The following is a full text transcription of John Edwards’ speech on the evening of May 14, 2008, the speech in which he endorsed Barack Obama for President of the United States:

Thank you. So the question is, what am I doing here?

You know, I was promised a jet-ski, and I haven’t gotten it yet.

I am proud to be here with all of you. Proud to be in Michigan. Proud to be in Grand Rapids. During the course of this presidential campaign, I’ve gotten to know the candidates, and the top candidates very very well. We have all been out speaking about the causes that are so near and dear to our hearts as Democrats, and now we’re here down to two amazing candidates. And before I get too far I want to just take a minute and say a word about my friend and your friend, Senator Hillary Clinton.

[Crowd boos.]

In the past few months and past few weeks I’ve gotten to know Senator Clinton very well. We’ve talked. We’ve met in North Carolina. We’ve talked about the things that she cares about and every single one of you care about, about the men and women in this country who don’t have health care, about the children who don’t have health care, about the men and women in America who just want to have a decent job and go to work. We’ve talked about our own children, our own families, and what I’ve learned about her during that time (and I’ve gotten to know her very well) is that she believes with every fiber of her being that America can be a better place, and that we need change to make America a better place, what it’s capable of being.

And I want to tell you, and I know this is hard to understand sometimes, but it is very very hard to get up every day and do what she’s done. It is hard to go up there and fight and speak up when the odds turn against you. And what she has shown, what she has shown is strength and character and what drives her is something that every single one of us can and should appreciate. She cares deeply about the working people in this country, cares about the families who are losing everything because somebody got sick. She cares about the men and women who are putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. This tenacity has shown her strength and determination. She is a woman who in my judgment is made of steel. And she’s a leader in this country not because of her husband but because of what she has done, speaking out, because of standing up.

And we, when this nomination battle is over — and it will be over soon — brothers and sisters we must come together as Democrats and in the fall stand up for what matters in the future of America, to make America what it needs to be! And we are a stronger party because Hillary Clinton is a Democrat, we are a stronger country because of her years in public service, and we’re going to have a stronger presidential nominee in the fall because of her work.

Now, what brought all of us here is the profound belief that we can change this country. That there are service men and women in Iraq who can come home starting today. That our kids deserve to go to better schools than we went to. That we can run our cars on something other than oil. That we can have good jobs that can fill these empty factories. And that the anxiety that all of our people face every day can change when we finally make two Americas one America for every single one of us.

This is why you are here. You are here because of the hope that you carry in your heart that will make this country better. And we have so much work to do in America, because all across America there are walls. There are walls dividing the way things are and the one America we want to see.

And in fact there’s a wall around Washington DC. The American people today are on the outside of that wall. And on the inside are the big corporations and the lobbyists working to protect a system that takes care of them. And guess who struggles every single day? Working men and women see that wall when they have to split their bills into two piles. One: pay now, and one: pay later. When they get bullied at work because they want to join a union. When they see disappointment on the face of their son or daughter because they can no longer pay for that child to go to college. When their CEO who gets a golden parachute and their job gets shipped overseas — and you know something about that here in Michigan. When their wages drop and their kids go hungry. And guess who’s doing just fine? The insiders. The lobbyists. The special interests. Our job come January of next year is to tear that wall down and give this government back to the American people.

There is another wall that divides us. It’s the moral shame of 37 million of our own people who wake up in poverty every single day. In a nation of our wealth, to have millions of Americans who work every single day and still can’t pay their electric bill and pay for their food at the same time? There are mothers out there, working two jobs every day to try to keep their kids from going to bed hungry. There are men and women who have worked hard all their lives so that they can try to buy a home, and they’re living in a tent city because they’ve got nowhere to go. This is not okay, and for eight long long years, this wall has gotten taller.

Yesterday I was in Philadelphia and I was announcing an initiative to cut poverty in half in the next ten years, and I am proud to say today that Barack Obama stands with me in this cause. We also have a wall that divides our two public school systems in America. It is not okay that a child born into a wealthy family gets the best education in the world, and a child born in a small town or the inner city barely gets by. Their education is our education. We’re going to fix that system for them and make these schools good for everybody.

How about health care, right? The big drug companies, insurance companies, HMOs, the politicians who take their money, they’re getting their way. They love that wall just the way it is today. Well, it’s going to be gone as soon as we create real and meaningful health care for every man, woman and child in America.

