How often does this need to be proven until the US media starts reporting this.

The Iraq war was a war of choice.

George wanted it - neogtiations, insepctions, none of that mattered.

Bush told Blair we're going to war, memo reveals

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today.

A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second UN resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme.

Tidbits:

· Mr Bush told Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".
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· Mr Bush told the prime minister that he "thought it unlikely that there would be internecine warfare between the different religious and ethnic groups". Mr Blair did not demur, according to the book.

- rob 5:30 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Good cop, Bad cop

Surveillance Prompts a Suit: Police v. Police

The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.

Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."

"That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.

Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.

- rob 4:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Battle Against Fraud

It's sad just how predictable it was that the reconstruction of Iraq would be marred by fraud, dishonesty and profiteering. Last week Robert Stein Jr. was charged in federal court with a slew of crimes allegedly committed while he was a financial officer for the American occupation authority in Iraq. The affidavit in the case says that Mr. Stein accepted over $200,000 a month to steer contracts to an American businessman whose companies often did poor work and sometimes did no work at all.

The case is a painful reminder of the absolute dearth of planning for rebuilding Iraq after the war. According to reporting by James Glanz in The Times, Mr. Stein was convicted of a fraud-related felony in 1996 and also fired from a job in 2002 for falsifying payroll records and invoices. The American government then sent him to help oversee construction projects in Hilla and the Shiite holy city of Karbala, with $82 million in taxpayer funds.

Did they purposefully hire criminals? Does that ever come up in job interviews? Or can you have a stolen cash register under your arm during the interview as long as you say Bush is your man?

Correction:

In Tuesday's editorial about fraud in the rebuilding of Iraq, the $82 million allegedly misappropriated there came from Iraqi oil sales, not from American tax dollars.

Well there you go - it isn't war profiteering - its looting. We have looted Iraq. George, militant Islamic extremists dedicated one of their daily prayers to you because of all that you have done for their cause.

You choose this war, and then you didn't know what to do the moment they unfurled that "mission accomplished" banner.

- rob 4:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Some grasp at straws - Bush grasps at strawmen

Bush has fought many battles

He has fought the one against people who say that the Iraqi people didn't want to vote (no one has found such people - but he fought against them just in case)

He has fought the battle against those who would weaken our national security and go back to 9/11 head in the sand mentality (I can't tell you how often I hear liberals say "you know what would be great, if we relaxed security and stuck our head in the sand. Well if the sand was clean.")

Now he fights against the isolationists (you know the guys who were 50 years old back in 1938).

What isolationism?
In his speech, the president presented a fiction to avoid a debate on tough policy questions.

IN HIS STATE of the Union address on Tuesday, President Bush worked himself into a lather about the dangers of "retreating within our borders." His speech bulged with ominous references to ostensibly resurgent isolationists hankering to "tie our hands" and leave "an assaulted world to fend for itself." Turning inward, the president cautioned, would provide "false comfort" because isolationism inevitably "ends in danger and decline."

But who exactly are these isolationists eager to pull up the drawbridges? What party do they control? What influential journals of opinion do they publish? Who are their leaders? Which foundations bankroll this isolationist cause?

The president provided no such details, and for good reason: They do not exist. Indeed, in present-day American politics, isolationism does not exist. It is a fiction, a fabrication and a smear imported from another era.

Here's one guy who does think we should have stayed out of World War II, and he too think Bush is full of it.

Patrick J. Buchanan: Bush Is Running Out of Alibis (warning: scary rightwing ad banners with creepy hellspawn photo of Novak and Coulter).

"American leaders from Roosevelt to Truman to Kennedy to Reagan rejected isolation and retreat."

Why would a president use his State of the Union to lash out at a school of foreign policy thought that has had zero influence in his administration? The answer is a simple one, but it is not an easy one for Bush to face: His foreign policy is visibly failing, and his critics have been proven right.

But rather than defend the fruits of his policy, Bush has chosen to caricature critics who warned him against interventionism. Like all politicians in trouble, Bush knows that the best defense is a good offense.

Having plunged us into an unnecessary war, Bush now confronts the real possibility of strategic defeat and a failed presidency.

- rob 4:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Look if it works in ficition it works in the real world.

Group airs ad during `24,' hoping to influence Patriot Act debate

During a commercial break while the fictional Bauer was desperately searching for canisters of deadly nerve gas that had fallen into the hands of terrorists, viewers saw an advertisement questioning the wisdom of real-life senators who would "weaken" the Patriot Act. "What if they are wrong?" the commercial asked.

It marked a blurring of Hollywood fantasy with political reality that represented a sharp departure even in the no-holds-barred world of political campaign advertising.

Moments before on the TV show, Bauer had just gained a crucial lead on the nerve gas after threatening to cut out the eyes of a turncoat White House aide who was in league with the terrorists.

