The power of TCS

I don't know, you make the call. Just a few days ago I wondered about the excessive amount of money that our government was paying to Ahmad Chalabi and then, boo-yah, the guy gets his funding cut off. Coincidence? I think not.

- B 11:47 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Today's GOP: Your Everyday Stalker

From: Talking Points Memo

Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for the open seat and his opponent is Republican Jack Ryan. For the last ten days, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, Ryan has had a campaign staffer, Justin Warfel, follow Obama with a video camera all day.

And I mean, all day.

Not only does he record Obama's public appearances, he tails Obama in his car; he follows him into restrooms; he stays a couple feet behind him when he's walking in public; he waits outside his office and pesters his secretary. And he heckles Obama at public appearances.

- rob 6:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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GOP leaders retreat, postpone budget vote until at least June

Standard budget stuff "blah blah blah," but then there is this:

But that could be a tall order: Four moderate GOP senators and moderate Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska have all resisted weeks of entreaties to support the budget, leaving GOP leaders two votes shy of passage.

Asked what might make them change their minds, one of the moderates, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., joked, "Some of us could get killed in tragic accidents." Emphasis mine.

I don't think McCain's joking that much. Here's an article about an exchange between him and the speaker of the House:

McCain, who spent five years in a North Vietnamese prison, excoriated fellow Republicans on Tuesday for pushing more tax cuts while U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan (news - web sites).

"Throughout our history, wartime has been a time of sacrifice. ... What have we sacrificed?" McCain said. "As mind-boggling as expanding Medicare has been, nothing tops my confusion for cutting taxes during wartime. I don't remember ever in the history of warfare when we cut taxes."

Asked Wednesday about McCain's remarks, Hastert, who was rejected for military service because of a bad shoulder, first joked: "Who? Where's he from? A Republican?"

Then, more seriously, he said: "If you want to see sacrifice, John McCain ought to visit our young men and women at Walter Reed and Bethesda (two Washington area military hospitals). There's the sacrifice in this country. We're trying to make sure that they have the ability to fight this war, that they have the wherewithal to be able to do it. And at the same time, we have to react to keep this country strong not only militarily but economically. We want to be able to have the flexibility to do it. That's my reply to John McCain."

McCain stood fast in his reply to Hastert.

"The speaker is correct in that nothing we are called upon to do comes close to matching the heroism of our troops," he said. "All we're called upon to do is not spend our nation into bankruptcy while our soldiers risk their lives. I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility." Emphasis Mine.

I read about the exchange and thought "uh oh, McCain better not ride on any small airplanes." I read on the web that others thought so too. Frighteningly McCain also thought that.

- rob 6:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Here's to Me: Bush in '04



"Drinking to Forget, and Never Sorry"

- Michael 11:30 AM - [PermaLink] -

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About Time
Pelosi Lashes Out At Bush

"I believe that the president's leadership and the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience," the California Democrat told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.
...

"This president should have known ... when you decide to go to war you have to know what the consequences of your action are and how you can accomplish the mission," Pelosi said. "There was plenty of intelligence to say there would be chaos in Iraq following the fall of Baghdad."

Bush's policy "of ignoring his own State Department about what would happen after the fall of Baghdad and ignoring the intelligence as to the chaotic situation that would exist ... carries with it a responsibility for all of the costs of war," she said. "And that's not only the president, that is all of us any time we vote to send our young people into harm's way.

"The results of his action are what undermine his leadership, not my statements," she said. "The emperor has no clothes. When are people going to face the reality?"
...

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said Pelosi's comments "were meant to inspire her political base. But who else do they inspire? If we followed Mrs. Pelosi's advice, Saddam Hussein would still terrorize the citizens of Iraq. We would still be waiting for the U.N. to make any decision regarding our national security."

I'm sorry, but are we really doing that much better then Saddam these days. Yes were doing better, but better enough to make up for over 10,000 Iraqis dead and close to 800 Americans dead? And this had nothing to do with national security. Hastert has to realize that won't play anymore. The Kool-aide is starting to wear off on many....

- rob 10:32 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Boy Bush seems to have more friends with connections to enemies then the average President - doesn't he?

America's 'Best Friend' A Spy?

Senior U.S. officials have told 60 Minutes Correspondent Lesley Stahl that they have evidence Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi has been passing highly-classified U.S. intelligence to Iran.

The evidence shows that Chalabi - who was once seen as the man likely to lead Iraq by White House and Pentagon officials - personally gave Iranian intelligence officers information so sensitive that if revealed it could, quote, "get Americans killed." The evidence is said to be "rock solid."

Sources have told Stahl a high-level investigation is under way into who in the U.S. government gave Chalabi such sensitive information in the first place.

- rob 10:28 AM - [PermaLink] -

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New Tom the Dancing Bug

- rob 10:23 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Stupidity & Hypocrisy: The Moonie Bush Apologist Washington Times

Press can't let abuse story go - The Washington Times

Accounts and graphic photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse persist in the press despite the fact that the story has run its course.

The world already knows salient details of the prisoner humiliation and nudity, the causes of the abuse are under official investigation, and the courts-martial have begun. Yet, the caterwaul in the press against the American military and the war in Iraq continue.

Yes, that's why once we knew it was Monica Lewinsky fulfilling Clinton's adolescent fantasies; the press dropped that story like a hot potato. That story had run its course.

The abuse story has run its course? Really? How many soldiers were involved? Did Rumsfeld know? When did he know? Did his interrogation procedures violate the Geneva Convention? When did Bush know? (Powell seems to indicate Bush did know earlier). I'm so glad the Washington Times is comfortable that it knows all it needs to know, I'm not comfortable, but silly me, I wanted a government with accountability and integrity.

All during the Clinton impeachment hearings (and I'm no fan of Clinton) all we heard was "what about the children? What do we tell them when they hear the term 'oral sex?' It is just so horrifying, how dare Clinton lower the nation discourse." Well as lame, stupid, and disgusting (Bill was married and Monica was pretty young) Clinton was; it was still the act of two consenting adults.

How come we don't hear "what about the children?" this time? Are conservatives perfectly happy to explain to their children what "force sodomy with a light stick" is? Do they tell their children the nude man being frightened and later attacked by dogs is just playing some game like every kid does in college? Where the hell did these people go to college?

