GoBackToTexas.com Blog

2005-11-20T01:12:00.000-08:00

Concrete Block

"Iraq is now a cloud over everything," said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan political analyst specializing in Congress. "It's the 800-pound gorilla in the room."

"I feel like every morning, I wake up, get a concrete block and have to walk around with it all day," said first-term Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who came to the Senate with an ambitious agenda to overhaul Social Security and the tax code. "We can't even address the issues."

Iraq was ambitious enough for me, thank you very much. There's a good reason members of your party have to carry around a concrete block; a very good reason. You fucked up. Big time. Please don't whine about the negative political consequences you must now face as a result.

2005-11-19T22:16:00.000-08:00

CIA Mystery Flights???

Here's an interesting story from Canada:

CIA-linked plane landed in Canada: Report
Nov. 19, 2005. 07:35 PM

OTTAWA (CP) — Records show a privately owned airplane that has been linked to an alleged CIA front flew from Newfoundland to the United States on Friday, raising new questions about Canada's role in the fight against terrorism.

Flight data obtained by The Canadian Press reveals the 40-seat turboprop plane travelled from St. John's, N.L., to New Hampshire and finally on to its home base in North Carolina.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has come under scrutiny in recent months over its apparent use of civilian aircraft to ferry terrorism suspects around the globe.

Ottawa engineer Maher Arar says in 2002 he was bundled aboard a small jet that took him from New Jersey to Washington, D.C., Maine, Rome and eventually Jordan. From there, he was driven blindfolded to Syria, where he was imprisoned and interrogated as a suspected al-Qaida member.

Mr. Arar was a dual Canadian-Syrian citizen, and had every right to be in Canada. But note his final destination: Jordan.

The paper also notes this:

The flight data records obtained Saturday by CP indicate the N196D turboprop left St. John's on Friday for Manchester, N.H., then carried on to Johnston County Airport in Smithfield, N.C.

The airport has been identified as an alleged hub for covert American air operations.

U.S. Federal Aviation Administration records show the plane in question is registered to Devon Holding and Leasing Inc. of Lexington, N.C.

In late May, the New York Times published a photograph of a similar plane, with the identification number N168D, to illustrate a story about the CIA's extensive use of civilian aircraft.

According to FAA records, that plane is also registered to Devon Holding and Leasing.

Hmm...N196, Devon Holding and leasing. Now here is another interesting passage:

John Sifton, an analyst with New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in an interview with La Presse the two Devon aircraft suspected of landing on Canadian soil had the authority to land "on any U.S. military base on the planet."

He said two other aircraft had similar authorization. Those planes also landed in Canada in 2001, according to aircraft registries consulted by the newspaper.

Well guess what Canadians; I think you might have missed a torture plane.

Because here's a picture of non other than flight N196D, in Malta, taken on May 17, 2004.

And the flight path of that flight:

Routed via Halifax[Canada]-New Foundland[Canada](CYYT)-BIKF(KEFLAVIK Iceland)-Edinburgh-Frankfurt-Malta-Amman(Jordan).

So we are 1.) Secretly sending planes 2.) Through countries without asking their permission or informing them of the true nature of the flight 3.) To third countries where torture is known to be practiced so we can hand over the suspects.

I keep thinking things can't get much worse, and the Bush administration keeps proving me wrong. Sorry Canada. And victims of torture.

2005-11-19T17:24:00.000-08:00

Woodward then:

"And, there's a lot of innocent actions in all of this but what has happened this prosecutor, I mean I used to call Mike Isikoff when he worked at the 'Washington Post' the junkyard dog. Well this is a junkyard dog prosecutor and he goes everywhere and asks every question and turns over rocks and rocks under rocks and so forth."

And that case, when I think it is all told, there is going to be nothing to it. And it is a shame. And the special prosecutor in that case, his behavior, in my view, has been disgraceful.

And that case, when I think it is all told, there is going to be nothing to it. And it is a shame. And the special prosecutor in that case, his behavior, in my view, has been disgraceful.

Woodward now:

Woodward expressed some surprise that Fitzgerald hadn't contacted him earlier in the probe, but had high praise for the prosecutor whose investigation he has openly criticized on television. During his time with the prosecutor, Woodward said, he found Fitzgerald "incredibly sensitive to what we do. He didn't infringe on my other reporting, which frankly surprised me. He said 'This is what I need, I don't need any more.'"

You mean, he didn't maul you or rip out your throat?

Fitzgerald: professional, competent.

Woodward:

2005-10-30T22:22:00.000-08:00

Bush Announces Supreme Court Pick
From AP

October 31, 2005
(Washington)

The White House, reeling from several weeks of bad news, today sought to put their best foot forward at an unconventional 12 a.m. news conference announcing the appointment of Count. V. Dracula to the Supreme Court

"I am proud to nominate Count Vladmir Dracula as my next nominee to the Supreme Court. Count Dracula will be the first nationalized American Citizen to sit on the Supreme Court,which reflects well of the diversity that we as a nation embrace.

"I undestand that some of you may question my choice in the Count, but I am the President, and I must make bold decisions. I know that dracula has a good heart, and that he will make a good Supreme court candidate," said president Bush in announcing the choice.

Dracula, thanking the President, said: "I am very grateful to Bush and to bloood!!!"

He then grabbed NBC's White House correspondent David Gregory and appeared to suck blood out of his neck for several minutes while Gregory asked questions and took down notes on his notepad.

Though Bush and Dracula have long been acquaintances, the relationship blossomed over the last several years when the Count apparently shared several "secret non-disclosed locations" with Vice President Dick Cheney.

2005-10-29T01:31:00.000-07:00

Fitzgerald Has Bush in a Catch 22

Karl Rove's modus operandi has always been to savagely attack, no matter how hypocritical or false the attack may be.

But just as Rove and Bush face their most serious political crisis ever, Rove is robbed of his political superpowers, and Bush remains seriously vulnerable.

Patrick Fitzgerald has also demonstrated a cunning prosecutorial strategy. Instead of announcing all of the indictments in the case, Fitzgerald only announced one, and said that the investigation would be continuing; more indictments for others could still follow.

Apparently, according to rumors, Karl Rove narrowly escaped indictment this time around. And although Rove may be a very splendid archetype of one of those villainous characters who would stab you in the back after you saved his life, because of the way that Fitzgerald has handled this, Rove can do very little.

He can not, as was done with John Kerry and Joe Wilson (and many others) launch a slanderous (and perhaps libelous) attack against Patrick Fitzgerald. Because, and I may differ with our friend Tom Delay, who as I understand it is very happy to have been indicted, it is not a sound legal strategy to attack the prosecutor who has the ability to prosecute you. If Patrick Fitzgerald is weighing in his mind whether he should bring a charge, such actions would likely piss him off.

But it gets better. I'm studying for the bar right now, and the indictments prove an interesting read. There is no way, even if he might have a good case, that "Scooter" is going to want to go on trial for this, if he has any loyalty in him to the Republican party. Such a trial would bring out such scandalous information about the way that the corrupt Bush administration has operated, it would almost certainly wipe away any republican chances of power until 2010.

The only plausible scenario that comes to mind in which Scooter might be able to escape the joy of prison life is if he spills the beans on Cheney and Rove (and who knows who else).

So the chance is very good that Libby will go to prison, and if not Libby, someone even higher in the administration. When Lawrence Walsh made his Iran Contra indictments, it was at the end of the Bush administration, allowing Bush time to grant post-election pardons and prevent any of indictees from being convicted.

This option won't be available to Bush until early 2009 however (assuming he's around that long), which means that some officials in his administration will actually go to prison (which is likely to reinforce the seriousness of this scandal in the public mind).

Patrick Fitzgerald has taken on organized crime. That is probably the optimal experience to have to take on the Bush political machine. And today he has shown great prowess.

2005-10-27T14:35:00.000-07:00

Did Noe Funnel Ohio Retirement Funds to Bush Campaign at Taft's Behest?

Cross-posted at dailykos.com

We know that Bob Taft and Tom Noe were very good golfing buddies. So good was their golfing friendship, that Mr. Taft was willing to risk going to jail for it.

Washington Post
Ohio Gov. Bob Taft (R) yesterday pleaded no contest to charges that he violated state ethics laws, becoming the first governor in the state's history convicted of a crime and providing powerful ammunition to Democrats seeking to break the Republican Party's dominance in a critical swing state[...]
Taft, who cooperated with investigators, issued a public apology after being convicted on four misdemeanor counts for failing to report 52 golf outings, dinners and other entertainment gifts. He was fined $4,000, the maximum. Taft, who by law cannot run again, said he will not resign[...]
Among the golf outings were two from Tom Noe...

About that Mr. Noe...

Toledo BladeA federal grand jury has indicted Tom Noe — the former Toledo-area coin dealer at the center of a state investment scandal — on three counts for allegedly laundering money into President Bush’s re-election campaign.

The three-count indictment says that beginning in October 2003, Mr. Noe contributed to President Bush’s election campaign “over and above the limits established by the Federal Election Campaign Act."

“He did so, according to the indictment, in order to fulfill his pledge to raise $50,000 for a Bush-Cheney fund-raiser held in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 30, 2003,” Gregory White, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced at an afternoon news conference

The two other counts were for conspiracy and filing false statements.

Where could all that money have come from? The two articles, together, certainly raise a possibility. Again, the Post

Among the golf outings were two from Tom Noe, a prominent Republican fundraiser and rare coin dealer who is at the heart of a larger scandal involving the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, which invested approximately $50 million in rare coins through Noe. Investigators later found $10 million to $13 million was missing, sending GOP officials scampering to escape the taint of association with Noe.

Certainly the amount of money missing is much larger than these indictments explain, but is it possible that at least one portion of the missing money $10 million was so diverted? Perhaps the rest of the money was funneled into similar schemes?

Was Taft behind this?

Is this how Bush "won" Ohio?

In Taft's defense, I will say that he looks too goofy and stupid to pull something like this off, but still...

2005-10-21T12:46:00.000-07:00

Miers' Mysteriously Modest Bling

Perhaps until very recently, one factor had been absent in the public discussion over Harriet Miers: her net worth, or lack thereof (and if you think I'm faulting for lack of wealth itself, see below: the point I'm raising is actually quite different.

Eleven days ago, questioning her modest net worth (possibly as low as $220,000, I noted

So this woman is 60 years old, spent two decades as a successful corporate lawyer, but has a net worth smaller than that of most state university professors at an analogous point in their careers? I smell a rat.

While such a financial situation would be at least conceivable for someone who had devoted their entire life to public service, here the case was quite the opposite. Miers spent two decades at a top Dallas law firm, during much of which she was a powerful partner. I would imagine an average mediocre attorney could expect to enter corporate law in Dallas making 60-80 thousand dollars. I'm sure it was somewhat lower during the eighties, but still, adjusting for inflation, it should be roughly equivalent, so if we estimate that Miers earned 100 gs a year in today's dollars, that would total two million dollars over twenty years. Of course, she was a managing partner, so we may safely assume she made much more than that.

I touched on the subject again two days ago in a diary

And another question involves her piddly net worth. Nothing wrong with being of modest means, but this woman, who for a decade managed the most powerful law firm in Dallas, and who has spent another decade working for George W. Bush, at the age of 60, has a net worth of less than $500,000 dollars?

Finally, someone else has taken notice.

Writing in Slate , Henry Blodget poses the question:

"What does Harriet Miers' money tell us about her?...She managed to work for nearly 30 years as an attorney in private practice without getting rich."

Where did all of Harriet Miers' money go? Blodget speculates that it was likely spent taking care of her mother:

So, where has all that retirement money been going? Perhaps to another expense category depressingly familiar to most Americans: health-care costs. According to the Journal and AP, Miers is the primary caretaker for her 91-year-old mother, who has required in-home and nursing-home care since the mid-1990s. That a decade of her mom's health care could consume several hundred thousand dollars set aside for Miers' own retirement won't come as a surprise to anyone who has had (or paid for) a long-term illness in recent years.

This is a plausible explanation, but it does not definitively answer the question. In my posting from 11 days ago, I had very conservatively estimated Miers' income at $100,000 a year.

But this nugget from Blodget's piece makes clear just how conservative I was.

Miers left Dallas law firm Locke Liddell in 1999—and the $624,000 salary she earned as a managing partner...

So when Miers left her firm she made more annually than her current net worth.

I understand that Miers' may have spent a great deal of money caring for her mother, and that is certainly admirable. But I still don't think it accounts for Miers modest net worth. Even if, for the last 10 years, Miers has spent $100,000 a year on care for her mother, there is no reason why her three decade career with a prestigious law firm should not have left her with millions of dollars to spare. Unlike John Roberts, who is worth much more, Miers is single, and has no children.

Blodget's article also makes clear that Mier's life has been fairly frugal, so she wasn't blowing her dough on bling.

One significant possibility was that Miers made some poor investment decisions. Is this the case? If so, the public deserves to know, because any information about her judgment is pertinent to her suitability to sit on the nation's highest court.

2005-10-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

Did Miers practice law without a valid law license?

That's what this article appears to imply:

Ms. Miers sent the senators her own letter acknowledging a separate omission. She wrote that after submitting her answers on Tuesday, "I became aware that, as a result of administrative oversight, my Texas Bar license was suspended from Sept. 1 to Sept. 26, 1989, due to late payment of my bar dues."

And was Ms. Miers providing legal advice to the President of the United States when she did not have a license to do so?

Practicing law without a license is considered among the most serious breaches of legal ethics.

On Monday, Miers disclosed that her D.C. law license was briefly suspended last year because of unpaid annual dues.

One of the questions on the...D.C. Bar is: "Have you ever been disbarred, suspended, censured...or disqualified as an attorney..."

For example, one of the questions on the registration form to be admitted to the D.C. Bar is:

Have you ever been disbarred, suspended, censured, or otherwise reprimanded or disqualified as an attorney, as a member of another profession including the military, or as a holder of public office?

If Miers neglected to disclose her lapsed earlier lapsed Texas license when she appied to join the D.C. bar, that would present an even bigger ethical violation. If Miers ethical conduct is at best, barely sufficient to qualify her to practice law at all, how could one seriously contend that she should sit on our nation's highest court?

And another question involves her piddly net worth. Nothing wrong with being of modest means, but this woman, who for a decade managed the most powerful law firm in Dallas, and who has spent another decade working for George W. Bush, at the age of 60, has a net worth of less than $500,000 dollars?

What did she do with all her money? Not spend it on bar dues.

2005-10-16T21:23:00.000-07:00

Bushies gone unstuck!

It's surprisingly comical.

Last week, there were signs that the White House's usual clinical competence at staging events was coming unstuck. In one omission, broadcasters were able to watch live footage of military officials prepping soldiers in Iraq for a satellite question and answer session with Mr Bush.

Their whole sophisticated propaganda apparatus is crashing now that Karl Rove is no longer at its helm.

I don't know why the elite White House press corps didn't laugh, because I certainly find Scott McClellan to be quite entertaining.

In an awkward moment on Friday, Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, was asked whether the administration was distracted by the CIA investigation. He attempted a joke, pretending to ignore the question. No one laughed. He tried again, his eyes swivelling away from the podium. “I'm sorry, I'm a little distracted up here,” he said. Again, no one laughed.

Ha ha!
How could it be Scotty? Is the media elite a bunch of sour blokes or what?

And what is the procedure for nominating him for the Society of Professional Journalism's First Amendment Award? I mean, he kind of works in journalism, doesn't he?

2005-10-10T18:49:00.000-07:00

Something About Miers Just Don't Add Up

Some people go into politics as dedicated public servants, sacrificing the more lucrative pay they could otherwise make in the private sector to serve their government. Others postpone their entry into the private sector until after they have served in government, perhaps through design (government connections can indeed prove lucrative), perhaps through necessity (political jobs don't come with tenure).

And others dedicate themselves first to success in the private sector. Such was the case with Harriet Miers. She may be worth merely a paltry $120,000 if the debt she owes on her mortgage, $100,000, is subtracted from the $220,000 in assets she otherwise owns. This includes the vacant lot she owns in Dallas which could be worth a whopping 15 gs (but maybe as little as $1,001).