And there’s also a wall that’s divided our image in the world: the America as the beacon of hope is behind that wall. And all the world sees now is a bully. They see Iraq, Guantanamo, secret prisons and a government that argues waterboarding is not torture.

[Crowd boos]

This is not okay. That wall has to come down for the sake of our ideals and our security. We can change this. We can change it. Yes we can. If we stand together, we can change it.

And the reason that I am here tonight is that the Democratic voters in America have made their choice and so have I.

There is one man who knows and understands that this is a time for bold leadership. There is one man that knows how to create the lasting change that you have to create from the ground up. There is one man who knows in his heart that it is time to create one America, not two. And that man is Barack Obama.

This is not going to be easy. It’s going to be the fight of our lives. But we’re ready because we know this election is about something bigger than the tired, old, hateful politics of the past. This election is about taking down these walls that divide us so we can see what’s possible, what’s possible, that one America that we can build together.

Barack Obama understands that to his core. You know, as I have traveled this country, as I’ve learned traveling this country from talking to people like the students we took to New Orleans, who volunteered their Spring Break to go to New Orleans to work to help rebuild the city. A former Army captain that I met who served two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, even after he was badly injured in a grenade attack. And I’ll never forget a man I met named James Lowe. He was born with a cleft palate and it kept him from being able to speak. And he had no health care coverage, and he lived for fifty years in America not able to speak because he had no health care. What I’ve learned, and what Barack Obama has learned? It is about them. It is about you. It is about the people. It is not about us. And that is what we are fighting for.

And it’s about the one America we’re going to build for them. One America where Main Street is strong. One America where struggling towns come back to life because we’ve finally transformed our economy by ending our dependence on foreign oil. One America where the men and women who work the late shift, who get up at dawn to drive a two hour commute, and the young person who closes the store to pay for college. They will actually be honored for that work. One America where no child goes to bed hungry, when we finally end the moral shame of 37 million Americans who wake up every day in poverty. One America where we finally start tackling the real health care crisis in America. One America with one public school system, where a boy in the city and a girl in the suburbs will wake up every day with an equal chance for a quality education. One America that rebuilds our moral authority in the world, not just with our strength but with our soul.

One America where the walls will fall when the war in Iraq ends in 2009 and our service men and women will come home to the hero’s welcome that they deserve. And we will take care of our veterans. We are going to get this part of the war right. We will never again stand by while men and women who have worn the uniform of the United States of America stand in line and have to wait for health care. We will never stand by while 150,000 men and women who wore our uniform go to sleep every night on grates and under bridges. Not in our America! Not in our America! Not in our America when Barack Obama is President of the United States of America!

You know, we’ve been in this kind of place before. In times of war, great depression, deep divisions that tore at the soul of this nation, we came together. We went to work to make sure we passed on a better and stronger country to our children. We will meet this challenge again. This is who we are. This is our moment. This is our time to take down these walls, to close our divide and to build one America that we all believe in. If you want that, if you believe in that, then join me in helping to send Barack Obama to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because we believe that in our America that we love so much, no matter who you are, no matter who your family is, and no matter what the color of your skin, none of those things will control your destiny, and that that one America that I’ve talked about is not only possible but it will be achieved under President Barack Obama starting in January of 2009.

Thank you. God bless you. I’m honored to be with you all. Thank you.

The speech reminds me why John Edwards used to grate on my nerves when he was still running for president. What is this idea to “build one America that we all believe in”? Americans believe different things, and you know, that’s not only all right, it’s what our founding fathers had in mind. And do we have to hear about everybody he’s met and everywhere he’s gone? Does he have to take so long to deliver what was really a pretty simple message?

The answer to that is no, of course. Here’s John Edwards’ endorsement speech, the condensed version:

1. Hi.
2. I like Hillary Clinton. Please don’t diss her.
3. But hey, fall in line behind our nominee who will be Barack Obama.
4. There’s inequality in opportunity and the delivery of social services and health care and education in America. Too many people are poor, even though they work their asses off.
5. Too people including veterans who have served this country are dumped like some pieces of trash.
6. The world outside America sees us when we detain without charges and torture and engage in stupid wars of choice.
7. This is happening in part because corporate lobbyists and their politician cronies sit nice and comfy in their symbiotic relationship of mutual protection. Americans who don’t have a lot of money or power are shut out of a real role in the political system.
8. We can change that if you vote for Barack Obama.