Damn Rove must be handing out some really good Kool-aide to these folks.

- rob 9:41 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Our War on Terror's Finest Moment

USNews.com: Washington Whispers (5/17/04) (if you go to the article, Scroll down)

The Google Terrrorist
It was the lead item on the government's daily threat matrix one day last April. Don Emilio Fulci described by an FBI tipster as a reclusive but evil millionaire, had formed a terrorist group that was planning chemical attacks against London and Washington, D.C. That day even FBI director Robert Mueller was briefed on the Fulci matter. But as the day went on without incident, a White House staffer had a brainstorm: He Googled Fulci. His findings: Fulci is the crime boss in the popular video game Headhunter. "Stand down," came the order from embarrassed national security types.

- rob 4:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"We need a new Pearl Harbor"

As unofficial conspiracy paranoiac of this webpage, I direct your attention to The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, by David Ray Griffin. I just heard an interview with him on NPR and it made my stomach lurch. Say what you will, but these stories from the early days after the attacks in New York and Washington have been eating away at me ever since they were immediately swept under the rug -- by EVERYONE -- and if any of you have memories that go past lunchtime yesterday, you well may wonder about it too.

NICK WELSH:
Is there a smoking gun that shows the Bush administration knew 9/11 was likely to happen and did nothing about it?

DAVID RAY GRIFFIN: I think there are four. One is the fact that standard operating procedures for dealing with possibly hijacked airplanes were not followed on 9/11. Those procedures call for fighter jets to be sent out immediately upon any sign that a plane may have been hijacked. These jets typically get to the plane within no later than 15 minutes anywhere in the United States. And on that day, there were four airplanes that went for a half-hour or more after they were hijacked without jets intercepting them.

What’s the official explanation of that?

I’m afraid the press has not done its job. They have not forced government officials to explain why standard operating procedures were not followed that day, nor have they pressed the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) to explain why they didn’t report these hijackings as they were supposed to. The official story is that [the fighter jets] were very late.

Where was NORAD between the first plane and the second plane to hit the WTC? No one on the 9/11 Commission ever asked this question, to anyone.

President Bush has also been criticized for behaving somewhat bizarrely that day.

As he and the Secret Service got word that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center and that three planes had been hijacked, there could have been no possible doubt in their mind that the United States was under terrorist attack . . . The most horrendous attack the United States had ever suffered. And they would have had to assume that one or more of them were heading toward President Bush himself. And so upon learning about this, the Secret Service surely would have whisked him away immediately. In fact, one Secret Service agent on the scene said, “We’re out of here.” But obviously he got overruled because President Bush stayed there. After Andrew Card reported the second crash on the World Trade Center, the president just nodded as if he understood and said, “We’re going to go ahead with the reading lesson.” And he sat there another 15 minutes listening to the children read a story about a pet goat. This was a photo op and when it was over he lingered around talking to the children and talking to the teacher. Bill Sammon, of the Washington Times, wrote a very pro-Bush book, yet he comments how casual and relaxed the president was given the fact he’d just learned the country was under attack. He said Bush took his own sweet time and in fact called him “Our Dawdler in Chief.” And then the president went on national TV, going forward with an interview that had been planned and announced in advance . . . then they took their regularly scheduled motorcade back to the airport. In other words, [Bush and the Secret Service] showed no fear whatsoever that they would be targeted for attack, which strongly suggests they knew how many aircraft were being hijacked and what their targets were.

Rob has posted copiously about this one. Check the TCS archives. In fact this may have prompted the creation of TCS in the first place. I know I couldn't shut up about it.

Let’s say there has been this complicity. To what end?

There were several benefits that could have been anticipated from 9/11. One was the so-called Patriot Act. It did appear that the Patriot Act, given how fast it was rushed into Congress, voting had already been prepared. The Patriot Act is so large that it’s inconceivable it could have been written after 9/11. Rushing it through Congress when most members had not even read a small portion of it was clearly one benefit, giving the government increased powers. Also, there was the desire to wage war in Afghanistan to force out the Taliban and put an American-friendly government in place because of the desire of Unical and other gas companies to build an oil pipeline, which they felt was too dangerous with the Taliban in power. There was a meeting in Berlin in July 2001, a final effort to get an agreement between the Taliban and the United States that would allow a sort of joint government, where the Taliban would share power with more American-friendly leaders. The Taliban refused, at which point they were told, “If you don’t take our carpet of gold, we’ll bury you under a carpet of bombs.” The Pakistani representative at this meeting said the Americans told him that the war would start before the snows came that October. And after 9/11 happened, there was exactly the right amount of time for the U.S. forces to get organized to begin the war, and the war began on October 7. Another benefit is that many senior members of the Bush administration had for a long time wanted to attack Iraq. Getting control of the oil there was one motive; the more general motive was to secure a military presence in that part of the world.

All of this stuff is a giant wish list that was prefigured in the Project for the New American Century and explains extremely persuasively why Bush was so hell bent on the missile shield from day one. It's all he could talk about. This is the weaponization of space. It's the cold war. I recommend the documentary The Fog of War about Robert McNamara and this kind of thinking because it permeates the Bush administration and will scare the shit out of you, because that's the whole point, and if you disagree, then ask yourself why you weren't frightened to death until the minute Bush stepped into the White House. That's key, to keep you scared. Every single person who added adversarial comments to this web log are speaking from fear and cravenness, and if you don't believe me, read 'em yourself. These tough talkers are all shitting their panties. Calling me a pussy doesn't exactly make yer point, fella. I leave you with this one, from World War II, when an American president battling fascism actually stood for freedom, and words meant something, free of charge:

Four Freedoms

We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression--everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way-- everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want . . . everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear . . . anywhere in the world.

--President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress, January 6, 1941

Reality is standing on its head.

- Michael 4:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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FW: URGENT IT BULLETIN: Tugabe Report (FOUO)

The Pentagon really didn't want the Tugabe report out there:

SUMMARY
Fox News and other media outlets are distributing the Tugabe report (spelling is approximate for reasons which will become obvious momentarily). Someone has given the news media classified information and they are distributing it. THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED. ALL ISD CUSTOMERS SHOULD:

1) NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY
2) NOT comment on this to anyone, friends, family etc.
3) NOT delete the file if you receive it via e-mail, but
4) CALL THE ISD HELPDESK AT [phone number removed] IMMEDIATELY

This leakage will be investigated for criminal prosecution. If you don't have the document and have never had legitimate access, please do not complicate the investigative processes by seeking information. Again, THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY.

So they can just go to the library and read it I guess (and is that the correct use of "leakage"?)

- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Baghdad Blogger River of Baghdad Burning gets elequent when reacting to the prison torture scandal, and sums it up nicely

Stain

And through all this, Bush gives his repulsive speeches. He makes an appearance on Arabic tv channels looking sheepish and attempting to look sincere, babbling on about how this 'incident' wasn't representative of the American people or even the army, regardless of the fact that it's been going on for so long. He asks Iraqis to not let these pictures reflect on their attitude towards the American people… and yet when the bodies were dragged through the streets of Falloojeh, the American troops took it upon themselves to punish the whole city.

He's claiming it's a "stain on our country's honor"... I think not. The stain on your country's honor, Bush dear, was the one on the infamous blue dress that made headlines while Clinton was in the White House... this isn't a 'stain' this is a catastrophe. Your credibility was gone the moment you stepped into Iraq and couldn't find the WMD... your reputation never existed. Emphasis mine.

- rob 3:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Another Day Another Law Broken by the Bush Administration: I'll bet they say, it depends what your definition of "propaganda" is.

Medicare 'propaganda' videos violated law, agency says

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration violated federal prohibitions on propaganda when it issued video press releases promoting the new Medicare law, a congressional agency concluded Wednesday.

The General Accounting Office said three videos, packaged to look like independent news reports and distributed to TV stations across the country, were a misuse of federal money appropriated by Congress. The videos were produced by a subcontractor for the Department of Health and Human Services and its Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is charged with implementing the Medicare revisions enacted last year.

- rob 3:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Thumbs-up?

Pentagon Finds More Prison Abuse Photos

In separate photos shown on ABC News, Spc. Sabrina Harmon and Spc. Charles Graner are seen smiling and giving a "thumbs-up" sign over the body of a man identified by ABC as Manadel al-Jamadi, an Iraqi who died in U.S. custody at the prison.

ABC reported on its Web site that the photos were taken by Sgt. Charles Frederick, who in e-mails to his family questioned why those responsible for the prisoner's death were not being prosecuted in the same manner that he is.

Meanwhile, according to Drudge, Kerry has settled on a campaign theme: "Let America Be America Again" With photos like these that truely is a worthy goal.

At a time of national self-doubt, the Massachusetts senator hopes to project an image of reassuring strength that melds 'can-do' American optimism with a call for a return to the sense of community." Kerry said, "Talking about 'Let America be America again' is tapping into that value system that people think makes this country strong. What is it that makes us strong, and what do we have to do to get that back, to let America be America? Strength means people being able to do better in their jobs. Strength means having the courage to stand up to special interests that steal the agenda here in Washington. Strength is fighting to have health coverage for children." The Journal adds, "The line comes from the title of a Langston Hughes poem. Mr. Kerry first wrapped it into an appearance on Monday in heavily Republican Kansas with civil-rights leaders, where he commemorated the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education court ruling. He then took the words and made them more distinctly his own."

- rob 1:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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This is our country they are talking about

Secret US jails hold 10,000

WASHINGTON - Almost 10,000 prisoners from President George W. Bush's so-called war on terror are being held around the world in secretive American-run jails and interrogation centres similar to the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison.

Some of these detention centres are so sensitive that even the most senior members of the United States Congress have no idea where they are.

From Iraq to Afghanistan to Cuba, this American gulag is driven by the pressure to obtain "actionable" intelligence from prisoners captured by US forces.

The systematic practice of holding prisoners without access to lawyers or their families, together with a willingness to use "coercive interrogation" techniques, suggests the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib now shocking the world could be widespread.

- rob 12:58 PM - [PermaLink] -

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U.S. Troops Raid Chalabi's House in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police raided the residence of longtime American ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday, and aides accused the Americans of trying to pressure him to stop complaining about U.S. plans for Iraq after sovereignty is transferred in about six weeks.

American officials here have complained privately that Chalabi is interfering with a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime skimmed millions of dollars in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.

I guess the pentagon finally got pissed that they were taken by a con artist.

- rob 12:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Freaking Idiots

al-Sadr, pretty much a sideshow until we shut down his newspaper that had a "tiny" circulation. Yes it was an inflammitory newspaper. It might even be the equivilant of crying "fire" in a crowded building. But closing it had ramifications. Obvious ones. Unfortunately, like the Iraq war itself, the decision was made without really any consideration of the ramifications. Shutting down the newspaper did two things:

• It gave al-Sadr instant celebrity status. He became the number 1 anti-US spokesperson. People had someone to rally around. It was as if the US gave Iraqi's not happy with the occupation were given a martyr, one who happened to still be alive.
• Gave doubt to our reasons for being in Iraq. We talked of freedom and liberty and we censored a paper that talked against the occupation. Isn't a free society able to tolerate that?

No one was reading the paper, and suddenly everyone wanted to. Farenheight 9/11 is going to be more popular because Disney tried to stop its release then it would have been otherwise.

The almost caprisious decision to shut down that newspaper that no one read leads us to this:

Iraq's rebel cleric gains surge in popularity

An Iraqi poll to be released next week shows a surge in the popularity of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical young Shia cleric fighting coalition forces, and suggests nearly nine out of 10 Iraqis see US troops as occupiers and not liberators or peacekeepers.

The poll was conducted by the one-year-old Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies, which is considered reliable enough for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to have submitted questions to be included in the study.

- rob 11:47 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush: Losing the really wacky Religious Right

President Bush -- Bad Fruits versus Good Fruits

In this hot debate amongst Christian brethren over whether the fruits (actions) of President Bush were of such Biblically "good fruit" nature to allow Fundamental, Bible-believing Christians to consider him "Born Again", I have created a list showing the fruits I have seen since he became a candidate for President in 2000. On the left, I have listed the "bad fruits" I have seen, and on the right, I have listed the "good fruits" he has produced.