[Correction: the $220,000 figure includes the mortgage debt]

Her most recent financial disclosure form shows holdings worth between $220,000 and $595,000. Those assets include small stock holdings, a money market fund, several mutual funds and a vacant lot in Dallas worth between $1,001 and $15,000.

That makes her far less affluent than Roberts, who is worth $5.3 million, with sizable stock investments and a home in Chevy Chase, Md., worth $1.3 million.

Miers' latest financial form, for 2004, shows that she owns stock in Comerica Co. and HM Investments in Dallas, an oil and gas outfit. Both investments were listed as worth between $1,001 and $15,000.

Under liabilities, Miers listed a "personal note" from Frost Bank, worth between $50,001 and $100,000.

So this woman is 60 years old, spent two decades as a successful corporate lawyer, but has a net worth smaller than that of most state university professors at an analogous point in their careers? I smell a rat.

While such a financial situation would be at least conceivable for someone who had devoted their entire life to public service, here the case was quite the opposite. Miers spent two decades at a top Dallas law firm, during much of which she was a powerful partner. I would imagine an average mediocre attorney could expect to enter corporate law in Dallas making 60-80 thousand dollars. I'm sure it was somewhat lower during the eighties, but still, adjusting for inflation, it should be roughly equivalent, so if we estimate that Miers earned 100 gs a year in today's dollars, that would total two million dollars over twenty years. Of course, she was a managing partner, so we may safely assume she made much more than that. And she was not married, and without children. What did she do with her dough?

Even assuming she was a generous giver to the church, that would not account for such a massive dissipation of cash. The most likely thing is that Miers made some really bad business decisions (that sounds like someone I know).

However Miers lost her money, the fact that she did raises two concerns with regard to her confirmation 1.) The very fact that it happened would tend to indicate some poor judgement, and 2.) it makes it likelier that, if confirmed, she would feel in debt to the people that put her there. This issue of her net worth should be considered more seriously.

And if Miers makes it to the Court, how is she going to be able to afford a house? A decent house up to minimal Justice standards must cost at least $2 million, but it seems Harry would need a cosigner with such an asset list. Who is the co-signer? James Dobson?

2005-09-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

Rehnquist Era Comes to a Bitter End

Rehnquist stubbornly rejected the progessive sea change that ended formal segregation (when, as a young Law Clerk in the 50s, he persuasively argued to Justice Brown that he cast a dissenting vote in Brown v. Board of Education , and he stubbornly rejected giving up his seat on the Supreme Court until his life was claimed by cancer.

I don't wish for anyone to die, but I can't find much sympathy for a man who entirely lacked so much empathy and sympathy for so many others, until the bitter end.

It is interesting that John G. Roberts also was a clerk for justice Rehnquist.

Was Rehnquist's minority interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the constitution in favor of finding the Federal Government was powerless to prosecute medical marijuana cultivation (when he had often in the past brushed aside his supposedly conservative view when the government wished to expand its authority in the "war on drugs")influenced by his certainly painful battle with cancer?

May Justice Rehnquist, and his judicial philosophy, both rest in peace.

2005-04-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

Marshall, I am your father....

2005-04-14T20:34:00.000-07:00

Congress takes responsibility

You may recall Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist proclaimed his respect for the independence of the judiciary recently.

Bill Frist said on Tuesday that courts had acted fairly in the Terri
Schiavo "right-to-die" case, differing sharply from a vow of retribution by his
House of Representatives counterpart, Tom DeLay.

"I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," said Frist,
now trying to resolve a battle with Democrats over judicial nominations that
threatens to tie his chamber into knots. "I respect that."

Turns out that that respect was rather fleeting...

Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as "against people of faith" for blocking President Bush's nominees.

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

Oh, and wait, there's more fun to come. How have these activist judges gotten so out of control? Tom DeLay has the answer:

I blame Congress over the last 50 to 100 years for not standing up and taking its responsibility given to it by the Constitution. The reason the judiciary has been able to impose a separation of church and state that's nowhere in the Constitution is that Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had judicial review is because Congress didn't stop them. The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them.

Well thank God that Congress is finally standing up and eliminating the separation of church and state, judicial review, and the right to privacy. I didn't realize all of these things came about only in the last 50 years, but I am but a mere third year law student, and if Tom DeLay, a former exterminator and current House Majority Leader says this is the way things happened, I will believe him just as much as I believe Dr. Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, when he issues a medical diagnosis, outside his area of specialty, on the basis of watching a few minutes of video.

Certainly, the transparency of the deeply theocratic path the Republican leadership of this country is taken us down, along with their disdain for checks and balances, is alarming.

Perhaps more alarming is this: if Republicans already control Congress and the presidency (not to mention that the majority of federal judges are already Republican) and if they have a 55 vote majority in the Senate, exactly what kind of appointments are Republicans planning for, let's say, the Supreme court, over which they are so anxious that they don't think it would even be possible to get, if not the support of five democratic senators, at least an agreement not to fillibuster.

A very big plan is underway, with ominous implications for our country.

Please help us Harry.

P.S. And now this late breaking B.S. It turns out that contrary to previous reports, it was actually house Democrats , who in a typically brazen and corrupt fashion, wielded their liberal anti-faith power to shut down the house ethics committee, so that DeLay wouldn't be exonerated! Seriously!

"The only way I can be cleared is through the ethics committee, so they don't want one."

.
Those sneaky Democrats aye? What an ingenious plan. Who knows what committee they will shut down next? Perhaps they will shut down the investigations into how the Bush administration paid journalists to give favorable coverage to its policy proposals...

Anyway, should the corrupt Democrats ever back down and allow DeLay's inevitable exoneration, perhaps they would find this comment interesting (from the same interview):

Mr. Hurt: Have you ever crossed the line of ethical behavior in terms of dealing with lobbyists, your use of government authority or with fundraising?

Mr. DeLay: Ever is a very strong word.

2005-04-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

Arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable politicians

First, Republicans pushed through a law overriding state courts and giving federal courts the authority to decide the Terri Schiavo case.

The federal courts backed the state court rulings.

11th Circuit Judge Stanley Birch (George H.W. Bush appointee), in his concurrence:

The separation of powers implicit in our constitutional design was created "to assure, as nearly as possible, that each branch of government would confine itself to its assigned responsibility." INS, 462 U.S. at 951, 103 S. Ct. at 2784. But when the fervor of political passions moves the Executive and the Legislative branches to act in ways inimical to basic constitutional principles, it is the duty of the judiciary to intervene. If sacrifices to the independence of the judiciary are permitted today, precedent is established for the constitutional transgressions of tomorrow. See New York, 505 U.S. at 187, 112 S. Ct. at 2434. Accordingly, we must conscientiously guard the independence of our judiciary and safeguard the Constitution, even in the face of the unfathomable human tragedy that has befallen Mrs. Schiavo and her family and the recent events related to her plight which have troubled the consciences of many. Realizing this duty, I conclude that Pub. L.109-3 is an unconstitutional infringement on core tenets underlying our constitutional system...Were the courts to change the law, as the petitioners and Congress invite us to do, an "activist judge" criticism would be valid.

Then, Jeb Bush tried to send Florida State agents to forcibly re-insert Schiavo's feeding tube, in violation of a court order. He backed down when police said they were going to back to judge.

Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo was not to be removed from her hospice, a team of state agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted -- but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Herald has learned.

Then, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay threatened the judiciary.

"Mrs. Schiavo's death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schindlers and with Terri Schiavo's friends in this time of deep sorrow."

And indeed, the time has come.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), under fire from Democrats for what they consider threatening remarks about federal judges, plans to ask the Judiciary Committee to undertake a broad review of the courts' handing of the Terri Schiavo case, his office said yesterday.

DeLay's office did not specify exactly what the majority leader wants the committee to do. The Constitution gives Congress the power to set the areas of authority for federal courts, but it was unclear what could be done by the committee in response to the Schiavo case, in particular.

...

DeLay issued a statement asserting that "the time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior." He later said in front of television cameras that he wants to "look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president."

Arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable?

It's the modus operandi of today's Republican Party.

2005-03-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

Ba da da da da da, feeling groovy

The Bush team insists that they have not lost the momentum on Social Security since Bush's State of the Union.

Noting that it had been only a month since the State of the Union speech, Nicolle Devenish, the White House communications director, said: "If you look at what the president has been able to do in terms of elevating the issue, explaining a program riddled with terms like 'bend points' that are hard for busy families to wrap their brains around, the intensity with which we have engaged in the public campaign and the legislative process, we feel good about where we are..."

Wow, that's funny, cause I feel good about where they are, too!

President Bush has lost ground in the public relations battle over Social Security since he kicked off a concentrated campaign two months ago to convince Americans the national retirement program needs an immediate overhaul, according to a recent poll.

A CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Friday to Sunday said 38 percent of Americans feel major changes must be made in Social Security within the next two years. In January, that number was 49 percent.

That's not momentum, that's Joementum!

2005-02-28T02:33:00.000-08:00

Bush does Camus

I'm sure he remembered it from his college days...

Bush recently made a trip to Europe to reassure Europeans that he does not plan an imminent invasion of Europe to impose democracy.

When in Brussels, he spoke of Camus.

"Albert Camus said that 'Freedom is a long-distance race,' " Mr. Bush said in his opening speech about the future of the United States and Europe. "We're in that race for the duration and there is reason for optimism."

Hey that makes me more optimistic. I would have given Bush more credit all this time if I knew he were capable of quoting Camus. I'm sure if further pressed, he would have been able to identify the book the quote came from, The Fall, and discuss existentialist philosophy. Certainly he didn't just memorize one line did he?

No, he did not.

What Bush says Albert Camus said... “Albert Camus said that ‘Freedom is a long distance race.’ We’re in that race for the duration and there is reason for optimism.”

What Camus actually said: “I didn’t know that freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with Champagne. Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops. Oh, no! It’s a choice, on the contrary and a long-distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting. No Champagne. No friends raising their glasses as they look at you affectionately. Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner’s box before the judges, and alone to decide in face of oneself or in the face of others’ judgment. At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are distressed, or love nobody.”

Now what does Albert Camus say Bush said?

Funny he cut out that part about freedom being a court sentence; I mean he could have used it to justify his military tribunals, right?

To his credit, Mr. Bush answered a call from GoBacktoTexas.com in regard to this matter. He reminded GoBacktoTexas that the Fall also warns about terrorists who hate Freedom. When pressed for page numbers, he mumbled something about national security interests, and put Dick Cheney on the phone. Dick Cheney told me to go $#%$# myself, and promptly hung up.

2005-02-27T14:25:00.000-08:00

To be or not to be [HIV positive]...

So the Bush administration is against distributing free needles to drug addicts to prevent the spread of HIV. According to the administration, there is insufficient evidence to show that free needle exchanges reduce HIV rates (as scant as the evidence that global climate change indeed exists, perhaps?).

So what support does the health/bioscience community lend to this view? Some support Bush (he alleges).

The administration claims that the evidence for the effectiveness of needle exchange is shaky. An official who requested anonymity directed us to a number of researchers who have allegedly cast doubt on the pro-exchange consensus. One of them is Steffanie A. Strathdee of the University of California at San Diego; when we contacted her, she responded that her research "supports the expansion of needle exchange programs, not the opposite." Another researcher cited by the administration is Martin T. Schechter of the University of British Columbia; he wrote us that "Our research here in Vancouver has been repeatedly used to cast doubt on needle exchange programs. I believe this is a clear misinterpretation of the facts." Yet a third researcher cited by the administration is Julie Bruneau at the University of Montreal; she told us that "in the vast majority of cases needle exchange programs drive HIV incidence lower." We asked Dr. Bruneau whether she favored needle exchanges in countries such as Russia or Thailand. "Yes, sure," she responded.

The Bush administration attempted to bolster its case by providing us with three scientific articles. One, which has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, was produced by an author unknown to leading experts in this field who is affiliated with a group called the Children's AIDS Fund. This group is more renowned for its ties to the Bush administration than for its public health rigor: As the Post's David Brown has reported, it recently received an administration grant despite the fact that an expert panel had deemed its application "not suitable for funding." The two other articles supplied by the administration had been published in the American Journal of Public Health. Although each raised questions about the certainty with which needle-exchange advocates state their case, neither opposed such programs.

Hey George,

Would Jeb prefer that Noel shoot up with a clean needle, or that she share one? That is the question.

P.S. My apologies to the reader whose post I inadvertently deleted. He's welcome to repost, but basically he said that 1.) We liberals are bitter and 2.) He is the only conservative in New York. I'll cede the second point since New Yorkers are very intelligent people, but with regard to the first, I would say we are not so much bitter as frustrated that science is being completely ignored and very selectively used to the extent that it is used at all in this administration.

Typically, the administration has relied upon scientists who are in the extreme minority of the scientific community (to put it more bluntly, laughed at) and who are coincidentally heavily funded by the energy/health care industries etc, to support their ridiculous policies.

In this case however, even their self-selected "shills" didn't agree with their claims. Nevertheless, these claims form the basis for the policy of the United States government, and a direct result of this policy will be more Americans infected with HIV when W's reign comes to an end. That's the Bush legacy.

Conservatives get bitter, we get sad.

2005-02-24T13:08:00.000-08:00

Blogging of my car

2005-02-18T12:56:00.000-08:00

I wonder...

How many people currently the subject of a felony narcotics investigation are able to get clearance to visit U.S. Troops in Afghanistan, along with a U.S. Government official?

Who cleared Limbaugh?

What was the procedure?

What is the cost to the taxpayers (U.S. and Afghani)?

2005-02-18T11:51:00.000-08:00

Dupe me again George, Oh yeah!

Can we get someone to challenge Feinstein?

First President Bush wanted to "reform" Medicare.

Feinstein:

"Wrestling with the complexities of how to add prescription drug coverage to the Medicare program has been high on the political to-do list for at least five Congresses. This year, more than ever, there is a glimmer of hope that all the debate, formulas and analyses might coalesce into law.

That would be good news for today's seniors. But if a final agreement is devoid of even the smallest steps to make Medicare more financially sound, it would be bad news for tomorrow's seniors."

Then she voted for it and...

Medicare's new prescription drug program will cost taxpayers $720 billion over its first 10 years, with costs reaching $100 billion a year by the middle of the next decade, according to a new estimate by the Bush administration.

Then, apparently, she read the bill.

Now she says:

“This new information further demonstrates what appears to be an attempt to dupe Congress and win passage of the legislation,” said one such lawmaker, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., calling for an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee.

Now President Bush wants to "reform" Social-Security.

As you know, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R) of South Carolina has been running a bipartisan phase-out book club up on the hill. And my sources tell me that the participants are ...

Baucus (D)
Carper (D)
Collins (R)
Conrad (D)
Feinstein (D)
Graham (R)
Grassley (R)
Gregg (R)
Lieberman (D)
Lincoln (D)
Ben Nelson (D)
Bill Nelson (D)

This isn't even ideological. It is just manifest incompetence, and stupidity. Who could challenge Feinstein?

Well, there's
this guy.

And this guy.

And then there's her (she might want to re-design her webpage, though).

2005-02-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

The Right-Wing Reaction to "Gannon"-gate
(departing from the sub-contintent)

Why is the media starting to inquire into the story of a man with no journalistic experience (but experience as a gay escort), who, working under a pseudonym, was able to get a White House press pass (and apparently have an uncanny ability to get inside scoops into things such as Plamegate and the Iraq war)?

My theory is that they are upset that a pervert, normally a Democrat constituent, is actually a Bush supporter. I mean, come on, we all know some Christians vote democrat, it only makes sense that some percentage of perverts and ex-cons would vote Republican.

We know that Hillary has called for all felons to be allowed to vote, afraid that they may be losing the felon support, of which they greatly depend, so too I guess they have to fight to maintain the pervert vote.

That has to be it. Has to be. There's no other explanation.

Indeed, there is no other explanation...No other explanation that is as completely devoid of reason and logic and blinded by bigotry, the Freeper forgot to add.

