By now we know the methods and motives behind the White House P.R. machine. Leak something to some of your favorite hacks, have a public pronouncement ready to magnify the intended message, then point out the coincidence to a slow-minded press and watch them pounce.

Make no mistake: the White House has perfected it and are still using it to this day. There should also be no doubt in anyone's mind about George Bush: the only thing he gives a shit about is politics and whether he's beaten his opponent. Successful programs, new efficiencies in governing, and enhancing America's economy, technology or environment is for the birds.

And that explains the reason Bush went after Obama in Israel and called him an "appeaser". The steps are as simple as 1, 2, 3:

Once again, the lie that it's only Republicans who support the troops is exposed:

Many soldiers missing out on Bush's stimulus checks
 
In August 2006 the 10th Mountain Division, 2nd BCT, 1-89 Cavalry was sent to Iraq for 12 months. In April 2007, the troops were told the Army was adding three additional months to their time in country.
 
In November 2007 the troopers of 1-89 arrived back in New York from their tour. They are now being told by the IRS, via the IRS Web site, that they haven't earned enough money to qualify for the economic stimulus check.

Congressman Mark Udall from Colorado's Fighting 2^nd is an undeclared superdelegate. He's also running to give us two (D) Senators against a typically corrupt and shiftless Republicon named Bob Schaffer, who has major ties to Jack Abramoff and makes big bucks as an oil executive here in CO.

The race has been pretty quiet, the numbers tight, and Udall has been holding back - a bit too much for my tastes.

But Hillary's "with us or against us" challenge on this idiotic gas tax holiday forced Mark to make a statement. And both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post covered it:

There have been no takers in the sponsorship of a long standing Easter Service traditionally held in Colorado Springs landmark Garden of the Gods each year:

No Colorado Springs church or group has booked public land on Easter Sunday morning for the service, said Paul Butcher, director of the city's Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services.

OMG, and I friggin' mean it! No New Life Church, former home of Ted Haggard, whose very name implies the rebirth of Christ? No way: they have a highly profitable schedule of shows to put on.

From the 1920s till 2002, the Easter sunrise service was held in the Garden of the Gods. But parking problems and the cost of renting stages, shuttling in worshippers and supplying portable toilets became too expensive for sponsors.

Will the hurricanes, lighting bolts and floods of a wrathful God consume Colorado Springs for its lack of faith? Are we to believe all the self-righteous in Fort Dobson, who say they believe, yet can't be bothered?

The tension between the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama presidential campaigns is now filtering down to local races and party organizations. The stuff you see on a daily basis at the national level is being duplicated locally, and this is where the candidate(s), once again, better think about the results of their actions and the tone they are setting for our party.

I just spoke to a local Party official here in Colorado Springs who had a local candidate come to him for help. The candidate is running for State House in a district that's trending our way. She made a go of it two years back, and is ready for another run.

Her campaign manager backs Hillary. Her finance director backs Barack. They are both at each others' throats and the candidate, instead of focusing all her energy on removing one more whack job Republican from office, now how to deal with the Hillary/Obama fight on a daily basis.

We can't win - locally or nationally - with this never-ending bickering. One person can end it. And I don't see it happening...........

As President Bush came into office in 2001 there was one overriding philosophy at work: if Bill Clinton did it then Bush 43 wouldn't. Bush took a hardline stance against America's role in trying to forge peace between Israel and Palestine. Ari Fleischer voiced Bush's disdain for the peace process and criticized Bill Clinton's end of term attempts as "shoot the moon":

Last week's comments by Ari Fleischer suggesting President Clinton's failed push for a final peace deal at Camp David helped spark the intifada actually offer some insight into Bush administration thinking. Fleischer said "You can make the case that in an attempt to shoot the moon and get nothing, more violence resulted." His comment track[ed] with the Bush administration's own hands-off approach to the Middle East conflict.

But now Bush is staring a failed legacy in the face and wants to do something about it in his last year in office. His answer? A "shoot the moon" attempt to calm the region he ignored since the start of his presidency:

Yeah, I know, I hate it when these slight victories are paired with instant fundraising appeals from our various candidates and causes.