Yeah, Remember that time when Fitzgerald threatened to cut out the eyes of Karl Rove to find out who leaked the name of a CIA agent? Yeah, that was so cool.

This reminds me of when Dan Quayle wanted to set policy based on Tom Clancy's writings.

Dan Quayle is also an admirer; once, in a speech on the Senate floor, Quayle advocated funding the ASAT antisatellite weapon on the grounds that it was what won the war in Red Storm Rising. "They're not just novels," Quayle explained. "They're read as the real thing."

Seriously should we start petitioning the government to work on a super soldier serum (it worked for Captain America). Wait, I know, maybe we should start exposing spiders to radiation and let them bite teenagers.

- rob 12:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Energy company charges a "we didn't make our profit numbers" surcharge.

National Grid Surcharges Due To Warm Weather

You will find a line on your January National Grid bill that reads “Adjustment For Changes From Normal Weather,” and a surcharge listed next to it.

National Grid says they needed to add the charge because they didn’t sell as much energy as they had expected. So to make up for the loss, they are charging customers an extra two percent.
...
If there is an abnormally cold month, and customers use more energy than expected, National Grid must issue that same two percent to customers.

It must be nice to be in the energy biz. You didn't stock enough - charge more. You stocked too much - charge more. You can't lose, I mean who could have an energy related company and lose money (oh, right, our President).

Actually maybe I'm being too hard on Bush, sure Arbusto was a bust, yet he personally did so well that he must be a shrewd business man. Surely you don't think an investor paid $1 million for 10% of a company that was worth less the a million just because of George's last name - do you?

- rob 12:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Is this job about representing your districts citizens or is it about getting that free lunch?

Lobbying Changes Divide House GOP

In a tense, 3 1/2 -hour closed-door session, many Republicans challenged virtually every element of the leadership's proposal, from a blanket ban on privately funded travel to stricter limits on gifts to an end to gym privileges for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists.

Yeah right, like ex-lawmakers actually exercise... Please.

Hey, we love to make fun of the salary hikes these folks in the House give each other year after year. But many of them have to maintain a home back in their district as well as a home in the DC area (not cheap). That is going to eat into their salary pretty quick (as I don't see them opening up a House dorm anytime soon.).

I'd be happy to make it so they aren't allowed to get anything for free - no meals - no sports shows - no trips that aren't paid for by the government - nothing. Give them huge salary increases. Make it so that someone can run for office who isn't rich and stay in office without having to sell his soul. The overall effect of the budget would be pretty damn small, but the feeling that our representatives work for us would be worth it (and it would piss the incumbents off, because they like the free stuff, it is what they are there for a large part of the time - sadly).

- rob 5:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A democracy requires the ability of its citizenry to vote.

That ability is in question in America.

Meanwhile the ruling party of America, the GOP really hasn't figured out how voting works: via Talking Points Memo

Roll Call has it too: "House Republicans are taking a mulligan on the first ballot for Majority Leader. The first count showed more votes cast than Republicans present at the Conference meeting."

Says TPM Reader JP: "This is priceless. They try to steal their own elections!"

Stealing elections, don't be so naive to believe this hasn't happened. And it isn't dead folks from Baltimore or Chicago voting anymore, that's old school. The modern way to steal an election leave no trace save for the death of democracy.

As Elections Near, Officials Challenge Balloting SecurityIn Controlled Test, Results Are Manipulated in Florida System

As the Leon County supervisor of elections, Ion Sancho's job is to make sure voting is free of fraud. But the most brazen effort lately to manipulate election results in this Florida locality was carried out by Sancho himself.

Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. To Sancho, the results showed the vulnerability of voting equipment manufactured by Ohio-based Diebold Election Systems, which is used by Leon County and many other jurisdictions around the country.
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"Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?"

Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no.

"Was it possible for a disgruntled employee to do this and not have the elections administrator find out?" Sancho asked. "The answer was yes."

Anyone want to do an overlay of districts in Florida that used optical scan machines and the districts of Florida who's results were most out of sync with exit polls. Anyone? Are the any reporters out there who want a Pulitzer? Am I still so naive as to believe that shenanigans in elections is a big story?.

From ComputerWorld: Q&A: E-voting systems hacker sees "particularly bad" security issues

Can you tell us about some of your e-voting machine hacking activities? On Tuesday, Dec. 13, we conducted a hack of the Diebold AccuVote optical scan device. I wrote a five-line script in Visual Basic that would allow you to go into the central tabulator and change any vote total you wanted, leaving no logs. It requires physical access to a machine, which in many counties isnÂ?t very difficult to get -- you have elections offices full of volunteers.
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Diebold has claimed that the hacks have been unfair. Your response? I would love to do a demonstration where Diebold participates. There are certainly other voting companies that make tabulation software as well as optical scan gear, and we're seeing the same vulnerabilities as we've seen in Diebold's systems, which raises a broader question. That's about whether the verification and validation processes these machines go through are woefully inadequate or not. The e-voting companies arenÂ?t volunteering up their systems for independent audits and analysis.

