About the glamor of the recent road trip, that is, here is a dose of reality.
Much of the time the road looked like this:
Somewhere in the Arizona-California desert
And the scenery to the side was like this.
It has a beauty that I have come to appreciate more after living in high desert, though I rather prefer what Albuquerque really is: high grassland. With a river in the midst, gloriously adorned by the bosque.
We did not mind the vast spaces at all. Time to look, talk, nap, explore ideas vigorously, or just be in silence. All very companionable.
The Lone Ranger rides in but does not save the town.
Josh Marshall at TPM has an extensive quote from Jonathan Weisman on what took place when McCain, Obama, Bush, and Congressional leaders met in the Cabinet room of the White House.
A short excerpt:
No, Boehner replied, he just wanted his members to have a voice. Obama then jumped in to turn the question on his rival: "What do you think of the [insurance] plan, John?" he asked repeatedly. McCain did not answer.
One Republican in the room said it was clear that the Democrats came into the meeting with a "game plan" aimed at forcing McCain to choose between the administration and House Republicans. "They had taken McCain's request for a meeting and trumped it," said this source.
Congressional aides from both parties were standing in the lobby of the West Wing, unaware of the discord inside the Cabinet room, when McCain emerged alone, shook the hands of the Marines at the door and left. The aides were baffled. The plan had been for a bipartisan appearance before the media, featuring McCain, Obama and at least a firm statement in favor of intervention. Now, one of the leading men was gone.
Marshall concludes that this might "explain some of what happened last night."
I know I was certainly intrigued by what might happen amid all this political posturing and high visibility. Earlier I had read that Obama asked lots of questions of Paulson and that McCain said virtually nothing in the entire meeting, even when prompted.
I have left this topic alone for way too long. Yes, the headlines, the votes, the brouhaha had all died down but the reality stills simmers away under a lawless regime.
Only one Senator attended the meeting yesterday (Carl M. Levin, D-Mich.) as an Air Force instructor testified.
What Kleinman witnessed in Baghdad in September 2003 prompted him to order a stop to three interrogations, and to warn his superiors that the military's interrogation practices were abusive and, in his opinion, illegal.
"I told the task force commander that the methods were unlawful and were in violation of the Geneva Conventions," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
We all, of course, were too excited, curious, anxious about the first presidential debate last night to pay much attention.
Read Digby's comments here. She observes: "This is the major reason I have such a visceral loathing of this man [John McCain]. Ask yourself what kind of a person would undergo torture, then help legalize it against others while falsely taking credit for standing against it? It's perverse and immoral in the extreme. It's evil."
Fight like hell to eliminate this evil from our nation. --the BB
"But I don't really know of anybody,with the exception of a handful, who said, 'wait a minute, this thing is getting out of hand and is over-heating.' I'd like to be able to tell you I anticipated it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not." --John McCain
For McCain to shed tears for corporate tax rates first gives us some insight as to who he really cares about and second, is just wrong. McCain still thinks it's the 1980s with his Reagan trickle down economics talk. It didn't work then and it definitely isn't working now. Corporate America does not need a tax break, especially while the middle class is stuck with yet another bill. Let them be good citizens like the middle class and pay their fair share and modernize the tax code to prevent this offshore nonsense that is illegal for regular Americans. Regardless, the entire McCain pitch was yet another 1980's retread with the same tired old talk that brought us here today. It doesn't register with McCain that we've been trying the 1980's GOP theory for a few decades and it just imploded. After last night, it wasn't clear to McCain that the event even occurred.
09/26/08 MNF: MND-C Soldier killed by roadside bomb near Iskandariyah A Multi-National Division - Center Soldier was killed Sep. 25 when a roadside bomb struck a vehicle that was part of a combat patrol near Iskandariyah.
09/25/08 MNF: MND-N Soldier attacked by SVEST (Baqubah) A Multi-National Division - North Soldier was killed by a suicide bomber while conducting operations in Diyala, Iraq Sept. 24. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense.
So much for lively debate. Lots of decorum. I rather like decorum, actually, though I appreciate a good zinger too.
Who forgot his flag pin tonight? Commie.
Trapper John said, "Obama won this on graciousness and composure. Period. He was the adult in the room." I may not have been consciously present for all of it but that is my impression also. He looked and sounded presidential. Grampy occasionally seemed on the verge of ordering the kid off his lawn.