On January 11, 2008, Amnesty International USA executive director Larry Cox made the following declaration to a group of 250 people assembled to protest torture and indefinite detention carried out by the U.S. government. He said:

This is the ugly blot on the America we believe in that we are going to finally remove. Because today’s protests and vigils are one more indication that the public outrage at the Bush administration’s continued harmful approach to national security is escalating. Mr. President, the demands for respect for human rights are only going to get louder and more widespread. And there’s only one way to reduce our chants: Shut down Guantanamo.

That sadly has proven to be untrue. In the intervening months, public outrage has not escalated. Demands for respect for human rights are not getting louder and more widespread. The chants have been reduced all on their own, without the shutdown of Guantanamo.

Some Americans do care a whole lot that their government tortures and detains people without charges in their names. Some do. But it seems that most Americans really couldn’t care less.

You can’t control what other people do. But you can control what you do.

At 7:00 am on June 28, 2008, the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) will initiate a 24-hour vigil in front of the White House in Lafayette Park.

Can you be there?

Can you spread the word?

The government told us shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001 that citizens should “watch what they say, watch what they do.” And now government is going to do that for us.

Washington DC, New York City and Chicago are three of this country’s largest cities. Each of them is a political, cultural and economic center. And now each of them is poised to become an internal spy center. Each city has a central government bureau designed to receive live video feeds from thousands of surveillance cameras deployed across each city. The surveillance system will be deployed against millions of American citizens living in these central cities who are not charged with or suspected of any crime.

I can hear the response from some quarters now: “You have nothing to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong.” You have nothing to fear unless you commit a crime like murder. Or theft. Or a traffic violation. Or improper parking. Or jaywalking. Or obstruction of official business. Or disturbing the peace. You have nothing to fear unless you are caught on camera with the sort of person of whom your spouse wouldn’t approve. Or your parents wouldn’t approve. Or your kids wouldn’t approve. Or your pastor wouldn’t approve. Or your employer wouldn’t approve. Or your neighbors wouldn’t approve. Or a voter wouldn’t approve. You have nothing to fear unless you are exercising your right to freely assemble with members of a small and misunderstood ethnic group. Or religious group. Or organization. You have nothing to fear unless you express a viewpoint that is beyond the norm.

Surveillance is control. Who has a finger above the “record” button?

This one comes from a brainless editor at Reuters:

Obama fights perception he is elitist

Uh, Reuters, Duh!

Barack Obama is running to become President of the Freaking United States of America!

Of COURSE Barack Obama is elitist, and so is every other member of Congress, and every other person who seriously wants to become President of the United States. Hillary Clinton is elitist. John McCain is elitist. Even bloody Ralph Nader is elitist, you gormless Reuters hacks!

Being in Congress, especially being a Senator, and especially being a Senator who is running to become President of the United States, requires that a person be an elitist. If a person really didn’t believe that they were better than anyone else, they would not be running to become President of the United States.

The President of the United States is the most powerful person on Earth - arguably the most powerful person there ever has been on Earth at any time in history. Dare we not call that position elite?

Or are we speaking in some kind of code here that I don’t understand? Is this about Barack Obama being uppity?

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain are all multimillionaires. John McCain’s wife has over a hundred million dollars, and the McCains have at least as many houses as cats have whiskers.

Why is it that we’re only getting a story from Reuters about Barack Obama being elitist? It sounds like a stupid Republican talking point to me.

Hey Reuters editors - let me remind you of your job description: It’s to report the news, not to repeat the talking points of political part hacks.

Oh, but what story could you have possibly reported instead of this idiotic Golly-Could-A-Presidential-Candidate-Be-Elitist trash? Hmmmm. Hmmmmmmmm. Oh, gotta put on my thinking cap for this one. It’s soooo hard…

Oh yeah! Loren Davis!

The Celeste and Loren Davis Ministries emails are running around the Internet like wildfire. Voters are actually believing the garbage that they’re spreading, about Barack Obama swearing in on the Koran, and being a secret Muslim friend of Al Qaeda.

You know why so many people believe this garbage? It’s because the television news channels from which they receive revealed truths aren’t telling the truth about Loren Davis. It’s because the newspapers of record aren’t telling the truth about Loren Davis.

I can’t believe that the major news organizations haven’t run into the Loren Davis emails and blog postings. They’re all over the place, like rats on the stinking carcass of a decaying democracy. The truth about Loren Davis is easy to find. I found it. It’s in the archived versions of the LorenDavis.com web page!

This story ought to be fun for journalists to write about. Voters are being asked to believe vicious smears about Barack Obama from Loren Davis, but Loren Davis is a faith healer con artist who believes that Satan is in your local elementary school, that the NFL is trying to get people to engage in devil worship, and that Wal-Mart has a conspiracy to put the Mark of the Beast on people using secret satanic symbols in its checkout register.

Come on, reporter people! Do we have to throw it in your lap?

This story even has the American flag angle on it. We all know how much reporters these days love to write about people disrespecting the American flag. Well, Loren Davis has written that the American flag is a symbol of Satan - the ultimate evil. A lapel pin missing for a couple days ain’t nothing to that.

Irregular Times readers, I’m giving you a mission. Be the reporters that the reporters refuse to be. If they won’t tell the American people the truth about Loren Davis, then please, won’t you?

Or is it elitist of me to ask you to do that?

What is wrong with our nation?

You’ll have to forgive me for sharing some late-breaking news. I say “late-breaking” not because the hour in the day is late, but because the news itself occurred last week: White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino has flatly denied that the Bush administration has inflicted or been a party to the infliction of torture:

Hearst Newspapers Reporter Helen Thomas: The President has said publicly several times, in two consecutive news conferences a few months ago, and you have said over and over again, we do not torture. Now he has admitted that he did sign off on torture, he did know about it. So how do you reconcile this credibility gap?

White House Spokeswoman Perino: Helen, you’re taking liberties with the what the President said. The United States has not, is not torturing any detainees in the global war on terror. And General Hayden, amongst others, have spoken on Capitol Hill fully in this regard, and it is — I’ll leave it where it is. The President is accurate in saying what he said.

Thomas: That’s not my question. My question is, why did he state publicly, we do not torture –

Perino: Because we do not.

Thomas: — when he really did know that we do?

Perino: No, that’s what I mean, Helen. We’ve talked about the legal authorities –

Thomas: Are you saying that we did not?

Perino: I am saying we did not, yes.

Thomas: How can you when you have photographs and everything else? I mean, how can you say that when he admits that he knew about it?

Perino: Helen, I think that you’re — again, I think you’re conflating some issues and you’re misconstruing what the President said.

Thomas: I’m asking for the credibility of this country, not just this administration.

Perino: And what I’m telling you is we have — torture has not occurred. And you can go back through all the public record. Just make sure — I would just respectfully ask you not to misconstrue what the President said.

Thomas: You’re denying, in this room, that we torture and we have tortured?

Perino: Yes, I am denying that.

I’m late in reporting this news to you because I’m late in discovering it. And why is that? Because not one newspaper in the entire nation — not one! — has published this information for its readers since the conversation took place in the White House press room five days ago. The only mainstream news source to report on the exchange has been an online-only blog of the Kansas City Star.

I just don’t get it. Why the news blackout on this stark denial by the White House? This is a gift to the news media: a story wrapped up and tied with a bow. See, this is how the story and the follow-up reporting goes:

First, report Perino’s remarks as a “repeated denial.”

Second, report the story (which your newspaper most likely still hasn’t covered) about how this month George W. Bush confessed not only that he was aware that his senior cabinet members met on a regular basis to approve the use of waterboarding and other torture techniques, but also that, in his words, “I Approved.”

Third, note that as recently as last month, the Bush administration has issued memos in which it offers such bon mots as these:

At the same time, some prohibitions under Common Article 3, such as the prohibition on
“outrages upon personal dignity,” do invite the consideration of the circumstances surrounding
the action… the fact that an act is undertaken to prevent a threatened terrorist attack, rather than for the purpose of humiliation and abuse, would be relevant to a reasonable observer in measuring the outrageousness of the act.

Fourth, note that the emergence of information regarding CIA tapes of waterboarding have confirmed that the torture techniques approved by George W. Bush and senior cabinet officials were indeed carried out.

Fifth, for a little intermission bring in Bush Administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s testimony that waterboarding is torture if it is done to him, but not if it is done to somebody else.

Sixth, bring in a legal scholar to discuss the variety of bases for classifying torture as an illegal act, including international treaties with the force of law, constitutional standards prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment, and federal law itself. Talk about the definition of torture under federal law to include the threat of imminent death, which is exactly what waterboarding is designed to produce. Note the existence of the federal crime of conspiracy to commit torture, which makes each Bush administration meeting to approve of waterboarding a felony punishable by up to twenty years in prison.

Seventh, interview Congressional leaders and local Congressional representatives about their reaction to the news. Read them the law and ask them what they plan to do about it.

Eighth, contact the presidential campaigns and ask for statements reacting to the news that George W. Bush approved of torture and that his spokeswoman denies repeatedly that the torture ever took place.

This isn’t Woodward and Bernstein difficulty in reporting we’re talking about here. The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are right there in place. Why won’t our national media, which spent a year micro-reporting the consequences of an Oval Office blow job, cover this story in the manner that emergence of an American government torture bureaucracy merits? Why won’t our national media cover this story at all? Why? Why?

CNET has done a public service by focusing its attention on the testimony of FBI Director Robert Mueller before the House Intelligence Committee on April 23, 2008. No major newspaper or television news network has broken the following news.

Mueller’s testimony began with an admission to Republican congressman Darrell Issa that he already can watch internet activity so long as there is sufficient evidence of wrongdoing as to generate a warrant — the warrant required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:

If you go into a place and there’s a crime actively being committed, let’s say there’s a bookie joint, and there’s tens of thousands of illegal transactions going on every minute. And you know that. And you have proof of that. You don’t question your ability to go in and to harvest the fruit of all the activities in there, is that correct?

Mueller: That’s correct. With a search warrant, quite honestly….

I think legislation has to be developed that balances on one hand, the privacy rights of the individual who are receiving the information, but on the other hand, given the technology, the necessity of having some omnibus search capability utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to preempt that illegal activity where it comes through a choke point as opposed to the point where it is diffuse on the Internet.

And it is a question of the legislation catching up to the technology. Understanding that these crimes are being committed every moment. But then identifying our ability to focus on the particular criminal element as it’s coming through and pre-empt that criminal element, whether it be .mil, .gov, .com, whichever network you’re talking about.

Omnibus? What is that? Some kind of new Dodge van? The Random House dictionary definition of “omnibus” regarding legislation is “pertaining to, including, or dealing with numerous objects or items at once.”

What Robert Mueller wants the Congress to grant is universal permission to surveill all internet traffic coming into and out of not just .mil or .gov addresses but also .com addresses, and to filter it all for keywords and pattern matches. Without warrants issued on probable cause, as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

And then Robert Mueller wants to “pre-empt that criminal element.” The definition of the verb “pre-empt” is “to forestall or prevent (something anticipated) by acting first.” FBI Director Robert Mueller wants to watch all internet traffic without probable cause warrants, find indicative patterns in it, and use law enforcement authority to “pre-empt that criminal element,” which means to punish citizens before criminal activity has occurred.

Welcome to the world of Big Brother Pre-Crime Enforcement.

You probably have already heard about the public school science teacher in Mount Vernon, Ohio who’s been documented to have plastered the Ten Commandments on his door, put a Bible on his desk and promoted religious creationism to his students. He’s also been alleged by Mount Vernon public schools and a child in his class to have burned crosses into the skin of his pupils. No shrinking violet, John Freshwater says that when the school district tells him to stop abusing his position of authority as a schoolteacher to shove religion down his pupils’ throats and burn it onto their arms, he’s the one who is being oppressed.

My favorite part of all this is Freshwater’s reasoning about why his government job as a public school teacher gives him the right to impose his religion on others:

I cannot with a clear conscience follow a directive that makes religion and the religious viewpoint any less credible by those who deem themselves more enlightened.

Freshwater’s contention is that not putting the Ten Commandments on a door, not sticking a Bible on his desk, not hawking Intelligent Design, and not burning crosses into the arms of the children under his authority would be injurious to religion. By that logic, not putting the Koran on the door would be injurious to religion. Not teaching the children transcendental meditation would be injurious to religion. Not telling children that the Earth sits on the back of a turtle would be injurious to religion. Not burning a Star of David, or a Crescent, or the Vedic Swastika onto a child’s arm would be injurious religion.