Is the security in e-voting up to the standards business executives would demand in their business applications? No way. Definitely not.

Your email account is a lot more secure then your democracy. Even if you are using Windows. Scared yet?


Update about the House vote today:

House Republican officials now say there was one extra ballot cast - by the Republican delegate from Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico does not have a vote on the House floor, so they are not used to the delegate voting.

Feel free to insert your "Republicans didn't realize Puerto Ricans had at least some rights" joke here.

Update II: Actually that excuse seems a little week, if they had more votes than "Republicans present at the Conference meeting," how did they count the republicans? "...okay how many of us are in this room, show of hands: except for the Puerto Rican, he can keep his hand down." Weird.

- rob 5:31 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush defends Exxon Mobil profits

Nashville, Tenn. - President Bush defended the huge profits of Exxon Mobil Corp. on Wednesday, saying they are simply the result of the marketplace and that consumers socked with soaring energy costs should not expect price breaks.

- rob 3:29 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush a Man of his Word

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
- G.W. Bush, 9/13/01

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
- G.W. Bush, 3/13/02

"I understand there's some in America who say, well, this can't be true [that] there are still people willing to attack. All I would ask them to do is listen to the words of Osama bin Laden and take him seriously," - G.W. Bush, 1/26/06 (as an aside here, I can't think of anyone in America who actually thinks "this can't be true [that] there are still people willing to attach" The only idiot who would think that is the type that thinks invading Iraq was so effective in scaring terrorists that bin Laden won't attack. )

Yes, Bush is a man who stands by his words - always has - he's just a straight shooting everyman who thinks the constitutionally required state of the union address is a fine time to make empty political promises. Promises he won't keep for as long as 24 hours.

Administration backs off Bush's vow to reduce Mideast oil imports

WASHINGTON - One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.
...
Bush vowed to fund research into better batteries for hybrid vehicles and more production of the alternative fuel ethanol, setting a lofty goal of replacing "more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025."

He pledged to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past."

Not exactly, though, it turns out.

"This was purely an example," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said.

And when he said the American economy was strong that was just an example of what a President would say at a state of the union. If you thing strong means that the economy is sound and that the private and public debt is of a manageable level leaving the economy secure for extended growth then you're just taking the President too literally.

Today's GOP - they take the bible literally - but laws, policies, and constitutions are up for interpretation.

In fact Bush is actively promoting our servitude to foreign oil:

Bush's Goals on Energy Quickly Find Obstacles

In 2004, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that a gasoline tax of 46 cents a gallon, up from today's federal tax of 18 cents, would reduce gasoline consumption by 10 percent over the next 14 years.

But when asked why Mr. Bush had not called on the public to sacrifice to reduce oil consumption, Samuel W. Bodman, the energy secretary, said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that "many Americans believe they're already sacrificing by paying the prices they're paying for gasoline and heating oil and natural gas."

And gee shucks a "leader" wouldn't, you know, ask Americans to pay more if they, gosh, think they're already paying, like, a lot.

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas.

We're not willing to spend even 200 million to actually lesson our dependence on foreign oil. It is all just talk.

Our need for oil is a national security issue. The money we pay for oil funds governments who actively promote anti-American sentiment. The money we pay for oil goes to terrorists organizations as "insurance money" from oil producing nations so the terrorists will leave them alone. The oil companies have practices in foreign nations that mistreat the local citizenry and increase ill will towards America.

Democrats. Forget promoting alternative fuel as a feel good save the world policy (though it may well help in saving the world). No, alternative fuel is a national security priority. You pour the kind of money we spend on unusable defense initatives into fuel research with hard targets and objectives and I'm pretty damn sure my DeLorean will be able to run on banana peels thanks to my Mr. Fusion by the year 2025. If we keep going with just buying foreign oil and trying to make coal somehow burn "clean" we might as well just strap my DeLorean to a steam train and push it down the tracks come 2025 when the oil runs out.

- rob 2:27 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Leak prober got supersecret files

Libby will show that "any errors he made in his FBI interviews or grand jury testimony, months after the conversations, were the result of confusion, mistake or faulty memory rather than a willful intent to deceive," his lawyers argued.

The special counsel got the presidential briefing in his hunt for any files concerning Plame or her husband, Joe Wilson, a diplomat sent to Niger in 2002 to see whether the African regime sold uranium to Iraq.

Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby's request, said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy.

Ooopsy. Well isn't it just like ol' "all thumbs Dick" to delete the emails when he thought he was copying them.

This could get to be a big story, or not, newsworthy doesn't seem to be a requirement for a news story anymore - did you hear Lindsay Lohan broke a tea cup?

