David Kronke writes, in LA Daily News:

Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military's elite covert counter-terrorist unit. He culled his experiences for "Inside Delta Force" (Delta; $14), a memoir rich with harrowing stories, though in an interview, Haney declines with a shrug to estimate the number of times he was almost killed. (Perhaps the most high-profile incident that almost claimed his life was the 1980 failed rescue of the hostages in Iran.)

As many other men and women with military experience have spoken out against the reasons for Bush to go to war with Iraq, Eric Haney has both the experience and knowledge to say forcefully that this is is leading to the nation's military that is unfit to fight a real enemy in the near future.

Read the interview here.

I'm went to my precinct caucus, #844, for the Democratic Party of Denver, and I am now a delegate to the Denver Democrat Assembly, which will be held at Lincoln High School, 2285 South Federal Blvd, April 8th, beginning at 8 a.m.

Last election cycle I then went to the State Assembly as an alternative delegate from HD 8A.

(One of the goals that I will be proposing for Operation Bird Dog/PDA- Chapter Denver will be to have one of our members be a Colorado national delegate in 2008.)

As the election draws nearer there are many good people running and working for various campaigns in Denver and Colorado like Colorado Senator Ken Gordon is an announced candidate for Secretary of State.

Many bloggers have noted that this is a non presidential election cycle and that turnout by the the general voting population is low. I know that in my precinct caucus there was about half the turnout from the '04 cycle. This is troubling because the general sentiment in the country is for a wholesale change in Congress. However if turnout is low then the base of each party takes on an even more important aspect for the respective House and Senate races.

The netroots citizens have a duty to register new voters as Democrats and to GOTV on election day for our side.

My partner and I did GOTV last election and it is a wonderful experience to meet people and help them vote.

Endgame

by georgia10

Two news stories this week should have resulted in 44 Senators signing on to censure the President of the United States for his abuse of power in ordering massive domestic spying on American citizens without a warrant. Two administration actions reinforce the fact that Congressional laws have been rendered meaningless: (1) the President's signing statement on the Patriot Act; and (2) the administration's answers to Judiciary Committee questions about the warrantless spying program.

and:

This week, in response to a series of questions posed by the House Judiciary Committee, the administration revealed that it has NO intention of abiding by any law passed by Congress with respect to domestic surveillance.

finally:

Enough is enough. Democrats who fail to sign on to Feingold's resolution are just as guilty as Republicans are rallying around a President King. I cannot think of two clearer pieces of evidence which prove that this is a constitutional crisis that threatens our system of governance. Good god, Democrats, wake up. You've been punk'd by the President. There is no Congress. There is no legislative branch. The laws you pass are meaningless...And unless you do something, my dear Democrats, there's a real danger that we--the base, the citizens who give a damn about the Constitution--will do nothing for you come midterms this year. It's your move.

This is exactly how I feel. There is nothing more shameful then to see my Democratic Senator Salazar just say, "“I will continue to work tirelessly to assure that the PATRIOT Act continues — without interruption — to protect all Americans,” said Salazar. “I will also work tirelessly to pass the best possible PATRIOT Act, one that strengthens our law enforcement agents’ ability to fight terrorists and protects Americans’ civil liberties and fundamental right to privacy. These issues are not Republican or Democratic issues — they are issues that transcend partisan politics entirely, and that is the way our bipartisan group is approaching them."

How does it feel Senator Salazar? Your vote is meaningless and the seat in the United States Senate is meaningless to Mr. Bush. If you don't act to stand with Senator Feingold and begin with censure then I will not vote for you in any election, and I will actively work against your campaign, if you decide to run for re-election.

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Cornered rats

I'm currently listening to Senator Ted Kennedy giving a pep talk on a conference call on Senate Resolution 350, which is a resolution to reject Mr. Bush's contention that the AUMF is a blank check to spy on Americans.

Glenn Greenwald hits the bull's eye on the beltway Democratic consultants. I believe it is high time that our money and time that we donate to the party really makes us the party.