2005-02-16T14:14:00.001-08:00

I Fire the GoBacktoTexas.com Crew

Yup, John and Chris are gone....Indian labor is so much cheaper. Here is some of the insightful new coverage you can expect...*

Thulla in Bakery Case

NEW DELHI: Delhi police joint commissioner Kanwaljit Deol will be a member of a high-level Supreme Court panel appointed to probe the veracity of a series of charges and counter-charges made by Best Bakery case controversial witness Zahira Sheikh and social activist Teesta Setalvad. The latter was in the forefront of the litigation for having the case transferred from Gujarat to Mumbai.

Certainly we all agree that it is long past time for the veracity of these charges to be investigated, yaar. Whether they turn out to be true or not, the palour cast over the Bakery industry alone calls for a speedy resolution to this case. Although we would have preferred that the case had been transferred to Andhra Pradesh and not Mumbai, let us hope that Mumbai ultimately proves the venue where justice will be done, na?

Do you think you have what it takes to out-perform our team in Bangalore? Send in a writing sample and tell us about yourself, and you may be the next (or first?) great gobacktotexas.com writer. Ideological persuasion no bar (except, of course, if you are a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party).
apply@gobacktotexas.com

*Actually I didn't exactly fire the gobacktotexas.com crew, and I didn't outsource the jobs to India. I think Chris and John are doing other things right now. They are of course welcome to come back (although a little-noticed provision placed in the emergency appropriations bill passed by Congress last year will make their compensation much less lucrative).

2005-02-16T14:03:00.000-08:00

"Jeff"

This is excellent. A GoBacktoTexas.com reader writes

Hi, my name is jeff slick (not my real name). I,m an ex gay porno star/prostitute(not that there is anything wrong with that) who has just been named bush's economic advisor on dismanteling social security. I attenended an intense two day course at a school in Texas which of course gives me instant access to the inner oval office!

I'll say this for the guy: he certainly seems to have the credentials.

Bushism of the day:

"Benefit cuts is an interesting word."

(via talkingpointsmemo.com)
president@gobacktotexas.com

2005-02-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

You're the President of Serbia....

And let's say that there was a war a few years back during which the biggest divisions between Serbia and and what used to be an autonomous province of Serbia, Kosovo, were divided along ethnic/religious lines.

And now, that province, where the population is over 90 percent Albanian, and somewhere around 2 percent Serbian, after having been governed by the U.N. for several years, is working towards statehood.

Now let's suppose you make a trip to Kosovo. That's a good step...but this sure ain't:

Serb leader unyielding on Kosovo

Mr Tadic is the first Serbian leader to visit Kosovo in years
Serb President Boris Tadic has declared he would never accept an independent Kosovo, during a visit to the province.
He told Serbs at a rally in Strpce, 25 miles south of Pristina, he would do all in his power to prevent secession

....

"I am against the independence of Kosovo and for me, it is unacceptable," Mr Tadic told some 2,000 Serbs gathered to greet him."

[At a later rally with 2000 Albanians, he said that he had just been "jokin' around" about that comment].

[Actually, there was no such later rally].

He added:

"I don't have a magic wand to fix all the problems," Mr Tadic told a crowd of hundreds in the village of Silovo.

A magic wand? You don't need a magic wand. How about starting off by talking to the 98 percent of Kosovars that are not Serbian? Even if you are only concerned about the 2% minority Serbs, don't you think a dialogue with the Albanians would be a starting point for ensuring their welfare? Because that 98% majority is going to have a great deal of influence over what happens to the 2% minority. That would be a much more effective strategy than a search for a magic wand.

2005-02-12T04:12:00.000-08:00

Dude, Check Out My Social Security Plan

To make his case, Mr. Bush held two town-hall-style meetings with younger and older workers, events that recalled some of the most carefully orchestrated, and successful, moments of his re-election campaign last year. There were teachers, preachers, recent retirees and a widow, all embracing elements of his message.

But when he got to the details of his plan, he warned his audience that he had been a history major, and a middling student.

So when the president, in Raleigh, introduced Andrew G. Biggs, the associate commissioner for retirement policy at the Social Security Administration, and asked him to frame the issues, he added, "Andrew has a Ph.D., and I got a C." Then, smiling, Mr. Bush said, "And look who's working for who."

Umm...you're like, working for the corporations and stuff?

2005-02-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

It's All Dean

I found an article with some interesting info about Howard Dean, and what he thinks our priorities should be as a country. One interesting factoid:

HEALTHCARE: Everyone knows that universal healthcare is one of the cornerstones of Dr. Dean’s campaign. According to Cici Connolly of The Washington Post, census bureau statistics show Vermont to be the best state for insuring children. Doctors who have private practices know how health insurance should work.

Dean doesn’t believe we should immediately begin a total overhaul of the system. Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter, and Bill & Hillary Clinton all tried and failed. People need insurance now. In Vermont after trying and failing to develop a single payer system, he went with a Medicaid-like state funded program. It covers all citizens under the age of 33 who are not already insured. All people over 65 get covered by Medicare and get prescription benefits. The folks in between, aged 34-65, if not covered at work, can buy into the same program that the U.S. Congress uses and it will never cost more than 7 1/2 % of their adjusted gross income. He knows it’s not the perfect solution, but it covers almost everyone right away and leaves time for the total overhaul. And the cost…87 billion dollars to insure everyone in the country. Familiar number?? It should be. We just spent this on Iraq [late 2003 article].

Yeah, it's also less expensive to cover that healthcare than it is to pay for the annual cost of Bush's medicare program over the next 10 years....

Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion

Wed Feb 9, 7:29 AM ET Politics - washingtonpost.com

By Ceci Connolly and Mike Allen, Washington Post Staff Writers

The White House released budget figures yesterday indicating that the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade, a much higher price tag than President Bush (news - web sites) suggested when he narrowly won passage of the law in late 2003.

Health care for everybody, every year, for less than Bush's Medicare "reform" alone? I'm on board. The article also has info on Dean's positions on other issues of importance.

2005-02-12T01:22:00.000-08:00

Warmonger and FEARMONGER

“If you're 20 years old, in your mid-20s, and you're beginning to work, I want you to think about a Social Security system that will be flat bust, bankrupt, unless the United States Congress has got the willingness to act now,” he said Tuesday at a forum on Social Security. The stark choice of words was hardly a slip of the tongue – Bush used the word “bankrupt” five times in the 45-minute session.

He also warned of a potentially “bankrupt” system in a radio address last month, referring to demographic changes that signal a “looming danger.”

“In the year 2018, for the first time ever, Social Security will pay out more in benefits than the government collects in payroll taxes,” Bush said.

That is just plain wrong. In 14 of the past 47 years, including 1975 to 1983, Social Security paid out more in benefits than the government collected in payroll, with the gap reaching $10 billion in 1983. So the projected “crossover” point in 2018 is a relatively meaningless milestone, say opponents of Bush’s privatization plans, even as they acknowledge the system faces long-term problems.

Remember how Bush and Cheney starting talking DOWN the economy and triggered a recession to get their tax cuts passed?

Your fearmongering isn't so easy now the Democrats have gotten a spinal transplant from the good Doctor, is it Mr. Bush?

Joshua Micah Marshall:

Second, what the president said today almost certainly violates his oath of office in which he swears to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States."

That would be the Constitution which reads (Am.XIV, Section 4): "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

Were any of the military governments that destroyed Argentina's economy actually foolish enough to actually spread the word that their government was on the verge of default? What's more incredible is that these guys started doing this shit when the economy was in great shape, and actually fooled people into thinking that it wasn't so that they could get their tax cuts, which, combined with the Enron et al merde, actually made what they were saying true.

What kind of President boasts about the unsoundness of government finances, especially when they have gone from stellar to absolute rot on his watch? Is that patriotic?

Bush pushes for large tax cut this year

March 28, 2001
Web posted at: 6:04 a.m. EST (1104 GMT)

KALAMAZOO, Michigan (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday took issue with a Democratic push for an immediate tax rebate, saying the "winded but fundamentally strong" U.S. economy needs more than a one-time tax cut.
...
"Our economy needs more than a pick-me-up, more than a one-time boost," he said. "We must put more money in the hands of consumers in the short term, and restore confidence and optimism in the long term."

When you say restore confidence, you imply that it is missing. It wasn't before you got there:

Clinton declares economy sound, trumpets fiscal discipline
January 12, 2001
Web posted at: 8:19 p.m. EST (0119 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton released his eighth and final economic report to Congress on Friday -- a massive 402-page analysis that declares the nation's economy strong, but counsels that continued budget discipline is the best way to safeguard against a much-feared recession.

"The message of this final report is clear: The economy remains strong, on a sound foundation with a bright future," Clinton said during a new conference on the White House South Lawn.

The "2001 Economic Report of the President" credits remarkable advances in computer hardware, software and telecommunications as the catalyst for the unprecedented economic boom the United States has enjoyed under Clinton's tenure in office.

Clinton, seeking to safeguard his economic legacy in the history books, told reporters Friday: "We have resisted politically attractive but economically unwise temptations to veer from the path of fiscal discipline."

That last sentence: Did Clinton know exactly what was about to happen...did he want to remind Americans one last time that at that point in history, they had a chance at a future that was more....well....Canadian?

Wait a second...maybe we're not being fair here. Maybe Clinton was trying to scare and mislead people when he began his second term as well....

NBC - Professional March 7, 1997, Friday (from lexis-nexis database, no link)

Copyright 1997 FDCHeMedia, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 1997 CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video, a Division of CNBC/Dow Jones Desktop Video, LLC
All Rights Reserved
NBC - Professional

March 7, 1997, Friday

Today we learned some very good news about the American economy. Our nation has created almost 600,000 new jobs in the first two months of 1997, almost 12 million since January of 1992.

At the same time, the deficit has been reduced by 63 percent. Investment in our peopel has increased. Inflation remains low. Our economy is on the right track.

But to stay on that right track, we have to balance the budget while we go forward with the work that leads to continued growth and low inflation.

CLINTON: That's what our balanced budget will do, eliminating the deficit in five years and strengthening critical investments for the future of all of our people.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office certified that even under its assumptions, because of the protections we built into the budget, it would be balanced by 2002.

So I am hopeful, and I want to say again, that the talks that we have been continually having with congressional leaders in both parties will produce a balanced budget agreement this year and in the not-too-distant future.

I also want to talk a moment about our commitments to our Gulf War veterans. And I thank Secretary Brown and the other veterans leaders who are here, including Elaine Larson from the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses; the leadership of the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other veterans organizations; and the Persian Gulf veterans who joined with us here today.

Two months ago, when I accepted the final report of the presidential advisory committee on Gulf War illnesses, I pledged to the committee and to all America's veterans that we would match their efforts with action.

Pretty scary stuff (not the part about balancing budget and helping veterans).

Bush created a fake economic crisis for his political gain that turned into a real one.

Then he created a fake new front in the war on terror for political gain which turned into a real one.

Now he wants to create a fake social security crisis for political gain....

What's next: a "fake" nuclear showdown with Iran/N. Korea right before the 2006 Congressional Elections?

2005-02-11T17:34:00.000-08:00

Then why the FUCK did you vote for it?

"The Medicare Prescription Drug bill should have been an opportunity to help America ’s seniors afford their prescription drugs, not to provide the pharmaceutical companies with a massive government-sponsored subsidy,” Feinstein said. “When it was clear that the bill didn’t include provisions for the government to use its purchasing power to negotiate for lower prices, I knew there was a major problem.

When it was clear? What, you didn't read it until after you voted for it?

2005-02-11T15:01:00.000-08:00

In Marriage Hatin' Gay Lovin' Pot Smokin' Iraqi Freedom Hatin' French...(you get the picture)...Canada, Abortion Rate Continues to Decline

Abortion rate continues to fall, Statscan says

Friday, February 11, 2005 Updated at 1:22 PM EST

Canadian Press

Toronto — The number of women seeking abortions across Canada appears to be continuing a downward trend, although in some provinces rates remain the same or are slightly on the rise, figures from Statistics Canada suggest.

Meanwhile, in America, where we value life, the abortion rate is going up.

Although in the U.S., the Federal government mysteriously stopped reporting comprehensive data after 2000, which was the last year of a long term decline...

Under Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed. Given the trends of the 1990s, 52,000 more abortions occurred in the United States in 2002 than would have been expected...

I don't know why, but no one seems to have noticed this. In 1993, both the US and Canada elected center-left governments after years of right-wing rule, then at almost exactly the same time, they balanced their budgets, and had record surpluses and economic growth.

They also both experienced declining abortion rates. Then a strange thing happened. Both countries had an election in November of 2000. In both countries, the center-left parties said if you go back to the right, you are going to go back to the days of economic stagnation and deficits.

Gore, in St. Louis, says Bush would put U.S. back in record red ink
August 14, 2000
Web posted at: 8:43 p.m. EDT (0043 GMT)

[...]Gore said his Republican opponents would lead the country back to the policies of the 1980s, adding, "What they caused last time were record deficits, repeat recessions, high unemployment."

In one of those countries....people didn't buy it.

Since then, Canada has continued to have record surpluses, just like the US....

President Clinton announces another record budget surplus
From CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace

September 27, 2000
Web posted at: 4:51 p.m. EDT (2051 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.

"Eight years ago, our future was at risk," Clinton said Wednesday morning. "Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion."

OOPS, wrong quote....

Budget office projects U.S. deficit to hit $477 billion

Budget numbers likely part of election battle

Monday, January 26, 2004 Posted: 1:22 PM EST (1822 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal deficit will hit a record $477 billion this year and get worse if lawmakers cut taxes or increase spending, the Congressional Budget Office projected Monday in a report sure to become ammunition in the election-year fight over red ink.

Man that old Al Gore....he was willing to say anything to get elected.

2005-02-07T01:33:00.000-08:00

This is it, America!

OK, so there weren't any weapons of Mass Destruction, but aren't we trying to liberate the Iraqi people and spread freedom? Well, NO, but in addition to the fact that the US has concluded Iraq abandoned its WMD program in the early 90s, and the fact that Iraq got many of its WMDs from the United States, the United States

CONTINUES TO DEVELOP WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

U.S. Redesigning Atomic Weapons
By WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: February 7, 2005

Worried that the nation's aging nuclear arsenal is increasingly fragile, American scientists have begun designing a new generation of nuclear arms meant to be sturdier and more reliable and to have longer lives, federal officials and private experts say.

What's the problem here? We invented the weapons that are capable of destroying the entire world, and we'll be damned if we don't continue to create new weapons that are even more capable of destroying civilization. I mean look, we've gotta fight the terrorists, and that's hard work. Why? So we can spread freedom. You don't hate freedom, now , do you?

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

2005-01-31T15:19:00.000-08:00

I Write Rep. Allen Boyd D[ixiecrat?]-FL ("Dean of the Fainthearted Faction")

Rep. Boyd,

I don't live in your Congressional district, but since you are one of the few Democrats, if not the only Democrat, taking the lead in proposing legislation which would dramatically change the Social Security program, and since this is likely to have a bigger impact on my generation than on yours (I am 25 years old), I ask you to consider this letter.

First of all, I noticed that in the "Saving Social Security" section of your website, you note that there is no "special account" for each person who pays into the Social Security system, and current relative surpluses go to pay current accounts.

Isn't it true, however, that during the term of the last President from your party, Bill Clinton, that there was effectively a true social-security trust fund since the government had enough money to cover its obligations without spending surplus funds from social security?

You mention that by 2019, government inflows from Social Security will exceed outflows, and that by 2042, the system will have reached complete insolvency.

Well, assuming that is true, why is Social Security to blame? Again, if we had a balanced budget with surpluses, the lifespan of Social Security would be extended every year. Couldn't we just as easily, and more logically, blame any problems with Social Security's longevity on a Congress and President who have allowed other spending to grow out of control, cutting taxes at the same time?

I think you would agree with me. In fact, you have said the exact same thing yourself. On August 29, 2001.

