It’s essential to contact your senators about opposing the Kyl-Lieberman amendment to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill. The vote could be any day now, and it can’t get too much attention. Contact information is at the end of this post.

As Josh Marshall explains:

Did you hear about the War on Iran Authorization bill the Senate is going to vote on perhaps as early as today? No, that’s not how it’s getting billed. But that’s what the ‘Kyl-Lieberman’ amendment is. In fact, the supporters of going to war against Iran are using exactly the same strategy with this amendment that they did to lay the groundwork for the Iraq War.

You can watch Josh Marshall break it down on TPMtv here.

As Jonathan Schwarz wrote last week:
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Below, you’ll find what is, actually part one of a two-part article series that ran this weekend in The Washington Post. I highly suggest you read both articles, in their entirety. They are long articles, but some of the most important writing you ever read. The Fascist Oligarchy is here now! - JS

By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 24, 2007

Just past the Oval Office, in the private dining room overlooking the South Lawn, Vice President Cheney joined President Bush at a round parquet table they shared once a week. Cheney brought a four-page text, written in strict secrecy by his lawyer. He carried it back out with him after lunch.

In less than an hour, the document traversed a West Wing circuit that gave its words the power of command. It changed hands four times, according to witnesses, with emphatic instructions to bypass staff review. When it returned to the Oval Office, in a blue portfolio embossed with the presidential seal, Bush pulled a felt-tip pen from his pocket and signed without sitting down. Almost no one else had seen the text.

Cheney’s proposal had become a military order from the commander in chief. Foreign terrorism suspects held by the United States were stripped of access to any court — civilian or military, domestic or foreign. They could be confined indefinitely without charges and would be tried, if at all, in closed “military commissions.”

“What the hell just happened?” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell demanded, a witness said, when CNN announced the order that evening, Nov. 13, 2001. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, incensed, sent an aide to find out. Even witnesses to the Oval Office signing said they did not know the vice president had played any part.

The episode was a defining moment in Cheney’s tenure as the 46th vice president of the United States, a post the Constitution left all but devoid of formal authority. “Angler,” as the Secret Service code-named him, has approached the levers of power obliquely, skirting orderly lines of debate he once enforced as chief of staff to President Gerald R. Ford. He has battled a bureaucracy he saw as hostile, using intimate knowledge of its terrain. He has empowered aides to fight above their rank, taking on roles reserved in other times for a White House counsel or national security adviser. And he has found a ready patron in George W. Bush for edge-of-the-envelope views on executive supremacy that previous presidents did not assert.

Over the past six years, Cheney has shaped his times as no vice president has before. This article begins a four-part series that explores his methods and impact, drawing on interviews with more than 200 men and women who worked for, with or in opposition to Cheney’s office. Many of those interviewed recounted events that have not been made public until now, sharing notes,e-mails, personal calendars and other records of their interaction with Cheney and his senior staff. The vice president declined to be interviewed.

read more at The Washington Post

We need more men like this. Lots more.

Abercrombie says forget about Iraq surge funds

The Army falls under his impending House panel chairmanship

WASHINGTON » U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie is warning the Bush administration that the new Democratic-controlled Congress will not appropriate more money for a “surge” of new troops into Iraq.

Abercrombie made his comments two days before President Bush is set to tell the nation about new plans for addressing the Iraq war.

In an interview in his Washington office, Abercrombie said Bush should not expect help from the Democrats, who now control the House and Senate.

“We are not going to fund any surges. We are not going to support expanding this war,” Abercrombie said.

The Hawaii Democrat’s words have added importance because on Thursday, Abercrombie is expected to be named chairman of the Armed Forces subcommittee dealing with the Army and Air Force.

Congress, Abercrombie said, “will continue to support the troops, which our budget already does.”

But Abercrombie warned that “we have no intention of trying to support political policies in the guise of support for the troops.”
…

Yesterday, Abercrombie was particularly critical of Rice, the former national security adviser, whom Abercrombie described as “the most overrated, underperforming individual in executive authority that I have ever seen.”

“She constantly gets a pass. Who knows if the whole question of race and gender come into it, but … I can’t account for it, except to say she isn’t up to the mark,” Abercrombie said. Rice is scheduled to testify before the Senate.
…

“My question for Gates? What do they propose to do now? That was not obvious four years ago, and what will they propose that is different from the wrong path they have been following all these years?” Abercrombie said.

Source: Star Bulletin

The American people spoke in November. They not only spoke….they shouted loud and clear from the polling places. They were not gleeful shouts. Not joyous. They were shouts of unrest. Disgust. Disappointment. It was a WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE shout! Now congress has an opportunity to show us they CAN work side by side. They can work in a bi-partisan fashion. How? Get us the hell out of Iraq. The American people have shouted it loud and clear. We shouted running up to the elections and we’ve continued to shout it since. The General’s in charge in Iraq…..you know, the one’s who have been replaced…..have said an increase in troops will not help. The Iraqi people have said they think they were better off with Saddam in power. They want us to leave. The Iraq Study group has said a redeployment of troops should start. Basically everyone on the face of the earth is in agreement. (We won’t count McCain or Lieberman or the 11% that agree with this war because basically, they just don’t fucking count anymore.) It seems our President is on the verge of telling the American people that he really doesn’t give a rat’s ass what we want. HE not only wants to keep this war going…..he wants to escalate it. And God knows, the most important thing to Georgie is that Georgie gets what Georgie wants. Even if it means breaking laws, alienating us from the entire world, causing complete chaos in the Middle East and leaving current and future Americans with the bill for it all. Now is the perfect time for Republicans and Democrats in congress to come together and show us that they actually HEARD our shouts in November. That all our hard work to run the idiots out who weren’t representing us was not in vain. You can keep George from sending more troops into Iraq. Refuse to give him the money he needs to do that. REFUSE. We’re behind you. We got your back. Americans are begging for you to do the right thing. Leave politics out of it. If you do the right thing, you don’t have to worry about 08. We’re willing to leave politics out of it…..as long as you DO THE RIGHT THING. If you don’t……then you’ll be replaced in 08. We’ll shout even louder. Our efforts will be ever stronger to get rid of the people who don’t want to represent us. Truly represent us. In the words of George Bush, you’re either with us, or you’re against us. Stand up to this narcissistic, babbling, delusional monster and tell him you have a message from the American people. NO ESCALATION. Do it in a bi-partisan way. Just do it. Let’s start off the 110th session of congress by telling this idiot that we’re done allowing him to ruin this great nation. We will NOT allow him to put more U.S. troops in harm’s way. We will not contribute to more U.S. deaths or Iraqi deaths. We will not tolerate spending $1.4 billion dollars every 4 days to occupy a nation that is in the throes of civil war. Take the message to him for us……..we got ya covered!!!