John Freshwater seems to feel no need to use the power granted him by the state to shove non-Christian religion down children’s throats. Freshwater’s freedom is only the freedom to shove Christian religion, and within that his own parochial understanding of Christian religion, down children’s throats. Freshwater’s actions are the abuse of power to establish a favored religious understanding and practice in those under his authority. It is to restrain the abuse of government power by zealots like Freshwater that First Amendment restrictions on the establishment of religion are in place.

The Mount Vernon school district is courageously and correctly maintaining its position that Freshwater must stop using his position to push his religious agenda. Some community members, on the other hand, have been holding rallies in support of Freshwater’s use of government authority to proselytize. In the meantime, Bob Pawson, a Trenton NJ schoolteacher and leader of the Scriptures in Schools Project, is calling for fundamentalist Christian teachers across the country to expand their efforts to turn their teaching positions into centers of gospel work:

Teachers, students, and support staff should immediately flood America’s public schools with Bibles. Keep Bibles in class for the remainder of the school year. Find creative ways to use Bible references to complete some homework and in-class assignments each week.

If that’s not clear enough for you, Pawson’s spreading a song around with this message for teachers:

Dare to bring your Bible!
Dare to bring your Bible!
Dare to bring your Bible into school!

Though critics say you shouldn’t,
and really wish you wouldn’t,
dare to bring your Bible into school!

Oh, we don’t need their permission,
we have the Great Commission;
we speak with the Authority of Christ!

And the Holy Spirit
wants ev’ryone to hear it!
So, dare to bring your Bible into school!

Will the constitutional or theocratic vision of America prevail?

Watch out, Republicans. You want to take on Barack Obama on the issue of the American flag? No problem. You’ve left yourselves exposed.

George Stephanopolous ought to have probed the issue of the American flag a little more deeply before he offered his inept question to Barack Obama about whether he really, really, really loves the American flag. If Stephanopolous weren’t so busy taking his political cues from Fox News, he might have actually investigated, and found out what lies beneath the Republicans’ position on the flag…

…some of them think that the American flag is a dark symbol of Satan.

No kidding. I’ve spend the last couple of days looking at American missionaries, and McCain supporters, Celeste and Loren Davis. What I’ve found has been so extreme in its character that it’s often amused me. Who would have thought, for example, that people would seriously accuse the National Football League of being secretly in cahoots with the Devil?

I don’t think a lot of Americans would be quite as amused to discover that Loren Davis Ministries, the apparent source of a bizarre range of nasty and untrue Internet rumors about Barack Obama, has been preaching a radical version of Christianity that regards the American flag as a satanic artifact that promotes worship of the Devil.

It seems far out, but it’s true. The Republicans who have been busy sending around an email from Celeste and Loren Davis have been promoting a man who seems to hate the American flag.

Read the PDF of the article that Loren Davis tried to destroy before it could be made public. In that article, Loren Davis claims that the 5 pointed star is an evil ancient symbol of Satan, and includes the following article and text, attacking the American flag itself as a wicked emblem of a wicked nation.

Loren Davis hates the pluralism of the United States. He detests the Bill of Rights and its separation of church and state. He fears the American flag, suspecting it of being a symbol of Hell itself.

He supports John McCain for President.

What hypocrites these Republicans are, accusing Barack Obama of not loving the flag enough, and at the very same time forwarding around nasty emails in the name of Loren Davis, who himself suggests that the American flag is a symbol of pure evil.

If these Republicans truly loved the flag, and didn’t just wrap themselves in it for the sake of political convenience, then they would reject the allegiance of Loren Davis. But, they don’t. Republicans online defend Loren Davis and his flag-hating ways.

Me, I neither revere nor reject the flag. It’s not the flag I care about. It’s American freedom I care about. That’s why I reject the radicalism of Loren Davis, who stretches credibility to find Satan hiding around every corner, and uses fear of Satan as a justification for attacking the liberty that has made America great.

We ought not to allow such a medieval thinker as Loren Davis to influence our opinions about the American presidential election in 2008. Loren Davis is a shocking example of the very backwards thinking behind the Republican agenda. It’s time for America to move forward with a President who has the courage to form a foreign policy and domestic policy that is not defined by fear of demons that do not exist.