"Earlier this year, while the debate over the President's budget priorities was still going on, I joined my colleagues in the Blue Dog Coalition to warn that we should not commit so much of the surplus to new spending programs or tax cuts. Unfortunately, that recommendation fell on deaf ears. While the surplus has evaporated, President Bush still has $18.3 billion in additional defense spending proposals, $23 billion in new education spending proposals, $33 billion in energy tax credit legislation, and $13.3 billion in tax credits for charitable choice pending before Congress with no resources outside of the Social Security Trust Fund to pay for his new spending requests. "

To me, the bizareness of the logic you now seem to be applying becomes clear when similar logic is applied to the military budget (perhaps this is something which likely has already occurred to you, as a member of the Military Construction Subcommittee). At the rate military budgets have grown, say, over the last four years, the military is likely to require such large funding by the year 2042 that it will require more than all receipts for the US government. Thus, by your logic, the military is in crisis.

Oddly enough, the military is actually growing at a much more unsustainable pace than Social Security, but I don't understand why you seem to be more willing to take on a program that keeps millions of seniors out of poverty than a bloated defense industry.

Mr. Boyd, how much time have you devoted to studying the results of other countries that have experimented with private investment retirement accounts, such as Chile, Sweden, and Argentina? Does it concern you that the results of such plans have often been millions of seniors with inadequate incomes to meet their basic needs? And if so, how is your plan going to prevent it?

A recent New York Times article about Chile's experience exemplifies my concerns.

"Dagoberto Sáez, for example, is a 66-year-old laboratory technician here who plans, because of a recent heart attack, to retire in March. He earns just under $950 a month; his pension fund has told him that his nearly 24 years of contributions will finance a 20-year annuity paying only $315 a month.

"Colleagues and friends with the same pay grade who stayed in the old system, people who work right alongside me," he said, "are retiring with pensions of almost $700 a month - good until they die. I have a salary that allows me to live with dignity, and all of a sudden I am going to be plunged into poverty, all because I made the mistake of believing the promises they made to us back in 1981.""

I am a Democrat because I find it to be the party of the powerless. Are you a Democrat out of a belief in social justice? If so, how will your program ensure that more people are better off, and fewer are worse off? How will it ensure that fewer are in poverty?

What are you going to do to prevent Dagoberto Sáezs? Are you concerned? You should be.

Thanks for taking the time to answer,

James Hassan

2005-01-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

We Are!

I can't wait to see Dean as DNC chief.

From Dean's visit to California via the LA Times (pay article)

What, a young man wants to know, is preventing the Bush administration from faking an attack with weapons of mass destruction so as to suspend the Constitution and establish a totalitarian Republican regime? "You are!" Dean brightly exclaims.

How true.

2005-01-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

Democrats Should Compromise on Social Security

The compromise would go like this...

We'll take your Swedish-style social security reform

If you give us a Swedish style
health-care system.

And if you concede that Sweden has an army....

(Demokraterna skulle kompromettera om social säkerhetssystemet

Kompromettet skulle gå så här....

Vi skall acceptera ditt svensk-typ social säkerhetsystem reform

Om du ge till oss ett svensk typ hälförsäkring system .

Och kankse om du också erkänner att sverige har ett armé.)

2005-01-21T09:59:00.000-08:00

Bush Offers Global Vision

That was todays headline in my local paper, the venerable San Diego Right-Wing Rag. An interesting bit of trivia: its official name is not Right-Wing Rag, I am told, but the San Diego Union Tribune. My sources tell me there also may be some questions about its venerability.

I didn't bother to read the article (learning new things from our commander in chief all the time), but I assume somewhere else in the story must have been the text "world rejects offer..." And then maybe "...offers vision of Bush on trial for war crimes."

2005-01-20T16:13:00.000-08:00

Inauguration Day Platitudes

Been gone awhile (some time in Ohio), but mostly just gone away from politics. If there is one lesson I've learned from our courageous commander in chief, it is that sometimes, you need a vacation.

So where are we now? Over two hundred years ago, fed up with the rule of an oppressive, in-bred, incompetent dynasty (the British royal family), the colonies broke away from Britain so that they could begin a bold experiment in government which would give greater representation to the people, greater transparency to the actions of government and greater rights to all. They protected the freedom of the press, so that free dissemination of ideas would result in a well-informed populace. They trusted that an informed populace, vested with these rights and such a government, would lead to enlightened leadership, or at least, as a check on ignorant leadership. As a further safeguard, they divided power between the various branches of government.

Today, Britain is certainly less than perfect, but nevertheless certainly more transparent, more democratic, and with greater rights for its citizens than the United States. It has an enlightened populace (if we can forgive the whole Thatcherism thing), and more rights for its citizens than we do here.

In the US, the vigorous public debate a free press was supposed to bring us was severly damaged because of corporate mergers of big media. What was left, if anything, was destroyed after September 11th. Ruthless leaders took advantage of a populace in fear (and poorly informed) to maintain and expand their power. With one party in firm control of all the levers of government, the checks and balances are gone. We have an ignorant, in-bred, dynastic leader. Oh yeah, and he's related to the British royal family.

Bush has reversed the American Revolution. Four more years, baby.

2004-11-17T01:51:00.000-08:00

In one country, members of an opposing political party feign disgust when a multi-million dollar, complexly orchestrated politically motivated prosecution reveals that the United States President lied about sex, he is impeached. In that same country, when a President with a congress dominated by his own party lies about reasons for going to war, and key evidence about national security, he is dogmatically defended by members of his own party and re-elected.

But in another, a leader is brought to account, for the first time in nearly two centuries, for supporting a war based on false pretenses.

Blair impeachment campaign starts

Experts say Mr Blair is not in real danger of impeachment
A campaign to use age-old powers to impeach Tony Blair for misleading the public over the Iraq war is being launched by a group of MPs on Thursday.
The power, last used in 1806, could in theory see Mr Blair charged with improper conduct in office but in practice has little chance of success.

Whether or not the impeachment succeeds, the clear sign is that Tony Blair, who led his nation into an unnecessary war, is nearing the end of his political career. May the rest of Europe take note.

2004-11-05T13:00:00.000-08:00

Machine Error Gives Bush Extra Ohio Votes

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - An error with an electronic voting system gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in suburban Columbus, elections officials said.

Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.

State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.

2004-11-03T17:44:00.000-08:00

Bush: Thanks America (for taking Cheney's advice)

White House: Debt Ceiling Must Be Raised

Wed Nov 3,12:54 PM ET White House - AP

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration announced Wednesday that it will run out of maneuvering room to manage the government's massive borrowing needs in two weeks, putting more pressure on Congress to raise the debt ceiling when it convenes for a special post-election session.

Treasury Department (news - web sites) officials announced that they will be able to conduct a scheduled series of debt auctions next week to raise $51 billion. However, an auction of four-week Treasury bills due to be completed on Nov. 18 will have to be postponed unless Congress acts before then to raise the debt ceiling.

"Due to debt limit constraints, we currently do not have the capacity to settle our four-week bill auction scheduled to settle on Nov. 18," Timothy Bitsberger, acting assistant Treasury secretary for financial markets, said in a statement.

2004-10-26T10:36:00.000-07:00

Note: Fake Poll.

As the prior post should suggest, but some people apparently didn't catch, this post with Gallup numbers is a joke (much like Gallup itself). The thing about Gallup is that they always oversample Republicans in their surveys, thus inflating support for Bush. This tongue in cheek post was merely meant to go to an extreme to illustrate the problem with Gallup polling. It was not meant to imply that I thought Kerry was losing or that you should not vote for him. Please vote for Kerry. Please, please, please.

New Gallup Poll out

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,538 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Oct. 24-25, 2004. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. Sampling size 53 % Republican, 18 % Democrat, 14% independent.

Nationwide:

LV: Bush 59 Kerry 38

RV: Bush 57 Kerry 41

Wow, that is quite disturbing. Clearly Kerry has no chance of winning. Why even vote?

Note: This is a joke, this poll is fake. Kerry is winning.

2004-10-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Mr. Newport, what's your take on this?

Bush Kerry Nader DK Oct

Florida 46% 49% 1% 4% 23-25

Ohio 47% 49% * 4% 23-25

Pennsylvania 47% 50% * 3% 23-25

Wisconsin 47% 47% 2% 4% 16-19

New Mexico 46% 48% 1% 5% 16-18

New Hampshire 47% 46% 1% 6% 16-18

Oregon 44% 49% 2% 5% 9-12

Iowa 47% 47% 2% 4% 10-12

* Ralph Nader is not on the ballot

Notably, the numbers for Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are the most recent ones. Perhaps the older numbers for the other states are the only reason why Kerry doesn't have an outright lead in Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Iowa.

Oh yeah, and Zogby has Kerry leading in Colorado (but strangely down slightly in other key states).

2004-10-21T21:15:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that George W. Bush had over one month more to raise money...

...than Kerry and thus merely had to make his $75,000,000 last a fraction of the time John Kerry did,

John Kerry's got more dough for the strech run!

We're gonna take these guys out

Kerry holds slight edge in cash for final sprint
October 22, 2004

Sen. John Kerry started the final two weeks of the campaign with a slight cash edge over President Bush, pre-election campaign finance reports they filed Thursday showed.

Each had less than a third of his $75 million budget left as of mid-month -- Kerry just over $24 million and Bush $22 million. Both spent around $14 million in the first two weeks of October.

True, Kerry doesn't have a whopping advantage right now, but that he has any money left at all-let alone more than Bush, after enduring the most savage attacks in the history of American politics, that's quite comforting. If W. thought JFK was broke and on the verge of collapse, he was wrong.

2004-10-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

Secretary General Clinton?

Second update:

Even though this came from a Moonie publication, I have decided to leave it up because I think that Bill Clinton as Secretary-General would be a great idea.

Update: I have been reminded by some friends that UPI, a once respectable press outlet is now a Moonie publication. So that makes this article much less credible, and I will soon remove it. Nonetheless, if possible, a Clinton UN Secretary Generalship would be great, I think.

Analysis: Clinton eyes U.N. post

By ROLAND FLAMINI, UPI Chief International Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has set his sights on becoming U.N. secretary-general. A Clinton insider and a senior U.N. source have told United Press International the 56-year-old former president would like to be named leader of the world body when Kofi Annan's term ends early in 2006.

"He definitely wants to do it," the Clinton insider said this week.

A Clinton candidacy is likely to receive overwhelming support from U.N. member states, particularly the Third World. Diplomats in Washington say Clinton would galvanize the United Nations and give an enormous boost to its prestige. But the former president's hopes hang on a crucial question that will not be addressed until after the presidential elections: can he get the support of the U.S. government -- a prerequisite for nomination?

The political wisdom is that a second George W. Bush presidency would cut him off at the pass. The notion of Clinton looming large in the international arena from "the glass tower" in New York would be intolerable to the Bush White House. If Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., wins on Nov. 2 the prospect of Clinton as secretary-general won't exactly be welcome either, but Kerry would find it much harder -- if not impossible -- to go against it.

Wow, this is exciting! Imagine, what more effective way could there be to mend the alliances that George W. Bush has so badly damaged around than world than to to have Bill Clinton as Secretary General of the UN? Clinton brought great international respect and credibility to the United States, and as Secretary General, he could bring it back, as well as bring credibility and strenght to the United Nations and international law.

The prospect of Clinton as Secretary General wouldn't be welcome in a Kerry administration? Say what? I don't think any other single thing could strengthen President Kerry's hand more when it comes to rebuilding international alliances, and extracting us from the mess in Iraq. Kerry's bringing Clinton out to campaign with him in a few days is likely a sign that in a Kerry administration, Clinton will play an important role, and this could be part of it.

2004-10-20T21:37:00.000-07:00

Mike's Ex, or a high ranking hypocrite?

Someone Has Stolen Both the Brains AND the Sense of Humor from the Michigan Republican Party

Michael Moore filed a theft complaint with the Lansing City Police today stating that "someone has stolen both the brains AND the sense of humor from the Michigan Republican Party."

The brains were locked in a box where they were placed after the last moderate Republican governor of Michigan retired in 1980. The party's "sense of humor" was not valued at more than $100 and therefore its theft is considered a misdemeanor.

"I am concerned about the loss of these two items," Moore told reporters. "If there is anything I can do to help the Republicans find them, I will."

Anyone knowing the whereabouts of the Michigan Republicans' brains or sense of humor is asked to call CrimeStoppers at (269) 273-6467.

Quite funny. I wonder who that phone number belongs to, though. It's not Michigan Crime Stoppers. I called it, out of curiosity, and a woman simply answered "hello." At that point, I suddenly realized that I was calling a private person at past midnight Eastern time, and hung up. I did a reverse directory search which revealed that it is a Verizon number in Michigan, so probably a cell phone. So you blog users are welcome to investigate (at a more sane hour) if I don't get to it first. I'm betting that it's someone that Michael Moore doesn't like...

2004-10-12T21:33:00.000-07:00

If only Gore were President...

Federal surplus to top $8 billion
Total is four times bigger than expected:sources

CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - The federal Liberals are poised to announce they're sitting on an embarrassment of riches - a whopping budget surplus of at least $8 billion, four times more than they predicted.
Senior government sources told The Canadian Press that Ottawa's surplus - which was projected to come in at only $1.9 billion for the fiscal year that ended March 31 - will instead top $8 billion.

Remember when we used to have headlines like that...

President Clinton announces another record budget surplus
From CNN White House Correspondent Kelly Wallace

September 27, 2000
Web posted at: 4:51 p.m. EDT (2051 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Clinton announced Wednesday that the federal budget surplus for fiscal year 2000 amounted to at least $230 billion, making it the largest in U.S. history and topping last year's record surplus of $122.7 billion.

"Eight years ago, our future was at risk," Clinton said Wednesday morning. "Economic growth was low, unemployment was high, interest rates were high, the federal debt had quadrupled in the previous 12 years. When Vice President Gore and I took office, the budget deficit was $290 billion, and it was projected this year the budget deficit would be $455 billion."

Here's some more interesting information on the United States v. Canada economic comparison, courtesy of this site:

Canada page

2004-10-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

Twice the Cheney=2x the Evil

X2

Bush=Farenheit 9/11, Cheney=Farenheit 451
WASHINGTON — The Education Department this summer destroyed more than 300,000 copies of a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history after the office of Vice President Dick Cheney's wife complained that it mentioned the National Standards for History, which she has long opposed.

...

As the wife of the vice president, Cheney has no executive position in the federal government. But when her office spotted the references to the National Standards for History in the new edition of the history booklet, her staff communicated its displeasure to the Education Department.

Subsequently, the department decided it was necessary to kill the new edition and reprint it with references to the standards removed. Though about 61,000 copies of "Helping Your Child Learn History" had been distributed, the remaining 300,000-plus copies were destroyed. Asked about the decision, one department official said they had been "recycled."

Scary.

Tricky, Orwellian Dick
Cheney: Weapons Report Justifies Iraq War

Thu Oct 7, 5:06 PM ET

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

MIAMI - Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq (news - web sites) that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush (news - web sites)'s decision to go to war.

OK, Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, nor the ability to manufacture them, since 1991. They may have wished to assemble them when the UN weapons inspection regime came to an end.

Thanks for clearing this up for me, Dick. Now it all makes sense. All though Iraq didn´t have weapons of mass destruction (since 1991), nor the ability to manufacture them (since 1991), and although the rational for invading Iraq was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (and was there some connection to Al Qaeda?), Saddam Hussein did, perhaps, have the desire to amass such weapons, and perhaps, several years down the road, if he was still in power, and still alive (unlike Mr. Cheney who, though he is running this country, I suspect died several years ago) and he still wanted to make weapons of mass destruction, might have been able to do so. This made him the biggest security risk to the United States in the world, and such a grave threat to the United States that it was worth sending 10 times as many troops to take him out as we had in Afghanistan looking for Osama bin Laden, who actually attacked the United States, and who we still have not found, for a military operation that is likely to last several years at the least and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions not to mention cost thousands of American and Iraqi lives.

Dick Cheney, as you like to remind us, as Vice President of the United States, you are the President of the Senate, and I advice you to take the advice you gave to Senator Pat Leahy in that capacity.

