WOW! PEOPLE ARE PISSED OFF TODAY-- AND IT'S A WEEKEND! DIFI & CHUCKY ARE LUCKY THEY'RE NOT UP FOR RE-ELECTION

Thanks to RagingGurrl from FDL Editorz

Last night I started getting flooded with e-mail about the treachery of Dianne Feinstein and Chuck Schumer regarding their declarations that they intended to foist Michael Mukasey on us as Attorney General. (I've made it crystal clear on this blog-- I never liked or trusted either of them and although New York and California are the only two states I've ever voted in, and I've never missed an election or a primary, I've never voted for either one of them for anything. Jane Hamshire and I originally met while we were campaigning for Jello Biafra when he ran against Feinstein when she wan for mayor of San Francisco after the political assassination of George Moscone and Harvey Milk by one of her right-wing colleagues on the Board of Supervisors.)

A frequent DWT contributor, Woid, sent me this late last night:

In her latest lurch toward the right, our despicable senior senator announced that she'll be voting in favor of the nomination of the newest Bush stooge for Attorney General, making his approval likely-- in spite of the fact that he seems to be perfectly okay with torture, indefinite detention of citizens without charges, and the power of The Executioner's branch to ignore any laws they don't care for. Hey, why not make it official and just declare themselves the Fourth Reich?

I'm way past the point of feeling futile about what we can do about the depredations of our insect overlords-- but this particular outrage fired me up enough to get on the web and email that miserable tool, which I followed up by calling both her socal and DC offices. It took almost an hour to get through to DC, because so many people were calling in outrage. The guy on the phone said they'd probably had thousands of calls, 100% against.

Yes, it may be futile, but it did give me a delightful jolt of adrenaline, saving me 4 bucks on an afternoon cup of coffee.

You could use an extra 4 bucks, right?

Just before that, I got a call from some of my pals at Calitics who are talking about working with a coalition of concerned activists who are thinking about running robo-calls and newspaper ads informing Californians about how Dianne Feinstein has let us down.

Since then, she's written a defensive and deceptive editorial in the L.A. Times trying to minimize the damage to her miserable political career. Before you read it, look what Democrats like Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, John Edwards... even Hillary Clinton have said about why they oppose Mukasey getting his hands on the Justice Department. Feinstein's defense boils down to him not being as bad as Gonzales and how the Justice Department is in a shambles. How did it get in a shambles? Clearly, it got there because of the level of appointees by Bush-- approved by senators like Feinstein-- and because of the policies and agenda promulgated by Bush and, at best, overlooked by senators like Feinstein.

Like the equally shameless Schumer, she says she believes-- while acknowledging that "serious questions have been raised about Judge Mukasey's views on torture and on the separation of powers"-- that "Mukasey is the best nominee we are going to get from this administration and that voting him down would only perpetuate acting and recess appointments, allowing the White House to avoid the transparency that confirmation hearings provide and to diminish effective oversight by Congress." What a disgraceful excuse for reasoning! I'm mortified! Just look at how the twisted, sick mind works. I think it's long past time for Ms. Feinstein to retire from the public sphere.

The depth of her distorted perspective can also be seen here:

In the hearing, Judge Mukasey clearly expressed his personal repugnance regarding torture. And in a letter dated Oct. 30, he reiterated his personal views and described in detail the analysis he would undertake if confirmed.

Except for her close colleague Lieberman, everyone expresses purported "personal repugnance regarding torture." Bush does; Cheney does; a whole gaggle of Republican senators do. But Bush and Cheney order it and the Republicans enable it. We expect more from Democrats. Although hardly from Dianne Feinstein.

Matthew Grimm, a musician in Iowa, posted a passionate and well-reasoned piece today worth looking at. I recommend it strongly. A paragraph:

Go visit a foreign country, find a child, rape it bloody, eviscerate it with a hunting knife, murder its family, then burn its village to cinders, leaving nothing but carbonized corpses. It's okay. You're American. You can get away with it, long as you wear the right tie and now the right handshake and wear a flag pin on your lapel. Laws don't apply to you. The president will get the attorney general he wants, one who will use the Constitution to wipe proper Yalie shit from proper
Yalie asses. The Geneva Protocols remain "quaint."

Today we had two candidates for Congress over at Firedoglake, Donna Edwards, who is running against an establishment Democratic hack/Bush enabler (MD-04) who is heavily backed by the Inside the Beltway money interests-- and by Hoyer, Emanuel and Pelosi-- and Rabbi Dennis Shulman, a brilliant new face on the political scene who is taking on extreme right wing, adamantly pro-torture wingnut Scott Garrett (NJ-05). When asked, here's what Donna had to say:

"Is waterboarding torture? That’s a brightline test, no gray area. It’s torture and any nominee for the highest law enforcement officer in the land should be able to answer the question and agree to enforce international human rights standards. And, if Mukasey cannot stand apart from the other elements of the Executive Branch on this one, then he should not be confirmed."

When Rabbi Shulman was asked how Democrats can restore constitutional law, her was also clear:

Oversight, oversight, oversight.

With either a Democratic or Republican president, Congress’ responsibility is to watch the executive branch closely and protect the Constitution from executive incursion.

...I firmly believe that people should take responsibility for their actions. And I believe law and order applies to everyone-- and doesn’t stop when you achieve high office.

Big money interests support hacks like Bush and Schumer and Feinstein and Garrett and Wynn. If we want batter, we must participate in the process. There are many ways to do that. One is to contribute to the campaigns of good and honest Americans running for office, like Donna Edwards and Dennis Shulman-- and everyone else on this list. Even $5 helps. It really does.