We all agree with buhdydharmahhh that there should be a VERY SPECIAL PROSECUTOR for any Bushcrimes, but that may be a middle/long term project. Whereas censure/impeachment for the Glimmer Twins we call W./Dick may have to happen in the next few weeks, So that deserves some love too. (Make sure to sign bud’s petition tho)

     Let’s try Russ Feingold today, a dude who has put censure forward in the past,

     A liberal Democrat and potential White House contender is proposing that the Senate censure President Bush for authorizing domestic eavesdropping, saying the White House misled Americans about its legality.
     “The president has broken the law, and, in some way, he must be held accountable,” Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) said. …

     Russ is reachable at (202) 224-5323, and by e-mail at http://feingold.senate.gov/contact_opinion.html; here’s a sample script:

[e-mail subject line: "Censure Bush/Cheney"]

     I’m a Democrat [name?] and would like Russ Feingold to lead the Senate to censure George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, because of the terrible job they have done. Feingold has tried censure before, but he should do it again now that the Democratic Congress is stronger. Thank you.

     Maybe Feingold can also position himself to replace Harry Reid in 2010 this way…

     This may not work, but at least you can say you tried; and if Russ doesn’t comply, you can primary him out with ben masel. As every sentient being wants to do anyway.

     P.S. You may as well give Bernie Sanders a holler, too, since he is often a better Democrat than the Democrats.

     Sanders-Phone (a la Bat-Phone) at (202) 224-5141, comment page at http://sanders.senate.gov/comments/ .

     Sample:

[e-mail subject line: "Censure Bush/Cheney"]

     I’m a progressive voter [name?] and would like Bernie Sanders to lead the Senate to censure George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, because of the terrible job they have done. He should work with Russ Feingold, who has proposed censure before. Thank you.

     Let Bernie know how you feel, he works for you. Have a happy censureful New Year!!!!!

     See, e.g., No-Name247, Image- Barack Obama’s Backward Cap! But the No Cellphone Sign on the Gym Door Intrigues Me!, for a foto of O in the reversed headcover.
     Let’s just hope he doesn’t take the country in reverse cos of that…

(courtesy of Conch Tees)

     It’s a horrible website, actually, obamaism.blogspot.com (”Socialism, Marxism, Communism & Obama”) is, calling Obama a commie; but it apparently began posting before one began posting here at Obamaism.org, and also with an “Obamaism” theme. (There’s only one post, though! I think. So much for productivity…) So, for the sake of “recognizing the resemblers” (shudder), the blogroll here is phatter by one more linko today.

     “Enjoy!”

     See AP via Detroit Free Press, Harlem Globetrotters to Obama: Have a ball, prez,

     The Inaugural Ball will arrive a month ahead of schedule for President-elect Barack Obama.
     To be more precise, there will be four “inaugural balls” — basketballs, that is, courtesy of the Harlem Globetrotters and the team’s official ball supplier, Spalding.
     The team has created a red, white and blue presidential ball especially for Obama, a noted hoops (and Globetrotters) enthusiast, along with each member of his immediate family.
     The specially made balls are embossed with the presidential seal and the words “Official Ball of the White House.”
     “President-elect Obama understands, perhaps better than any other chief executive in our nation’s history, the power that basketball has in its ability to bridge cultural barriers and bring people together,” said Globetrotters CEO Kurt Schneider. …

     But if the globetrotting new president bounces the ball(s) at meetings with foreign leaders, will that impress them, or will they double over with laughter? Time will tell.

     See ABC News, “Political Punch”, Caroline Kennedy: Kennedys Work Twice as Hard,

     …Kennedy responded to recent comments by Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y., that, “I don’t know what Caroline Kennedy’s qualifications are. Except that she has name recognition, but so does J.Lo. I wouldn’t make J.Lo the senator unless she proved she had great qualifications, but we haven’t seen them yet.”
     “I admire the journey J. Lo has traveled,” said Kennedy. “I’ve been to a school in the Bronx pretty near the house she grew up in and so I actually have a lot of admiration for her, and she looks pretty good. But in terms of public policy and how we spent our adult lives, I don’t think there is really much we have in common.” …

     “‘But in terms of public policy and how we spent our adult lives, I don’t think there is really much we have in common.’” So J. Lo is regressive on public policy? If I were Kennedy, I would not have made that kind of diss, and would not have made a point of emphasizing “lack of commonality”, especially with someone who is a fellow woman, and also a member of a minority.

     Not smooth.

     –Caroline Kennedy, you’re no Barack Obama!

     “Umoja!”