2004-10-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

Quote of the day

"I heard Senator Kerry say that there was some kind of 'global test' that you ought to be able to pass to support preemption, and I don't understand what that means," Rice told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer."

"I don't understand 'proving to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons,' " she said.
--Condoleeza Rice

Well that certainly explains a lot...

In 2002, at a crucial juncture on the path to war, senior members of the Bush administration gave a series of speeches and interviews in which they asserted that Saddam Hussein was rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. In a speech to veterans that August, Vice President Dick Cheney said Mr. Hussein could have an atomic bomb "fairly soon." President Bush, addressing the United Nations the next month, said there was "little doubt" about Mr. Hussein's appetite for nuclear arms.
The United States intelligence community had not yet concluded that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program. But as the vice president told a group of Wyoming Republicans that September, the United States had "irrefutable evidence" - thousands of tubes made of high-strength aluminum, tubes that the Bush administration said were destined for clandestine Iraqi uranium centrifuges, before some were seized at the behest of the United States.

The tubes quickly became a critical exhibit in the administration's brief against Iraq. As the only physical evidence the United States of Mr. Hussein's revived nuclear ambitions, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President Bush and his advisers. The tubes were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs," Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, asserted on CNN on Sept. 8, 2002. "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

But before Ms. Rice made those remarks, she was aware that the government's foremost nuclear experts had concluded that the tubes were most likely not for nuclear weapons at all, an examination by The New York Times has found. As early as 2001, her staff had been told that these experts, at the Energy Department, believed the tubes were probably intended for small artillery rockets, according to four officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and a senior administration official, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the information.

2004-10-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

Don't forget about Poland!

Poland planning pull-out of troops from Iraq
Derek Scally, in Warsaw

Poland is planning to withdraw its troops from Iraq in the coming months, dealing another blow to the US-led coalition forces there.

The revelation yesterday by a senior government adviser that Poland's 2,500 soldiers would leave Iraq comes just a day after the new Spanish Prime Minister, Mr José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, announced the pull-out of Spanish troops "as soon as possible".
...

A senior adviser to the Polish government confirmed to The Irish Times that Warsaw's decision had been influenced by the Spanish move. "Given the circumstances [in Iraq], we will probably diminish significantly the forces at the end of 2004," said Prof Tadeusz Iwinski, secretary of state for international affairs in the office of the prime minister.

By the way, this article was from April. But the general idea that Poland plans to remove most of its forces from Iraq within a few months is confirmed by this September article.

Poland To Withdraw More Troops: Defense Minister
By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, WARSAW

Poland will hand over another part of the zone it administers in Iraq under a planned reduction of its forces next year, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said in an interview published Sept. 3.

2004-09-29T21:58:00.000-07:00

I'm Iyad W. Allawi, and I support this message...

or maybe it should be

Live from New York, it's Iyad Allawi!

The Bush administration, battling negative perceptions of the Iraq war, is sending Iraqi Americans to deliver what the Pentagon calls "good news" about Iraq to U.S. military bases, and has curtailed distribution of reports showing increasing violence in that country.

The unusual public-relations effort by the Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development comes as details have emerged showing the U.S. government and a representative of President Bush's reelection campaign had been heavily involved in drafting the speech given to Congress last week by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Combined, they indicate that the federal government is working assiduously to improve Americans' opinions about the Iraq conflict -- a key element of Bush's reelection message.

...

White House spokesman Scott McClellan, asked Tuesday about similarities between Bush's statements about Iraq and Allawi's speech to Congress last week, said he did not know of any help U.S. officials gave with the speech. "None that I know of," he said, adding, "No one at the White House." He also said he did not know if the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had seen the speech.

But administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the prime minister was coached and aided by the U.S. government, its allies and friends of the administration. Among them was Dan Senor, former spokesman for the CPA who has more recently represented the Bush campaign in media appearances. Senor, who has denied writing the speech, sent Allawi recommended phrases. He also helped Allawi rehearse in New York last week, officials said. Senor declined to comment.

2004-09-29T20:11:00.000-07:00

Bob Novak is a hypocrite, and nuts

Bob Novak, the journalist who, with the help of Bushco, blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative when her husband discredited evidence given by the government to justify the Iraq war, after having been supplied the identity by top administration officials, is now upset that the CIA is leaking

Conditions in Iraq appear to be deteriorating so badly that CIA officials are now leaking to reporters left and right, signaling a new dynamic in press coverage of the war. Columnist Robert Novak noted this on Monday in a column titled, "Is CIA at War With Bush?"

...

Not only does he criticize CIA agents for leaking information when he himself leaked the identity of a CIA agent, but he apparently may have blown the cover of another CIA agent in the process of doing so.

On Monday, columnist Novak criticized the CIA and Paul Pillar, a national intelligence officer. Novak said comments Pillar made about Iraq during a private dinner in California showed that he and others at the CIA are at war with the president. Pillar had not spoken for the record, but Novak published his remarks and name anyway., noting that he is "no covert operative."

2004-09-29T19:41:00.000-07:00

Back Again, (Greetings, Ahmed)

From AFP (via Atrios)

JENIN, West Bank (AFP) - Two Palestinians were killed when Israeli troops targeting a militant from the radical Islamic Jihad movement fired on their taxi in the West Bank town of Jenin, medics said. Palestian security sources said the target, Ahmed Chalabi, had got out of the taxi just before the soldiers opened fire, killing the driver and his passenger. Medics said their bodies were riddled with bullets.

Could this be the same guy? He just seems to be up to all kinds of mischief... but oh, here's a possible explanation. Remember that bank he had in Jordan from which he was convicted of embezelling millions of dollars?

From relatively modest beginnings when he co-founded Petra Bank in 1977, Mr Chalabi became one of the most powerful and influential businessmen in Jordan. He even acquired the licence from the US to issue Visa cards in Jordan and became well connected in the royal court.
...
London banking sources say Mr Chalabi's financial empire originally thrived thanks to support from Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan, which enabled Petra to open a string of branches for the first time in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

via The Guardian

2004-08-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

With friends like Ashcroft, who needs al-Qaeda?

Will truth be stranger than fiction? Stay tuned...

AL-QAEDA PLANNING TO DISRUPT FALL ELECTION WITH MALFUNCTIONING ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES

2004-08-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, it really IS the people versus the powerful

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has released their latest study:

Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.

The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.

Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.

***

The effective federal tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has fallen from 33.4 percent to 26.7 percent, a 20 percent drop. In contrast, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers -- whose incomes averaged $51,500 in 2001 -- saw their tax rates drop 9.3 percent.

***

For the bottom 20 percent of households, the combined Bush tax cuts averaged $250 each. The middle 20 percent received $1,090, while the top 1 percent garnered $78,460, said Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee who analyzed the report.

The tax cuts this year will boost the income of millionaires by 10.1 percent, while middle-income families see a boost of 2.3 percent, the Democrats said.

Enough said.

2004-08-11T17:25:00.000-07:00

Politicizing intelligence

So Osama bin Laden is planning a new attack:

U.S. intelligence officials say a high-profile political assassination, triggered by the public release of a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda terrorist attack, The Washington Times has learned.

The assassination plan is among new details of al Qaeda plots disclosed by U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the killing could be carried out against a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad.

Not good news. But something smells funny... let's try and figure out what it is.

First of all, this isn't a terror alert. The information comes from "U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports... speaking on condition of anonymity." Why the secrecy? If there's a genuine threat, why not make a formal announcement? And if there's a reason to keep the information under wraps (say, to avoid hampering counterterrorism efforts), why would these "officials" leak the information to the press?

But the really funny stuff comes further down in the story:

"The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election," the official said. "The view of al Qaeda is 'anybody but Bush.' "

This statement has nothing to do with national security. This is pure, ruthless political manuvering.

Sure, Osama wants Bush dead -- but only as the symbolic head of America and everything else bin Laden despises and demonizes. There hasn't been one shred of evidence that bin Laden or al Qaeda prefers for Bush to lose the November election. If there were, the administration would be publicizing the hell out of it. Karl Rove and the Congressional Republicans would love nothing more than to be able to say (or at least imply) "Osama wants Bush to lose! A vote for Kerry is a vote for bin Laden!"

But John Ashcroft can't make an official announcement that bin Laden has endorsed Kerry, so the Bushies are trying the back-door route -- with whispers. I can believe that the right-wing, Bush-cheerleading Washington Times would regurgitate this unreliable, politicized crap. I just hope other news organizations won't.

Granted, we'll probably never be sure if bin Laden has a preference in the election -- if he even cares, which is by no means certain. Osama is not likely to be sporting a campaign button in his next video. But even when making an educated guess, it's simply not reasonable to infer that bin Laden wants Bush to lose. Would Kerry, as president, stop pursuing terrorists? Would he embrace Islamic fundamentalism? Would he allow rogue organizations to obtain WMDs? No, he wouldn't do any of these things, and bin Laden knows it. The more reasonable inference is that George Bush is Osama's wet dream. Bush has done more to incite Islamic terrorism than bin Laden ever could. Bush has pissed off Muslims everywhere by invading Iraq, he's alienated most of the world in the process, and he's he's allowed Iraq to become a lawless haven for terrorists. How could Kerry top that? If bin Laden is smart (and unfortunately he is), he's rooting for Bush all the way.

(Thanks to TalkLeft for the pointer.)

2004-08-09T20:13:00.000-07:00

Tax the poor -- they can't afford to hire clever accountants

Another gem from our moron-in-chief:

Bush criticized Kerry's plan to eliminate the tax cuts for those making more than $200,000 a year, saying that the "the rich in America happen to be the small business owners" who put people to work.

Bush also said high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy because "the really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."

Oh, brother. This statement really speaks for itself, but I'll offer three points:

1. By Bush's logic, the "war on terror" is a failed strategy because we haven't caught the terrorists. Criminal laws are a failed strategy because people still commit crimes. It's nonsensical.

2. If rich people can dodge taxes, doesn't that mean we should CLOSE TAX LOOPHOLES instead of just throwing up our hands and saying, "Oh, well, what's the use in trying?"

3. Bush's assertion that the rich in America are small business owners is a complete laugh. Ask any small business owner if he/she feels rich -- the answer will almost certainly be no. Most small business owners are barely getting by; it's the LARGE business owners who can afford the private lear jets, fourth houses in Vail, etc.

2004-08-08T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here it comes (?)

Is the Bush administration being sensible about an existing danger, or is it making the first steps toward an attack on Iran? Condi Rice's statements on Meet The Press cannot be taken lightly:

With Iran stepping up its nuclear program, a top White House aide said Sunday the world finally is "worried and suspicious'' over the Iranians' intentions and is determined not to let Tehran produce a nuclear weapon.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril.
She would not say whether the United States would act alone to end the program if the administration could not win international support.

A few points I would make:

1. Forced to answer my own question, I would guess that Rice is beginning to lay the ground for some kind of attack on Iran. Yes, it's possible that Bush is coming to the sober realization that Iran's existing nuclear program is a far larger threat to Middle East security than was Iraq's fictitious WMDs. However, if this were a genuine epiphany, it wouldn't be publicized like this. Sending the NSA out on Meet The Press to start rattling the saber about Iran is NOT the prelude to a reasoned and rational response.

2. It will be an attack on Iran rather than an invasion. One year ago, I might have been predicting invasion, but with the occupation of Iraq going so badly I can't imagine Bush's advisors ever recommending what would end up as "Iraq: The Sequel." The attack might be big, extended, and splashy (and it certainly WILL be), but there will be no American troops on the ground. (With the possible exception of surgical special forces strikes on sensitive targets.)

3. However this ends up, the administration will try to engender as much debate as possible. Everytime John Kerry makes a major policy speech, some "unnamed administration official" will leak a juicy tidbit about how the president is considering using ground troops, or nukes, or whatever. They will draw this out, taking baby steps, escalating the rhetoric bit by bit. Why? This is all about distraction. As long as the headlines are about a possible attack on Iran, they won't be about the terrible American economy. They won't be about poor unemployment figures, American deaths in Iran, Bush's year AWOL from the National Guard, and -- especially -- John Kerry.

4. This should come as no suprise.

2004-08-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Why spend money on international weapons inspections...

... we'll just continue to pretend that the countries we WANT to invade have WMDs, and turn a blind eye to the countries we DON'T want to invade! From the Washington Post:

In a significant shift in U.S. policy, the Bush administration announced this week that it will oppose provisions for inspections and verification as part of an international treaty that would ban production of nuclear weapons materials.

For several years the United States and other nations have pursued the treaty, which would ban new production by any state of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons. At an arms-control meeting this week in Geneva, the Bush administration told other nations it still supported a treaty, but not verification.

Administration officials, who have showed skepticism in the past about the effectiveness of international weapons inspections, said they made the decision after concluding that such a system would cost too much, would require overly intrusive inspections and would not guarantee compliance with the treaty. They declined, however, to explain in detail how they believed U.S. security would be harmed by creating a plan to monitor the treaty.

Arms-control specialists reacted negatively, saying the change in U.S. position will dramatically weaken any treaty and make it harder to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists. The announcement, they said, also virtually kills a 10-year international effort to lure countries such as Pakistan, India and Israel into accepting some oversight of their nuclear production programs.

(emphasis added)

I'm speechless. Absolutely speechless. (Thanks to the Washington Monthly for the pointer.)

2004-08-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

"Not until you sign your loyalty oath"

... That's what Bush-Cheney campaign workers told people (who happened to be Democrats) who wanted to see Dick Cheney speak in New Mexico on Saturday:

Two men who had sought tickets reported they were required to give name, address, phone number, e-mail address and driver's license number, then were presented the pledge of endorsement when they arrived to pick up the tickets Thursday.

One of them, John Wade of Albuquerque, said he signed the pledge because he wanted the tickets but then changed his mind.

"I got to thinking this is not right," Wade said. "They're excluding people -- that's what has me so upset."

He returned the tickets and campaign workers returned his pledge.Vietnam veteran Michael Ortiz y Pino said he refused to sign the pledge and was refused tickets.

Ortiz y Pino said he was asked if he associated with veterans, pro-life, gun rights or teacher groups.

Neither man wanted to give driver's license numbers but did so.

"I said why do you need that?" Ortiz y Pino said.

A campaign worker, he said, replied: "Secret Service stuff."

Yeah, Secret Service stuff. Rest of the AP story here.

2004-07-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

The one to read

I wish I could post this article, but The New Republic requires a subscription to view it. That's too bad, because everyone should read "THE CASE AGAINST GEORGE W. BUSH: PART II: Power from the People," by my very favorite journalist, Jonathan Chait. It's in the July 26 issue of The New Republic -- definitely worth picking up at your local newsstand. Why? This is the article that succinctly lays out the core reasons why George W. Bush does not deserve another term as president. Very well-written, very well-researched, very persuasive. This is the article to show your friends who are on the fence, or not sufficiently fired up to support Kerry.

2004-07-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

Scaring people away from the polls

So the talk lately has been that Bush, if he's trailing in the polls going into November, will postpone the election using a terror attack (or the threat of one) as an excuse. Would the administration stoop that low? I wouldn't be surprised. But someone has sent me a very interesting article which makes the believable claim that Bush's scheme to steal the election involves not postponing it -- but making people think he's going to.

The plan goes basically like this:

Bush and Ashcroft and Ridge, in the days leading up to the election, get people worked up about a "high risk" of terrorist attack. "We've received credible reports that terrorists are in position to attack polling places on election day. " "We can't say exactly when or where, but the chatter has been high." "As a precaution, we're raising the Threat Level to Red." Administration officials will drop hints (mostly off-the-record, but to prominent journalists) about how the election might have to be postponed. A "contingency plan" for postponment might even be revealed.

People will get nervous. Liberals will be suspicious that it's a ploy, and be up in arms, crying that Bush is trying to postpone the election in order to steal it. Even many patriotic conservatives will say, "No, George! If you postpone the election, the terrorists will win!" Still, everyone will be uneasy. Is it a ploy? Is Osama really going to attack? Do I live in a potential target area?