Remember, words do not count: just actions. Words spoken at a Prayer Breakfast do not count, as they are only words. And, please don't repeat the Urban Legend about Mr. Bush leading a young man to salvation; we all know that story was fabricated. I am speaking of actions President Bush has taken since becoming President that we would consider Biblical "Good Fruits".

May favorite Bad Fruits:

• Bush Constantly Invokes "God" In Speeches But Never "Jesus" - Typical of Skull & Bones/Masonic belief and doctrine
• Bush "faced the pagan obelisk" during his Inauguration, just as Illuminist Presidents Reagan through Clinton had done -- NEWS1463.
• Bush Administration experts are proposing new laws and police regulatory rules in the guise of fighting terrorism that just might take away our precious liberties -- Just as the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion envisioned! -- NEWS1550, NEWS1567, NEWS1576.
• President Bush did not proclaim a complete and utter dependence upon Jesus Christ after 9/11 to physically protect America but began threatening to attack and "end the states" he was declaring a threat - NEWS1542
• First Lady Laura Bush Has Twice Sent Out Christmas Cards Featuring the Egyptian Satanic Phoenix Bird - NEWS1603.

That last one sounds cool.

- rob 1:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Two links about lies from the White House that will cause health problems for New Yorkers for at least the next decade

The ones who most suffer: The heroes

What was known about post-9/11 air

IN THE WAKE of 9/11, there were serious concerns about whether the air around Ground Zero was filled with toxins - unsafe for workers and residents.

But by Sept. 18, 2001, many New Yorkers were back in their apartments and on the job. Partly because of a press release that day from the Environmental Protection Agency reassuring New Yorkers that “their air is safe to breathe.”
...

• Sept. 13: The EPA draft release — never released to the public — said: EPA “testing terrorized sites for environmental hazards.”
  The White House changed that to EPA “reassures public about environmental hazards.”
• Sept. 16: The EPA draft said: “Recent samples of dust ... on Water Street show higher levels of asbestos.”
  The White House version: “New samples confirm ... ambient air quality meets OSHA [government] standards” ... and “is not a cause for public concern.”
  And the White House left out entirely the warning “that air samples raise concerns for cleanup workers and office workers near Water St.”

'Significant Adverse Effects'
Recent reports show that the dust from the World Trade Center attacks is more toxic than researchers initially realized—and so is the range of health problems in those exposed to it

Graham, whose office was blocks from the World Trade Center, was able to get down to the Twin Towers so quickly after the first plane struck that he was standing across the street from the north tower when the second plane hit. Because of his unusual combination of medical and carpentry skills, Graham ended up staying at the site for more than nine months helping out, despite his own mounting health problems. His first sought treatment three weeks after the attacks. The initial diagnosis: respiratory problems including asthma, and chemical burns on his esophagus and throat.

Doctors and researchers now believe that Graham is one of tens of thousands who suffer debilitating health problems stemming from their exposure to contaminants in the air around the World Trade Center site—and it’s not just rescue and recovery workers who are affected. A report published this month in the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives” found that pregnant women who were inside the Twin Towers or within a 10-block radius at the time of the attacks showed a two-fold increase in the incidence of smaller-than-average infants compared to pregnant women in a demographically similar population who weren’t in Manhattan on September 11.

- rob 1:03 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You know were stretched thin when...

Pentagon may use IRS to find reservists

FORTH WORTH, Texas, May 18 (UPI) -- The Defense Department has proposed using U.S. Internal Revenue Service data to track down reservists with which they have lost contact.

The measure, which department officials say has been vetted by its lawyers, would allow the Pentagon to access the addresses for tens of thousands of people who still face active-duty recall, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Congress and President Bush would have to approve an amendment to the tax code in order legalize the practice.

- rob 12:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Flashback from one year ago: The hypocrisy already rings clearly

One rule for them

Suddenly, the government of the United States has discovered the virtues of international law. It may be waging an illegal war against a sovereign state; it may be seeking to destroy every treaty which impedes its attempts to run the world, but when five of its captured soldiers were paraded in front of the Iraqi television cameras on Sunday, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, immediately complained that "it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners of war in a manner that is humiliating for them".

He is, of course, quite right. Article 13 of the third convention, concerning the treatment of prisoners, insists that they "must at all times be protected... against insults and public curiosity". This may number among the less heinous of the possible infringements of the laws of war, but the conventions, ratified by Iraq in 1956, are non-negotiable. If you break them, you should expect to be prosecuted for war crimes.

America ratified the Geneva Convention. It is the law of the land. The Bush Administration has actively been breaking American law when it comes to these "new interrogation methods." Its not only international law Bush could care less about.

The Geneva Convention isn't just to protect Iraqi's or terrorists or Taliban members. It is to protect our soldiers. If we disregard these simple humane laws, then we, unfortunately, will see many more cases of the other side disregarding them when it comes to our soldiers. And Rumsfled's words will ring even more hallow than they did over a year ago.

- rob 12:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Unitarian group denied tax status

First they went after the Unitarians.....

AUSTIN - Unitarian Universalists have for decades presided over births, marriages and memorials. The church operates in every state, with more than 5,000 members in Texas alone.

But according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Denison Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization -- at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: the organization "does not have one system of belief."

Never before -- not in this state or any other -- has a government agency denied Unitarians tax-exempt status because of the group's religious philosophy, church officials say. Strayhorn's ruling clearly infringes upon religious liberties, said Dan Althoff, board president for the Denison congregation that was rejected for tax exemption by the comptroller's office.

Meanwhile the Catholic church in America is actively forcing (for a devote Catholic the threat of withholding communion is coercion) its members vote to support their specific requirements (I would say "beliefs" as they seem to have no problem with people voting for pro-death penalty pro-war politicians... i.e. Republicans, it's only the "liberal" agenda they have problems with) maintains its tax free status, somehow not being defined a political entity.

- rob 12:45 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Department of Energy realizes they didn't fully kill Cold Fusion 15 years ago, so they'll try again

Other people are more optomistic however:

U.S. Department of Energy Will Review 15 Years of
"Cold Fusion" Excess Heat and Nuclear Evidence

Exciting news that has circulated for about a month in the low-energy nuclear reactions field (LENR, a.k.a. "cold fusion") has now been confirmed. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has agreed to perform a review of the entire "cold fusion" (LENR) question. The DOE has made a startling reversal of its past refusal to evaluate with a fresh look the large body of experimental evidence that now supports highly anomalous non-chemical magnitude excess heat phenomena in some hydrogen systems, plus associated nuclear anomalies. The details of how the review will be conducted and when it is to begin have not yet been released formally, but it is expected to be completed by the end of 2004.
...