Last week, I endorsed the Torture News Strike, an action being carried out by people upset that most American newspapers have utterly failed to cover the confession by George W. Bush that he not only knew of torture being carried out by U.S. Government forces, that he not only asked his senior cabinet officials to meet dozens of times to work out the details of torture procedures, but that he approved the result, a White House policy that trickled right from the top down to military, intelligence and justice units where the torture occurred. “I Approved,” said George W. Bush out loud, and America’s newspapers looked the other way.

I’m happy to report that on Sunday, the New York Times finally broke its eight days of silence on the news and published this lead editorial (read the complete text here):

Ever since Americans learned that American soldiers and intelligence agents were torturing prisoners, there has been a disturbing question: How high up did the decision go to ignore United States law, international treaties, the Geneva Conventions and basic morality?…

We have long known that the Justice Department tortured the law to give its Orwellian blessing to torturing people, and that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved a list of ways to abuse prisoners. But recent accounts by ABC News and The Associated Press said that all of the president’s top national security advisers at the time participated in creating the interrogation policy: Vice President Dick Cheney; Mr. Rumsfeld; Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser; Colin Powell, the secretary of state; John Ashcroft, the attorney general; and George Tenet, the director of central intelligence.

These officials did not have the time or the foresight to plan for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq or the tenacity to complete the hunt for Osama bin Laden. But they managed to squeeze in dozens of meetings in the White House Situation Room to organize and give legal cover to prisoner abuse, including brutal methods that civilized nations consider to be torture.

Mr. Bush told ABC News this month that he knew of these meetings and approved of the result.…

The amount of time and energy devoted to this furtive exercise at the very highest levels of the government reminded us how little Americans know, in fact, about the ways Mr. Bush and his team undermined, subverted and broke the law in the name of saving the American way of life….

Mr. Bush has sidestepped or quashed every attempt to uncover the breadth and depth of his sordid actions. Congress is likely to endorse a cover-up of the extent of the illegal wiretapping he authorized after 9/11, and we are still waiting, with diminishing hopes, for a long-promised report on what the Bush team really knew before the Iraq invasion about those absent weapons of mass destruction — as opposed to what it proclaimed.

At this point it seems that getting answers will have to wait, at least, for a new Congress and a new president. Ideally, there would be both truth and accountability. At the very minimum the public needs the full truth.

Some will call this a backward-looking distraction, but only by fully understanding what Mr. Bush has done over eight years to distort the rule of law and violate civil liberties and human rights can Americans ever hope to repair the damage and ensure it does not happen again.

This is a criminal conspiracy in clear violation of federal anti-torture law we’re talking about. Our previous president was impeached for a blow job. Ten years later, can we not find in ourselves some nugget of moral outrage that our president has violated federal law to turn the United States of America into a torture state?

On Friday, I canceled my subscription to the New York Times in protest of their lack of coverage of this important piece of news. This morning, my subscription was renewed. Thank you, New York Times, for finally covering this vitally important story and bringing it to citizens’ attention.

Welcome to BNN, the bathroom news network. We bring you the world because… well, it happens to be on my shower curtain.

Bathroom News Network Debate News Report

I’m J. Clifford, and I’m a new affiliate station of the Bathroom News Network joining Jim in his bathroom, from my studio here… in my bathroom.

We’re broadcasting news from our bathrooms because, well, somebody’s got to broadcast the news, and it certainly won’t be the mainstream news networks.

One week ago today, the President of the United States acknowledged that he authorized a meeting of his Cabinet members with the purpose of approving specific torture techniques. The President didn’t just know about this meeting. George W. Bush actually admitted to a journalist last Friday that “I approved it.”

Well, just a few days after that amazing admission of a felony criminal conspiracy came from the President of the United States himself, ABC News held what would probably be the final Democratic presidential debate of 2008.

Did the ABC News moderators, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous, ask about what President George W. Bush revealed about a White House torture conspiracy? No. Not once during the entire debate was a single question relating to this astonishing news asked.

Not once were the words “torture” or “interrogation” uttered by anyone. Never did the subject come up.

George Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson did make sure, however, to take up several minutes of the debate grilling Barack Obama about how much he loves the American flag, and asking pointed questions about why he wears a flag lapel pin sometimes, but not absolutely all the time.

Question after question was asked by the ABC News moderators about inconsequential issues, such as what Barack Obama thought about a bombing that took place when he was eight years old, but the present Constitutional Crisis created by a President openly violating federal laws, treaties, and the very Bill of Rights was ignored.