     There’s Harold Pinter to remember too, just as we are remembering JC (and I don’t mean J.C. Watts either), but the Kitt is something special, so to speak.
     Whether as Catwoman on the “Batman” TV ’60’s TV series, or as…anything else, including a singer, she was something else.
     See, e.g., CNN, Singer, actress Eartha Kitt dies at 81,

     Singer and actress Eartha Kitt has died, her publicist, Patty Freedman, told CNN on Thursday. …
     Her recording of the saucy Christmas song “Santa Baby” was certified gold last week.
     Kitt was well known for her distinctive voice and made a name for herself in her portrayal of Catwoman in the television series “Batman.” That role produced Kitt’s recognizable sultry cat growl.
     She worked in film, theater, cabaret, music and on television during her lengthy career. According to Kitt’s official Web site, she was nominated for a Tony three times, a Grammy and Emmy twice. …
     Kitt was ostracized at an early age because of her mixed-race heritage, the biography says. At age 8, she was sent from the cotton fields of South Carolina by her mother to live with her aunt in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, the site said. …
     Broadway stardom landed Kitt a recording deal that led to a string of best-selling records, including “Love for Sale,” “I Want to Be Evil,” “Santa Baby” and “Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa.” She recorded more than 20 albums, worked in hundreds of television and movie roles, and was invited as a guest to the White House several times.

     Let’s hope there is a new heaven and a new earth for Eartha.
     RIP EK. And “rowrrrrrrr”.

     P.S. Here’s her official site, of which the biography page claims

     …In 1968, Miss Kitt’s career took a sudden turn when, at a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson, she spoke out against the Vietnam War. For years afterward, Miss Kitt was blacklisted in the U.S. and was forced to work abroad where her status remained undiminished. In December 2006 she returned to Washington and lit the National Christmas Tree alongside President and Mrs. George W. Bush[.] …

     What a hero! If only more people had spoken out earlier…

     Since it is not a crime to remember the birthdays of people who may be even more Messianic than Obama, even…..

     See Reuters, Obama says goodbye to late grandmother in Hawaii,

     President-elect Barack Obama paid his last respects on Tuesday to the woman he called the rock of his family, the grandmother who helped to raise him, before scattering her ashes from a Hawaiian shoreline.
     Madelyn Dunham, known to Obama as Toot, short for Tutu, the Hawaiian word for grandmother, took him in when his mother went to work in Indonesia and put him through private school. …
     The demands of the presidential campaign meant Obama was unable to fly to Hawaii for her funeral. But on Tuesday, he finally bade her farewell at a memorial service attended by friends and family, including his wife Michelle, daughters Malia and Sasha, and half-sister Maya Soetoro-Ng. …
     Media were kept away from the First Unitarian Church in Honolulu on the island of Oahu. After the service, Obama and about a dozen others traveled to Lanai Lookout on the southeast corner of Oahu, scrambling over a wall and down to the rocky shoreline to scatter his grandmother’s ashes.
     It was the same place where Obama had scattered his mother’s ashes after her death more than a decade ago.
     Obama’s sister said in a statement earlier that the memorial service would allow him to “grieve and emotionally process” the loss of the woman he called the rock of his family and whose name he frequently invoked on the campaign trail. …

     Poignant.
     RIP “Toot”. You gave us all a lot, and it is appreciated.

     Some meta-bloggery, as it were: see Brian Dickerson, Detroit Free Press, Detroiters will decide Freep’s fate, re the reformatting of the “Freep” (and Detroit News) to be delivered only 3 days a week, etc.,

     …I spent my first 20 years in this business convincing people who owned printing presses to give me access to their audience. And I admit I rather enjoyed it when only a small group of columnists across the country had the wherewithal to reach so many readers on a daily basis.
     Then, in the 1990s, a handful of people armed with nothing more expensive than laptop computers began blogging online — and in an eye blink the business model that had supported me and my newspaper colleagues for more than a century was obsolete.
     Today, anyone with Internet access can append his or her comments to the online version of my column, instantly reaching the same audience I’ve spent my entire career building. I still don’t know what to think about that, but I’m pretty sure my feelings are irrelevant.

You are the new us

     The reality is that the top-down, mass media hierarchy I grew up in is history, and that in the new, more horizontal world, the people formerly known as the audience are talking back, whether I like it or not.
     What no one in my line of work likes to admit is that this dramatic power shift — from those of us who report, write and distribute the news to those of you who read, react to and increasingly shape it through your own consumer choices — is making us all better journalists.
     Never before has what we do been more transparent. Never before have we been held so instantaneously accountable for everything we say in print.
     Our conceit is that we can not only survive these changes, but also exploit them to produce a more valuable Free Press.
     But as I said, you’re the ones who’ll decide.

     Nicely put. And thanks for the plaudits BD!