Another difference between now and 1989: there are now operational experimental electrolytic and other excess energy cells in various laboratories in the U.S. and abroad; these are producing repeatable, verifiable excess energy that cannot possibly be explained by ordinary chemical reactions. In some cases, for example, one watt of electrical input power goes into a closed cell and an output power of 3 to 4 watts of heat occurs for a prolonged time. Much more powerful cells have also been operated. There is evidence of helium-4 and helium-3 production, tritium production, low-level neutron emissions, charged particles, light emission spectral anomalies, the formation of unusual chemical compounds, and even the transmutation of heavy elements in what seems to be a mix of fusion- and fission-like reactions. Laser radiation, ultrasonic activation, and magnetic fields, among a variety of other stimuli, have been found to enhance LENR reactions. It appears that an entirely new realm of physics and chemistry is suggested by the expanding body of experimental evidence.

For 15 years the Department of Energy has refused to fund any research into Cold Fusion, rather spending massive amounts on hot fusion reactor experiments. Unfotunately the scientific research gravy train being almost as important as science, many universities and labs were happy with this situation because if cold fusion was true a rather large source of funding would evaporate. Cold Fusion would require a much smaller infrastructure, which also makes it the enemy of big oil and equipment manufacturers.

Now to tinfoil hat territory: Dr. Eugene Mallove "new energy" proponent is murdered.

- rob 12:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Karl Rove and Lee Atwater before him, were reportedly great readers of Machiavelli. Another excerpt from Kevin Phillips' American Dynasty:

In fact, Machiavelli was even harsher, calling deception and disguise essential to rulers. In "The Prince," his most famous work, he lauded the success and effectiveness of the Borgia pope Alexander VI, "who did nothing else but deceive men." He advised that a "prince must take great care that nothing goes out of his mouth which is not full of the above-named five qualities, and, to see and hear him, he should seem to be all mercy, faith, integrity, humanity and religion." However, because "everybody sees what you appear to be, few feel what you are," a ruler can ignore the mob and devote himself to the interests of the ruling class, gulling the inert majority who constitute the ruled.

...

A decade later [after the first Bush] John DiIulio, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, resigned with a similar evaluation of the George W. Bush administration. He deplored, 'the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis, in which everything--and I mean everything--[is] being run by the political arm.... There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus.'

Can anyone read the above and not think of the parallels between Alex VI and Bush? The oft quoted reasons why people support the chimp relate to his faith, integrity, humanity and religion. Mercy? Well, four out of five ain't bad. We not only have Kevin Phillips saying it, we have John DiIulio saying the same thing: This administration isn't about governing for the good of the country. They can't be, they have no policy people. They are all, and I mean all, about getting reselected and rewarding supporters. Not only do we have John DiIulio saying it, we have Paul O'Neill saying it. Not only Paul O'Neill but Richard Clarke. In fact, everyone who has left this administration has consistently said the same thing--politics rule above all else.

- B 11:43 AM - [PermaLink] -

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A library card is a dangerous thing

From a letter writer in today's NYT.

To the Editor:

Re "Security With Liberty," by William Safire (column, May 17):

Every visit to the Orange County Library reminds me why I hate the Patriot Act and how my right of privacy can be officially violated.

A big sign in black and white is posted at the book checkout desk reminding me that the Federal Bureau of Investigation can get a list of every book I've read and doesn't have to tell me that it asked for my list.

A secret investigation.

This "police state" license of the Patriot Act could affect me, to the extent that my choice of reading material is adversely interpreted by law enforcement.

No, I do not feel more secure; I feel threatened, and more than a little terrorized whenever I see that sign at my library.

This is from a woman who tells her grandchildren, "My library card is my most valuable possession."

ARLENE ROSSO-BARON
Orlando, Fla., May 17, 2004

If after reading this you're telling yourself, "So what? I don't care if the government knows I'm reading, I didn't do anything wrong," just go on telling that to yourself, especially when that knock comes at your door in the middle of the night. "Yeah right," you're saying, "not in my country." Really? Would you be willing to stake your life on it? It doesn't matter, because the Patriot Act has already staked your life on it for you.

- Michael 10:23 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Intel Staffer Cites Abu Ghraib Cover-Up

May 18, 2004 — Dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the Army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told ABCNEWS.

"There's definitely a cover-up," the witness, Sgt. Samuel Provance, said. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet."

Provance, 30, was part of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion stationed at Abu Ghraib last September. He spoke to ABCNEWS despite orders from his commanders not to.

- rob 9:59 AM - [PermaLink] -

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It is my opinion that there are members of the Bush administration, and perhaps Bush himself that decide foreign policy on what will get us to armageddon soonest.

For more detail on that read: Bush's Armageddon Obsession, Revisited

The religious right's vervent support for Isreal rests solely on their believe that the jews controlling Isreal is a prerequiste for the second coming.

Bush is so in thrall of the religious right that foreign policy decisions are not only screened by Prince Bandar, but by American religious extremists. (I wonder if Powell was informed)

The Jesus Landing Pad

The e-mailed meeting summary reveals NSC Near East and North African Affairs director Elliott Abrams sitting down with the Apostolic Congress and massaging their theological concerns. Claiming to be "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," the members vociferously oppose the idea of a Palestinian state. They fear an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza might enable just that, and they object on the grounds that all of Old Testament Israel belongs to the Jews. Until Israel is intact and David's temple rebuilt, they believe, Christ won't come back to earth.

Abrams attempted to assuage their concerns by stating that "the Gaza Strip had no significant Biblical influence such as Joseph's tomb or Rachel's tomb and therefore is a piece of land that can be sacrificed for the cause of peace."

Three weeks after the confab, President George W. Bush reversed long-standing U.S. policy, endorsing Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank in exchange for Israel'sdisengagement from the Gaza Strip.