But Chris Dodd and team kicked ass all up and down the Senate today: they forced Harry Reid to back off on fast-track immunity for the telecoms, they made a profound statement of support for our Constitution, and they exposed the lame-assed Republican cowardly liars for what they are.

It's not the money, but give anyway, someone may be watching. And the next time you need the Constitution it may be waiting there with open arms....

Many in the press still are still providing the Bush Administration cover on waterboarding by saying it only "simulates" drowning. This probably reduces the seriousness of what we are doing to these guys in our own citizens' eyes (surely no one else's) - and let's Bush seem like a compassionate torturer.

Here are the latest 3 examples of the soft bigotry of low expectations that I've seen in waterboard-gate reporting:

• Ed Henry: "A former CIA officer revealing the agency did use water boarding, which simulates drowning..."
• Tweety: "The idea is to make the person think they are drowning....They believe they're drowning. (laughter)"
• NY Times: "waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used to extract information from a prisoner"

But is waterboarding fake drowning? Of course not.  

Big mouthed Bob Newman at 850KOA in Denver is well known up here. His lies are usually too petty and numerous to document, but every once and a while he says something spectacularly stupid. And after hurting his station's advertising revenues after an anti-Muslim tirade he has now hurt his own pocketbook AND lost a book deal due to his uncontrollable hatred.

Colorado Media Matters tells how Bob lost it:

After having touted the planned release of his next book during the May 11 broadcast of his Newsradio 850 KOA show, will host "Gunny" Bob Newman now inform listeners that his publisher has canceled the book? Newman promoted the book, The War for America: Liberal Extremism, Moral Turpitude, and High Crimes and Misdemeanors, while discussing the backlash against the inflammatory, anti-Muslim remarks he made on his May 8 show and also promoted it on his KOA website at that time. The book was scheduled to be released in June, but according to Cumberland House Publishing, it "has been cancelled."

There are very few tools left in the Republican tool pouch with which they can win the few seats they even have a shot at. Immigration will be big, but our side can win by doing  the political/moral right thing. Fundies are also going to try a round of ballot measures giving "personhood" to Blastocyst-Americans. Those are most likely headed for failure as well.

Then there's the smear and fear tactic that worked so well in 2002 and 2004. It failed in 2006, but the old saw about only having a hammer comes into play as we see the Bob Schaffer, the NRSC and Republican staffers try to use FISA law complications against Democrats in general and Mark Udall in particular.

Here's the lie: Democrats voted to give terrorists the same rights as Americans.

Desperate enough to praise a short-term congressman who is himself desperate to hold onto his seat after numerous failures and mistakes. Rush Limbaugh desperately praises Doug Lamborn (CO-05) over the "phony soldier" comment:

Another member of Colorado's congressional delegation has weighed in on the Rush Limbaugh "phony soldiers" fracas, this time generating an on-air thank-you from the broadcaster.

Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colorado Springs, went to the House floor last week to defend Limbaugh:

"I rise today to denounce the liberals' fraudulent attacks on Rush Limbaugh," Lamborn said Thursday. "Anyone who reads the widely available transcript, as I have done, sees that Mr. Limbaugh was appropriately referring to the pretenders who pose as medal winners, or who falsely claim to have committed atrocities in Iraq, when he used the phrase 'phony soldiers."'

What to do about Iran? That is the question these days, but no one has given the simple answer. Cheney want(ed) to bomb 2,000+ targets. That didn't sell well enough, so they had to back down. The new target is al Quds and their factories and such. That would mean acts of war against Iran. Which all the military experts and administration flacks now portray as inevitable.

When Petraeus testified before congress, he made sure to stoke the fires of war with Iran. Political mission accomplished (.PDF):

Malign actions by Syria and, especially, by Iran fuel that violence.

...snip...

...disrupting the efforts of the Iranian-supported militia extremists.

...snip...

...the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding, and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps’ Qods Force.

The Senate stupidly wasted their time on long-winded questions and speechifying:

This is what our brave soldiers are going through, and this is what the so-called leaders in the Democratic party cannot seem to grasp:

Soldiers from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, are again preparing for war. Although they’re not ignorant of the politics dividing the nation, most say they’re trying to stay out of such arguments.