And then, on election day, after the polls have already opened, Bush/Ashcroft/Ridge will announce that a terrorist attack is imminent. And they'll keep the polls open. Imagine how this will play out:

"We have confirmed reports that Al-Queda cells are planning to attack polling places in California. We cannot say which polling places, but there is a high risk of attack. America will not be cowed by terrorists who try to attack our democracy. We will finish our election as planned. God bless America."

And people will be too scared to go and vote.

That terrorist emergency declaration could be made around 5:00 PM PST and with only three hours left for voting throughout the state, a number of working class voters in urban centers will either be caught up in California's infamous freeway traffic and be too late to get to their polling places or be more concerned about their families and avoid voting altogether.
Without a doubt, many Democratic voters might simply opt to pick their kids up from day care centers or relatives and then go home without voting. These would tend to be the lower and middle income Californians and the Democratic base. The affluent voters in California who vote Republicans and can easily vote early (and be late for work) or have the option of leaving work at any time during the day to vote will have likely already cast their ballots. Therefore, the recipe of a White House-induced California terrorist alert and a low Democratic turnout could toss 54 electoral votes into Bush's lap, especially if the scare tactics affect the turnout in such urban and typically pro-Democratic vote-rich areas as Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Sacramento.

Many people, because they'll have been primed for the possibility of postponement, will assume that the election has been postponed. They won't try and go vote, thinking they can do it when the election is rescheduled, which it won't be. Check out the article; it lays out the scenario in chilling detail. Remember that a terrorist attack doesn't have to actually occur for the election to be disrupted.

2004-07-14T00:19:00.000-07:00

Today, a protest

Up to `15,000 people from all over Kosovo will arrive in Pristina today to protest the high unemployment rate. I'll keep you posted.

2004-07-13T00:54:00.000-07:00

The view from Bill Clinton Boulevard

First off, my apologies for not posting for far too long. This summer has been an exciting one for me. After slogging through my law school finals, I started working for the Democratic National Committee in San Diego, raising money for the Kerry campaign. That was a delightful experience, probably the best part of which was getting to work with intelligent, open-minded people, as well as working to make a difference in an election that is almost certain to be close and will have a huge impact on the future of all Americans and equally, the world.

I finished my work there last week, and hopped on a plane (several actually) to Pristina, Kosovo, in the former Yugoslavia, where I am taking a course in international law. As respect for the United States has precipitously declined during the Bush reign, it seems reasonable to assume that Americans traveling abroad, particularly in Europe, would have a cooler reception.

Kosovo, however, is a big exception to this phenomenon. I had big reservations about the war in Yugoslavia as it occured in the 1990s, but here in Albanian Kosovo, everyone is very grateful to the United States for its intervention against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic. Even amid such respect for the United States, however (and love of all things Clinton), many people I've spoken with qualify their gratitude toward the United States with a dislike for the policies of George W. Bush.

I'll be back with more on politics, and my adventures, soon. But first some pictures. Special thanks to my good friend John Vigileos for allowing me the use of his digital camera on this trip. And thanks to Café Niki for letting me hook up this equipment to their computer.

Me in London (for three hours)! Farenheit 9/11 was playing there.

The main drag in Pristina (Bill Clinton Boulevard).

If you look closely at this picture, you can see that the church is surrounded by barbed wire. Quite a surreal site. While the church appears to be ancient, it was actually constructed by the Milosevic regime in the late 90s, and has been shuttered by the international administration here.

2004-07-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

It's a good day

Kerry makes the right choice and picks Edwards as his running mate. One of my favorite journalists, Will Saletan, has a great article explaining why Edwards was the right choice.

2004-07-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

And thus it comes back to bite Kerry in the ass

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. I said how stupid it was for John Kerry to want John McCain as his running mate. It was dumb at the time for a lot of reasons, and now the Bushies are using it against Kerry:

President Bush's campaign strategists say they are planning to attack Senator John Kerry's running mate as a second choice no matter who it turns out to be and are preparing a commercial asserting that Mr. Kerry has made clear that his first choice was a Republican who still stands at Mr. Bush's side, Senator John McCain.

***

Democratic officials said they were prepared for Mr. Bush to run a commercial featuring Mr. McCain alongside the president, perhaps even on the day Mr. Kerry announced his running mate. Mr. Bush's aides declined to address directly whether they would run advertising using the images. But they said they would work to highlight the fact that the person Mr. Kerry seemed most interested in having run with him would instead be campaigning for Mr. Bush.

"The most important decision Kerry will make as a candidate is who his V.P. will be," Mr. Dowd, the strategist, said. "This is the biggest insight into who he is. One thing we know is that whoever they pick, it's their second choice."

Very smart folks, those Bush puppetmasters. They will use every tiny advantage to its full extent. That's why it's so important for Kerry to NOT DO STUPID STUFF like flirt with McCain.

And we're going to see very soon just how smart Kerry is. He's going to announce his running mate tomorrow morning. Who will it be? Will he be smart enough to pick Edwards? Dumb enough to pick Gephardt? Somewhere in between? Stay tuned...

2004-07-02T18:58:00.000-07:00

Plans are underway to steal the election

Bush is in trouble. It looks like he might not beat John Kerry in a fair fight. But don't believe for a second that the Bush cabal -- the same folks that have lied, cheated, and stolen throughout the last four years -- will settle for a fair fight. You can be sure that they're working feverishly on ways to steal THIS election, too. Here's one way it might be done:

WASHINGTON -- The government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again, says the chairman of a new federal voting commission.

Such guidelines do not currently exist, said DeForest B. Soaries, head of the voting panel.

Soaries was appointed to the federal Election Assistance Commission last year by President Bush. Soaries said he wrote to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in April to raise the concerns.

Hmmm... we should all be prepared for a "terrorist attack" in late October or early November. Something to get everybody scared and shoot Bush's approval ratings up again. Or to create a pretense to cancel/postpone/manipulate the election. Forewarned is forearmed...

2004-06-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Changing the tone in Washington... ah, fuck it

Is it me, or is Dick Cheney just plain whacko?

I don't know if it's age, or the corrupting influence of power, or all those hours spent in his undisclosed location, but our vice-president seems more and more like a loose cannon with each passing week. The guy lives in his own ultra-conservative la-la dreamland, like most of the Bush administration -- but at least Bush and most of his cronies pay lip service to reality. Cheney simply doesn't care what anyone thinks. He continues to insist, against all evidence, that there were links between Saddam and Al-Queda. Now he's telling U.S. Senators to go fuck themselves.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think we all should pray for the health of George W. Bush as long as he's president. As bad as Bush is, a Cheney presidency would be even worse. Bush is disappointed and puzzled that foreign leaders don't like him; Cheney would simply tell them, to their faces, to go screw themselves. Congressional Democrats making trouble? Not when you cut off all federal aid to their states. Trouble in Iraq? Nothing a couple nukes couldn't solve. Cheney would be a return to the mad European monarchs, or maybe all the way back to the worst of the Roman emperors a la Nero.

2004-06-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

He's not a terrorist, just... misguided

This is John Ashcroft's algebra:

Arab-American with bad thoughts: TERRORIST
Conservative anglo-American planning to kill people: MISGUIDED

Paul Krugman has one of his better columns today:

In April 2003, John Ashcroft's Justice Department disrupted what appears to have been a horrifying terrorist plot. In the small town of Noonday, Tex., F.B.I. agents discovered a weapons cache containing fully automatic machine guns, remote-controlled explosive devices disguised as briefcases, 60 pipe bombs and a chemical weapon — a cyanide bomb — big enough to kill everyone in a 30,000-square-foot building.

Strangely, though, the attorney general didn't call a press conference to announce the discovery of the weapons cache, or the arrest of William Krar, its owner. He didn't even issue a press release. This was, to say the least, out of character. Jose Padilla, the accused "dirty bomber," didn't have any bomb-making material or even a plausible way to acquire such material, yet Mr. Ashcroft put him on front pages around the world. Mr. Krar was caught with an actual chemical bomb, yet Mr. Ashcroft acted as if nothing had happened.

Some priorities!

2004-06-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

THAT'S the guy I want on the federal bench

Boy, I wish someone would sue George W. Bush. He'd be bound to lose, due to his bad taste in lawyers:

Thomas B. Griffith, President Bush's nominee for the federal appeals court in Washington, has been practicing law in Utah without a state law license for the past four years, according to Utah state officials.

Griffith, the general counsel for Brigham Young University since August 2000, had previously failed to renew his law license in Washington for three years while he was a lawyer based in the District. It was a mistake he attributed to an oversight by his law firm's staff. But that lapse in his D.C. license, reported earlier this month by The Washington Post, subsequently prevented Griffith from receiving a law license in Utah when he moved there.

Under Utah law, Griffith's only option for obtaining the state license was to take and pass the state bar exam, an arduous test that lawyers try to take only once. He applied to sit for the exam, but never took it, Utah bar officials confirm.

Utah State Bar rules require all lawyers practicing law in the state to have a Utah law license. There is no general exception for general counsels or corporate counsels.

Rest of story here.

2004-06-19T14:58:00.000-07:00

Addressing the troops

From Friday's speech at Fort Lewis, Washington:

The events of September 11, 2001, beyond the immeasurable grief and suffering it caused for thousands of American families, was a battle cry that summoned America to a war we vaguely knew was going on but hadn't really comprehended how near the threat was and how atrocious were the purposes and plans of our enemies.

It's a big thing, this war, a fight between two ideologies completely opposed to each other. It's a fight between a just regard for human dignity and a malevolent force that defiles an honorable religion by disputing God's love for each and every soul on Earth. It's a fight between right and wrong, good and evil. It's no more ambiguous than that.

It's a fight, and should the enemy acquire for their arsenal the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they seek, this war will become an even bigger thing. It will become a fight for survival.

That's why your courage is so indispensable to us. You have taken the fight to our enemies, Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and you took the fight to Iraq where the tyrant Saddam. Whether he possessed the terrible weapons that would have turned this war into a fight for survival or not, he had used them before and was, I have no doubt, firmly determined to possess them again someday -- for what terrible purpose we can only imagine with dread.

The words of our Warmonger-in Chief? No. These are the remarks of Senator John McCain, the man many Democrats, including John Kerry himself, wanted to be the vice-presidential candidate!

I hope those people are starting to realize what a poor choice McCain would have been. Thankfully McCain didn't want the job. Read the full transcript of McCain and Bush's remarks here.

2004-06-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

Clearer than you could ever know

From the "truth is stranger than fiction" department: In a White House ceremony today, George W. Bush unveiled the official presidential portraits of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Bush (or rather, his advisors and speechwriters), in a saavy political move, decided to be as generous as possible toward the former prez and current senator. From Bush's remarks:

"The years have done a lot to clarify the strengths of this man."

Well, yeah, NO SHIT, GEORGE!

Three-and-a-half years of you has made the Clinton presidency look like an edenic dream. Three-and-a-half years of you has made a John Kerry presidency look like salvation from on high (and that's no easy feat).

"As chief executive, he showed a deep and far-ranging knowledge of public policy, a great compassion for people in need, and the forward-looking spirit that Americans like in a president."

Well, George, I guess you have one out of three -- that is, if you can honestly be credited with that last quality. It's debatable. Call it one-half out of three?

2004-06-09T21:45:00.000-07:00

Can't wait for the day

I'm not usually fond of those jokes which get forwarded hither and yon through e-mail, but this one seemed appropriate for this blog:

One sunny day in 2005 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench. He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."

The old man said "Okay," and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here."

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow."

2004-06-09T21:34:00.000-07:00

Maybe he can win, if he can just deflect all attention from himself until November

The latest new low from our president: exploiting the dead as part of his re-election effort. (Thanks to Josh Marshall for the pointer.)

2004-06-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

Whoops! We only meant to abuse and torture non-Americans

The theory that torture of Iraqi prisoners was perpetuated only by "a few bad apples" is becoming more and more untenable. News has already come to light that Donald Rumsfeld personally approved brutal interrogation techniques used on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that those "successful" techniques were then used in Iraq.

Now a new story is coming to light: That of Sean Baker, a recently discharged U.S. Army soldier who had been stationed at Guantanamo Bay. It seems that one day in January, Baker was asked to take part in a training exercise. Baker would pretend to be an uncooperative detainee, and a group of other soldiers would practice extracting him from a cell. As part of the exercise, Baker put on a prisoner's uniform and a hood. To make the simulation as real as possible, the officer in charge didn't tell the other soldiers that Baker was an American.

With the soldiers thinking Baker was an actual detainee, this is what happened:

"They grabbed my arms, my legs, twisted me up and unfortunately one of the individuals got up on my back from behind and put pressure down on me while I was face down. Then he — the same individual — reached around and began to choke me and press my head down against the steel floor. After several seconds, 20 to 30 seconds, it seemed like an eternity because I couldn't breathe. When I couldn't breathe, I began to panic and I gave the code word I was supposed to give to stop the exercise, which was `red.' . . . That individual slammed my head against the floor and continued to choke me. Somehow I got enough air. I muttered out: `I'm a U.S. soldier. I'm a U.S. soldier.' "

Then the soldiers noticed that he was wearing a U.S. battle dress uniform under the jumpsuit. Mr. Baker was taken to a military hospital for treatment of his head injuries, then flown to a Navy hospital in Portsmouth, Va. After a six-day hospitalization there, he was given a two-week discharge to rest.

But Mr. Baker began suffering seizures, so the military sent him to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment of a traumatic brain injury. He stayed at the hospital for 48 days, was transferred to light duty in an honor burial detail at Fort Dix, N.J., and was finally given a medical discharge two months ago.

The Army is denying that Baker was discharged as a result of the injuries he suffered in the training exercise, and refuses to release Baker's medical records. Baker told his story last week to a local TV station in his hometown. Nicholas Kristof read the interview and picked up the story in his New York Times column -- but ominously, Baker refused to talk to Kristof. I hope Baker wasn't pressured to clam up.

Let me rephrase that: I'm sure Baker was pressured to clam up, but I hope he doesn't give in to the pressure.

2004-06-03T21:09:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite journalists, William Saletan, has an especially good article in Slate which exposes one of Bush's recurrent rhetorical strategies: to say that results are what matters when talking about programs/endeavors he doesn't like, and to emphasize intentions and ignore results when talking about programs/endeavors (such as the "war on terror") he supports. Oh, and he takes some good whacks at the newly-resigned George Tenet:

Well, perhaps in time we'll hear all about the CIA's "hidden successes" under Bush and Tenet. In the meantime, here's a partial list of its glaring failures: The agency knew long before 9/11 that men who had attended an al-Qaida meeting in Malaysia were coming to the United States, but it didn't put their names on a terrorist watch list until August 2001. That month, Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested, and Tenet received an internal memo headlined, "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," but he didn't brief Bush about it or mention the information at a Cabinet meeting a week before 9/11. In January 2003, Tenet failed to read—and Bush failed to provide him with—the final draft of the State of the Union address, in which Bush embraced reports, found spurious by a CIA investigator a year earlier, that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. In December 2002, according to Bob Woodward, Tenet told Bush that Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction was a "slam-dunk" certainty. And in February 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the United Nations with "evidence" of Iraqi WMD, given to him by the CIA, that has since been discredited.

2004-05-31T14:50:00.000-07:00

Abu Ghraibs in America

Bob Herbert points out that perhaps the torture of Iraqi citizens in Abu Ghraib prison wasn't such an abberation, because that's the way Americans routinely treat our own prisoners in the United States:

Not only are inmates at prisons in the U.S. frequently subjected to similarly grotesque treatment, but Congress passed a law in 1996 to ensure that in most cases they were barred from receiving any financial compensation for the abuse.

We routinely treat prisoners in the United States like animals. We brutalize and degrade them, both men and women. And we have a lousy record when it comes to protecting well-behaved, weak and mentally ill prisoners from the predators surrounding them.

Very few Americans have raised their voices in opposition to our shameful prison policies. And I'm convinced that's primarily because the inmates are viewed as less than human.

