BACK IN THE SADDLE, YEE-HAW!

Whew! The Bluest Fist has been out of commission for quite a while, quieted by my perfect storm of personal and professional chaos this past winter and spring. Much better now I’m happy to report.

I thought I’d get back into the swing of things by briefly commenting on some stories I’m following. Chief among them is the story of the “Downing Street Memo.” If you haven’t heard of it (and that’s entirely possible since the bought-and-sold mainstream media has so far done an abysmal job covering it) you really need to go here and have a look:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

Read the actual memo and watch the video clip at the top of the page. This is a leaked top secret British memo from July 2002. The memo includes the following report [note these are actual words from the memo, not a synopsis]:

“C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”

You heard that right. Reading the memo in full makes it clear that the Bush Administration knew with reasonable certainty that Iraq DID NOT have weapons of mass destruction; that in fact if the HAD had WMD they WOULD NOT have risked an invasion – precisely the opposite of what we citizens were told. George W. Bush ordered the cooking of facts on Iraq for the express purpose of convincing the American people to sign off on a war. The Downing Street Memo takes this out of the realm of conjecture and into the realm of fact. Approximately 1714 American soldiers have died as a result; 13,000 wounded; at least 22,000 Iraqi civilians dead. If this is not an impeachable offense I don’t know what is. Where have you gone Monica Lewinsky?

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In other news, the U.S. Senate voted on a non-binding resolution apologizing to the African-American victims of lynching in the U.S. -- more than 4,700 people from 1882 to 1968, most of them black men. During that time the U.S. Senate (in the form of filibustering Southern Senators) repeatedly blocked anti-lynching laws that had been passed by the House of Representatives. Amazingly, these 15 Senators showed their disapproval by refusing to co-sponsor the bill (which in this case, because it was a “voice-vote” was the only way to approve it):

STILL HAVEN'T COSPONSORED

Lamar Alexander (R-TN) - (202) 224-4944
Robert Bennett (R-UT) - (202) 224-5444
Thad Cochran (R-MS) - (202) 224-5054
John Cornyn (R-TX) - (202) 224-2934
Michael Crapo (R-ID) - (202) 224-6142
Michael Enzi (R-WY) - (202) 224-3424
Chuck Grassley (R-IA) - (202) 224-3744
Judd Gregg (R-NH) - (202) 224-3324
Orrin Hatch (R-UT) - (202) 224-5251
Kay Hutchison (R-TX) - (202) 224-5922
Jon Kyl (R-AZ) - (202) 224-4521
Trent Lott (R-MS) - (202) 224-6253
Richard Shelby (R-AL) - (202) 224-5744
John Sununu (R-NH) - (202) 224-2841
Craig Thomas (R-WY) - (202) 224-6441

This issue can hardly be said to fall along traditional conservative/liberal lines. The bill’s co-writer is conservative Senator George Allen and dozens of conservative Senators such as the otherwise totally evil Rick Santorum co-signed. The most obvious explanation for the damning silence of the Senators listed above is racism, plane and simple. Call ‘em and give ‘em hell! One can understand why so many slave-state Senators are there – as we all know, Trent Lott pines to return slavery to Mississippi. But, may I ask, HOW IN THE HELL can Judd Gregg and John Sununu from the state I like to call North Massachusetts get away with this?? Call ‘em up!

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Lastly, for now, it looks like Bush is insisting on forcing the Senate Republicans to vote for clinically insane right-wing lunatic John Bolton as Ambassador to the United Nations. For a good explanation of why this would be a disaster go here:

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=252671

For an official letter to Congress detailing one example of Bolton’s craziness go here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/15/101542/050

I think that Bolton’s ridiculously bad record as a diplomat should be enough to disqualify him for this crucial diplomatic post. So, I won’t even mention information from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in paid visits to Plato’s Retreat, the popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s. (Why is it that every time you turn over a Republican rock you seem to find a swingers club or a phone sex line? Huh.) I mean it, don’t ask me because I REFUSE to mention Plato’s Retreat!