Last week, Monday through Thursday, Live With Dan Abrams ran a series called Bush League Justice, apparently an experiment to see if he can hold onto Countdown viewers, but possibly -- just possibly -- starting to recognize the power of the audience for real news.  Tonight he threw the hypocracy of the Senate Republicans (and that means you, Linsey Graham) who, while on the Judicary Committee attempting to get Mukasey confirmed, said Congress should enact legislation specifying waterboarding as torture, but now oppose the bill which resulted from their suggestion.  

Abrams turned the tables on Cliff May and Pat Buchanan by showing them their own comments on his show in early November advocating that Congress create such a bill.  Now, of course, both pundits are doing the "I didn't mean that" shuffle the Republicans are so famous for, and Abrams called them on it.  

I normally turn the channel after Countdown when Dan Abram's show is aired, but left it on doing something else tonight.  Lo and behold he is doing a series this week called Bush League Justice and it is the hardest-hitting series, short of Olbermann's excellent themes, that I have seen for a while.  

From the web site introduction:

Maybe most egregious is the now nearly unrecognizable Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Since 1957, it has led the effort to enforce civil rights laws and the fight for minorities. Even Richard Nixon’s effort to delay implementation of school desegregation, was less radical then how this President has flipped the goals and mission of the Division and allowed it to become a tool of the radical right.

Has Dan gotten religion?

We have been exiled from our homeland.  We have labored in captivity, but still we remember Zion -- the place where we were free; where we were united; where we were truly home.  By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and remembered.  Across the rivers of Babylon, we now set out to claim and lift up our home again.

Such is the mythology of ancient times.  Such is the mythology of our time.  A man named Reagan exiled us.  A man named Bush now rules in his stead.  A people called Americans have grown weary of captivity, and we have sat down.  Our cries to be delivered have not been heard by Congress, by the Courts or by the Media.  But the rest of the planet has heard, because they share our dream, as the ancient progenitors of three great religions (Judism, Christianity and Islam) dreamed of Zion.

Without a dream, the people cannot muster the strength to stand up and ford the rivers of Babylon.  Let us dream.  Let us stand up.  Let us remember, and act on that memory to seek a future again.  Together.

Iowa Public Television's Market To Market program just did a story on a biofuels plant in Nebraska which, according to plant owners, will achieve up to 46 units of energy output for every unit of energy input!  Compared to the 2.2/1 ratio the USDA estimates, and other estimates which put the ratio of output to input lower, this plant could demonstrate how to improve that ratio.  

While the plant has just opened recently, it is called the "Genesis" plant because the owners want to propagate the operation across the Midwest.  The company, E3 Biofuels, employs 90 people at this first facility and was started by a farmer with the goal to produce fuel and recycle coproducts in a single operation.

Earlier this year, we marked the time between when the Bush Administration seemed to be able to withstand any challenge to their right to govern and when the public clearly had lost confidence in the government.  As we said then, in another system of government that would lead to a vote of no confidence in the Parliment and new elections would be called.  As we pointed out then, that is not our system of government.

In our system of government, the People must go further than no confidence: they must move their Representatives to impeach the leaders of the Government.  This higher bar has been reached only a few times in our history.  In our generation, we have seen it started twice and taken to trial in the Senate once.   The bar may be high, and we may risk "impeachment fatigue", but this Administration is seeking the confrontation as no other Administration before.  Before impeachment, the proceeding, can begin, however, we must reach the point in our Government where the Administration is impeachable.

This series will mark the time to when that state is reached.

Those of us expecting Bush to set a historic low in approval ratings by this fall have been watching the composite poll results from pollster.com and reported and enhanced by the political arithmetik blog with the whole trend for Bush's two terms and historical comparisons.

Since April 27, the Broder bounce and support for the Bush bubble has weakened enough (by Republican support finally giving way to reality) that the overall, strong trend has returned.  The state of no confidence we tracked in my series earlier this year met the combined remaining strength of the Rove message machine and Congressional balwarks -- but they have only delayed, and many of us believe, intensified, the power of the downward trend.

We broke through 30% on this composite measure.  Since that means something to people, it means something to our system of government.

Today Dennis Kucinich started his campaign.  Those who followed his campaign in 2004 know he believes his role is put issues in the public arena and that he should be able to be elected or rejected on issues, not personality.  He continued his run right up to the convention, long after the nominee was well known.  He consistently undermines his own success rate in Congress by putting forward "pure" bills based on issues that his colleagues don't like and won't touch.

