Not long ago a friend from Portland, OR (the coolest city in the country, mho) told me about a musician he had heard during Alberta Fest (Alberta St being the coolest area in the coolest city) and he knew I would love the music, which is original and described as a blend of Mid-East and Indian and Gypsy flavas and hypnotically beautiful. It’s just by accident that I discovered the two Adam Hurst videos on youtube…and my friend was right!

Alberta Street Fair
adamhurststudio.com

Adam Hurst…Cello

FOX VIDEO: Judge Napolitano looks at the German War Crimes charges against
Donald Rumsfeld and he also looks at Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and
Congress getting him under oath against his will with possible House Arrest.

I say Rummy will get his Passport ready to head to Bush’s 90,000 acre
compound in Paraguay.

H/T JoeWo for this post

WASHINGTON

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said Sunday that Democrats will exercise their newly won control of Congress by pushing through a resolution calling for the United States to begin withdrawing some of its 140,000 troops from Iraq within 6 months.

The United States needs to “change the course in Iraq by telling the Iraqis that our presence there is not open-ended,” said Levin, who’s in line to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

“We need to begin a phased redeployment from Iraq in four to six months.”

But not all Democrats agreed on the strategy. And such a resolution wouldn’t bind President George W. Bush to start pulling out U.S. forces.

Levin ruled out cutting off money for the war.

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Because I am respectful of it and because he is a good teacher, I asked bro’s opinion of Pelosi’s ‘no impeachment’ pledge. This is his response:

“As frank said she did what she had to do politically. But we need to put politics aside at some point and deal with this problem. So many of these things I thought we learned from Vietnam/watergate but they seem to have come back to bite us in the ass again.. Impeachment is not only about breaking the law but more importantly about abuse of power.The abuse of power part of impeachment is there to keep the President,whoever it might be, from doing exactly what Bush has done. But the problem with that is, it’s an after the events protection. And with Bush putting even more power in the hands of the president, the ability and ease of abusing that power is even much greater now. Therefore Bush himself has made the impeachment process that much more important a process to ensure the president, who ever it might be, doesn’t abuse that expanded power. So if we give the president even more power as we have done and then are unwilling to at least investigate whether he/she has abused it, are we not letting him or her abuse it with no repercussions? Power with no means of control or oversight has proven to be very dangerous, wouldn’t you say? Maybe the debate should be centered around how much power the Pres. should have and what he/she can do with it without congressional approval/oversight? We need to ensure this doesn’t happen AGAIN and I think impeachment might be the best and maybe only way to expose HIS abuse of power and the need to address it for the future. It’s not about revenge,it’s not about Pelosi, it’s not about Bush, it’s about doing what’s needed to make sure it doesn’t happen again, EVER. And so if impeachment is what’s needed, then sorry Pelosi, your political image is gonna have to take a back seat to what’s important to the integrity of our form of government. Even if Bush is forced to resign as Nixon did, it still doesn’t solve the problem. It will be the second president that has abused his power, resigned in disgrace, and leaves the door open for another president to abuse the power. And as I said previously, Bush expanding the power of the president makes this that more important an issue to address.”

I don’t, necessarily, disagree with him. In fact, I agree with his central points. I also think Pelosi is right and for these reasons:

1) Until we have a qualified and worthy Democrat in the White House working in partnership with a Democrat-controlled Congress, this country cannot get to the real work of preserving our constitution and legislating fairness and equality and protection for all her citizens. And getting our soldiers home! We have a lot of wrongs to right. We can begin now, but job-1 is to elect a Democrat as our next president and for the next two years we need calm and results in Congress to do it.
2) Tying up important Congressional actions in impeachment hearings will, I fear, stop the progressive momentum brought by the recent elections. Can you imagine the media circus! Just as we have begun to marginalize the idiotic cacophony of the rightwing, 24/7 impeachment coverage will hand them the mic again.
3) All that impeachment will accomplish is removing Bush from office where his power can now be limited until his presidency ends. It doesn’t punish him in any meaningful way for any of his crimes and I suspect that afterwards the country would not have the will to do what needs to be done, which is to prosecute the lot of them for war crimes.

Of course all bets are off if the Boy King cannot be contained.

This is a good debate to have. What’s your opinion?

The National Mall in Washington will get its first monument to an African American, Martin Luther King Junior.
Ordinary and no’so-ordinary Americans took part in the groundbreaking Monday, including Oprah Winfrey, poet-novelist Maya Angelou and former President Bill Clinton.

They’re among those who’ve been working for more than a decade to bring the monument about.

The four-acre site along the Tidal Basin is not far from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963.

Project organizers have raised more than $65 million toward the $100 million cost of building and maintaining the King Memorial. They hope to have it completed by the spring of 2008.

source

Bush Leads King Groundbreaking Ceremony

John Edwards begins a nationwide book tour today for Home: The Blueprints of Our Lives, a coffee-table collection of mini-memoirs, the Durham Herald Sun reports. Among his stops: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — “all key states in the presidential nominating process.”

“Edwards’ wife Elizabeth just completed a book tour promoting her memoir. All the trips build on the tireless travels of the former North Carolina senator, who has worked for the past year on various poverty initiatives around the nation as he prepares for another possible run for the White House.”

source

OLMERT ‘NOT LOOKING FOR WARS’

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert brought his concerns over IranA-s nuclear threat to the White House on Monday and offered assurances he was not looking for a confrontation with Tehran. “I am not looking for wars,” he declared in advance of his meeting with President Bush .

“This is not an issue of Israel only,” Olmert said of IranA-s nuclear efforts, which Israel and the United States say is aimed at building nuclear weapons. “This is a moral issue of the whole world.”