Some are just too tired to care.

It’s the latest emotional evolution for the 3,600-soldier brigade, which in December heads to Iraq for the third time. In 2003, they were itching to fight. Those returning to war in late 2005 were more subdued, but still talked hopefully of ending the war so they wouldn’t have to go back again. Now most say going back to Iraq is the right thing to do, but don’t ask them to stand up and cheer.

Don't ask them to stand up and cheer. I hope our U.S. Senators, like my own Ken Salazar, can see the bravery on display and replace some of their own cowardice with it and act to end this war.

MoveOn is on the defensive for their ad that rightly questioned whether General Petraeus would tell the unbiased truth about Iraq. Their ad also contained facts which no one has disputed. He didn't tell the truth, and the people weren't moved by his rose-colored prose. Almost all reporting and facts have shown Iraq is worse off than before the surge.

One of the first events I participated in during the surge of grassroots democracy brought on by Howard Dean in 2003 was a MoveOn event in Colorado Springs.

That event gave me hope there was someone out there who held similar views. And it told me we could do something without waiting for our so-called leaders. I am a MoveOn.org Democrat, they speak for those who are too timid to highlight the ugly truth, they speak some truths that the DC establishment can't see from their perch. As our United States Senators have condemned me and all MoveOn members then they should also condemn the following: 

The Democratic primary is where the race is for Colorado's Fighting Second congressional seat. Mark Udall is a shoe-in for the Senate seat being vacated by do-nothing Wayne Allard. Jared Polis, running against two other Dems, and former Senate candidate Mike Miles, are speaking up today on the failed Iraq war escalation:

Boulder, CO - Wednesday, September 12, 2007 - Today, Jared Polis announced his firm opposition to any congressional funding for the Iraq War that is not directly tied to a firm schedule for withdrawal.  "I have always been against the war and I have protested this unjust war since the beginning," noted Polis.  "In Congress, I will not vote for one more dollar in funding for the war until and unless it is tied to a firm and enforceable deadline."

Joan Fitz-Gerald is a DLC-type up here who's done more than her share to support this war. Jared calls her out:

Ed Perlmutter is the first term Democratic congressman from Colorado's Fighting Seventh. Here's his reaction to the Surge Sales Pitch:

"I have the utmost respect for Gen. Petraeus and our troops. I agree with him that once again our brave men and women in uniform have performed with bravery and distinction. Eight months after the surge the progress made by the Iraqi government is negligible. The surge was intended to provide breathing room for the Iraqi Parliament and Prime Minister Maliki’s government to make the political decisions required to stabilize their country and they have not done so."

Jared Polis is running for congress in Colorado's Fighting Second district. This is going to be a primary race between three dedicated and diverse D's. Boulder is the most well-known part of the district, but is probably not the place where it'll be won.

Through no fault of his own, Jared had a rough start on the internet side of his campaign for the seat in this district.  Raf Noboa, a well-known and widely traveled activist, was Jared's internet outreach director. He had a burst of joy following YearlyKos at the prospect of Jared's chances and his commitment to engage the Netroots and liberal activists of all stripes. That rational, though premature, exuberance cost Raf his spot on Jared's team.

Jared has made millions on the internet with several businesses, but the scrutiny and pushback in the political blogosphere may have come as a surprise. Now he's gone old-school and hired Jerome Armstrong, who coined the term "netroots", and his team to do the Polis campaign's internet work:

Colorado representative Doug Lamborn has just made the final doo-doo step it what will be the shortest and most lackluster career the House has ever seen. Doug Lamborn's recorded threats to a pair of voters critical of his views has now reached the pages of both the Denver and Huffington Posts. Doug's local paper, the Colorado Springs Gazette, is eerily silent.

Doug previously voted against stricter dog-fighting laws.

Doug also was aced out of the Piñon Canyon Fort Carson discussion by other members of the Colorado delegation to the point where he was "blindsided" by the goings on.

Update: Here's the back story from Colorado Confidential. And here are Doug's threats, as printed by the Denver Post: