Let's play Republican-like politics.

Turns out, some 50 (mostly Republican) members of the Senate are in favor of attacking "the honor, integrity, and patriotism" of those who have served honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces.

We knew that already, and not only from the Republican filibuster of a bill that would have given members of the U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq as much time off as they were forced into serving in the field.

But a less-discussed vote in the Senate last week underscored just how much Republicans despise honorably serving members of our military, and how impotent Democrats seem to be at exploiting that fact...

Guest Blogged by Steven D of Booman Tribune

I don't mean to be rude, but what the hell is going on?

No impeachment proceedings, despite the Kucinich Impeachment Articles languishing in the House? A refusal to make the Republican Senators filibuster the Webb amendment that would have required a mandatory year's rest between deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan (which wasn't even an antiwar bill, but one crafted specifically to support the troops)? Twenty two Democratic Senators voting to condemn Moveon.org for exercising their right to free speech? No strategy for ending this war other than a vain hope to "peel away" a few "moderate" Republicans? Mealy-mouthed explanations for why nothing gets done?

I'd like to support the Democratic leadership in the Senate and the House, I really would, but so far I see nothing that I can, in all honesty, point to as a significant action by our leadership in support of a progressive agenda...

Good lord. Looks like the "Straight Talk Express" has driven straight over the cliff. But nobody has managed to tell McCain yet. Not even McCain. And to think I might have once considered voting for this guy...

(On an unrelated note: Working on a number of things today, so posting has been light. Reading with interest, however, the outpouring of reaction and comments from BRAD BLOG readers to the Tasering Incident. Let's call those comments "recommend reading" for the moment, as most are quite thought provoking. I may have more of my own thoughts on it all later...)

Guest Blogged by Jon Ponder, Pensito Review

During the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing today:

If the head of our military in Iraq doesn't know if the war there is making us safer, who does?

Our buddy Mike Rogers (who feels I should call him my Blogfather) of BlogActive.com owned Sean Hannity during his appearance on Hannity & Colmes. Rogers --- whose name is misspelled as RoDgers by Fox "News" --- originally outed Sen. Larry Craig last October, even though the mainstream media ignored him until the Idaho Statesmen picked up the story last week.

Atta boy, Blogfather! Check him out...

(Via All Hat No Cattle, hat-tip BRAD BLOG toon sherpa, Pokey Anderson!)

...and I love my wife too. (Even though I'm not married.)

Just wanted to mention that.

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Blogged by Brad from the road...in Texas...

Now UPDATED with a response from Hinchey's office. See update at end of article.

Democratic members of the U.S. House and Senate have announced they are prepared to issue a very, very stern slap on the wrist to George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Alberto Gonzales.

Moments ago, in a joint news release (posted in full below) issued by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), it was announced that Censure resolutions, which have absolutely no force of law or actual consequences if passed, would be brought against the three men in both chambers.

"From misleading this country into invading Iraq to establishing a warrantless domestic spy program, this White House has continuously misled and deceived the American people while disregarding the rule of law that guides our democracy," says Hinchey in the statement.

Of course, it could be argued that a resolution of Censure, in lieu of a trial on Articles of Impeachment, is one of the only ways the U.S. Senate can bring some form of historic accountability to the three accused men until such Articles of Impeachment are sent to them by the U.S. House. But where the Senate may be limited in that they cannot bring their own Articles of Impeachment, the U.S. House has no such excuse.

The Censure resolution brought by Hinchey seems to fly in the face of his own comments on the Peter B. Collins Show just weeks ago when he said that this administration was "the most impeachable in the history of our country." From the transcript/audio of the interview:

And yet, Hinchey is now supporting only Censure, apparently.

If Hinchey and his 19 co-sponsors in the House believe the White House needs condemnation for the points they describe in their resolutions of Censure --- which read like a swell description of Impeachable High Crimes and Misdemeanors --- then they have little excuse not to perform their Constitutional Duty and bring forward Articles of Impeachment in the House for this precise set of serious crimes which, as Hinchey said, "disregard the rule of law that guides our democracy."

Then again, courage of conviction is not something Democrats are too often accused of.

While we were unable to reach the White House for comment, we are fairly well able to anticipate their expected reaction to the Democrats latest attempt at "accountability":

The press release from Feingold and Hinchey, announcing Censure Resolutions in both the House and Senate, follows in full below. Following that is an update with a response from Hinchey's office to the comments above...

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

This two-minute video of Mitt Romney on C-SPAN today represents much that is wrong with his candidacy. He gives lame answers to easy questions like claiming to be unable to participate in a Republican YouTube debate as "September is a tough month" because "it is the end of a quarter." Thus, he must fundraise rather than answer questions from possibly the most egalitarian media outlet on the planet that comprises mainly the nation's youth trying to do their civic duty by participating in the political process. His message is clearly that it is all about the money and not the people.

Romney then seems to imply that he wouldn't participate in a YouTube debate anyway, because the format was not (cough) respectful enough. Laughable on its face coming from a member of the party of the Swiftboat, Southern Strategy, and Voter Caging, Romney adds to the foolishness by admitting that he never even watched the recent Democratic CNN/YouTube debate but for a couple of excerpts. Finally, after first being too busy and then claiming that the format was not proper, he kinda sorta backtracks and says he would not rule out doing a more respectful YouTube debate in the future.