- rob 4:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Homeland Security: It's all about keeping America safe (from unlicensed product)

Bogus NFL memorabilia is not welcome in Detroit

Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Immigration officers will focus on bogus NFL memorabilia this week.

- rob 4:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Good to see someone noticed.

Untimely removal

LAST Wednesday President Bush removed Noel L. Hillman, the chief prosecutor in the Jack Abramoff lobbying and bribery scandal, from the case. Mr. Bush's action came as the media and his critics swarmed around the problem of trying to pry publicly owned photographs of Mr. Bush with Mr. Abramoff from the White House.

The President's means of taking Mr. Hillman, head of the Department of Justice's Office of Public Integrity since 2002, out of the picture was to nominate him for a federal judgeship, in effect, kicking him upstairs.

- rob 2:32 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush's job rating is low
Because his jobs pay low
har har har - thank you I'll be here all week

Daily Kos: Bush's Jobs Pay $9000 LESS Per Year

Last night, Bush told us the economy has created 4.5 million jobs in the last 2.5 years. (Notice how he used a figure from May 2003 instead of the beginning of his term in the White House?). But, Bush didn't mention a very important fact about these new jobs: and the jobs created pay on average $9,000 less than the jobs lost.

- rob 2:17 PM - [PermaLink] -

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And you thought Bush made a bad speech last night

Copy-and-paste speech exposes double-talk

TIRANA (Reuters) - When a politician speaks, the public may feel they have heard it all before, but this has taken on a whole new meaning in Albania.
...
Top Channel television broadcast Berisha [current prime minister], a conservative, reading three paragraphs of a speech on energy policy, followed by a clip of Nano[former prime minister], a socialist, delivering the same quotes three years earlier. The cryptic wording was virtually identical.

- rob 1:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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If you are looking for informative and useful information about last night's State of the Union (or SOTU if you are really cool) I would recommend that you point your browser elsewhere - we don't seem to be very focused here today at TCS.

You could try a great wrap up at Think Progress which covers in detail the following pieces of the SOTU (berata nicto):

• SOTU: The White House Is Set To Repeat Its Mistakes After Katrina
• SOTU: Poverty Has Worsened Under Bush
• SOTU: The Bush Administration Continues To Bungle Katrina Reconstruction
• SOTU: The Bush Administration Has Betrayed The Public Trust
• SOTU: Bush Has Cut Science Education Funding
• SOTU: Bush Wanted Renewable Energy Cuts
• SOTU: Dependence on Foreign Oil Has Increased Under Bush
• SOTU: Health Savings Accounts Fail To Provide Savings Or Address Costs
• SOTU: Bush Has Overseen Massive Deficits
• SOTU: Making Bush’s Tax Cuts Permanent Would Be Costly
• SOTU: Tax Cuts Didn’t Help Economy
• SOTU: Bush Job Growth Lowest Since WWII
• SOTU: Bush Did Not Inform Appropriate Members of Congress
• SOTU: Bush Falsely Claims That Previous Administration Did The Same Thing
• SOTU: Bush Pushes Two Hijacker Myth
• SOTU: House Conservatives Are Holding Up Bipartisan Compromise On Patriot Act
• SOTU: Bush Administration Flunking on Homeland Defense
• SOTU: Bush Approach to Iran Has Weakened U.S. Position
• SOTU: Bush Has Failed To Support The Troops

Yep, they cover all of that in detail - wow some people actually put some time and effort into their web sites - weird huh.

For a more "traditional" take on the SOTU check out:

Bush Skips Complex Realities in Address

WASHINGTON -- President Bush set energy self-sufficiency goals Tuesday night that would still leave the country vulnerable to unstable oil sources. He also declared he is helping more people get health care, despite a rising number of uninsured.

Whether promoting a plan to "save Social Security" or describing Iraqi security forces as "increasingly capable of defeating the enemy," Bush skipped over some complex realities in his State of the Union speech.
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Bush urged Americans to back his secretive domestic spy program, saying he was using his "authority given to me by the Constitution and by statute" and noting that "appropriate members of Congress have been kept informed."

Bush did not address the counterarguments that he failed to heed a separate 1978 law that specifically calls for court approval to conduct the surveillance. Some lawmakers have also questioned why Bush did not brief more than eight members of Congress about the program, which has been in effect since 2001
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He spoke of saving taxpayers $14 billion next year if his budget proposals are adopted, not mentioning some of those savings would come from health care programs such as Medicaid.

Whoever wrote that article is being scratched of Karl Rove's Christmas card list for next year.

- rob 12:50 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Yes making fun of Bush's face (see post below) is incredibly lame and easy. But you're visiting a site called This Century Sucks - A Fair and Balanced look at the corrupt and evil whistle ass administration, so I'm not really sure what you'd expect.

