The Jed Report put together this lovely compilation of McCain contradicting McCain:

When will he learn not to give speeches in front of a green screen?

(h/t: Pam’s House Blend)

If you’re not reading Fafblog!, then you’re not reading Fafblog! Read Fafblog!

CLINTON: I didn’t vote for the war, Fafnir. I voted to give the president the authority to go to war. What was he going to use that authority for? Maybe he’d just frame it and hang it in his office. Maybe he’d use it to prop up one of the legs on his desk. Maybe he’d use it to sing songs and dance jigs and lift weary spirits down at the old folks home! I honestly couldn’t say!

FB: If only you knew at the time that that devious George Bush would use a war authorization to authorize a war!

CLINTON: You know, I guess I’m just too giving. Maybe I just love my country too much to deny it the universal health care and endless wars it so desperately needs. Maybe some theoretical secret black Muslim who hates America wouldn’t have that problem.

FB: Maybe it didn’t have to be an actual war, though. Maybe you coulda just met the president halfway by settin a big pile a money on fire an shootin a buncha random people.

CLINTON: You know, Fafnir, we could stand around and argue over who raped and slaughtered whose country all day long, but where’s that gonna get us? What America needs now is a president who’s ready on day one to rape and slaughter competently for the American people in the next war, and I’ve got the sixty-five years of experience to do it.

This is from The Independent of London:

The public perception of Mr Bush, who leaves office in January, as already being “history” was heightened by the arrival of three historians at Downing Street for last night’s dinner.

David Cannadine, Churchill’s official biographer Martin Gilbert and Simon Schama, presenter of the popular television series A History Of Britain, were invited after Mr Bush expressed an interest in meeting some historians, a No 10 source said. Professor Schama is reported to have described Mr Bush’s presidency as “an absolute fucking catastrophe”.

Today the U. S. Supreme Court, by the slimmest majority (5-4), has ruled that the portion of the Military Commissions Act which purports to abolish the right of habeas corpus for so-called “enemy combatants” is unconstitutional:

The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times. Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system, they are reconciled within the framework of law. The Framers decided that habeas corpus, a right of first importance, must be a part of that framework, part of that law.

Glenn Greenwald has a great writeup that explains the significance of today’s ruling.

Now, let’s remember who supported the Military Commissions Act…

…and who opposed and voted against the Military Commissions Act:

The next president will likely appoint a number of Supreme Court justices… and today, the most fundamental right under our legal system – the right to challenge arbitrary executive detention before an impartial jurist – was upheld by one vote.

Chris Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for a long time. He’s the author of several books, including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. A speech he gave recently is posted at AlterNet. Here’s an excerpt:

I used to live in a country called America. It was not a perfect country, God knows, especially if you were African American or Native American or of Japanese descent in World War II, or poor or gay or a woman or an immigrant, but it was a country I loved and honored. This country gave me hope that it could be better. It paid its workers wages that were envied around the world. It made sure these workers, thanks to labor unions and champions of the working class in the Democratic Party and the press, had health benefits and pensions. It offered good public education. It honored basic democratic values and held in regard the rule of law, including international law and respect for human rights. It had social programs from Head Start to welfare to Social Security to take care of the weakest among us, the mentally ill, the elderly and the destitute. It had a system of government that, however flawed, was dedicated to protecting the interests of its citizens. It offered the possibility of democratic change. It had a media that was diverse and endowed with the integrity to give a voice to all segments of society, including those beyond our borders, to impart to us unpleasant truths, to challenge the powerful, to explain ourselves to ourselves.

I am not blind to the imperfections of this America, or the failures to always meet these ideals at home and abroad. I spent 20 years of my life in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans as a foreign correspondent reporting in countries where crimes and injustices were committed in our name, whether during the Contra war in Nicaragua or the brutalization of the Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces. But there was much that was good and decent and honorable in our country. And there was hope.

The country I live in today uses the same words to describe itself, the same patriotic symbols and iconography, the same national myths, but only the shell remains. America, the country of my birth, the country that formed and shaped me, the country of my father, my father’s father and his father’s father, stretching back to the generations of my family that were here for the country’s founding, is so diminished as to be nearly unrecognizable.

As they say on the Intertubes, read the whole thing.

In a better world…

One of my media heroes, Bill Moyers, gave an insiriring (and educational) keynote address at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis last week.

PLUS! Backstage footage of Moyers taking Bill O’Reilly’s producer to task when he ambushed Moyers in his green room:

UPDATE:
Here’s the Fox New version of the back stage ambush.

I happen to be listening to Santa Monica City College’s KCRW broadcast of NPR today and had the chance to listen to Hillary Clinton’s concession speech live.  At first the speech sounded very syrupy and I almost got type 2 diabetes.  Then the speech started to sound like Allen Ginsberg’s howl.  In the end she put her full oomph behind Barack Obama, but you can read about that everywhere else.

Thanks to Toshi’s educating me on the matter, one of my all-time heroes is R. Buckminster Fuller. He’s featured in a wonderful article in the current New Yorker. The occasion of this article is an upcoming Fuller retrospective being mounted at the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Sounds like a field trip is in order!

UPDATE:
The Whitney show is on view June 26, 2008-September 21, 2008. I plan to try to go in mid July when I’m on the east coast. – Toshi

It appears that George Takei, the actor who played Mr. Sulu on the original Star Trek series, is marrying his longtime partner Brad Altman. Guess who’s invited to the wedding?

The best man:

The matron of honor:

An honored guest:

Guess who’s not invited?

Takei and Altman plan to marry Sept. 14 in the Democracy Forum at the Japanese National Museum in Los Angeles.

Walter Koenig, who played Chekov in “Star Trek,” will be the best man and Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, will be the matron of honor. Castmate Leonard Nimoy will be among the 200 guests, but probably not William Shatner. Takei has said Shatner didn’t treat him and most of the cast very well.

Too bad. I’m sure Shatner could’ve gotten them a great deal on hotels!