UPDATE:

And a bit later in the day, now speaking in a townhall meeting in Iowa, Romney slammed YouTube again. This time he asked his audience if they watched the debate before saying, "No, I didn't think so. You were peeling carrots or, you know, something else critical at that time...and, ah, just like me, I was doing something else. But you saw the excerpts, and perhaps on YouTube, you saw one of the presidential candidates on the left talk about what he'd do in his first year in office."

ADDENDUM FROM BRAD: Can there be any better indictment of the Mainstream Corporate Media than Romney and the others chickening out from appearing at the YouTube debate? These GOP Presidential Candidates (both Guilliani and Tancredo have also stated they are not likely to take part) would rather answer questions from Wolf Blitzer or Brit Hume et al. They know what those questions will be, and how to answer them. God forbid actual human beings should ask them something they aren't prepared for. "Give me Brian Williams!," says Romney. How pathetic.

Blogged by Brad from Houston...

It's difficult to keep up with everything from on the road, in a hotel without C-SPAN, and while being on air (at least) three hours every day right now. So we're grateful to reader SG, who took the opportunity to "be the media" and send us the following overlooked item from yesterday's Gonzales hearings in the Senate.

Helpful indeed. Thank you, SG.

BRAD BLOG readers likely recall the questions given to Bradley Schlozman during Senate Judiciary Hearings last May after the DoJ Civil Rights Unit "Voter Fraud" zealot turned Missouri US Attorney "Voter Fraud" zealot brought voter fraud indictments just days before the November '06 general election in the Show Me state, where a razor thin Senate election was raging. The indictments, so close to an election, were in contradiction of written DoJ policies, and led to an extraordinarily angry exchange between Schlozman and Sen. Patrick Leahy during those hearings (video here).

In that exchange, Schlozzie admitted that he could have brought the same indictments two weeks later --- well, after the election --- without otherwise damaging his case. He also blamed others at Main Justice for giving him the okay to bring the obviously politically-timed indictments. Shortly thereafter, facing pressure from those he'd blamed at DoJ, he was forced to recant his testimony to take responsibility himself for bringing the indictments.

Unfortunately, we can't dig deeper into the Feinstein/Gonzales exchange for the moment, but welcome readers who can to leave more info on this in comments as they are able to unearth it.

Guest blogged from DC by Margie Burns

Listening to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) for fifteen minutes is worth a week of the para-discourse from elsewhere on national television. Feingold said on Meet the Press this morning that he will introduce a resolution to censure George W. Bush “in a few days.”

The censure resolutions will focus on two huge issues:

• Bush's process for getting us into the war in Iraq, including misleading statements and misuse of intelligence before the war; and
• “the outrageous attack on the rule of law,” including illicit electronic surveillance and other surveillance, and administration approval of torture. “This administration has assaulted the constitution,” Feingold said briskly.

Feingold said that he has talked with the Democratic leadership about the resolution, adding that it might provide an opportunity as well for Republicans uncomfortable with the administration but unwilling to use impeachment.

Questioned by Tim Russert about whether the resolution would pass, Feingold said basically we’ll see how it goes. He commented, “There’s a lot of support in the country for actually impeaching the president and the vice president.”...

Guest Blogged by Arlen Parsa

A mysterious and politically-incorrect series of viral videos posted on YouTube are lighting up speculation online about their origin. A report published on July 13th attributed them to an employee of of Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm (SRCP), the same Republican firm that produced the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads in 2004.

The videos, posted on the YouTube account "abrad2345", mock several Republican candidates, at times making racist attacks against Rudy Giuliani, making fun of his bout with prostate cancer, suggesting that Fred Thompson's wife is transgender, and Mitt Romney is gay. SRCP now apparently works for John McCain.

"In 2004, Mr. McCain said the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement asserting that Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts had not properly earned his medals from the Vietnam War was 'dishonest and dishonorable,'" the New York Times reported in February. "Nonetheless, he has hired the firm that made the spots, Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, which worked on his 2000 campaign, to work for him again this year."

Plans for syndication of the story alleging an SRCP connection to the videos on The BRAD BLOG Monday were delayed at the last minute due to legal concerns after SRCP's lawyers claimed the story was false and asked that it be purged from The Daily Background blog, where it had been originally published.

Watch the first of the "abrad" videos (video at right), which appear to be endorsing Giuliani in a mocking way. The video even resorts to racism for its not-so-subtle attacks on Giuliani. More of the videos can be found here.

"We strongly urge you to cease distribution of all content furthering from these false assertions," a July 16th letter from SRCP's law firm Dickstein Shapiro LLP read. "The business reputation and professionalism of SRCP is being challenged in a way that causes irreparable damage unless you act immediately."

Oh, the irony. (A complete copy of the letter can be found at the bottom of this post...)

Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer

Hillary Clinton and John Edwards are caught on tape today at the NAACP Democratic presidential candidates forum seemingly making anti-democratic comments about shrinking the democratic field in future debate settings. (Video available at left.)

Fox "News", who filed the report during Brit Hume's Special Report on Thursday, included sub-titles for the "overheard" post-forum conversation between Clinton and Edwards. They also managed to get in several cheapshots against a number of other Democratic candidates, including Barack Obama.

As subtitled by Fox during the video clip, the exchange between Clinton and Edwards purportedly went as follows:

Blogged by Brad from Nashville...

Via TPM, the DoJ manual on Commutations:

And from Patrick Fitzgerald's reaction:

Meanwhile, former Sen. Fred Thompson couldn't be happier:

...And Guilliani joins him in standing firmly against National Security for America, and in favor of outing covert CIA assets:

George W. Bush's father, however, feels differently. Or, at least he did back in 1999 when addressing his former colleagues at the CIA...