Political Power and What To Do With It, Big Brother, Unimportant Enviornment, King George, Gutless Congress, Murtha, Newt, Bad Zarqawi & Good Zarqawi.

The Nation is looking ahead. It's what all of us that are concerned about the direction of the country should be doing. It's not too early to be thinking about what to do with power once we get it.

The GOP is tanking in the polls. But they also have almost unlimited resources and a propaganda machine without equal. So they're certainly not out of it.

The Democrats on the other hand are benefiting from GOP mistakes instead of anything of their own doing. And I think this will make November's races more of a toss-up than a blowout. Hope I'm wrong.

If we are lucky enough to gain control of one or both houses of Congress, we'll still have a lot of work to do on our own party, simply because there are so many of them not much better than the Republicans. Unless we are willing to hold our party to higher a standard, it will be a Pyrrhic victory, not only for the Democrats, but for the country.

William Greider's article, The Future Is Now , really nails it, from how the Right screwed themselves and us along with them to what the Democrats need to do if we regain power.

A coherent alternative agenda that will fulfill these principles does not yet
exist. Nor will a liberal-progressive program emerge miraculously if the
Democratic Party should somehow regain power in the next few years, since many
Democrats in Congress have internalized the market ideology and collaborate with
the right. But elements of that alternative agenda are already ripe for
discussion. Before we explore some of them, however, we should examine the
economics of why the right failed.

Robert L. Borosage addresses power and what we do with it if we get it, in The Turning?

Tomasky is silent about the failure of military Keynesianism to deal with
stagflation in the 1970s, and the corporate offensive that declared open warfare
on liberal economics, unions and consumer and environmental groups. Corporations
built not only the ideological arsenal of the right but also the money wing of
the Democratic Party. Democrats found that, as the majority in Congress, they
could fill their campaign coffers with corporate contributions. Liberal Atari
Democrats and conservative New Democrats learned to scorn unions as a special
interest, and to champion much of the corporate agenda--balanced budgets, free
trade, deregulation, privatization, capital-gains tax cuts, opposition to the
minimum wage, even the short-term stock options that gave CEOs a
multimillion-dollar personal incentive to cook the books. Democrats stopped
speaking to the common good less because they were mugged by women's or civil
rights groups than because they found it literally paid to stop fighting for
working people in the economy.

The good news is we are making a start to do the right thing as Katrina vanden Heuvel and Sam Graham-Felsen point out in Sweet Victory: Bold Ballot Initiatives.

Now, thanks in large part to the efforts of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, progressive
organizations are learning how to use ballot propositions to promote bold,
innovative policy around the country. Launched five years ago, BISC provides
state and national advocacy groups with key research and training in effective
referendum strategies.

The solution is simple, return to liberal basics, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. But we'll have to work hard to apply that simple strategy.

One of the problems with the Right being in control is pro-government and business federal judges. Big brother is getting bigger.

Companies that provide Web-based telecommunications services must allow
wiretapping by law enforcement officials, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday.

The ruling upholds a Federal Communications Commission decision that
companies such as Vonage Holdings Corp., the country's largest provider of
Internet phone service, are under the same legal obligation as telephone
companies. The requirement for a wiretap-compatible system could mean higher
expenses for broadband service companies, and it marks the further spread of
regulation into Internet phone services.

Another problem with the Right and conservative Democrats is that they don't give a damn about the enviornment.

NASA is canceling or delaying a number of satellites designed to give
scientists critical information on the earth's changing climate and
environment.

The space agency has shelved a $200 million satellite mission headed by a
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor that was designed to measure
soil moisture -- a key factor in helping scientists understand the impact of
global warming and predict droughts and floods. The Deep Space Climate
Observatory, intended to observe climate factors such as solar radiation, ozone,
clouds, and water vapor more comprehensively than existing satellites, also has
been canceled.

Bush is running the government more and more on his own whim with complete disregard for the law and the principles this country was founded on.

During the presidency of George W. Bush, the White House has made an
unprecedented reach for power. It has systematically attempted to defy, control,
or threaten the institutions that could challenge it: Congress, the courts, and
the press. It has attempted to upset the balance of power among the three
branches of government provided for in the Constitution; but its most aggressive
and consistent assaults have been against the legislative branch: Bush has time
and again said that he feels free to carry out a law as he sees fit, not as
Congress wrote it. Through secrecy and contemptuous treatment of Congress, the
Bush White House has made the executive branch less accountable than at any time
in modern American history. And because of the complaisance of Congress, it has
largely succeeded in its efforts.

And Congress shows that we have born followers instead of leaders representing us.

Am I missing something? I mean, I wasn't exactly an A student in civics class,
but I do clearly recall that the way the U.S. Constitution was written -- and
remains unamended -- is that Congress passes bills and the president either
signs them into law or vetoes them. If he signs a bill, it becomes a law that
the executive branch is then constitutionally required to enforce.

Am I wrong about that? Did I miss the passage of a constitutional amendment that
changed the balance of power established by our founders?


If not, then the president of the United States has broken the law, not just
once, but hundreds of
times.
That's how many times this guy has signed bills into law and then, after the
camera left, signed a separate document he calls "a signing statement," that, in
effect, says, "Just kidding. Here's which parts of that bill I just signed that
I will enforce, and which parts I won't enforce."

In anticipation of a November victory, the Democrats are already starting to fight among themselves. This is probably a good thing, because they sure need to learn to fight somewhere.

Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), one of the Democrats' leading antiwar voices,
startled his political colleagues yesterday by announcing he would seek a senior
leadership position if the Democrats win control of the House in November.

Looks like Newt Gingrich will crawl out from under his rock to run for President. Compared to a lot of the Republicans running, Newt seems almost sane.

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) expects to run for president in 2008
if the contest for the Republican nomination still seems wide open late next
year, he said yesterday.

They're saying that the death of al Zarqawi will be a major turning point in terrorism. I doubt it, but once again, I hope I'm wrong.

BERLIN, June 9 -- The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi could mark a turning point
for al-Qaeda and the global jihadist movement, according to terrorism analysts
and intelligence officials.

His death does mean the end of his being the poster boy for Bush's pre-war fantasy Iraq/Al Queda connection.

From the moment President Bush introduced him to the American people in October 2002, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi served a crucial purpose for the administration,
providing a tangible focus for its insistence that Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein was linked to the al-Qaeda terrorist network responsible for the attacks
of Sept. 11, 2001.

And guess what? Bush had three chances to get al Zarqawi, but he declined. You could understand why Bush was hesitant about getting Osama, since the Bush's and bin Laden's had been in business deals together for years. Apparently Bush just wanted al Zarqawi around for propaganda purposes.

Did you know Bush was given three plans to kill Zarqawi before the Iraq war and
refused to kill him? I'm sure you didn't - because this devastating NBC
story was published once and then never cited again. Bush needed to keep Zarqawi
alive to "sell" his illegal and insane invasion. As a result of Bush's
insanity, hundreds needlessly were murdered by Zarqawi.