Is he crazy?  Is he naive?  Has his golden opportunity to launch a campaign in which the metaissue of whether ideas alone should be the only criterion we use to elect a President finally come?

Karmageddon
(Thanks to Tulip for the title!)

As John Dean points out in his excellent book Conservatives Without Conscience, the United States of America began as a liberal nation.  The conservative movement in America is hard to trace through history, Dean argues in depth, because it stands in opposition to the ideals of liberalism upon which this nation was founded.  Only when several of these opposition movements tolerate each other long enough to overcome their mutual antipathy (like smashing protons together enough to fuse them into helium in a fusion reactor) does something the MSM and Republican party can recognize as a political movement emerge.

Unlike helium, these unnatural agglomerations are unstable and tend to come apart violently.  At the zero hour of no confidence breaking out inside the Government, we are witnessing the breakdown of They³ so quickly we may not be ready to harness the political power this event will unleash.  For the People to gain back that which has been taken from us, we have to ride the wave we are on right now, all the way.

Liberty Without Borders

In the early days of the Internet, there was a dream.  Shared by geeks, hippies and other true patriots, the dream was that information would be shared without having censorship or spin, citizen to citizen, worldwide.  The citizens so informed would be thus united without borders artificially dividing them would be empowered to work together toward progress, freedom, equality and justice everywhere and for everyone.  When a Russian coupe attempt failed against Gorbachev in 1991, the Internet helped keep the unfiltered news flowing from a nation whose official news outlets were under the control of the plotters.

With five days left in the countdown to no confidence, we turn to a vision of the future which is actually very old:  as old, at least, as our republic.  We want liberty, and we want it unencumbered and unfiltered.  As Gonzales twists in the wind surrounded by information he cannot stop and which belies his every word, perhaps the 21st century has truly begun.  

If we believe in our own liberty, we can make it so.

Ending The Gestapo Laws

Enforcement of the law in a nation under the rule of law is an arduous task.  It requires public servants who exercise judgement, seek justice and always consider the context in which violations of the law occur.  The front line of law enforcement is where this human, and humane, sensibility is most important.  The prosecutors are the next level.  The judges are the next level.  The jury is the final arbiter.  At each level, we expect wisdom to be exercised, not cunning.

With ten days left in the countdown, we turn to the Gestapo laws under which the enforcers are victimized as much as those upon whom they take enforcement actions.  Although none of our candidates, except the fringe elements, have focused on these glaring holes in the fabric of our Government, We The People must.  Our remaining, and future, liberties are at stake.

High Noon In America

Reagan used the theme "Morning In America" in his Presidential campaign.  This false promise of a new beginning has now run full cycle, and the remnants of his failure is a curse which we must now lift from our national soul.  The march of no confidence in this government has met determined resistance by the entrenched interests of those in power, marked by inane parlor tricks in the Legislature and cunning disregard for the message of last November's election -- hoping the coming tide will dissipate and retreat.

But some Congressional committees continue to dig for evidence and ask for testimony.  Some journalists and many, many bloggers strive to uncover the full story of how this Administration was, and is, determined to seal the deal of selling our rights to their friends and political allies.  The People shake their heads in collective wonder at the lack of moral outrage or ethical behavior even now that the outlines of perfidy have been unmasked.

With 20 days left before the end of this countdown, it is fair to ask if our forward progress has stalled or if we are simply in a period of relative calm before the storm.

Standing Up

We now know no confidence in this Government is growing in the breast of citizens of all political affliations.  As that disaffection ripples through the layers of six degrees of separation, it is even nudging the polls, the pundits on Congressional staffs and the PR sniffers at the Pentagon and in the intelligence community.  Seemingly stalled out in the Senate, the movement to have Congress awaken from its slumber and actively fracture the "unitary exectutive" is surfacing.

With thirty days to go before the wheels come off the Team Bush bus, the House has passed a non-binding resolution.  This shot across the bow of the Administration has resulted in a Presidential press conference in which the President is seem starting to reveal himself -- an angry, frustrated and small-minded man who cannot grasp strategy.  As his strategic thinkers are frozen out or fired, Bush is left with the results of the Libby trial resonating from the walls of the White House itself.  The bane of Bush is when Congress decides to stand up.

Today, on President's Day, we must stand up and call forth the President we need from among those willing to run for the office.  The candidates are not the key: We The People are.

