They are sending all of their minions to the PCA website to vote for "Passion of the Christ."

Perhaps we all could vote for, say, "Ray"?  

It pains me to read her anymore.  She is like one of my college friends, but living in Iraq--educated, professional, sensitive, deeply offended by the killing.  How do I know?  

OK, the title was misleading, and this is old news to most people, but this is what Colin Powell thinks of rich kids like GWB:

"I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war," he wrote. "The policies -- determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -- were an anti-democratic disgrace. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units.  Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."

From page 148 of the hardcover edition of Colin Powell's 1995 autobiography "My American Journey."

Worth trotting out again, and again, and again...

Washington Post Link. Update: Title edited.

How come Ashcroft and Bush aren't beating their breasts about this one?

Corrente has the goods.

I saw this book over at Amazon, through a story at Counterpunch.

Maybe we can give the SWVs against Kerry a run for the money.

While reading an entry by Josh Marshall about the serendipity of web surfing, and then reading another about whacko Alan Keyes, I surfed on over to a transcript from the December 1999 GOP Debate in Des Moines, Iowa.  Lo and behold, this mighty declaration from Governor George W Bush:

There is a problem with heart in America. One of the great frustrations just being a governor is I wish I knew the law that would make people love one another, because I'd sign it.

Is that beautiful, or what? I think they need one of those laws in Iraq right about now.

Link.

In Winston-Salem yesterday, that kooky Republican Vernon Robinson outpolled the main contender Broyhill in the GOP primary, and faces a run-off with Virginia Foxx for the GOP nomination for the House seat being vacated by Burr.  

Vernon Robinson boasts about being to the right of Jesse Helms.

What are people's thoughts on Dems crossing over and voting in the run-off election to get that whacko on the ballot so he can be held up as a proud example of Republicanism?  

If I lived in the district, I think I would do it.

She predicts a Dem takeover in the House THIS YEAR.

(Yes, I know this was diaried yesterday, but I just had to share this beam of sunshine again.)

"Spoliation refers to the destruction or material alteration of evidence or to the failure to preserve property for another's use as evidence in pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation."

http://www.jocs-law.com/spoliation.htm

Maybe we can get John Edwards to explain the concept to George W Bush re his TANG records.

Help me out with this list! I just got back from F 9/11, and Neil Young's "Keep on Rockin in the Free World" is still ringing in my ears.  What was some of the music in the movie?

Shiny Happy People - REM
Fire Water Burn - Bloodhound Gang

And noticeably absent--I'd Love to Change the World--Ten Years After, the music from the trailer

Update: We Gotta Get Out of This Place - Animals
Theme from Magnificent Seven
Cocaine - Eric Clapton
Vacation - Go-Gos
(Let the) Bodies (Hit the Floor) - Drowning Pool
Theme from Greatest American Hero (Believe It or Not)

Or so it would seem.

According to the excellent mediamatters.org website, CBS will run an ad from "Citizens United" criticizing Bill Clinton during 60 Minutes on Sunday.  

Of course, to do so means that MoveOn.org and PETA can now run their ads on CBS also.  It would only be fair.  

If you click through the mediamatters story, there is a link to express your thoughts to CBS.

Both are scheduled to appear on Al Franken's show Monday.

Link.

Anyone else think that we are going through some kind of Democratic renaissance?

Let's find out what he knows about leaking intel to Iran, about giving fabricated intel on WMDs to the US!  The right wing says torture is acceptable, so let's use it on one of their own guys.

I was canvassed tonight by US PIRG.  Since the PIRG entities are the children of Ralph Nader, I told the canvasser he would not get a dime until Nader dropped out of the race.  Everything Nader and PIRG have been working for will go up in smoke if Bush is elected.  I also told him I would send the canvasser a check for $100 the day Nader drops out.  

Please either join me, or give me a better idea of putting some pressure on Benedict Nader.

Sen. Kerry,

You have my vote in November.  What you do not have yet is my energy and my commitment to do everything in my power to make sure you win in November.  But I am willing to negotiate.

I am deeply troubled by the rumors that your top two candidates for VP are Dick Gephardt and John Edwards.  Both men are fine Democrats, and have served their country well.  In any other election, they would be great names to consider.

But not this year.  We are in the middle of a war that you helped come to pass because of your vote on the Iraqi War Resolution.  Of course, you had a lot of support.  Only 23 US Senators voted against the bill.  Both Rep Gephardt and Sen Edwards voted with you to send troops in harm's way to remove a tyrant who was more feared by the White House than by the countries that lived next to him.  Frankly, your vote on the war soured me on you as a candidate, and drew me toward those candidates that opposed the war.  Bob Graham.  Howard Dean.  Wesley Clark.

Well, those of us in the Dem party that opposed you lost that fight.  Fine.  We will vote for you nevertheless.  But if you pick Gephardt or Edwards, I think you can write me off as wanting to work very hard to get you elected.  Don't worry.  I won't vote for Nader and I won't stay home on election day.  

But I busted my butt for Howard Dean.  Why?  Because he stood up for what I believed in, and he flogged Bush for the Iraqi war.  This war is a complete disaster.  FUBAR.  Nothing good will come of it, and a lot of bad news and dead GIs lie ahead.  

You might say, "Get over it, I have an election to win."  OK, but if you pick someone that voted for the war, you are going to lose many voters less committed to the Dems than I.  They will go Nader, or stay home.  Those of us that opposed this war need someone to work for that shared our position.  I will give an anti-war VP the same effort I gave Dean.  If you go with a pro-war VP, I'll sit this one out.  I don't need to see your misguided decision to send this country to war multiplied by two.

Thanks for listening.  

Alexander Tyler, 1770

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising them the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal responsibility, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

A little eerie in its perceptiveness, isn't it?  

Synchronicity?  Serendipity?  Dopey dumb coincidence?

I started re-reading 1984 yesterday, given the political climate and all.  (And also to figure out what happened to Katherine, whom TBogg nailed as a dead-on portrayal of Ann Coulter.)

To refresh your recollection, the book begins with Winston sitting in his apartment in Victory Gardens, barely out of eyesight of the Big Brother "telescreen," and starting to write in a journal, an unpardonable crime.

The date of the first entry?  April 4, 1984.  

Yesterday was April 4.  How weird is that??

The US death toll in Iraq is now over 537.  As you recall, this number was the official margin of victory for Bush in Florida in 2000, out of almost 6 million votes cast.

I am just pointing out the coincidence.  It is not as if all 540 US dead could have or would have voted against Bush in Florida.  

On the one hand, 537 votes seems so minuscule.  On the other hand, 540 dead seems so enormous and wasteful.  One obviously led to the other.