(Johnathan Cohn recently made the same point in The New Republic, but the excellent article requires a subscription. Here and here are other commentaries.)

It's a perfectly valid and shocking point: It is already American policy to treat prisoners as inhuman. Whatever torturous and inhumane conditions inmates are subjected to, the prevailing attitude is, "well, they deserved it." As Herbert points out in his op-ed, the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act specifically prohibits inmates from receiving compensation for abuse if they can't prove physical injury. So many of the abuses which occurred at Abu Ghraib -- the stripping naked and piling prisoners on top of each other, forcing prisoners to masturbate, scaring them with attack dogs, forcing them to eat out of toilets -- is impliedly sanctioned in the United States. The soldiers and officers who committed or sanctioned the torture in Iraq aren't so much "bad apples" as they simply reflect what already happens in this country.

2004-05-31T14:31:00.000-07:00

Disenfranchising college students

The latest right-wing tactic to steal the election: prevent college students from voting. From a revealing Rolling Stone article:

... in recent years, many election officials have been building a variety of hurdles to make it more difficult for students to register and vote. In May 2002, the city council in Saratoga Springs, New York, shut down a polling place at Skidmore College, forcing students to travel off-campus to vote. That same year, a judge in Arkansas tried to block 1,000 students at Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University from casting ballots, ruling that they must vote in their hometowns -- even though the deadline for absentee ballots had already passed. And when students from the University of New Hampshire showed up at the polls on Election Day that year, poll workers handed them a pamphlet warning them that voting locally could affect their financial aid and taxes. The scare tactic worked: Many students left without voting.

Refusing to register students is "a blatant form of disenfranchisement," says Jennifer Weiser, who advocates for young voters as associate counsel of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. "It's clearly illegal."

***

There's no way to tell how many college students are being turned away by local election boards -- but observers say it could be enough to re-elect George Bush this fall. Voters under the age of twenty-four favored the Democrats by at least twenty percentage points in each of the past three presidential elections, and polls this year indicate that they favor John Kerry by as many as ten points. If the race is as close as last time, keeping turnout down among voters at one major college campus in each battleground state could tip the election to the Republicans.

2004-05-30T21:10:00.000-07:00

Calling it like it is

Gosh bless the Washington Post. A Monday front-page story details the lies the Bush re-election campaign has been leveling at John Kerry:

The charges were all tough, serious -- and wrong, or at least highly misleading. Kerry did not question the war on terrorism, has proposed repealing tax cuts only for those earning more than $200,000, supports wiretaps, has not endorsed a 50-cent gasoline tax increase in 10 years, and continues to support the education changes, albeit with modifications.

Scholars and political strategists say the ferocious Bush assault on Kerry this spring has been extraordinary, both for the volume of attacks and for the liberties the president and his campaign have taken with the facts. Though stretching the truth is hardly new in a political campaign, they say the volume of negative charges is unprecedented -- both in speeches and in advertising.

Now, if more media outlets would do straightforward stories like this instead of unreflectively regurgitating the bullshit the administration shovels out, then Bush will be sunk in November.

2004-05-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

Down, down down

The latest CBS News poll does not look good for Bush. His approval/disapproval ratings:

Job as president: 41/52
Handling the situation in Iraq: 34/61
Country on the right track: 30/65
Handling of foreign policy: 37/56
Handling the economy: 36/57

I bet this smarts more than that mountain-biking fall Bush took a couple days ago. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are probably planning the invasion of Iraq and/or Syria as we speak. Think I'm kidding? I wish I was. The conservatives in power will do anything to stay in power. If things continue to look bad for Bush, they will grow increasingly desperate, and won't hesitate to resort to desperate measures. Of course, they may not have to invade a foreign country -- they might just steal the election.

2004-05-22T12:50:00.000-07:00

Missing the point

Nicholas Kristof just doesn't get it. His column today defends Donald Rumsfeld. Kristof's argument is that because it hasn't been proven that Rumsfeld was directly responsible for the torture of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, Rumsfeld shouldn't resign:

... fairness must govern our handling of American defense secretaries as well as Iraqi prisoners. The central point is that we have no proof that Mr. Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for the torture.

Kristof misses the point. Actually, he misses two points. The first is that Rusmfeld found out about the goings-on in Abu Ghraib months ago, yet took no vigorous steps to stop it or even to inform Congress or the president. So because he knew about the torture and allowed it to continue, he is directly responsible.

The second point is that even ignoring my first point, Rumsfeld's actions after news of the torture broke is enough to merit his stepping down. Again, he's taken no real vigorous steps to make sure U.S. military personnel never again abuse prisoners of war. He's kept Abu Ghraib open, and he has kept the separate chains of command which enable intelligence agents to operate independently and encourage abuses. The American people deserve more from a secretary of defense.

So even though there's no "smoking gun," there are plenty of reasons for Rummy to resign.

2004-05-21T09:03:00.000-07:00

It just gets worse

The Washington Post has an exclusive on new details of torture at Abu Ghraib prison:

Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets.

***

Some said they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor. Many provided graphic details of how they were sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, and forced to masturbate in front of female soldiers.

"They forced us to walk like dogs on our hands and knees," said Hiadar Sabar Abed Miktub al-Aboodi, detainee No. 13077. "And we had to bark like a dog, and if we didn't do that they started hitting us hard on our face and chest with no mercy. After that, they took us to our cells, took the mattresses out and dropped water on the floor and they made us sleep on our stomachs on the floor with the bags on our head and they took pictures of everything."

Will President Bush issue a strong denunciation and insist that everyone involved will be punished to the maximum extent of the law? Will he call for the resignation of Rumsfeld?

Or will he just ignore this horrifying new information?

2004-05-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

Transfer, schmansfer

It hit me recently that the "transfer of sovereign power" from the U.S. to Iraqis which is to occur at the end of June will change exactly... nothing. Except possibly to make things worse. Think about it: What will be different? Iraqi isn't really being "governed" -- things are mostly chaos. The U.S. doesn't really have any "control" to hand over. No change there. American troop strength won't diminish at all; the Pentagon might even increase it a little. So that won't change.

My prediction: The transfer of power will make Iraqis more resentful of the U.S. The prevailing sentiment will be: "So you're letting us govern ourselves now -- why are you still here? Why are your troops still patroling the streets? Why do we still have to do what you tell us to do?" The U.S. military will go from being a quasi-legitimate occupying army to being an illegitimate occupying army.

2004-05-19T19:53:00.000-07:00

Bush: Taking responsibility for oil prices

"The administration should be working to get our friends in OPEC to increase their oil production," Bush said Wednesday. "That's what diplomacy is all about. It's called earning capital in the foreign arena."
...
When asked about this apparent mistake, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan only expanded Bush's criticism. "But the governor's point is that we need a president to convince OPEC to open up their spigots and we need to reduce dependency on foreign crude," McClellan said. "Again, Al Gore is doing everything he can to mask his administration's failed leadership on this issue. He takes credit for the current economic prosperity, but refuses to shoulder any responsibility."

Bush and Big Oil
Salon.com June 23, 2000 Friday

Of course, if oil prices are higher after four years of Bush as President then they were before, then he will shoulder the responsibility, right Scott?

2004-05-19T19:31:00.000-07:00

Odd....

Have you ever heard about a President holding re-election fundraisers outside the country, where a former President campaigns for him? Can you imagine the Republican response if Bill Clinton held a fundraiser for Kerry, say in Toronto? Well, I find this a bit strange....

Anti-war protesters wore black hoods and chanted "Bush go home" outside a hotel where former President George Bush was attending a fund-raising dinner Tuesday for his son's re-election campaign.

About 200 demonstrators from the Stop the War Coalition action group took part in the protest at the Landmark Hotel in central London, which was heavily guarded by police.

Protesters chanted "Resist, resist, Daddy Bush is a terrorist" and held signs with slogans such as "End the torture" and "Iraq for Iraqis," as rush-hour commuters converged on nearby Marylebone subway station.

First of all, the actions of the protesters are to be commended, but I find it odd that the general tone of the article doesn't question the fact at all how London came to be a venue for the Bush campaign fundraising machine.

2004-05-19T19:13:00.000-07:00

Purple haze...all in my brain.
Lately things just don't seem the same

Me and George launched an illegal pre-emptive war
Now my approval ratings have hit the floor

Purple haze, all around
But weapons of mass destruction simply can't be found
Am I happy or in misery
Whatever it is, George W. put an electoral spell on me

Help me
Help me
Oh, no, no

Purple haze all in my eyes
I see Iraqi's getting sodomized (by coalition troops)
My view's so hazy that I see...
Iraq, as a shining model of Democracy....

2004-05-18T20:11:00.000-07:00

Vote for Bush: He helps Americans, when Congress forces him to

Count me unsurprised. Bush has sunk to a new low in election politics: Trumpeting programs that he's cut and/or tried to eliminate.

Justice Department officials recently announced that they were awarding $47 million to scores of local law enforcement agencies for the hiring of police officers. Mr. Bush had just proposed cutting the budget for the program, known as Community Oriented Policing Services, by 87 percent, to $97 million next year, from $756 million.

***

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, announced recently that the administration was awarding $11.7 million in grants to help 30 states plan and provide coverage for people without health insurance. Mr. Bush had proposed ending the program in each of the last three years.

The administration also announced recently that it was providing $11.6 million to the states so they could buy defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims. But Mr. Bush had proposed cutting the budget for such devices by 82 percent, to $2 million from $10.9 million.

And this stuff is just a warm-up. I fully expect unprecedented levels of lying from Bush during the campaign. In 2000, of course, he was lying about being a moderate and a "compassionate conservative," and he got away with it in part because he didn't have a track record at the national level -- there wasn't hard evidence which showed how he would govern as president.

Now, of course, there's plenty of evidence. But Bush will try to run as a moderate again. He'll play down the extremist things he's done, and play up the moderate things -- even if they were done against his wishes. Just look how he's taken credit for the Department of Homeland Security. When Democrats first suggested it, Dubya was adamantly opposed. He was against it for a long time, caving only when the political pressure became too great. Now he acts like it was his idea all along. Expect more of the same.

2004-05-18T00:30:00.000-07:00

John, got a great ad idea for you

Cut to image of Bush

"Pat Williams works right here for the Timken Company. She's a single mom. She's got the toughest job in America, being a single mom. (Laughter and applause.) She's got two children: Sheree is in college; Danielle is in high school. Under the plan I've just described and submitted to the United States Congress, her yearly tax bill would fall by nearly $1,000 – every year. (Applause.) It's not $1,000 just this year. It's $1,000 every year. It's a thousand more dollars of her own money in her pocket."

Freeze image in black and white

Actually, it was just $1,000. A year after President Bush visited the Timken factory in Canton, Ohio, it shut down, costing Ohio's economy another 1,300 jobs (swing state variation).

President Bush keeps saying his economic policies are working, but is America?

Accountability is on the ballot this November.

2004-05-17T20:50:00.000-07:00

We got to do something about all these Arab-Americans being profiled...

And secondly, there is other forms of racial profiling that goes on in America. Arab-Americans are racially profiled in what's called secret evidence. People are stopped, and we got to do something about that. My friend, Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan, is pushing a law to make sure that, you know, Arab-Americans are treated with respect.

George W. Bush, October 12, 2000.

I was doing some research and started reading the second Presidential Debate from 2000, and found the above quote stunning. Here's another interesting one, this time Gore rebutting Bush's non-response to his point that Texas ranked at the bottom of the nation for providing health care to children, women and families.

GORE: Well, I don't know about the -- all these percentages that he throws out. But I do know that the -- I speculate that the reason why he didn't answer your question directly as to whether my numbers were right, the facts were right, about Texas ranking dead last in families with health insurance and 49th out of 50 for both children and women, is because those facts are correct.

And as for why it happened, I'm no expert on the Texas procedures. But what my friends there tell me is that the governor opposed a measure put forward by Democrats in the legislature to expand the number of children that would be covered, and instead directed the money toward a tax cut, a significant part of which went to wealthy interests. He declared the need for a new tax cut for the oil companies in Texas an emergency need. And so the money was taken away from the CHIP program.

Wow, that sounds exactly like what's been happening to our country for the last four years!

2004-05-17T10:17:00.000-07:00

And the rhetoric shifts

The thing about the Bush administration which most fascinates me and repels me at the same time is its masterful use of language. The administration constantly twists and perverts language for the maximum possible advantage. Any criticism of the president's Iraq policy becomes "undermining the troops." Any criticism of domestic policy is "divisive" and "partisan." As someone who loves the English language, to see it warped so is sickening. But as a student of language and rhetoric, I can't help but be impressed. Bush really has some geniuses working for him.

Anyone even the slightest bit concerned about how the Bush administration is governing the country should read George Orwell's monumental 1946 essay Politics and the English Language. Orwell, of course, was an expert on how language is perverted for political ends. I often wonder if American society will end up a lot like Orwell's chilling vision. It's possible, especially if Bush gets four more years, and I think it's what the neoconservatives currently running the country would love to see.

Anyway, Orwell's essay isn't very long, and it's required reading for anyone who uses the English language. More to the point, it's uncannily prescient when you consider that it's almost 60 years old:

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

Remind you of "enemy combatant"? "Evildoers"?

So to get to what brought all this on: The head of the Iraqi Governing Council was just assassinated. And here's what Paul Bremer had to say about it:

"The terrorists who are seeking to destroy Iraq have struck a cruel blow with this vile act today," Mr. Bremer said in a statement. "But they will be defeated." He added, "The Iraqi people will ensure that his vision of a democratic, free and prosperous Iraq will become a reality."

Pay attention: Bremer said this "in a statement," which means it came straight from the Ministry of Truth in the White House. But here's the rub: Note how the rhetoric has shifted.

The Iraqi people will ensure that Iraq becomes a democracy.

Brilliant. Bremer just shifted the entire responsibility for creating an Iraqi democracy onto the Iraqi people. Of course, for the past year the rhetoric has been all about how the United States will create a democracy in the Middle East. About how WE will help them and shepherd them and make sure that democracy becomes a reality. (Ignore for the moment the question of whether this was ever a possibility.) But now, if something bad happens, we ask: "What are the Iraqi people going to do about it?"

2004-05-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

STUNNING

I don't even have the words to comment on this devastating article.

Apparently, Bush had three opportunities, long before the war, to destroy a terrorist camp in northern Iraq run by Abu Musab Zarqawi, the al-Qaida associate who recently cut off the head of Nicholas Berg. But the White House decided not to carry out the attack because, as the story puts it:

[T]he administration feared [that] destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The implications of this are more shocking, in their way, than the news from Abu Ghraib. Bush promoted the invasion of Iraq as a vital battle in the war on terrorism, a continuation of our response to 9/11. Here was a chance to wipe out a high-ranking terrorist. And Bush didn't take advantage of it because doing so might also wipe out a rationale for invasion.

We must fight, fight, fight to get that man out of office.

2004-05-15T09:10:00.000-07:00

Wrong in so many ways

Speaking of the veep sweepstakes, I fail to understand why so many Democrats are beating the drum for John McCain to be Kerry's running mate.

Chris Lehane, a Democratic strategist who once worked for Mr. Kerry, said such a ticket "would be the political equivalent of the Yankees signing A-Rod," referring to Alex Rodriguez, the team's star third baseman.

Mr. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee, "continues to be interested in" Mr. McCain, a fellow Vietnam veteran whom Kerry aides describe as the candidate's best friend in the Senate, as a running mate, said one longtime Democratic official who works for the Kerry campaign.

Now, I admire McCain as a principled guy. He's more willing than the average senator to stand up for what he believes in, and he's willing to go against his party in doing it.

The problem is that too many of his principles are... conservative! News flash: The guy is a Republican. He's a Republican, even though he may admirably support a few liberal issues now and again. The problem with the Democratic party is that it has drifted too far to the right -- and we're going to fix that with a Republican vice-president? Just the fact that the Kerry campaign is even considering McCain makes me uneasy. Not because they might actually choose McCain (thankfully, he's stated repeatedly that he won't do it), but because of what it says about the Kerry campaign's thinking. It says that they believe the way to win in November is to shift even further to the right.