Anyway to prove we're fair and balanced here's a photo from last night:


Whenever he says "freedom is on the march" make a face like this

- rob 12:38 PM - [PermaLink] -

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From the: State of the Union 2006

Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research: human cloning in all its forms, creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids, and buying, selling, or patenting human embryos.

Bush is aware there are threats facing American - so he made a pronouncement last night - Stop the invasion of the humanzees! (please don't call the chumans. It is an offense term to the humanzees.


what would Oliver think

Personally I think Bonobans would be a more interesting creation (and I want credit for coining the term Bonoban if it hasn't already been used for the mix of human with Bonobo).

Update: I was thinking a little more about the humanzee problem and then suddenly I remembered this classic image:



How could I have forgotten! The threat is real, and Bush is the humanzee's secret weapon for the coming human vs humanzee war! Bush is softening up the human race. We must stop fighting over our petty differences - we have met the enemy and he is half we.

- rob 10:19 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Thanks to Bush Iraq is now a very dangerous place for Christians - and not only the American ones

IRAQ: Sectarian tensions on the rise

In the wake of the bombs which exploded outside two churches in Kirkuk, two in the capital Baghdad, as well as the Vatican embassy, killing 16 and injuring 20, Christian families are reportedly leaving the country in fear of more violence.

"We've heard of dozens of families preparing to leave Iraq, afraid of more attacks," said Farah Annuar, spokesman for the Christian Organisation of Iraq.

Christians make up about three percent of the population, or an estimated 800,000 people, according to a 2005 census. Kirkuk is home to the second biggest Christian community after Baghdad.

"I don't want to lose my children due to political problems," said Rita Paolo, a mother of two, as she made preparations to leave. "I will take them to Jordan to live far away from this discrimination and anger."

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Yeehaawww - the Bush Boom

Exxon profit tops $10 billion, capping record year

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported a quarterly profit of $10.7 billion on Monday, rounding out the most profitable year in U.S. corporate history.

The results pushed up Exxon's profit for the year to a staggering $36.13 billion -- bigger than the economies of 125 of the 184 countries ranked by the World Bank. Profit rose 42 percent from 2004, largely due to soaring oil and gas prices.

Yes sirree - Happy days are here again - let the champagne flow - these are the salad days.

Except the salad is a hunk of iceberg lettuce with a dollop of mayo.

Because the Bush boom is a horrible bust, and as each day passes Americans are losing more money.

Deep in the amazingly dry article: U.S. Employment Cost Index Increased 0.8% in Fourth Quarter, you'll find a very interesting piece of information: The raises Americans received last year weren't enough to keep up with inflation.

Last year, wages failed to keep up with inflation. Including changes in prices, wages and salaries fell 0.8 percent for a second straight year in 2005.

Bush isn't a President for Americans, he is a President for American businesses. And the idea that what is good for American business is good for American isn't true anymore when these corporations have the majority of their wages paid outside America (when you count their subcontractors) or if they don't pay their share of taxes.

Small local businesses are good for America, but Bush doesn't really believe in small businesses - except unless you wanna buy some wood from him.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get
Another day older and deeper in debt

- rob 5:40 PM - [PermaLink] -

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You know there are days when you sit back and wonder and say "well this century doesn't really suck - I mean its not like we have an arms race with Russia or anything - then the century would really suck."

Welcome to TCS's world where we sadly realize a little more each day that our sarcastic url is actually more of a factual statement.

Putin Touts Russia's Missile Capabilities

President Vladimir Putin boasted Tuesday that Russia has missiles capable of penetrating any missile defense system, Russian news reports said.

"Russia ... has tested missile systems that no one in the world has," the ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted him as saying at a news conference. "These missile systems don't represent a response to a missile defense system, but they are immune to that. They are hypersonic and capable of changing their flight path."

Putin said the new missiles were capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

First we got the bomb, and that was good
'Cause we love peace and motherhood
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way
Who's next
- Tom Lehrer (Who's Next)

- rob 4:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Look if the nation's top cop can't break the law then who can? (and don't say no one because that kind of thinking is is sooooo pre 9/11)

Gonzales Is Challenged on Wiretaps

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) charged yesterday that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales misled the Senate during his confirmation hearing a year ago when he appeared to try to avoid answering a question about whether the president could authorize warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens.

In a letter to the attorney general yesterday, Feingold demanded to know why Gonzales dismissed the senator's question about warrantless eavesdropping as a "hypothetical situation" during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January 2005. At the hearing, Feingold asked Gonzales where the president's authority ends and whether Gonzales believed the president could, for example, act in contravention of existing criminal laws and spy on U.S. citizens without a warrant.