Not too sure how comforting his "I've been around forever" leitmotiv is, frankly. He almost seemed to hobble off afterward.
Eddie was catching a few Zs as well. I had to wake him up when it was over. Since he is a member of the Platypus Party he finds human debates rather irrelevant. I did hear him mumble something about more shrimp in every pot. New Orleans seems to agree with him.
Maha frets that most viewers might not notice that McCain often does not answer the question put to him. Think Progress documents McDisaster's, um, inaccuracies.
McLiar trotted out some of his faves this evening. He just can't stop. From Crooks and Liars we read about something I'd like see Grampy get called on:
It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama’s one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee’s six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.
I expect a run on popcorn before the VP debates. For a preview of the junior-high-school edition of political finesse check out Wilda Wolfkiller:
Should Senator Biden show up in a black hat just to scare the bejeebers out of the little lady? (I know that was a belittling sexist remark but JFC, she's a cross between Attila the Hun and a Valley Girl just emerging, barely, from magical thinking.) Governor Palin should scare every sentient being to the polls to ensure she never gets near the White House.
It's very hard for me to gauge this debate because to me John McCain is quite obviously a crazy, intemperate, nasty old bastard. He was sarcastic, contemptuous and patronizing. I really, really loathe him.
Whenever someone, especially a lifelong Democrat, says they can't quite bring themselves to vote for Obama because there's just something about him they can't quite name, is it just me or do you want to scream with me, "You mean because he's black?!!!"? That's my inner reaction anyway.
I love Dan Savage's column. I loves me some Dan Savage (but he's taken, so I don't stalk). I think he has a fab idea for Governor Palin and the First Dude:
Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today's dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent's S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.
That politician was John McCain, and his generous friend was Charles Keating, head of Lincoln Savings & Loan. While he was courting McCain and other senators and urging them to oppose tougher regulation of S&Ls, Keating was also investing his depositors' federally insured savings in risky ventures. When those lost money, Keating tried to hide the losses from regulators by inducing his customers to switch from insured accounts to uninsured (and worthless) bonds issued by Lincoln's near-bankrupt parent company. In 1989, it went belly up -- and more than 20,000 Lincoln customers saw their savings vanish.
...
But the savings and loan crisis mushroomed. Eventually, the government spent about $125 billion in taxpayer dollars to bail out hundreds of failed S&Ls that, like Keating's, fell victim to a combination of private-sector greed and the "poor judgment" of politicians like McCain.
Read it all. People need to be aware of this. McCain was "exonerated" of wrongdoing but he certainly played a major part in that fiasco and we are going into re-runs nowadays.
It is over a month since we had our first visitors from these three nations and they bring our virtual flag collection up to 131. We have, however, had visitors from 140 nations (as you can see in the sidebar), so I need to do some catching up.
St. Kitt's is one of the places in the world that I have visited when we did our "treasure island" cruise in the Caribbean on the Star Clipper some years ago. It is the smallest nation in the Americas and is among the Leeward Islands. [Wiki] It was a land of sugar cane plantations. While there we took a walk into a rainforest (and swung from liana vines - yes, like Tarzan in the movies but not quite so high up and without the fearsome call of the white ape).
Guyana is located east of Venezuela and west of Suriname. Prior to this year I had no personal link to Guyana but for the past five months I have been working side by side with a gentleman from Guyana. He tells me of life at the coast where one may go out to a levee and fish or take fruits of many kinds from the trees, as though sea and land alike were eager to offer their bounty and feed you.
We think of South America as being primarily Spanish-speaking, and so it is. The four exceptions are Brazil (Portuguese) - the best known - Suriname (Dutch), French Guiana (French), and Guyana (English). Guyanese Creole and several indigenous languages are also spoken there. I could not quite figure out my coworker's accent as he seemed culturally quite attuned to the Caribbeans in our group but his English had a different music to it. Guyana is a Commonwealth nation.
English, French, and Seychellois Creole are spoken in the Republic of Seychelles, an archipelago nation in the Indian Ocean. (Check out the geography post on East Africa and the Indian Ocean.) Lots of foreign investment going on there these days. I heard folks say this week that they don't extradite for any reason, so who knows, maybe Dick Cheney will retire there. I also recall friends talking about a trip there many years ago.
