This will be a quick diary, but I just learned that TODAY at 1 pm EST the Washington Post is having John Yoo, the architect and enabler of the Bush torture regime, do a chat on their website.

Stand up and protest Yoo by going to the website and entering a comment and/or question.

I would recommend entering a comment and using that space to criticize Yoo for his criminal torture memos, and the Washington Post for giving him a platform in an attempt to rehabilitate his career.  

More background on the flip.

I firmly believe the David v. Goliath story we have witnessed today will go down in the history of 21st century politics.  Who said this not one week ago:

"Big moments, political or otherwise, will no longer be remembered by people as times when everyone gathered around TVs to watch a speech, press conference or other event. Increasingly, most of us will recall firing up the computer, searching for a video and watching it at home or at the office -- or even on our cell phones," he wrote.

http://www.cnn.com/...

Something had to be done, and Plouffe has done it.  The man has delivered.  Now is our chance to take the video gold that he has delivered to us and put it in front of the American people.

Follow me on the flip for the beginnings of a discussion about how to do just that.

It's time for America to open its eyes.

And our eyes are being opened, whether we like it or not.

Just like with the Iraq War, where the fact that we were going to invade Iraq was well-known to everyone prior to the 2002 mid-term elections, everyone in the know in our government knew that there was going to be a financial meltdown in 2008.  The only question was when it would occur.

Some thought it would occur in February, some thought it might occur in August and others predicted that it would occur in the fall.

The key determinant here of the timing of this meltdown was again politics.  And again, the American people were the losers, to the tune of trillions of dollars.

Following on Inky99's excellent top-rated diary I think we can draw some conclusions about the collusive activities of a number of players at central US banks.  Unfortunately for our man in the White House, this could very well involve the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner.  

Roll with my on the flip.

Obama was on the ropes last week.  Was it rope-a-dope?  At least one Kossack thinks so, and since this diary is the most recc'd entry today, I gather many here agree.

However, I believe that Obama was blindsided by the Republican reaction on the stimulus.  I can't seriously believe that he would actually desire this level of chaos, given the challenges before the American people.  Further, as progressives we must remember that this kind of chaos sucks time and prevents Obama from focusing on his and our positive vision for America, not to mention the need to clean up the detritus and other sewage from the Bush Administration.

But debate over this means little now.  We must move forward, and Obama has now hit the trail to sell the stimulus.  I have some advice for him, and for us as we engage in this debate.  If any of you saw Obama's email video recently, it was clear he was asking us to talk about the stimulus with our neighbors.  I have one tip about how to do that, and I share it on the flip.

Wondering if anyone else here has experienced website disruptions over the past two days.  In particular, I've had the following experience with each of my websites (two are professional and the other two are for my hobbies).  I have email accounts associated with all.

Here's what happened.  I tried to access both my email domain names, i.e. "mail.XXX.com" and the home pages of my websites.  In each instance, the Firefox browser came back with a message that it could not find the domain.

In my experience, this has only occurred one other time: when I have changed the name-servers on my domains.  I have limited knowledge of the internets, but I have been told that when this happens, the new nameserver must repopulate across the WWW and this takes a few hours and sometimes a couple days.

Wonderin' if anyone has had a similar experience?

Has anyone checked out the relative Republican campaign contributions of the the financial institution (AIG) that just received massive taxpayer subsidies?  And the Republican-Democratic contributions of the institution (Lehman Brothers) that did not?

Turns out that leading executives and board members of AIG are large Republican donors.  It was formerly led by Hank Greenberg, a huge Republican fundraiser.

Bush, Cheney & Co. are taking our taxpayer dollars and supporting their Republican contributors with handouts.

Meanwhile, working Americans are suffering foreclosures of family homes, cutoffs of Medicaid and other healthcare benefits and lost jobs.

That Bush & Co. are doing this should surprise no one at this late date.  And, rest assured, based on John McCain's allegiance to Bush and the Cheney Republicans, these policies WILL continue if he is elected.  It astounds me that in the face of this direct attack on middle-class Americans, the Presidential race is so close.

What truly frightens me, however, is the realization that the AIG bailout is just the next step in a Bush plan to turn our constitutional democracy into a new national socialist state.

Many here, including yours truly, were continually amazed by the the Associated Press' shameless parroting of outlandish "Adminstration" positions during the run-up to, and the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

But now, in a few paragraphs, the indefatigable Dan Froomkin quotes an email exchange between Ron Fournier, who pathetically is now the AP Washington Bureau Chief, and Karl Rove  in which Fournier demonstrates his clear support of Rove's "fight."

The quote is on the flip.

I have an idea for how the New Yorker can turn this situation around.

Judging from the interviews with the New Yorker editorial staff, it is clear that they did not expect this reaction.

That goes to show their own inability as white men to understand the depths of racism that still exists in this country, and also an inability to think about the consequences of running such a cartoon in this day and age.

On the merits, I also think that the cartoon was not satire because it fails to properly criticize/lampoon the perspective that it purports to be discrediting.  Rather, the images are just portrayed, without any internal critical referencing so necessary for successful satire.

I believe this lack of context and internal referencing is why so many, including me, were so offended.

Thus, I believe the opportunity to appropriately comment on the gross "Nixon-style" polarizing propaganda spewed by the likes of Faux News and others was lost.

But this need not be the final word on the matter.  Rather, I have an idea for the New Yorker on the flip that could bail it out of its predicament, and allow the nation to comment on Nixon-style politics, potentially banishing it forever (ha, ha) from the nation's discourse.

