middle of downtown San Francisco. I see, literally every day, some of the ills of gentrification, as well as the high-rise development in downtown and the dire situation of drug use and homelessness that plagues our nation. I have lived in and traveled all over Europe, and I’ve never seen the devastation of the San Francisco Tenderloin.

I have to take a moment today to remember someone who I never met but who means a lot to me. Casey Austin Sheehan died 4 years ago today in Iraq. A day I will never forget 04/04/04. (Forgive me for not knowing how to add his picture)

I think of Casey often. I think about how he didn't want to go to war but he did. He did it because he always did the right thing. He was that kind of person. He was a good guy who came from a wonderful family.

Being a parent I can't imagine having one of my children missing from my life. It happens to so many. Cindy, Casey's Mom spoke about the masses of death and also told us some telling things about Casey....things I think we should all remember. A mother knows her child best

"When your child is killed in a war, they always say ‘Your child volunteered. Your child was a hero.’What makes him a hero if he was ordered to kill innocent Iraqis?" -- Cindy Sheehan.

The convergence of today's 5th anniversary of "shock and awe" with Christian Holy Week and Iraq Moratorium #7 has sparked hundreds of antiwar actions across the country this week.

The Iraq Moratorium, a loosely-knit grassroots movement, is usually observed on the Third Friday of every month, but March events are spread throughout the week.

It began last weekend, when more than 500 people gathered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Francisco for a rally, march and vigil. Speakers included Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, State Sen. Carole Migden and former San Francisco Supervisor and current Green Party vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez.

Lest we think that opposition to the war and occupation of Iraq is limited to the left in this country, consider the lineup of speakers for a March 16 Iraq Moratorium event in San Francisco:

Several of the usual suspects: Sean Penn; Cindy Sheehan; the Rev. Gregory Stewart, senior minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church; Matt Gonzalez, ex-president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and rumored vice presidential candidate on the Green Party ticket.

And one Justin Raimondo, libertarian and paleoconservative (look it up; we did) author who also runs the website Antiwar.com, where he writes things like:

Former United States Representative Elizabeth Holtzman wrote on the need for impeachment, and why the excuses for not doing it hold no water whatsoever.  Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel (yes, he's still running, no matter how much some want to deny it) is calling for impeachment -- as is Cindy Sheehan, who is rightly trying to unseat Nancy Pelosi for her complicity in the crimes of the Bush-Cheney regime.

On Friday's front page, kos pointed out that

We don't have much power. In fact, we have very little.

As we've learned this year, Democrats in DC are more afraid of David Broder, Joe Klein, and Mr. 24%, than they are of their constituents. They are more concerned with Beltway opinion than they are with the national consensus. They are happier dealing with lobbyists than they are dealing with real people. They are more concerned with avoiding criticism than they are of delivering campaign promises.

(snip)  

And they know damn well we'd rather hold our nose and vote for them than risk an even viler Republican slip in their stead.

So what does that leave us? Well, we have one tool at our disposal, our only way to influence the behavior of our elected officials:

We can primary them

Good enough. But then there's Nancy Pelosi's district, the California 8th. So far, there is no Democratic primary challenger to Nancy. There are two Rs running, a potential Green (not Matt Gonzalez, thank G-d), and she-who-must-not-be-named-here, running as an Independent. All this comes together after the jump.  

Let's get one thing straight up front – I'm a Democrat. I have been a Democrat long enough (my whole life) to remember what the Democratic party stands for. (If you have any doubts what the Democratic party stands for, I recommend renting It's a Wonderful Life this Christmas. Frank Capra gets it across much better than I could.)

I do NOT support abandoning the Democratic party for a third party. I believe that, while the Democratic leadership does not deserve our support, and this includes most of those elected in Washington, it does not serve the interests of the progressive movement, or the Democratic wing of the Democratic party, to hand the government back to the Republicans.

I believe that, even though she is a card carrying member of the Washington Establishment (otherwise known as "the problem), a Hillary presidency would be much better than any Republican running.

I also believe that, though the Senate houses the worst of our party, we simply cannot afford to hand it back to the Republicans either.

Sometimes when I can't sleep, I plug in a name at Project Vote Smart and start reading that person's public statements for any little gems I can find.  Here is today's gem:

Statements from Mike Huckabee's website have made it to Project Vote Smart, including this:

What I accomplished as Governor proves that there is a lot more that a pro-life President can do than wait for a Supreme Court vacancy, and I will do everything I can to promote a pro-life agenda and pass pro-life legislation. If I'm saddled with a Democrat Congress, I'll veto any pro-abortion legislation they pass. I will staff all relevant positions with pro-life appointees. I will use the bully pulpit to change hearts and minds. I have no desire to throw women in jail, I just want us to stop throwing babies in the garbage.

He has no desire to throw women in jail - but he may just have to!  Stupid, slutty women!  They just like to throw babies in the garbage.  Why, women hardly qualify as people.  They're more like dumb animals, really, but more skanky.

Remember Cindy Sheehan's last diary on Daily Kos?

I have been "warned"

I can't post here anymore because my potential run for Congress
is not on the Democratic ticket.