Gonzales said that it was impossible to answer such a hypothetical question but that it was "not the policy or the agenda of this president" to authorize actions that conflict with existing law. He added that he would hope to alert Congress if the president ever chose to authorize warrantless surveillance, according to a transcript of the hearing.

Seriously what is Feingold thinking. The Senate no longer has any reason to exist. Bush put his own "interpretation" on bill he signs into laws, and just breaks the ones he doesn't agree with.

Any request from information from a congressional committee is greeted with derisive laughter.

The Senate will only catch on to what has happened to their authority when Bush nominates a horse.

- rob 3:16 PM - [PermaLink] -

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The Republicans: We can't be trusted with your children's money

They spend and spend and spend - and now they've spent so much they've broken the law - just in time for the State of the Union (not that anyone will notice)

FSU Editorial: "U.S. in Technical Default"

In a shocking development, the Treasury Department website is openly stating that as of January 24, 2006 our national debt stood at $8,185.3 billion and on January 26th at $8,190.5 billion.

http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm

Yet the US national debt ‘ceiling’, the maximum amount of debt the US government may hold at any one time, stands at $8,184 billion – a full $5.5 billion less. Although called upon by John Snow, Congress has not yet passed an expansion of the debt ceiling and so the US government is now operating in technical default.
...
The last debt-ceiling adjustment was $800 billion and was passed in November 2004. Now, on January 24th 2006, it is entirely gone. $800 billion in only 16 months for an average of $50B a month.

Factoring out the plundering of excess social security contributions, the US government borrowed $52B in 3Q05, $96B in 4Q05 and expects to borrow $171B in 1Q06.

This isn't just the tax cuts, this isn't just Iraq, this isn't just the "war on terrah", no this is a shopping spress by a congress and a President that desparately want to pay back their constituents (not the voters - the donors).

The republicans can not be trusted with your money. Let's look at some of the recent history.

It just the past year (9/30/04-9/30/05) Bush added $555 billion dollars to the deficit. That is over twice as much as the amount Clinton added to the deficit in 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000 Combined.

• Bush added $1,571,589,284,130.26 to the deficit in his first term (9/28/01-9/30/04)
• Clinton added $261,032,198,489.52 to the deficit in his second term (9/30/97-9/29/00)
• Clinton added $813,322,055,996.35 to the deficit in his first term (9/30/93-9/30/96)
• G H W Bush added $1,207,189,695,334.34 (wow that's close to his son's first term - money must not be real to these guys) to the deficit in his only term (9/29/89-9/30/92)
• Ronald Reagan added $656,396,095,581.28 to the deficit in his second term (12/31/85-9/30/88)(note that the time period on this is 3 months less then all the others.)
• Ronald Reagan added $634,237,000,000.00 to the deficit in his first term (12/31/81-12/31/84)
• Jimmy Carter added $211,267,000,000.00 to the deficit in his only term (12/31/81-12/31/84).

The Republican's being the party of fiscal responsibility is an urban legend.

- rob 1:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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So you may have been wondering why the White House has been reluctant to release any documents pertaining to the administration's contact with Abramoff. "hmm" you say to yourself, "why is Scott constantly saying the white house doesn't want to go bowling or fishing or whatever." I know this will surprise you, but perhaps Scott keeps on talking about how the White House doesn't want the press to go on a fishing trip becuarse he knows the fish are biting - hard.

Official Tipped Abramoff on Client's Case, Filing Says

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a widening influence-peddling investigation, used a contact in the federal government to give an early warning to Tyco International, one of his clients, that its subsidiaries were about to be suspended from doing business with the government, according to a court filing.

The document, filed Friday by federal prosecutors, asserts that David H. Safavian, the former chief of the General Services Administration who is under indictment, learned in November 2003 that four subsidiaries of Tyco were about to be suspended from obtaining government work. The filing, which was reported on Saturday by The Washington Post, said Mr. Safavian told Mr. Abramoff of the impending suspensions, along with some of the confidential discussions within his agency involving the issue.

- rob 4:23 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush says with the Iraqi war that he was working on the best intelligence - but Bush has a weird relationship with intelligence and advice, if he doesn't like what he hears he doesn't believe it.

Facts have become political enemies.

I disagree with Bush's policies, but even if I didn't I think I would be amazed at how incompetent he has been in implementing them. The neo-cons have an inferiority complex as many privileged kids get. Subconsciously they know they don't deserve to be where they are - so they make up a fantasy world where they are actually super smart and that everyone who disagrees with them is politically motivated, jealous, or even an outright traitor.

They get angry and outraged about negative reports about any of Bush's policies or actions because they actually believe all is going well. They were involved so it must be going perfect - QED.

Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
...
The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists.

Or maybe I'm making this too complex. Both times Bush came close to winning (and then magic elves helped him get elected) in part by mocking intelligent people. Maybe Bush really just doesn't like smart people. He doesn't hang with them nor does anyone in his staff. We all laughed when he and Harriet Myers kept going on about their mutual respect and awe of the other's intelligence. They weren't lying maybe Bush is the smartest person Harriet knows - and vice versa.