The meeting was the second Olmert had with Bush since the prime minister took over for the ailing Ariel Sharon. Palestinian gestures toward peacemaking with Israel was also a key topic on their agenda.

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OLMERT HINTS AT POSSIBLE MILITARY ACTION AGAINST IRAN

President George W. Bush called Monday for worldwide isolation of Iran until it “gives up its nuclear ambitions.”

The risk to the world extends beyond Israel and the Middle East, Bush said in White House remarks to reporters after meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for an hour.

The United States and Israel say they believe Iran is working on nuclear weapons, though Iran says its work on the technology is aimed only at producing energy.

“Iran’s nuclear ambitions are not in the world’s interest,” Bush said. “If Iran had nuclear weapons it would be terribly destabilizing.”

“If they continue to move forward with the program, there has to be a consequence,” Bush said. “And a good place to start is working together to isolate the country. And my hope is, is that there are rational people inside the government that recognize isolation is not in their country’s interest…”

…In the interview, Olmert compared Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Adolf Hitler and said “he has to be stopped.”

“My position is clear,” the prime minister said regarding Iran. “If there can be a compromise that will stop Iran short of crossing the technological threshold that will lead them into nuclear capabilities, we will be for such a compromise.”

“But I don’t believe that Iran will accept such compromise unless they have a very good reason to fear the consequences of not reaching it,” explained Olmert. “In other words, Iran must start to fear.”

When asked what he thought could be done about Iran, Olmert said, “I can think of many different measures. The guideline has to be that this government and the people of Iran must understand that if they do not accept the request of the international community, they’re going to pay dearly.”

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ISRAEL, WE BLESS THEE

h/t Fat Boy Slim
*thumbs up*

WASHINGTON

Lawmakers and congressmen-to-be came to Washington Monday as triumphant Democrats and vanquished Republicans focused more on the upcoming change in power than on President Bush’s wish list for the final few months of GOP rule.

Orientation meetings for more than 50 incoming House freshmen began at 8:45 a.m. EST. Dozens of wide-eyed rookie lawmakers were learning the ropes. They were scheduled to meet with President Bush later in the day at the White House.

“From both parties, we all sort of have the same feeling: ‘Wow! Is this really happening,’” said Michael Arcuri, D-N.Y.

The main order of House business planned for Monday was consideration of a free-trade bill with Vietnam, ahead of Bush’s scheduled visit there Friday. The Senate was to debate a funding bill for veterans programs.

The real action, however, will be off the floor as the speaker-to-be, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., prepares to take the reins of the House and Harry Reid, D-Nev., does the same in the Senate.

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WASHINGTON (CNN)

This is probably not what President Bush had in mind when he stressed bipartisanship after the Democratic Party’s midterm elections sweep.

A key Senate Republican has joined Democrats in opposing one of Bush’s initiatives for the lame-duck Congress: John Bolton’s nomination as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

With leaders from both parties promising a new bipartisan Washington, Bush began efforts to get two of his most controversial decisions approved before the Democrats take over.

Along with Bolton’s nomination, Bush said he would like to move forward on legislation to retroactively authorize the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance program.

Bush said he would like to see action on both issues before year’s end. The Democratic-controlled Congress begins its term in January.

But Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who was defeated in this week’s election, said he would block Bolton’s nomination.

Chafee, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters that he did not believe Bolton’s nomination would move forward without his support.

“The American people have spoken out against the president’s agenda on a number of fronts, and presumably one of those is on foreign policy,” the Rhode Island moderate told The Associated Press.

“And at this late stage in my term, I’m not going to endorse something the American people have spoke out against.”

The committee, dominated 10-8 by Republicans, requires a majority vote to send the nomination to the Senate floor. A tie would be the same as a no vote.

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Another Open Letter to George
by Cindy Sheehan

George,

First of all, I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall on November 8th, when we all knew fairly early that the Democrats had taken back the House of Representatives. I would also have loved to be in the room when Senator George Allen conceded and the Senate was lost. I hope you realize that your demented policies and miserably failed leadership style is responsible for the thumping that your party took this week. Even though I couldn’t be a secret first hand witness to your political demise, it was good to be in front of your soon to be vacated premises in DC.

On November 4th, 2004, after you stole yet another election, I wrote an open letter to you promising that I would use every last ounce of strength that I had to see you held accountable for the death of my son and for all of the gratuitous bloodshed that you have foisted on humanity since you have been president.

As committed as I am to bringing the troops home, I am as much committed to seeing you investigated, impeached, ejected from office, and imprisoned in the same cell with Saddam for crimes against humanity. After all, you yourself, have said over and over again that the troops aren’t leaving Iraq alone while you are in office…so get out of office so our young people can come home. A recent MSNBC poll said that 86% of their viewers are in favor of putting you on trial, George. 86% is exactly the same percentage of Iraqis who want our troops to leave their Bush-torn country.

Americans (you remember us, don’t you?), turned out in huge numbers the other day to hold you accountable. You had yourself another accountability moment there, and you lost, didn’t you? We Americans did not vote to retain the Republican status quo of murder, mayhem, and oppression. We voted to change politics as usual in this country. We voted against you and your wars of terror. We voted against you and your spies. We voted against you and your torturers. We voted against you and your definition of freedom as something that can be spread by bombing a country into oblivion. We voted against you and your definition of peace as something that can be spread by violence. We voted against you and your definition of security while your state sanctioned terrorism is creating more terrorists. We voted against you and your most atrocious and abominable exploitation of the right to life to continue your genocidal policies in Iraq.

complete letter here