In an interview with the Voice, Upton denied having written the document, though it was sent out from an e-mail account of one of his staffers and bears the organization's seal, which is nearly identical to the Great Seal of the United States. Its idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation tics also closely match those of texts on the Apostolic Congress's website, and Upton verified key details it recounted, including the number of participants in the meeting ("45 ministers including wives") and its conclusion "with a heart-moving send-off of the President in his Presidential helicopter."

But if you start not winning a glorious moral victories, the religious right does begin to question if you really are an agent of God:

Iraq War Weakens Bond Between Bush, Evangelicals

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Concern among evangelical Christians over the course of the war in Iraq is opening a crack in their strong bond with President Bush and the Republican Party, political analysts who track this powerful voting group said.
...

"I know there are a lot of evangelicals who are disillusioned with the war and worried about a lot of things, the Woodward book, the Clarke book ... (and) how we got into this thing," said Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., referring to recent books on the al Qaeda threat and the Iraqi war and occupation.

Compounding that is the growing scandal about prisoner abuses by U.S. troops in Iraq.

Putting panties on the head of shackled nude men does kind of take the shine of a "just war" don't it?

Okay, I admit this is one my most disjointed posts ever.

- rob 3:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Irony thy name is Bush

The Bush family has always had some

Strange ironies:

Such as Neil Bush planning to have dinner with Scott Hinckley the day Reagan was shot by John Hinckley (Scott's brother). The dinner was cancelled, obviously.

Sad ironies:

We were promised that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators, but when we pulled out of Falluja and an ex-Saddam general pulled in, he was created as the liberator (he liberated the city from the liberators).

and Pathetic ironies:

Plant closings could reverberate in November

CANTON, Ohio - Bruce Andrews stood at the gate of a Timken Co. plant, blasting company management for deciding to close it and vowing to vote for Democrat John Kerry in November.

The 31-year employee, who wore a Bush button declaring, "Somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot," probably made up his mind on the presidential election long ago.

But Timken's announcement Friday that it will close three of its bearings plants could influence some undecided northeast Ohioans to vote against Bush, who last year promoted his tax-cut plan at the steel company.
...

In Bush's April 2003 visit to Timken, he told workers, "There's too much economic uncertainty today" and said that his tax-cut package would improve matters.

- rob 3:40 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Krugman: The Wastrel Son

Now Mr. Bush is back for more. Given this history, one might have expected him to show some contrition — to promise to change his ways and to offer at least a pretense that Congress would henceforth have some say in how money was spent.

But the tone of the cover letter Mr. Bush sent with last week's budget request can best be described as contemptuous: it's up to Congress to "ensure that our men and women in uniform continue to have the resources they need when they need them." This from an administration that, by rejecting warnings from military professionals, ensured that our men and women in uniform didn't have remotely enough resources to do the job.

The budget request itself was almost a caricature of the administration's "just trust us" approach to governing.

It ran to less than a page, with no supporting information. Of the $25 billion, $5 billion is purely a slush fund, to be used at the secretary of defense's discretion. The rest is allocated to specific branches of the military, but with the proviso that the administration can reallocate the money at will as long as it notifies the appropriate committees.

Senators are balking for the moment, but everyone knows that they'll give in, after demanding, at most, cosmetic changes. Once again, Mr. Bush has put Congress in a bind: it was his decision to put American forces in harm's way, but if members of Congress fail to give him the money he demands, he'll blame them for letting down the troops.

- rob 3:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Now Available:

The Republican Noise Machine : Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy

(and if you buy it or anything from Amazon via this site, this site gets 5% of the sale and we then donate 100% of the money the site gets from Amazon to the Kerry campaign - $25 at a time).

- rob 2:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Fewer Iraqis Working on Reconstruction

WASHINGTON - Fewer than 25,000 Iraqis are working on projects in the U.S. reconstruction effort, tempering expectations that more than $18 billion in American spending would jump-start Iraq's economy and trigger a surge in goodwill toward the United States.

Surely they didn't expect much of the $18 billion to go to every day Iraqis, I mean, did they donate to the Bush campaign? I think not! This is way democracy may have trouble taking seed here, they just don't understand who decent ethical american bribery and cronyism works.

- rob 2:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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9/11 panel cites N.Y. rescue flaws

There are many things I love about New York City, and two are the humor of the people hwo live there and their, somewhat rough around the edges, decency.

Presently the heads of the New York fire, police, and emergency management departments are destifying.

All are their not to hide their blame or shift blame to others (say, like Ashcroft and Rice), but to tell honestly of all the errors that happened that day, even errors they were involved in. Why? Because they don't want others to suffer the loss that they did. They know that the hearings are about making America safer.

And my favorite New York moment: A Committee member asks if it made sense to put the Office of Emergency Management on the 23rd floor of one of the WTC Towers. I believe the head of the fire department responds that he wasn't involved in the decision, but thought it was wrong, and as to the reasons: "First off, do I look like a guy who wants to climb 23 flights of stairs?" (He's... umm... portly). It gave the room a nice moment to laugh... a needed breather.

- rob 1:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Media

Quick response to B's question is in David Brock's excerpt from Buzzflash, where he quotes Al Gore talking to the New York Observer on this subject a few years ago; Gore said:

"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party. Fox News Network, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh -- there’s a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media.... Most of the media [has] been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this Fifth Column in their ranks -- that is, day after day, injecting the daily Republican talking points into the definition of what’s objective as stated by the news media as a whole....

"Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, the Washington Times and the others. And then they’ll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they all start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they’ve pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these RNC talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist."

Brock concludes from his own first-hand experience with the "Republican noise machine",

With the right-wing media now a seemingly permanent and defining feature of the media landscape, if Democrats cut through the propaganda and win back the White House in 2004, they still face the prospect of being brutally slammed and systematically slandered in such a way that will make governing exceedingly difficult. There should be no doubt that the right-wing media’s wildings of 1993 -- which led to Clinton’s impeachment four years later -- will be replayed over and over again until its capacities to spread filth are somehow eradicated.

Remember, it's your money -- wait a minute, no it's not, it's their money, they're just letting you use it.

- Michael 11:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I don't mean this post to be a discussion about media bias, because that conversation could subsume any other topic, but I've noticed something about JFK's new poll numbers: He's ahead in nearly every poll, but the news is "John Kerry is in a statistical tie with Bush." Now, just a few weeks ago, Bush had a little (like 1 or 2 percent) bump in his poll numbers and talking heads were falling all over themselves to mention that even in the midst of all this bad news for the chimp, his numbers were still rising, though the way I saw those numbers, Bush was in a "statistical tie." Meaning, he was within the margin of error.