I think I skipped Mali. My bad. I will return to it on the next flag posting.
Sorry, no music this time around. I am far too far behind to do that too and it is already past my bedtime.
A hearty welcome to our visitors from these (and all) nations! --the BB
Until the traditional media types can show some shred of evidence that John McCain suspended his campaign -- besides McCain saying it -- the traditional media types should stop saying McCain suspended his campaign. He didn't.
Evidence abounds that McCain's campaign is operating at full speed. We've been able to document here and here and here. Think Progress found five instances of McCain campaign flacks on t.v. spinning their message. There's active campaign underway in Virginia. And, by doing some actual investigating, Huffington Post confirmed that the McCain campaign is very active today in key battleground states.
But Johnny boy has rushed back to the Senate (for his first visit in months) as though working toward a solution to our economic woes hinged on his presence. Last time I checked, he has been a long-standing champion of deregulation, which is how we got in this mess in the first place. Unless he is willing to stand up and say "I helped fuck over the American economy and I repent in dust and ashes and will now work to restore regulatory oversight and limit the activities of rapacious predators" then prove it with his votes I think he should just STFU. Oh, and get his ass over to Ole Miss for the debate so we can listen to him lie.
Yes, boys and girls, you'll want to have each and every one of the Pale 'n' Palin yard signs. Click on over to here to see more. You can even make your own!
09/23/08 : DoD Identifies Army Casualty Capt. Bruno G. Desolenni, 32, of Crescent City, Calif., died Sept. 20 in Kandahar, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was assigned to the Joint Forces Headquarters...
Father of all, we pray to you for those we love, but see no longer: Grant them your peace; let light perpetual shine upon them; and, in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
09/24/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty 1st Lt. Thomas J. Brown, 26, of Burke, Va., died Sept. 23 in Salman Park, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his patrol came under small arms fire during dismounted operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment...
09/23/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty Chaplain (Col.) Sidney J. Marceaux Jr., 69, of Beaumont, Texas, died Sept 14 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., from a non-combat related illness. Following evacuation from Camp Arifjan...
09/23/08 DoD Identifies Army Casualty Staff Sgt. Matthew J. Taylor, 25, of Charleston, S.C., died Sept. 21 in Baghdad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when he received small arms fire during dismounted operations. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment...
09/23/08 MNF: MND-C Soldier killed in attack A Multi-National Division – Center Soldier was killed as a result of a small-arms fire attack west of Salman Pak Sept. 23. The name of the deceased is being withheld pending next of kin notification and release by the Department of Defense
Well, it's not quite the Constitution, but it invokes the Constitution, so there!
United States Code Title 18. Part 1. Chapter 67. Article 1385. § 1385. Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus
Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
The Wikipedia short translation: "The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act substantially limit the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement."
There's no need to start manufacturing all sorts of scare scenarios about Bush canceling elections or the imminent declaration of martial law or anything of that sort. None of that is going to happen with a single brigade and it's unlikely in the extreme that they'd be announcing these deployments if they had activated any such plans. The point is that the deployment is a very dangerous precedent, quite possibly illegal, and a radical abandonment of an important democratic safeguard. As always with first steps of this sort, the danger lies in how the power can be abused in the future.
Just keeping an eye on what the gummint is up to. Oh look, a shiny object! A McCain stunt! The economy is falling! Drill, baby, drill! Terr'ists! --the BB
This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days. --FDR
h/t to Digby You may read more of that great speech by clicking the link.
Mimi has Doug to supply her with humor (and poor Doug does get blamed a lot, almost as much as I blame Eileen for leading me astray). I got this e-mail from my friend Tom in California this evening.
While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man. Eventually the topic got around to Palin and her bid.
The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a 'Post Turtle'".
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.
The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a 'post turtle".
The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, and she doesn't know what to do while she's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with".
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blogger and do not represent the positions of any group or organization with which he may be affiliated. As one who spent decades stuffing down his opinions and emotions, I am inclined to cut loose here, which I believe is healthy, honest, and part of the process of sanctification in the long run. Politics and spirituality mingle freely here, along with theatre reviews, photography, and passionate talk about food, literature, and the human journey. If anything written here offends you, please find other blogs to read. I am here to share, not to do battle.
About the glamor of the recent road trip, that is, here is a dose of reality.
And the scenery to the side was like this.