- rob 3:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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As NYTimes thinks it is actually possible to make money on the intraweb (that's what all the kewl people call the internets these days) I'll have to give you this Krugman piece via Daily Kos: Paul Krugman DESTROYS Howell, Couric

How does one report the facts," asked Rob Corddry on "The Daily Show," "when the facts themselves are biased?" He explained to Jon Stewart, who played straight man, that "facts in Iraq have an anti-Bush agenda," and therefore can't be reported.

Mr. Corddry's parody of journalists who believe they must be "balanced" even when the truth isn't balanced continues, alas, to ring true. The most recent example is the peculiar determination of some news organizations to cast the scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff as "bipartisan."
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----over the past few weeks a number of journalists, ranging from The Washington Post's ombudsman to the "Today" show's Katie Couric, have declared that Mr. Abramoff gave money to both parties. In each case the journalists or their news organization, when challenged, grudgingly conceded that Mr. Abramoff himself hasn't given a penny to Democrats. But in each case they claimed that this is only a technical point, because Mr. Abramoff's clients -- those Indian tribes -- gave money to Democrats as well as Republicans, money the news organizations say he "directed" to Democrats.
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But the tribes were already giving money to Democrats before Mr. Abramoff entered the picture; he persuaded them to reduce those Democratic donations, while
So the reluctance of some journalists to report facts that, in this case, happen to have an anti-Republican agenda is a serious matter. It's not a stretch to say that these journalists are acting as enablers for the rampant corruption that has emerged in Washington over the last decade.

Here's a little chart of the biased facts (taken from this Kos post):



Dems Don’t Know Jack

A new and extensive analysis of campaign donations from all of Jack Abramoff’s tribal clients, done by a nonpartisan research firm, shows that a great majority of contributions made by those clients went to Republicans. The analysis undercuts the claim that Abramoff directed sums to Democrats at anywhere near the same rate.
...
The analysis shows that when Abramoff took on his tribal clients, the majority of them dramatically ratcheted up donations to Republicans. Meanwhile, donations to Democrats from the same clients either dropped, remained largely static or, in two cases, rose by a far smaller percentage than the ones to Republicans did. This pattern suggests that whatever money went to Democrats, rather than having been steered by Abramoff, may have largely been money the tribes would have given anyway.

- rob 3:28 PM - [PermaLink] -

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mismanagement, squandered, poor accounting. In my day it was called looting. Of course I'm like really old dude.

Audit: U.S.-led occupation squandered aid

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iraqi money gambled away in the Philippines. Thousands spent on a swimming pool that was never used. An elevator repaired so poorly that it crashed, killing people.
...
Dryly written audit reports describe the Coalition Provisional Authority's offices in the south-central city of Hillah being awash in bricks of $100 bills taken from a central vault without documentation.

It describes one agent who kept almost $700,000 in cash in an unlocked footlocker and mentions a U.S. soldier who gambled away as much as $60,000 in reconstruction funds in the Philippines.

"Tens of millions of dollars in cash had gone in and out of the South-Central Region vault without any tracking of who deposited or withdrew the money, and why it was taken out," says a report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, which is in the midst of a series of audits for the Pentagon and State Department.

- rob 3:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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So this is a good sign for the "bush boom" eh?

Savings Rate at Lowest Level Since 1933

WASHINGTON - Americans' personal savings rate dipped into negative territory in 2005, something that hasn't happened since the Great Depression. Consumers depleted their savings to finance the purchases of cars and other big-ticket items.

Money money every where but not a drop to save.

The government has so much debt it is without a fall back position - and now its own citizens are getting into the act. Soon they will realize they won't have enough to keep spending like this anymore. Their home values will stop increasing (or even go down), the gas will get more expensive, and yet another year will pass by with the raise not keeping up with inflation. Last time the depression created the situation - let's hope this time this situation doesn't create a depression. At least we have competent leaders in Washington in case this happens. (do I need a sarcasm tag?)

Note: I was thinking of adding this quote:
I know a place where they live for today
because tomorrow is too far away
- Kirsty MacColl
But then I remembered I already used that quote this week - so I won't use it here.

- rob 2:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I lot of Republican doctors find it offensive to their beliefs to treat poor people.

Health Workers' Choice Debated

More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients' rights.