A more appropriate conversation about Kerry's poll numbers would be something like the following: "Kerry's numbers incredibly high for presumptive candidate challenging an incumbent at this stage of the campaign."

I wonder when we're going to see that headline?

- B 7:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The summer blockbuster season: Brought to you by those fine film producers: Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush

US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp

Dozens of videotapes of American guards allegedly engaged in brutal attacks on Guantanamo Bay detainees have been stored and catalogued at the camp, an investigation by The Observer has revealed.

I like it better when Bush just concentrated on funding Disney movies such as: The Hitcher, Shoot to Kill and D.O.A.

- rob 12:54 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A Film to Polarize Along Party Lines

A reporter for The New York Times was invited to a screening of the film last week. "Fahrenheit 9/11" focuses on longstanding ties between the Bush family, its associates and prominent Saudis and on whether those ties clouded the president's judgment in recognizing warning signs before the Sept. 11 attacks and hampered his response afterward.

Please, when this movie comes out, see it on the opening weekend. Make it such a huge first weekend that the numbers itself become a story as well. It'll lead to headlines like:

"Anti-Bush culture in America growing strong."

"Making Money from Resentment of George Bush"

And when people see that the movie is doing well, they too will be tempted to see it, and the more people that see it, the more people will be appalled at Bush. and that is a good thing.

- rob 12:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Let the War Crimes Trial Begin

Magazine Reports That Rumsfeld OKd Interrogation Plan

The Pentagon on Sunday tried to quash a report that abuse of Iraqi prisoners grew out of a secret plan approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to toughen interrogation methods to fight a growing insurgency.

Back in World War II you hear stories of German soldiers making sure that they surrendered to American troops. Why? Because Americans were known to have treated their prisoners with decency. This saved the lives of American troops and gained us a world wide reputation of being the "good guys." Another American treasure crushed under the boot of Bush's "sometimes hurting someone feels good" foreign policy.

The article in question:

THE GRAY ZONE

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

Hey, don't worry, Bush says Rumsfeld is doing a "superb job" and Uncle Dick chimes in adding that Rumsfeld is "the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had."

- rob 12:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

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From GOP, Zero Tolerance For Democratic War Critics

Republicans have adopted a scorched-earth strategy toward Democrats who challenge the wisdom of the way the war in Iraq is being conducted. Such critics, GOP officials say, are not merely misguided but are craven cut-and-runners who help the enemy and put politics ahead of U.S. troops' safety.

Democrats say the Republicans are twisting facts and trying to stifle debate through intimidation. Not so, say the Republicans, who insist they are not questioning Democrats' patriotism, only their judgment and resolve.

Well if you are saying someone puts politics ahead of our troops' safety I'd say you are pretty close to questioning that person's patriotism. And I question the GOP's patriotism these days for declaring that the freedom to critize an inept President is tantamount to being a traitor.

It's too bad today's GOP has never bothered to listen to what our founding fathers had to say:

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree. - James Madison

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. - George Washington

Actually the GOP once did believe it was okay to critize a President's war policy during a time war, but that was a century ago. Way back in 1999.

"I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag," warned [Representative] Nickles. [Representative] DeLay agreed: "He's stronger in Kosovo now than he was before the bombing. ... The Serbian people are rallying around him like never before. He's much stronger with his allies, Russians and others." Clinton "has no plan for the end" and "recognizes that Milosevic will still be in power," added DeLay. "The bombing was a mistake. ... And this president ought to show some leadership and admit it, and come to some sort of negotiated end."

And I'm wondering about this recent interpretation of the virtue of "resolve." If you steadfastly keep doing a stupid thing even though it makes everything worse, that isn't a virtue, it's idiocy

- rob 12:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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An outsourced war

600 Filipino workers in Iraq quit

MANILA — Fearing for their safety, about 600 Filipinos working inside a U.S. military base in Iraq have decided to quit after Wednesday's mortar attack on the base that killed a Filipino warehouseman and wounded four others, a Philippine official said Friday.

Besides deciding torture is a-ok, another long term damaging thing Rumsfeld has done to our troops is move much of the logistical support to third party vendors. The problem is when civilians realize they might day, they often quit. Leaving our military high and dry when it comes to moving around supplies, etc.

We may have the best military hardware in the world (and we do), but it won't do our soldiers any good if they run out of supplies in the middle of the desert (or drink un-sanitary water). It was not only our might but our logistics that won us World War II, we were able to move tons of food and supplies all over the world. But now Rumsfeld is more interested in moving our tax dollars to the hands of private contractors then he is supporting our troops and keeping our nation secure. Hey Rummy, why not leave corporate welfare to the rest of government and concentrate on the "defense" part of "Secretary of Defense."

Thanks to a phunkster for the original link.

- rob 12:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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It's Monday. Michael's post this weekend made my realize I've been very remiss lately and that I've not been linking to the Top Ten, every Monday. It's a great list every week, and I'll try to make sure to link to it every Monday.

The Top Ten Conservative Idiots, No. 156

2. Right-Wing Execution Enthusiasts
They've spent the last several months complaining that there hasn't been enough good news coming out of Iraq, but you wouldn't know it from last week's performance. The right-wing were suddenly overjoyed when an American civilian was beheaded by alleged al-Qaeda terrorists, because Nick Berg's terrible misfortune was a boon for conservatives who had spent the week busily defending the Abu Ghraib torture photographs. The brutal beheading was captured on videotape and posted to an Islamic militant website, where it was promptly downloaded by several news organizations before disappearing as suddenly as it had arrived. Sean Hannity and Michael Savage played audio of Berg's murder on their radio shows, and many prominent conservatives took to the airwaves and pontificated about how the video was a reminder of why we need to torture random brown people. Uh, I mean, a reminder of "what we're fighting against." Odd. I mean, they may need a reminder, but I don't know anyone who's forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001, nor do I know anyone who's forgotten why it's imperative that we track down and destroy terrorist scum. What I'm not entirely sure about is what any of that has to do with occupying Iraq and committing mass violations of the Geneva Convention.