That’s ironic, because the debate itself was held in the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.

I don’t have giant corporations funding this news report. I don’t have production crews. I don’t have a staff of writers telling me what to say. As you can see, I don’t have a makeup team to help me look good on camera.

Yet, I can read. I can listen. I can think for myself. As a citizen of the United States, I can still speak. If ABC News won’t broadcast on the important issues of the day, then someone has to do it.

If I have to make a video in my bathroom in order to get the news out… well, that’s what I’ll do.

Signing off, because it’s time for me to brush my teeth, this is J. Clifford from BNN, the Bathroom News Network.

Democrats.com has a full list of all the American papers providing coverage of the story that President George W. Bush has confessed to personally approving a U.S. Government conspiracy to commit torture. Here’s the list as of April 17:

Brattleboro (Vt.) Reformer
Kansas City Star
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News

If your newspaper is not on this list, then your newspaper has not covered Bush’s torture conspiracy confession.

Democrats.com is calling for a “Torture News Strike” in which newspaper subscribers cancel subscriptions and specifically mention the reason — the newspaper’s refusal to inform readers of George W. Bush’s torture confession. Remember, these are the same newspapers that about a presidential sex act screamed, “What Will We Tell the Children?” Now confronted with a conspiracy to commit torture that goes to the top of the U.S. Government, the papers mumbling, “Why Should We Tell Anybody?” This is unacceptable.

I fully endorse and support the Torture News Strike, and I encourage you to join. Here’s what to do:

1. Call the circulation department and cancel your subscription to the newspaper. Inform the customer service agent why you’ve done so.

2. Write, phone, or e-mail the news director/news editor of your newspaper and inform them why you’ve done so.

3. Write a blog post, or make a myspace post, or create a YouTube video in which you tell the world what you’ve done.

4. Tell 10 friends about the Torture News Strike and encourage them to follow your example.

By the way, yes, I’ll walk my talk.

I have just canceled my subscription to the New York Times.

Update: The New York Times has broken its silence on the Bush torture conspiracy. Thanks, NYT. My subscription is renewed.

My letter to the editor of the New York Times on the paper’s complete lack of coverage of the president’s torture conspiracy admission:

To the Editor:

On Thursday, the Times dedicated 19 square inches to a photograph of dancing nuns. In the 1990s, the Times dedicated countless pages to coverage of a president’s sex act. But the Times has dedicated not one millimeter to reporting on George W. Bush’s admission that, in his words, “I Approved” a meeting to devise a government policy of near-death drowning and other forms of torture. Mr. Bush’s admission places him at odds with federal law on conspiracy to commit torture. Yet there is not one millimeter of space devoted to this news in the Times. Why? What makes dancing nuns and a sex act more newsworthy than government-sponsored torture?

If you would like to send a similar letter to the editor of the New York Times, I encourage you to write to their e-mail address of letters@nytimes.com. Letters must be 150 words or less, and must include your full name, phone number and address.

[Postscript: Yes, I fully intend to write this issue to the bone. It strikes at the heart of legality, constitutionality, morality, freedom, transparency, domestic policy and foreign policy. 1,000 blog posts will not have the effect of one news article by the New York Times, but I’ll continue to do my small bit. I hope, if you think the issue of torture by our American government matters, that you’ll do your bit too.]

Another day dawns in which the New York Times utterly fails to cover the fact that George W. Bush not only knew of but came out and said “I approved” of the use of torture by the United States government. 19 square inches devoted to dancing nuns? That’s news the paper finds “fit to print.” But not the involvement of the president in a conspiracy to commit torture.

On the television, CNN has devoted not one minute, not one second to the news that your president is at the head of a criminal torture conspiracy. This has so driven me to distraction that I’ve decided I could generate better news coverage from my own bathroom:

BNN: the Bathroom News Network. Yes, it’s unpolished. No, there are no tympanies. But it’s not dirty if it’s true.

As our writers Mother Davis and F.G. Fitzer have noted the frustrating retreat of many American progressives into the a state of helpless apathy, a coalition of progressive activist organizations is providing progressives an opportunity to get back into gear. Their rallying cry: Condoleeza Must Go!

Why Condoleeza Rice? As National Security Advisor, she was a part of the principals meeting that approved of the torture of people kept prisone