We need to take back the power in the Democratic Party by telling the candidates not to hire party "professionals" who have helmed the Democratic Party into minority status the past three election cycles. No more losers with a losing message.

We are the Democratic Party. Now is the time to take charge. Participate in the political process. Be active. Get off the chair and into your local precinct caucus meetings.

Offer planks in the local party platform. Fight for those planks that you believe the Democratic Party should have.

Remember, the Democratic Party is the majority party with the ideals and policies that help this nation and its people become better and live more fully.

Brook no criticism from the Republicans because they offer NOTHING for this nation:

Under Mr. Bush this nation has been sundered from the ideals and protections envisioned in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Under Mr. Bush this nation has rendered unto itself being judge, jury and executioner of whoever it deems an "enemy".

Under Mr. Bush this nation no longer is a part of the world community but the world community must bow to the military and economic omnipotence of this nation.

Under Mr. Bush this nation has treated it's enemies prisoners like those who suffered from hurricane Katrina- under the barrel of a gun by a mercenary and taken from the land that they have lived on and loved to locations far away with dwindling hope of return.

Under Mr. Bush this nation is the only model that the world can follow.

Under Mr. Bush all other nations must follow his God annointed leadership towards salvation.

Under Mr. Bush this nation shall become moral under the purview of the Bible.

Under Mr. Bush shall listen and take his directions from his personal relationship to his god.

This a Constitution and Bill of Rights under siege by a man who has broken his oath to the Constitution.

A resolution for censure of Mr. Bush by Senator Feingold is but the first step in our nation awakening to the fact that he is a demagogue. Co sponsor Senator Feingold's resolution here.

Let us not forget that the grievances presented 230 years ago are relevant now because of Mr. Bush's obssession with becoming a dictator:

The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts

John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: How to take a stand for your country

This not about Republicans or Democrats but is about how we will ever learn about governmental wrongdoing. As Glenn astutely points out that Mr. Bush and his minons are actively seeking to muzzle the press and its ability to monitor governmental actions through criminal law.

The water carrier Sen. DeWine is more than happy to write bills that is a "loaded gun" to silence any and all whistleblowers in government as is Sen. Roberts in aiming legislation whose clear intent is to intimidate the mandated role of journalism in the Constitution and protected in the Bill of Rights.

This is a time for Democratic Party leaders to take the courageous stand and to stop the political madness of the Republicans in the White House and in Congress.

As party precinct caucus date arrives it is high time for the netroots to introduce planks into the party platform that tells the leadership that we understand the threat to the very basis of this nation by the Republicans. The Constitution and Bill of Rights and those principals within should never be discarded because of an upcoming election or proving that you're a team player or looking for the "moderate" voter come election time.

If you are in Denver check out the Denverdems.org website for the location of your precinct caucus place and time on March 21st.

We are the people who gives our consent to be governed through our vote.

Practice democracy now.

Claude Allen resigned to "spend more time with his family". Well now we know the real reason why he abruptly resigned his senior level post in the Bush administration: He is nothing more than a low level criminal.

He should be "frog marched" in cuffs out of the White House.

I'm glad this guy was arrested because he is another in a long line of right wing religious hypocrites. I caught the hyperlink to the LA Weekly (the article was cached in Google) article from Eschaton on this little bad boy number:
Moreover, Allen was the driving force to replace science-based sex ed with the failed policy of teaching that only abstinence prevents AIDS. A black conservative and religious primitive, Allen helped bludgeon the Centers for Disease Control, which reports to HHS, into purging safe-sex materials from its Web sites and into adopting mandatory new rules requiring AIDS-fighting groups to teach that condoms don’t work in preventing the spread of AIDS, as I reported in the L.A. Weekly last year ("Condom Wars," June 25–July 1). When a federal judge found that a federally funded Louisiana abstinence program "illegally handed out Bibles, staged anti-abortion prayer rallies outside women’s clinics and had students perform Bible-based skits," Allen refused to have the program audited, while continuing his repeated audit persecutions of effective AIDS-fighting groups teaching condom use.