Knowing The Right Path

Since Nixon's Administration a dedicated cabal of powerful interests have deliberately polarized the nation.  The single-minded pursuit of power has driven these interests to commit crimes against the Government, the People and the World.  They have done so by blurring the sense of right and wrong as it was and by undercutting the balance of powers as designed in the Constitution.

Now that the People approach no confidence in the Government, we look for the response of our Representatives so that they may oppose the Administration, rebalance the Courts and restore what is right.  When Washington D. C. was designed, many of the leaders at the time were Masons.  While many people have speculated this shadowy secret fraternity to be behind many schemes injurious to our liberty, they had a motto which many of the Founding Fathers believed in:  truth, justice and right.  While the Superman comics adopted a variation of this saying, substituting "the American way" for "right", either way we seek the triple play to restore all three principles.  Most importantly, we want our nation to represent what is right about humanity again -- the real American Way.

Clean Out The Barn

In the 1992 election, a third-party candidate named Ross Perot became the spoiler in yet another two-party election.  He was famous for saying, "It's time to clean out the barn" in debates.  The public loved it.  He represented the yearning for a non-politician to win the election:  someone who would confound the Beltway groupthink and think outside the Washington box.

As we approach the point of no confidence in this Government, more and more people may yearn for this kind of candidate again.  We may look for direction from someone who isn't political.  But we have enabled the politicians to get that way, and that insight is harder, and more important, than cheering for an outsider.  At this juncture, We the People need that insight to lead a nation which has lost its sense of direction into a progressive future.  Once so empowered, we will be ready to clean out the barn.

The Powell Doctrines (Lewis & Colin)

Two different people have had "doctrines" named after them:  two people with the same last name.  These doctrines share the fact they have been embraced by the right wing of the Republican party at various times.  Both doctrines arose out of the Republican reaction to the debacle of Vietnam.  Both doctrines have truth in them, but one is wise while the other is cunning.

As we approach the point of no confidence in this Administration and the Government, we examine two doctrines which have had a major impact on our nation, one of which helped define the political opposition progressives now face.

False Doctrines

9-11 was an opportunity for doctrines false to the Constitution and the nature of our country to be codified as law and enacted in practice.  The nation stood upon a turning point and was led toward centralized authority and pre-emptive war.  Both doctrines are false and, combined, have caused insufferable grievances by citizens and foreign nationals alike -- grievances which must be righted to enable us to be secure and free again.

The Katrina hurricane tested these doctrines against reality, and the doctrines were found wanting.  9-11 and Katrina put us all at a turning point and, in the latter case, we began to understand that we need to decentralize all critical systems upon which our national life depends.  Pre-emptive war drained the nation of key resources which could have helped the citizens living in the ravaged areas, making these situations even worse.  Pre-emptive war is now an excuse for Government to deliver only misery, frustration and inaction.  We expect more.

The sense of no confidence grows from the falseness of these doctrines and the real grievances citizens now have against, and from which they have the right to seek redress by, the Government.

Inflection Points And Catastrophies

In the mathematical field called differential equations, we can calculate the points when a system changes its behavior.  In the field of catastrophe theory, we look for these inflection points because some of them will show us when the system itself will transform into something new, and never be able to go back to its previous form.  In politics we don't have the benefit of a mathematical description to guide us.

But we can still look for inflection points and anticipate catastrophe points.  In the next 80 days, I am anticipating our political system will hit a catastrophe point and inviting others to look for it as well.  I certainly could be wrong.  Nevertheless, the next 80 days will be interesting in any case, and looking at events through this perspective will not be a waste of time.  We are looking for the point of no confidence by the People in this Administration.

In other democratic systems, elections are called when the ruling coalition has lost enough support that a vote of no confidence can be sustained.  Our republic is organized differently, but the political reality is that this Government is approaching the same point at which a vote of no confidence would happen in these other systems.  In our system, that means we need to prepare for when that point is reached.

The focus on impeachment recently reflects a passonate desire to have the Democratic majority "do the right thing", and impeachment is the only mechanism by which we can recall the Administrative branch -- but we the voters have already recalled the Legislative branch.  Instead of focusing on impeachment or other Government remedy, we need to focus on the opportunities, growing daily, of capitalizing on the nearing point of no confidence in this Administration.  We need to do this now because the public is going to reach this point in the next few months, and the window of opportunity will be upon us while we are still parsing language if we are not careful.