3. Donald Rumsfailed
Speaking of the Geneva Convention - you know, that treaty we signed which says we're not allowed to torture prisoners of war - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfailed came up with his own interesting insights into what it all means last week. According to Don, we're not allowed to see any more pictures of the Geneva Convention violations which took place inside Abu Ghraib, because displaying such pictures would, uh, violate the Geneva Convention. Well, shit. We wouldn't want to violate the Geneva Convention, would we? But wait - according to the defense secretary, what happened in Abu Ghraib doesn't violate the Geneva Convention anyway. Riiiiiiight. Fair enough though - personally I've pretty much seen enough to know what went on in there, and the reports coming from our elected representatives who saw a further 1800 pictures on Capitol Hill last week were plenty graphic. But it is certainly curious that Don is so concerned about the Geneva Convention all of a sudden - or should I say, selectively concerned. I mean, he didn't seem that bothered about it in January (which is when he claims he first knew of the torture at Abu Ghraib). But when several American POW's were captured near the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said, "You know, under the Geneva Convention, it's illegal to do things with prisoners of war that are humiliating to those individuals." Hmm. Geneva Convention. Prisoners of war. Humiliating. Shouldn't that have rung some bells for Rumsfailed?

- rob 12:00 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Good news for a Monday morn

Polls Show Bush's Job-Approval Ratings Sinking

Mr. Bush's job-approval numbers have sunk to all-time lows, with a majority of Americans now saying, for the first time, that the invasion of Iraq was not worth the mounting cost.

The article begins, however, with a chilling example of what the Bush Administration's priorities have been for his entire heinus reign:

WASHINGTON, May 13 - As President Bush was traveling through the Midwest on his exuberant bus tour last week, his campaign aides still sounded confident that the revelations of how Iraqi prisoners were abused would do far more harm to the United States' image abroad than to the president's standing at home. Emphasis Mine

- rob 11:53 AM - [PermaLink] -

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What does "Republican" mean? Pt. 2

Conservatism (n.) 1 cap a: the principles and policies of a Conservative party b: the Conservative party 2 a: disposition in politics to preserve what is established b: a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change 3: the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change

--from Webster's 10th

I ask again, how exactly does the present administration fit the description of conservative Republican? A quick laundry list of the accomplishments of the past four years tells me that America threw out 50 years of foreign policy without asking anyone, abandoned our allies, threatened the world with ultimatums, waged two wars concurrently, simultaneously cutting taxes for wealthy individuals and corporations and spending hundreds of billions of your dollars with no end in sight, and no promise of an end in sight; refusing to initiate the draft to fight said wars; expanding the reach and breadth and scope of the powers of the executive branch to an unprecedented degree; suspended the rule of law; breached civil liberties; relaxed all the laws guaranteeing your right to privacy, so that banks and hospitals and doctors and insurers all have access to your financial and medical history, including sealed court records, privatized health care so that now private insurers and HMOs can cherry pick their clients based on said privacy information; turned the Justice Dept. into a giant surveillance machine with no checks to its powers, which now involve domestic surveillance without a need to know basis or any evidence of criminal activity or wrongdoing; the suspension of due process; the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus; and the methodical smashing of every institution guaranteed to prevent the excesses and collusion and corruption that resulted in the Great Depression, including the Glass-Steagall Act, the Sherman antitrust laws, and now, Social Security and Medicare, which have both been raided by successive administrations -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- and are on schedule to become insolvent by a carefully engineered fiscal train wreck, courtesy of this so-called conservative Republican administration.

As Bush says, it's your money -- we're just letting him do whatever he wants with it. Think about it this way: Right now we're a unilateralist hegemon begging with a tin cup. Most of our economy is owned by foreigners, who buy dollars. So in other words, we're digging our own graves if we continue to cut taxes and spend ourselves into trillion-dollar deficits, because one day China and Japan and Korea and Saudi Arabia etc. may find themselves in the position of not needing to buy any more dollars. And when that happens, nighty-night America. Sometimes tradition and social stability isn't such a bad thing. But I guess I'm too conservative to convince a Republican otherwise.

- Michael 10:43 AM - [PermaLink] -

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A few posts back, I wondered how to get a job with the Bushies. I pondered, in connection with Rumsfeld's "superb" job rating, that the worse you do in this administration, the more solid your job is. Here is further evidence of that paradox. Ahmad Chalabi, the discredited Iraqi ex-pat who was responsible for some of the faulty intel the administration relied on to go to war, gets $400,000 a month from the United States.

Your tax dollars at work. As in the case of Rummy, to stop paying him would be an admission that we were wrong to believe him in the first place. So we're stuck.

Here's the transcript from the latest Russert show:

Russert: You mentioned Mr. Ahmad Chalabi. He was the person responsible for the agent Curveball, that I talked about with Secretary Powell, who gave discredited information. Mr. Chalabi is still on the payroll of the United States government for three...
Biden: Almost 400 a month.
Russert: Four hundred thousand dollars...
Biden: A month.
Russert: ...per month.
Biden: Yeah.


SIGN ME UP.

- B 6:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Can any of you Kool-aid drinkers out there explain to me, once and for all, how expressing political opposition to an unjust military conflict and calling for a withdrawal of troops from that conflict is not "supporting the troops?" How does calling for all these National Guard types who have been ripped from their families and forced into lengthy deployments overseas to be sent back home to their jobs and loved ones not "support" them? How does wanting the regular GI Joes to be back stateside where they aren't shot at every day not "support" them?

Finally, how does being "liberal" equate with "hating" troops? But apparently, it does.

From today's Oregonian, a story involving a parade held yesterday to show "support for US troops overseas" included a quote from one of the parade's organizers, "This is from the most liberal city in Oregon to show how much we love and care about you." Clearly, statements like that evidence a belief by certain individuals that "liberals" are incapable or unwilling to show love and care for troops. It's just bizarre. Where does that notion come from? Sure, I suppose some "liberal" elements of society can be blamed for the PDH (public displays of hatred) that we saw during the Vietnam era. But really, is anyone spitting on troops as they return from combat these days? No.

More common, is the statement of a bystander also quoted in the article who said "I think [the Iraq war] is wrong. We don't take care enough of our own. I pray a lot for our forces over there, but we need to get the heck out of there." Now that's a "liberal" message I can live with.

- B 3:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.