Given the that fact our candidate for President, Sen. Barack Obama, is currently vetting vice-presidential running mates, a question came to mind as I read the following excerpt from today's WaPo by the reality-based Dan Froomkin:

"In his oil-patch zeal, Cheney sounded more chairman of Halliburton than vice president of the United States. The country has moved on to a debate about how to reduce carbon emissions to slow global warming. Domestic oil drilling would do little if anything to ease gas prices in the short term and, even in the long term, wouldn't reverse the growing supply/demand imbalance as emerging economies devour dwindling reserves.

"But Cheney needn't worry about sounding tone-deaf. It merely provides Bush more job security."

I got to wondering, "who is OUR Dick Cheney?"  You know, the guy who will take the heat for President Obama, and give him the positioning so that he is always seen as moderate.  In my view, that's the guy who should be Vice-President.

The front page has been flooded with "Why Hillary Lost" diaries, which elicited this diary in response: Why Obama won!

The diarist in that diary makes an interesting point that an autopsy on the Clinton campaign does not really assist us in our next objective: winning the White House.  He/She therefore looked at how Obama won.  I propose that we should also be interested in how McCain won, as we might learn something from it.

So this diary looks at the McSame campaign, some reasons proposed by others for why he won the Republican nomination, some of my own, and some lessons that might help us defeat him this fall.

With the collective power of the blogosphere, we won a cloture vote on the Senate's FISABOHICA bill yesterday.  

We have the momentum.  Maybe.

However, since Reid insisted on bringing the Intelligence Committee bill to the floor, it is likely we will not be able to prevail on amending it because there are several members of our party who will choose to destroy our Constitution rather than fight for the rights that thousands of Americans and the Founding Fathers died to preserve and protect.

It's sickening.

I say it's time to go on offense.

This week.  Right now.

Here's an idea to hit the Constitution hating telcos right where where it hurts.

The FISA cloture vote is coming in the next few hours.

Has everyone made calls to their Senators and those on the list?  Here is the link for the FP diary about Chris Dodd's heroic speech and the phone numbers to call to stop this Stasi-like bill from becoming law.

But I want to also talk about another aspect of the massive spying operation that I have not seen many people discuss, whether online or otherwise.  And it has to do with how many of the most utilized email and ISP providers have organized the transmission and delivery of email for their customers.

Follow me on the flip for a brief description...

As Bond dad will attest, this economy is fucked.  

But, it is much, much worse than that.

As we learned today, several large financial institutions have agreed to allow FOREIGN COUNTRIES to take large EQUITY positions in their own companies.  

Merrill Lynch and Singapore?

WTF?

This is just the beginning folks.  I have written before about the Rumsfeld redux.  But I will ask you to again recall history: what did Vietnam, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz beget?

That's right.  Stagflation.  Oil Shock.  Recession.  It's coming.  Are you and your family prepared?  More on the flip.

The Washington Post is reporting that our pal and yours Steny Hoyer is ready to make a deal to enable the continuation of the Iraq disaster in return for "more domestic spending."

Is this the most immoral and disgraceful thing that you have ever heard in your life?

George W. Bush kills 4,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis to enrich his daddy's friends and empower his sick dreams and now we are willing to strike a deal that legitimizes his sick fantasies and illegal murder?

It's a fucking disgrace.

I say fuck you Steny.  I hope everyone will fight this.  More on the flip.

George W. Bush, Dick "Darth" Cheney and David Addington are the gift that keeps on giving to our Democratic Presidential candidates when it comes to determining where they stand on bedrock American principles.

Torture?

Can anyone seriously be considering voting to confirm an Attorney General who will not declare waterboarding -- a technique considered to be torture by everyone since the 1800s -- illegal?

The answer is sadly yes.

The question is, who will be the Democratic Presidential candidate to both speak eloquently to demonstrate how out of the mainstream this position is, AND also exercise his/her power as a leader of the United States to stop it.

By that, I mean, a hold.  And then, a filibuster.  This Attorney General cannot be confirmed if we are to retain our respect among our fellow human beings and our forefathers and mothers.

The New York Times is reporting here that the Dems will cave on warrantless wiretapping.

I say, that is freakin' bullshit.

Why did we elect these people?

To STOP George Bush.

And now, they want to give him more, unlimited and unaccountable power to determine who he can target for wiretaps.

Have they totally lost their minds?  That's like giving Satan the keys to Heaven's Gate.

Article and discussion on the flip.

If it pursues half-measures on Iraq, the Democratic leadership is abdicating its responsibilities to the American people.

The American people want this war over, now.

The American people want the troops home, now.

Not just in time for Christmas.

Not next July.

Not Halloween 2008.

NOW.

Our party should abide the will of the American people, and do everything in their power to bring the troops home NOW.  The key to this is finding 41 Senators fully, completely and totally committed to this principle.  

Follow me on the flip.

As documented on today's front-page, Glenn Greenwald has done an absolutely masterful job of unmasking the media rollout of BushCult Surge Supporters that, but for his diligence and lawyerly skills, would have gone entirely unrecognized, and hence uninvestigated, by the MSM.

Through a combination of research, logic and common sense, Greenwald has utterly devastated the media rollout with his O'Hanlon interview.  If his work continues to be trumpeted, it could potentially form the basis for the rollout of a scorched earth counter-narrative by Dems next month.  I say potentially, because we have discovered that one lone voice of truth is not enough.  The Democrats must be willing, and able, to use such valuable insight to create their own media campaign and rollout.  As with Social Security, we know they can do it if they choose to.  To date, however, they seem to be unwilling to do it for the Iraq war.

In this diary, I'd like to be a little presumptuous and ask everyone to propose the next story for Glenn to go after.  My choice, which is detailed further on the flip, is another disaster of epic proportions: the FISA capitulation.