About half of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and "morning-after" pills because they believe the drugs cause abortions. But many are far broader measures that would shelter a doctor, nurse, aide, technician or other employee who objects to any therapy. That might include in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians. [emphasis added]

Bush understands that it may be difficult to actually choose not to treat poor people so he is working hard to make sure even less poor people even get to the point of being able to receive treatment:

Budget to Hurt Poor People on Medicaid, Report Says

WASHINGTON, Jan. 29 Â? Millions of low-income people would have to pay more for health care under a bill worked out by Congress, and some of them would forgo care or drop out of Medicaid because of the higher co-payments and premiums, the Congressional Budget Office says in a new report.
...
"In response to the new premiums, some beneficiaries would not apply for Medicaid, would leave the program or would become ineligible due to nonpayment," the Congressional Budget Office said in its report, completed Friday night. "C.B.O. estimates that about 45,000 enrollees would lose coverage in fiscal year 2010 and that 65,000 would lose coverage in fiscal year 2015 because of the imposition of premiums. About 60 percent of those losing coverage would be children."
...
Other provisions of the bill would establish stricter work requirements for welfare recipients and cut federal payments to the states for enforcing child support orders.

Because what makes the situation for a single mom who can't afford health care? Taking away the dad's minimal child support check. Damn those guys don't miss a trick.

The GOP has been decrying any talk of social cuts as "class warfare." They should know they have been fighting the war for years and the democrats haven't even noticed that they amassed troops. There is a class war - and the GOP is winning. It isn't about the rich getting to keep more of their money it is about preventing the poor from ever getting out of the hole which live has dug them.

Many in the rich feel so entitled to their wealth that and to see the struggling working poor actually make it out of poverty is a wound to their egos - it makes them less special.

The present GOP policy is to create a permanent under class. It isn't a joke, and meanwhile Democrats don't want to speak up for fear their voice may be too shrill. Today's Democratic Party: We'll speak up as soon as our voices change.

- rob 2:14 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Subject: Groundhog Day

This year, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union Address fall on the same day. As Air America Radio pointed out, "It is an ironic juxtaposition: one involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involves a groundhog."

- rob 11:06 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Alito Filibuster, Mon. Morning Update: 2 Votes Shy...
Only 2 senators short with hours to go. If this report is true, I'm shocked by how comatose the US media is. Headed into the State of the Union address, this should be breaking headline news.

- Edoc 8:41 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Sunday Morning Talk Shows
I watched few minutes of several of the political roundtable shows this morning. In particular, I caught the tail-end of Howard Dean being interviewed by Fox's Chris Wallace. Dean was surprisingly effective, and was, for the mostpart, able to defend the DNC claim of being outside the scope of the Abramoff scandal. Dean was very emphatic, and spoke very quickly, enabling him to control the discussion. From what I saw, Wallace was unable to pull any of his usual surprises in an attempt to ensare the democrats. Read the transcript for yourself. Very well done, Howard Dean.

Bumbling Bush Interview
The other fragment I caught was a taped interview by CBS Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer with the president himself. As usual, Bush struggled to formulate competent, direct answers to the questions. On several points, especially the NSA spy questions, I found myself in knots, thinking, "There's no way Schieffer can let that smokescreen/non-answer stand-- he's got to press with a follow-up." And thankfully, most of the time he did (e.g., "Given your definition of powers Mr. President, what powers do you feel you don't have?" [paraphrased by me]) Bush mumbled and bumbled, and in the end squeaked away with his usual aw-shucks folksiness and regurgitated talking points. I'm a focus-group of one-- and a biased one at that-- but the President came off as a poor communicator who's out of touch with the skullduggery going on in his administration.

Sunday NY Times Editorial
This morning's New York Times has a good editorial on the steady stream of lies that have emanated from the White House on the NSA wiretapping story. It's refreshing to see a newspaper call it for what it is: lying and breaking the law. I wish the democrats would stop equivocating over this and be more forthright in framing this as illegal behavior. We should not graciously be giving this president the benefit of the doubt, as (R) Sen. Chuck Hagel did this morning on ABC's This Week. Better to call it as it appears with this administration.

Status of Alito Fillibuster: Just a Few Senators Short
Democrats need 41 senators to fillibuster the cloture of supreme court nominee Samuel Alito tomorrow (Monday). According to this DailyKos post, the current tally is 37. Yesterday I called 4 democratic senators who are reportedly "on-the-fence" in hopes of persuading them to support a fillibuster. In each case, however, I was patched through to their voice mailboxes, which were full. I support a fillibuster because I believe that Sam Alito provided Congress with sterile statements about key issues such as presidential powers and Roe v Wade (yes, I use Roe as a litmus test, not simply one of a mixed-bag of hot-button issues).

On FOX News this morning, Brit Hume and Chris Wallace painted pro-fillibuster crowd as unreasonable radicals who are trying to obstruct the inevitable confirmation. This is the typical line that the media has been plying us with to smooth confirmation of a far-right judge. Let's just leave it at this: If you feel that for the next few decades this nation will not best-served with a more conservative Supreme Court, then I ask you to make your voice heard to the remaining senators.

- Edoc 1:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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