And another thing: Even if Kerry offered and McCain accepted the job, McCain would not be the silver bullet people believe. Too many people (like yours truly) would be upset about it. Left-wing voters might be dissuaded from coming to the polls. Bush could hammer Kerry with the hypocracy thing. "Kerry believes in Republican values so much he picked a Republican running mate. Vote for Bush, the REAL Republican!"

Now, Colin Powell might be a silver bullet. (It's still not too late to switch parties, Colin!) But McCain? No.

2004-05-13T17:28:00.000-07:00

The Veep Sweepstakes

Summer is fast approaching; only 10 weeks remain until the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Which means that it won't be too long until John Kerry picks a vice-presidential running mate. It's an important pick -- the election may very well come down to the wire, and the VP candidate could be the difference between sending Bush back to Texas or keeping him in Washington for four more years of... oh, I can't bear to think of it.

I've read talk that because Iraq and the state of the American military will be such a big factor in the election, Kerry should pick someone with strong national security bona fides -- someone like Wesley Clark. I don't agree with this line of logic. Kerry, thrice wounded in Vietnam, has plenty of military-man credentials. And having Clark in the race might make Iraq too much of an issue.

Let me explain. Kerry needs to hammer on Bush's failures in Iraq as much as possible. But Clark has a history of foreign intervention and nation-building and the like. So with Clark in the race, Karl Rove will be able to deflect the debate away from Bush's record as a commander, and focus on Clark's record as a commander. Rove will have the GOPers continually asking, "Well, maybe things haven't gone perfectly in Iraq, but they didn't go perfectly in the Balkans, did they, now? A lot of people died in Bosnia, didn't they?" Republicans will be able downplay Bush's performance by comparing it with Clark's. Kerry will have the maximum political advantage (to be perfectly blunt about it) if he can critize Bush's performance with Iraq without offering a specific alternative of his own. With a military commander such as Clark as his running mate, Kerry will be expected to offer specific plans.

My feeling: the VP candidate should probably be John Edwards. The guy really is the anti-Kerry all the right ways. He's young, he's good looking, he's charismatic, he has a relatively short history in Washington, and he's from the South. Edwards wasn't my horse in the race for the presidential nomination, but he's tailor-made for VP.

2004-05-12T21:46:00.000-07:00

Lame Duck Bush

lame duck
n.

An elected officeholder or group continuing in office during the period between failure to win an election and the inauguration of a successor.
An officeholder who has chosen not to run for reelection or is ineligible for reelection.
An ineffective person; a weakling.

True, the election may be six months away, but when it comes to foreign policy, the Bush administration is definitely lame. For some reason, the media don't appear to appreciate the significance of the latest evidence:

NATO Balking at Iraq Mission
Amid rising violence and public opposition to the occupation, allies want to delay a major commitment until after the U.S. election.

By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's hopes for a major NATO military presence in Iraq this year appear doomed, interviews with allied defense officials and diplomats show.

The Western military alliance had expected to announce at a June summit that it would accept a role in the country, perhaps by leading the international division now patrolling south-central Iraq. But amid continuing bloodshed and strong public opposition to the occupation in many nations, allies want to delay any major commitment until after the U.S. presidential election in November, officials say.

What's clear from this is that Europeans are ready and willing to help the United States in Iraq. What is also clear is that they have recognized the gross incompetence with which the Bush administration has handled the Iraq situation every step of the way, and while they are willing to help the U.S. out, they are not going to make the safety of their troops incumbent upon the judgment of George W. Bush.

So while the Bush administration has clearly cost the United States a great deal of credibility and respect around the globe, much of that could be immediately regained should he be replaced come November. And for Americans who don't like Bush, but are unsure how Kerry would do about handling Iraq, the choice is crystal clear: with Bush, the U.S. can continue to shoulder the increasing burden of Iraq alone, with no strategy for victory, or with Kerry, many of our recently estranged long time allies will return to our side, and help extricate us from this mess.

That NATO members have taken this approach is truly extraordinary. Imagine if NATO had said to Clinton, we want to wait to make a decision on whether to support you in Yugoslavia until after the impeachment process is complete. It would have been perceived as an extraordinary rebuke of Clinton. NATO didn't do that because its members had great confidence in Clinton's foreign policy handling and confidence.

There are still six months till the election, so Bush may not be a lame duck by traditional political standards. However, as the NATO example shows, he is a lame duck internationally. The United States has lost a great deal of respect, and a great deal of power, thanks to his incompetence. And unless Kerry wins, we're not getting it back.

Shouldn't Kerry be campaigning on this stuff?

2004-05-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

Go get 'em, Tommy!

Thomas Friedman finally gets it:

There is something even more important to the Bush crowd than getting Iraq right, and that's getting re-elected and staying loyal to the conservative base to do so. It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West.

Slowly but surely, those who have given Bush the benefit of the doubt are starting to realize he was not deserving of it.

2004-05-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

I'm outraged

I'm getting really tired of hearing partisan Republicans try to justify the recent events which have occurred in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Folks such as Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh have made clear that their partisan political hackery knows no limits. At a time when serious criminal offenses have been perpetrated by US, likely with encouragement from the highest levels of government, is causing many in the U.S. to question the humanity of their nation, and many across the world to reach their final verdict about what the United States represents, these guys minimize the significance of the incidents, and suggest that the problem is not the methods and practices of the United States armed forces, but the fact this information reached Americans in the first place.

Add to this club James Inhofe, an undistinguished Senator from Oklahoma.

As others condemned the reported abuse of Iraqi prisoners, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe expressed outrage at the outcry over the scandal and took aim at "humanitarian do-gooders" investigating American troops.

But Sen. John McCain, himself a former prisoner of war, said such humanitarian involvement distinguished the United States from its enemies.

"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and an outspoken conservative, told a U.S. Senate hearing probing the case.

In heated remarks at odds with others on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites) who criticized the U.S. military's handling of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, Inhofe said American sympathies should lie with U.S. troops.

"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations, while our troops, our heroes are fighting and dying," he said.

"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," said Inhofe, whose senatorial Web site describes him as an advocate of "Oklahoma values."

Questions about Oklahoma values aside, evidently, Inhofe in his role as a member of the Senate Armed Services committee was not aware that around 70 to 90 percent of detainees were detained by mistake. But there is a bigger issue here.

Please, does anyone remember anything about history, about Nazi Germany? Germany didn't bear responsibility for some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind because its people were evil. It did so because its government operated with the consent of a large portion of its population, of whom many believed that whatever the government was doing, it was doing it in the best interests of the country. I would be willing to bet that as the German war machine revved up prior to WWII, and Germans began to be aware of at least some aspects of the brutality of their own government, the Nazi propogandists used the rational that their country was only working to accomplish what was best and fairest for its people, and that its actions were inherently good. And enough people bought it, or didn't question it, to allow things to get much, much worse.

There are other interesting things about Nazi Germany. When one asks how a modern, Westernized democracy can degenerate into a country with no democracy, where war and cruelty are the dominant themes, one must place events in their historical context.

Why did a great deal of Germans not strongly oppose Adolf Hitler? Because he kept the country in a state of fear. Germany was in danger. Foreigners posed a threat. Foreigners were evil. Germany was working for the good of the German people. It was also under attack by terrorists.

Hitler used the 1933 burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) building by a deranged Dutchman to declare a “war on terrorism,” establish his legitimacy as a leader (even though he hadn’t won a majority in the previous election).

“You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history,” he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. “This fire,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion, “is the beginning.” He used the occasion – “a sign from God,” he called it – to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their “evil” deeds in their religion.

Of course Germans were not inherently evil. They were a people dominated by fear who allowed it to overcome their bests instincts. They were a people whose democratic system, whose institutions, crumbled in the face of a leader who had no qualms about using fear to consolidate his grip on power and accomplish his dark dreams.

The United States has a history rich with the triumph of human rights, and humanity, over our darker instincts. However, there is no guarantee that our system will endure. We must fight to protect it, and fight hard, and be very outraged when, as here, the ideals for which our country has long stood are so thoroughly dishonored.

2004-05-11T23:15:00.000-07:00

Kerry in a landslide

Chuck Todd of Washington Monthly offers a heartening prediction of the 2004 presidential election: Bush is probably toast.

Elections that feature a sitting president tend to be referendums on the incumbent--and in recent elections, the incumbent has either won or lost by large electoral margins. If you look at key indicators beyond the neck-and-neck support for the two candidates in the polls--such as high turnout in the early Democratic primaries and the likelihood of a high turnout in November--it seems improbable that Bush will win big. More likely, it's going to be Kerry in a rout.

Many months ago, I started telling people that 2004 was going to be a repeat of 1992 -- that Bush II would go down in flames just like his daddy. Granted, I started believing it back when I thought Howard Dean was going to be the nominee. And granted, some days even a slim Kerry victory seems too much to even hope for, much less a blowout. But Bush cannot help shooting himself in the foot. He's barreling down the road to hell and won't even pause to consider whether he might not be on the right path. His aw-shucks pal-o-mine frat-boy demeanor will wear on people when the economy is down, people are jobless, and American soldiers keep coming home in coffins.

By no means is the election a done deal -- and by no means should liberals do anything less than everything possible to defeat Bush in November -- but we really can win this thing and boot his ass back to Texas.

2004-05-10T16:16:00.000-07:00

Hell, no, Rummy won't go

Donald Rumsfeld got the official Bush seal of approval today. "Great job, Rummy! Don't worry about the pictures -- aw, shucks, I can just imagine what would happen if pictures from my hard-partying, coke-snorting days got out! I'm just glad I got sober before the age of digital cameras!"

Maureen Dowd succinctly points out why Rumsfeld isn't getting the boot from the defense department:

After all, George Tenet is still running the C.I.A. after the biggest intelligence failures since some Trojan ignored Cassandra's chatter and said, "Roll the horse in." Colin Powell is still around after trash-talking to Bob Woodward about his catfights with the Bushworld "Mean Girls" — Rummy, Cheney, Wolfie and Doug Feith. The vice president still rules after promoting a smashmouth foreign policy that is more Jack Palance than Shane. And the president still edges out John Kerry in polls, even though Mr. Bush observed with no irony to Al Arabiya TV: "Iraqis are sick of foreign people coming in their country and trying to destabilize their country, and we will help them rid Iraq of these killers."

The only people who have been pushed aside in this administration are the truth tellers who warned about policies on taxes (Paul O'Neill); war costs (Larry Lindsey); occupation troop levels (Gen. Eric Shinseki); and how Iraq would divert from catching the ubiquitous Osama (Richard Clarke).

And Josh Marshall points out another reason why Rummy is staying -- namely, if he left, Bush would have to replace him:

Let's say Rumsfeld resigns on Friday. The election is still six months away. And the nation is at war. So a new Defense Secretary would be needed more or less immediately. That would open up a very uncomfortable prospect for the administration.

Confirmation hearings for a new Sec Def would, I think, inevitably turn into a national forum for discussing the management of the Pentagon, the planning for the war and the lack of planning for the occupation. The new nominee would be drawn into all sorts of uncomfortble public second-guessing of what's happened up until this point. Sure, that's stuff under Rumsfeld. But, really, it's stuff under Bush -- the civilian head of the United States military.

That, I have to imagine, is something the White House would like to avoid at any cost.

2004-05-08T00:06:00.000-07:00

Is Rush an American? Is he a person?

Bush on Arab TV:

"The American people are just as appalled at what they have seen on TV as Iraqi citizens are. The Iraqi citizens must understand that."

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

2004-05-06T14:13:00.000-07:00

Leave it to Rush

I was wondering if any conservatives were going to try and play down the actions of American military personnel (and private citizens, it seems as well) who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. And sure enough, if anyone would try, it's Limbaugh.

From the May 3 show:

LIMBAUGH: And these American prisoners of war -- have you people noticed who the torturers are? Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture.

LIMBAUGH: You know, if you look at -- if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don't know if it's just me, but it looks just like anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe I'm -- yeah. And get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City -- the movie. I mean, I don't -- it's just me.

And from the May 4 show:

CALLER: It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men --

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

Stunning. Conservative comedian Dennis Miller has apparently said that worse things happen in frat houses.

I had a feeling that someone would try and blow off the atrocities as no big deal -- just our boys and girls having a little deserved fun, right? I saw it coming, but it's still shocking. Would Limbaugh and Miller feel the same way if it were AMERICAN prisoners of war being subjected to the same treatment from their Iraqi captors? Just imagine if Al Jazeera started running pictures of American POWs naked and on leashes, stacked into piles, simulating sex acts. (I bet the American press would refuse to show the pictures, which is rather hypocritical, but that's another discussion.) Conservatives would be up in arms! "Those animals!" they'd say. "The barbarians should be strung up for such immoral behavior!"

Unfortunately, it may happen. The Department of Defense is tight-lipped about it, but there probably are American POWs in Iraq right now. And there will probably be more taken in the future. If I were a soldier in Iraq at this moment, I'd be less afraid of being killed than of being taken prisoner. By treating POWs so poorly, we've basically ensured that American POWs will be treated as poorly or worse.

2004-05-05T22:03:00.000-07:00

From now on, absolutely no pictures of the torturing

From the Washington Post:

Bush Privately Chides Rumsfeld

Bush is "not satisfied" and "not happy" with the way Rumsfeld informed him about the investigation into abuses by U.S. soldiers at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison or the quantity of information Rumsfeld provided, a senior White House official said.

The president was particularly disturbed at having had to learn from news reports this week about the scope of misconduct documented in an Army investigative report completed in March, according to the official, who refused to be named so he could speak more candidly.

From the New York Times:

Rumsfeld Chastised by President for His Handling of Iraq Scandal

The officials said the president had expressed his displeasure to Mr. Rumsfeld in an Oval Office meeting because of Mr. Rumsfeld's failure to tell Mr. Bush about photographs of the abuse, which have enraged the Arab world.

In his interviews on Wednesday with Arab television networks, Mr. Bush said that he learned the graphic details of the abuse case only when they were broadcast last Wednesday on the CBS program "60 Minutes II." It was then, one White House official said, that Mr. Bush also saw the photographs documenting the abuse. "When you see the pictures," the official said, "it takes on a proportion of gravity that would require a much more extreme response than the way it was being handled."

Another White House official said, "The president was not satisfied or happy about the way he was informed about the pictures, and he did talk to Secretary Rumsfeld about it.".

Does anyone else get the impression that Bush isn't upset about what went on in Abu Ghiraib prison, but only about the PR nightmare it has become? I wonder if Rumsfeld would have been chastised if those pictures hadn't been spashed all over the international press. "Torture is one thing, Don; just don't let me hear about it on the evening news!"

2004-05-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

It gets stranger and stranger...

Was Vice President Dick Cheney recently treated at Culpeper Regional Hospital?

Some with connections to the hospital say they heard that Cheney was recently treated at and released from the facility.

A spokesman for Cheney declined to comment.

When asked yesterday whether it was true, hospital spokeswoman Lynn Martin said, "We have no record in our system of Mr. Cheney being here."

Well, that could plausibly put the controversy to rest, right?

When further asked if Cheney had been seen by hospital personnel but there was simply no record of the visit, Martin replied, "We have no record in our system of Mr. Cheney being here."

Eh?

When asked if his office had helped provide security for the reported visit, Culpeper County Sheriff Lee Hart replied: "No. He has his own people."

When asked if the Sheriff's Office knew that Cheney was or would be at the hospital, Hart said, "We had some knowledge."

So clearly, the County Sheriff knew Cheney had been there.

When questioned further, Hart said he could say no more until he made a telephone call. Less than two minutes later the sheriff called back to report, "We had no knowledge of the incident."

2004-05-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

"There are no more rape rooms or torture chambers in Iraq"

... except the ones run by Americans, that is.

William Saletan of Slate has put together this marvelous collection of quotes demonstrating how Bush has been -- hell, he's STILL -- celebrating the liberation of the Iraqi people from torture and abuse, and all the while allegations of torture and abuse by Americans is coming to light. Definitely worth a read.