I have been deeply grateful for all of your support over the years.
Your love and kindness helped me through lots of sleepless nights
at Camp Casey '05.

If Speaker Pelosi does her constitutionally mandated duty and I don't run,
then I can come back and post.

I know a lot of you are hostile towards my candidacy. Please
understand that I am doing it for your children and grandchildren
(and my surviving ones.)

Love always,
Cindy

I don't know the details of the warning that made Cindy Sheehan think she couldn't post here anymore, but whether she was banned, gagged, censored, or none of the above, a lot of us would like to see this great anti-war activist return to Daily Kos.

I think it's especially important to discuss this issue now that Nancy Pelosi has been exposed as an advocate and enabler of waterboarding and other forms of torture.

Well according to the rules here we can only support Democrats.

Yet I wonder how much we are not in fact like Morpheus, with a 'known propensity for disobedience'.  I can not vote in this race anymore, but I do still live close enough to support the candidate of my choice there, quite actively.

So I am curious what would the average Kossack do when faced with a choice between voting for Bush's dream 'opposition leader/Speaker of the House' who funds every request for the very war she claims to oppose?  Of course there is also her abandonment of the oversight of the Administration vis a vis even the willingness to Investigate whether Impeachment is warranted.

So for 2 very large reasons many, most[?] of us feel betrayed or at least very poorly represented.

Please keep Commments specific to Pelosi, war-funding, Impeachment and this congressional race.  If you can't resist the urge to go off-topic, start your own diary please!

BTW: so sure is the SF Chronicle of Pelosi winning they were too scared to cover the opening, even though Matt Gonzalez [47% against pelosi-relative   the current mayor]spoke at it.

[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]

A simple politician’s lie and shrapnel’n missiles will eternally fly, that is the reality forced upon us.  In a hellish place of searing heat, floating torn bodies in the Tigris, flaming oil and screams of the shattered there is a war on of our own hands, our own precious people in harm’s way, yet this utter catastrophe just on the other side of the Mediterranean might as well be on Pluto or in some fiction pulp for all our chattering media and political class care.  Ignoring the war and what we have done, its mayhem on another continent, has worked so far in keeping this horror funded and ongoing all these years.

Mary Tillman is fifteen minutes from here somewhere, Cindy Sheehan sixty.  Their souls are not on some other planet, this isn’t some video game or Clancy yarn, the evil and death of our doing shattered their lives, took their men from their families, lessened us all greatly, shamed us before our brother and sister nations, crushed Iraq into eternal spirals of pain, and left Mary and Cindy on a journey of living hell horrifying in its burdens right here, right now among us.

This a reply to Hunter's very good, but stooping right at the edge of revelation/revolution essay yesterday, on what to do with democrats who won't lead.

I posted this same reply more or less [w/ lots more typos], but when I went to look for it under comments I could not find it. Don't know if it was purged lost or... but here is my reply to Hunter and by implication, Kos - and a mea culpa: in my first draft I accidentally left democrat party in - a real typo, I never refer to the party that way, and as mad as I get at them wont. So if that is why it was scrubbed [if it was - my fault] enough prologue...

You want to know what to do? (0 / 0)

It is bitter medicine Kos and co, but Cindy Sheehan has shown the way. You personally oppose the betrayers of Country [and far less importantly] Party.

The truth is, like it or not; Cindy Sheehan is the ONLY ONE with a plan for dealing with Pelosi!

more below the fold ::

ps - this is not a sheehan diary! It was just such an obvious example that to overlook it would have been stupid.

I've read stories here off and on for a few years, but only lately have I felt compelled to ask all of you a few things. These questions aren't intended to bait you, I'm not trolling or ranting or anything else. I welcome all answers, there are no qualifications... I'm not asking for strict logic. If you can only answer emotionally, or intuitively, or whatever, that's fine too.

To get Cheney's impeachment back on the table. If Nancy Pelosi receives 10,000 hand written letters, according to this story, she will move to put it back where it belongs. Urban legend?
I do not know. It's a small amount of effort on our part. Where did I put that stationary with little chickadees on it?

I was just looking at some diaries from the past few weeks on Cindy Sheehan and the varying and passionate reactions she tends to provoke around here. While I tend to question her emotional stability and don't think that she is likely to defeat Nancy Pelosi, I also think that Sheehan is relatively more honest, at this point, then Pelosi, who has promised much and who has delivered little. Pelosi has been rendered hamstrung by her association with such fellow DLC/centrist leaders as Rahm Emanuel, Steny Hoyer and by such factions as her Blue Dogs. Pelosi - who famously took the impeachment option off the table - seems more concerned with preserving the Democrats' majority, which she seems to think will occur by her not rocking the boat on Iraq or the Administration's criminality too hard, than with actually leading. Perhaps that is an unfair characterization, but I really do think that her leadership has been one of utter failure. My suggestion then is that she should lose her seat in Congress as a stark reminder to her party of her failure to lead, and of her failure to the country. If this means voting against a Democrat, and voting for Cindy Sheehan, then so be it. I happen to think that this is a corrective which is needed to make the Democratic Party stronger and thus better.