As Firedoglake has posted by Pachacutec about the fact that the entire Republican Party is nothing more than the real life version of the Sopranos.

I would say that it is way past time to replace the less then useless Democratic Party "consultants" that have infested the party with a netroots/grassroots revolution. The first act is to take back the party at the local level through participation. The first act must include the fact that no money should be donated to Democratic Party organizations that support "accommodation" and "compromise" with the criminal and treasonous enterprise the Republican Party has begun against the Constitution and our national safety.

Mother Nature is celebrating tonight as are all her creatures great and small in our forests, prairies, streams and lakes.

The worst Interior Secretary since James Watt has decided to resign: Gale Norton. She is infamous for wanting to exploit for short term economic gain by corporate giants and the small fry wildcat companies in the National Park Service's national parks and wild life refuges.

Through her active participation in underfunding and changing the historical mission of the National Park system she will be known as one of the people to try to shortchange the future generations of Americans. Who thinks that a pumping rig is more beautiful than the beauty of an undisturbed landscape like the Dry Tortugas National Park.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Traitor Robert Novak has written:
"At the same time, the Bush administration is going directly to the public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq. To some Republican members, this unusual venture connotes a desire to go directly to the people to sell the president's position without having to deal with members of Congress."

Josh Marshall has written:
"Now, with Rep. Marilyn Musgrave's (R-CO) event in Colorado we seem to have the first actual example of it.

My gut tells me this isn't the only one. But in the nature of things the notations of it will show up only in local papers, well under the radar of the national press. So I'm curious whether folks have seen examples of similar things happening in their own districts. If you've seen examples, let us know."

This is wrong for one political party to use America's military personnel for their own selfish political ends, which in the long run will hurt the military itself. There is no "upside" for any political party because the politicization of the military will hurt our national security.

The American people will soon view the military not as "protectors" but merely as extensions of whoever will be in power. This is a powerful reason why there are military regulations prohibiting the use of military personnel at partisan political events.

Further, Josh Marshall points out that there may be no political penalty for Rep. Musgrave's misuse of military personnel but there can be grave consequences for the military person:
"The uniformed member of the military who appears at such an event can be court-martialed for the violation. It's not some technicality in UCMJ terms."

A quick search on Google.com will find the relevant documents like Air Force Instruction 51-902 or this DoD Directive 1344.10.

I have contacted my representatives on the matter. I urge other people in Colorado to contact their representatives and the heads of their respective political parties to tell them that this is not American.

It is specifically un-American to use the U.S. military for partisan political gain which is now the policy of Mr. Bush and his Republican party.

Chris Bower's of MyDD.com has a thoughtful take on what the recent polling numbers on Bush Republicans means.

I agree with his view that it will be a generational change in both houses of Congress.

What I don't agree with is the analysis of the idea of impeachment of Bush. Recent polling on the support for impeachment seems to go hand in hand with a generational change in Congress. Why? Because there is still a bright line about what is wrong and what is right with respect to what we think about being citizens under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

The polling numbers on Bush- on popularity, right direction/wrong direction, and impeachment- shows trending numbers that are against any solidification of Republicans in Congress.

What people want is for there to be principaled stand by the Democratic Party that is for the Constitution and Bill of Rights against the transgressions and criminal activities by Bush and the Republican Congress.

There should be no cooperation with Republicans for the passage of renewal of the illegal USA Patriot Act. But, as my partner asked, "Where are the Democrats?". She is so mad that she will no longer donate to the DCCC and DSC because of their failure on issues that matter most- privacy, right to reproductive freedom, illegal domestic spying, the setting up of a gulag system of the "disappeared", and the wrecking of any sane federal fiscal policy that would keep America from being a debtor to the world.

I will work for change in the Democratic Party.

However, I will continue to push the party to take it's Constitutional duties seriously and push for impeachment because it is the right thing to do.